Gallant Scoundrel (2 page)

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Portugal—March, 1809

Freshly promoted from ensign to lieutenant, Harry returned to his regiment flush with success from leading his first mission in northern Portugal. By dint of a surprise dawn attack, he and his men had freed a nearby village from its French occupiers. The grateful villagers had hailed his platoon as heroes, though in truth they’d bested a unit no larger than their own.
 

When Harry hurried to the officers’ mess to report on the skirmish, his company commander was warm in his commendation. But then, with raised eyebrow, Captain Malthus suggested Harry might wish to wash off the mud of the fields before joining the other officers at table.

Only slightly chastened, Harry headed for his tent. Just before reaching it, he spotted a lad whose dull red coat, devoid of insignia, declared him a newly-enlisted private.
 

“You there, boy,” he called out, for the soldier looked no more than fifteen, with his smooth, beardless chin and close-cropped dark hair. “Help me off with my boots.”

Turning, the stripling coolly regarded him with gray eyes surrounded by rather remarkable black lashes. “If you’re not capable of removing your own boots, sir, you surely have no business leading a platoon into battle,” came the reply, in a voice undeniably feminine. “Did they not warn you that an army camp would lack many of the comforts you were accustomed to back in England—to include a bevy of servants at your beck and call?”

“Beg pardon, ma’am.” Examining the slim figure before him more closely, he realized the voice was not the only feminine thing about it, despite the uniform she wore. “But you must admit my mistake was an honest one. Nor have I seen you about the camp before—for I’d surely remember such a face as yours.”
 

She tipped up her chin to regard him haughtily down the length of her shapely nose, making him far more aware of his dirty and disheveled state than his captain’s comment had done.
 

“My father, Colonel Maxwell, arrived a few days since to advise Colonel Flagston on the regiment’s movements as they prepare to engage the French.”

Harry had of course heard of Colonel Maxwell, the brilliant strategist who had helped more than one commander turn the tide of battle—but not that he’d brought a daughter with him.
 

“And is it at your father’s behest that you wander about camp dressed in male attire?”

Now she colored slightly. “It seemed silly to change when I was only leaving the tent long enough to fetch more water. And I do not ‘wander about camp.’ I assist my father in his record-keeping and in nursing any wounded who are brought in.”
 

“In other words, the answer is no. You’d best return to your tent before your father sees you, then.” Harry allowed himself a hint of a smirk, at which the girl before him visibly bristled.

“I’ll do as I damned well please,” she snapped.

His brows rose. “So it would seem. Now I must beg your pardon for mistaking you for a lady, for none would use such language.”

For a long moment she glared, then spun on her heel and stalked away. Harry watched her appreciatively from behind, making note of which tent she entered. Whether he would have opportunity to make use of that knowledge in future he didn’t know, but he rather hoped so.

Over the next day or two Harry caught only fleeting glimpses of Miss Maxwell, dressed more conventionally in a drab gray gown that had clearly seen much wear, but she was again in male attire when he spotted her one evening upon leaving the company mess.
 

Hands on slim hips, Miss Maxwell was glaring at Ensign Phillips, a brash and rather irksome newcomer to Harry’s company. Curious, he moved to join the small crowd already gathered around the pair.

“You’ll apologize for that remark, sirrah, or you’ll name your seconds,” she declared.
 

Phillips burst out laughing. “Seconds? My dear Miss Maxwell, simply because you fill out those breeches more alluringly than any man does not mean you, a mere woman, can match the skills of one.”

“I propose we put that to the test,” she retorted. “Will it be pistols or swords?”
 

He shook his head disbelievingly. “Oh, come. You can’t seriously—”

“Pistols or swords?” she repeated. “Or are you so great a coward you dare not face a ‘mere woman’ on the field of honor?”

“Now see here—” He took a menacing step toward her, but Captain Malthus stepped between them.
 

“It’ll be swords, and you’ll stop at first blood,” he informed them both. “As my company is already understrength, I’ll not risk losing another soldier, no matter how much he might deserve it.”

