Sharpe's Waterloo

CHAPTER 6

Lucille Castineau stared gravely at her reflection in the mirror which, because it was only a small broken sliver, was being held by her maid, Jeanette, who was forced to tilt the glass up and down in an effort to show her mistress the whole dress. “It looks lovely,” Jeanette said reassuringly.

“It’s very plain. Oh, well. I am plain.”

“That’s not true, madame,” Jeanette protested.

Lucille laughed. Her ball gown was an old grey dress which she had prettified with some lengths of Brussels lace. Fashion dictated a filmy sheath that would scarcely cover the breasts and with a skirt slit to reveal a length of thigh barely disguised beneath a flimsy petticoat, but Lucille had neither the tastes nor the money for such nonsense. She had taken in the grey dress so that it hugged her thin body more closely, but that was her sole concession to fashion. She would not lower its neckline, nor would she have dreamed of cutting the skirt.

“It looks lovely,” Jeanette said again.

“That’s because you haven’t seen what anyone else will be wearing.”

“I still think it’s lovely.”

“Not that it matters,” Lucille said, “for I doubt whether anyone will be looking at me. Or will even dance with me.” She well knew Richard Sharpe’s reluctance to dance, which was why she had been surprised when the message came from the Prince of Orange’s headquarters informing her that Lieutenant-Colonel Sharpe would be attending His Royal Highness at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball, in anticipation of which His Royal Highness took pleasure in enclosing a ticket for Madame la Vicomtesse de Seleglise. Lucille herself never used her title, but she knew Sharpe was perversely proud of it and must have informed the Prince of its existence.

The reluctant Vicomtesse now propped the broken mirror on a shelf and poked fingers at her hair which she had piled loosely before decorating with an ostrich feather. “I don’t like the feather.”

“Everyone’s wearing them.”

“I’m not.” Lucille plucked it out and tickled the sleeping baby with its tip. The baby twitched, but slept on. Henri-Patrick had black hair like his father, but Lucille fancied she already saw her own family’s long skull in the baby’s wrinkled face. If he had his father’s looks and his mother’s brains, Lucille liked to say, Henri-Patrick should be well blessed.

She was unfair, at least to herself. Lucille Castineau had lived all her twenty-seven years in the Norman countryside and, though she came from a noble family, she proudly considered herself to be a farm woman. The rural life had denied her Jane Sharpe’s fashionable pallor; instead Lucille’s skin had the healthy bloom of country weather. She had a long, narrow and strong-boned face, its severity softened by her eyes which seemed to glow with laughter and sense. She was a widow. Her husband had been an elegant officer in Napoleon’s cavalry, and Lucille had often wondered why such a handsome man had sought to marry her, but Xavier Castineau had thought himself most fortunate in his wife. They had been married for only a few weeks before he had been hacked down by a sabre. In the peace after the wars, when Lucille had found herself alone in her family’s Norman chateau, she had met Sharpe and become his lover. Now she was the mother of his son.

Loyalty to her man had brought Lucille to Brussels. She had never been a Bonapartist, yet that distaste had not made it any easier for her to leave France and follow an army that must fight against her countrymen. Lucille had left France because she loved Sharpe, whom she knew was a better man than he thought himself to be. The war, she told herself, would end one day, but love was timeless and she would fight for it, just as she would fight to give her child his father’s company. Lucille had lost one good man; she would not lose a second.

And tonight, surprisingly, she had an opportunity to dance with her good man. Lucille took a last look in the mirror, decided there was nothing that could be done to make herself any more elegant or beautiful, and so picked up her small bag that contained the precious pasteboard ticket. She kissed her child, gave her hair one last despairing pat, and went to a ball.

A tall man waited at the stable entrance of the lodging house where Lucille Castineau had rented two attic rooms. He was a man whose frightening appearance commanded instant respect. His height, four inches over six feet, was formidable enough, yet he also carried the muscles to match his inches and this evening he looked even more threatening for he hefted an oak cudgel and had a long-barrelled horse-pistol thrust into his belt and British army rifle slung on one shoulder. He had sandy hair and a flat hard face. The man was in civilian clothes, yet, in this city thronged with soldiers, he had a confidence that suggested he might well have worn a uniform in his time.

The tall man had been leaning against the stable’s open gates, but straightened up as Lucille appeared from the house. She looked nervously at the western sky, tumultuous with dark clouds that had so hastened the dusk that the first lamps were already being lit in the city’s archways and windows. “Shall I bring an umbrella?“ she asked.

“It’s not going to rain tonight, ma’am.” The tall man spoke with the harsh accent of Ulster.

“You don’t have to walk me, Patrick.”

“And what else would I be doing tonight? Besides, the Colonel doesn’t want you walking the streets alone after dark.” Harper took a step back and gave Lucille an appreciative smile. “You look just grand, so you do!”

Lucille laughed good-naturedly at the compliment. “It’s a very old dress, Patrick.”

