Page 10 of The Spy and the Nightingale
“An oysterman.”
Well, he certainly was not going to be loquacious, not that she’d expected it.
“Is your name truly Blackmore?” Whether he was truthful or whichever response he gave, the manner in which he answered might reveal something.
When he did not immediately respond, she allowed herself a small smile. More a baring of teeth, really. “You told me to drop the use of Lieutenant, that Blackmore would do. How then should I call you? Mr. Blackmore? Mr. Beaumont?”
He hesitated before answering. “Outside this room, neither.”
His reply, strange as it was, implied she would be outside these rooms again; that was something, at least. “And inside? I must call you by some name, if only in my own mind so that I do not mistakenly use some other you do not wish me to use. Since it seems I shall be allowed to see daylight in your company at some future point in time.” She looked at him steadily.
He reached some sort of decision. “Very well, Isobel. You may call me Nathaniel. As you have given me only a first name as well.”
She ignored the slight jibe. “Nathaniel, then.” She considered what to ask him next. What might he answer? Blackmore or Beaumont—Nathaniel—obviously guarded many secrets. Would he be truthful about any of his background? If, that was, he had even told her the truth of his name.
Well, she would tell him her own, at least. Her own offering of a candle. Perhaps it might encourage him to become more forthcoming.
“I told you my name true, last night. I was born Isobel Muir. Married, I became Isobel Graham, although I give you leave to continue calling me Isobel rather than Mrs. Graham.” This was decidedly not a situation calling for normal rules of etiquette. “You are or were a British soldier?”
He nodded.
“An officer?”
Another nod.
“Which regiment?” she asked, when he volunteered nothing further.
“The 95th Rifles.”
She sucked in a breath. She’d heard of the Rifles, naturally, part of Wellington’s vaunted Light Division: crack shots and fierce skirmishers. “I nursed several Riflemen in Flanderswho were brigaded with the Highlanders during the Waterloo campaign,” she offered.
A muscle in Nathaniel’s cheek moved, but he said nothing. Nor did he change the subject, which she took as tacit permission to continue with her questions. “You were with the Rifles during the Peninsular campaign?”
“Aye, until Badajoz.”
Three words only, but a wealth of suppressed emotion beneath them.
A key British victory and simultaneously one of its darkest hours on the Peninsula. Atrocities were committed after the fortified city was breached—British soldiers upon Spanish civilians.
His eyes warned her not to ask more, although he added, “I was injured.”
Her eyes travelled over him, seeking evidence of old wounds. He lifted an eyebrow. She looked quickly away, face flaming. His face gave away little save that sardonic eyebrow, but he was amused at her expense.
“Did you remain with the army, after?” she asked.
“Given my apparent lack of lasting infirmity?”
Her face flushed anew.
“I was not returned to regiment duties.”
It was an evasive answer: not invalided out or that he’d sold out. But she hadn’t the impression that any of what he’d said was untrue.
He’d been part of a regiment that faced regular extreme danger; unless she missed her guess, he maintained rigorous discipline and steely nerve even in extremis given his demeanor now. All the men in the elite 95th were highly trained and uncommonly skilled with weaponry.
He was perceptive and keenly intelligent; that much was evident.
Your French is fluent as my own.And she suspected from whatlittle he’d said in Flemish that he spoke that language far better than she did. Might he know other Continental languages from his time on the Peninsula?
