Lord Harry's Daughter (3 page)

The fortification of Lisbon had been completed and Sophia and her mother had moved into Spain with Sir Thornton and the rest of the army. The general was a congenial and popular commander, which meant that their quarters, wherever they might be, were always a center for officers who sought a good dinner and a homelike atmosphere, two things that Sophia and her mother were more than happy to provide.

With the arrival of Sir Thornton had come the happiest period in Sophia's life. Even if she had not been fond of the bluff old soldier she could never be grateful enough for all he had done to make them comfortable and secure. Now every evening she could look forward to companionship and conversation instead of tense hours waiting for Lord Harry to return, wondering what condition he would be in.

Arriving at the modest half-timbered dwelling that was their home in Lesaca, Sophia dismounted and led Atalanta to the stable, reflecting as she did so on the good fortune that had brought the general to them in their bleakest period.

Sophia poured oats into the feed trough and then, with a final pat, bid Atalanta good night before turning to thank Luis for his escort. “I know it is a trial and that you disapprove of it thoroughly, but thank you just the same."

The servant grinned, his teeth gleaming white in his swarthy face. He shrugged and lifted his hands in humorous resignation. “What else am I to do? The senhorita will go on these rides so I go too. But the senhorita should not be tending to her horse. That is a job for Luis not for Senhorita Featherstonaugh."

“I know, I know. We have been through this a hundred times before. I like to do it, and Papa, who never exerted himself in his life, always said the best way to know a horse and win its respect is to take care of it."

Luis nodded. “The poor Lord Harry, he did know his horses.” But, his tone implied, he had known very little about anything else.

“That he did.” Nodding back at the groom, Sophia gathered her things and headed off in search of Speen. At this hour the batman was likely to be seeing to the buttons and gold braid on his master's uniform for the review the next morning. It was an ideal time to discover what, if anything, he knew about a tall dark-haired major who rode a magnificent chestnut on reconnaissance missions.

Chapter
3

Mark was not at quite such a disadvantage as Sophia in his quest to discover more about the artist he had encountered that afternoon for there were not nearly so many gently brought-up young ladies attached to the army in the Peninsula as there were cavalry officers. In fact, there were so few young ladies with the army that until that morning Mark had not been aware of the existence of any.

Arriving back in Lesaca, he found Wellington and his aides-de-camp seated around a table in the house that served as headquarters. The commander was surveying a map in front of him. “We shall have to spread ourselves very thin to accomplish both the blockade of Pamplona and the siege of San Sebastian. I do not like it for we will not be so strong in either place as we ought to be, but there is nothing for it. I have sent Cole to Pamplona and the Fourth Division is covering Roncesvalles. Though I hardly expect that Soult would try to take thirty thousand men through the mountain passes, we cannot be certain that he will not. At the moment he could strike for either Pamplona or San Sebastian. Ah, here is Adair. What have you found out about San Sebastian, Major?"

Mark laid his own map and Sophia's drawings in front of the duke. “Here is the layout of the fortifications for the town and the isthmus. Besides reconnoitering at San Sebastian I have found out that the French have stored materials for two pontoon bridges near the lower end of the Bidassoa and there is a concentration of their troops nearby that appears to be poised to cross the river and come to the aid of San Sebastian should they need to."

Wellington leaned over the maps and pictures, frowning in concentration. For a few minutes he was silent, lost in thought, then he looked up. “These pictures are quite good, Adair. I had no notion you were an artist."

“I am not, sir. They were drawn for me by an English young lady I happened to encounter on my way back to Lesaca."

“An English young lady?"

“Yes, sir. She was off in a field painting as cool as you please, and when I ventured to express my fears as to her safety she informed me in no-uncertain terms that she was very well aware of the danger since she had been here for four years. She even hazarded a guess that she had been here longer than I had. Certainly she acted as condescending toward me as if I had just stepped off the boat from England."

“And what would you guess to be the young lady's age?” A voice at the other end of the table spoke up. It was Fitzroy Somerset.