In truth Patrick Harper had not really noticed Lucille’s dress, but, being a married man, he knew the importance a woman attached to a compliment. Harper’s own wife would need more than a few such compliments when he reached home, for she had been adamantly opposed to her husband travelling to Brussels. “Why do you do this to me?” Isabella had demanded. “You’re not a soldier any more! You have no need to go! Your place is here, with me!”

That place was Dublin, where, at the end of the last war, Harper had gone with a saddlebag full of stolen gold. The treasure had come from the French baggage captured at Vitoria in Spain, a country where Sergeant Patrick Harper had found both wealth and a wife. Discharged from the army, he had intended to return to his beloved Donegal, but he had reached no further than Dublin where he bought a tavern close to the city’s quays. The tavern also did a thriving trade in the sale of stolen horses, an activity that provided Harper with an excuse to travel deep into the Irish countryside. The return of the Emperor to France and the subsequent declaration of war had been good for Harper’s trade; a good hunter stolen from a Protestant plantation in Ireland would fetch a prime price in England where so many officers equipped themselves for the campaign.

Harper had used the excuse of horse-trading to explain his journey to Isabella, but she knew the real truth of his escapade. It was not horses that fetched Harper to Belgium, but Sharpe. Sharpe and Harper were friends. For six years, on battlefields and in sieges, they had fought side by side and Harper, as soon as he heard of the new war, had waited for a word from his old officer. Instead, and to Isabella’s chagrin, Sharpe had come to Dublin himself. At first it had seemed he was only there to sit out the war with his French woman, but then the summons had come from the Dutch army and Isabella had known that her husband would follow Sharpe.

Isabella had tried to dissuade Patrick. She had threatened to leave him and return to Badajoz. She had cursed him. She had wept, but Harper had dismissed her fears. “I’m only going to trade a few horses, woman, nothing else.”

“You won’t be fighting?”

“Now why in the name of all Ireland would I want to be fighting?”

“Because of him,” Isabella knew her man, “and because you can’t resist joining a fight.”

“I’m not in the army, woman. I just want to make a few pennies by selling some horseflesh. Where’s the harm in that?”

In the end Harper had sworn a sacred oath on the Holy Mother and on all the bleeding wounds of Christ that he would not go into battle, that he would remember he was a husband and a father, and that if he so much as heard a musket shot he would turn tail and run away.

“Did you hear there was a wee scrap down south today?” Harper’s voice had a note of relish as he spoke of the fighting to Lucille.

“A battle?” Lucille sounded alarmed.

“Probably just a skirmish, ma’am.” Harper thrust aside the beggars who shuffled and reached towards Lucille. “I expect the Emperor’s getting bored with the waiting and decided to see if anyone was awake on this side of the border.”

“Perhaps that’s why I haven’t heard from Richard today.”

“If he’s got a choice between a battle and a dance, ma’am, then begging your presence, he’ll take the battle any day.” Harper laughed. “He’s never been much of a man for dancing, not unless he’s drunk and then he’ll dance with the best of them.” Harper suddenly realized that he might be betraying some confidences. “Not that I’ve ever seen him drunk, ma’am.”

Lucille smiled. “Of course not, Patrick.”

“But we’ll hear from him soon enough.” Harper raised the cudgel to drive away the beggars who swarmed ever more threateningly the closer they got to the Duke and Duchess of Richmond’s rented house. There were beggars throughout Europe. Peace had not brought prosperity, but higher prices, and the normal ranks of the indigent had been swollen by discharged soldiers. By day a woman could safely walk Brussels’ streets, but at night the pavements became dangerous. “Get back, you bastards! Get back!” Harper thrust two ragged men aside. Beyond the gutter shouting children pursued the polished carriages that rattled towards the rue de la Blanchisserie, but the coachmem were experts with their long whips which snapped sharply back to drive the urchins off.

A squadron of British Hussars were on duty in the rue de la Blanchisserie to keep the beggars away from the wealthy. A helpful corporal with a drawn sabre rode his horse in front of Harper to help clear Lucille’s passage to the big house.

„I’ll wait for you, ma’am,“ Harper told Lucille when they were safely in the courtyard.

“You don’t have to, Patrick. I’m sure Richard will escort me home.”

„I’ll wait here, ma’am,“ Harper insisted.

Lucille was nervous as she climbed the steps. A gorgeously dressed footman inspected her ticket, then bowed her into the hallway which was brilliant with candles and thronged~ with people. Lucille already felt dowdy. She glanced about the hall, hoping against hope that Richard would be waiting for her, but there was no sign of Sharpe, nor of any of the Prince of Orange’s staff. Lucille felt friendless in an enemy country, but then was relieved to see the Dowager Countess of Mauberges who, like so many other Belgian aristocracy, thought of herself as French and wanted the world to know it. The old lady was defiantly wearing her dead husband’s Legion d’honneur about her neck. “Your husband was a member of the Legion, was he not?” she greeted Lucille.

