Practical Widow to Passionate Mistress

by Louise Allen

  ‘Yes, you do—or you will need a surgeon to take that leg off. And believe me, I can do that if I have to.’ In theory. She found her hands were fisted on her hips as she frowned at him, which was no way to ingratiate herself with the man.

  He snorted. ‘Can you make it strong enough to take me back into battle?’ he asked.

  ‘No. I can make it heal properly, if you do what I tell you, and I can show you how best to exercise it. But you have lost bone—it will never be strong enough for an infantry officer. And I have seen the Rifle Brigade march—you will never be able to maintain that pace again.’

  Some trace of emotion passed across his face, then it was unreadable again. ‘Very well, Madam Surgeon. You appear to know what you are talking about, and you are honest enough to tell me the truth. You may stay.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Meg turned her back and fussed with her medical bag while she blinked away the stinging sensation at the back of her eyes. How wonderful to sit down and indulge in a nice bout of weeping, just out of sheer relief. An impossible luxury that would weaken her in his eyes. ‘Which of your bags has your nightshirts?’

  ‘I sleep in my uniform or my skin, Mrs Halgate.’

  If you think you are going to drive me blushing from this cabin, Major, you had best think again. ‘This is not some Spanish bivouac, so you must sleep in a shirt. Which bag are those in?’

  ‘The larger one.’ Was that a thread of amusement in his voice? Surely not? She was not at all convinced he really was human, let alone had a sense of humour. ‘Haven’t you explored them already?’

  ‘No.’ She snapped the catch open and began to lift out his meagre supply of shirts. Major Brandon might be earning seventeen shillings a day, if her recollection of rates of pay was correct, but he was not spending it on his wardrobe. ‘I had no intention of wrestling your unconscious body into a garment, however much civilised living might require that you wear one. You are about as easy to move as a dead bear.’

  He made a wordless noise, something between a hum and a growl that resonated, not unpleasantly, at the base of her spine. Apparently he found the idea of her wrestling with his naked body interesting. She did not even want to think about it. A cat’s-tail flick of heat inside signalled that her body did not require her mind’s permission. This was ridiculous; she had been with James for five years, she knew perfectly well that sex for a woman was overrated.

  ‘Here you are.’ She handed him the most worn shirt, lips still tight. ‘I will go and find out about food. There is a chamber pot under the bed.’

  ‘And who will deal with that?’

  ‘I will, Major. And if you are seasick, I will deal with that also. Nurses cannot afford to be missish.’

  ‘I am beginning to appreciate that,’ he said, his face without a trace of expression. Meg stalked out. Either he was utterly humourless or possessed a gambler’s control of his face and was secretly laughing his head off at her. It was uncomfortable not knowing which. ‘And see what there is to drink,’ he called after her. Meg closed the cabin door with exaggerated care. If he thought he was going to get overheated drinking rum or brandy and inflame that leg, Major Brandon was in for a surprise. Ale, and perhaps some claret when the wound was less inflamed, was what he was going to get.

  Ross waited until the brisk click of her heels faded away, then delved under the bed. He could not place his nurse—his wife—he corrected himself with a grimace. She was not a whore, even if she had been a camp follower of some sort, and her voice was that of a well-bred woman. Her clothes, although worn, were decent and modest, shielding a trim, curved figure, and she moved like someone used to physical work. If she had held his waterlogged body against the pull of the river until help came, then she was stronger than she looked.

  Perhaps she was just what she said she was—a widow who had been forced to accept the protection of another man, one who did not see fit to marry her. He frowned. Why not? He shrugged, pushing the battered pewter pot back under the bunk, and lifted his legs back with wincing care. As he drew up the sheet he hesitated. She might be reduced to nursing, but she was no drab from a dockside tavern to have to perform the most menial tasks for him. He put his feet back on the deck and stood up, the long shirt flapping around his thighs as he hobbled painfully to the door, cracked it open and leaned against the frame while he watched the passageway.

  ‘Here, boy!’

