after the tanned, brown skin of the army and its followers, to be made of a substance that was of heavenly origin. Sharpe had seen many beautiful women. Teresa was beautiful, Jane Gibbons, whose brother had tried to kill him at Talavera, was beautiful, but this woman was in another realm. Curtis rapped the carriage door. Sharpe was hardly aware of any other person, not even of Wellington himself, and he watched the eyes come to him as she listened to Curtis’ introduction. ‘Captain Richard Sharpe, I have the honour to name you La Marquesa de Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba.’
She looked at him. He half expected her to offer him a white-gloved hand, but she just smiled. ‘People never remember it.’
‘La Marquesa de Casares el Grande y Melida Sadaba.’ Sharpe marvelled that he had got the words out without stammering. He understood exactly what Curtis meant by jellification. She raised an eyebrow in mock surprise. Curtis was telling her, in Spanish, about Leroux. Sharpe heard the name mentioned, and saw her glance at him. Each glance was stupefying. Her beauty was like a physical force. Other women, Sharpe guessed, would hate her. Men would follow her like lap dogs. She had been born beautiful and every artifice that money could buy was enhancing that beauty. She was glorious, tantalising, and, he supposed, untouchable to anyone less than a full-blooded lord and, as he always did when he saw something that he wanted, but could not hope to have, he began to dislike it. Curtis stopped and she looked at Sharpe. Her voice sounded bored. ‘Leroux is in the forts?’
He wondered where she had learned English. ‘Yes, Ma’am.’
‘You’re certain?’
‘Yes, Ma’am.’
She nodded, dismissing him, and it seemed to Sharpe that his reassurances had not been wanted, nor welcomed. Then she turned back to him and raised her voice. ‘You do seem so much more soldierlike, Captain, than these pretty men on their horses.’
He was not supposed to reply. The remark had been made, he suspected, purely to annoy her gallant admirers. She did not even bother to see what effect it had on them, but merely drew a silver-tipped pencil from a small bag and began writing on a piece of paper. One man rose to the bait, a foppish cavalry officer whose English drawl spoke of aristocratic birth.
‘Any brute can be brave, Ma’am, but a curry-comb always improves it.’
There was a moment’s silence. La Marquesa looked up at Sharpe and smiled. ‘Sir Robin Callard thinks you’re an uncombed brute.’
‘Rather that than a lap-dog, Ma’am.’
She had succeeded. She looked at Callard and raised an eyebrow. He was forced to be brave. He stared at Sharpe, his face furious. ‘You’re insolent, Sharpe.’
‘Yes he is.’ The voice was crisp. Wellington leaned forward. ‘He always has been.’ The General knew what La Marquesa was doing, and he would stop it. He hated duelling among his officers. ‘It’s his strength. And weakness.’ He touched his hat. ‘Good day, Captain Sharpe.’
‘Sir.’ He backed away from the carriage, ignored by La Marquesa who was folding her piece of paper. He had been dismissed, contemptuously even, and he knew that a tattered Captain with an old sword had no place among these scented, elegant people. Sharpe felt the resentment rise sour and thick within him. Wellington needed Sharpe when there was a breach to be taken at Badajoz, but not now! Not among his Lordship’s own kind. They thought Sharpe was a mere brute who needed a curry-comb, yet he was a brute who kicked, clawed and scratched to preserve their privileged, lavish world. Well damn them. Damn them to a stinking hell. Tonight he would drink with his men, not one of whom would dream of owning as much money as the worth of a single silver trace chain from La Marquesa’s coach. Yet they were his men. Damn the bitch and the men who sniffed about her. Sharpe would prove he did not care a damn for them.
‘Sharpe?’
He turned. A handsome cavalry officer, hair as gold as La Marquesa’s, uniform as elegant as Sir Robin Callard’s, stood smiling at him. The man’s left arm was in a sling that covered the blue and silver of his jacket, and for a second Sharpe thought this man must be Callard’s second come to offer a duel. Yet the cavalry officer’s smile was open and friendly, his voice warm. ‘I’m honoured to meet you, Sharpe! Jack Spears, Captain.’ He grinned broadly. ‘I’m glad you twisted Robin’s nose. He’s a pompous little bastard. Here.’ He held a folded piece of paper to Sharpe.
Sharpe took it reluctantly, not wanting anything to do with the glittering circle about the blue and silver barouche. He unfolded the pencil written note. ‘I am giving a small reception this evening at 10 o’clock. Lord Spears will direct you.’ It was signed, simply, ‘H’.
Sharpe looked at the startlingly handsome cavalryman. ‘H?’
Spears laughed. ‘Helena, La Marquesa de tiddly-tum and tummly-tid, and the object of an army’s combined lust. Shall I tell her you’ll come?’ His voice was relaxed and friendly.
‘You’re Lord Spears?’
‘Yes!’ Spears unleashed all his charm on Sharpe. ‘By the Grace of God and the timely bloody death of my elder brother. But you can call me Jack, everyone else does.’
Sharpe looked again at the note. Her handwriting was childishly round, like his own. ‘I have other business tonight.’
‘Other business!’ Spear’s cry of mock amazement made some of the promenading Salamantines look curiously at the young, handsome cavalry officer. ‘Other business! My dear Sharpe! What other business could possibly be more important than attempting to breach the fair Helena?’
Sharpe was embarrassed. He knew Lord Spears was being friendly, but Sharpe’s encounter with the Marquesa had made him feel shabby and inadequate. ‘I have to see Major Hogan. Do you know him?’
‘Know him?’ Spears grinned. ‘He’s my lord and master. Of course I know Michael, but you won’t see him tonight, not unless you go south a couple of hundred miles.’
‘You work for him?’
‘He’s kind enough to call it work.’ Spears grinned. ‘I’m one of his Exploring Officers.’
Sharpe looked at the young Lord with a new respect. The Exploring Officers rode far behind enemy lines, wearing full uniform so they could not be accused of spying, and relying on their swift, corn-fed horses to ride them out of trouble. They sent back a stream of information about enemy movements, entrusting their messages and maps to Spanish messengers. It was a lonely, brave life. Spears laughed. ‘I’ve impressed the great Sharpe, how wonderful! Was it important to see Michael?’
Sharpe shrugged. In truth he had used Hogan’s name as an excuse for avoiding La Marquesa’s invitation. ‘I wanted to ask him about Colonel Leroux.’
‘That prize little bastard.’ For the first time there was something other than gaiety in Spear’s voice. ‘You should have killed him.’ Spears had evidently overheard the priest’s brief conversation with La Marquesa.
‘You know him?’
Spears touched the sling. ‘Who do you think did this? He nearly caught me one dark night last week. I tumbled out of a window to escape him.’ He smiled again. ‘Not very gallant, but I didn’t fancy the noble line of Spears coming to an end in a Spanish fleapit.’ He clapped Sharpe’s shoulder with his free hand. ‘Michael will want to talk to you about Leroux, but in the meantime, my dear Sharpe, you are coming to the Palacio Casares tonight
