A Regency Captain's Prize. Margaret McPhee

like so many young men who had served beneath her father. His eyes were clear and honest and he seemed every bit the gentleman that Dammartin was not.

      When the dragoons stopped to rest and eat, Molyneux sent a boy to fetch them bread and cheese, and then sat beside her on a boulder while they ate together.

      ‘You are kind to me, Lieutenant,’ she said, thinking of how much Molyneux contrasted with his captain.

      ‘Why should I not be kind? You are a lady, alone, in a difficult situation.’

      She raised her gaze to his. ‘I am a prisoner.’

      Molyneux’s lips curved in a small half-smile but there was a sadness in his eyes. ‘I believe that prisoners should be well treated.’

      ‘I do, too, as did my father.’

      He gave no reply, but a strange expression stole upon his face.

      ‘It seems that Captain Dammartin does not share our opinion, sir.’

      ‘The Captain, he has his reasons, mademoiselle.’ Molyneux glanced away.

      ‘What reason could he possibly have to act as he has done?’ she demanded, feeling nettled just at the thought of Dammartin. ‘There is nothing that could excuse that man’s behaviour.’

      Molyneux’s eyes returned to hers and she saw something of astonishment and pity in them. ‘You truly do not know.’

      ‘Know?’ She felt the prickling of suspicion. ‘What is it that I should know?’

      Molyneux’s gaze held hers for a moment longer than it should, then he turned away and got to his feet. ‘Come, mademoiselle, we should make ready to ride again.’

      ‘Lieutenant—’

      ‘Come,’ he said again, and did not meet her eyes.

      And when they resumed the journey, Molyneux was quiet, leaving Josie to wonder as to exactly what the Lieutenant had meant.

      Dammartin rode at the head of the 8th Dragoons crossing the bleak terrain before them, but it was not the harshness of the Portuguese countryside of which he was thinking, nor the perils of the mission in which they were engaged. Something else entirely filled Dammartin’s mind—Josephine Mallington.

      A vision of her standing there in his tent that morning, her clothing stripped aside to reveal her naked skin, so smooth and white and inviting that he longed to reach out and touch its silky surface. The slender column of her throat with the gold chain that hung around it, leading his eye down in invitation over a skin so pale and perfect, to the swell of her breasts.

      He had seen them, just a glimpse, firm and thrusting and rosy-tipped, before his view was partly obscured. That slim arm crushing hard against them in a bid to hide herself from him, and in truth, serving only to tantalise even more in what it revealed. He could have traced his fingers over the bulging swell of that smooth white flesh, slipping them down behind the barrier of her arm to cup her breasts in his hands. To feel her nipples harden beneath his palm, to taste what he touched, taking her in his mouth, laving those rosy tips with his tongue…

      Dammartin caught his train of thought and stopped it dead. Hell, but she was Mallington’s daughter. The one woman who should repulse him above all others, and all he could think of was her naked, and the sight of her soft lips, and the feel of her beneath him as they perched upon that rock face. He was already hard at the thought of her, uncomfortably so. And that knowledge made him damnably angry with Mademoiselle Mallington, and even more so with himself.

      Hour after hour of a ride in which he should have been alert, aware, focused on his duty, spent distracted by Mallington’s daughter. Well, no more of it, he determined. Dammartin hardened his resolve. He was here to safeguard Foy’s journey to Ciudad Rodrigo—and that is what he would do. He could not refuse the order to take Mademoiselle Mallington with him to the Spanish city, and so he would take her there as he must.

      And he thought again that Mallington was dead and all of his questions regarding Major Jean Dammartin’s death were destined to remain unanswered for ever.

      His mind flicked again to Josephine Mallington and the fact that her father had brought her with him into these hills, and her knowledge of the messengers and of Dammartin’s own destination—a girl very much in her father’s confidence. Had she been there at the Battle of Oporto, just over eighteen months ago? He felt his lip curl at the thought that she might have witnessed his father’s murder, and his heart was filled once more with the cold steel of revenge. There would be no more distractions; Dammartin would have his answers.

      Lieutenant Molyneux’s pensive mood allowed Josie time to think. She spent much time pondering the Lieutenant’s strange remarks, but came no nearer to fathoming of what he had been speaking. There was definitely something that she did not know, something to do with Dammartin and the hatred that he nursed.

      Her eyes followed ahead to where the French Captain rode, and she thought how she had caught him looking at her several times that day with an expression of such intensity as to almost be hunger. He was not looking at her now.

      She remembered his face from this morning when he had strode so boldly into her tent, his tent. The hours spent with Molyneux had mellowed Josie’s anger and indignation. There had been an initial shock in Dammartin’s eyes before they had darkened to a dangerous smoulder. The camp had been disbanding and she had overslept. And it had all happened so quickly that she doubted he could have seen very much at all.

      She thought of the long, cold hours of the night when he had given her his greatcoat, and she wondered as to that small kindness. Josie had heard the stories of what French soldiers inflicted upon the towns that they took and the people who went against them. She knew of the interrogations, and the torture…and the rape. That she was an innocent did not stop her from knowing what enemy soldiers did to women. Within the Fifth Battalion of the 60th Regiment of Foot gossip reached the Lieutenant Colonel’s daughter just the same as it reached everyone else. Yet for all the dislike in his eyes, Dammartin had not touched her, nor allowed his men to do so. He had not beaten her, he had not starved her when he could so easily have done so. She knew all of these things, yet whenever Dammartin looked at her, she could not prevent the somersaults of apprehension in her stomach, or the sudden hurry of her heart.

      They broke for camp in the late afternoon, before the light of day was lost. Fundao—another day’s march closer to General Foy fulfilling his mission, another day’s march between Josie and the British lines.

      Molyneux stood some distance away, talking with Sergeant Lamont, but the Lieutenant was careful to keep Josie within his sight.

      Josie sat on her portmanteau, watching while the tents were erected, wondering how fast Molyneux could move if she were to make a run for it. She could not imagine him with the same harsh rugged determination of his captain.

      There was something single-minded and ruthless about Dammartin, something driven. And she thought of the deadly earnest of his warning, and knew that even if Molyneux did not catch her, Dammartin most certainly would. Her eyes closed, trying to stifle the intensity of the memory. Dammartin was not a man to make promises lightly.

      ‘Mademoiselle Mallington.’

      The sound of his voice behind her made her jump. She rose swiftly to her feet and turned to face him. ‘Captain Dammartin.’

      He instructed a young trooper to carry her portmanteau to his tent. Everything about him was masculine and powerful. His expression was closed, his dark brows hooding eyes that were as hard as granite and just as cold.

      ‘You will sleep in my tent tonight—alone.’

      Alone? She felt the surprise lighten her face and relief leap within her. ‘Thank you,’ she said, wondering if she really did have the measure of Dammartin. She did not dare to ask him where he would be spending the night.

      He continued as if she had not spoken. ‘There will be a guard posted outside all of the night, so do not think to try to escape, mademoiselle. I trust you