Jane had indeed been hinting at the opportunity for her husband’s murder, but she could not admit as much, “I’m suggesting,” she lied smoothly, “that he may not wish to risk his career by fighting a duel, but instead might try to kill you during a battle.” She dipped her finger in scented black paste that she applied to her eyelashes. “He’s a man of excessive pride and extraordinary brutality.”
“Are you trying to frighten me?” Lord John attempted to pass the conversation off lightly..
“I am trying to make you resolute. A man threatens your life and our happiness, so I am suggesting that you take steps to protect us.” It was as close as Jane dared go to a direct suggestion of murder, though she could not resist one more enticement. “You’re probably in more danger from a British rifle bullet than you are from any French weapon.”
“The French”, Lord John said uneasily, “may take care of him anyway.”
“They’ve had plenty of chances before,” Jane said tartly, “and achieved nothing.”
Then, ready at last, she stood. Her hair, ringletted, bejewelled and feathered, crowned an ethereal and sensuous beauty that dazzled Lord John. He bowed, kissed her hand, and led her down to the courtyard where their carriage waited. It was time to dance.
His Serene Highness Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar took one look at Rebecque’s orders, grunted his acceptance, and tossed the paper to his Brigade Major. “Tell the Prince we’ll be at the crossroads in one hour,” he told Sharpe.
Sharpe did not reveal that the Prince of Orange knew nothing of the orders. Instead he thanked His Serene Highness, bowed his way out of the inn which was Prince Bernhard’s headquarters, and remounted his horse. Lieutenant Simon Doggett, who had been charged with keeping Nosey from killing the chickens that pecked in the inn yard, followed Sharpe out to the road. “Well, sir?” he asked Sharpe, but in a nervous voice which suggested that he expected his temerity in asking to be met with a savage reproof.
“He’ll be at the crossroads in one hour with four thousand men. Let’s hope the bastards can fight.” Saxe-Weimar’s men were mostly German troops in Dutch service who had fought for Napoleon in the previous wars, and not even Saxe-Weimar himself was certain whether they would now fight against their old comrades.
Doggett rode eastwards beside Sharpe. Like so many of the Englishmen who served the Prince of Orange, Doggett was an old Etonian. He was now a lieutenant in the First Foot Guards, but had been seconded to the Prince’s staff because his father was an old friend of the Baron Rebecque. Doggett was fair-haired, fair-skinned and, to Sharpe’s eyes, absurdly young. He was in fact eighteen, had never seen a battle, and was very nervous of the notorious Lieutenant-Colonel Sharpe who was thirty-eight years old and had lost count of all his battles.
Sharpe now anticipated another battle; one for a crossroads that linked two armies, “if the French already hold Quatre Bras, you’ll have to go back and warn Saxe-Weimar,” Sharpe told him. “Then go to Rebecque and tell him the bad news.”
“Yes, sir.” Doggett paused, then found the courage to ask a question. “And what will you be doing, sir? If the French have captured the crossroads, I mean?”
“I’ll be riding to Brussels to tell the Duke to run like hell.”
Doggett glanced to see whether the Rifleman was smiling in jest, and decided he was not. The two men-fell silent as they cantered their horses between low hedgerows that were bright with the early spears of foxgloves. Beyond the hedges the cornfields were thick with poppies and edged with cornflowers. Swallows whipped low across the fields, while rooks flew clumsily towards their high nests. Sharpe twisted in his saddle to see that the western sky was still clouded, though there were great gaps between the heaping clouds through which the sun poured an incandescent flood of light. It was evening, but there were still four hours of daylight left. In a week’s time it would be the longest day of the year when, in these latitudes, a gunner could accurately sight a twelve-pounder at half-past nine of an evening.