Sharpe's Fury - 11 (25 page)

“I was busy last night,” Sharpe said. “I was fetching some letters. Remember those letters?”

Another tiny nod.

“But I got them back. Gave them to Mister Wellesley, I did. He burned them.”

She lowered the bedclothes an inch and rewarded him with a flicker of a smile. He tried to work out how old she was. Twenty-two? Twenty-three? Young, anyway. Young and flawless as far as he could see.

“But there are more letters, darling, aren’t there?”

There was a slight rising of her eyebrows when he called her darling, then a barely discernible shake of her head.

Sharpe sighed. “I know I’m a British officer, darling, but I’m not daft. You know what daft means?”

A nod.

“So let me tell you a bedtime story. Henry Wellesley wrote you a lot of letters that he shouldn’t have written and you kept them. You kept them all, darling. But your pimp took most of them, didn’t he? And he was going to sell them and share the money with you, but then he got murdered. Do you know who murdered him?”

She shook her head.

“A priest. Father Salvador Montseny.”

The slight rise of eyebrows again.

“And Father Montseny murdered the man sent to buy them back,” Sharpe went on, “and last night he tried to murder me, only I’m a much harder man to kill. So he lost the letters and he lost the newspaper that printed them and he’s now a very angry priest, darling. But he knows one thing. He knows you didn’t destroy all the letters. He knows you kept some. You kept them in case you needed the money. But when your pimp got murdered you became scared, didn’t you? So you ran to Henry and told him a pack of lies. You told him the letters were stolen, and told him there weren’t any more. But there are more, and you’ve got them, darling.”

The tiniest and most unconvincing denial, just enough to shiver her curls.

“And the priest is angry, my love,” Sharpe went on. “He wants those other letters. One way or another he’ll find a printing press, but first he has to get the letters, doesn’t he? So he’s coming after you, Caterina, and he’s a wicked man with a knife. He’ll slit your pretty belly from bottom to top.”

Another shiver of the curls. She pulled the bedclothes higher to hide her nose and mouth.

“You think he can’t find you?” Sharpe asked. “I found you. And I know you’ve got the letters.”

This time there was no reaction, just the wide eyes watching him. There was no fear in those eyes. This was a girl, Sharpe realized, who had learned the enormous power of her looks and she already knew that Sharpe was not going to hurt her.

“So tell me, darling,” Sharpe said, “just where the other letters are, and then we’ll be done.”

Very slowly she drew the sheet and blankets down to uncover her mouth. She stared at Sharpe solemnly, apparently thinking about her answer, then she frowned. “Tell me,” she said, “what did you do to your head?”

“It got in the way of a bullet.”

“That was very silly of you, Captain Sharpe.” The smile flickered and was gone. She had a languorous voice, her vowels American. “Pumps told me about you. He said you’re dangerous.”

“I am, very.”

“No, you’re not.” She smiled at him, then half rolled over to look at the face of an ornate clock that ticked on the mantel. “It’s not even eight o clock!”

“You speak good English.”

She lay back on the pillow. “My mother was American. Daddy was Spanish. They met in Florida. Have you heard of Florida?”

“No.”

“It’s south of the United States. It used to belong to Britain, but you had to give it back to Spain after the war of independence. There’s nothing much there except Indians, slaves, soldiers, and missionaries. Daddy was a captain in the garrison at St. Augustine.” She frowned. “If Henry finds you here he’ll be angry.”

“He’s not coming back this morning,” Sharpe said. “He’s working with Lord Pumphrey.”

“Poor Pumps,” Caterina said. “I like him. He talks to me such a lot. Turn around.”

Sharpe obeyed, then edged sideways so that he could see her in the mirrors of the wardrobe doors.

“And move away from the mirrors,” Caterina said.

Sharpe obeyed again.

“You can turn around now,” she said. She had pulled on a blue silk jacket that she laced to her chin, giving him a smile. “When they bring breakfast and water you’ll have to wait in there.” She pointed to a door beside the wardrobe.

“You drink water for breakfast?” Sharpe asked.

“It’s for the bath,” she said. She pulled on a ribbon that rang a bell deep in the house. “I’ll have them revive the fire as well,” she went on. “You like ham? Bread? If the chickens have laid then there’ll be eggs. I’ll tell them I’m very hungry.” She listened until she heard footsteps on the stairs. “Go and hide,” she ordered Sharpe.

