When he got to his room and rested there for a bit, enjoying the surprisingly comfortable bed, Harris decided to head back downstairs, hoping to finally talk to his friends about the real reason behind his visit. But as soon as he got there, he noticed the pub had already started filling with customers. He nodded his head at Pat, knowing the conversation had to wait for later, as he wasn't keen on telling his story to everyone separately. Having nothing better to do, he decided to join the others in the main room, where he watched with a smile as Ramona bossed everyone around, including her family members and the customers, especially the bolder ones who, after consuming a drink or two, were stupid enough to try to flirt with her. Even the phlegmatic Olivia seemed to get a bit more lively as time went on, but as the evening came and even more people poured in, she was assigned to the kitchen, and her place behind the bar was taken by Pat Harper himself. Harris expected to see the familiar sight of Dan Hagman with his fiddle next, but to his surprise, when the old poacher appeared again, instead of music, he occupied himself with cleaning glasses. However, Harris didn't have time to wonder about it any longer, because soon afterwards Little Patrick dropped on the bench next to him,
"So you're the famous Sergeant Harris, sir?"
The boy eyed him with visible admiration, and Harris wondered when had been the last time someone addressed him or looked at him like this. He couldn't remember.
"I wasn't a sergeant for long." He shrugged his shoulders, trying to sound indifferent, although inside he was bursting with pride. "Just these few weeks in 1815. That's nothing compared to your father."
"I know," declared Little Patrick earnestly. "Uncle Dan told me everything."
The pride inside Harris deflated slightly at that.
"Can you tell me how it really happened, you know, with the Eagle?" Patrick apparently didn't notice the change in Harris' expression. "Is it true that my father and Colonel Sharpe defeated a whole French column?"
"Hasn't Uncle Dan told you about it as well?" Harris answered with a snort.
He wondered if in the next ten years Harper would start bragging that he single-handedly defeated a whole French infantry battalion at Talavera. Or cavalry. With the support of some artillery, too.
"No, Uncle Dan said he couldn't beat my father's version, so he wouldn't even try."
Harris laughed and shook his head.
"Then I will not try either," he decided.
"But sir!" The boy sent him a pleading look.
"Why do you call me that, actually?" Harris thought it best to change the subject. "Am I not as good as Uncle Dan?"
Patrick stared at him in confusion, until he finally got what was implied.
"No, it's just I don't..." he started, suddenly all shy again.
"Don't know me? Should I remind you that I and Mr. Hagman got to meet you even before your own father did?" Harris suppressed a laugh, recalling the emergency that had forced the four riflemen to become midwives. "Although it was really Dan Hagman who was the first one to lay eyes on you, I must admit that," he added after a moment, remembering the old poacher had been the only one of them able to stay perfectly calm and collected throughout the whole thing.
"I know, this he told me about," Patrick chuckled, still looking a bit sheepish. "So I should call you Uncle Harris, is that what you mean?"
"You should." Harris sent him an encouraging smile. He couldn't fathom from which parent the boy could possibly inherit this shyness. Definitely not his father, he thought, eyeing Harper senior, who was busy entertaining a group of sailors with a story of his unequal yet victorious fight with French dragoons, about which Harris, who had marched arm in arm with the Irish sergeant across Spain, Portugal and France, had never heard before.
When the three friends finally managed to gather alone in a small private room upstairs, it was close to dawn. They were all tired, slightly drunk too, so Harris tried to keep his story short as he reported everything that had happened during the past week. Leaving London, he had tried to follow the route that Antonia and her companion had apparently chosen.
"Wait, so they travelled north?" Harper interrupted when Harris got to this point. When Harris nodded, the Irishman looked at him with a puzzled frown.
"Colonel Sharpe lives in France," Hagman observed.
"I did wonder about it, yes," said Harris.
"And how do we even know it was really Antonia?" Harper asked after a moment of consideration.
Harris took a sip of his drink.
"We know the girl came here to find Mr. Sharpe. She used the name 'Antonia Moreno'. Do you really think it could be a coincidence?" Silence was the only answer. Harris smiled slightly and resumed his story. "Every inn, pub or tavern I passed, I enquired after Captain Johnson and his companion. In the first town, all I learned was that the girl was called Miss Sharpe. 'Sharpe', mind you. While in London she was still 'Miss Moreno'. I think she started to use this name when she finally believed she was about to see her father."
