Prying Or Spying? (Veronique and Sharpe)

Veronique was out on patrol of the surrounding areas with some of the riflemen from her squadron, she was enjoying being out of the camp but not having to trek for miles and miles without a clear idea of when they were going to stop or where they were even going.

Biting her lip softly she nodded with a gruff grunt when the other members of the group suggested that they split up to search the hills for Gypsies or people who most certainly shouldn't be there -namely the French, or deserters from their own army.

Deserting wasn't an option to her, after all that was why she was here in the first place, but she didn't think that they deserved all that they got as a punishment. Death seemed a little bit too harsh for them, many deserters were young and just scared about what was going to happen.

With this in mind she hummed softly as she trekked over one of the sandy hills in front of her, wondering if she would indeed come across someone, they hadn't the last few patrols that they had done. But she could never be too careful so, she was ensuring she looked for people before she just appeared over the top of the hills.

She thought she could hear the sound of someone talking, two people involved in a conversation, something about a powder room...and a mission from the British Army. Yet one of the people was French! Was someone betraying their secrets. A shot called her attention and she whipped her head around, staying silent, as she followed the sound, hiding behind a rock but peeking her head around the corner to see what was causing the commotion.

Someone was looting a poor gypsies carriage! And had killed the Gypsies inside of it! Unfortunately they were masked and bore no uniform so she could not see who they were, but she noted the things they seemed to be taking, jewelry and the horse was being unbridled.

Frowning she moved away silently back down the hill and to the patrol's meeting point. She would have to tell Sharpe about this when she got back to camp, it might be important after all.

******

A few hours later, when the patrol had returned to camp and she had informed Sharpe of what had happened, Veronique had washed up and was just getting ready to settle down for dinner when a rather rude man decided to cut in front of her. She didn't recognise him and she jabbed him with her spoon.

"Excuse me but what the hell do you think you are doing?" she asked with a frown "The queue is back there."

The man merely snarled at her but, someone higher up, maybe his captain laid his hand on his shoulder and tugged him out of the queue. The ring on the captains finger drew her attention and she blinked...it was one of the ones that had been robbed, and the horse standing not too far away was the same horse.

"Forgive my men, please, go about your meal." he smirked, leading the other man away, but, his smirk was far from pleasant.

Deciding to forget about the meal outright she moved from the queue and went to find Sharpe, he was in a meeting at the time but she needed to speak with him so waited outside of the tent, merely hoping to have a moment to tell him what she saw.

When he appeared, Veronique flagged his attention then bowed swiftly;

"Major Sharpe, I have an ID on the man from the attack. He is here in the camp! I saw the stolen property in his possession." she whispered softly.

Sharpe had listened to Veronique's reports about the men robbing the Gypsies and had been thoroughly annoyed and worried by it. If it was English soldiers then that could drive the gypsies to help the French out of spite for the English. Of course if it was French soldiers then the gypsies could still move against them considering they were supposed to be safe, this close to English forces. And losing the co-operation of a group of people very knowledgeable about secret passages that they could use to sneak up on the French.

After a meeting about just such a subject with Wellington and his spy-master, Sharpe was more than ready to take his sword and ram it through the damn raider's throat. He was causing Sharpe no end of grief by making it necessary to have these damned meetings with his officers. When he saw Veronique he immediately got himself dismissed by both the general and the spy-master to meet up with her,

"You do huh?" he growled a little bit at the mention of the man, "This might turn out to be a big problem... did you happen to catch his rank or anything?"

Deciding that he needed to get her out of the open so that no one would be able to hear their concerns, he took her into the officer's meeting tent. He checked to make sure that there was no one around before be strapped his sword to his belt grimly. He placed a hand on his sword firmly and turned to her with a thought,

"Would he recognise that it was you?" he asked her quickly, "Would he recognise you at all?"

Richard looked like he was having no end of trouble with this thing and she was beginning to regret telling him in the first place, however she hoped that he would be able to forgive her for adding such a load to his shoulder. He had enough on his hands trying to sort out that powder magazine that he needed to destroy. Veronique hoped though that she would be able to help out with this new information that she had.

"I believe that he was a new Colonel coming into the camp, I had never seen him or his men before. He didn't seem like a very pleasant chap I had to admit." she stated quietly as they stood outside the tent that Sharpe had just left, hoping that she wouldn't get in trouble for not getting more information she bit her lip.

Looking around she spotted the queue for food and she saw that the man was still there, it was far away but she decided that she would point him out to Richard directly, as was her duty - "He is that man over there by the queue for food, the rather unsavoury looking fellow."

Now that they had entered another tent, Veronique was a little surprised. Would she be in danger if she was recognised by the man? She never thought it would be something that dangerous, to simply tell her Major what she had overheard. She only thought it would be good to share what could be something important.

