And so it was that they spent the afternoon in companionable conversation until they came to a viable spot to make camp for the night. Nestled down in a valley by a stream, the water would mask the sound of their camp, and the steep hill around them would keep them from being visible at any distance.
Rafe and Gaspar joined Robert immediately.
“We’ve found our shadow,” Gaspar whispered. “Leandro and Lacho are watching him as we speak.”
“Then let’s go catch him,” Robert said, taking up his horse’s reins and remounting without a moment’s hesitation.
“I’ll stay here.” Rafe shielded his eyes with his hand and scanned the hills around them. “I still have an uneasy feeling about this.”
“I agree,” Robert said. “But once we have our traveling companion in custody, then we can determine how dangerous he is and if he has any friends. Until then, keep an eye on her, will you?”
Rafe grinned. “Only if that means you’ve finally come to your senses.”
Robert didn’t respond, but instead wheeled his mount around and with Gaspar on his heels rode down a narrow path along the stream that Gaspar said would meet up with the road and Leandro’s and Lacho’s hiding spot. With the noisy stream beside them, they rode as quickly as they could until twenty minutes later they rejoined the road and the spot where they were to meet them.
Riding up to a large rock, they found Leandro propped there, apparently taking a siesta in the warm afternoon sun. Lacho was nowhere in sight.
“Get up, you lazy dog,” Gaspar called out good-naturedly.
When the young man didn’t respond, Robert felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Suddenly nothing about the scene around them looked right. There was blood on the roadway, and the man’s body leaned at an unnatural angle.
“Stay back,” Robert told Gaspar, as he dismounted and approached the young Spaniard.
“He is making one of his jokes,” Gaspar said. “Enough, Leandro, get up. You are frightening our good English friend.”
Robert came around the young man and saw that Leandro would no longer be making jokes at the expense of his fellow guerrillas.
“He is not sleeping,” he told Gaspar. “He’s been murdered.”
Gaspar scrambled off his horse and dashed to his friend’s side. He turned Leandro around and revealed what Robert had already seen. The man’s throat had been slit. Lacho they found hanging from a nearby tree, his fate just as tragic.
Gaspar let out a vicious oath, a promise of vengeance, while Robert’s training went immediately into action.
He’d seen too many instances like this to take the time for grief and anger. Carefully he walked around the scene and surmised that there had been a large party of men, the hoofprints in the dust easy to read.
What he didn’t like was that the party had ridden off in the direction of his camp.
As they started to remount, a movement in the brush caught Robert’s eye. He had his pistol out and aimed in the blink of an eye.
“I say, there,” came a familiar voice. “Don’t shoot.” A man came stumbling out of the bush and up the bank to the road, his hands and feet bound with a length of rope. “I can tell you what happened if you would be so kind as to untie me.”
Robert couldn’t believe his eyes.
“Major Danvers, is that you?” called out none other than Jemmy Reyburn.
W
hen the hoofbeats came pounding in from the road, Olivia glanced up from the fire she was building, a smile on her face as she paused and waited to see Robert, Gaspar and the others come riding in.
But when the first horseman rounded the bend, sword raised, her breath caught in her throat.
A French picquet! Robert had warned her about this, but she had dismissed him time and time again as being overprotective.
Rafe and his men reacted instantly, calling out for arms.
Their scramble was to no avail, for the French riders encircled them in moments, leaving the Spaniards in a shower of dust and dismay.
Rafe stepped in front of Olivia, shielding her from them. “What is the meaning of this?” he asked. “We are just merchants on our way to the fair in Portralegre.”
A rider in the back nudged his horse forward. His elegant, albeit dusty, uniform marked him as the officer in charge of the unit. “Merchants? I think not. I’ll tell you what you are—you are thieves and murderers. The entire lot of you. And from this moment on you are all under arrest as traitors to the sovereign nation of France.”
“You are a long way from your country to be making such an assertion, monsieur,” Rafe replied in French, his words polite but his intonation full of threat.
Olivia peered around him, trying to gauge what would happen next.
“France is wherever I command, you insolent dog,” the officer replied. He dismounted in a smooth motion, and Olivia took a deep breath as she surveyed the man who now held their fate in his hands.
“And you are?” Rafe asked.