"So maybe the captain was Mr. Sharpe in disguise?" Dan suggested.
"I thought that too, at first. But why would he pretend? What's more, the way they described Johnson doesn't sound like Colonel Sharpe at all. Johnson is supposed to be rather fat. Pat, you saw the colonel last, did he get fat?"
"Not at all," Harper answered with a pang of envy. "Besides, last time I heard from him, he had no intention of coming back to old England. And you know... I don't think he has ever really considered trying to see Antonia again." Harper run his fingers through his greying curls, considering his next words. "Not that he doesn't miss her or her mother, of course. But he has always said the girl was happy with the Morenos, much happier than she could ever be with him."
"Everyone needs a father, though," Hagman chimed in gently.
"Will you please let me finish?!" Harris interrupted, slightly irritated. "You still need to hear the most important part. In the second inn Johnson and Antonia spent a night, I met a very nosey landlady. All I needed was to suggest I'd love to hear some local gossip, and she told me everything, from a vicar meeting his young mistress at the inn, to Mrs. Potter's distant relative whose cow had a two-headed calf last year."
"I once had an uncle who got a two-headed lamb," Harper chimed in.
"What happened to it?" Dan was curious.
"Nothing." Pat shrugged his shoulders. "It died."
Harris clenched his fists and silently counted to ten. Then he cleared his throat loudly and pointedly. Luckily, it was enough to make Pat and Dan drop the topic of two-headed farm animals and look back at him.
"What I mean is, Mrs. Potter eavesdropped on Johnson and the girl. As she told me, she had just been curious if the nature of their relationship wasn't improper, you see? She was rather disappointed upon discovering it wasn't, but interestingly, she managed to overhear that Johnson was related to Mrs. Sharpe. How she remembered that name from the news she must have heard all those years ago, I have no idea, but she knew who Mr. Sharpe was, even though she didn't know much about his family situation, so to speak. She was quite proud that the relatives of the hero from Talavera had spent a night under her roof."
Daniel and Pat exchanged glances.
"Mrs. Sharpe?" repeated the Irishman. "As in 'Mrs. Jane Sharpe'?"
"And do you know any other Mrs. Sharpe?"
For a few minutes, there was silence, as everyone pondered over what they had just heard.
"I don't understand a thing," muttered Harper finally, suppressing a yawn and reaching for the bottle to pour them more whiskey. "Jane sent her new lover to London to kidnap Antonia? Why the hell would she do that?"
"No idea," admitted Harris reluctantly. "But you agree with me, Pat, don't you? If it wasn't Colonel Sharpe who called Antonia to England, it could have been his wife. I don't know, maybe she just hates him this much? I mean, you said yourself that if Lord Rossendale attempted to kill Mr. Sharpe at Waterloo, it definitely wasn't his own idea. Mrs. Sharpe must have played some part in it."
Hagman slowly shook his head.
"It's been over ten years," he pointed out. "People change. And why'd Mrs. Jane suddenly turn against Mr. Sharpe and Antonia now, after all this time?"
"So maybe it's about money? Pat, do you know if Mrs. Teresa left much to Antonia?" Harris pressed on.
"There was something, definitely, but I don't know what and how much, exactly. You could be on to something, though. Jane has definitely spent all she got from Colonel Sharpe a long, long time ago. With Rossendale gone, she could be in a tight spot," said Harper thoughtfully. "Besides, I think we can all agree that apart from us three and Ramona, Jane is probably the only person who knows enough about Antonia to be able to pull off such a scheme. I think we should go and have a wee chat with her, that's what I think!"
"And I think you're both making a mountain out of a molehill!"
Both Harris and Harper sent Hagman puzzled looks, but he went on, unaffected.
"We don't really know anything. Maybe Harris misunderstood something, maybe Colonel Sharpe knows all about it and he wouldn't appreciate you two meddling in his affairs." But ever as he spoke, he could already see by the look on his friends' faces that they were both too excited now to be convinced to step back and think things through.
"Alright, I'll tell you what I know. About Mrs. Jane, that is," he admitted reluctantly after a moment of silence. He avoided his companions' eyes, as they stared at him in surprise. He sighed heavily and quietly started his story. "After Lord Rossendale's... After coming back to England, Mrs. Jane still lived in Lancashire for some time. You know she had a son, born not long after the battle?"
