Jane Feather - [V Series] (4 page)

Julian found himself looking at her, examining her properly for the first time as his surge of righteous anger died beneath the truth of her counterattack. Pale hair like corn silk formed a close-cut cap around a small head, a roughly chopped fringe wisping on her forehead. Her eyes were almond-shaped, thick-lashed, and deep purple beneath arched fair eyebrows that gave her a rather quizzical air.

“Good God, comparison with a violet wasn’t just whimsy,” he said slowly into the tense silence. “But you belong to a rather thorny species, I suspect.”

His fingers tightened, and for a moment his mouth
hovered over hers so that Tamsyn could feel his breath on her lips and the sense of inhabiting some space and time that held only the two of them intensified. When his mouth met hers, it felt inevitable, and she was sliding down into a warm, musky darkness bounded by the scent of his rain-wet skin, the rasp of stubble against her cheek, the firm pliancy of his lips on hers.

Then the trance was shattered, and she jerked her head away, bringing her hand up to smash against his cheek.
“Bastardo!”
Her voice shook.
“Batard!”
She spat the words at him. “You rape your prisoners, do you, English Colonel? I thought it was only your English foot soldiers who indulged themselves in such fashion. But I imagine they take example from their officers.”

The depth of her rage, the power of the hatred that lay beneath it, stunned him for a minute. He stared at her, his hand unconsciously pressed to his stinging cheek. Then suddenly he took her face between both hands and brought his mouth to hers again, this time with a bruising force that crushed her lips against her teeth and forced her head back against the wall.

When he released her, she didn’t move, her face a pale shape in the gloom, her eyes dark pools.

“In future you won’t confuse a mutual kiss with violation,” he declared, his voice tight, his anger directed as much at himself as at the girl. He couldn’t imagine what had possessed him. He made it a rule never to amuse himself with women connected even tenuously with any of the armies marching through the Peninsula. “You ever insult me in that fashion again,
mi muchacha
, and I won’t answer for the consequences.”

A shiver ran through her, and still she didn’t move and she didn’t speak. Julian stood looking down at her, and now he saw the blue shadows of exhaustion on the
paper-thin skin beneath her eyes, the fine lines of endurance on the drawn countenance. She’d been a prisoner of the French for two days. When had she last eaten? Slept?

She reminded him of a bruised flower.

Dear Lord! He was falling victim to an attack of sentimental fantasy, he thought disgustedly, but he turned to the fire and refilled his mug with tea. “Here.”

She took the mug, still without speaking, but he saw how her fingers trembled as they curled around the warmth, lifting it to her lips. A shudder of pleasure rippled through the slight frame as the hot liquid slipped down her throat.

He broke bread, slapped two thick slices of cold mutton onto a crusty hunk, and handed it to her. Then he turned to tend the fire, withdrawing his attention from her so she could eat in relative privacy, despite the rope that fastened her to his sword belt.

As he rubbed his hands over the small flame, he realized that the rain had stopped. After seven days of continual downpour, the relentless drumming had ceased. He glanced up at the sky visible above the roofless half of their shelter. A faint, misty aura showed through the clouds. Fine weather would expedite the siegeworkings outside Badajos. Besieging a city was wretched work and made the men restless and dissatisfied. They’d all be glad when this one was over and done with.

He glanced over his shoulder at the girl. She’d put the empty mug on the floor beside her and was huddled into his boat cloak, her eyes closed.

For such a very thorny violet, she looked remarkably vulnerable and powerless. Nevertheless, Colonel, Lord St. Simon decided he’d stay awake for what remained of the night.

T
AMSYN AWOKE AFTER TWO HOURS
. A
S ALWAYS, SHE MOVED
from sleep to waking without any transition. Her mind was clear, her body refreshed, her recollection of the events that had brought her to this place perfectly lucid. Except … except that she couldn’t understand what had happened to cause that first kiss. It made no sense. She loathed and despised all men wearing a soldier’s uniform, and yet she’d kissed this one, a man who with no justification held her captive in this muddy squalor. She’d kissed him and she’d enjoyed it. Her enjoyment had so shocked her that she’d lashed out at him with a violent injustice that she knew had earned his rough retribution.

