Vermillion (The Hundred Days Series Book 1) (7 page)

Maybe they had a chance after all.
“Now we have a place to hide, but can we get out?” asked Kate.

Chuckling, Porter stood up,
extending himself above the entrance all the way to his armpits. “We can get
out.”

*          *          *

“Private Taylor.” Matthew
acknowledged the boy's salute, glancing around the surgery for any sign of
Kate. “Faring well under your new commander?”

He had sent the wounded soldier to
Miss Foster on light duty after Mister Astley had turned his nose up at the
idea of unskilled help. She thought he did not check in, but a general had ways
of gathering intelligence that did not include personal visits. Kate had
snapped up Private Taylor, and rather than use him to fetch and carry, had
begun to instruct him in the basic care of his fellow soldiers. His esteem for
her had raised a good measure at the information.

Taylor colored at the mention of
Kate, ducking blue eyes toward the floor, raking over thick brown bangs with
the shyness of a sheltered Yorkshire boy. “Good enough, sir. You ain't as
strict as her, though.” His tone communicated that if Miss Foster truly were
more demanding, he did not particularly mind.

“And not half as pretty, I wager.”
Matthew tossed a cautionary glance over his shoulder, making certain they were
alone. “Miss Foster says you're a tolerably decent pair of hands.”

Taylor bent his eyes even lower if
that was possible, toeing the floor with his good leg. “That’s kind sir. I
don't mind it, for now.”

“For now?”

For the first time Taylor met his
eyes directly, with a spirited lift to his chin. “This is lady's work, yeah? I
come down to fight, and when I'm well enough, I will, sir.”

It had been a long time since
Matthew thought back to the young colonel who left Portsmouth for India,
scrappy as a tomcat. That boy had sounded no different than Taylor did now. He
fought back a smile, eyeing Taylor's heavily splinted leg and wondering how it
boded for his future.

Matthew looked him in the eye.
“Fifty kinds of men can shoot a musket from a hundred yards, private. I can
walk you through this garrison and point them out, to a man. There is only one
sort capable of filling your shoes, looking his fellow in the eye and hacking
off his leg. Most of us could not do it.” He shrugged. “
I
could not.”

Taylor shift uncomfortably to his
good leg, and Matthew pressed on. “The regiment will have you back in an
instant, but if you chose to stay on with Miss Foster there is no shame in it.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Taylor,
seeming to consider his general's words.

Recalling his true reason for
coming, Matthew glanced around again. “Has Miss Foster returned yet?”

“I can't rightly say, sir. This is
my usual shift. Teaching is in the evenings. Can't be long. Miss Foster said she
was only going out for a bit.”

“Going out. Out of the garrison?” He
blinked as if that could help him absorb the information.

“That's how I took her meaning,
sir.”

Why hadn't it occurred to him to be
concerned before now? Miss Foster was not an inconspicuous figure. The second
time he had checked the camp without result, he should have asked more
questions. Had she gone alone? What direction had she traveled? He leveled a
scowl at Taylor without meaning to. “If she returns, you send her to my command
post immediately.”

“Sir.” Taylor thumbed a quick
salute.

He consigned her to the fires of
Hades as he trudged along the rough timber wall bordering the south escarpment.
How long had Miss Foster served with His Majesty's army? No one should pass
through the gate without informing the sentry where they were going and when
they would return. Not because anyone with authority enjoyed dissecting the
movement of their subordinates. It was so that when someone did go missing, a
timely effort was made to recover him before it was too late.

A good damn reason, he fumed,
weaving between a row of tents. One that a woman who spent so much time bucking
the rules would not appreciate. He took a perverse pleasure in stomping the mud
up the main camp road, venting his frustration all the way to the supply yard.
It was a collection of holey tents and a single scrap-wood shack, but they
formed an area colloquially known within the garrison as 'Campbell's Kingdom'.

There was no higher lord and master
over camp provisions than John Campbell. Steely eyes considered Matthew with a
gruff squint under scraggly red brows. The Scotsman stood at his approach, but
with muted deference and only half way, as though his chair were giving him a
sore back. “General.”