“Indeed he was.”

“Then you should wear his medal.”

Not that the ball needed an extra medal for, to Lucille, it seemed as though a jewel shop had been exploded into extravagant shards of light and colour. The colour came from the men’s uniforms, gorgeous uniforms, uniforms of scarlet and gold, royal blue and saffron, silver and black; uniforms of Hussars, Dragoons, Guards, Jaegers and kilted Highlanders. There were plumes, froggings, epaulettes, aigulettes, and gold-furnished scabbards. There were fur-edged dolmans, silk-lined pelisses, and gorgets of pure gold. There were princes, dukes, earls, and counts. There were plenipotentiaries in court uniforms so decked with gold that their coats seemed like sheets of light. There were jewelled stars and enamelled crosses worn on sashes of brilliant silk, and all lit by the glittering chandeliers which had been hoisted to the ceiling with their burdens of fine white candles.

The women wore paler colours; white or washed yellow or delicate blue. Those ladies slim and brave enough to wear the high fashion were ethereal in gauzy dresses that clung to their bodies as they moved. The candlelight glinted from pearls and rubies, diamonds and gold. The room smelt of scents — orange water or eau de cologne, beneath which were the sharper smells of hair powder and sweat. “I don’t know‘, the Dowager Countess leaned close to Lucille, ”why some of them bother to dress at all! Look at that creature!“

The Countess jabbed her walking cane in the direction of a girl with bright gold ringlets and eyes as radiant as sapphires. The girl was undeniably beautiful, and clearly knew it for she was wearing no petticoat and a diaphanous dress of pale gold that did little to hide her body. “She might as well be stark naked!” the Countess said.

“It’s the fashion.” Lucille felt very drab.

“When I was a girl it took twelve yards of cloth just to make an underskirt for a ball gown. Now they simply unfold some cheesecloth and throw it over their shoulders!” Hardly that even, for most of the womens’ shoulders were bared, just as most bosoms were almost naked. “And see how they walk! Just like men.” In the Countess’s childhood, before the Revolution, and before Belgium had been liberated from Austrian rule by the French, women had been taught to glide along a floor, their feet hidden by wide skirts and their slippers barely leaving the polished boards. The effect was graceful, suggesting effortless motion, while now the girls seemed not to care. The Countess shook her head with disgust. “You can tell they’re Protestants! No manners, no grace, no breeding.”

Lucille diverted the old lady by showing her the supper room which, like the ballroom, had been draped with the Belgian colours of black, gold and scarlet. Beneath the silk hangings the long tables were covered in white linen and were thick with silver and fine china.

“They’ll lose all the spoons tonight!” the Countess said with undisguised satisfaction, then turned as applause greeted the stately polonaise which had progressed from the far side of the house, advanced through the entrance hall and now entered the ballroom to open the dancing formally. Lucille and the Countess sat by the supper room entrance. The uniformed officers and their ladies stepped delicately in the dancing line, they bowed and curtseyed. The music rang sweetly. A child, allowed to stay up and watch the ball’s beginning, stared wide-eyed from a balcony, while the Countess tapped her stick on the parquet floor in time to the music.

After the polonaise, the first waltz brightened the room with its jaunty rhythm. The windows were black with night, but sheeted with the reflections of a thousand candles sparkling on ten thousand jewels. Champagne and laughter ruled the room, while the dancers whirled in glittering joy.

Lucille watched the pretty girl in the diaphanous golden dress who danced with a tall and handsome officer in British cavalry uniform. Lucille noted how the girl refused all partners but that one man and she felt a surge of sympathy because she knew the girl must be in love, just as she herself was in love. Lucille thought the girl and the cavalry officer made a very fine couple, but she wished the girl would smile rather than hold her face in such a cold and supercilious expression.

Then Lucille forgot the girl as the ballroom was swamped by a sudden and prolonged applause, which forced the orchestra to pause.

The Duke of Wellington had appeared with his staff. He stood in the ballroom entrance and acknowledged the applause with a small bow. He was not a tall man, but something about his confidence and reputation gave him an impressive stature. He was dressed in the scarlet and gold of a British field marshal with a tactful Netherlands decoration worn on an orange sash.

Lucille, politely applauding with the rest of the room, wondered whether this man truly was the greatest soldier of his time. Many, including Sharpe, insisted that he was. No one, not even the Emperor, had fought so many battles, and no other General had won all the battles he had ever fought, though the Duke, as every person in the ballroom was aware, had never fought the Emperor. In Vienna, where the Duke had travelled as Britain’s ambassador to the Congress, society had greeted him with outrageous flattery, calling him ‘le vainqueur du vainqueur du mondi, but Lucille guessed that Bonaparte might have other ideas of the Duke’s military stature.

Now the conqueror of the world’s conqueror gestured to stop the applause. “He has a good leg,” the Dowager Countess confided in Lucille.

