In London an aide-de-camp to the Prince Regent heard of Ducos’s death and, as a result, suffered sleepless nights. The Frenchman’s execution was a triumph for a Rifleman who had come from ignominy to regain his reputation, and any day now that man would cross the channel. Lord Rossendale contemplated flight to the remnants of his family’s Irish estates, but his pride forced him to stay and show a bravado he did not feel. Each morning he went to a fencing master in Bond Street and each afternoon he shot with long-barrelled duelling pistols at targets in the yard of Clarence House. He claimed he was just honing his military skills, but all society knew he was practising for the ordeal of grass before breakfast. “He’s left Paris,” Rossendale told Jane one autumn morning.
Jane did not need to be told who ‘he’ was. “How do you know?”
“A courier came from the Embassy yesterday. All three of them rode for Calais.”
Jane shivered. Beyond the window rain swept in grey curtains across the park. “What will happen?” she asked, though she well knew the answer.
Rossendale smiled. “It’s called grass before breakfast.”
“No,” Jane protested.
“He’ll call me out, I’ll choose the weapons, and we’ll fight.” Rossendale shrugged. “I imagine I shall lose.”
“No.” Jane remembered the terrible arguments that had preceded Sharpe’s duel with Bampfylde. She had lost those arguments, but now she would lose the man she had come to love.
“I’m not a swordsman,” Rossendale said ruefully, “and I’m a rotten shot with a pistol.”
“Then don’t fight!” Jane said fiercely.
He smiled. “There’s no choice, my love. None. It’s called honour.”
“Then I’ll go to him!” Jane said defiantly. „I’ll plead with him!“
“And where’s the honour in that?” Rossendale shook his head. “You can’t cheat honour,” he added, though he had done little else for months, which only proved that honour could be cheated, but that the price of it would still have to be paid before breakfast one wet, drab morning.
Thus Lord Rossendale and Jane could only wait, for honour would not let them run away, while the man for whom they waited came to Calais.
Sharpe and Frederickson had been reinstated, then reassured that their honour was still bright and their ranks inviolate. Apologies had been made, and now, in Calais, they breakfasted in the private room of a harbour tavern. Their plates were heaped with mutton chops, eggs, garlic sausage and black bread. “You’ll go to London first, of course?” Frederickson poured coffee.
“Will I?” Sharpe asked.
“Unfinished business,” Frederickson said grimly. “Or shouldn’t I mention it?”
“You mean Lord Rossendale.” Sharpe sipped the newly poured coffee. “I’m to kill him?”
“Stop being obtuse. Of course you’re to kill him. I’ll be your second, if you’ll let me have that honour? Naturally the duel will have to be secret. We both have our careers to think of now.” Frederickson smiled. His face was still darkened by the bruise, though the swelling had long subsided. “I assume you’re no longer contemplating a Dorset retirement?”
Sharpe leaned back in his chair. Through the window he could see the packet boat loading by the quay. The ship would leave on the tide in two hours time, and, if he chose, it would take him to the foul mess of an unfaithful wife and pistols at dawn. “And Jane?” he asked Frederickson. “What am I to do with Jane?”
“Give her a damned good thrashing, of course, then cast her off. If you can’t bear to face her, then I’ll gladly tell her myself. You can give her a pittance, if you must, but don’t be too generous. She can become a governess or a companion.”
Or a whore, Sharpe thought sadly, but he did not say as much. “You’re very kind, William.”
Frederickson shrugged away the compliment, then mopped up his egg yolk with a hunk of bread. “You’re surely not still thinking of retiring to Dorset, are you?”
“The countryside has a certain appeal.”
“For God’s sake, Sharpe! You heard the Duke! There’s restitution to be made. My God, man, you could have a battalion!”
“In peacetime?”
Frederickson grimaced. “We don’t have much choice, do we? We can hardly order another war for our own convenience.”
“No.” And indeed the Duke of Wellington was going from his Paris Embassy to a great congress at Vienna to ensure that there would not be another war. The Duke, Sharpe allowed, had been kindness itself in Paris, even after his Embassy had been invaded by three fugitive Riflemen bearing the bruised and terrified Pierre Ducos. The French royalist authorities had been perturbed that General Calvet had taken a fortune to Elba, and the Neapolitan Embassy had made a stiff protest about uniformed thieves disturbing their kingdom’s peace, but the Duke had scornfully ridden down such diplomatic carping. All was forgiven. There was even an implicit promise of promotion for Sharpe and Frederickson, though it was difficult to see how such a promise was to be kept with no battles to create vacancies.
“So London first,” Frederickson planned their joint future with relish, “then we’ll demand a battalion of our own. You’ll be in command, of course, though I shall be senior Major and can assure you I’ll be demanding a spate of leave just as soon as we’re settled.”
“Leave?” Sharpe smiled. “So soon?”
Frederickson looked very coy. “You know very well why I want leave. You might be despairing of marriage, but I haven’t abandoned all hope. Far from it! I’ll establish myself first, of course. Promotion perhaps, a spot of money, and a new uniform.” He smiled, as though the accretion of those things would guarantee the success of his courtship. “I know you’re not fond of Madame Castineau, but in many ways she’s ideal for me. A widow, you see, so I don’t suppose she’ll expect too much from marriage, and once I can persuade her to live in England I’m sure she’ll be very happy. Mind you, I can’t say I’m averse to her property. That’ll be worth a tidy sum in the future.”
“No,” Sharpe said brutally.
Frederickson frowned. “No?”
“No,” Sharpe said again. He had somehow persuaded himself that Frederickson had abandoned his hopes of Madame Castineau in the excitement of these last days, but instead his friend was betraying these hopeless dreams which would now have to be cruelly shattered. It was time for Sharpe to say the thing that should have been said weeks before. It was time to break a friendship, and Sharpe flinched from the deed, but knew he could not hold back.
“I’m not going to England.” Sharpe looked up at his friend. “Patrick took my luggage off the boat an hour ago. I’m only here to see you safe on your way, William, but I’m not going with you. I’m staying here.”
“In Calais? That’s a very bleak choice, if you’ll forgive me.” Frederickson frowned suddenly. “My God! It’s your damned pride, isn’t it? You fear to go to England because of Jane and that wretched man? You think you’ll be mocked because you’ve been cuckolded?” Frederickson scorned the fear with a dismissive flick of his napkin. “My dear Sharpe! Kill the man in a duel and no one will dare mock you!”
“No.” Sharpe hated saying it, but it had to be said. “It’s nothing to do with Jane, and I’m not staying in Calais. I’m going back to Normandy.”
Frederickson stared at Sharpe for a long long time. And, for a long long time, he said nothing, but then, and as though it took a great effort, he finally found his voice. “To Lucille?”
“To Lucille,” Sharpe confirmed.
“And she?” Frederickson hesitated. There was real pain on his bruised face, evidence of just how hard his dreams were breaking into misery. “And she will consent to your arrival at the chateau?”
“I believe she will.”
Frederickson briefly closed his one eye. “And may I ask whether you have grounds for this belief?”
“Yes,” Sharpe spoke very quietly, “I do.”
“Oh, God.” Now it seemed there was nothing but hatred in Frederickson’s gaze. Or else he felt a pain so deep that it could only show on his face as hatred.
Sharpe tried to explain. He heard himself stammering as he told the old story; of how a dislike of the woman had turned into a friendship, and then how the friendship had turned into love, and he remembered, but