  The skinny lad stopped, eyeing him warily. He was used to that reaction to his saturnine looks and size. Looking like a killer was useful on the battlefield, less so in everyday life. ‘Aye, sir?’

  ‘You part of the crew?’

  ‘Aye, sir. Cabin boy, sir. Name’s Johnny.’ He tugged his forelock, his expression changing to an ingratiating smile. ‘I’ll do odd jobs, sir.’

  ‘Then you can empty the slops from this cabin and fetch hot and cold water every day.’ The deck pitched and Ross had to grab at the doorframe, cursing his weak, throbbing leg. The damned woman had been in there with an entrenching tool by the feel of it. ‘Are we at sea yet?’

  ‘No, sir, still the estuary. Do you want hot water now?’

  ‘Yes. Now, and get a move on. There’s three pence a day for you if you’re sharp.’ He’d wash and shave himself before she came back. He had a pretty fair idea that he looked and smelled like the dead bear Mrs Halgate had likened him to, not that he was ever much to look at, shaven or bearded.

  The boy shot off and Ross cursed his way back to bed. He hated being unfit, loathed the vulnerability of it and the loss of control. It was easiest to carry on as though nothing was wrong. Eventually most things healed if they didn’t kill you first. To find himself relying on a woman, for anything, was the outside of enough.

  The lad came back with a steaming bucket and dealt with the dirty water and the pewter pot so fast he was probably overpaying him. When he was gone Ross wedged the door closed and stripped off his shirt.

  It was perhaps half an hour later, while he drew the razor in a satisfying glide down the last strip of foam, that the handle rattled. ‘Major Brandon! Open the door, if you please.’

  ‘I’m stark naked.’ He wiped the razor and packed away the things with a casual efficiency born of long practice, waiting for the explosion from outside.

  Ross counted in his head while he pulled the shirt back on and dragged a comb through his hair. Nine…ten.

  ‘Then kindly put your shirt on and open the door.’ So she had decided on sweet reason, had she? Ross grimaced. He was not used to having a woman underfoot, certainly not a halfway respectable one. The women in his life were for one purpose only, were paid well enough for that and then left.

  His body stirred at the thought of those purposes. No need to frighten the poor woman with the evidence of what she was sharing a cabin with, although she did not seem alarmed by the sight of him. He limped back, got on to the bunk under the sheet and reached out to pull the wedge out of the latch.

  ‘You’ve been out of bed,’ she accused the moment she was inside, balancing a precarious assortment of objects. For some reason the bossiness amused him. A bottle fell on to the bunk and Ross scooped it up: claret.

  Mrs Halgate put down a small pail with a lid, a bundle that looked loaf-shaped, a flagon and two beakers, then turned and twitched the bottle out of his lax grasp while he studied the seal. Perhaps bossiness was not so amusing. ‘Tomorrow, if you have no fever. Ale now, and stew and bread. You deserve to have a fever,’ she added, peering at him. ‘I told you to stay in bed.’

  ‘I needed to shave.’ She continued to stare, probably wondering if he looked any better without stubble or perhaps she thought she could cow him into apologising. Hah! Still, it gave him a chance to study her. Oval face, tanned, with freckles across her nose that should send any lady into despair. Dark brows and lashes—darker that the heavy plait of medium brown hair that lay across her shoulder or the sun-lightened curls that softened her forehead. A firm, determined mouth that betrayed strong will and courage. Candid blue-grey eye
s that seemed to reflect her changing mood. A lance of lust had him hardening all over again.

  ‘Where did the hot water come from? And where has the dirty water I used gone?’

  ‘I have hired a cabin boy. His name is Johnny, I’m paying him three pence a day and don’t be cozened out of any more.’

  ‘I could have done all that.’ She dished up the food, managing it neatly in the confined space. There was a vertical line furrowed between her brows and she glanced again at the pile of worn shirts.

  ‘Just because I do not choose to spend my money on linen does not mean I cannot afford to pay a servant,’ he observed, seeing the colour touch her cheeks when she realised her thoughts had been so obvious. She was used to making ends meet, it seemed.

  ‘I beg your pardon.’