“Mister Campbell. Can you point me
in Miss Foster's direction? I was told she may have gone out.”

Campbell's grimace etched deeper
into his face at the mention of her name, as though afraid Matthew would
conjure her. “That she did, at the noon bell. Asked for a horse to boot.”

Matthew yanked at his watch fob. It
was nearly a quarter past four. “Did you requisition her an animal?”

“I did not!” Campbell laced arms
across his chest, pencils raising like spears from his brown waistcoat pocket.
“Sent her off on a nag no' worth the expense of a lead ball. Village horse.”

“Did you ask where to?”

“I know better 'an that.” Campbell's
chin raised a fraction.

“Think to warn her what might
happen, outside the garrison?” he asked.

Campbell slouched and sighed.
“General, ye've only just returned to command 'ere, an' perhaps you do na'
know, but the lass has been with this army plenty long. Askin' if I warned her
o' trouble is tha' same as me tellin' you the color of the sky. You already
ken, and you dunna' care.”

Matthew sighed, his ire cooling.
“She does not listen to you either, I take it.”

Pursing lips, Campbell shook his
head. “With the ears o' a dead man.”

He took no comfort in their
solidarity. “When she returns, send her my way.” It had become an
all-too-common order. Soon half the garrison would be jumping to shoo her
along.

He made for his quarters, not
entirely certain what he intended to do when he got there. There was never so
much interference as when he needed to be somewhere. A supply wagon stuck
nearly to the axles blocked his route, wedged between a barricade and a defiant
patch of matted grass that tore rather than offer the fractious horses any
traction. Every platoon marching back from drill or patrol seemed determined to
pass him by, filling the road and insisting solely by its presence on receiving
from him a pause and a salute.

He was nearing the command post when
a commotion broke out at the gate. Loping down the short grassy hill between
the tent and the courtyard, he reached the entrance just in time to see a
soldier leading in the very animal which Campbell had described.

A riderless animal.

Ty materialized on the other side of
the crowd, probably drawn by the disturbance, waving a hand and weaving between
the men. “I was just at your tent,” he said, out of breath. “McKinnon said Kate
is missing outside the garrison. What has happened?”

Something sparked in his gut, an
instinctive reaction to the smooth, familiar way in which Ty said 'Kate'. If he
did not know himself better, the feeling could almost be mistaken for jealousy.

Matthew pointed to the horse while a
soldier brushed a hand across her flank, coming away with a bloody palm.

“Just grazed, sir. She'll be
alright.”

His breath wouldn't come. His gut
lurched. Major Burrell traded him a desperate glance. Matthew pressed a palm to
his eyes, feeling very tired for midday. “Whatever has happened, it cannot be
good. Assemble a patrol, and send me word the moment they are prepared to
move.” He had no idea where they were going, or how far, but he needed
something to do.

“Horse?” asked Ty.

“And rifles.”

Ty's salute was curt, and then he
was gone, barking orders on a determined path towards the officers' quarters.

In his tent, Matthew was incapable
of being still. He paced between his cot and the door, then fell into or came
up from his chair repeatedly. He made a note in the margin of his thoughts to
speak sternly with his officers about how long it took to muster a damned
patrol.

Massaging a stiff jaw, he shifted
restlessly, staring toward the back of the tent. It was there. He never really
forgot about it. Matthew got up and rearranged his stack of belongings. He
tossed a spare pair of boots, two blankets, and a small crate of books into a
heap on the floor. Hesitating, his hand stopped just short of the small case,
fingers resting on the wide leather strap. It slipped free of its iron buckle
with seductive ease, lid falling open with the invitation of a lover.

A half bottle of amber liquid
sloshed gently, and a faint hint of peat and smoke teased his nostrils from the
green velvet lining. He pinched the rim of a silver jigger carved with
intricate knot-work, pulling it from a tailor-made slot.

It had been so long. Matthew
expected the cork to give him trouble, to be stuck entirely. If it offered the
slightest resistance, he would have the willpower to put the scotch away.
Instead, it was easy, the stopper pulling free with an inviting pop.

