Poor Tom. He must just be having a nightmare.
‘Angel!’ He reached out blindly. For her.
She caught at his flailing hand, and held hard.
‘Shhh. I’m here. You are safe.’
‘Violets.’ He sighed and settled down again.
She sat back, pushing a stray tendril of hair from her forehead. She was bone weary and ready for bed herself. She glanced longingly at the pallet bed she’d had Madame le Brun bring in here, in case Tom’s fever mounted again during the night and he needed help.
She smiled at the irony. Today he’d been addressing her as your Majesty, but his need of her meagre nursing skills meant she was going to have to sleep on a pallet like a chambermaid.
She’d just pulled all the pins from her hair and started attacking the snarls with a comb when Tom cried out for her again.
After settling him and going back to her preparations for bed, only to have him cry out for her again, and again, she finally gave up all thought of getting a decent night’s sleep.
In fact, the only way she might snatch even a few moments would be to lie down next to him.
She chewed on her lower lip, a little shocked at herself for even considering such a thing. But then he cried out again and reached for her, and, instead of merely holding his hand and stroking his brow, she clambered on to the bed beside him and gathered him into her arms. After all, it was only like the time she’d held him close, in the French ambulance, to prevent him jolting his poor head. It wasn’t an attempt at seduction. It might be unconventional, to get on to the bed and cuddle him like this, but it wasn’t really improper.
When he sighed and stilled, as though finally he felt safe, she knew she’d done the right thing. Which brought a warm glow of satisfaction deep inside. It even helped to soothe her own bone-deep loneliness. Because nobody had ever needed her like this before. Not even Gideon.
She held Tom more tightly. Holding someone who was clinging to her was very comforting, she discovered. She’d never just cuddled anyone, as far as she could recall. Or been cuddled, either. Once, she recalled Bridget cuddling Gideon, after he’d fallen and scraped his knee. The old nurse in charge of the nursery had reprimanded her. Said he wouldn’t grow up to be a proper man if she mollycoddled him.
So no more cuddles. For either of them. For Mama only visited the nursery briefly, at nights, to see them safely tucked up in bed, and Papa not at all.
‘What a pair we are,’ she said, shifting so that she could lay her head on Tom’s chest. ‘Like two survivors of a shipwreck, clinging together in the wreckage.’
There were certainly no words that anyone could say that could bring her the slightest bit of comfort over losing Gideon. Nothing to compare with just being held like this, as though she was as necessary as breathing. So she wasn’t going to worry about the propriety of it. Not when she was so tired.
Not when it felt so good.
* * *
Tom didn’t want to wake up. There was a deliciously fragrant, warm woman in his arms.
Why, though? He never slept with women. Once he’d taken his pleasure, he got out of their beds as soon as decently possible.
Though to say she was in his arms wasn’t strictly accurate. They had their arms round each other. She’d got one leg over him, too, keeping him warm with the flow of her skirts. Which was odd. He must be losing his touch if she was still clothed, while he was stark naked. She was cradling his head to her breasts, too—his head which hurt like the very devil.
He glanced up through the mass of golden curls pillowing his cheek and cursed under his breath. It was Lady Sarah Latymor in his arms. She had spent the night in bed with him!
Didn’t she know the difference between sitting decorously at his side, mopping his brow and spooning liquid into his mouth to quench his raging thirst, and holding him in her arms?
Probably not. In her innocence, she’d sought to soothe him, that was all. She’d done so every single time he’d reached for her, when the nightmares had come rolling in, swamping him, smothering him. He’d got so he’d dreaded closing his eyes for fear of what would assault him next.
And, oh, it had felt good when she’d first clambered on to his bed and rocked him. It had taken him back to his childhood and the way he’d wished there’d been someone, anyone, to come and rock him to sleep as a child. Though there never had.
