Lucy Lane and the Lieutenant

by Helen Dickson

  He laughed softy. ‘This is a convent, Lucy, run by chaste nuns. We must do nothing to abuse their hospitality.’

  ‘If you say so,’ she replied, smiling up at him, happy to have him holding her hand. ‘But I can’t help the way I feel.’

  Nathan was silent, a deep crease between his brows as he considered her words. ‘Now is not the time to think of that, Lucy. Listen to me. Believe me when I say that if I thought we had a chance of happiness together, I’d take it. I’ve lived all my life taking chances, but not this one. Not now.’

  She was stricken. ‘You really are saying that I mean absolutely nothing to you?’

  He stiffened, then relaxed. ‘There you are wrong. You do mean something to me—and have done for a very long time. That is my misfortune. I have had to live with that knowledge—to think of you as unattainable. I don’t want to hurt you.’

  She was about to flare up in a temper of despair when she saw the expression on his face was unusually compassionate.

  Without relinquishing his hold of her hand, he stopped and looked down into her shining eyes. ‘Of all the women I have known, Lucy, none has possessed the fire of heart and mind of you. You are beautiful. A temptress. You could kill the man who loves you—drive a knife right through his heart and never know it.’

  The sound of a single bell from the direction of the convent resounded in the air. They both looked towards the sound.

  ‘The sounding of the bell calls the nuns to prayers—vespers or compline,’ Nathan said absently. ‘I don’t know the order of their daily devotions, but we should go back.’

  Lucy looked at him and wondered where the hot flood of feeling had gone. Suddenly she was aware of everything around her and she shivered, as if coming back from a long journey.

  ‘Yes, you’re right. We should go back.’

  Nathan walked with her to the door, and only then did he let go of her hand, but not before he had raised it to his lips and placed a tender kiss on her fingers.

  * * *

  At first light, after eating a hasty breakfast and thanking the nuns for their hospitality, they left the convent and continued with their journey. Lucy watched the muted hues of the scenery blur together in a peaceful collage. Orange and purple streaked the sky and she looked over to the east where the sun was rising behind the high Sierras, their jagged outlines silhouetted sharply against the sky. The villages were becoming scarcer now. Soon they would navigate the sinuous mountain passes.

  The strange, past days had left Lucy feeling as if she were moving through a landscape composed of nothing but vague shapes with no particular details—like a dream.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Nathan asked beside her.

  She glanced at him, smiling wearily, having put what had happened between them the night before behind her. ‘I was thinking how unreal all this seems. I keep imagining that I’ll wake up at home and discover this was all a dream.’

  Nathan cocked her a devilish smile. ‘You wouldn’t miss me if you woke up and found I wasn’t real?’

  Lucy had to smile. ‘Yes, actually, I would miss you—just a little.’

  He laughed. ‘Stop daydreaming, Lucy. We have work to do.’

  ‘And hills to climb, if those mountains are an indication of what to expect. I imagine them to be full of bandits and wild animals, all waiting to vent their savagery on two unsuspecting travellers.’

  ‘Not unsuspecting. I am fully aware of the dangers those hills pose. It is fortunate that the British and French never needed them. The savagery of the terrain made them impassable to the artillery and the infantry would struggle, which made them of no value, but to the bands of deserters they are the perfect refuge.’

  * * *

  They spent three more days and nights on the road before reaching the Sierras, which were reported to stretch as far as the Pyrenees Mountains. The hills were wooded with fir and impressed a picture on Lucy’s mind which would not easily be erased.

  The mountain paths were often perilous. Wolves prowled and rock slides were not uncommon, and the brigands were lawless, descending from the heights to rob villages before melting away like snow. The weather turned colder, and one day and night they had to endure a troublesome drizzling rain, more penetrating than a heavy shower. Lucy was glad of the thick greatcoat Nathan had provided, which protected her from the cold.