“He’s a handsome man,” Lucille agreed.

“And he’s not in a corset. You can tell that by the way they bow. My husband never wore a corset, not like some here tonight.” The Countess cast a scathing eye at the dancers who were beginning yet another waltz, then looked back to the Duke. “He’s a young man.”

“Forty-six,” Lucille told her, “the same age as the Emperor.”

“Generals are getting younger. I’m sure the soldiers don’t like it. How can a man have confidence in a stripling?”

The Countess fell into a disapproving silence as a young and handsome British officer offered Lucille a low and evidently un-corseted bow. “My dear Lucille!” Captain Peter d’Alembord was resplendent in scarlet coat and white breeches.

“Captain!” Lucille responded with a genuine pleasure. “How nice to see a friendly face.”

“My Colonel received an invitation, didn’t know what to do with such a thing, so gave it to me. I can’t believe you’ve persuaded Sharpe to attend, or have you turned him into a dancing man?”

“He’s supposed to be accompanying the Prince.” Lucille named d’Alembord to the Dowager Countess of Mauberges who gave the officer a very suspicious examination.

“Your name is French!” the Countess accused him.

“My family were Huguenots, my lady, and therefore unwanted in la belle France.” D’Alembord’s contemptuous scorn for France made the Countess bridle, but he had already turned back to Lucille. “You’ll do me the honour of dancing?”

Lucille would. D’Alembord was an old friend who had dined frequently with Sharpe and Lucille since they had come to the Netherlands. Both men had served in the Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers where d’Alembord had succeeded Sharpe to the command of the first battalion’s light company. That battalion was now bivouacked in a village to the west of Brussels where d’Alembord had heard no news of any skirmishes on the frontier. Instead his day had been spent indulging the Colonel’s passion for cricket. “I think he plans to kill us all with boredom,” d’Alembord told Lucille as they took the floor.

“Poor Peter.”

“Not at all, I am the most fortunate of men. Except for Sharpe, of course.”

Lucille smiled at the dutiful but pleasing compliment. “Of course. And how is Anne?”

“Very well. She writes to tell me that her father has found a house that will be suitable for us. Not too large, but with adequate stabling and a few acres of grazing.”

“I’m glad for you.”

D’Alembord smiled. “I’m rather glad for me, too.”

“So stay alive to enjoy it, Peter!”

“Don’t even tempt fate to suggest I won’t.” D’Alembord was newly engaged, and filled with a touching happiness at the prospect of his marriage. Lucille rather envied him, wishing that she could marry Sharpe. That admission made her smile to herself. Who would ever have believed that Lucille, Vicomtesse de Seleglise and widow of Colonel Xavier Castineau, would be mother to a half-English bastard?

She turned lithely to the music and saw that the blue-eyed girl in the golden dress was watching her very coldly. Was it the dowdy grey dress that had earned the girl’s scorn? Lucille suddenly felt very shabby and uncomfortable. She turned her back to the girl.

“Good God!” D’Alembord, who was a very good dancer, suddenly faltered. His eyes were fixed on someone or something at the room’s edge and Lucille, turning to see what had caught his astonished attention, saw the golden girl returning d’Alembord’s gaze with what seemed to be pure poison.

“Who is she?” Lucille asked.

D’Alembord had quite given up any attempt to dance. Instead he offered Lucille his arm and walked her off the floor. “Don’t you know?”

Lucille stopped, turned to look at the girl once more then, intuitively, she knew the answer and looked for confirmation into d’Alembord’s worried face. “That’s Richard’s wife?” She could not hide her astonishment.

“God only knows what she’s doing here! And with her damned lover!” D’Alembord steered Lucille firmly away from Jane and Lord John Rossendale. “Richard will kill him!”

Lucille could not resist turning one more time. “She’s very beautiful,” she said sadly, then she lost sight of Jane as the Duke of Wellington’s party moved across the ballroom floor.

The Duke was offering bland reassurance about the scanty news of the day’s skirmishes. Brussels was full of rumours about a French attack, rumours that the Duke was scarcely able to correct or deny. He knew there had been fighting about Charleroi, and he had heard of some skirmishes being fought in the villages south of the Prince of Orange’s headquarters, but whether the French had invaded in force, or whether there was an attack coming in the direction of Mons, the Duke still did not know. Some of his staff had urged that he abandon the Duchess’s ball, but such an act, he knew, would only have offered encouragement to the Emperor’s many supporters in Brussels and could even have prompted the wholesale desertion of Belgian troops. The Duke had to appear confident of victory or else every waverer in his army would run to be with the Emperor and the winning side.

“Is Orange here?” the Duke asked an aide.

“No, sir.”

“Let’s hope he brings news. My dear Lady Mary, how very good to see you.” He bowed over her hand, then dismissed her fears of an imminent French invasion. Gently disengaging himself he walked on and saw Lord John Rossendale waiting to present himself and, with him, a young, pretty and under-dressed girl who somehow looked familiar.

