Sharpe 3-Book Collection 2. Bernard Cornwell
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‘I don’t know,’ Sharpe said.
‘We’ll beat them with you or without you,’ Lopes said angrily and stalked down the drive, shouting at his men to bring his horse, pick up their baggage and follow him to the village.
The meeting with Lopes only made Sharpe feel more guilty. Other men were fighting while he did nothing and that night, after supper, he asked to speak with Kate. It was late and Kate had sent the servants back to the kitchen and Sharpe waited for her to call one back to act as her chaperone, but instead she led him into the long parlour. It was dark, for no candles were lit, so Kate went to one of the windows and pulled back its curtains to reveal a pale, moonlit night. The wisteria seemed to glow in the silver light. The boots of a sentry crunched on the driveway. ‘I know what you’re going to say,’ Kate said, ‘that it’s time for you to go.’
‘Yes,’ Sharpe said, ‘and I think you should come with us.’
‘I must wait for James,’ Kate said. She went to a sideboard and, by the light of the moon, poured a glass of port. ‘For you,’ she said.
‘How long did the Colonel say he would be?’ Sharpe asked.
‘A week, maybe ten days.’
‘It’s been more than two weeks,’ Sharpe said, ‘very nearly three.’
‘He ordered you to wait here,’ Kate said.
‘Not through eternity,’ Sharpe replied. He went to the sideboard and took the port which was Savages’ finest.
‘You can’t leave me here,’ Kate said.
‘I don’t intend to,’ Sharpe said. The moon made a shadow of her cheek and glinted from her eyes and he felt a pang of jealousy for Colonel Christopher. ‘I think you should come.’
‘No,’ Kate said with a note of petulance, then turned a pleading face to Sharpe. ‘You can’t leave me here alone!’
‘I’m a soldier,’ Sharpe said, ‘and I’ve waited long enough. There’s supposed to be a war in this country, and I’m just sitting here like a lump.’
Kate had tears in her eyes. ‘What’s happened to him?’
‘Maybe he got new orders in Lisbon,’ Sharpe suggested.
‘Then why doesn’t he write?’
‘Because we’re in enemy country now, ma’am,’ Sharpe said brutally, ‘and maybe he can’t get a message to us.’ That was very unlikely, Sharpe thought, because Christopher seemed to have plenty of friends among the French. Perhaps the Colonel had been arrested in Lisbon. Or killed by partisans. ‘He’s probably waiting for you to come south,’ he said instead of voicing those thoughts.
‘He would send a message,’ Kate protested. ‘I’m sure he’s on his way.’
‘Are you?’ Sharpe asked.
She sat on a gilt chair, staring out of the window. ‘He must come back,’ she said softly and Sharpe could tell from her tone that she had virtually given up hope.
‘If you think he’s coming back,’ he said, ‘then you must wait for him. But I’m taking my men south.’ He would leave the next night, he decided. March in the dark, go south, find the river and search its bank for a boat, any boat. Even a tree trunk would do, anything that could float them across the Douro.
‘Do you know why I married him?’ Kate suddenly asked.
Sharpe was so astounded by the question that he did not answer. He just gazed at her.
‘I married him,’ Kate said, ‘because life in Oporto is so dull. My mother and I live in the big house on the hill and the lawyers tell us what happens in the vineyards and the lodge, and the other ladies come to tea, and we go to the English church on Sundays and that is all that ever happens.’
Sharpe still said nothing. He was embarrassed.
‘You think he married me for the money, don’t you?’ Kate demanded.
‘Don’t you?’ Sharpe responded.
She stared at him in silence and he half expected her to be angry, but instead she shook her head and sighed. ‘I dare not believe that,’ she said, ‘though I do believe marriage is a gamble and we don’t know how it will turn out, but we still just hope. We marry in hope, Mister Sharpe, and sometimes we’re lucky. Don’t you think that’s true?’
‘I’ve never married,’ Sharpe evaded the answer.
‘Have you wanted to?’ Kate asked.
‘Yes,’ Sharpe said, thinking of Grace.
‘What happened?’
‘She was a widow,’ Sharpe said, ‘and the lawyers were making hay with her husband’s will, and we thought that if she married me it would only complicate things. Her lawyers said so. I hate lawyers.’ He stopped talking, hurt as he always was by the memory. He drank the port to cover his feelings, then walked to the window and stared down the moonlit drive to where the smoke of the village fires smeared the stars above the northern hills. ‘In the end she died,’ he finished abruptly.
‘I’m sorry,’ Kate said in a small voice.
‘And I hope it turns out well for you,’ Sharpe said.
‘Do you?’
‘Of course,’ he said, then he turned to her and he was so close that she had to tilt her head back to see him. ‘What I really hope,’ he said, ‘is this,’ and he bent and kissed her very tenderly on the lips, and for a half-second she stiffened and then she let him kiss her and when he straightened she lowered her head and he knew she was crying. ‘I hope you’re lucky,’ he said to her.
Kate did not look up. ‘I must lock the house,’ she said, and Sharpe knew he was dismissed.
He gave his men the next day to get ready. There were boots to be repaired and packs and haversacks to be filled with food for the march. Sharpe made sure every rifle was clean, that the flints were new and that the cartridge boxes were filled. Harper shot two of the captured dragoon horses and butchered them down into cuts of meat that could be carried, then he put Hagman on another of the horses to make certain he would be able to ride it without too much pain and Sharpe told Kate she must ride another and she protested, saying she could not travel without a chaperone and Sharpe told her she could make up her own mind. ‘Stay or leave, ma’am, but we’re going tonight.’
‘You can’t leave me!’ Kate said, angry, as if Sharpe had not kissed her and she had not allowed the kiss.
‘I’m a soldier, ma’am,’ Sharpe said, ‘and I’m going.’
And then he did not go because that evening, at dusk, Colonel Christopher returned.
The Colonel was mounted on his black horse and dressed all in black. Dodd and Pendleton were the picquets on the Quinta’s driveway and when they saluted him Christopher just touched the ivory heel of his riding crop to one of the tasselled peaks of his bicorne hat. Luis, the servant, followed and the dust from their horses’ hooves drifted across the rills of fallen wisteria blossom that lined either side of the driveway. ‘It looks like lavender, don’t it?’ Christopher remarked to Sharpe. ‘They should try growing lavender here,’ he went on as he slid from the horse. ‘It would do well, don’t you think?’ He did not wait for an answer, but instead ran up the Quinta’s steps and held his hands wide for Kate. ‘My sweetest one!’
Sharpe, left on the terrace, found himself staring at Luis. The servant raised an eyebrow as if in exasperation, then led the horses round to the back of the house. Sharpe stared across the darkening fields. Now that the sun was gone there was a bite in the air, a tendril of winter lingering into spring. ‘Sharpe!’ the Colonel’s voice called from inside the house. ‘Sharpe!’
‘Sir?’ Sharpe pushed through the