woman on her own on such a mission was a bloody stupid thing to do. These French soldiers would not necessarily have killed you straight away, lass,’ Finlay said gently, ‘if they had captured you.’
‘I would not let them capture me. Under any circumstances,’ she added darkly.
‘You should not have been sent—assuming that whatever guerrilla group you belong to did actually authorise your foolhardy mission?’
She glowered at him again, opened her mouth to speak, then obviously thought better of it. ‘We should not be standing here debating in the open. It is not safe.’
She had a point. She also clearly did not trust him, despite his uniform. And why should she, Finlay thought wryly as he allowed her to lead the way along the narrow track he’d followed earlier. The problem was, he needed her to trust him enough to tell him what her fellow partisans’ plans were. If they meant to liberate the French weaponry and use it against them, it would save his men a job—and he could ill spare his men for such a mission, no matter how vital. Vitoria had knocked seven colours of shite out of them, and now Wellington was champing at the bit to attack the fortress towns of Pamplona and San Sebastian, despite the fact that desertion, sickness and sheer bloody exhaustion, to say nothing of the unseasonal and relentless rain, were having a serious impact on morale. If he could spare his men even one sortie...
Finlay frowned. He could not see how it was to be done. He knew no more about this woman than she knew about him. If he could at least find out who she took her orders from, for he was pretty certain he knew all the local guerrilla groups, and those he did not know his friend Jack, Wellington’s master codebreaker, of a certainty would. If only he could get her to talk.
They were climbing steeply now, pebbles from the narrow rocky path skittering down behind them. The moon was high enough in the sky to cast ghostly shadows. The woman moved lithely, her long legs in their tight boots seemingly tireless as she set a pace that would have left some of Finlay’s men gasping for breath. Raised in the Highlands, a childhood spent roaming the narrow sheep tracks on lower but equally rugged terrain, Finlay followed, his kilt swinging out behind him, his eyes alternating between his booted feet and the beguiling curve of his companion’s shapely behind. There was a lot to be said for women in trousers.
There was a lot to be said for men wearing kilts, too. As an officer, he’d the right to trews, but Finlay had always preferred the freedom of his plaid. Other officers from other regiments, especially those up-their-own-arse cavalry, saw Finlay’s loyalty to the kilt as one more piece of evidence of his barbarity. The Jock Upstart, Wellington had christened him when he had first, against all the odds and much against the duke’s inclination, clambered out of the ranks. Finlay, smiling through very gritted teeth, had sworn to be true to this moniker forever. His plaid was just one of the many ways he maintained his rebellious streak. Sometimes subtly and subversively. Frequently, less so.
He wondered what this woman’s family thought of her wandering about the countryside armed to the teeth. Perhaps they didn’t know. Perhaps she was married to a rebel warrior herself. It struck him, as it had often recently, how very different it was for the Spanish who fought alongside them, or who fought as this woman did, in their own underground guerrilla groups. Finlay was a soldier, doing the job he’d been trained to do, had been doing, man and boy. His cause was whatever his country and his commanding officer decreed it to be, his enemy whomever they nominated his enemy to be, and for the past few years it had been the French. He loathed the barbarities they had been responsible for, but he equally loathed the atrocities his own side, drunk on bloodlust and wine, had committed in the aftermath of Ciudad Rodrigo. But he did not hate the French indiscriminately. He admired their soldiers—they were worthy adversaries—and he would be a fool to do anything other than respect Napoleon’s military genius.
Napoleon, however, had not invaded Finlay’s homeland. The French army were not living off Finlay’s family’s croft, eating their oats and butchering their cattle. This woman, still striding out tirelessly as they crested the hill, was fighting for her country, her family, her village. And he, Finlay, might not be the enemy, but his men were still laying waste to the countryside in battle, laying siege to their ancient fortress towns and eating their hard-earned grain, even if they were paying a fair price for it. No wonder she had taken up arms. He’d bet his own sisters would do the same.
‘What do you find amusing?’
They had come to a halt on the ridge. The copse where Finlay’s horse was tethered was in the valley, about a hundred feet below. He hadn’t realised he was smiling. ‘I was trying to imagine my mother’s reaction if she caught my sisters playing the soldier, as you are.’
The woman bristled. ‘This is no game. Our sovereignty, our very existence is at stake.’
‘I did not mean to trivialise the actions of you and your comrades, lass—señorita. In fact, I was thinking just then how much I admire what you are doing. And thinking my sisters would likely do the same, if our lands were invaded as yours have been.’
‘You have many sisters?’
Finlay laughed. ‘It feels like it at times, though there’s only three of them.’
‘And brothers?’
‘Just the one. What about you?’
‘Just the one,’ she said, with a twisted smile. ‘He is with our army, fighting alongside you English—British. I don’t know where he is exactly.’
‘You must worry about his safety.’
She shrugged. ‘Of course, though if he was close at hand I would not have the opportunity to be so—’ she indicated her tunic, her gun ‘—involved. And so it is perhaps for the best, since we can both fight for our country in our own way.’
‘Your family don’t object to your active participation?’
‘My mother is dead. My father is—he is sympathetic. He turns the closed eye, I think that is what you say?’
‘Blind eye. Your English is a lot better than my Spanish.’
Another shrug greeted this remark. ‘I have been fortunate in my education. Papa—my father—is not one of those men who thinks that girls should learn only to cook and sew. Unlike my brother. Without Papa’s support and encouragement I would not be here, and we would not have known about that cache of arms.’
‘So your partisan group do intend to do something about it?’
The question was out before he could stop it. The result, he could have predicted if he’d given himself a chance to think. She folded her arms and turned away. ‘As a soldier yourself, you cannot expect me to disclose sensitive military information like that to a complete stranger. I will accompany you to the copse down there, and then we must go our separate ways.’
Cursing under his breath in Gaelic, Finlay followed her, determined more than ever, now that he’d made it even harder for himself, to find a way of making her trust him. If he was to do so, he’d need to stop her leaving. Which meant abandoning his plans to be back at camp by dawn, bidding farewell to the prospect of anything more appetising than the hard biscuits he had in his knapsack. On the other hand, it was not as if a few hours in the company of such a bonny and intriguing lass would be any great hardship. Even if their situation was fraught with danger. Maybe precisely because their situation was fraught with danger.
* * *
Isabella watched the Scottish soldier stride over to his horse,
