Jane Feather - Violet

“As long as there's some profit in it for you, as I understand it,” he said, his voice a whip crack in the dim hovel. “Don't pretend to patriotic loyalty. We all know where La Violette's interests lie.”

“And just what business is it of yours?” she demanded furiously, forgetting- her hunger and fatigue. “I've done you no harm. I don't interfere with the English army. You trample all over my country, behaving like God-given conquering heroes. All complacence and pomposity-”

“Hold your tongue, you!” The colonel was on his feet, his eyes blazing. “The blood of Englishmen has watered this damnable peninsula for four interminable years, doing the work of your countrymen, trying to save you and your country from Napoleon's heel. I have lost more friends than I can count in the interests of your miserable land, and you speak against those men at your peril. Do you understand that?”

He towered over her, and Tamsyn tried not to flinch.

Suddenly he swooped down on her, his hand catching her chin, turning her face to the flickering lamplight. “Do you understand?” His voice was very quiet, but his fury was a naked blade in the bright-blue eyes, his close- gripped mouth a hard line.

“The English have their own reasons for being here, she retorted, forcing herself to meet his eye. “ England couldn't survive if Napoleon held Spain and Portugal. He'd close their ports to English trading, and you'd all starve to death.”

They both knew she spoke the unvarnished truth.

There was silence. He still held her face, his own very close to hers, and she could feel the bruising indentation of his fingers on her chin and the warmth of his skin. He seemed to fill her vision, to expand before her eyes until he was all she could see, and their miserable surroundings, even the dull spurt of firelight, vanished into the shadows.

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. “Bastard!” 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 siege workings 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.

TAMSYN AWOKE AFTER TWO HOURS. AS 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 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 right 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.