Lucille Castineau (nee Lassan)

Lucille Castineau was Richard Sharpe's third (common-law) wife in the of books.

Lucille was born in c. 1786 to the Lassan family of Normandy. Her father was the Comte de Lassan, a minor aristocrat in possession of a large estate house and farm fallen on hard times. Lucille herself bore the title of Vicomtess. Her father was killed during the revolution, and was succeeded in his title by her older brother Henri Lassan. Her brother soon renounced his title in the face of further persecutions, and later joined Napoleon's army as an officer. This left Lucille and her mother, the Dowager Countess, to run the estate.

During the Napoleonic wars, Lucille married the son of a French general, a cavalry officer named Castineau. However, he soon after died in Russia, forcing Lucille to move back into the Lassan home. After his defeat by the British, her brother Henri also returned home, and made arrangements to marry. Unfortunately, both Henri and her mother were murdered soon afterwards due to his aquantance with Richard Sharpe and French spymaster Pierre Ducos, leaving Lucille alone on the farm.

When Sharpe afterwards came to seek out her brother, Lucille mistakenly shot him with a large gun, causing Sharpe to become convolescent in her home for many months, attended by his friend William Frederickson. After a failed courtship and rejected proposal, Frederickson leaves the estate, forcing Lucille to care for Sharpe herself. During this solitude, Sharpe learned to speak French, and the two became lovers. Eventually, Lucille became pregnant with their first child, Patrick-Henri. After traveling to Italy to defeat Ducos, Sharpe returned to the Lassan estate permanently, eventually having a second child, Dominique. Both children carried the Lassan name.

Lucille was reported by her son as still living in the early 1860s.

In the Carlton UK TV series, Lucille was portrayed by Cecile Paoli. It is also claimed in Sharpe's Challenge that she died of fever in a winter around 1817, contradicting the books.