She opened her eyes and looked across at the English colonel. He was sitting beside the fire, a horse blanket around his shoulders, his head drooping on his chest. The fire was still alight, though, so presumably he hadn’t been asleep for long.

Her hands were clasped in her lap under the boat cloak. Keeping her eyes on the hunched, slumbering figure, she slid her hands down her leg, feeling for the knotted rope at her ankle. If she didn’t move her feet,
the tension and play of the rope would remain the same, and her captor would feel no change in his end.

“Don’t even think about it.” His voice was cool and crisp, and he raised his head, his eyes sharp and bright in the dawn light. If he’d been asleep, he slept like a cat, Tamsyn reflected glumly.

She pretended that she didn’t understand what he meant. “I need to go outside,” she said with a casual yawn and a stretch, adding acidly, “I assume I may do so.”

“I have no objection,” he returned blandly, getting to his feet. When she was standing up, he gave the rope a little jerk of encouragement. “Come. We don’t have all day.”

Tamsyn cursed him under her breath as she gingerly stepped after him with her hobbled feet, out into a balmy dawn.

The sky was cloudless, the sun a glowing red ball on the horizon, and the air smelled fresh and clean. The copse was filled with birdsong, and the men of the Sixth were waking, putting pannikins of water over the fires, seeing to the tethered horses. They cast curious glances at their colonel and his prisoner as the two walked away from the bivouac toward the river.

“You should find sufficient privacy behind those rocks,” the colonel observed, gesturing toward an outcrop on the riverbank. “The rope is long enough for you to be one side and me to be the other.”

“You are so considerate, Coronel.”

“Yes, I believe I am,” he agreed with a careless smile, ignoring her caustic tone.

“What is it you want of me?” she demanded. She’d asked the question last night, but matters had become somewhat confused, and there’d been no clear answer.

“Wellington wishes to speak with you,” he returned. “Therefore, I am taking you to headquarters in Elvas.”

“As a prisoner?” She gestured to the tethering rope. “Why should this be necessary for a simple conversation?” Her voice dripped sarcasm.

“Would La Violette accept an invitation from the commander in chief of His Majesty’s Army of the Peninsular?” he retorted in the same tone.

“No,” she said flatly. “I have no time for armies, whatever side they fight on. And the sooner this country is rid of you, the better.” She glared into the red ball of the rising sun. “You have no more business interfering with the affairs of Spain than Napoleon. And you’re no better than he is.”

“But, unfortunately, you need us to drive him out,” he said, hanging on to his temper. “And Wellington needs some information from you, which, my dear girl, you are going to give to him. Now, pray make haste.” He gestured impatiently to the rocks.

Tamsyn didn’t immediately move. This English colonel was all too complacent, like the rest of the breed. She gazed at the river for a moment, then said, “I would like to bathe. I seem to have been sitting in mud for days.”

“Bathe?” Julian stared at her, taken aback at this abrupt switch of subject. “Don’t be absurd. The water will be like ice.”

“But the sun’s warm,” she pointed out. “And I’ve been bathing in these rivers all my life. I only wish to dip myself once in the water, just to wash off the worst of the mud.” She turned pleading eyes on him. “What harm can it do, Colonel?”

He hesitated, words of denial on his lips, but before he could speak them, she plucked at her shirt and ran a
hand through her short hair. “I’m filthy. Look at my hands.” She held them out for his inspection. “And my hair’s disgusting. I can’t bear to be in my own skin! If I must converse with your commander in chief, at least allow me some dignity.”

Her wrinkled nose and disgusted grimace amused him, despite his anger at the sweeping contempt of her earlier remarks. She
was
undeniably filthy. He knew the miseries of it himself; after days of marching through every kind of weather, sleeping on muddy ground and under hedgerows, a man couldn’t get the smell of his own body out of his nostrils. His task was to bring her to headquarters at Elvas. But he could grant reasonable requests without jeopardizing that task.

“You’ll freeze to death,” he said. “But if you wish to, then you may—for two minutes.”

“My thanks.” She kicked off her shoes and then regarded him expectantly. “May I untie the rope? It’ll tighten unbearably if it gets wet.”