He went into a small room filled with Caterina’s clothes. A table with a mirror was cluttered with salves and cosmetics and beauty patches. Behind the mirror was a window and Sharpe, peering into the clearing air, could see the fleet weighing anchor and sailing north out of the bay. The army was on the move. He stared at the ships and thought his place was there, with men, muskets, cannons, and horses stalled in the holds. Men going to war, and here he was in a whore’s dressing room.

The breakfast came a half hour later, by which time the fire was blazing and the bath filled with steaming water. “The servants hate filling the bath,” Caterina said, sitting up on banked pillows now, “because it’s so much work for them, but I insist on having a bath every day. The water will be too hot now, so it can wait. Have some breakfast.”

Sharpe was ravenous. He sat on the bed and ate, and in between mouthfuls he asked questions. “When did you leave, what did you call it, Florida?”

“When I was sixteen, my mother died. Daddy had run away long before that. I didn’t want to stay there.”

“Why not?”

“Stay in Florida?” She shuddered at the thought. “It’s just a hot swamp filled with snakes, alligators, and Indians.”

“So how did you come here?”

“By ship,” she said, her big eyes serious. “It was much too far to swim.”

“By yourself?”

“Gonzalo brought me.”

“Gonzalo?”

“The man who died.”

“The man who was going to sell the letters?”

She nodded.

“And you’ve been working with Gonzalo ever since?”

She nodded again. “In Madrid, Seville, and now here.”

“The same game?”

“Game?”

“Pretend to be well-born, get letters, sell them back?”

She smiled. “We made a lot of money, Captain Sharpe. More than you could ever dream of.”

“I don’t need to dream, darling. I once stole the jewels of an Indian king.”

“So you’re rich?” she asked, eyes brightening.

“Lost it all.”

“Careless, Captain Sharpe.”

“So what will you do without Gonzalo?”

She frowned. “I don’t know.”

“Stay with Henry? Be his mistress?”

“He’s very kind to me,” Caterina said, “but I don’t think he’d take me back to London. And he will go back eventually, won’t he?”

“He’ll go back,” Sharpe confirmed.

“So I’ll have to find someone else,” she said, “but not you.”

“Not me?”

“Someone rich,” she said with a smile.

“And you have to stay away from Father Salvador Montseny,” Sharpe said.

She gave another shudder. “He is really a killer? A priest?”

“He’s as nasty as they come, darling. And he wants your letters. He’ll kill you to get them.”

“But you want my letters too.”

“I do.”

“And Pumps says you’re a killer.”

“I am.”

She seemed to consider her dilemma for a moment, then nodded at the bath. “It’s time to get clean,” she said.

“You want me back in that room?” Sharpe asked.

“Of course not. That bath’s for you. You stink. Get undressed, Captain Sharpe, and I’ll wash your back.”

Sharpe was a good soldier. He obeyed.

“I
LIKE
Henry Wellesley,” Sharpe said.

“So do I,” Caterina said, “but he is”—she paused, thinking—“earnest.”

“Earnest?”

“Sad. His wife hurt him. Pumps says she was not beautiful.”

“You can’t trust everything Pumps says.”

“But I think he is right. Some women are not beautiful yet they drive men mad. She has driven Henry sad. Are you going to sleep?”

“No,” Sharpe said. The bed was the most comfortable he had experienced. A feather mattress, silk sheets, big pillows, and Caterina. “I have to go.”

“Your uniform isn’t dry.” She had insisted on washing his uniform in the used bath water and it was now propped on two chairs before the fire.

“We have to go,” Sharpe corrected himself.

“We?”

“Montseny wants to find you. And to get the letters he’ll hurt you.”

She thought about that. “When Gonzalo died,” she said, “I came here because I was frightened. And because this is safe.”

“You think Pumps will protect you?”

“No one would dare come in here. It’s the embassy!”

“Montseny will dare,” Sharpe said. “There’s no guard on Lord Pumphrey’s front door, is there? And if the servants see a priest they’ll trust him. Montseny can get in here easily. I did.”

“But if I go with you,” she said, “how do I live?”

“Same as everyone else.”

“I am not everyone else,” she said indignantly, “and didn’t you tell me you were sailing back to Lisbon?”