  ‘And it ill befits the wife of a major to be carrying the slops,’ he added, interested to see if he could provoke her.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she agreed gravely. ‘We must preserve your dignity at all costs. James was a mere lieutenant, so I must be more aware of your status.’

  Ouch. That was a nasty dig. ‘I was thinking more of yours, Mrs Brandon,’ Ross said, then remembered that if she was his wife, she would not be plain Mrs at all. He really was going to have to get used to the title and life awaiting him in England, now it appeared that Fate was not going to drown him in the Gironde or allow a French sniper to kill him. He could stop worrying about whether his leg was ever going to work properly again: he wasn’t going back to the army, however much he might try to forget the fact.

  The darkness deepened in the major’s eyes, turning them black. Best not to answer back, perhaps. Just because he had not savaged her with his tongue or the back of his hand yet did not mean he was not capable of either. There was something beyond his wound that was troubling him and whatever it was, it was hurting him deeply. And in her experience men who were hurt, in body or mind, were more than likely to lash out.

  Was it as simple as the fact that he would no longer be fit enough to serve in the Rifle Brigade and had lost his occupation? But he was a gentleman, however impossible it was to imagine him in a London drawing room. Did he need the employment?

  Speculation was pointless, her dratted imagination had drawn her out of the present and into daydreams again. The task at hand was to serve out the stew on to the platters she had stuffed into the cloth with the bread. She passed one across with a horn spoon and a hunk of bread and received a nod of thanks.

  ‘The other passengers—the ones who have not taken to their beds with seasickness already—are eating at communal tables down the centre of the next deck up.’ The arrangements were interesting, she had found, and very different from the discomforts of the troop ship on the way south, six years before. ‘They strike the tables between meals and it becomes the public salon. We’re almost at the mouth of the estuary, but the captain is going to drop anchor for the night. He says the news about the peace will not have reached all the enemy ships yet and he would rather wait until daylight before venturing into open waters.’

  The major was demolishing the stew as though he had not eaten in days. Perhaps he had not. Or perhaps he always ate like a bear; there was certainly enough of him to keep nourished.

  ‘We do not have to pay separately for the food.’ She put down her own plate, ladled more on to his and cut another wedge of bread. ‘It is better than I thought it would be and all included in the passage.’ She finished her portion and poured ale. The major’s vanished in one swallow, so she topped up his mug again.

  ‘We are a very strange assortment of passengers.’ Meg peered into the pan. ‘There’s more stew if you are still hungry.’ He held out his plate so she scraped the rest on to it. ‘And not as many people as I thought there would be. Officers’ wives and children, merchants, someone I think must be a minor diplomat. No military men, unless they are out of uniform. I did wonder—’

  ‘Mrs Brandon, do you never stop talking?’

  The major was regarding her with an air of exasperation. When she fell silent he went back to his food. Presumably he was even less sociable over his breakfast. If that were possible.

  ‘Yes, I do occasionally fall silent. Especially in the face of an indifferent conversationalist. As we are going to be spending several days—’

  ‘And nights,’ he interjected, apparently intending to make her pay fully for inflicting herself upon him.

  ‘And nights together—’ I am not going to blush ‘—I thought it would be more pleasant to make conversation and to get to know each other a little.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Yes, I did. I am Meg Halgate. I am twenty-four years old. My…James was a lieutenant with the 30th Regiment of Foot and he never returned from Vittoria. I had followed the drum with him for five years. I told you what happened after he died.’

  At least, she had told him all that she was prepared to reveal. Certainly not the shocking fact that had been revealed when James was killed, the truth that meant she could not go to her in-laws as everyone expected her to do. Their curt letter had made it clear that they would not welcome the arrival on their doorstep of a woman who had lived in sin with their son for five years, even if she had genuinely believed James had been free to marry her.

  She had seduced their son from his duty so that she could escape from her home, they believed. Or so she told herself; it was too bitter to think that they were simply unfeeling and uncharitable.

  And returning home to the vicarage had never been a possibility, not then, even if she could have found the money for the journey. Sometimes she wondered whether it would be worth it, just to see her father’s face, but it would be a petty revenge for the misery he had made of her childhood. Besides, he would probably say that he expected nothing better of her.