Looked like she’d rocked herself to sleep, too. Poor girl must be exhausted. He didn’t think he’d been an easy patient to look after. But she’d never given up. Never left him to the nightmares, or the fever, nor even fled the impropriety of being alone with him once he’d come to.
He wished he could lie here like this for ever.
Actually, no, he didn’t. He wanted to kiss her, not just lie here. Her lips were parted slightly. If he moved just a touch, if he raised his head, he could steal a kiss and she’d never know. If he was gentle enough, she wouldn’t wake, she was sleeping so deeply.
He huffed out an irritated breath. She might not know, but he would. He’d feel as if he’d betrayed her. She hadn’t climbed into his bed for that.
He was a bit disgusted with himself for being tempted to steal from her what should be freely given. What kind of man even thought about repaying all her care of him by treating her with such disrespect? She deserved better.
Whereas he deserved the physical agony which clawed at just about every part of his body. The pain he suffered was just sentence.
Everything hurt. His head, particularly, pounded...
No, actually, the pounding was coming from the region of the door.
One of the household servants?
No. They wouldn’t enter until given permission to do so. Whoever this was had flung open the door and come striding across the room.
‘Bartlett? They tell me you’re...’
Bartlett’s instinct was to bury his nose deeper between Lady Sarah’s breasts and close his eyes, to blot out the furious face that belonged to that voice. The face of Major Flint.
He stifled a groan. He couldn’t have been discovered by anyone worse. Because Major Flint just happened to be this girl’s half-brother. An illegitimate half-brother, but nevertheless he would still count her as family. Particularly since Flint owed his career to her legitimate brother. Colonel Randall, so rumour had it, had recognised the Latymor nose—the nose which was the bane of Sarah’s life—and given Flint a field commission on the strength of it.
He was finished.
Flint’s shocked cry roused Lady Sarah, who leapt guiltily from the bed, pausing only to fling a sheet over the lower half of his body. As if Flint hadn’t seen a naked man before.
‘What the hell,’ said the clearly shocked Major Flint, ‘are you doing here?’
Ah, well, it had been good while it lasted. Perhaps Flint would save him the bother of facing Colonel Randall by simply running him through where he lay. It wouldn’t be a bad way to go. At least his last day on earth had been spent with her. Lady Sarah. In a kind of...what had she called it? A golden haze. Unreal. Too perfect for such as him. A day never to be repeated.
‘You!’ Lady Sarah sounded appalled. Had she really thought she could get away with this? Had she really thought that telling the landlady he was her brother would prevent the truth coming out, in the end?
‘You’re Adam Flint! Justin wouldn’t introduce you to me at the review.’
Bartlett forced his eyes open, to take his last look at her. She sounded really distressed now. Apologetic.
Naturally. Something twisted inside him. It had been all very well caring for him when she’d thought she could keep it secret. But now her behaviour was about to be exposed. She’d crumble in the face of Flint’s fury. Flint was a hard man. He’d grown up in the gutter, gone into the army like so many of his kind, but then risen through t
he ranks by his own merit—until the day his half-brother had started taking an interest in him. He was one of the few officers tough enough to be able to control such men who ended up in Randall’s Rogues, probably because he was, really, one of them. He’d make mincemeat of a fine lady like Sarah.
‘He wouldn’t introduce any of the Rogues,’ Flint snapped. ‘And for good reason. None of us should be associating with you. Let alone him.’ Flint stabbed an accusing finger in his direction.
Couldn’t argue with that. Ramrod Randall knew his men were scum and the officers leading them fit only to lead scum. Naturally he wanted his precious little sister guarded from them all. He’d even tried to get her to leave Brussels altogether when she’d shown too much interest in the Rogues. It had only been because her twin, the one who was in a fashionable cavalry regiment, kept her busy with a far more acceptable set of people that he’d relented.
‘I know the reason he wouldn’t introduce me to you,’ she said, self-consciously tidying her unbound hair into a hasty plait. ‘You’re my natural brother. I’m not supposed to know any of you exist, let alone associate with you.’