Mark turned to the duke's secretary. “I should say she must be somewhere between eighteen and twenty."

“With dark hair and an independent air?"

"Most
independent."

“That would be Sophia Featherstonaugh, Curtis's stepdaughter."

“You know her, then?” Mark asked, forgetting entirely that he had just seen an excellent portrait of Somerset done by the young lady in question.

“Anyone who has spent any time in Lisbon knows Sophia and her mother,” another aide-de-camp broke in. “Her father was Lord Harry of the Twenty-third, and a more harum-scarum lad you could never hope to meet—devil of a husband for Lady Harry, who never knew what scrape he would fall into next. Come to think of it, he was probably the devil of a father as well. He was too hotheaded for command, but ripe for any skirmish, and a damn fine rider—a regular centaur—and his daughter is just as good as he was. You will never meet a better horsewoman."

“Or a better artist. I saw a sketch she did of Somerset here and His Grace that were so like them they practically breathed."

“She has a gift, that one.” Colin Campbell, the headquarters camp commandant nodded in agreement. “But it is more than just artistic talent; she sees things in people that no one else can.” He turned to the duke. “Do you remember, sir, the young lady who insisted that Ponsonby's batman was innocent because he had too honest a face to steal anything? She came right up to you and told you straight out that you ought not to allow him to be punished."

“Ah,
that
young lady!” Enlightenment dawned. “She was not about to let me make a mistake like that even if she had to call on me herself—a lot of pluck that girl.” The duke smiled reminiscently. “As I recall, it was Ponsonby's clerk, not his batman, who was doing the stealing."

“But no one else had even considered the possibility. Miss Featherstonaugh was absolutely convinced that Biggie was not the thief, and then when everyone was gathering for the inquiry, she took one look at Waters and said to you.
That is your man."
Campbell turned to Mark. “Never saw anything like it before in my life. It was truly remarkable. Of course we were not about to take the word of a slip of a girl so we conducted a very thorough investigation into the affair, but in the end, after all was said and done, we discovered that she had been right all along. Of course we learned more about the details, but as far as the guilt of the party went, she had picked the man out long before any of the rest of us. She can read people like a Gypsy fortune-teller. And you are right, she is a fair hand at drawing portraits."

“And landscapes.” Mark agreed. “She was working on one this afternoon that quite took my breath away. And there she was, sitting in the middle of a field without the least concern for the ruffians that might be about."

Campbell splashed some more wine into his glass. “I dare say, though, that the faithful Luis was not far away and that he was armed to the teeth.” Mark's answering grin confirmed this speculation. “He does look a bit of a bandit though, does he not? One of the few responsible things Lord Harry ever did was to find a servant who could protect his wife and child as well as act as a groom and coachman. It was not like him to worry about their welfare, but in a fit of conscience he sought out Luis in Lisbon and the man has been devoted to them ever since. However, I would hazard a guess that Sophia had her own pistol hidden somewhere among her paints."

“Pistol?"

“Yes. Harry might be the only one allowed to teach her to ride, but the boys in the Twenty-third would not let her grow up without knowing how to fence and shoot as well as the rest of them. Of course it amused them to teach her, but they also knew what an independent thing she is and they wanted her to be able to defend herself in any situation. From what I have heard, they did a remarkably thorough job of it."

Mark was silent for a moment, trying to reconcile the picture of a young woman who rode, shot, and fenced like a cavalry officer with the sensitive, perceptive artist who saw things in people that others could not and captured them on paper with a skill that rivaled any of the portraits he had seen exhibited at the Royal Academy. “She appears to be a lady of many talents."