“You may,” he agreed. “But if you attempt to run from me, my friend, I’ll catch you, and you’ll walk to Elvas tethered to my stirrup.”

Anger flashed across her eyes, turning the deep purple almost black, and then it was quickly banished. She shrugged as if accepting his statement and bent to unfasten the rope. She tugged off her stockings, unfastened her britches, and pushed them off, kicking them to one side. Clad in thin linen drawers and her shirt, she turned to walk down to the river.

Suddenly Julian sensed the current of energy surging through her, just as he had done when he’d held her on his horse yesterday. Purpose and determination were in every taut line of her body. He caught her arm. “Just a minute.”

He looked at the river. At the far bank. The water was fairly smooth, but there was a telltale ripple of an undercurrent a few feet from the near shore. It was unlikely she could swim to the other side … unlikely, but not impossible. This was La Violette, after all.

“Take off the rest of your clothes.”

“What! All of them? In front of you?” She looked outraged, and yet somehow he wasn’t convinced by this display of maidenly modesty.

“Yes, all of them,” he affirmed evenly. “I doubt even you will take off from the far bank stark naked.”

“What makes you think I could swim that far?” Her eyes widened in innocent inquiry. “It must be a good half mile with a strong undertow. I’m not that good a swimmer.”

“You’ll have to forgive me if I choose not to believe that,” he responded as evenly as before. “If you wish to bathe, then you must do so in your skin. Otherwise, perhaps you would do what you have to behind the rocks and we can return to the camp.”

Chagrin darted over her face. A mere fleeting expression, but he saw it and knew he’d been right. La Violette had had some thoughts of escape.

Tamsyn turned away from him and unfastened her shirt. Damn the man for being such a perspicacious bastard. It would have been simplicity itself to swim to the opposite shore, and she wouldn’t have had far to go before she found help from some peasant farmer. But tramping the countryside in a soaked shirt and drawers was one thing. In her bare skin was a different matter altogether.

Her mind raced over alternatives, her eyes skimming across the riverbank, looking for anything helpful. The terrain was relatively flat and mossy, and she could run
like the wind if she had a decent start. A hundred yards away the ground rose toward a small hill crowned with a tangle of bushes and undergrowth. If she could reach there, she could go to ground like a fox before the hounds. No English soldier would be able to find La Violette on her own territory.

She dropped the shirt to the ground, loosened the string at the waist of her drawers, and kicked them off. St. Simon had been correct in assuming his prisoner was a stranger to modesty unless it suited her purposes to feign it. She was no convent-reared hidalgo maiden and had grown up in the rough-and-tumble of a bandit encampment, where she’d made an early acquaintance with the facts of life. Besides, at this moment she was far too occupied with the glimmer of a plan to give a moment’s thought to the colonel’s eyes on her body.

Gathering up her discarded garments, she folded them with care and placed them on the ground close to the rock. It was a tidy little gesture that struck St. Simon as a trifle incongruous. But before he could work out why it should trouble him, she turned to face him, her feet slightly apart, arms akimbo, naked except for an intricately worked silver locket on a slender chain.

“Satisfied, Colonel?”

For a moment he ignored the double-edged question that threw a contemptuous challenge. His eyes ran down the lean, taut body that seemed to thrum with energy. He realized that the illusion of fragility came from her diminutive stature; unclothed, she had the compact, smooth-muscled body of an athlete, limber and arrow straight. His gaze lingered on the small, pointed breasts, the slight flare of her hips, the tangle of pale hair at the base of her belly.

It was the most desirable little body. His breath
quickened, and his nostrils flared as he fought down the torrent of arousal. He must be losing his mind, to have put himself in this situation. Why the hell had he even considered allowing her to bathe in the river? But he had and it was too late now.

Emotions under control again, he raised his eyes to her face and saw with a certain grim satisfaction that his scrutiny had discomfited her. There was less certainty in her challenging stance, and her eyes slid away from his. It was some recompense for his own unbidden response.

“Perfectly,” he drawled. “I find myself perfectly satisfied.”

Anger chased discomfiture from her expression, and she took a step forward so that for a second he thought she was going to strike him again. If she did, she would regret it.