That’s right, she’d told him there were dozens of them. She’d told him her mother was obliged to ignore them all.
And she hated it. She’d spoken of what her mother had suffered. Why hadn’t he seen that she suffered, too? That she hated the hypocrisy of having to behave as though she was ignorant of her father’s behaviour.
‘And stop shouting. Poor Tom’s head hurts.’
Poor Tom? That sounded as though she cared for him. And wasn’t afraid to let Flint know it.
A great hollow opened up inside of him. Somewhere in the region of his heart. A hunger. Yearning.
‘Poor Tom’s head,’ Flint growled, ‘is going to be ripped from his shoulders. Now get your cloak and bonnet. I’m taking you home this minute. For you can’t stay here.’
Farewell, Lady Sarah. It was a privilege to know you. Albeit briefly...
But far from meekly going to the peg on which her cloak hung, Lady Sarah stood her ground.
‘I am home. This is my lodging.’
‘Well, then, I’ll take you to your brother.’
‘You can’t do that,’ she said triumphantly. ‘Mary Endacott says he’s too ill to be disturbed.’
She was like a little terrier, standing up to the farmer’s prize bull, he marvelled, as the battle raged over his bed. Dodging, and yipping, and nipping with her sharp little words. While Major Flint, more used to applying brute force to those under his command, bellowed and raged with increasing impotence, confused by her speed and nimbleness.
He felt like weeping. She was still defending him. The way she’d done from the first. Not just from strangers, and his injuries, but now from her very family. The ones who cared about her and her reputation.
Nobody had ever fought for him before. Defended him. They’d all been more inclined to condemn him without a shred of evidence. Any trouble in the vicinity? Bound to be Tom’s fault. So he got the punishment whether he’d been involved or not.
‘Bartlett!’ Major Flint was bending over him, bellowing right into his face just as though he was a raw recruit who could be intimidated by such measures. He hadn’t been intimidated by such tactics when he had been a raw recruit.
Out of habit, he adopted the same measure he’d done then. Widened his eyes as if bewildered as to why he was up on a charge. Though he couldn’t resist taunting Flint just a bit, as well.
‘Sir?’
‘Don’t sir me, Bartlett. We’re the same rank, damn it.’
Yes, damn it, they were. Both of them had ended up as majors in Randall’s rag-tag unit of misfits. And neither of them had been able to inherit the land, or title, or wealth that their noble fathers had enjoyed.
There was a vast gulf between them. She was on one side, a lady of unimpeachable virtue. And he was on the other. A rake and a rogue. They’d held hands across the gulf for a short while, but now it was time to let go.
The argument raged on above him, while he went under a wave of utter misery. He’d known he couldn’t, in all conscience, stay here with her for long. Though why it mattered to him so much he couldn’t say. He’d never even felt the merest twinge of regret when the time had come to part from any other woman.
‘Leave him alone,’ Lady Sarah insisted, snagging his attention once more. ‘He has no idea who he is, what happened.’
What? Where had she got that notion? A dart of shame speared him. Yesterday. When he’d been trying to stave off reality, that’s where. That puerile game he’d started, hoping to prolong his time with her. In the hopes of snatching a kiss or two.
‘He doesn’t know you.’
He took a breath to explain. Then thought better of it. He wasn’t going to contradict Lady Sarah, not when she was doing her best to defend him. Major Flint might have been the closest thing Tom had ever had to a friend, but over the last couple of days, she’d earned his loyalty, too.
‘He seems to think he’s a lieutenant.’
He frowned. Now that was...no, actually he couldn’t think where she’d got that notion from at all. He’d never said anything about his army rank. Had deliberately kept reality out of all their conversations.
Which meant...his heart took a great bound. She was making it up. Lying. For him. She said he was too weak to move? He wouldn’t move, then.
She said he couldn’t remember who he was? He wouldn’t make her look a fool by arguing. Besides, his memory had been a touch hazy, at least when he’d first come round.