  He appeared to know the way through the mountains, for despite the absence of paths and the fact that one mountain looked exactly like the next to Lucy, he rode ahead of her unhesitatingly, although he glanced about often to assure himself of both her safety and comfort. At one point they climbed so high that a tremendous precipice was frightful even to look down. Vertigo washed over Lucy as she peered over the edge. Here they appeared to be so elevated above the world below that they were, in a manner, lost to it. Here and there some bold mountains would penetrate the mass of clouds at their feet and raise their aspiring heads above them. At night even the stars and the moon seemed brighter in the mountains. The morning dew and mists of the valleys took a long time to disperse, rolling in volumes, like the sea, below them.

  The journey was becoming taxing for Lucy. Not only was her dejection physical in origin, every day she began to feel more discouraged. Nathan was not openly disagreeable towards her, but he kept within the limits of punctilious courtesy which dismayed her far more than any show of temper would have done. There were times when she would have liked to talk of something else beside their assignment and Katherine’s captivity. But she was beginning to realise that his thoughts roamed past her and focused on his mission, on Katherine, almost to the utter exclusion of the unhappy woman beside him.

  The silence which surrounded them was ominous. His senses having been trained to high alert, Nathan became tense, watchful, his eyes constantly searching the surrounding hills for menace, pausing now and then to listen for suspicious sounds.

  * * *

  With eight days of continuous riding behind them, with not a town or a village in sight, they camped in a low valley close to a small lake. Well sheltered by a thick stand of trees, they were partially hidden by a shallow overhang jutting from a bluff. The journey had held no terrors for Lucy. Until now. Something was different today. There was an edge to the darkness that made her uneasy. She had the feeling something or someone was watching them. Something cold and implacable that was no friend to either of them. She sensed Nathan felt it, too.

  She tried to shake off the feeling, for she was so tired when she slipped off her horse that she could barely put one foot in front of the other. She glanced at Nathan, wishing she had half his stamina. Nothing seemed to affect this incredibly strong man. Tormented as she was by weariness and cramps, nothing in the world would have made her admit it.

  * * *

  Lucy had taken the late watch. When the sun began to rise and everything was still and quiet, the gently misted lake looking as polished as steel, and not relishing the thought of another long day of riding ahead of her, Lucy looked with longing at the water. Nathan had told her the night before to remain near him, but, not having bathed since she had left Lisbon, the temptation was too great for her to resist.

  Taking a bar of soap from the saddlebags, she slipped away, past a screen of low bushes, and down a short bank. Removing her boots and stockings and rolling up her breeches as high as they would go, she paddled into the water, gasping as the icy water lapped at her ankles. Removing her jacket, she unfastened the top buttons of her shirt. Dipping a handkerchief into the water, she bathed her neck and face. The water felt luxuriously cool and refreshing and she would have loved to remove all her clothes and immerse herself completely but dared not. However, she did take the opportunity to wash her hair. Her ablutions had taken no more than five minutes, but, much as she would have liked to sit on a rock a while, she must not remain out in the open any longer.

 
A horse whinnied somewhere in the distance. She glanced to the sound and froze. A man sat astride a horse, looking with icy focus in her direction, his coarse manly features impassive. Immediately she grabbed her discarded clothes and scrambled back up the bank and hurried to where Nathan stood with his hands on his hips, obviously concerned with her disappearance.

  ‘Where were you?’ he demanded, rolling his blanket. ‘I thought you understood the dangers.’

  ‘Down by the lake,’ she answered shortly.

  ‘What is it?’ he demanded, seeing the fear in her eyes.’

  ‘I saw a man on a horse farther along the bank. He was watching me.’

  All of a sudden, Nathan stopped what he was doing and stared into the distance, as still as a wolf in a forest hearing some distant sound.

  Suddenly Lucy was frightened. ‘Nathan, what—what is it?’ Her voice, thick with worry, faltered as she spoke.

  He didn’t reply immediately. He peered into the distance, his keen ears searching for sounds. He sniffed the air, but the breeze was giving nothing away. Still, the alertness of a man well trained in trailing a foe entailed more than just the rudimentary senses. An instinctive warning told him that something was wrong there.

