The Captain's Forbidden Miss

‘Pierre.’ Captain Emmern’s voice sounded, shattering the tight tension that had bound her and Dammartin together in a world that excluded all else.

She opened her eyes and blinked at the chasseur captain, allowing herself to breathe once more.

‘Captain Dammartin,’ said Emmern more formally this time. He looked from Dammartin to Josie and back again with a strange expression upon his face. ‘We should get moving, before the General grows impatient.’

Dammartin gave a nod in reply, then, with a small nudge of his boots against the chestnut’s flank, he and the horse began to move away.

Relief softened the rigidity throughout Josie’s body, so that she felt that she might collapse down against the little mare’s neck and cling on for dear life. She caught her fingers into the coarse hair of the mane, stabilising herself once more now that the danger was receding.

‘Mademoiselle Mallington,’ he called softly.

She froze at the sound of his voice, saw him turn back to look at her.

‘We shall finish this conversation later.’

She felt the blood drain from her face, and she stared at him aghast, unable to move, unable to utter a single word in response.

‘I promise that most solemnly.’ And with a twitch of his reins he was finally gone.

* * *

Foy’s column with its cavalry detachment travelled far that day, twenty miles across terrain that was rocky and high and inhospitable. The ground was frozen hard beneath their feet and great chunks of ice edged the rivulets of streams that carved passageways down the hillsides. And in all the hours that passed, Josie could not find a way to escape the officers of Bonaparte’s 8th Dragoons.

She had hoped that she might be able to fall back or just slip away unnoticed, but there was no chance of that. The 8th Dragoons were neatly sandwiched between Emmern’s Hanoverian Chasseurs in front and a whole regiment of French infantry to the rear. And were that not bad enough, Lieutenant Molyneux rode nearby, offering occasional polite conversational words, checking on her welfare and ensuring that she was served the hard bread rolls and wine when they stopped to water the horses. There seemed no way out. Yet when Josie looked in front to where Dammartin rode, she knew that escape was an absolute necessity.

Dammartin did not look back at her and that was something at least for which she felt relief. His attention was focused upon his men, on the ragged drops that fell away from the sides of the narrow rough roads along which they trotted, and the precipices so high above. If a trooper wandered too close to the edge, Dammartin barked a warning for him to get back in column. If they moved too slowly, one look from Dammartin was enough to hurry them onwards.

Throughout the long hours of riding he ignored her, but his promise lay between them as threatening as the man himself. He would interrogate her in earnest. She knew it with a certainty, had seen it in his eyes. She thought of the danger that emanated from him, of the darkness, a formidable force waiting to be unleashed… upon her. She trembled at the prospect of what he might do to her, knowing that for all her bravado, for all her own tenacity, he was far stronger. He would lead her in circles until she no longer knew what she was saying. Hadn’t she already inadvertently revealed that her father had known of Foy’s destination? What more would she tell the French Captain?

The thoughts whirred in her head, churning her gut with anticipation. No matter her father’s instruction or the promise she had made him, she knew that she had to get away, to somehow make her way back towards the British lines. She would be safe from Dammartin there, and she would ensure that the news of Foy’s mission had reached Wellington. Papa would have understood, she told herself.

Having made up her mind, Josie no longer looked ahead to the breadth of Dammartin’s shoulders or the fit of his green dragoon jacket across his back and, instead, focused every last ounce of her attention on a way of evading her captor.

They had reached the site of their camp in a small valley between Cardigos and Sobreira Formosa before the opportunity that Josie had been waiting for arose. Most of Dammartin’s dragoons were busy pitching the tents. The air rang with the sound of small iron-tipped mallets driving narrow iron tent pegs into the frozen soil. Those troopers not helping with the tents, gathered wood and lit fires upon which they placed kettles and pots to boil, cooking that evening’s rations. All along the massive camp both cavalrymen and infantrymen were orderly and disciplined and—busy. Even Molyneux seemed to have disappeared.

Josie knew that this was the best chance of escape she would get. She stood were she was, eyes scanning around, seeking the one man above all that she sought to evade, but of Dammartin there was no sign, and that could only be construed as a very good omen.

Slowly, inconspicuously, she edged towards a great clump of scrubby bushes at the side of the camp until she could slip unseen behind them. And then, hitching up her skirts in one hand, Josie started to run.

Dammartin was making his way back from reporting to Major La Roque and all he could think about was the wretched Mallington girl. She was too defiant, too stubborn and too damned courageous. When she looked at him, he saw the same clear blue eyes that had looked out from Mallington’s face. A muscle twitched in Dummartn’s jaw and he gritted his teeth.

The old man was dead and yet little of Dammartin’s anger had dissipated. His father had been avenged, and still Dammartin’s heart ached with a ferocity that coloured his every waking thought. All of the hurt, all of the rage at the injustice and loss remained. He knew he had been severe with girl. She was young, and it was not her hand that had fired the bullet into his father’s chest. He had seen that she was frightened and the pallor of her face as she realised her mistake over Ciudad Rodrigo, and even then he had not softened. Now that he was away from her he could see that he had been too harsh, but the girl knew much more than she was saying, and if Dummartin was being forced to drag her with him all the way to Ciudad Rodrigo, he was damn well going to get that information—for the sake of his country, for the sake of his mission…for the sake of his father.