‘Perhaps in his mind he is back when he first joined the army,’ she finished on what looked like a burst of inspiration.
When Flint’s scowl turned in his direction, he therefore did his best to look confused. She’d put her reputation on the line for him. So he’d do whatever necessary to back her up.
‘Have you seen the head wound?’
‘Yes, of course,’ she said, turning a bit pale. And stunned him still further by describing it in all its gory detail. Including an account of how she’d stitched it up.
To think of this sheltered young woman doing that for him.
‘He is going to get better,’ she was insisting now, with tears in her eyes. ‘He must.’
Flint was looking at him with a thoughtful frown now. Was looking at Lady Sarah differently, too. She wasn’t the woman they all thought she was, that was why. Her own brother seemed to think she couldn’t cross the road without an escort, but in the last couple of days she’d come to Brussels alone, tamed a fearsome dog, seen off a deserter, scoured the battlefield for survivors, stitched him up and nursed him back from the brink of death.
Flint had just opened his mouth to say something, when the dog scratched at the door to be let in. Sarah ran to let him in with what looked like relief. She drew a lot of comfort from that dog, he’d noticed, though she went through the motions of chiding him whenever he came indoors—if the landlady was anywhere near.
For once, the dog didn’t take a blind bit of notice of her. Instead, it flung itself joyously at Flint, who took great pleasure in making the animal sit at his feet.
Bartlett couldn’t blame him. It was the first time, since setting foot in this room, he’d had the slightest bit of control over any of the occupants.
‘How the devil did Dog get here?’
‘His name’s Ben,’ she corrected him and gave a brief account of her adventures.
Major Flint straightened up from scratching Dog behind his ear. ‘This animal,’ he said sternly, ‘is coming back with me now. And so are you,’ he informed Lady Sarah. ‘Pack a bag. I’m taking you to Randall’s house.’
‘I won’t go.’ She sat on the end of his bed, placing one hand possessively on his leg. ‘You would have to carry me kicking and screaming all the way.’
/> Thwarted again, Flint changed tactic. ‘Then I’ll have him moved.’
‘That could kill him!’ Tears sprang to her eyes.
He stirred guiltily. He wasn’t as ill as all that. And he should tell her he wasn’t worth a single one of her tears. He should sit up, get dressed and go with Flint. And nip this—whatever it was that was happening between them—in the bud.
‘How do you know,’ she said, abruptly changing tack, ‘that Gideon is dead?’
‘Because I was there,’ said Flint tersely.
‘Are you certain?’
‘Certain I was there, or certain he’s dead? Yes to both. You don’t get up after wounds like that.’
Bartlett’s mouth firmed as he promptly changed his mind about leaving her. He might have caused her to shed a tear or two, but he wouldn’t let them run down her face, the way Flint was doing, had he a handkerchief to hand. Or the strength to wield it. How could the man speak of her twin’s death in such a callous manner?
‘Was he shot? Was it quick?’
For God’s sake, tell her it was quick, Bartlett silently willed Flint. Whether it was the truth or not.
‘Sabre wounds.’
Bartlett almost groaned. How could the idiot say that, when he knew full well that she knew exactly what sabre wounds looked like, having just treated his own?
She must have felt the same, because suddenly she was on her feet, pointing at the door.
‘Get out,’ she screamed, making the dog shrink into Flint’s leg in surprise. ‘Get out—and if you come back here again disturbing Tom then I’ll use his pistols on you!’
His pistols had been stolen. But Flint didn’t know that it was an empty threat. Not that it was all that much of a threat. Flint wasn’t a man to quail at the prospect of having a slip of a girl waving a pistol at him. Not when he was accustomed to facing down whole columns of enemy infantry during a battle and packs of drunken deserters in the aftermath.
Nevertheless, Major Flint turned and stalked out, clicking his fingers so that the dog went trotting after him.
A Mistress for Major Bartlett Page 9
