Astrid Skovgaard is the daughter of Ole Skovgaard of Copenhagen, Denmark and an English mother. Richard Sharpe met her while on detached duty in Denmark in 1807 during the events of Sharpe's Prey.
She is described as tall, fair-haired, and blue-eyed, with a generous mouth and quick laugh. She dressed in black, as she was still in mourning for the loss of her infant son, and her husband, Nils - a man whom Sharpe was said to resemble quite closely. She was the first woman since Grace's untimely death the previous year, who sparked Sharpe's interest.
Her father was a merchant and carried on a correspondence with other merchants throughout Europe and Scandinavia, their insights and information were then passed on to the British. Astrid assisted him with his correspondence, and that, unfortunately, sealed her fate.
She became a target for the turncoat Danish-English Captain, John Lavissar, former aide to the Duke of York, when he learned she knew who her father's correspondents were. Sharpe tried to protect her during the British bombing of her city, and during that time, they entered into an affair. He then promised to stay in Denmark, and she seemed happy at the idea.
After the capitulation of Copenhagen to the British, however, her father's hatred of the British whom he now saw as enemies included Sharpe, the man who had rescued him and his daughter, and vehemently denied permission for her to see him again. In this she seemed no able to disobey him, so Sharpe stayed with the army, and gave her some recovered gold with which to rebuild the orphanage destroyed in the bombing.
After Lavissar's death, English spymaster Pumphrey decides Sharpe has to be dispatched to London with the remaining gold immediately, because the Skovgaard family had become inconvenient; "Among the the things I asked him to do was to keep two people alive, which he did, only it is no longer in His Majesty's interest that they should live....remove Sharpe quickly...He has an inconveniently gallant soul and I don't want to make an enemy of him." (Sharpe's Prey)
It would be more than two years before Sharpe learned that Astrid was dead, when Pumphrey tells him she died during a contagion. He finally learns the truth about Astrid's fate in the winter of 1811 during Sharpe's Fury.