"W-well I don't know. I scuffed a few rocks down the hill when I left, it is possible someone could have seen me but I took the upmost care. His man butted in front of me in the queue but I thought it was just a coincidence...its not...it is not a problem is it?" Veronique asked, her eyes panicked.

Sharpe had thought that it couldn't get any worse for them at the moment... until she mentioned that she thought it was the new Colonel who had just arrived at camp. The Colonel who just so happened to be a national fucking hero with a reporter from The Times having come all the way out here just to interview the man. The nation's favourite Colonel... and he had to somehow prove that he was the one raiding. God damn it,

"The new Colonel... the Colonel who half of England idolises as the greatest thing to reach the British army since gunpowder itself." he cursed a little bit and moved around the tent area with a scowl, "He's the nation's babe and the brass don't want him to be pushed away... say he's too useful. Just brilliant."

He looked and saw that it was indeed the same man he had been thinking about. Swearing rather loudly, he sat down in one of the chairs and gestured for her to do the same. Taking two glasses, he poured some whiskey into each,

"He's unsavoury because he's our black ops fighter." he told her with a sigh as he drank his whiskey, "Damn it all..."

When she said that she didn't know if they recognised her he sighed in relief but at the mention of her moving some rocks and one of his men cutting in line to be closer to her he stiffened. Damn it that sounded like they were trying to confirm their suspicions,

"Okay... alright let's work on the basis that they do recognise you. Here's what we're going to do." he told her calmly, "We're going to present this information to the spy-master and he shall decide what we do. But before that you are not to leave my sight... understand?"

Veronique bit her lip and stayed silent while Richard raged over the fact that this man was someone damn near impossible to get a hold of because of his popularity, nobody was going to believe that it was he who was collaborating with the French. To be honest she had never seen nor heard of the man before but she hadn't kept up to date with the Army news when she had been at home, it was always her brothers forte.

Looking at the glass of whiskey, she merely picked it up and held it, sort of feeling a dead weight dropping over her at the magnitude of this all. Even if she did tell the spy master what was going on, there was no way that he would be able to believe her if this man was all that they said that he was. Could she get punished?

"Oh..." she whispered softly, wanting nothing more than to hug her knees to her chest, she was not sure what a Black Ops fighter was but... it did not sound good.

The fact that they might recognise her set Veronique's teeth on edge and she thought that this more than anything would tip her over the edge, to wanting to go home and forget about all of this. To just run away and seek out a new life somewhere exotic.

"Alright, I understand." she murmured quietly, "I'll make sure that I stay with you until this is sorted out properly."

In fact, she thought she might be in shock. Taking a shaky sip of the whiskey, Veronique stuck her tongue out in distaste as she swallowed the burning liquid. It didn't do much to calm her nerves however

Sharpe closed his eyes and forced himself to try and calm down. This wasn't the end of the world after all. Far from it, this was just something he and the rest of the Company were going to have to work together on in order to come out on top. He had no intentions of fighting the damned Colonel or his men though, if he played his cards right then this would be one battle Sharpe won without having to actually step foot on the battlefield.

Of course telling her all of these things just seemed to make her sink in on herself more and more, causing him to flinch in annoyance at his own stupid when it came to women. She had come here to know more, sure, but in reality she had come here to be comforted about the whole situation. And he had taken it to be purely factual, a bad thing since the facts were horribly against them at the moment,

"Hey..." he whispered to her, to get her attention, "Don't worry, we'll be okay. Trust me yeah?"

He could see that the whiskey was having no effect on her and decided to be a little bit bolder. Setting his own glass down, he moved over to where she was sitting and knelt down beside her so that their faces were level with each other,

"I'll protect you from anything and everything he can ever think of doing..." he told her, his voice strong with conviction before becoming soft as he continued, "I will protect you Veronique."

Veronique was closing in on herself as she thought about all of the things that could go wrong, what if she was punished and she had to be flogged, then people would see her for what she really was and she would get even worse than flogging. It would be death. Biting her lip softly she tried to think about other things, more happy events.

Like what happened if they were able to defeat the Colonel in question and everything turned out alright in the end, maybe she would even get something in return. Some reward or something?

When he knelt down in front of her she turned her eyes to look at Richard's although he wasn't doing a great job at reassuring her she was just happy that he was trying. He had done a great many things and she had been beside him while he had done them on many occasions, this was nothing too bad compared to something else.

"You promise?" she asked quietly "I guess...I just never thought it would be this dangerous, out on the battle field of course but, never when we were in camp, not from people on our own side I..." biting her lip again she tried to squash down the well of emotion.

Gripping the glass she knocked back the rest of the whiskey and set a determined look on her face, which still seemed rather soft in comparison to a real mans;

"I trust you, Richard." she hesitated before calling him that but, his words made her feel so happy, and his closeness made her heart pound "And I want to help you as much as I can to solve this problem, you have my word I shall do anything that you deem it fit for me to do."