No one needed to ask which battle he had in mind.
"I had no idea," Harris admitted. "Harps?"
"Me neither."
Hagman shrugged his shoulders, still looking at some point on the checked tablecloth instead of the other two men in the room.
"She did. Lancashire is not that far from Keighley, you see. And gossip about our Colonel was always popular there. She lived in Rossendale's house with her son until the rightful heir finally appeared and made them leave."
"Do you know where she moved to?" asked Harris, who, despite being tired, still tried to process all the new information and find anything useful to them, already making plans for the future 'campaign'.
It was already morning, and all three of them had had some whiskey that night to celebrate this unexpected reunion, so it was harder and harder to stay awake. Harper seemed the closest to giving up. He had already put his head down on the table, appearing to be asleep, although Harris knew the Irishman was still listening intently to every word Hagman said.
"No. But we saw her again last year."
"In Yorkshire?" Pat raised his head, confirming Harris' suspicion.
"Yes. On the road that leads to Sir Willoughby's house."
"Willoughby Parfitt?!"
This time it was Harris who eyed his friends with puzzlement. Harper took pity and told him the summarized version of the events that had taken place in Keighley during those few months of peace with Bonaparte on Elba and Richard Sharpe in command of the Yorkshire Yeomanry. Harris had heard some parts of the story before from Daniel, so although it had been many years, he quickly recalled the most important details.
"Were Jane Sharpe and this Parfitt friends then?" he asked when Harper finished.
Dan shook his head.
"Dunno. Don't think so. All I know is we saw her there once. And a couple of weeks after that Sal..." His voice trailed off for a moment. "Sally saw her in a carriage. Both times it was late in the evening and Mrs. Jane seemed to choose the less-travelled roads. That's all I know."
"Well, lads." Pat rose from his chair, put out the last burning candle, as it was already light outside, and reached for the last half-full bottle. "Enough talking. Let's drink to the success of our wee expedition."
"What expedition?" Hagman frowned at him.
"To Yorkshire, of course!" Harris answered with a wide grin.
"You're mad," commented Dan, but still he reached for his glass. "You should at least send a message to Mr. Sharpe."
"I think Major Price already did, if he got my letter," said Harris. "But why not, we can write," he agreed. "Harps, you know his French address?"
But he didn't get any answer from the Irishman. Pat, having downed his last drink, was already fast asleep, drooling slightly over the checked tablecloth. Harris and Hagman exchanged smiles and left, silently agreeing to continue the conversation after they all got the much-needed rest.
To Harris' surprise, when they met again the next day, well-rested and perfectly sober, and both he and Harper declared they were still eager to pay a visit to Lord Parfitt and ask him about Jane, Dan Hagman firmly announced he would stay in Dublin.
"I'm too old for this," he shrugged off their questions. "Besides, Ramona could use some help, with Pat away and all..."
Harper seemed a bit less surprised, which in turn surprised Harris even more. The Irishman just nodded his head, not even trying to convince Dan to change his mind. Harris felt a bit annoyed by this. As much as he tried to understand Hagman's reasons, it was so hard to imagine leaving the old poacher behind. They were all that was left of the Chosen Men, after all. None of them was getting younger, and if it was to be their last adventure, Harris thought they ought to do it together. However, he had already managed to observe that although Dan's appearance had not changed that much over the years, inside he seemed to have aged the most of the three of them. Or maybe it wasn't as much about age as it was about grief? Anyway, apart from his initial cheerful reaction to seeing Harris again, and a few light-hearted sentences exchanged with Little Patrick, the old poacher mostly behaved as if he was not much interested in whatever was going on around him. Moreover, he clearly avoided being left alone with Harris, as if he was afraid his friend would either try to talk him into joining their expedition or maybe ask about his late wife and their life in Yorkshire. True, Harris did want to try and convince Hagman to go with them, but after some consideration, he realized that maybe going back to Keighley would simply be too painful for Dan. And so in the end he decided to accept his friend's decision, difficult as it was. After all, he had to admit it was Pat Harper who knew Dan—the present Dan—better, so if the Irishman thought it best to respect their friend's decision to stay, Harris had no other choice than to do the same.