SHARPE’S REGIMENT

He did not know. Everything he had planned for these next few days depended on the accounts. He had been so sure that they would be here, that he could ambush Girdwood and take them, and then march the men to Chelmsford where the Battalion would wait. He had planned to send d’Alembord to the Rose Tavern, but without the books he had no proof. He had nothing. He looked into her huge eyes, shining with reflected moonlight, and he let his gaze linger on the shadows beneath her cheekbones and on her neck. He smiled. ‘Do you remember that you gave your brother a locket with your picture inside?’

‘Yes.’ She sounded surprised.

‘I wore it after his death.’

She smiled shyly, knowing the message he was giving her, yet not sure what to say in return. She looked down at the table. ‘Do you still have it?’

‘I was taken prisoner earlier this year. A Frenchman has it now.’ Sharpe had worn it as a talisman, as all soldiers have talismans against death. ‘I expect he wonders who you are.’

She smiled at the thought, then looked up at him. ‘I want you to have the books.’ She said it hurriedly. ‘But I’m afraid.’ She was scared because, once Sharpe had the books and his victory, she would be left to her uncle’s revenge.

Sharpe touched her hands again. It seemed, at that moment, as brave an act as climbing the blood-slicked breach at Badajoz. ‘Why do you want to help me?’

She gave the quick, mischievous smile. ‘I never forgot you.’ She said it very softly. ‘I sometimes think that it’s because my uncle hates you so much. If you were his enemy, you had to be my friend?’ She inflected the last word as a question, then gave a low laugh. ‘He envies you.’

‘Envies?’

‘He’d like to be a big, brave soldier!’ she said scornfully. ‘What did happen to him in Spain?’

‘He ran away.’

She laughed. Her hands were still in his, unmoving. ‘He always talks about it as if he was a hero. Did Christian take that Eagle?’

‘He was close.’

‘Meaning he didn’t?’

‘Not really.’

She shook her head, as if remembering all her uncle’s lies. ‘I’ve always wanted to see Spain. There was a girl from Prittlewell who married an artillery Major. She went to Spain with him. Marjory Beller? Do you know her?’

He shook his head. ‘No. But there are a lot of officers’ wives there.’

She was silent for a long time. She looked down at his hands that were still on her hands. ‘I could go to London, but I’d need some money. I know some of the servants in his house because they visit us here. I could perhaps find the books.’

He said nothing. There were too many uncertainties in her words for Sharpe’s peace of mind and, though his spirit soared that she wished to help him, he feared too for the punishment that she risked.

She bit her lip. ‘But what if I can’t find them?’

‘I’ll have to think of something else.’ He said it lightly, yet without the proof he had nothing. He could perhaps order Captain Smith and the other officers to write their confessions, but then he remembered Lady Camoynes’ words; what hope did such witnesses have against the evidence of peers and politicians and men of high standing? Sharpe, without the account books, needed allies of equal weight, and suddenly that thought, the thought of allies, gave him an outrageous, wonderful, impossible idea. The idea, that rose like a great sheet of flame in the darkness of his head, was so splendid that he smiled and gripped her hands hard. ‘I don’t need them, truly!’

‘You don’t?’

The idea was seething in him, making his words tumble out. ‘It would be wonderful to have them. It would make things easy. But if not? I can manage.’

‘But it would be helpful to have them?’ She said it earnestly and he realised, suddenly, that this girl wanted to help him.

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Would you like me to try for you?”

He nodded, ‘Yes.’

‘How do I find you?’

‘Next Saturday.’ He took one hand from hers and pulled some guineas from his pouch that he put on the table. ‘Do you know Hyde Park Gate? Where Piccadilly ends?’ She nodded. He pushed the coins towards her. ‘I’ll be there at midday, and if you have the books then we’ll beat them, but if not? We’ll still win!’

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