Hooves sounded loud in the yard as Colonel Winckler took off after the Prince. Sharpe, glad that he was not having to ride anywhere, began tugging at his tight boots. Paulette pushed his hands away, put his right foot on her lap, tugged off the boot, then did the same for his other foot. “My God, you smell!” She laughingly pushed his feet away. “And Madame left France with you?” Paulette’s questioning had the guileless innocence of a child.
“Madame and our baby, yes.”
Paulette frowned at Sharpe. “Because of you?”
He paused, seeking a modest answer, but could think of nothing but the truth. “Indeed.”
Paulette cradled her cup of ale and stared through the open door into the stableyard where chickens pecked at oats and Sharpe’s dog twitched in exhausted sleep. “Your French lady must love you.”
“I think she does, yes.”
“And you?”
Sharpe smiled. “I love her, yes.”
“And she’s here? In Belgium?”
“In Brussels.”
“With the baby? What sort of baby? How old?”
“A boy. Three months, nearly four. He’s in Brussels too.”
Paulette sighed. “I think it’s lovely. I would like to follow a man to another country.”
Sharpe shook his head. “It’s very hard on Lucille. She hates that I have to fight against her countrymen.”
“Then why do you do it?” Paulette asked in an outraged voice.
“Because of my half-pay again. If I’d have refused to rejoin the army they’d have stopped my pension, and that’s the only income we have. So when the Prince summoned me, I had to come.”
“But you didn’t want to come?” Paulette asked shrewdly.
“Not really.” Which was true, though that morning, as he had spied on the French, Sharpe had recognized in himself the undeniable pleasure of doing his job well. For a few days, he supposed, he must forget Lucille’s unhappiness and be a soldier again.
“So you only fight for the money.” Paulette said it wearily, as though it explained everything. “How much does the Prince pay you for being a colonel?”
“One pound, three shillings and tenpence a day.” That was his reward for a brevet lieutenant-colonelcy in a cavalry regiment and it was more money than Sharpe had ever earned in his life. Half of the salary disappeared in mess fees and for the headquarter’s servants, but Sharpe still felt rich, and it was a far better reward than the two shillings and ninepence a day that he had been receiving as a half-pay lieutenant. He had left the army as a major, but the clerks in the Horse Guards had determined that his majority was only brevet rank, not regimental, and so he had been forced to accept a lieutenant’s pension. The war was proving a windfall to Sharpe, as it was to so many other half-pay officers in both armies.
“Do you like the Prince?” Paulette asked him.
That was a sensitive question. “Do you?” Sharpe countered.
“He’s a drunk.” Paulette did not bother with tact, but just let her scorn flow. “And when he’s not drunk he squeezes his spots. Plip plop, plip plop! Ugh! I have to do his back for him.” She looked to see whether her words had offended Sharpe, and was evidently reassured. “You know he was going to marry an English princess?”
“I know.”
“She couldn’t stand him. So now he says he will marry a Russian princess! Ha! That’s all he’s good for, a Russian. They rub butter on their skins, did you know that? All over, to keep warm. They must smell.” She sipped her ale, then frowned as her mind skittered back over the conversation. “Your wife in England. She does not mind that you have another lady?”
“She has another man.”
The evident convenience of the arrangement pleased Paulette. “So everything is all right?”
“No.” He smiled. “They stole my money. One day I shall go back and take it from them.”
She stared at him with large serious eyes. “Will you kill the man?”
“Yes.” He said it very simply, which made it all the more believable.
“I wish a man would kill for me,” Paulette sighed, then stared in alarm because Sharpe had suddenly raised a hand in warning. “What is it?”