“A timepiece, Lieutenant?” Mrs Parker asked the question to gain time in which to marshal her forces of rejection.

“Please, ma’am.”

Louisa smiled at Sharpe from her seat on the shelf in the alcove which formed the bed. Her aunt, seeing the smile, snatched the alcove’s curtain closed. “You, of course, will sleep outside this door. Lieutenant?”

Sharpe, thinking of timepieces, was taken aback by the peremptory demand. “I beg your pardon, ma’am?”

“There are defenceless females in this room, Lieutenant! British females!”

“I’m certain you will be safe, ma’am.” Sharpe pointed at the heavy bolt inside the door.

“Have you no conception of your responsibilities, Lieutenant?” Mrs Parker advanced in wrath. “Is it any wonder that you have never secured promotion beyond your lowly rank?”

“Ma’am, I…“

“Do not interrupt me! I will have none of your barrack manners here, Lieutenant. Have you seen the Papist creatures who are drinking like animals in this tavern? Do you know what horrors strong drink provokes? And let me remind you that Mr Parker paid his taxes in England, which entitles us to your protection.”

George Parker, trying to read his scriptures by the light of a tallow dip, looked beseechingly at Sharpe. “Please, Lieutenant?”

“I shall sleep outside, ma’am, but I need a timepiece/

Mrs Parker, pleased with her small victory, smiled.

“If you are to guard us, Lieutenant, then you will want to be wakeful. Turning an hourglass will keep you from slumbering. George?”

George Parker rooted about in his valise to produce an hourglass that he handed, with an apologetic grimace, to Sharpe. Mrs Parker nodded satisfaction. “It lacks twenty-five minutes of ten o’clock, Lieutenant, and the glass takes one hour to evacuate itself.” She waved an imperious hand in dismissal.

Sharpe leaned on the wall outside the Parker’s room. He put the hourglass on a window sill and watched the first grains trickle through. Damn the bloody woman. No wonder the army discouraged the spread of Methodism in its ranks. Yet in one way Sharpe was glad to be a bodyguard, even to someone as disobliging as Mrs Parker, for it gave him an excuse not to go back to the stable where his Riflemen would make their displeasure and disdain clear once more. There had been a time when the company of such men had been his life and pleasure, but now, because he was an officer, he was bereft of such companionship. He felt an immense and hopeless weariness, and wished this damned journey was over.

He cut one more button from his trousers which already gaped to show a length of scarred thigh, and bought himself a skin of wine. He drank it quickly and miserably, then dragged a bench close to the family’s door. The tavern customers, suspicious of the ragged, harsh-faced, foreign soldier, kept clear of him. The bench was close to a small unshuttered window that gave Sharpe a view of the stables. He half suspected that the Riflemen might attempt another mutiny, perhaps sneaking off in the darkness to rejoin their beloved Major Vivar, but except for a few men who appeared in the stableyard to urinate, all seemed calm. Calm, but not quiet. Sharpe could hear the Riflemen’s laughter and it galled his loneliness. Gradually the laughter turned to silence.

He could not sleep. The tavern emptied, except for two drovers who snored cheerfully by the dying fire and the potman who made his bed under the serving hatch. Sharpe felt the beginnings of a headache. He suddenly missed Vivar. The Spaniard’s cheerfulness and certainty had made the long march bearable, and now he felt adrift in chaos. What if the British garrison had left Lisbon? Or what if there were no naval ships off the coast? Was he doomed to wander through Spain till, at last, the French solved his problems by making him a prisoner? And what if they did? The war must soon end with French victory, and the French would send their prisoners home. Sharpe would go back to England as just another failed officer who must eke out a bare existence on half-pay. He turned the hourglass and scratched another mark on the limewashed wall.

There was a half-collapsed skin of wine beside the sleeping drovers and Sharpe stole it. He squirted the foul liquid into his mouth, hoping that the raw taste would cut through his burgeoning headache. He knew it would not. He knew that in the morning he would feel foul-tempered and sore. So, doubtless, would his men, and the memory of their sullenness only depressed him more. Damn them. Damn Williams. Damn Harper. Damn Vivar. Damn Sir John Moore for ruining the best damned army that had ever left England. And damn Spain and damn the bloody Parkers and damn the bloody cold that slowly seeped into the tavern as the fire died.

He heard the bolt shifting in the door behind him. It was being drawn surreptitiously and with excruciating care. Then, after what seemed a long time, the heavy door creaked ajar. A pair of nervous eyes stared at Sharpe. “Lieutenant?”

“Miss?”

“I brought you this.” Louisa closed the door very, very carefully and crossed to the bench. She held out a thick silver watch. “It’s a striking watch,” she said quietly, “and I have set it to ring at four o’clock.”

Sharpe took the heavy watch. “Thank you.”

“I have to apologize,” Louisa said hastily.

“No…“

“Indeed I do. I spend many hours apologizing for my aunt’s behaviour. Perhaps tomorrow you would be kind enough to return the watch without her noticing?”

“Of course.”

“I also thought you might like this, Lieutenant.” She smiled mischievously as she brought a black bottle from beneath her cloak. To Sharpe’s astonishment it held Spanish brandy. “It’s my uncle’s,” she explained, “though he’s not supposed to drink it. He’ll think my aunt found it and threw it away.”

“Thank you.” Sharpe swallowed some of the fierce liquid. Then, with awkward courtesy, he wiped the bottle’s mouth on his dirty sleeve and offered it to Louisa.

“No, thank you.” She smiled at the clumsy gesture but, recognizing it as a friendly invitation, sat in decorous acceptance at the far end of Sharpe’s bench. She was still dressed in skirts, cloak and bonnet.

“Your uncle drinks?” Sharpe asked in amazement.

“Wouldn’t you? Married to her?” Louisa smiled at his expression. “Believe me, Lieutenant, I only came with my aunt for the opportunity to see Spain. It was hardly because I desired months of her company.”

“I see,” Sharpe said, though he really did not understand any of it, and certainly not why this girl had sought his company in the middle of the night. He did not think she had risked her aunt’s wrath just to lend him a watch, but she seemed eager to talk and, even though her presence made him shy and tongue-tied, he wanted her to stay. The dying fire cast just enough light to give a red sheen to her face. He thought her very beautiful.

“My aunt is uncommonly rude,” Louisa said in further apology. “She had no cause to comment on your rank in the manner that she did.”

Sharpe shrugged. “She’s right. I am old to he a Lieutenant, but five years ago I was a Sergeant.”

Louisa looked at him with new interest. “Truly?”

”Truly.“

She smiled, thus striking darts of desire into Sharpe’s soul. “I think you must be an extremely remarkable man, Lieutenant, though I should tell you that my aunt thinks you are extremely uncouth. She continually expresses amazement that you hold His Majesty’s commission, and avers that Sir Hyde would never have allowed a ruffian like you as an officer on one of his ships.”

For an instant Sharpe’s battered self-esteem made him bristle at the criticism, then he saw that Louisa’s face was mischievous rather than serious. He saw, too, a friendliness in the girl. It was a friendliness that Sharpe had not received from anyone in months and, though he warmed to it, his awkwardness made his response clumsy. A born officer, he thought sourly, would know how to reply to the girl’s dry humour, but he could only ask a dull question. “Was Sir Hyde your father?”