The Captain and His Innocent

by Lucy Ashford

  Her eyes flew back to her captor, who was unbuttoning his coat, shrugging it from his broad shoulders and laying it over the back of a chair. The movement was without any kind of vanity, yet beneath it, his loose white shirt, paired with a horseman’s buckskin breeches and black leather riding boots, drew her eyes compellingly to his utterly masculine figure. He moved without any demonstration of strength or bravado, yet she felt a slow rhythm of warning pumping through her veins and her mouth was dry.

  He glanced at her. ‘You might be more comfortable if you took your cloak off,’ he said.

  ‘You think so?’ She clutched it tighter.

  His lips thinned a little. ‘Have you any objection to sitting down?’ He was pointing towards a chair set close to the fire. ‘I really would prefer it if you didn’t faint on me.’

  After a moment’s hesitation, she sat down—and he sat on a chair opposite to her, leaning forward to gaze at her.

  In his power. The thought almost felled her. Yet instead of summoning a plan of escape, of resistance even, all she could see—all she could think of—were those hooded, dangerous eyes of his. And that mouth, those cheekbones...

  He was still watching her and she felt her pulse hammering.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘did you really want the Revenue men to find you?’

  ‘I would have preferred nobody to find me. Least of all you!’

  He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘I wonder–what would the Revenue men have made of you? That was just a routine raid of theirs, by the way; they like to show their strength now and then, in their hunt for smugglers. Though if they’d found a young French girl on the run—now, that would have provided them with some excitement. Although I think you’d probably have been better off with them than with Sam Snaith and his comrades.’

  ‘I had my pistol to protect me from Sam Snaith and his comrades!’

  He nodded. ‘And you told me you know how to use it. Would you have killed him?’

  She moistened her dry lips. ‘I only meant to threaten him. So I could get away...’ Her voice faded.

  ‘You put yourself in an impossibly dangerous situation,’ he said quietly. ‘Don’t you realise you were an absolute fool to be out alone at night?’

  Her heart turned over, because she knew he was right. But he didn’t know how desperate she was. She found herself trembling slightly as he leaned nonchalantly across the table and pulled over a bottle and two glasses, with his left hand—Jésu, she realised, that hand. Of course he had to do almost everything with his left hand.

  And now he’d filled two glasses and was pushing one towards her. ‘Brandy,’ he said curtly. ‘It’s good for shock. It will steady you a little.’

  She tore her eyes from that black glove. ‘Thank you. But I don’t want it.’

  He drank his own in one. Then he set his glass down and went over to the large fireplace to lay another log in the grate. What had happened to this man? she wondered. What was he doing in this amazing but half-derelict old place? He must be a smuggler. But how many smugglers walked with such arrogant confidence and spoke like a gentleman?

  He’d come back now from tending the fire and was sitting opposite her again. ‘So,’ he said. ‘You don’t drink.’

  She sat very straight. ‘I don’t need alcohol,’ she answered calmly. ‘But I do think it would help—Captain—if you and I were honest with one another.’

  He looked almost amused. ‘Honest,’ he echoed. ‘Very well. You first.’

  ‘I came out tonight,’ she began, ‘because I want a sea passage across the Channel.’

  He leaned back in his chair, studying her. ‘You surprise me, mademoiselle. In my experience, most French exiles, both male and female, are only too glad to seek refuge in England.’

  It occurred to her suddenly that he was doubtless experienced in all kinds of things, especially where females were concerned, and she felt something tighten inside her. But she forced herself into calmness. ‘I’ve realised,’ she said steadily, ‘that I made a mistake in leaving my home.’

  ‘So you’re rejecting the generous hospitality of your relative Lord Franklin?’ His voice was etched with sarcasm. ‘But couldn’t you just explain to him that you’re not happy here, and let him arrange for you to travel home in comfort? Now that the war’s over, there’s surely no danger involved in returning to France. Providing,’ he added, ‘that you have friends, and a home, awaiting you there?’