The dragoon camp was filled with the aroma of cooking—of boiling meat and toasting bread. Dammartin’s stomach began to growl as he strode past the troopers’ campfires, his eyes taking in all that was happening in one fell swoop. Lamont had a pot lid in one hand and was stirring at the watery meat with a spoon in the other. Molyneux was sharing a joke with a group of troopers. The prickle of anticipation whispered down Dammartin’s spine, for Josephine Mallington was nowhere to be seen.

‘Where is Mademoiselle Mallington?’ The stoniness of his voice silenced Molyneux’s laughter. Lamont replaced the pot lid and spoon and got to his feet. The troopers glanced around uneasily, noticing the girl’s absence for the first time.

A slight flush coloured Molyneux’s cheeks. ‘She was here but a moment since, I swear.’

‘Check the tents,’ Dammartin snapped at his lieutenant, before turning to Lamont. ‘Have the men search over by the latrines.’

With a nod, the little sergeant was up and shouting orders as he ran.

Dammartin knew instinctively that the girl would not be found in either of these places. He strode purposefully towards the horses. None were missing.

Dante was saddled by the time that Molyneux reappeared.

‘The tents are empty, Captain, and Lamont says that there’s no sign of her down by the latrines.’ He bent to catch his breath, tilting his head up to look at Dammartin. ‘Do you want us to organise a search party?’

‘No search party,’ replied Dammartin, swinging himself up on to Dante’s back. ‘I go alone.’

‘She cannot have got far in such little time. She is on foot and the harshness of this countryside…’ Molyneux let the words trail off before dropping his voice. ‘Forgive me, but I did not think for a minute that she would escape.’

Dammartin gave a single small nod of his head, acknowledging his lieutenant’s apology. ‘Mademoiselle Mallington is more resourceful than we have given her credit for.’

‘What will happen if you do not find her? Major La Roque did not—’

‘If I do not find her,’ Dammartin interrupted, ‘she will die.’ And with a soft dig of his heels against Dante’s flank he was gone.

Chapter Four

The wind whispered through the trees, straining at their bare branches until they creaked and rattled. Josie’s run had subsided to a half-walk, half-scurry as she followed the road back along the route the French army had travelled. The track ran along the ridge of a great hill in the middle of even more hills. The surrounding landscape was hostile: jagged rocks, steep slopes and scree, with nothing of cover and nowhere that Josie could see to shelter.

She knew from the day’s journey that some miles back there had been the derelict remains of a cottage and it was to this that Josie was heading. All she needed to do was to follow the road back up over the last hill and keep going until she came upon the cottage. She pushed herself on, knowing that it was only a matter of time before her absence was noticed. They might already be after her; he might already be after her. Her lungs felt fit to burst and there was a pain in her side. Josie willed her legs to move faster.

The light was rapidly fading and soon everything would be shrouded in darkness, making it impossible to see the rubble and pot-holes littering the road, and more importantly the cliff edge over to her right. Somewhere far away a wolf howled, a haunting sound that made the hairs on the back of Josie’s neck stand erect. She knew what it was to be hunted, but it was not the wolf from which she was running.

Her foot twisted suddenly into an unseen dip on the unevenness of the road’s surface, tipping her off balance, bringing her down, landing her hard. The fall winded her, but almost immediately she was scrabbling up to keep on going, ignoring the stinging in her hands and knees.

Dammartin cursed the charcoal-streaked sky. Once darkness fell she would be lost to him, and lost to herself too, he thought grimly. Little idiot, without shelter, without warmth, she would die out here. And no matter who her father had been, Dammartin did not want that to happen.

His eyes swept over the surrounding land, before flicking back to the road over the hill that loomed ahead. The French Captain’s instinct told him which route the girl had chosen. Taking the spyglass from his pocket, he scanned the road over which they had travelled that day, and as the daylight died Pierre Dammartin felt the wash of satisfaction. He snapped the spyglass away.

A lone wolf’s howl rent the air, urging Dammartin to move faster. He had not reached her yet, but he soon would.

Josie stopped and glanced back, her scalp prickling with foreboding, her ears straining to listen. There was only the wind and the ragged panting of her own breath. A noise sounded to her left, a rustling, a rooting. She stared suspiciously through the growing darkness, but there was nothing there save a few spindly bushes at the foot of the great rock wall. To her right a trickle of pebbles slid over the cliff edge, making her jump nervously.

She was being foolish, she told herself, these were the normal noises of the night, nothing more sinister. But as she hurried on, she remembered the stories of the bandits that roamed this land and she pulled her cloak more tightly around herself, only now beginning to see just how very dangerous her predicament was.

Come along, Josie, she told herself sternly, and she was in the middle of reciting the Mallington family motto, audaces fortuna juvat—fortune favours the brave—when she heard the gallop of a horse’s hooves in the distance.

Dammartin.

She looked back into the deep inky blueness, her eyes examining every shadow, every shape, but seeing nothing through the cover of the night. For a moment Josie was so gripped with panic that she did not move, just stood there staring for a few moments before the sensible part of her brain kicked back into action.

It would be impossible to outrun him, he was coming this way and fast, and the few bushes around were too small to hide her. Glancing swiftly around she realised that just ahead, to the left, the sheer wall of rock and soil seemed to change, relaxing its gradient, leaning back by forty-five degrees to give a climbable slope. Her eyes followed it up to the flat ground at the top, which merged into the darkness of the other hills. Josie did not wait for an invitation; she began to run again.

* * *