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.”