“Who in God’s name brought Rossendale here?” the Duke angrily asked an aide.

“He’s been appointed to Uxbridge’s staff, sir.”

“Damn Harry. Haven’t we enough bloody fools in the cavalry already?” Harry Paget, Earl of Uxbridge and commander of the British cavalry, was second in command to the Duke. Uxbridge had eloped with the wife of the Duke’s younger brother, which did not precisely endear him to the Duke. “Is Harry here?” the Duke now asked.

“No, Your Grace.”

“He’s sent Rossendale as deputy adulterer instead, eh?” The Duke’s jest was grim, then his face froze into a chill smile as Rossendale ushered Jane forward.

“Your Grace.” Lord John bowed. “May I name Miss Jane Gibbons for you?” He deliberately used Jane’s maiden name.

“Miss Gibbons.” The Duke found himself staring down her powdered cleavage as she curtseyed. “Have we not met, Miss Gibbons?”

“Briefly, Your Grace. In southern France.”

He had her now. Good God! Wellington stiffened, remembering the details of the gossip. This was Sharpe’s wife! What in hell’s name did Rossendale think he was doing? The Duke, realizing that the introduction had been made in order to give the adulterous liaison the appearance of his approval, icily turned away without another word. It was not the adultery that offended him, but the stupidity of Lord John Rossendale risking a duel with Sharpe.

The Duke turned abruptly back, intending to inform his lordship that he did not permit duelling among his officers, but Rossendale and Jane had been swallowed up in the crowd.

The Duke forced a smile and airily denied to a lady that he had any fear of an imminent French attack. “It takes longer to push an army up a road than you might think. It’s not like herding cows, madam. We’ll have good warning when Bonaparte marches, I do assure you.”

Another burst of applause announced the arrival of the Prince of Orange, who had come with a handful of staff officers. The Young Frog waved happily to the dancers and, ignoring his hostess, made straight for the Duke. “I knew you wouldn’t cancel the ball.”

“Should I have done?” the Duke asked tartly.

“There have been rumours,” the Prince said airily, “nothing but rumours. Isn’t this splendid?” He stared eagerly about the room in search of the prettiest faces, but instead caught sight of Lieutenant Harry Webster, one of his own British aides, who was hurrying across the dance floor. Webster offered the Prince a perfunctory bow, then offered him a despatch.

Most of the ballroom saw the despatch being given, and could tell from Webster’s dust-stained boots that he must have ridden hard to bring the paper to Brussels, but the Prince merely thrust the despatch into a pocket of his coat and went back to his scrutiny of the younger women. Webster’s face showed alarm. The Duke, catching the expression, smiled thinly at the Prince. “Might I know the contents of the despatch, Your Highness?”

“If you wish. Of course.” The Prince carelessly handed over the sealed paper, then sent one of his Dutch aides to enquire about the identity of the girl in the diaphanous gold dress.

The Duke tore the despatch open. Rebecque, in Braine-le-Comte, had news both from the Prussians and from Dornberg in Mons. The French had advanced north from Charleroi, but had turned eastwards to attack Blücher and had halted for the night at a village called Fleurus. General Dornberg reported no activity at all on the roads leading to Mons. His cavalry patrols had ridden ten miles into France and had met no enemy troops.

The Prince, his eyes more bulbous than ever, had seized Webster’s arm. “You see that girl? Do you know her?”

“Lieutenant Webster,” the Duke’s voice was as cold as a sword in winter, “four horses instantly to the Prince of Orange’s carriage. Your Highness will return immediately to your headquarters.”

The Prince blinked in surprise at his Commander-in-Chief, then offered a small laugh. “Surely it can wait till — „

“Instantly, sir!” The Duke did not raise his voice, but there was something quite terrifying in his tone. “Your corps will concentrate on Nivelles now. Go, sir, go!”

The Prince, aghast, stayed a half-second, then fled. A thousand eyes had watched the brief altercation, and now the whispers began in earnest. Something must have happened; something alarming enough to send the Prince scurrying from the ball.

The Duke and Duchess of Richmond sought an answer, but the Duke of Wellington merely smiled and blithely proposed that the company should proceed to supper. He offered the Duchess his arm and the orchestra, seeing the gesture, stopped their playing to allow the Highland pipers to begin their sword dance.

The pipes wailed and squealed into life, then caught their air to fill the room with a martial sound as the company, two by two and slow as an army’s progress up a country road, went in to supper.

There were quails’ eggs served on scrambled eggs and topped with caviar which the Duchess’s chef obscurely called les trois oeufs de victoire. They were followed by a port-wine jelly and a cold soup.

