Violet

Chapter Six

WHERE S OUR GUEST, JULIAN? THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF asked as the colonel entered his apartments before dinner that evening.

“I've sent Sanderson to escort her here,” Julian said, nodding a greeting to the five men, all members of the commander in chief’s staff, gathered to join Wellington for dinner.

“So what d'you think of her, Julian?” Major Carson handed him a glass of sherry. “We're all agog.”

“I wouldn't trust her any farther than I can throw her,” St. Simon stated flatly.

“Considering what a tiny little thing she is, that would be quite a distance.” Wellington laughed at his own witticism, the sound remarkably like the neighing of a horse.

Julian's smile was dour. “You fell for that little act she put on this afternoon.”

“Act?” Wellington raised an eyebrow.

“Trembling and swaying and tottering all over the place. She was exhausted, I grant you that. I don't suppose she's had more than a few hours' sleep in the last five days, and that mostly in the saddle, but swooning… La Violette… pull the other one.” He took a disgusted gulp of his sherry.

“You don't like the lady, Julian?” Brigadier Cornwallis said with a grin.

“No, I dislike her intensely. And I have to tell you, Cornwallis, that 'lady' is a vast misnomer. She's a duplicitous, mercenary, untrustworthy vagabond.”

There was an instant of silence at this brief but comprehensive denunciation; then Colonel Webster said, “Ah, well, Julian, you never did take kindly to being outsmarted.”

You don't know the half of it. But Julian contented himself with another dour smile and said, “Not to mention being dragooned into charging across the country side to remove Cornichet's epaulets.”

“What?” There was a chorus of exclamations, and the colonel obliged with a brief narrative that had everyone but himself chuckling.

“Uh… excuse me, sir.” Lieutenant Sanderson appeared in the doorway.

“Well?” Wellington regarded him with a touch of irritability. It was clear the brigade-major was alone.

“La Violette, sir, she-”

“She's not run off?” Julian interrupted, snapping his glass down on the table.

“Oh, no, Colonel. But she's asleep, sir, and Senhora Braganza couldn't awaken her.”

“Perhaps we should let her sleep, then,” Wellington suggested.

“Oh, she's not asleep,” Julian stated. “It's one of her tricks. I'll have her here in fifteen minutes.” With that he strode from the room.

“Well, well,” murmured Colonel Webster. “I can't wait to meet our guest. She seems to exercise a most powerful effect on St. Simon.”

“Yes,” agreed the commander in chief, frowning thoughtfully. “She does, doesn't she?”

Senhora Braganza greeted the irate colonel's arrival with a voluble flood of Portuguese and much hand waving. Julian, who had a smattering of her language and relatively fluent Spanish, divined that the “poor child” was sleeping like a baby and it would be a crime to awaken her. The partisans could do no wrong among the local populations of Portugal and Spain, and it rather seemed as if the widow was prepared to do battle to protect the sleeping one upstairs.

Julian was obliged to move her bodily aside as she defended the bottom of the stairs. He went up them two at a time with the senhora berating him on his heels. He flung open the door to the small chamber under the eaves and then stopped, something holding him back.

Moonlight from the single round window fell on the narrow cot where Violette lay. She slept on her back, her hands resting on the pillow on either side 'of her head, palms curled like a sleeping child's.

Julian closed the door in the face of the still wailing widow and crossed soft-footed to the cot, where he stood looking down at her. Her face in repose had a youthful innocence that startled him. The dark, thick lashed crescent of her eyelashes lay against the high cheekbones, the smooth, suntanned skin stretched taut across the bones. But sleep softened neither the firm line of her mouth nor the determined set of her jaw.

“Tamsyn?” He spoke her given name softly, unaware that it was the first time he'd used it.

She stirred, her eyelashes fluttered, a soft murmur of protestation came from her lips. But there was. Something about the response, about the speed of it, that convinced him absolutely that she had not been asleep… that she'd been aware of his scrutiny.

His lips tightened. “Get up, Tamsyn. You're not fooling me with this playacting.”

Her eyelashes swept up, and the deep-purple eyes gazed up at him with such a blend of sensual mischief that he caught his breath. Without taking her eyes off his face she drew up her feet in a sudden swift movement, caught the covers, and kicked them off, baring her body, creamy in the moonlight. She smiled up at him, quirking an eyebrow, passing her hands over her body in unmistakable invitation.

Julian gasped at the sheer effrontery, the naked sexuality of the invitation. An invitation that he fought with clenched muscles to withstand. When he finally spoke, his voice grated in the lushly expectant silence.