Not moving from the position they were in, Veronique thought it might be a bit odd for them to be so close but...but she couldn't quite bring herself to act on that thought; "Thank you, Major." she whispered gently "I'm sorry for my lapse of behaviour there."

Sharpe wasn't very good at comforting people and everyone here know it. After all, when did he ever have to comfort people? He was Major Richard Sharpe. He was not known for cuddling his men until they all 'felt better' but right now it was all he really wanted to do. He wanted to be able to do so with Veronique and he was barely holding himself back from hugging her tightly to him. Would she appreciate it or would she push him away?

That was the question he needed to be able to answer and right now he was afraid that the answer might be the one that he wanted the least.

When she spoke again her voice was so soft and so weak that he couldn't help but nod to her with a small smile, stroking a little bit of her hair out of the way of her eyes,

"I promise." he assured her gently before nodding in agreement, "I know... sometimes it feels like there's danger around every corner doesn't it? Well war brings out the worst in a lot of people but the best in others. You stick close to me and I'll make sure that you make it through everything and anything this war and the people can throw at you."

He smirked a little bit when she downed the whiskey in one shot, he was honestly surprised she hadn't coughed loudly to be fair. Smiling softly at her, he nodded to her, grateful for her trust being placed in him like that,

"And I'll prove you right in giving me that trust." he assured her gently before nodding a little bit, "Thank you Veronique... with your help I'm sure that we can nip this thing in the bud far quicker than we would be able to do otherwise."

He decided that she needed something to comfort her a little bit more and to show that he didn't care about a lapse in behaviour. Sharpe gently kissed her on the middle of her forehead and smiled at her,

"Understandable and accepted Veronique... I hope that I can help you with all your nervousness and such in the coming days."

Veronique felt so much better now that she knew that he was going to be there to help her, now that he was going to be here with her to combat anything that this Colonel might decide to throw at her because she had seen something she wasn't supposed to. It seemed so sad that someone who had been so celebrated her turned out to be a spy, a real low life in the eyes of the Army.

Trying not to lean her head into his touch, Veronique merely blushed a little bit when he stroked the hair out of her eyes, she wanted to be able to embrace Richard, to embrace him and feel the reassurance from their touches.

"Thank you Richard, I'm sorry, but you shouldn't have to...I should be stronger, and I promise that I will be, it's just such a surprise the politics of everything." she sighed softly, running her hands across her face, she wanted to be able to just hurry the end of the war up so that she could go home.

When she realised that it would probably be a good idea to actually go and see the Spy Master about what she had seen, Veronique had lost track of the time being in here with Sharpe, she didn't want to get either of them in trouble if it was seen for them to be slacking off by being in here. The Officers Tent.

"Should we...go and see the Spy Master, and tell him what we know?" she asked softly "I think the sooner this whole thing is over, the sooner my heart will stop beating a hole in my chest." Veronique laughed softly.

Feeling his lips kiss her forehead, Veronique gasped and blushed softly, placing her fingers on the place where he had kissed; "That's so sweet of you, Major Sharpe...thank you very much." she whispered gently, giving him a swift kiss on the cheek in return "I suppose we should move before we get in spotted kissing." she grinned.

Sharpe was already thinking of ways that he could get Veronique under constant guard without the colonel noticing. The best way, as far as he could see it, was the simplest of ways. The best soldiers in the Rifles, the most trusted, were the Chosen Men. They were a tightly knit group that always worked together and always protected each other, even at the risk of their own lives. The best way for him to protect her when he wasn't there then, was to make her a Chosen 'Man'.

He smiled at her little blush as he could tell that she was trying to resist the urge to bury her head into his chest and nuzzle him to try and get some measure of comfort from the contact. With the hair out of her eyes he reluctantly moved his hand away,

"It's alright, even the strongest need some help now and again Veronique. There's no shame in needing the help and certainly none in accepting it." he told her honestly before nodding in agreement, "Yes... I too found the politics surprising and rather aggravating when I first found out about them too."

When she suggested that the two of them go and find the spy-master to discuss the matter he nodded in agreement. After all, the spy-master spent a great deal of his time on the road, leaving camp in order to meet with some of his contacts,

"Yes let's go see him now before he takes off for somewhere in the morning." he agreed with her before pausing, "Have you eaten anything? If not then grab an apple or two from the bag at the back alright?"

He smirked a little bit at her surprised reaction before blinking in confusion when she kissed him on the cheek, his own cheek growing redder. He swallowed a little bit as he stood up,

"Yes... being caught like that would be problematic." he agreed with a cough, "Shall we make out way out of her to find our spy-master then?"