  She caught her breath. ‘Of course I have.’

  ‘Of course,’ he echoed politely.

  ‘But for reasons of my own,’ she went on, ‘which I don’t wish to go into with you—I prefer to leave without the knowledge of those at the Hall. Quite simply, I need to get back to my home and I doubt that you have any right to stop me, since I can only suppose that you are some kind of smuggler—’

  He let out a burst of laughter at that. ‘A smuggler. You’re quite sure of that, are you?’

  She was stammering a little. ‘Of course! Why else should you be hiding in this old house by the sea? Why else should your men call you “Captain”?’

  ‘Perhaps because I was in the British army?’

  He saw her composure fracture slightly. ‘But if you’re not a—malfaiteur...’

  ‘A wrongdoer,’ he said softly.

  ‘If you’re not a wrongdoer, then why were you so frightened of the Revenue men?’

  ‘I’m not frightened of anybody,’ he said. But his eyes had gone very dark and rather cold.

  ‘But you ran from them,’ she persisted. ‘You must be a smuggler. I’ve heard how men like you fight with rival gangs. With people who must in the past have got the better of you—’

  ‘How do you know?’

  She should have stopped then. She should have seen how his expression became infinitely more dangerous. But instead, like a fool, she blundered on. ‘Your hand. You have fingers missing...’

  She saw the look in his blue eyes and her voice faltered.

  ‘Go on,’ he encouraged softly.

  She shook her head. ‘No.’

  He nodded. ‘I’m afraid you jump to rather too many conclusions, mam’selle.’ His mouth was a thin, hard line. ‘I assure you that it’s not wise to do so, with me.’

  She tried to shrug. ‘Whatever you’ve done, monsieur, I assure you that I really don’t care. It’s what happens next that concerns me. Clearly, you are resourceful. So am I.’

  ‘So I’ve noticed,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘You have a pistol. You also, if I remember rightly, have a rather intriguing compass.’

  Dieu, she’d hoped to God he’d forgotten the compass. She looked round instinctively for her valise, but of course his men had taken it.

  And then her heart started to beat very fast again; because he’d stood up and was walking towards her.

  ‘Oh, mam’selle,’ he said. ‘Mam’selle, I find myself giving you credit for somehow worming your way into Lord Franklin’s household. For enticing him into taking pity on you and bringing you here to England.’

  He folded his arms across his chest and put his head a little to one side, allowing her to see that his eyes were glinting with calculation. ‘Yet now—you feel free to end your brief stay under his protection. Why?’

  She shrugged, though her heart was hammering so painfully that she thought she might be sick. ‘Perhaps England isn’t what I hoped it would be.’

  ‘Very well.’ His voice was cold now and sharp. ‘But surely—surely you realise the absolutely reckless position you were putting yourself in, by running away tonight? What do you think those men would have done to you had you actually gone aboard their fishing boat?’

  She tilted her head to meet his eyes, striving with every ounce of her being to remain calm. ‘Then perhaps,’ she said, ‘it’s as well you came to my rescue, mon
sieur le Capitaine. And perhaps you yourself might take me to France.’

  What made her say it? Dieu, how could she have suggested such a rash, such a crazy thing? Was she mad?

  He clearly thought so, judging by the way his dark eyebrows shot up. ‘So what kind of reward are you offering?’

  ‘Your reward, Captain, is one well worth having. I would be convinced, you see, that you are indeed an honourable Englishman. And you would have my eternal gratitude.’

  He laughed. He actually laughed. ‘Your gratitude! Mam’selle, you are priceless. You also appear to be

  forgetting—deliberately, I suspect—that you have something other than gratitude that you can offer me.’

  And just as the heat was flaring in her limbs at the dark insinuation of his words—just as she felt her cheeks burn at some hidden, lethal meaning—he went to open the door and called out, ‘Tom? I want milady’s bag.’ A moment later, his henchman came in with her valise, put it on the table and left. The captain closed the door again. ‘Do you have the key to your bag, mam’selle?’