“Matthew, the patrol is set to
move.” Ty's voice from behind was a fist, striking Matthew in the gut. He
slammed the cork back into the neck, dropping the bottle as if scorched.

If Ty had witnessed his temptation,
he showed no sign. “Would you like us to set out now?”

“Once Bremen is saddled, we can
leave.”
            “You're not serious.”

He had fully expected Ty's protest.
The major would not be doing his job if he failed to object. As a general, that
did not obligate him to listen. “I am completely serious.”

“May I ask why?”

He suspected they both knew why.
“Because it is my prerogative.” Matthew turned his back, inviting silence and
nothing else. He was not ready to admit, even to Ty, that he was panicked.

*          *          *

They called to one another, from the
trees at the mouth of the clearing, if she had to guess. The soldiers had seen
her horse, and there was no chance they would miss signs that someone had
recently been near the farmhouse. Their only hope now was to huddle in the dark
corner of the cellar and pray they went unnoticed.

Kate pressed her shoulder against
Porter's, clutching stiff fingers along the edge of a shattered board. The
French soldiers might overwhelm them, but Kate intended to leave as many as
possible with throbbing regret directly between their eyes.

Footfalls rattled the floorboards
overhead, shaking grit and sand into her hair. She glanced to Porter, who
smiled reassuringly and pressed a finger to his lips. Kate squeezed the board
tighter.

Something clattered to the floor
above where they sat. “Voici un pot pour pisser!”

A second man laughed. “Oui.”

Fading steps signaled their retreat.
Kate exhaled, head falling against Porter's arm. Somehow they had escaped
notice.

The doorway overhead went dark,
sunlight interrupted without warning. Two soldiers melded into a conjoined
silhouette, squinting into the cellar. They must have had their suspicions;
their approach to the door had been soundless.

Porter slowly rotated the musket's
stock into his left hand, grasping the barrel with his right. Not to shoot, she
realized.
To strike
. Thanks to the afternoon sun's low angle, the cellar
was filled with shadow and the Frenchmen were too day-blind to see inside.

The first man swung his legs in.
Boots struck the dirt at almost the same moment Porter drew back, driving the
musket butt into his face. There was a meaty crack and the man crumpled prone
at her feet.

She raised the makeshift club over her
shoulder, ready for the second soldier who was already dropping over the
threshold.

He stumbled, landing tangled in the
legs of his companion. This oath Kate understood perfectly:
What in the
hell?

Porter shoved past her, jabbing the
breath from their adversary with a sharp thrust. The man rolled forward to his
knees and hands flailed inside his coat. A pistol, a knife – whatever it was,
he failed to produce it before she connected a blow to his skull. Her teeth
rattled at the impact, splinters biting the tight flesh of her palm. The
soldier fell on top of his companion and was still.

Tipping his musket carefully against
the wall, Porter grabbed one man's ankles, nodding to the other. “Quick now,
into the corner.”

Resting her board beside the musket,
Kate grabbed fistfuls of the Frenchman's blue coat, pulling with strength borne
of a primitive instinct for survival. His body grated over the dirt, boot heels
scraping loudly enough that Kate wondered how no else came running at the
noise.

They crouched, catching their
breath, waiting. It did not take long.

A shadow passed the entrance, then
doubled back. “Henri...Etien?”

Kate wanted to be sick. She forced
the air to come more slowly through her nostrils. Porter crouched just outside
the border of sunlight, musket again in-hand.

The soldier got down on his hands
and knees when Henri and Etien did not answer, leaning in to get a better look.
Porter's arm hooked him around the neck, throwing him to the hard-packed floor.

The drop winded him, but not enough.
Before she completed her swing, he yanked out a pistol, fixing her in his
sights with shaking hands.

She froze. Porter froze. The
newcomer could not readily pull the trigger without risking being shot himself
and Porter was not going to shoot either, knowing it would bring the last
soldiers running.

That did not mean the fight was
over, Kate decided. She struck out with a foot, catching his stout shin. He
answered by driving his pistol-butt up into her cheek. Light exploded behind
her eyes. The bite of torn flesh radiated to a throbbing along her jaw, blood
tickling a path to her chin.