As a Dare, They Sat the Poor Companion at the Duke's Chessboard — Then She Took His Queen
Chapter 15
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"I wrote to her about everything," said the Duke. "About Badajoz. About the breach and the ladders. About you on the ladder, and how I thought you were dead when I carried you down. About what I saw in the town afterward, and what I did not stop. I have never said it aloud, Gallagher. Not to you, not to anyone. Only to her, on paper at night between moves.""I know, sir," said Gallagher."You know?""I've brought you the candle for three winters. I've seen your face when her letters came." The old sergeant spat into the snow. "I never knew it was a lass, mind. I thought it was some old chaplain.""So did I.""Well," said Gallagher. "She's not old, and she's not a chaplain. But I'd say she was the best thing that ever happened to you. And you sat there tonight and called her lucky."The Duke said nothing. The snow hissed against his hat."She sat down in front of all of them," said Gallagher. "With that Strickland woman's rings in her shoulder and the Farquhar girl's fan on the squares. And she was frightened, sir—I could see her hands. And she beat you anyway. That wasn't luck. That was courage—the same kind I saw on the ladders.""I know.""And then she stood by the sideboard and heard you.""I know, Gallagher.""Right, sir. Only I wanted to be sure you knew."They rode on. Somewhere to the left, very faint, a horn blew: a long, cracked, desperate note. Then it was gone in the wind."The mail guard," said the Duke, and turned his horse toward it.Inside the coach, Thomasina had made a room."Cushions," she had said the moment the lamp was lit. "Pull every cushion off those seats, both of you, and pack them into that broken window tight. I want no wind in here at all."The clerk and the soldier's wife had done it, and the scream of the wind through the glass had dropped to a moan."Sir," she had said to the wool merchant whose name she never learned, "have you a bag with you?""Under the seat. Why? What is in it?""My linen, spare greatcoat, stockings..." He had hesitated. "And some port for my brother in York.""Your brother will forgive you," said Thomasina. "Open it, please."She had found a horse blanket in the boot and a bundle of straw under the seats. When the clerk had helped the coachman inside, she had knelt beside him with the clerk's penknife."Hold still," she told him. "I am going to cut your sleeve, and then I'm going to set that wrist straight, and it is going to hurt.""Do it then, and be damned."She had splinted it with a piece of the broken doorframe and her own garters. He had sworn at her the whole time, and then when it was done, he had said, "God bless you, miss," and started to cry.