“I will give you ten minutes to be ready to accompany me to the dinner table. If you're not dressed by then, so help me, I'll carry you through the streets just as you are.” Then he turned and left the room, aware that he was almost running as if the devils of enchantment would still reach out and haul him back.

Tamsyn swung off the cot and stretched. It was strange, but the English colonel was behaving unpredictably. In her experience men didn't refuse such invitations. Especially when as far as the colonel knew, there were no strings. He couldn't possibly guess what she was planning for his--or rather, their immediate future.

Her protective landlady had provided her with clean undergarments, stockings, and a shirt. They were of rough homespun rather than the fine lawn, linen, or silk

Tamsyn was accustomed to wearing next to her skin. El Baron's daughter had known only the best. But they were clean, as clean as her bathed skin and freshly washed hair. The widow had also brushed the buttersoft leather britches and polished the cordovan boots until the well-worn leather gleamed with a dull sheen. So Tamsyn was feeling more respectable than she'd been in many days when she jumped energetically down the stairs to greet the fuming and impatient Colonel, Lord St. Simon in the street outside the cottage.

“There, milord colonel, I'm ready to go with you.”

She smiled nonchalantly as if the charged moments in the bedroom had never taken place. “And I'm hungry as a hunter, so I trust your commander in chief keeps a good table.”

Julian didn't deign to reply, merely walked rapidly through the cobbled' streets, lit by oil lamps at strategic intervals and still as busy as in broad daylight. The army didn't sleep, and the siege workings continued in the moonlight as busily as they did in the sunshine.

The roomful of men turned as one to the door when St. Simon and his companion entered.

“Ah, Violette.” Wellington stepped toward her. “I trust you're rested.”

“Yes, thank you, I slept wonderfully.” Tamsyn took the hand he offered.

“Gentlemen, may I introduce La Violette.” The commander in chief slipped his other hand around her waist as he presented her to his staff.

Tamsyn didn't attempt to move away from the half embrace as she responded to the introductions with smiling nods. She'd heard of the duke's reputation as a flirt, and she was perfectly happy to encourage his attentions since they could only assist her purpose.

Julian stood to one side, morosely sipping sherry, watching as the men in the room clustered around the small figure. La Violette certainly knew how to be the center of attention. Despite her masculine attire and the short, shining cap of hair, she was exuding feminine charm… female wiles, he amended. What the hell was she after? She'd come there to sell something, not reduce the entire high command of the English army to a state resembling Circe's fools.

A servant came in bearing a baron of beef on a wooden board. He placed it on the table set for dinner before the fire. “Sir, dinner is served.”

“Good.” Wellington rubbed his hands together in hearty anticipation. “Come and sit beside me, my dear.” He swept Tamsyn into a chair on his right and took his place at the head. He raised his eyeglass and examined the offering on the table as servants unloaded steaming platters from their trays.

“Now, what have we here? A dish of mutton chops, I do believe. Do let me help you… Tell me, must I call you Violette, or do you have another name?” He placed a chop on her plate together with several thick slices of beef

“My given name is Tamsyn,” she said, hungrily helping herself to a dish of roast potatoes. “Violette… Violeta-they're the names by which I'm known among the partisans.”

“Do the partisans all have code names?” the brigadier asked, filling her wineglass.

Tamsyn flashed him a smile as she picked up a mutton chop with her fingers. “Maybe.”

Julian watched as she tore at the flesh with her sharp white teeth, holding the chop between finger and thumb. When every last morsel of meat was off the bone, she licked her fingers, picked up her fork, and speared a potato. She ate with the natural efficiency of a hungry animal, using her fingers if they were more suitable to the task, or deftly filleting a brook trout with a couple of strokes of her knife. There was nothing distasteful about her table manners, but neither was there any formality. Food was to be enjoyed, an appetite both sensual and necessary.

He noticed that while she drank several glasses of water, she merely took occasional sips of the wine in her glass.

Casually, he turned his chair sideways to the table, resting his forearm on the white starched cloth, his fingers caressing the stem of his wineglass. “You don't care for the wine, Violette?”

She looked up swiftly, and her eyes were sharp as they met his across the table. “On the contrary, milord colonel, in the right place and time I enjoy a good rioja as much as anyone. But I have to be careful, it tends to go to my head.” She smiled. “Cecile had the same difficulty.”

“Cecile?” Major Carson queried, carrying a forkful of mushroom compote to his lips.

