Sharpe 3-Book Collection 6: Sharpe's Honour, Sharpe's Regiment, Sharpe's Siege Read Online Free PDF Page B

running from Spain, running from the victory that Wellington threatened, and she was taking the wealth with her that would make her independent of whatever tragedies befell France. Now Ducos menaced that independence. She plucked a grape from the bunch. ‘Tell me, Pierre, do you order your breakfast with a threat? If you want something of me, why don’t you just ask? Or is it that you want to share my plunder?’
    He scowled at that. No one could accuse Pierre Ducos of greed. He changed the subject. ‘I wanted to know how you felt about your husband returning from America.’
    She laughed. ‘You want me to go back to his bed, Pierre? Don’t you think I’ve suffered enough for France?’
    ‘Does he still love you?’
    ‘Love? What an odd word from you, Pierre.’ She stared up at the tricolour. ‘He still wants me.’
    ‘He knows you’re a spy?’
    ‘I’m sure someone’s told him, aren’t you? But Luis doesn’t take women seriously, Pierre. He’d think I was a spy because I was unhappy without him. He thinks that once he’s back and I’m neatly tucked up beneath his glass dome then everything will be all right again. He can grunt all over me and then weep to his confessor. Men are so stupid.’
    ‘Or do you choose stupid men?’
    ‘What a boudoir conversation we are having.’ She smiled brilliantly at him. ‘So what do you want, Pierre?’
    ‘Why has your husband come home?’
    ‘He doesn’t like the climate in South America, Pierre. It gives him wind, he says. He suffers from wind. He once had a servant whipped who laughed when he broke it.’
    ‘He’s gone to Wellington.’
    ‘Of course he has! Luis is Spain’s new hero!’ She laughed. Her husband had led a Spanish army against rebels in the Banda Oriental, the area of land north of the River Plate. The rebels, seeing Spain humiliated by France, were trying to wrest their independence from the Spanish. To the Marquesa’s surprise, indeed, to the surprise of many people, the Marqués had defeated them. She flicked a grape pip over the parapet. ‘He must have outnumbered them by a hundred to one! Or perhaps he broke wind in their faces? Do you think that’s the answer, Pierre? A grape?’ She smiled at his silence and poured herself champagne. ‘Tell me why you summoned me here with your usual charm and consideration.’
    ‘Your husband wants you back?’
    ‘You know he does. I’m sure you intercept all his letters. His lust exceeds his patriotism.’
    ‘Then I want you to write a letter to him.’
    She smiled. ‘Is that all? One letter? Do I get to keep my wagons then?’ She asked the question in a small girl’s voice.
    He nodded.
    She watched him, suspecting a bargain so easily made. Her voice was suddenly hard. ‘You’ll let me move my property to France for one letter?’
    ‘One letter.’
    She shrugged. ‘You’ll give me papers?’
    ‘Of course.’
    She sipped the champagne. ‘What do I write?’
    ‘Inside.’
    He had written the letter and she had only to copy it onto the writing paper that bore the crest of her husband’s family. She admired Ducos’ efficiency in stealing the paper so that it was prepared for her. He gave her the only chair in the room, a freshly cut quill, and ink. ‘Do improve the phrasing, Helene.’
    ‘That won’t be difficult, Pierre.’
    The letter told a harrowing tale. It replied to a letter from the Marqués and said that she wanted nothing more than to join him, that her joy at his return had filled her with longing and expectation, but that she feared to come to him so long as he was under Wellington’s command.
    She feared because there was an English officer who had pursued her most vilely, insulted her and her husband, who had heaped every indignity upon her. She had complained, she said, to the English Generalissimo, yet nothing could be done because the offending officer was a friend of Wellington’s. She feared for her virtue, and until the officer was removed from Spain she feared