The Captain's Forbidden Miss. Margaret McPhee
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captain’s questions. Carefully and deliberately, she fixed a bland expression upon her face and prayed for courage.
Pierre Dammartin watched the girl closely and knew then that he had not been wrong in his supposition. ‘So tell me, Mademoiselle Mallington, what were riflemen of the Fifth Battalion of the 60th Regiment doing in Telemos?’
‘I do not know.’
‘Come now, mademoiselle. I find that hard to believe.’
‘Why so? Surely you do not think my father would discuss such things with me? I assure you that it is not the done thing for British army officers to discuss their orders with their daughters.’
He smiled a small, tight smile at that. ‘But is it the done thing for British army officers to take their daughters on campaign with them? To have them fight alongside their men?’
‘It is not so unusual for officers to take their families, and as for fighting, I did so only at the end and out of necessity.’
He ignored her last comment. ‘What of your mother, where is she?’
The girl looked at him defiantly. ‘She is dead, sir.’
He said nothing. She was Mallington’s daughter. What had Mallington cared for Major Dammartin’s wife or family? The simple answer was nothing.
‘Tell me of your father’s men.’
‘There is nothing to tell.’ Her voice was light and fearless, almost taunting in its tone.
‘From where did you march?’
‘I cannot recall.’
He raised an eyebrow at that. The girl was either stupid or brave, and from what he had seen of Mademoiselle Mallington so far, he was willing to bet on the latter. ‘When did you arrive in Telemos?’
She glanced away. ‘A few days ago.’
‘Which day precisely?’
‘I cannot remember.’
‘Think harder, mademoiselle…’ he stepped closer, knowing that his proximity would intimidate her ‘…and I am sure that the answer will come to you.’
She took a step back. ‘It might have been Monday.’
She was lying. Everything about her proclaimed it to be so: the way her gaze flitted away before coming back to meet his too boldly, too defiantly; her posture; the flutter of her hands to touch nervously against her mouth.
‘Monday?’
‘Yes.’
‘How many men?’
‘I am not sure.’
‘Hazard a guess.’ Another step forward.
And again she edged back. ‘A hundred,’ she uttered with angry defiance.
‘A large number.’ He raised an eyebrow, knowing from the scattering of corpses that there had been nowhere near that number of men.
‘Yes.’
He watched her. ‘Did you ride with your father, or walk with the men, mademoiselle?’
She looked up at him, and he could see the puzzlement beneath the thick suspicion. There was the shortest of pauses before she said, ‘I rode a donkey, the same as the other women.’
‘You are telling me that the unmarried daughter of the Lieutenant Colonel rode with the company’s whores?’
‘They were not whores,’ she said hotly. ‘They were wives to the men.’
‘And your father was happy to leave you with them while he rode ahead with his officers on horseback? How very caring of him,’ he ridiculed.
‘Do not dare to judge him. You are not fit to speak his name!’
‘Only fit to kill the bastard,’ he murmured in French.
‘Scoundrel!’ she cursed him.
He smiled. ‘Who took the horses?’
All of the anger drained from her in an instant. She froze, caught unawares. He saw the tiny flicker of fear in her eyes and knew that he had guessed right.
‘I do not know what you mean,’ she said, but the words were measured and careful.
‘There are only two horses stabled at the monastery. Where are the others?’
Beneath the glow of the lantern her face paled. There was a pause. ‘We shot the others for food.’
‘Really,’ he said, ‘you shot the horses and left the donkeys?’
‘Yes.’ One hand slid to encase the other and she stood there facing him, with her head held high, as demure as any lady, and lying through her teeth.
‘I see.’ He watched her grip tighten until the knuckles shone white. He looked directly into her eyes and stepped closer until only the lantern separated them.
She tried to back away, but her legs caught against the wooden crate positioned behind her and she would have fallen had he not steadied her. Quite deliberately, he left his hand where it was, curled around her upper arm.
‘You would do better to tell me the truth, Mademoiselle Mallington,’ he said quietly. He saw the pulse jump in her neck, could almost hear the skittering thud of her heart within the silence of the cellar. Her eyes were wide and her skin so pale as to appear that it had been carved from alabaster. She was smaller than he remembered from the shoot-out in the room in the monastery, the top of her head reaching only to his shoulder. Perhaps it was the rifle that had lent her the illusion of height. They were standing so close that he could see the long lashes that fanned her eyes and hear the shallowness of her breath.
‘Do you want to start again?’ The softness of his words did not hide the steel beneath them.
She shook her head, and he noticed the fair tendrils of hair that had escaped her pins curl around her neck. ‘No, sir.’ Her words were as quiet as his, and Dammartin could only admire her courage.
‘Very well.’ He knew what he must do. The task was not pleasant, but it would give him the answers that the girl would not. Yet still he stood there, staring at her, as much as she stared at him, until he stepped abruptly away. ‘We shall continue our conversation at a later time.’ And he was gone, leaving her once more in the dark solitude of the cellar.
Josie still glared at the door long after it had closed behind him. Her heart was racing so fast that she thought she might faint, but still she did not move to sit down. Her eyes strained through the darkness, seeing nothing, her ears hearing the steady climb of his feet back up the stairs. Her arm throbbed where his hand had been even though his grip had been so light as to barely be a restraint.
She pressed her fingers hard to her lips as if to catch back all of the words she had spoken.
What had she revealed? Nothing that he would not already have known, yet Josie knew that was not true. The Frenchman’s face had told her it was so. He knew about the horses, and if he knew about that, then it would not be so very long before he knew the rest.
Her lies had been feeble, obvious and pathetic. Dammartin did not believe her, that much was evident. And he would be back. Her stomach turned over at the thought.
It had taken an hour for twenty-seven men and women to die so that General Lord Wellington might be warned of Massena’s scheme. In the space of a matter of minutes Josie had almost negated their sacrifice if Captain Hartmann and Lieutenant Meyer had not yet reached Wellington. How much time would it take the two men to weave their way back to Lisbon? The future of the British army at the lines of Torres Vedras rested on that and Josie’s ability to prevent, or at least delay, Dammartin’s discovery that the messengers had been sent. And that was not something in which she had the slightest degree of confidence.
Not for the first time