“My mother, sir. I inherited her small stature. The baron maintained we had too little height and weight to absorb much wine.” She bit into an almond pastry. “It seemed as good an explanation as any.”

“St. Simon tells us that your mother was English,” the brigadier said, taking his nose out of his wineglass.

“Yes,” Tamsyn agreed. She brushed crumbs off her fingers and played with the locket at her throat. “This belonged to my mother. It belonged to her mother, I believe.”

“But how did she find herself in Spain?” Major Carson asked.

“She was paying a visit to some family friends… an ambassador or some such in Madrid. She disappeared into the arms of my father at some point in the journey.” Tamsyn smiled as she helped herself to another sweetmeat from the basket in front of her. “And had no desire to leave them… until she died.”

The shadow that passed across her face was gone before anyone but Julian caught it. But a hardness lingered in her face and eyes, although she continued to smile and nibble her pastry. It was as if she'd thrown up shutters to her innermost feelings, he thought. As if something too deep and too precious had come dangerously close to the surface.

The conversation became general until the covers were removed and the port decanter appeared. Chairs were pushed back from the table, cigars were lit, the decanter circulated, and it clearly didn't occur to anyone that La Violette was in the least out of place. Least of all did it occur to the bandit, Julian reflected caustically, regarding her from beneath his heavy eyelids as she joked and flirted quite openly with Wellington.

When she accepted a peeled grape from between the duke's fingers, Julian decided he'd had as much as he could take of this charade. His men were in the trenches and he had work to do. Pushing back his chair, he stood up.

“You'll excuse me, gentlemen, but I've pickets to post. I must return to my brigade.”

“The men are in a filthy temper,” Colonel Webster observed, suddenly somber. “They're swearing at the Spaniards in Badajos for yielding the city to the French without a fight, and they're swearing blue bloody murder at the French for holding out when they know they haven't got a chance.”

“There'll be bloody work once we get into the city, you mark my words,” Brigadier Cornwallis agreed in curiously detached accents as he refilled his port glass.

“Yes, we'll have the devil's own task to keep a rein on them,” Julian said. “Well, I bid you good night, gentlemen.” He glanced at Tamsyn and was shocked at her white set face, wiped clean of all playfulness. Again she seemed to be looking on some grim internal landscape. “Farewell, Violette,” he said deliberately. “I trust your business here prospers.”

Tamsyn snapped back to the present. The colonel sounded as if they were not to meet again. “I trust so, too, milord colonel. I'll see you in the morning, I daresay.”

“I fear not,” he said. “My work doesn't bring me into Elvas.” He bowed to the commander in chief and left the cozy fire lit room for the chill of his tent in the encampment and the whine of shell and thud of mortar. But he thought he would sleep well for the first time since he'd laid eyes on La Violette. Now his part in her life was done.

Tamsyn regarded the closed door with a quizzically raised eyebrow. His work didn't bring him into Elvas? He would find he was mistaken. Colonel, Lord Julian St. Simon most certainly had work to do at headquarters.

“So, Tamsyn, can we get down to business?” Wellington was suddenly all briskness, the bonhomie of a generous host vanished beneath the incisive manner bf the commander in chief. “You have information to sell? What is your price?”

Tamsyn shook her head and her tone now matched his. “I'll tell you that, sir, when you've told me exactly what you wish to buy.”

Wellington listed his requirements. The code names and passwords of the partisan bands in the area. Their location and composition, so he could make contact with them without waiting to be contacted. A detailed map of the mountain passes known only to the partisans. The extent of the partisan armories and what if anything they lacked that could be supplied by the armies of the Peninsular.

Tamsyn listened intently. Then she said, “That's quite a shopping list, sir. You'll understand that I need to sleep on it.”

“Of course. But I trust not too long.”

“No. But I'm not going to sell you anything that might jeopardize the integrity of the partisans.”

“Oh?” Wellington frowned and pulled his chin. “I hadn't thought you so nice in your dealings, Violette.”

Her eyes flashed. “I don't sell my friends, sir.”

“No, of course not,” he said soothingly. “But you surely understand the difference between giving such information to us rather than to the French. I would use it to assist your friends, not to injure them.”

“That may be so, sir, but my friends are jealous of their independence, and they're not always ready to accept help from anyone.” She stood up, her chair scrapping on the wooden floor. “Thank you for your hospitality. I'll be at your disposal in the morning.”

The men rose as she left the room, and then Wellington came quickly after her, ordering the brigade-major, still at his desk, “Sanderson, see our guest safely to her lodging.”