The Duke of Wellington was happily seated between two attractive young ladies, while Lucille found herself between d’Alembord and a Dutch gunner colonel who complained about the victory eggs, refused the soup, and said the bread was too hard. Lucille had seen the Prince’s arrival and hasty departure, and had resigned herself to Sharpe’s absence. In a way she was glad, for she feared Sharpe’s violence if he discovered Lord John Rossendale at the ball.

Lucille, a Norman, had been raised on stories of the merciless English pirates who lived just across the Channel and who, for centuries, had raided her homeland to kill and burn and plunder. She loved Sharpe, yet she saw in her lover the embodiment of those ghouls who had been used to scare her into childhood obedience. In the last few months, as the soldier had tried to become a farmer, Lucille had tried to educate her Englishman. She had convinced him that sometimes diplomacy was more effective than force, that anger must sometimes be tamed, and that the sword was not the clinching argument of peace. Yet, Lucille knew, he would remember none of those pacifist lessons if he saw Lord John. The big sword would scrape free. Peter d’Alembord, who shared her fears, had promised to restrain Sharpe if he appeared.

Now, it seemed, he would not be coming, for the Prince had fled the ball. No one knew why, though the Dutch gunner Colonel opined that the reason for the Prince’s hasty departure could not have been of great importance, or else the Duke would surely have left with the Prince. The most reasonable assumption was that the French had pushed a cavalry raid across the frontier. “I’m sure we’ll discover the cause by morning,” d’Alembord said, then turned to Lucille to offer her a glass of wine.

But Lucille had gone quite white. She was staring wide-eyed and frightened at the supper room’s open doorway which, like a proscenium arch, framed the Highland dancers and, quite suddenly, now also framed her lover.

Sharpe had come to the ball after all. He stood, blinking in the sudden candlelight, a shabby Rifleman among the dancing Scotsmen.

“Good God Almighty!” D’Alembord stared in awe at his friend.

Silence spread slowly across the supper tables as the hundreds of guests turned to stare at the Rifleman who, in turn, searched the supper tables for a particular person. A woman gasped in horror at the sight of him, and the pipes groaned a last uneasy note before the dancers froze above their swords.

Sharpe had come to the ball, but drenched in blood. His face was powder-stained and his uniform darkened with gore. Every other man in the room wore white breeches and silk stockings, yet here, looking like the ghost in the Scottish play, came a soldier from a battlefield; a soldier bloodied and marked, grim-faced as slaughter.

Jane Sharpe screamed; the last sound before the room went wholly silent.

Lucille half stood, as if to reveal herself to Sharpe, but he had seen the Duke and, seemingly oblivious of the effect his entrance had caused on the ball’s guests, now strode between the tables to the Duke’s side.

Wellington’s face seemed to shudder in reaction to the stench of powder, blood, sweat and crushed grass that wafted from Sharpe’s uniform. He waved the Rifleman down to a crouch so that their conversation could be more private. “What is it?” the Duke asked curtly.

“I’ve just come from a crossroads called Quatre Bras, sir. It’s north of Charleroi on the Brussels road. The French attacked there at sunset, but were checked by Saxe-Weimar’s men. Prince Bernhard is certain the enemy will make a much stronger attack in the morning.” Prince Bernhard had said no such thing, but Sharpe had decided it would be more efficacious to assign the opinion to the prince than to confess that it was his own view.

The Duke stared at Sharpe for a few seconds, then flinched at the blood which was caked on the Rifleman’s jacket. “Are you wounded?”

“A dead Frenchman, sir.”

The Duke dabbed his mouth with a napkin, then, very casually, leaned towards his host. “You have a good map in the house?”

“Upstairs, yes. In my dressing-room.”

“Is there a back staircase?”

“Indeed.”

“Pray let us use it.” Wellington looked to an aide who was seated a few places down the table. “All officers to their regiments, I think.” He spoke quite calmly. “Come with us, Sharpe.”

Upstairs, in a room filled with boots and coats, the two Dukes leaned over a map while Sharpe amplified his report. Wellington moved a candle across the map to find the village of Fleurus where the Prussians now faced the French. That had been the first news this night had brought the Duke — that Napoleon’s army had branched off the Brussels road to drive the Prussians eastwards away from the British. That news had been serious, but not disastrous. The Duke had planned to assemble as much of his army as possible, then march at dawn on to the French flank to help Blucher’s Prussians, but now Sharpe had brought much worse news. The French had closed on Quatre Bras, effectively barring the Duke’s planned march. Now, before he could help the Prussians, the Duke must thrust the French aside. The gap between the British and Prussian armies was still very narrow, yet Sharpe’s news proved that the Emperor had his foot between the two doors and, in the morning, he would be heaving damned hard to drive the doors apart.

Wellington bit his lower lip. He had been wrong. Napoleon, far from manoeuvring about the Duke’s right flank, had rammed his troops into the seam between the allied armies. For a second the Duke’s eyes closed, then he straightened up and spoke very quietly. “Napoleon has humbugged me, by God! He has gained twenty-four hours!” He sounded astonished, even hurt.