  She felt the dull thud of another kind of panic. ‘No! I...’

  ‘Then I’ll just have to force it,’ he said calmly, picking up a corkscrew that lay amongst the bottles and holding its point a mere inch from the lock.

  ‘Stop!’

  He stopped.

  With a feeling of utter doom, Ellie reached for the silver chain around her neck and detached the key for him. Rigid with apprehension, she watched him withdraw the contents and lay them out, one by one. The spare chemise and shawl that she’d packed for her journey. Her father’s maps, carefully folded; he lifted those out, too. Then he came to the small case that contained her father’s precious instruments. The theodolite. The prism. The magnifying lens. The pocket telescope.

  And—within its own little box—the compass.

  * * *

  Of course, he’d already seen the compass.

  Luke glanced at the girl. Her eyes—God, he realised suddenly, he’d never seen such amazing green eyes—were, like his, fixed on the objects being laid out one by one on the table before her. He saw how white she’d gone. How tensely she held herself, with her hands clenched at her sides.

  He felt a sudden, unexpected rage at her for bringing all this on herself. Surely she realised what kind of fate would be meted out to her on her madcap journey by any ruffian she might encounter on her way?

  All right, so she’d tried her hardest to disguise her all-too-feminine figure with that shabby old cloak. She’d pushed back her swathes of soft black hair under her bonnet. But she was still every bit as...breathtaking, that was the word, there was no denying it, as he’d first registered, when he met her on the road to Bircham several days ago, on her way to Lord Franklin’s.

  He’d glimpsed then—as he was glimpsing now—a kind of raw vulnerability and courage that churned him up inside. What secrets lay in her past? Why, having so recently arrived at Bircham Hall, was she now hurrying away from there, in desperate flight?

  Luke’s hand drifted over the compass. Stopped and moved on. He would leave the compass till last. Instead, he picked up one of the half-finished maps and held it out to her.

  ‘This is a map of northern France,’ he pointed out. ‘And the roads leading to Brussels have all been carefully marked. Why?’

  ‘The maps are mine.’ She stepped forward. ‘I will need them for my journey home—’

  She lunged to grasp at it, but he lifted it beyond her reach and heard her soft hiss of despair. He held her gaze. ‘They’re exceptionally well-crafted maps. Aren’t they? Good maps are precious, especially in a time of war. As valuable as a thousand men in certain circumstances, I’ve heard military experts say.’

  Again he heard the sibilant sound of her indrawn breath. He put the map back on the table, then turned to her and said, very softly, ‘Whose side were you on in the war, mam’selle? More to the point—whose side was your father on?’

  He saw the signs of her distress straight away—the pulse point that throbbed in her slender throat, the flicker of outright fear that rippled through her body. But she replied almost instantly. ‘He was on nobody’s side, monsieur! My father was a good man, who wanted peace above all! And I want to return to Brussels because it’s the place where my father is buried, so I can pay honour to his memory...’

  Her voice trailed away. Because Luke had put the maps down and was picking up the small box that contained the compass.

  ‘You have many interesting objects here,’ he said. ‘But this is the most intriguing of them all.’

  He saw the enormous effort at calmness that she made as she reached out her hand. ‘That is my father’s compass,’ she said steadily. ‘One of his favourite possessions.’

  ‘I’m not surprised.’ Luke had calmly lifted the compass out of its box and was turning it in his hands. Cruelly letting her hope, just for a moment, that perhaps he hadn’t been able to translate the French inscription that was engraved on the side of it.

  ‘I don’t suppose,’ he went on, ‘that your father would want anyone to know that he was a devoted servant to Napoleon. A mapmaker to Napoleon. I don’t suppose that you would want anyone to know that either—’

  He broke off as she lunged for it. He held it high beyond her reach and translated from memory the words inscribed on it. ‘“To my devoted servant, André

  Duchamp—my creator of maps. A gift from Napoleon Bonaparte.”’ He looked straight at her. ‘And this was—your father’s?’