“Capitaine de Jenoure,” he said. Tall and handsome, the officer’s bearing was as arrogant as the numerous decorations on his coat. He strode directly up to Rafe, his gaze never leaving him. He smiled with the deadly charm of a snake, then with alarming speed and accuracy slammed his fist in two rapid punches into Rafe, sending him staggering back.
“Oh!” Olivia squeaked, as she caught Rafe, holding him up, knowing Robert’s brother would not want to fall to his knees before his men or this arrogant Frenchman. He staggered forward, only to have the officer strike him again. By now Rafe’s nose was bent to one side, and there was a bloody gash on his lip.
She stepped in front of him and glared at the beast of an officer who appeared to be coiling to strike again.
“Mademoiselle Sutton, get out of my way,” the Frenchman told her.
Olivia’s mouth fell open.
He knew who she was.
It was no accident that this French force had stumbled upon them. The presumptuous light in the man’s eyes told Olivia he’d found exactly what he’d been looking for.
“Step out of the way,” he repeated.
“Do it,” Rafe told her.
When she still refused to move, Capitaine de Jenoure nodded to one of his men, who dismounted and quickly caught her by the arm.
Alamar, always a bit of a hothead, surged forward. “Take your hands off her, you dirty pig”
Capitaine de Jenoure’s gaze rolled upward, as if the entire proceedings were growing boring, and then in a blink of an eye, pulled a pistol from the holster at his side and shot Alamar.
The young man jerked in surprise, his eyes wide with alarm as a stain of red spilled across his chest. He tried to say something else, his hand outstretched to Olivia, but more blood spilled from his lips before he dropped to the ground.
Capitaine de Jenoure glanced over at the rest of Rafe’s men. “Any more of these pointless heroics, and you shall share your friend’s fate.”
Olivia sank to her knees. She clutched at Alamar’s sleeve, her fingers moving up to feel at his neck for a pulse, but there was nothing. No beat, no rhythm of life, just the emptiness of death. Tears spilled from her eyes as she realized there was nothing she could do.
“What do you want?” Rafe was asking.
“Why, that should be obvious,” the Capitaine told him. “We’ve come for the treasure. We’ve come for Mademoiselle Sutton.”
“Why you murdering devil,” Gaspar said, as he surged toward Jemmy with a large wicked knife in his hand.
“No!” Robert said, catching the grief-blinded man by the arm. “Look at him? Does he look like he was capable of this?”
To aid in his defense, Jemmy tried to hold up his bound hands but only proceeded to trip himself up, landing in a dusty heap at Robert’s feet.
“Besides, I know this man. He’s a friend,” Robert told the irate guerilla.
Gaspar muttered beneath his breath as he gave Jemmy one more suspicious glance. Then, as if he finally saw the harmless lad for what he was, he cut the bindings free.
“Thank you, sir,” Jemmy said, as he rubbed his raw hands. “Your companions surprised me about an hour ago. Startled my horse, and the demmed hack left me in the dust. Good cattle are difficult to come by in this country.” He rubbed at his wrists and then glanced over at the bodies. “Are they?”
Robert nodded.
“Thought so. Even though I wasn’t too pleased when they tied me up, when the young one heard the horses coming, he shoved me down this ravine to hide me. He saved my life.”
“What horses?” Robert asked.
“Why, the ones that demmed Frog picquet were riding. When I heard you two, I thought they’d come back.”
“What French picquet?” Robert asked, a cold, icy river of dread chilling his blood. As if to punctuate his fears, a gunshot echoed in the distance.
“That one,” Jemmy said, nodding up the road in the direction of their camp.
Robert cursed as he raced for his mount. The animal sidestepped his quick motions, but in a deft leap he was up and in the saddle, touching his spurs to its flanks and off down the road in a flash.
Near the stream, another horse whinnied, as if not wanting to be left out.
“I believe that is one of your friend’s horses,” Jemmy told Gaspar. “Mine’s long gone. Rotten bit of cattle it was to begin with, skittish and not too reliable.”
Gaspar whistled, and the horse trotted obediently up from the stream. “He is yours now, señor.” Gaspar held out the reins. “Can you fight?”
“That I can, sir,” Jemmy said, retrieving his pack from the ditch and accepting the proffered horse.