“I am, but you’ll be safer in the Isla de León. Lots of British soldiers to defend you. Or you can come back to Lisbon with me.” She rewarded that suggestion with a smile and silence. “I know,” Sharpe went on, “I’m not rich enough. So why did you lie to Henry?”

“Lie to him?” She opened her eyes wide and innocent.

“When you came here, darling, you told him you had no letters. You told him you’d lost the ones Gonzalo didn’t have. You lied.”

“I thought perhaps if things went wrong,” she began, then shrugged.

“You’d still have something to sell?”

“Is that bad?”

“Of course it’s bad,” Sharpe said sternly, “but it’s bloody sensible. So how much do you want for them?”

“Your uniform is scorching,” she said. She climbed out of bed and went to turn the jacket and overalls around. Sharpe watched her. A beauty. She would drive men mad, he thought. She came back to the bed and slid in beside him again.

“So how much?” he asked her.

“Gonzalo said he would make me four hundred dollars.”

“He was cheating you,” Sharpe said.

“I don’t think so. Pumps said he couldn’t get more than seven hundred.”

It took Sharpe a moment to understand what she was saying. “Lord Pumphrey said that?”

She nodded very seriously. “He said he could hide the money in the accounts. He would say it was for bribes, but he could only hide seven hundred.”

“And he’d give you that for the letters?”

She nodded again. “He said he would get seven hundred dollars, keep two, and give me five. But he had to wait till the other letters were found. Mine, he said, weren’t valuable till they were the only letters left.”

“Bloody hell,” Sharpe said.

“You’re shocked.” Caterina was amused.

“I thought he was honest.”

“Pumps! Honest?” She laughed. “He tells me his secrets. He shouldn’t, but he wants to know my secrets. He wants to know what Henry says about him so I make him tell me things first. Not that Henry tells me any secrets! So I tell Pumps what he wants to hear. He told me a secret about you.”

“I’ve got no secrets with Lord Pumphrey,” Sharpe said indignantly.

“He has one about you,” she said. “A girl in Copenhagen? Called Ingrid?”

“Astrid.”

“Astrid, that’s the name. Pumps had her killed,” Caterina said.

Sharpe stared at her. “He what?” he asked after a while.

“Astrid and her father. Pumps had their throats cut. He’s very proud of it. He made me promise not to tell anyone.”

“He killed Astrid?”

“He said she and her father knew too many secrets that the French would want to know, and he couldn’t trust them to keep quiet, so he told them to go to England and they wouldn’t so he had them killed.”

It had been four years since Sharpe had been in Copenhagen with the invading British army. He had wanted to stay in Denmark, leave the army, and settle with Astrid, but her father had forbidden the marriage and she was an obedient girl. So Sharpe had abandoned the dream and sailed back to England. “Her father used to send information to Britain,” Sharpe said, “but he got upset with us when we captured Copenhagen.”

“Pumps says he knew a lot of secrets.”

“He did.”

“He doesn’t know any now,” Caterina said callously, “nor does Astrid.”

“The bastard,” Sharpe said, thinking of Lord Pumphrey, “the bloody bastard.”

“You mustn’t hurt him!” Caterina said earnestly. “I like Pumps.”

“You tell Pumps the price for the letters is a thousand guineas.”

“A thousand guineas!”

“In gold,” Sharpe said. “You tell him that, and tell him he can deliver the money to you in the Isla de León.”

“Why there?”

“Because I’ll be there,” Sharpe said, “and so will you. And as long as I’m there you’ll be safe from that murderous priest.”

“You want me to leave here?” she asked.

“You’ve got the letters,” Sharpe said, “so it’s time you made money on them. And if you stay here someone else will make the money. And like as not they’ll kill you to get the letters. So you tell Pumps you want a thousand guineas, and that if you don’t get it you’ll tell me about Astrid.”

“You were in love with her?”

“Yes,” Sharpe said.

“That’s nice.”

“Tell Lord Pumphrey that if he wants to live he should pay you a thousand guineas. Ask for two thousand and maybe you’ll get it.”

“What if he doesn’t pay?”

“Then I’ll slit his throat.”

“You’re a very nasty man,” she said, putting her left thigh across his legs.

“I know.”

She thought for a few seconds, then made a rueful face. “Henry likes having me here. He’ll be unhappy if I go to the Isla de León.”

“Do you mind that?”

“No.” She looked searchingly into Sharpe’s face. “Will Pumps really pay a thousand guineas?”