  The flush of colour in her cheeks had drained away, leaving her skin white as porcelain. Her dark-lashed eyes were green as deep pools, wide and anguished.

  ‘You have no right...’

  He was still holding the object high. Tormenting her. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘you’ll remember that I saw this compass when your carriage was halted by the landslip. I read the inscription then.’

  She was trembling slightly, he saw. ‘You—you did?’

  ‘At first,’ he went on, ‘I could hardly believe my eyes. But there it was. Plain as daylight. “A gift from Napoleon Bonaparte.”’ As he spoke, he was casually slipping the compass in his pocket, then he proceeded to pick up another folded map. Only this time, it was a half-completed one, with notes and measurements written out below it, in French.

  With care, Luke translated it aloud.

  ‘“From Reims to Dinant. Total distance: one hundred and twenty kilometres. The River Aisne must be bridged at Rethel. The route is detailed below, with areas of rock, clay and marsh depicted accordingly. The road must be made with a subbase of larger stones, covered by smaller ones. No substance that could absorb water and thus lead to frost damage should be incorporated...”’

  Luke skimmed the rest of the paper to read aloud the signature at the bottom. ‘“Written by André Duchamp, Paris. April 13th, 1810.”’

  He looked at her. ‘Your father would have made a better job, wouldn’t he, of constructing that road to Bircham, where your carriage was halted by the landslip?’

  She appeared calm, defiant almost, but he saw her breasts beneath her cloak rising and falling, rising and falling. Saw her eyes sliding towards the door.

  She’s ready to run, he acknowledged. Ready to make a break for it.

  And he was ready to stop her.

  ‘He drew maps for Napoleon,’ Luke went on, almost in wonder. ‘He designed roads for Napoleon. Your father. Your father.’

  Chapter Nine

  For a moment, the silence hung so heavy that Ellie realised she could hear the waves in the distance, rolling up the desolate beach. The candle shimmered in a sudden draught, and she thought, This man must be able to hear the pounding of my heart.

  ‘My father worked for France,’ she said at last, holding her head up proudly. ‘For the good of all of France’s citizens. He
was employed by the state, as so many were—’

  ‘Dear God. Do you take me for a fool?’ he cut in impatiently. ‘Are you trying to make out he was a government clerk? Even I have heard of your father. André Duchamp was one of the foremost cartographers of our age! I’ve heard it said that it was his mapping skills that made Napoleon’s new roads the marvels that they were. Roads that permitted Napoleon’s soldiers to march out of Paris and across France—into Prussia, into Italy and Spain and almost all of Europe. To defeat army after army—’

  ‘My father is dead!’ Her voice was tight with emotion. ‘And Napoleon is a prisoner! The past is behind us...’

  ‘The past has a nasty habit of leaping out at us, mam’selle.’ Luke’s lip curled as he said it. ‘Does Lord Franklin know who your father worked for?’

  ‘What business is it of yours?’

  ‘Does he?’

  Slowly she shook her head. He paced the length of the room, then swung back on her, pressing on without pity. ‘Your recent history, mam’selle, is, to an outsider like me, somewhat confusing. You grasped gratefully, it appears, at Lord Franklin’s offer of hospitality—but now I find you fleeing from his house by night and declaring, to anyone except him, your fervent wish to put England behind you. I can think of only one explanation.’

  He picked up one of the maps again and put it down with a snap. ‘Mam’selle, I am forced to assume that you are spying for Napoleon.’ He heard her let out a low gasp. ‘I am forced to assume you are serving him,’ he pressed on, ‘perhaps as loyally as your father did. I have to conclude that you wish to return across the Channel because somehow, during your sojourn in England, you have discovered something vital and you wish to convey it to Napoleon’s secret supporters in France—of whom, as we both know, there are still many.’