“What do you intend doing?” The Duke of Richmond had gone pale.

“The army will concentrate on Quatte Bras,” the Duke of Wellington seemed to be speaking to himself as though he groped towards a solution of the problem Napoleon posed, “but we shan’t stop him there, and if so,” Wellington’s gaze flicked across the map, then settled, “I must fight him,” he paused again to lean over the map for a few final seconds, “here.” He pressed his thumbnail into the map’s thick paper.

Sharpe stepped a pace forward to look down at the map. The Duke’s thumbnail had forced a small scar into the map at another crossroads, this one much closer to Brussels and just south of a village with the odd name of Waterloo.

“He’s humbugged me!” the Duke said again, but this time with a grudging admiration for his opponent.

“Humbugged?” Richmond was worried.

“It takes our armies two days to assemble,” Wellington explained. “They’re not assembled, yet the Emperor’s army is already on our doorstep. In brief he has humbugged us. Sharpe.” The Duke turned abruptly on the Rifleman.

“Sir?”

“You might have dressed for the dance.” It was a gloomy jest, but softened with a smile. “I thank you. You’ll report to the Prince of Orange, I assume?”

“I was going back to Quatre Bras, sir.”

“Doubtless he’ll meet you there. I thank you again. And goodnight to you.”

Sharpe, thus dismissed, made a clumsy bow. “Good-night, sir.”

The Duke of Richmond, when Sharpe had gone, grimaced. “A menacing creature?”

“He came up from the ranks. He saved my life once,” Wellington somehow managed to sound disapproving of both achievements, “but if I had ten thousand like him tomorrow then I warrant we’d see Napoleon beat by midday.” He stared again at the map, seeing with sudden and chilling clarity just how efficiently the Emperor had forced the allied armies apart. “My God, but he’s good,” the Duke spoke softly, “very good.”

Outside the dressing-room, Sharpe found himself surrounded by anxious staff officers who waited for Wellington. The Rifleman brushed aside their questions, going instead to the main staircase which led down into the brightly lit chaos of the entrance hall where a throng of officers demanded, their horses or carriages. Sharpe, suddenly feeling exhausted, and reluctant to force his way through the crowd, paused on the landing.

And saw Lord John Rossendale. His lordship was standing at the archway that led into the ballroom. Jane was with him.

For a second Sharpe could not believe his eyes. He had never dreamed that his enemy would dare show his face in the army, and Lord John’s presence seemed evidence to Sharpe of just how the cavalryman must despise him. The Rifleman stared at his enemy just as many of the crowd in the entrance hall stared up at the blood-soaked Rifleman. Sharpe translated the crowd’s atten-tion as the derision due to a cuckold and, in that misapprehension, his temper snapped.

He impulsively ran down the last flight of stairs. Jane saw him and screamed. Lord John turned and hurried out of sight. Sharpe tried to save a few seconds by vaulting the banister. He landed heavily on the hall’s marble flagstones, then thrust his way through the press of people.“

“Move!” Sharpe shouted in his best Sergeant’s voice, and the sight and sound of his anger was enough to make the elegant couples shrink away from him.

Lord John had fled. Sharpe had a glimpse of his lordship running through the ballroom. He ran after him, clear of the crowd now. He dodged past the few remaining couples who still danced, then turned into the supper room. Lord John was hurrying round the edge of the room, making for a back entrance, but Sharpe simply took the direct route which meant jumping from table to table straight across the room. His boots smashed china, ripped at the linen, and cascaded silver to the floor. A drunken major, finishing a plate of roast beef, shouted a protest. A woman screamed. A servant ducked as Sharpe jumped between two of the tables. He kicked over a candelabra, upset a tureen of soup, then leaped from the last table to land with a crash in Lord John’s path.

Lord John twisted round, running back towards the ballroom. Sharpe pursued him, kicking aside a spindly gilt chair. A group of scarlet-coated cavalry officers appeared in the supper room entrance and Lord John, evidently encouraged by these reinforcements, turned to face his enemy.

Sharpe slowed to a walk and drew his sword. He dragged the blade slowly through the scabbard’s wooden throat so that the sound of the weapon’s scraping would be as frightening as the sight of the dulled steel. “Draw your sword, you bastard.”

“No!” Lord John, as white faced as any of the fashionable women at the ball, backed uncertainly towards his friends who hurried towards the confrontation.

Sharpe was just a few paces from his enemy. “Where’s my money? You can keep the whore, but where’s the money?”

“No!” That was Jane, screaming from the supper room’s entrance.

“Stop, I say! Stop!” One of the cavalrymen, a fall captain in Life Guard’s uniform, hurried to Lord John’s side.

Sharpe, though he was still far out of sword’s reach, suddenly lunged and Lord John, in utter fear, stepped hurriedly backwards and tripped on his spurs. He flailed for balance, snatched at the closest tablecloth and dragged a cascade of smashing china and chinking silver to the floor as he fell. There was a second’s silence after the last shard of china had settled.