  ‘Only twenty-four?’ Major Brandon was infuriating, but at least he presented a practical problem she could deal with: get his leg healed. ‘You seem older.’

  The dark eyes rested on her face. Was he was referring to her tanned skin, or the roughness of her hands? Perhaps she just had an air of experience from the life she had led. She was not going to ask him.

  Meg tidied the dirty plates and spoons away into a pail and stood it outside the door for the boy. Then she wrapped the remains of the loaf up in its cloth, stoppered the ale and went to sit on the trunk, hands folded demurely in her lap.

  ‘Are you waiting for me to reciprocate with personal revelations?’ Major Brandon lay back against the planked wall, his big hands clasped, apparently relaxed. Yet he still exuded an air of barely controlled impatience. He must hate being cooped up in here with her.

  ‘What I told you were hardly revelations. But if I am to pretend to be your wife I should at least know your name and how old you are and where you were wounded.’

  ‘Ross Martin Brandon. Thirty. Battle of Toulouse. If you preserve some distance from the rest of the passengers, that is all you need to know.’

  ‘Thirty? You look older.’ She echoed his own remark, but he reacted as little as she had. ‘Why should I keep a distance from them? It is only sociable to talk and it helps pass the time.’

  He shrugged. ‘Nothing in common. Civilians.’ The word seemed to give him pain, for the corner of his mouth contracted in a fleeting grimace.

  Meg stared at his lips, then dragged her eyes away. His mouth was one of his better features. It was generous without being fleshy, mobile and expressive in the rare moments when he let his guard down. What would it be like to be kissed by that mouth? Would it slide over her skin, licking and kissing, or would it be brutal and demanding? But the mouth went with the man, and she had no desire at all to be kissed by Ross Brandon, however much some foolish feminine part of her quivered when she met those brooding eyes.

  ‘It is dark,’ he observed. Meg got up and picked her way to the small porthole. If she stood on tiptoe she could see out. There were distant lights from the shore.

  ‘We must have anchored. The motion of the boat is d
ifferent. Shall I leave the porthole open?’

  He nodded when she turned to look at him, his face eerily shadowed now by the swinging lanterns. ‘Are you tired?’

  It was the first sign of any concern for her that he had shown. The tears swam in her eyes again. Yes, she must be tired if she was so close to that weakness. Bone weary, if she was truthful. And frightened of the future. Damn him for being kind. Sparring with him was keeping her going.

  ‘Yes.’ She managed a smile. ‘It is such a relief to know I am going back to England that I seem to be quite drained.’

  ‘Nothing to do with hauling dead bears out of the river, setting this cabin to rights and doctoring me, then?’

  ‘Oh, no, Major Brandon. That is all in a day’s work.’

  ‘Call me Ross,’ he said abruptly. ‘If you would go and take the air on deck for a few minutes, I will get ready for bed.’

  Meg drew her shawl around her shoulders and went out. The euphemism produced a smile, despite a nagging discomfort at the thought of spending the night together in such enforced intimacy. She had tucked another pewter pot and a jug of water behind the curtain in one corner and she would just have to make do with that; she could hardly throw an injured man in his nightshirt out into the passageway while she undid her stays. There were some odorous little cupboards for the passengers’ use—heads, the sailors called them—but she could not undress in those.

  When she came back only one light was burning and Ross was lying on his left side facing the wall, the sheet pulled up to his shoulders. Ross. She moved past softly. I’m thinking of him as Ross.

  Meg wriggled out of her gown, unlaced her stays, took off shoes and stockings and let down her hair from its net at the nape of her neck. The water was cold, but refreshing, and the simple fact of being clean was a source of pleasure. When she crept out in her petticoat and sat on the edge of the trunk to comb out her hair and plait it, the cabin was quiet with just the slap of waves on the ship’s side, the creak of wood and ropes and the familiar sound of a man’s breathing. Peace. No more war, no more alarms and trumpets in the night. No more death and maiming.