Phillips stared at his commander. “But sir, surely you can’t—”

“Time you learned to mind your tongue, Phillips,” Malthus curtly informed him. “Miss Maxwell, fetch your weapon and I’ll see this fool’s is brought as well.”

A few minutes later the two faced off in the center of camp with the better part of three companies—all who weren’t out on maneuvers—in a large ring about them. Colonel Maxwell, Harry noticed, was watching the proceedings with an expression of mingled exasperation and pride—but no trace of alarm.
 

Captain Malthus took up position as
arbitre
and called out,
“En garde! Prêt? Allez!”

The amused smirk on Phillips’s face abruptly disappeared when Miss Maxwell opened with a bold thrust that he barely sidestepped in time. She instantly followed up, forcing him to parry. Within seconds it was obvious he was overmatched, his longer reach no compensation for her superior quickness and skill.
 

Barely a minute into the match, Captain Malthus called a halt. The surrounding crowd broke into applause while Phillips clutched his shoulder, his face contorted with pain…and embarrassment.

“Perhaps in future you’ll be less quick to underestimate a woman,” commented his opponent, who was not even winded. Then, with a courtly bow to Captain Malthus and the assembled soldiers, she headed for her tent.

More intrigued than ever by the remarkable Miss Maxwell, Harry made a point the next day of seeking her out in the surgery tent, where she was laying out instruments in readiness for the next batch of wounded that might be brought in.

“Give you good day, Miss Maxwell. Dare I ask whether you were required to patch the rent you made in young Phillips’s shoulder last night? Well done, by the way.”

Her dark brows drew down. “You see now what can come of insulting me. And no, Ensign Phillips preferred to have the orderly dress his wound.”

Harry chuckled. “Can’t say I blame him. For myself, I feel compelled to retract what I said to you at our first meeting, for you are clearly a dangerous woman to offend.”

She continued to regard him suspiciously. Then, apparently deciding he was at least somewhat sincere, she allowed a small smile to play about her remarkably well-shaped lips.
 

“Apology accepted. Though I fear you were correct that ladylike speech is a skill I singularly lack, much to the despair of my
ayah
, who has tried her best to teach me.”

“You appear to have spent your time cultivating rather more useful skills.” Harry carefully kept all trace of amusement from his expression. “If I am indeed forgiven for my rash words, perhaps you would consider indulging me in a fencing or shooting match? I should quite like to match my skills against yours.”
 

Her gray eyes narrowed, but then she gave a slight nod. “Perhaps that can be arranged, though when I finish here I still have two days of notes to transcribe for my father. Brilliant as he is, he rarely takes the time to make his hand legible to anyone but myself.”
 

“At your convenience, of course.” Harry leaned a shoulder against one of the tent poles. “One of the men mentioned that you spent much of your youth in India, Miss Maxwell. Is that where your father encountered General Wellesley?”

Deftly folding a canvas cloth on which the surgical instruments had been laid to dry after washing, she nodded. “My father was there pursuing his archaeological research and the two discovered a shared passion for military history, though my father’s research has been far more extensive. I overheard exceedingly long discussions between them about ancient battle tactics when I was eight or nine years old. When General Wellesley left Calcutta, they continued those discussions by correspondence.”

“And where did you travel after India?”

She furrowed her brow. “Persia, then Tibet for nearly a year—that is where I learned many of the methods I use with the wounded. Twice to Greece after that and once to Italy, Arabia briefly, then finally back to England.”

Harry took the folded canvas from her and added it to a stack on a nearby table. “Is that when Wellesley persuaded your father to serve as an advisor to his regiments?”

“Not immediately. General Wellesley was in Ireland, then Denmark, after which he’d intended to sail for the West Indies. Meanwhile, I was attempting to persuade my father to allow me to enlist as a man to help fight against the French. I quite fancied myself a modern day Boudicca or Joan of Arc, who would single-handedly lead the British forces to victory.” Her throaty little laugh sent a sudden flicker of desire through him.
 

