‘Yes.’ Sharpe interrupted him, and nodded towards the gaudy chariot that led the parade of captured standards down the line of cheering public. ‘That’s mine.’
Mellors beamed. ‘Might I shake your hand, sir?”
Sharpe shook hands. ‘You don’t mind if my men watch from here, do you?’
‘Of course not, sir.’ Mellors was only too eager to please a man who had actually captured one of the trophies.
‘Warn your fellows that we’re here.’
‘Of course, sir.’ Mellors saluted again. ‘It’s an honour to have met you, sir.’ But Sharpe was not listening. He was staring eastwards and his face was suddenly lit with a pleasure so great that Mellors twisted in his saddle. ‘My word, sir!’
She was dishevelled, hot, worn out by running, but she could still elicit admiration. She was beautiful. Sharpe kicked his heels back. ‘Jane!’
‘Suffering Christ have mercy on us.’ Regimental Sergeant Major Harper saw his officer swing from the saddle to clasp the girl into his arms. ‘Bloody hell!’
‘Sergeant Major?’ Captain Smith was nervous.
Harper sniffed. ‘Not my place to criticise officers, sir,’ which he usually said when he did, ‘but you’ll notice there’s a woman here, sir, and women and Mr Sharpe are not the gentlest mixture in the world. Trouble, sir! Trouble!’
‘It’s Sir Henry’s girl!’
‘That’s what I said. Trouble.’ Harper swivelled to face the half Battalion. ‘Take your bloody heathen eyes off her! You’ve seen women before! Eyes front!’
She was panting, exhausted by her journey through London, and she was in his arms. She struggled to speak through her laboured breath. ‘He’s got them.’
‘You came.’
‘He’s got them!’
‘He’s got what?’
‘The books!’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Nothing mattered at this moment except that she was here, where the cut grass was fragrant, where he almost trembled as he stared at her. ‘You came!’ He had not known such happiness could exist, something insane and blossoming, something to fill a world.
‘I had to. He was there, you see. He’s put tar on it again. It’s so horrid.’ She laughed, as filled with stupid, bubbling happiness as he was. ‘My uncle’s got the books.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
She looked at his jacket, torn and patched, still marked with his dried blood and the blood of enemies. ‘That’s terrible!’
‘It’s the jacket I fight in.’
She fingered a rent. ‘I can see why you want a wife.’
He held her still, his arms on her shoulders, and for a few seconds he thought he could not speak.
‘You mean?’ She said nothing, and he could hear nothing but her breath, feel nothing but her body, see nothing but her eyes.
‘Jane?’
‘I can’t go back. Ever.’
‘I don’t want you to.’
‘I mean we shouldn’t.’
‘No.’
‘I don’t know you.’
‘No.’
‘But I will marry you.’ She looked so solemnly at him, he blinked, and for this glorious moment there was no war, and no crimping, and no bands playing, just her eyes and a happiness that was greater than he thought he could manage. He swallowed. ‘I would be most honoured.’
‘And I, Mr Sharpe.’
There was an awkward silence. He smiled. ‘I thought I had offended you.’
‘It was sudden, I was frightened.’ She bit her lower lip. ‘But I did hope you’d ask.’
He laughed, awkward still, then turned. ‘Sergeant Major!’
‘Sir!’ Harper did not walk to Sharpe, he marched. He did it as though the eyes of the guards were on him, as though he came to take the surrender of the Emperor of the French himself. He stamped to attention and his hand snapped into a crisp salute. ‘Sir!’
‘You remember Miss Gibbons, Sergeant Major.”
‘I do, sir.’ He winked at her, an outrageous gesture.
‘We are to be married.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘And when we advance, Sergeant Major, I want a good man left with her. Private Weller, perhaps?’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘Advance?’ Jane looked up at him.
Sharpe took a deep breath as he plunged back into this desperation. ‘We have no proof of the auctions. I need these men, otherwise a Regiment dies. I have to do something,’ he paused, looking for the right word, ‘dramatic.’
‘He means foolish, Miss,’ Harper said helpfully.