  ‘I heard something,’ he breathed.

  ‘So did I. Maybe someone’s hunting,’ Lucy whispered optimistically. Feeling the hairs stir on the back of her neck, she glanced nervously about her, her eyes wide with apprehension. ‘Although I don’t think so.’

  Nathan drew her to him protectively, placing her behind him. He stood erect, listening intently, his rifle drawn and ready for action. Everything was still and what had been peaceful now became pregnant with menace, the very silence an enemy. The horses moved uneasily as Lucy’s eyes searched their surroundings.

  Suddenly a horse and rider materialised from the trees. Lucy blinked her eyes and tried to focus on the shadowed figure blocking out the morning sun.

  The man looked surly and dangerous. His face, his very appearance, was unsettling. Nathan watched him approach. Lucy observed the contemptuous look on Nathan’s face and sensed the alertness in his body. The man halted his horse a few feet away from them—the tension between the two men was almost palpable, even to Lucy’s eyes. The man’s eyes moved to Lucy and lingered with an unblinking gaze. She shuddered beneath his stare and unconsciously moved closer to Nathan.

  ‘Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Rochefort,’ the man said. His English was excellent, though his accent was thick enough to carve. ‘I have been expecting someone—so they sent you.’

  Cocking an eyebrow in haughty question as the offensive bulk of humanity known as Le Chien Noir, the Black Dog, stared back at him, Nathan said coldly, ‘Claude Gameau. It’s been a long time.’

  ‘I was wondering if you would remember me.’

  ‘How could I not? I saved your life—an act which I have since had cause to regret.’

  ‘I expect you do. For myself I was happy that you did. I remember saying to you that if it was ever in my power I would repay that debt.’

  ‘And I remember telling you that I hoped it would never be in your power.’

  Nathan knew without a doubt that had anyone else delivered the gold, they would not have been left alive. Gameau owed him, and despite Gameau’s ruthless determination to survive against the odds, that corrupt deserter still retained some semblance of honour somewhere in him, which was why Nathan had been chosen.

  ‘Then you must be disappointed in the way it has turned out.’

  ‘It is one thing for a man to spout such promises, Gameau. It is quite another to consider how he might act when put to the test.’

  Gameau’s face flushed with indignation at what he considered to be an insult. ‘I gave you my word. But be under no illusion. I am tempted to ignore what I said just to see you brought to your knees. I would enjoy breaking that proud neck of yours, Rochefort.’

  ‘I do not doubt that, but you owe me your life, Gameau. Think back to that day. You’d been shot in the leg and you couldn’t run. I could have finished you off—and that Portuguese soldier saw you hiding in the long grass and turned back, do you remember? I stopped him before he could cut off your head with his sword. There’d been enough blood and pain and killing that day. Now that same man whose life I saved is holding the wife and child of a friend of mine and you talk of killing me. To hell with you, Gameau! When I saved your life I thought it meant something.’

  Shame filled Gameau’s eyes. It was fleeting, but Nathan had seen it and knew he was right. Gameau had either contemplated or intended killing him once he had the gold.

  ‘You are safe. I will not kill you this time. But if we meet again I will.’

  Nathan eyed him coldly, his expression giving nothing away. ‘Don’t be too sure of that, Gameau.’ As it happened, the partisans and a troop of redcoats were gathering, but Gameau didn’t have that vital piece of information. ‘And now you are a deserter. So, you no longer owe any allegiance to Bonaparte?’

  A sneer distorted Claude’s lips. ‘When I escaped the British and made it back to my regiment, I was stripped of my rank and tried for the murder of one of my fellow soldiers who tried to double-cross me over a woman. Had I not escaped I would have been shot. By your gauge of judgement, what loyalty should I give Bonaparte?’

  ‘That is for you and your conscience to wrestle with, Gameau. I am not here to judge you. But be assured that eventually you and your band of outlaws will be caught and your long-delayed execution will happen.’