“You may do so yet. Indeed, Miss Maxwell, I begin to believe there is very little you could not accomplish, should you set your mind to it.”

She frowned. “I have little patience with flattery, sir, for I am not so exceptional as you seem to think. In truth, most women are capable of far more than they realize, certainly more than most men would care to believe. The mere fact that we are barred from training as surgeons, lawyers, or even soldiers, does not mean we are incapable of learning, and excelling, as well or better than our brothers.”
 

Harry was careful not to allow his surprise at this unorthodox view to show in his expression. “After seeing what you did to Phillips last night, I don’t dare disagree.”
 

Privately, however, he had no doubt that Miss Maxwell was a most unusual woman indeed…and one who increasingly attracted him. Though alert for any opportunity to spend time with her, he at first only managed a few words here and there. He was often out on maneuvers, and she seemed to have even less idle time in camp than he did. In addition to transcribing notes, she spent long hours translating various texts of her father’s from Greek, Latin and even Sanskrit into English.
 

When wounded were brought into camp from occasional skirmishes with the French, she faced more pressing work, for she proved to have far more medical knowledge than the orderly assigned to the 45th, whose sole prior experience had been two months as a surgeon’s mate.
 

While days were generally spent drilling or marching, evenings in camp were often enlivened by the soldiers adding to their rum rations any wine or spirits taken from French troops or gifted by the locals. Harry never partook, however. Liquor had been largely responsible for his father losing the small estate he’d received as an earl’s second son, giving Harry an aversion to the stuff.

That abstinence freed his evenings to learn more of Xena Maxwell’s life history—and a fascinating history it was. From the time of her mother’s death when she was but five years old, Xena had traveled the globe with her father, gaining a familiarity with foreign peoples, languages, cultures and geography that few male scholars could boast.

Her unusual first name, Greek for “welcome stranger,” stemmed from both parents’ fascination with an obscure Greek myth about the goddess Athena, who allegedly masqueraded as a beggar woman, then showered gifts upon the only family that welcomed her into their home.
 

Though Harry knew he was by no means the only man in camp who admired Xena, after a week or two he began to believe—to hope—that she was coming to prefer his company to any of the others.
 

“How did you convince your father to allow you to come to Portugal with him?” he asked one evening as he helped her pack up the surgery tent in preparation for the next day’s march.

The grin she flashed him over the stack of linens she held made his pulse quicken. “He knew full well I’d pass myself off as a lad and enlist the moment he was gone, otherwise.”
 

“Able a soldier as you’d be, your skill in the surgery doubtless saves more lives. I don’t like to think how many more of those recently wounded would have died if left solely to the tender mercies of Corporal Jenkins.”

Xena shook her head. “That man creates far more work than he saves me, for I must keep half an eye on him at all times to prevent him causing more harm than good. Why, just last week he tried to begin an amputation before compressing the artery—poor Private Miller would have bled to death in minutes had I not intervened.”

“Jenkins is no worse than what passes for a surgeon in most camps,” Harry reminded her. “Ours is possibly the luckiest regiment in all Wellesley’s army to have you.”
 

That was too direct a compliment for Xena’s taste, for she frowned warningly. “I am simply fortunate that my travels in Asia and elsewhere provided me with greater knowledge and better methods than most attempting to act in that capacity. I also have the advantage of being a woman.”
 

“Advantage! How so?”

At his startled tone her smile returned. “I was no more than twelve when it became clear to me that women are far the more rational sex the world over. Men frequently allow their judgment to be clouded by passion or pride, while women take a more practical view of life.”

Though her declaration went counter to all he’d previously believed, Harry did not laugh. Xena’s views, as refreshing as her manner of speech and dress, were part of what he found so irresistible about her. “On what do you base such an, ah, interesting conclusion?” he asked, wanting to hear more.

“Study, experience and careful observation. No matter the country or culture, women learn at an early age to do whatever is necessary in order to survive and prosper. Indeed, they must, as they rarely have much, if any,
lawful
say over the disposition of their own persons or property. That is true even in such a supposedly civilized country as England.”