A Regency Captain's Prize: The Captain's Forbidden Miss / His Mask of Retribution. Margaret McPhee

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СКАЧАТЬ for you have brought it upon yourself, mademoiselle, with your most foolish behaviour.’ He lowered his face towards hers until their noses were almost touching, so close that they might have been lovers.

      He heard the slight raggedness of her breathing, saw the rapid rise and fall of her breast, and the way that the colour washed from her cheeks as she stared back at him, her eyes wide with alarm.

      The silence stretched between them as the soft warmth of her breath whispered against his lips like a kiss. His mouth parted in anticipation, and for one absurd moment he almost kissed her, almost, but then he remembered that she was Mallington’s daughter, and just precisely what Lieutenant Colonel Mallington had done, and all of the misery and all of the wrathful injustice was back.

      His heart hardened.

      When finally he spoke his voice was low and filled with harsh promise. ‘Do not seek to escape me again, Mademoiselle Mallington. If you try, your punishment shall be in earnest. Do you understand me?’

      She gave a single nod of her head; as Dammartin released his grip, she stumbled back, grabbing hold of the chair back, where his jacket hung, to steady herself.

      He turned brusquely away, pulling two blankets and a pillow from the bed and dropping them on to the ground sheet beside the bed. ‘Make yourself a bed. We leave early tomorrow and must sleep.’

      She just stood there, by the table, looking at him, her face pale and wary.

      He did not look at her, just sat down on the bed and removed his boots.

      And still she stood there, until at last his gaze again met hers.

      ‘Make up your bed, unless you have a wish to share mine, mademoiselle.’

      An expression of shock crossed her face and she hurriedly did as she was bid, extinguishing the lantern before climbing beneath the blankets on the groundsheet.

      Dammartin did not sleep, and neither did the girl. The sound of her breathing told him that she lay as awake as he, so close to his bed that he might have reached his arm down and touched her. The wind buffeted at the canvas of the tent, but apart from that everything was silent.

      He did not know how long he lay listening, aware of her through the darkness, turning one way and then the next as if she could find no comfort on the hardness of the ground. He rolled over, conscious of the relative softness of his own mattress, and felt the first prickle of conscience.

      Goddamn it, she was his prisoner, he thought, and he’d be damned if he’d give his bed up for Mallington’s daughter. Just as he was thinking this, he heard her soft movements across the tent, and with a reflex honed by years of training, reached out through the darkness to grab at her dress.

      He felt her start, heard her gasp loud in the deadness of the night.

      ‘Mademoiselle Mallington,’ he said quietly, ‘do you disregard my warning so readily?’

      ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘I seek only my cloak. The night is cold. I am not trying to escape.

      Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, he sat up, guiding her back towards him, turning her in the blackness and tracing his hands lightly around her, like a blindman, until he found her hands. Even through the wool of her dress he could feel that she was chilled. Her fingers were cold beneath his before she pulled away from his touch.

      ‘Go back to your bed, mademoiselle,’ he said curtly.

      ‘But my cloak…’

      ‘Forget your cloak, you shall not find it in this darkness.’

      ‘But—’

      ‘Mademoiselle,’ he said more harshly.

      He heard the breath catch in her throat as if she would have given him some retort, but she said nothing, only climbed beneath the blankets that he had given her earlier that night.

      Dammartin swept his greatcoat from where it lay over his bed, and covered the girl with it.

      ‘Captain Dammartin…’ He could hear her surprise.

      ‘Go to sleep,’ he said gruffly.

      ‘Thank you,’ came the soft reply.

      He turned over and pulled the blanket higher, knowing himself for a fool and slipping all the more easily into the comfort of sleep because of it.

      Josie awoke to the seep of thin grey daylight through the canvas overhead. Sleep still fuddled her mind and she smiled, burrowing deeper beneath the cosiness of the covers, thinking that her father would tease her for her tardiness. Voices sounded outside, French male, and reality came rushing back in, exploding all of her warm contentment: Telemos, her father’s death, Dammartin. Clutching the blankets to her chest she sat up, glancing round apprehensively.

      The bed in which Dammartin had slept lay empty; she was alone in the tent. The breath that Josie had been holding released, relief flowed through her. She got to her feet, her head woolly and thick from her lack of sleep.

      How may hours had she lain awake listening to the French Captain’s breathing, hearing it slow and become more rhythmic as he found sleep? For how many hours had the thoughts raced through her head? Memories of her father and of Telemos. She had spoken the truth; the night was black and most of the fires would be dead; she had no torch, and she did not doubt that there would be sentries guarding the camp. Her chance of escape had been lost. He would watch her more carefully now.

      A shudder ran through her as she remembered how he had held her last night, his face so close to hers that the air she breathed had been warmed by his lungs. His dark penetrating gaze locked on to hers so that she could not look away. For a moment, just one tiny moment, she had thought that he meant to kiss her, before she saw the pain and bitterness in his eyes. And she blushed that she could have thought such a ridiculous notion. Of course he did not want to kiss her, he hated her, just as she hated him. There was no mistaking that. He hated her, yet he would not let her go.

      I do not lose prisoners, he had said. And she had the awful realisation that he meant to take her all the way to Ciudad Rodrigo—far away from Torres Vedras, and Lisbon and the British—and in the miles between lay the prospect of interrogation.

      Her eye caught the thick grey greatcoat, still lying where he had placed it last night, on top of her blankets. When she looked at the bed again, she saw its single woollen cover. The chill in the air nipped at her, and she knew that the night had been colder. She stared at the bed, not understanding why a man so very menacing, so very dangerous, who loathed her very existence, had given her his covers.

      More voices, men walking by outside.

      She glanced down at the muddy smears marking her crumpled dress, and her dirty hands and ragged nails—souvenirs of the rock face and her failed escape.

      She was British, she reminded herself, and she would not allow the enemy to bring her down in such a way. So she smoothed the worst of her bed-mussed hair, and peeped out of the tent flap. Molyneux lingered not so very far away. He was kind; he spoke English…and he came when she beckoned him. It seemed that the Lieutenant was only too happy to fetch her a basin of water.

      ‘I apologise, mademoiselle, for the coldness of the water, but there is no time СКАЧАТЬ