She smiled at the enthusiasm in him, the sheer, sudden hope that had given him energy. She stirred the ten coins with her finger. ‘I’ll be there. I’ll bring the accounts.’
‘And no one will punish you.’ He held her hands tight. ‘I have money, more than enough.’ For a moment he was tempted to tell her about Vitoria, about that battlefield of gold and jewels, of silks and pearls. ‘You can go where you like. You can run away.’
She laughed. Her eyes were bright on his. ‘I’m not very good at running away.’
He stared at her, overwhelmed by her face, by a beauty that was precious and rare, and he thought of all the things he had wanted to say to her, had dreamed over the years of saying, and suddenly knew that now they must be said, or, perhaps, never be said at all. Sharpe had often taken risks, he had often, on the spur of a sudden thought, and without thinking of consequences, done things on a battlefield that had made his name famous in Wellington’s army. He had climbed a breach where hundreds lay dead, acting on the snatched opportunity because the thought led instantly to the deed and, though caution was wise in soldiering, hesitation was fatal. Yet now, when he spoke, listening with astonishment to his words, he thought he was taking a risk greater than any he had chanced in Spain. ‘Then you must marry me.’
She stared at him in frozen silence. He had said it so quickly, so casually, with a friendly tone as though it was a thought that had just settled in his head. She pulled her hands away, despite the pressure of his fingers, and he regretted the words instantly.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No, no.’ She shook her head in embarrassment.
A door closed inside the house, a dull click that seemed to echo menacingly about the garden. She turned at once, staring at the windows as if, from their blank sheen, she could tell what happened in those weapon-hung rooms. ‘I have to go! Mrs Grey sometimes comes to my room.’
‘I am sorry, truly.’
‘No.’ She shook her head again and stood. The door sounded again, and this time she shuddered. ‘I must go!’
‘Jane!’
But she ran. She seemed very frail and slim in the moonlight. Sharpe watched her until she went into the shadows at the side of the house and was gone.
He stayed in the pergola, his head in his hands, and cursed his clumsiness. He had dreamed of this girl for four years and, given a chance to talk with her, he had stamped clumsily where only delicacy was needed. His proposal of marriage echoed in his ears to mock him, and he wished with all the vain hope of a fool, that he could take the words back. He had lost her. She would not come to London. The guineas he had given her were still on the table, fool’s gold in the moonlight.
He waited until the last lights were out in the house, and only then did he move. He plucked a single rose from the pergola and, like a shadow in darkness, went down into the creek that was flooded with the high tide. He left the coins behind.
He rode empty-handed to Foulness. He did not have the evidence he needed, nor, he thought, was it likely that it would come. She had wanted to help, and he had frightened her. He would have to do the desperate thing now, the reckless thing; he would use the Battalion itself as a weapon against the crooks and fools. He might still win, but what he had lost tonight would make all the victories to come seem hollow. He was a fool.
CHAPTER 17
The morning was chaos, as Sharpe had known it would be chaos. The men were willing enough, but the Foulness officers and sergeants seemed incapable of solving the smallest difficulty. ‘Sir?’ Sharpe turned to see Lieutenant Mattingley frowning unhappily in the moonlight before dawn.
‘What is it, Lieutenant?’
‘The cauldrons, sir. We haven’t got transport.’ He waved feebly towards the huge iron pots, each of which was large enough to boil a beef carcass whole. ‘We can’t carry them, sir.’