  Claude shrugged. ‘Perhaps it will, perhaps I’ll be lucky, but now I am a man seeking to make a profit where I can.’

  ‘By abducting and imprisoning women and children?’

  Again he shrugged. ‘It happens. It is necessary for me and my men to survive.’

  ‘How did you know where to find me?’

  ‘I’ve been watching you for some time.’

  Nathan said nothing for a moment. He moved a step closer and when he spoke he did so slowly and clearly. ‘I know.’

  Lucy stared at him in amazement. Why had he not told her?

  ‘So what’s Claude Gameau doing travelling alone? French soldiers, be they deserters or otherwise, don’t travel alone. They’re too frightened of the partisans. The brutal treatment they mete out to the French, be they soldiers or deserters, is well known.’ He had come to stand in front of the ex-captain, now self-proclaimed general, and the Frenchman’s dark eyes watched him closely.

  ‘I did not come alone, but I’m afraid of no one, Rochefort. You, of all people, should know that. You have changed little since last we met—though the scar is new and not as disfiguring as my own.’ His gaze shifted to Lucy and he laughed, the sound an unnerving rumble deep in his chest. ‘Your lady is not happy to see me. Perhaps she fears I might hurt her. You are indeed beautiful, as hungry men will have told you.’ His face formed a cruel semblance of a smile.

  Lucy looked defiantly at him and did not move, did not speak lest her loathing and fear show. He was a lean hard wolf of a man, a cruelly featured stranger with an ugly scar, a vivid trail against sunburned skin, marring his high cheekbone. He was not as old as she’d imagined him to be, but all the marks of precocious vice were already written there on his face.

  Lucy was unable to take her eyes off him. She felt her heart quicken with heavy pulsing beats. He had the look of one who was a predator amongst men and there was an aura of power, of danger, about him, a look she had seen in only one other man—Nathan Rochefort. This man was dressed in French blue. His face remained singularly calm when he looked back at her. His eyes lowered and Lucy blushed, knowing that he was staring at her legs in their tight breeches. His laughter was brutally mocking when he lifted his eyes to her face, her beauty apparent even with her damp hair curling about her head.

  ‘You tremble, mademoiselle. I think, perhaps, you
are a little bit afraid of me.’

  Nathan’s features were non-committal as he looked at Claude Gameau, but he was registering all the subtle indications that an unpleasant confrontation could occur if he let what he was feeling get the better of him. For one thing, there was a smirk of satisfaction on the Frenchman’s face. For another, positioned some yards behind Gameau were four of his desperados dressed in a variety of stained and threadbare uniforms from different regiments of different countries, put together at random. They were bristling with arms, their body language confident, their faces mocking. Nathan was under no illusion. He had met men of their kind before. They would kill them without a second thought and rob their corpses afterwards if Gameau ordered them to.

  ‘Now that we have exchanged civilities, Rochefort, let us get down to business.’

  ‘The hostages—assuming you haven’t already butchered your prisoners in your usual barbarous fashion.’

  ‘You have come for the woman.’

  ‘And the child. That was the agreement. Are they alive?’

  The dark eyes opened wide, feigning innocence. ‘Alive? Of course they are alive. You give me the gold and they will stay alive.’

  Lucy did not know whether to rejoice or despair. Gameau’s behaviour ran to such extremes, Katherine might have been better off had she met a quick, merciful death rather than endure whatever diabolical scheme her captor might concoct. Yet amidst her sinking spirits there was a secret joy that her old friend and her child were alive and hopefully unharmed.

  ‘I intend to deal honestly with you,’ Nathan said. ‘I hope you don’t repay me with treachery. How do I know you will release them on payment of the ransom?’

  Gameau studied him through narrowed eyes. This was Nathan Rochefort, who had shot three men at Talavera before they’d had time to draw their swords. It was a brave man who challenged Rochefort. He shrugged. ‘You don’t. You will have to trust me.’

  ‘Trust? That is a fine word coming from you, Gameau. Do you remember Harry? Harry Connors? I have not forgotten.’