Margaret McPhee - A Regency Captain's Prize

‘Immediately, Lieutenant.’ Dammartin’s voice was harsh.

The Lieutenant turned and hurried away, leaving Josie and his captain silhouetted against the brilliance of the setting sun.

‘I have tolerated your games long enough, Mademoiselle Mallington.’ The colours in the sky reflected upon his hair, casting a rich warmth to its darkness. The wind rippled through it making it appear soft and feathery. It stood in stark contrast to the expression in his eyes.

All sense of tranquillity shattered, destroyed in a single sentence by Dammartin.

‘Games? I have no idea of what you speak, sir.’ Her tone was quite as cold as his.

‘Come, mademoiselle ,’ he said. ‘Do not play the innocent with me. You have been courting the attention of my lieutenant these days past. He is not a lap-dog to dance upon your every whim. You are a prisoner of the 8th Dragoons. You would do well to remember that.’

Shock caused Josie’s jaw to gape. Her eyes grew wide and round. It was the final straw as far as she was concerned. He had kissed her, kissed her with violence and passion and tenderness, and she, to a shame that would never be forgotten, had kissed him back—this man who was her enemy and who looked at her with such stony hostility. And she thought of the blaze in his eyes at the mention of her father’s name. He had destroyed everything that she loved, and now he had destroyed the little transient peace. In that moment she knew that she could not trust herself to stay lest she flew at him with all the rage that was in her heart.

‘Must you always be so unpleasant?’ She turned her face from his, hating him for everything, and made to walk right past him.

‘Wait.’ He barked it as an order. ‘Not so fast, mademoiselle . I have not yet finished.’

She cast him a disparaging look. ‘Well, sir, I have.’ And walked right past him.

A hand shot out, and fastened around her right arm. ‘I do not think so, mademoiselle .’

She did not fight against him. She had already learned the folly of that. ‘What do you mean to do this time?’ she said. ‘Beat me?’

‘I have never struck a woman in my life.’

‘Force your kiss upon me again?’ she demanded in a voice so cold he would have been proud to own it himself.

Their gazes met and held.

‘I do not think that so very much force would be required, mademoiselle ,’ he said quietly.

She felt the heat stain her cheeks at his words, and she wanted to call him for the devil he was, and her palm itched to hit him hard across his arrogant face.

His grip loosened and fell away.

She stepped back and faced him squarely. ‘Well, Captain, what is of such importance that you must hold me here to say it?’

‘What were you doing up here?’

‘Surely that was plain to see?’

His eyes narrowed in disgust and he gave a slight shake of his head as if he could not quite believe her. ‘You are brazen in the extreme, Mademoiselle Mallington. Tell me, are all English women so free with their favours?’

Josie felt the sudden warmth flood her cheeks at his implication. ‘How dare you?’

‘Very easily, given your behaviour.’

‘You are the most insolent and despicable of men!’

‘We have already established that.’

‘Lieutenant Molyneux and I were watching the sun set, nothing more!’ Beneath the thick wool of her cloak her breast rose and fell with escalating righteous indignation.

‘Huddled together like two lovers,’ he said.

‘Never!’ she cried.

Anger spurred an energy to muscles that had not half an hour since been heavy and spent from the day’s ride. All of Josie’s fury and frustration came together in that minute and something inside her snapped.

‘Why must you despise me so much?’ she yelled.

‘It is not you whom I despise,’ he said quietly.

‘But my father,’ she finished for him. ‘You killed him and you are glad of it.’

‘I am.’ And all of the brooding menace was there again in his eyes.

‘Why? What did my father ever do to you, save defend his life and the lives of his men?’

He looked into the girl’s eyes, the same clear blue eyes that had looked out from Lieutenant Colonel Mallington’s face as he lay dying, and said quietly. ‘Your father was a villain and a scoundrel.’

‘No!’ The denial was swift and sore.

‘You do not know?’ For the first time it struck him that perhaps she was ignorant of the truth, that she really thought her father a wondrous hero.

‘No,’ she said again, more quietly.

All that was raw and bloody and aching deep within Dammartin urged him to tell her. And it seemed if he could destroy this last falsehood the Lieutenant Colonel had woven, if he could let his daughter know the truth of the man, then perhaps he, Dammartin, would be free. Yet still he hesitated. Indeed, even then, he would not have told her. It was Mademoiselle Mallington herself with her very next words that settled the matter.

‘Tell me, Captain Dammartin, for I would know this grudge that you hold against my father.’

The devil sowed temptation, and Pierre Dammartin could no longer resist the harvest. ‘You ask, mademoiselle , and so I will answer.’

Dammartin’s gaze did not falter. He looked directly into Josephine Mallington’s eyes, and he told her.

‘My father was a prisoner of the famous Lieutenant Colonel Mallington after the Battle of Oporto last year. Mallington gave him his parole, let him think he was being released. He never made it a mile outside the British camp before he was murdered by your father’s own hand. So, mademoiselle , now you have the answer to your question, and I will warrant that you do not like it.’

She shook her head, incredulity creasing her face. ‘You are lying!’

‘I swear on my father’s memory, that it is the truth. It is not an oath that I take lightly.’

‘It cannot be true. It is not possible.’

‘I assure you that it is.’

‘My father would never do such a thing. He was a man to whom honour was everything.’

‘Were you there, mademoiselle , at Oporto?’ The question he had been so longing to ask of her. ‘In May of last year?’

She shook her head. ‘My father sent me back to England in April.’

He felt the stab of disappointment. ‘Then you really do not know the truth of what your father did.’

‘My father was a good and decent man. He would never have killed a paroled officer.’

‘You are mistaken, mademoiselle .’

‘Never!’ she cried. ‘I tell you, he would not!’

He moved back slowly, seeing the hurt and disbelief well in her face, knowing that he had put it there. He said no more. He did not need to. The pain in her eyes smote him so hard that he caught his breath.

‘What do you seek with such lies? To break me? To make me answer your wretched questions?’

And something in her voice made him want to catch back every word and stuff them back deep within him.

She walked past him, her small figure striding across the ragged hilltop in the little light that remained, and as the last of the sky was swallowed up in darkness Pierre Dammartin knew finally that there was no relief to be found in revenge. The pain that had gnawed at him since learning the truth of his father’s unworthy death was no better. If anything, it hurt worse than ever, and he knew that he had been wrong to tell her.

He stood alone on the hill in the darkness and listened to the quiet burr of the camp below and the steady beat of a sore and jealous heart.

Chapter Six

Josie avoided both Lieutenant Molyneux and Sergeant Lamont and headed straight for her tent. The smell of dinner filled the air, but Josie was not hungry. Indeed, her stomach tightened against the thought of eating. She sat in the darkness and thought of what Captain Dammartin had said, thought of the absurdity of his accusation and the certainty of his conviction. His words whirled round in her head until she thought it would explode. He never made it a mile outside the camp before he was murdered by your father’s own hand . She squeezed her eyes shut. Not Papa, not her own dear papa. He would not murder a man in cold blood.