“Perhaps.”
Louisa was swathed in a Cazador’s scarlet cloak and wore a close fitting bonnet. “Perhaps my aunt won’t take me back. Perhaps she will be so scandalized by my terrible behaviour that I will be cast from chapel and home.”
“Is that likely?”
“I don’t know.” Louisa was wistful. “I sometimes suspect that’s what I want to happen.”
“Want?” Sharpe was surprised.
“To be cast adrift in the middle of the biggest adventure in the world? Why ever not?” Louisa laughed. “When I was a child, Lieutenant, I was told it was perilous to cross the village green in case the gypsies took me. And if soldiers ever appeared in the village-‘ she shook her head to demonstrate the enormity of such an occasion’s danger. ”Now I’m in the middle of a war and accompanied only by soldiers!“ She smiled at the predicament, then gave Sharpe a look which mingled curiosity and warmth. ”Don Bias says you’re the best soldier he’s ever known.“
Sharpe thought it odd that she used Vivar’s Christian name, then supposed it was the polite usage of an hidalgo. ‘He exaggerates.“
“What he actually said, ”Louisa spoke more slowly, and Sharpe sensed she was delivering a message to him, “was that if you had more confidence in yourself, you’d be the best. I suppose I shouldn’t have told you that?” He wondered if the criticism were true and Louisa, mistaking his silence for hurt, apologized.
“I’m sure it is true,” Sharpe said hastily.
“Do you like being a soldier?”
“I always dreamed of having a farm. God knows why, because I know nothing of the business. I’d probably plant the turnips upside down.” He stared at the campfires in the deep valley; tiny sparks of warmth and light in an immensity of cold darkness. “I imagined I’d have a couple of horses in a stable, a stream to fish,” he paused, shrugged, “children.”
Louisa smiled. “I used to dream of living in a great castle. There would be secret passages, dungeons, and mysterious horsemen bringing messages in the night. I think I should have preferred to have lived in the days of Queen Elizabeth. Catholic priests in the shrubbery and Spaniards in the channel? Except those old enemies are now our friends, aren’t they?”
“Even the priests?”
“They aren’t the ogres I thought they were.” She was silent for a second. “But if you’re brought up too firmly in one persuasion then you’re bound to be curious about the enemy, are you not? And we English were always taught to hate Catholics.”
“I wasn’t.”
“But you know what I mean. Aren’t you curious about the French?”
“Not really.”
Louisa frowned. “I find myself curious about the Catholics. I even find myself with a most unProtestant affection for them now. I’m sure Mr Bufford would be scandalized.”
“Will he ever know?” Sharpe asked.
Louisa shrugged. “I shall have to describe my adventures to him, shall I not? And I shall have to confess that the Inquisition didn’t torture me or try to burn me at the stake.” She stared into the night. “One day this will all seem like a dream?”
“Will it?”
“Not for you,” she said ruefully. “But one day I will find it hard to believe that any of this even happened. I will be Mrs Bufford of Godalming, a most respectably dull lady.”
“You could stay here,” Sharpe said, and felt immensely brave for saying it.
“Could I?” Louisa turned to him. There was a glow to their left where a Rifleman drew on his pipe, but they both ignored it. She turned away and traced some indeterminate pattern on the parapet. “Are you saying that the British army will stay in Portugal?”
The question surprised Sharpe, who thought he had broken through to a more intimate layer of conversation. “I don’t know.”
“I think the Lisbon garrison must have gone already,” Louisa said flatly. “And if not, what possible use would such a small garrison be when the French march south? No, Lieutenant, the Emperor has taught us a smart lesson, and I fear we’ll not dare risk our army again.”
Sharpe wondered where she had gained such firm opinions on strategy. “What I meant when I said you could stay here…“ he began clumsily.