“There's no need for that,” Tamsyn said. “I'll surely meet with no insult from your soldiers.” There was a venomous point to the statement that brought a dull flush to the commander's cheeks. He could think of no reason for her implicit accusation, and yet he found himself on the defensive.

“I trust not,” he said stiffly. “Nevertheless, you will accept an escort.”

Tamsyn inclined her head. “If you say so, sir. Good night.”

She walked down the stairs, followed by the lieutenant, leaving a frowning Wellington staring after her. A strange girl, he thought. And not one to be underestimated.

Under the cold starlight Julian walked through the group of tents housing his own brigade. Two companies were at work in the trenches; the rest were off duty and sat around their fires, talking in low voices, pipe smoke drifting in a blue haze as they smoked and drank from tankards of blackstrap.

The colonel greeted them all by name, pausing to chat for a few minutes, trying to gauge their mood. Were they optimistic about the upcoming assault on the city? Eager for it? Intent on vengeance?

“Us'll be glad when we're done 'ere, sir,” a burly trooper said, phlegmatically puffing on his pipe as he cobbled a hole in the sole of his boot. “This is wretched work, beggin' yer pardon, sir.”

“Aye, but if old Hookey says us mun do it, then us mun do it,” responded his companion with a fatalistic shrug.

Julian smiled to himself as he strolled on. The men had several affectionate nicknames for their commander in chief, most of them referring to his large hooked nose. And it was true they'd follow him into hell if he expected it of them. He glanced toward the dark shape of Badajos crouching on the plain. The walls were now breached in three places, and the attack was planned for tomorrow night, but the French garrison was efficiently repairing the breaches whenever the English bombardment permitted it. The assault was going to be a bloody business at best, and the city would pay bitterly for its intransigence.

“Sergeant Gorman's been regaling the mess with the tale of Cornichet's epaulets,” a voice spoke at his shoulder out of the darkness. “I gather La Violette's something of a prankster.”

“That's one way of putting it, Frank,” Julian said dryly, turning toward the young captain who was his own aide-de-camp. “I'd call it something else myself”

“They're a perverse lot, the partisans,” Captain Frank Frobisher observed. “Treat us more like the enemy than the enemy.”

“Well, my business with La Violette is done, thank God,” Julian declared. “She can play her tricks on the Peer and see where it gets her.” He began to walk back toward his own tent. “Fancy a nightcap? I've a tolerable cognac in my tent, if Tim O'Connor hasn't had a go at it in my absence.”

Frank laughed. “I doubt even Tim's blarney would get him past Dobbin. That man of yours is a veritable Cerberus when it comes to guarding your possessions.”

They ducked into the colonel's tent, where his servant was trimming the oil lamp. A pan of water simmered on a small charcoal brazier.

“You'll be wantin' your tea, I daresay, Colonel?” Dobbin observed comfortably, knowing the colonel's invariable night-time routine in camp.

“Later… Captain Frobisher could do with a cognac.” Julian pushed forward a camp chair for his guest and bent to rummage in a wooden chest, bringing out a square bottle of fine cognac. “Have we glasses, Dobbin?”

“Aye, sir.” The servant produced them.

“Is that cognac I smell?” A pink-cheeked face poked through the tent door. “I thought you was back, Julian. Heard you had quite a junket.” Tim O'Connor brought the rest of himself into the space that seemed to shrink dramatically with his substantial bulk. He took another camp chair and beamed. “So tell us about this female bandit. Is she worth looking at?”

“Not to my taste,” Julian said dismissively, and changed the subject. “The brigade's objective tomorrow during the assault is the San Vincente bastion. Any suggestion as to how we deploy the companies?”

His two friends immediately turned their attention to brigade business and the storming of Badajos, and the subject of La Violette was dropped, but St. Simon's unwillingness to discuss his dealings with the bandit, or even to satisfy the most minimal curiosity, did not go unnoticed.

After they'd left, Julian lay on his cot, sipping his tea, thinking about the following night, about the possibility of his own death, about all the inevitable deaths. He would lose friends tomorrow. In the four years of the Peninsular war, he'd lost many such, and it didn't become any easier to accept.

La Violette had seen her share of death too. It was in her eyes, in the shadow that so often passed across her face. She was a creature of wild contrasts, he thought. A deep river of dark experience flowed beneath the bright, sensual surface.

And then he remembered that he wasn't going to think of the girl again-not of her passion, her mischief, her taunts or her griefs never again.