Gaspar tossed him a pistol, and Jemmy grinned as he tucked the wicked thing into his coat.
The two of them mounted and took off into the growing darkness after Robert.
The French dragoons quickly bound Rafe’s remaining men. “Now Mademoiselle Sutton,” Capitaine de Jenoure said, “where is this treasure all Spain is waiting for you to deliver?” He towered in front of Olivia, her arms still pinned behind her by one of his henchmen.
She answered by spitting at the Frenchman’s boots.
Though outnumbered and bound, several Spaniards snickered at her defiance. The capitaine vented his wrath on Rafe by pounding his fists into the battered man’s ribs and face.
Robert’s brother finally dropped to the ground, a bloody mess. This time Olivia was able to break her captor’s hold and she rushed to Rafe’s side.
“Don’t tell him anything,” Rafe managed to whisper. “They won’t leave this place until daybreak—the French never move at night for fear of guerrillas.” He paused for a moment, his eyes closed, his voice dropping even lower. “Robert will find you. He won’t let them harm you.”
Capitaine de Jenoure booted Rafe away from her. “Enough!” He scowled at Olivia as he caught her by the arm, dragging her away from Rafe and the others. “If he was telling you that your friends up the road would rescue you, rest assured they are in no position to help anyone. I’m afraid they died before they could go rouse the local sympathies.”
Olivia’s struggles to free herself from the loathsome man stopped as abruptly as the breath in her throat. The officer’s words tolled in her mind.
Dead. All dead.
Robert was gone. No, it couldn’t be true. She looked to Rafe to see his reaction, but all she saw was raw grief mirrored in his one eye that wasn’t swollen shut.
“Make camp,” the Capitaine ordered his men. “Then search their packs. Let us see what kind of merchandise our friends purvey.”
For the next half hour, Olivia watched from her lonely perch on a log as the French dragoons efficiently set up a tent for their commander, established a perimeter guard, lit several fires and proceeded to steal every bit of food and wine Rafe’s men had stowed in their packs.
They hadn’t even gotten to the dynamite and munitions, and Olivia wondered what they would do then.
Happy though with their current finds, especially the plentiful cache of wine, the Frenchmen settled about the fires, celebrating their success with toasts and boasts as to their eventual rewards for capturing Olivia.
“You must excuse my men,” Capitaine de Jenoure said, coming up behind her as silently as a cat. “I fear we have been riding for nearly a week trying to locate you, and they are in the mood to celebrate.”
“As I see it, you have little to celebrate, monsieur,” Olivia said. “For you haven’t the treasure.”
He laughed. “But we have you, Mademoiselle Sutton. And you are enough for the emperor.”
“Bonaparte?” she whispered.
“Oh, yes. Bonaparte. You see even the emperor has heard of you and this Spanish legend. And his gratitude for finding you and the gold will see me out of this godforsaken country and back home to France as a hero. A rich one, at that.”
“I won’t help you.”
“Mademoiselle, rest assured, you will.” He waved his hands over the fire. “For I have no intention of failing and remaining
here
.”
He turned and starting walking to his tent, then stopped, casting a glance over his shoulder. “Come dine with me as my guest.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to refuse him outright, but she saw Rafe watching her. His face was so swollen and bloody it was hard to recognize him. But he nodded for her to follow the capitaine.
“Your friend is right to send you with me,” the Frenchman told her. “For you see, once my men are done imbibing the wine they have discovered, they will start looking for real sport, and I won’t be in a position to protect you if you are not already claimed for the night.”
“I won’t leave these men,” she said stubbornly, hugging herself, drawing her shawl tighter around her quaking shoulders.
“In the morning you will. For with no women about, my men will pursue other amusements, and I fear shooting your friends will be the first in a long night of entertainments that I doubt you will want to witness.”
Rafe nodded to her again, emphatically gesturing for her to go with Capitaine de Jenoure. So Olivia rose to her feet. With slow, wooden movements she followed the Frenchman to his newly erected tent.
“A wise decision, mademoiselle.”
He held the flap open for her and bowed slightly as she entered his private sanctuary. A small portable table took up most of the room, with a camp stool on either side. Atop the table sat her valise, a candle and a flagon of wine. In the corner there was a narrow cot.