“You shit-faced, yellow-bellied bastard,” Sharpe said to the sprawling Lord John.

“Enough!” Lord John’s leading rescuer, the Life Guards Captain, drew his own sword and stood above his lordship.

“You want to be filleted?” Sharpe did not care. He kept walking forward, ready to hack down all the high-born, long-nosed bastards.

The Captain held his sword blade upright, almost at the salute, to show that he was neither menacing Sharpe nor trying to defend against him. “My name is Manvell. Christopher Manvell. You and I have no quarrel, Colonel Sharpe.”

“I’ve got a quarrel with that piece of yellow shit at your feet.”

“Not here!” Captain Manvell warned. “Not in public!” Duelling had been forbidden to serving officers, which meant that any duel would have to be fought in secret. Two other cavalry officers stood behind the Captain.

Lord John slowly climbed to his feet. “I tripped,” he explained to his friend.

“Indeed.” Manvell kept his eyes fixed on Sharpe, half fearing that the Rifleman might still attack.

“You can keep the whore,” Sharpe said again to Lord John, but this time loud enough for Jane and the other spectators to hear, “but I want my money.”

Lord John licked his lips. He knew that Sharpe’s insults were more than mere anger, but a deliberate provocation to a duel. No man could hear his woman described as a whore and not fight, yet Lord John was truly terrified of the Rifleman and had no doubt who would win a duel, and so, despite the insults and despite the people who witnessed his humiliation, he nodded his acceptance of Sharpe’s demand. “I’ll send you a note tomorrow,” he said humbly.

Captain Manvell was plainly astonished at Lord John’s swift collapse, even disgusted by the cowardice, but had no choice but to accept it. “Does that satisfy you, Colonel Sharpe?”

Sharpe was just as surprised at his sudden victory. He felt oddly cheated, but sheathed his sword anyway. “You can bring the note to me at the Prince of Orange’s headquarters.”

He had spoken to Lord John, but Manvell chose to answer. “I shall act for his lordship in this matter. You have a second to whom I can present the note?”

“He does!” Peter d’Alembord spoke up from the crowd which listened from the supper room’s wide entrance. Lucille, her face paled by fear, held d’Alembord’s arm as he walked a few paces into the room and bowed primly to Christopher Manvell. “My name is d’Alembord. I can be found with the Prince of Wales’s Own Volunteers who are a part of Sir Colin Halkett’s brigade.”

Manvell gave the smallest nod to acknowledge d’Alembord’s bow. “I shall serve you a promissory note tomorrow, Captain d’Alembord. Is that agreeable?”

“Entirely.”

Manvell thrust his own sword home, then took Lord John’s elbow and led him away. Jane, watching from the entrance, had a hand over her mouth. Sharpe caught her eye for a second, then turned away as Lucille ran to him.

“I should have killed the bastard,” Sharpe growled.

“You’re a fool.” Lucille brushed at the blood on his jacket, then touched his cheek.

D’Alembord, behind Lucille, waited until the spectators had drifted away. “What happened?” he asked Sharpe.

“You heard for yourself, didn’t you? The bastard collapsed.”

D’Alembord shook his head. “What happened with Wellington? What was the news?”

Sharpe had to drag his thoughts back to the earlier events of the night. “Napoleon’s stolen a march on us. His army’s just a day away from here, and ours is still scattered over half Belgium. We’ve been humbugged, Peter.”

D’Alembord smiled very wanly. “Oh, my God.”

“So it’s time to see how an emperor fights.” Sharpe said grimly, then he put an arm round Lucille’s shoulders and steered her towards the ballroom where, because the orchestra had been engaged till dawn, the music still played and a few last couples still danced. The Highland dancers had left, taking their swords for other employment. A few girls, their escorts already gone to join their regiments, wept. The windows had been opened wide and a small breeze fluttered the candles. The remaining dancers, holding each other very close, slowly circled the floor, which was littered with discarded flowers and dance-cards and even a pair of silk gloves. A pearl necklace had broken and two liveried servants scrabbled on hands and knees to retrieve the jewels.

The music was winsome. Like the wind that guttered and blew out the candles, a bloodied man had broken through the dancers’ joy to break the glittering ball into dark fragments, yet still some few couples could not bear to relinquish the last moments of peace. A young infantry major danced with his wife of just three weeks. She wept softly, while he held her and believed in the augury that this happiness could not possibly end in death on a battlefield, for such an end would be against all that was good and sweet and lovely in the world. He would live because he was in love. He clung to the thought until, reluctant, and with tears in his eyes, it was time to draw away from his love. She held his hands tight, but he smiled, freed his hands, then reached for the grey ostrich feathers she wore in her hair. The Major plucked one of the grey feathers, kissed his wife’s hand, then went to find his regiment.

The Emperor had humbugged them all, and the killing would begin.