“That she is, and well beloved by everyone here. You might think that a young woman who has been so much indulged by young men missing their mothers, sisters, and sweethearts would be inclined to be spoilt, but she has not got an ounce of vice in her. I fancy one can see the influence of Lady Harry there, or I should say, Lady Curtis. She was bound and determined that no matter how wild and unreliable her husband was, or how unconventional their existence, her daughter would have a proper upbringing. As soon as Sophia was old enough to hold a book she was taught to read and do her sums. Fortunately, Briscall, the chaplain attached to headquarters, was only too happy to continue her education where her mother left off so I fancy she is as well read, if not better, than most of the officers you will find here."

“But who taught her to paint? Surely not a chaplain."

But Campbell was unable to answer that question. As far back as he could remember. Lord Harry's daughter had always carried a sketchbook and pencils, and later paints. She was never without something to draw on and had obliged a great many of her self-styled fencing masters and marksmanship tutors by providing them with portraits for them to send back to their loved ones.

“Excellent work, Adair.” The duke, who had returned to his frowning contemplation of the maps and drawings, looked up. “Now if you could do the same for me in regards to Pamplona, Roncesvalles, and the Maya Pass I shall be satisfied. We should familiarize ourselves with the terrain so that we shall be prepared no matter what direction he moves his forces. I shall expect reports from you on those within the week."

“And my regiment, sir?"

“Will just have to do without you."

“Very good, sir.” Mark turned to go, hoping that his frustration and disappointment did not show. But, he told himself bitterly, it was highly unlikely they would, for it was his ability to conceal his emotions and assume a variety of almost impenetrable disguises that had gotten him this job in the first place. Before the duke had taken advantage of his services, these disguises had mostly been adopted to hoodwink jealous husbands. It was not until Mark had been captured by the French and managed to escape by disguising himself as a Spanish mule-driver that his skill, coupled with his flawless Spanish, had drawn him to Wellington's attention.

The duke had not been surprised by the young officer's reluctance for reconnaissance missions. “It does rather seem like spying, sir,” was all that Lord Mark had said when the duke first approached him with the idea, but that was all he had needed to say.

“Perhaps. And every young man joins the cavalry to lead a victorious charge against the enemy, but cavalry charges and the like can be a disastrous waste of time and lives if one does not know what one is charging into,” the duke had replied, not unkindly. “But with your dark complexion and the Spanish you learned from your mother, in addition to the quick-wittedness and skill you demonstrated in deceiving the French, you are worth a hundred gallant cavalry officers to me, and far more difficult to find among those serving under my command."

So, reluctantly, Mark had agreed to become one of Wellington's trusted exploring officers, and along with Sir John Waters and Colquhoun Grant, had regularly fed Wellington with reports on terrain, troop movements, and enemy fortifications.

“I shall ride out tomorrow, sir, to see what I can learn about the French positions around Pamplona and discover what I can about Soult's most recent movements."

“Good. What I also need is an accurate report on the roads. On a map a goat track can look like a main road and if we can force the French to travel on goat tracks while we march on roads, so much the better. That means a very thorough reconnaissance on your part, but I have every confidence in you. Not only do you speak Spanish, but you look like the Basques, who are some of the most infernally proud and independent people it has ever been my pleasure to meet. But if you win their trust, by God, then the Pyrenees are practically ours. Soult cannot afford to march around these mountains forever. The most he can hope to carry with him is a few days’ rations and then he will have to go back to Bayonne to feed his army. The more we wear him out by forcing him to march over difficult terrain, the better it is for us. Now go to it, lad."

“Yes, sir.” Though he had a cavalry officer's natural distaste for an activity as devious as spying, and though all the tenets of his aristocratic heritage made him long to confront the enemy in a fair and open fight where honor was the chief ingredient. Mark recognized the accuracy of his superior's thinking. Distasteful as his role of exploring officer might be to him, he had to accept the fact that Arthur Wellesley, who had enjoyed the same aristocratic upbringing as he had, deemed his role and this mission important to the success of the British forces in the Peninsula. So he was left to console himself with the belief that honor lay in carrying out his general's orders to the best of his ability, whether it meant charging at the enemy head-on or ferreting out his weaknesses, using deception and disguise.