at him. “That’s the story.”
“Did he see anything he shouldn’t have?”
She smiled. “It’s said she discovered about the passages and that she hired two masons. One day she waited until her husband was in a long tunnel that bends round the library. It has only one entrance.” Her eyes were huge in the dimness. Sharpe watched her, entranced by the line of her throat, the shadows on her skin above the low white dress, by the wide mouth. She chopped down with the cigar. “She gave a signal and the masons nailed the entrance shut and then they laid stones over it. After that she made the servants pleasure her, one by one, two by two, and all the time they could hear the husband screaming and scrabbling beyond the wall. She told them it was rats and told them to keep going.” She shrugged. “It’s just a nonsense, of course, not true. The pride of this house would not allow it, but the people of Salamanca tell the story and certainly the passages exist.”
“It’s a harsh story.”
“Yes. It goes on that she died, strangled by the ghost of her husband, and that will be the fate of any mistress of this house who is unfaithful to her husband.” She glanced up at Sharpe as she said the last words and there was a curious hostility in her expression, a challenge perhaps.
“You say the story isn’t true?”
She gave a crooked, secret smile. “How very indelicate of you, Captain Sharpe.” She drew on the cigar, hardening the red point of the tobacco. “What did Lord Spears tell you about me?”
He was startled by the directness of her question, by the inference that she was commanding him to answer. He shook his head. “Nothing.”
“How very unlike Jack.” She drew on the cigar again. “Did he tell you that I asked him to make you come here?”
“No.”
“I did. Aren’t you curious why?”
Heleaned against the frameof the lattice. “I’m curious, yes.”
“Thank God for that! I was beginning to think there wasn’t a human feeling in your body.” Her voice was harsh. Sharpe wondered what game she was playing. He watched as she tossed the cigar onto the flagstones of the balcony and, as it landed, it showered sparks like a musket pan fired at night. “Why do you think, Captain?”
“I don’t know why I’m here, Ma’am.”
“Oh!” Her voice was mocking now. “You find me on my own, ignoring all my guests, not to mention the proprieties, and there’s a table set with wine, and you think nothing?”
Sharpe did not like being toyed with. “I’m only a humble soldier, Ma’am, unused to the ways of my betters.”
She laughed, and her face suddenly softened. “You said that with such delicious arrogance. Do I make you uncomfortable?”
“If it pleases you to, yes.”
She nodded. “It pleases me. So tell me what Jack Spears whispered to you?” The inflection of command was back in her voice, as if she talked to her postilion.
Sharpe was tired of her games. He let his own voice be as harsh as hers. “That you had low tastes, Ma’am.”
She went very still and tense. She was leaning forward on the bench, her hands gripping its edge, and Sharpe wondered if she was about to shout for her servants and have him thrown out. Then she leaned back, relaxed, and waved a hand at the elegant balcony. “I thought I had rather high tastes. Poor Jack thinks everyone is like him.” Her voice had changed again, this time she had spoken with a soft sadness. She stood up and walked to the lattice, pushing open one of the doors. “That business tonight was a shambles.”
The previous subject seemed to have been forgotten, as if it had never existed. Sharpe turned to look at her. “Yes.”
“Why did the Peer order the attack? It seemed hopeless.”
Sharpe was tempted to say that she had wanted a battle, almost pleaded with Wellington for one, but this new, crisp woman was not someone he wanted to annoy, not at this moment. “He’s always impetuous at sieges. He likes to get them done.”
“Which means many deaths?” Her fingers were beating a swift tattoo on the frame of the lattice.
“Yes.”
“What happens now?” She was staring at the forts and Sharpe was staring at her profile. She was the loveliest thing he had ever seen.
“We’ll have to dig trenches. We’ll have to do everything properly.”
“Where?”
He shrugged. “Probably in the ravine.”
“Show me.”
He went to her side, smelling her, feeling her closeness to him and he wondered if she could detect his trembling. He could see a silver comb holding up her piled hair and then he looked away and pointed at the gorge. “Along the right hand side, Ma’am, close to the San Vincente.”
She turned her face to his, just inches away, and her eyes were violet in the moonlight that threw shadows beneath the high cheekbones. “How long will that take?”
“It could be done in two days.”
She kept her face turned up and her eyes stayed on his eyes. He was aware of her body, of the bare shoulders, of dark shadows that promised softness.
She turned abruptly away and crossed to the table. “You haven’t eaten.”
“A little, Ma’am.”
“Come and sit. Pour me some wine.” There were partridges roasted whole, quails stuffed with meat and peppers, and small slices of fruit, that she said were quinces, that had been dipped in syrup and sugar. Sharpe took off his shako, propped his rifle against the wall, and sat. He did not touch the food. He poured her wine, moved the bottle to his own glass, and she stared at him, half smiling, and spoke in a detached, curious voice. “Why didn’t you kiss me just then?”
The bottle clinked dangerously against his glass. He set it down. “I didn’t want to offend you.”
She raised an eyebrow. “A kiss is offensive?”
“If it’s not wanted.”
“So a woman must always show that she wants to be kissed?”
Sharpe was feeling desperately uncomfortable, out of his place in a world he did not understand. He tried to shrug the topic away. “I don’t know.”
“You do. You think that a woman must always invite a man, yes? And that then leaves you guiltless.” Sharpe said nothing, and she laughed. “I forgot. You’re just a humble soldier and you don’t understand the ways of your betters.”
Sharpe looked at the beauty across the table and he tried to tell himself that this was just another woman, and he a man, and that there was nothing more to it than that. He could behave as if she was any woman he had ever known, but he could not convince himself. This was a Marquesa related to Emperors, and he was Richard Sharpe, related to no one apart from his daughter. The difference was like a screen between them and he could not shift it. Others might, but not he. He shrugged inwardly. That’s right, Ma’am. I don’t understand.“
She picked another cigar from the box on the table and leaned over the candle in the niche to light it. She sat down and stared at the cigar glow as if she had never seen it before. Her voice was soft again. “I’m sorry, Captain Sharpe. I don’t mean to offend.” She looked up at him. “How many people do understand? How many, do you think, live like this? One in a hundred thousand? I don’t know.” She looked at the thick rugs, at the crystal on the table. “You think I’m fortunate, don’t you.” She smiled to herself. “I am. Yet I speak five languages, Captain, and all I am expected to do with them is order the daily meals. I look in a mirror and I know just what you see. I open my doors and all those pretty staff-officers flood in and they flatter me, charm me, amuse me, and they all want something of me.” She smiled at him, and he smiled back. She shrugged. “I know what they want. Then there’s my servants. They want me to be lax, to be undemanding. They want to steal my food, my money. My Confessor wants me to live like a nun, to give to his charities, and my husband wants me to sail to South America.
