A Mistress for Major Bartlett

by Annie Burrows

  ‘And you are an adult. With a family to support you. Not a child who has no understanding of the way the world works.’

  ‘A child?’ He had lost everything when he’d been a child?

  ‘What happened to you, Tom? How have you ended up the way you are?’

  ‘The way I am?’ He stretched his lips into a cynical smile.

  ‘Yes, the way you are,’ she retorted. ‘Smiling like that as though...as though...well, it’s a mask, isn’t it? And don’t bother arguing, I can see when someone is hiding behind smiles and attitudes, because I’ve done it myself, practically all my life. And because I’ve seen you without it—the mask. The fever tore it away. So stop talking all that rot about not being good enough and having nothing to offer. It’s an excuse. You don’t want to let anyone close. That’s all there is to it.’

  ‘Be careful, Lady Sarah,’ he growled. ‘Or I might start to think you’d changed your mind about staying single.’

  ‘Don’t change the subject,’ she snapped. ‘I can tell when someone is trying to distract me from answering the question. If you don’t want to tell me, then don’t. If it is some deep, dark terrible family secret, then just say so.’

  He winced. ‘Secret? It’s no secret. My family has caused so much scandal there is no hushing it up.’

  She knew exactly how that felt.

  ‘And you have to live with it,’ she said. ‘Find a way to hold your head up in public, when you know full well people are whispering about the scandal behind their fans.’

  ‘Yes, I have to live with it,’ he breathed. ‘I have to live with the fact my father hanged himself. After gambling away everything he’d ever owned.’

  ‘Oh, my goodness!’ Sarah clapped her hand to her mouth in horror. ‘I thought my father was an utter disgrace, but even he never forgot what he owed to his name. Not entirely.’

  ‘Exactly,’ he said with a bitter smile. ‘Most men, if they should get to the point where they feel there is only one way out, would make it look like a hunting accident. So that their children could still inherit. Well, actually, there were only debts left to inherit. My grandfather had already lost the title.’

  ‘Lost the title?’ Tom came from a noble family? ‘How on earth did he manage to do that?’

  ‘Spoke out in support of Charles Stuart’s claim to the throne,’ he said grimly. ‘Then threw in his lot with the Jacobites. So there you have it, Lady Sarah. My grandfather was a traitor. My father, well, the best you could say of him was that he was unhinged. But after two generations of scandal, nobody has any doubt that I have tainted blood.’

  ‘You really did lose everything,’ she said in a hollow whisper. ‘It makes what I’ve lived through, what I’ve thought I’ve had to endure...’ She shook her head in shame.

  ‘None of that,’ he said sharply. ‘What happened to me when I was a child doesn’t make your own woes any less significant to you.’

  ‘My woes are petty, though, aren’t they? I’ve always had a secure home. And family. Even though I always thought that out of them all, only Gideon ever actually liked me.’

  ‘From what you’ve told me so far, your father blighted your childhood in his own way.’

  ‘Yes, but he was just a lecherous old goat who couldn’t keep his hands off any pretty woman unfortunate enough to cross his path. And rather than having no sense of obligation to the title, he made absolutely sure,’ she said with a bitter twist to her lips, ‘that every single child my mother bore was his. He only left her alone when he was certain she was pregnant. By him.’

  ‘My father’s problem was the opposite of yours, then. He was totally infatuated with my mother. When she died—bringing me into the world, as it happens—he lost interest in everything else. Hanging himself was probably his way of ensuring I knew how much he disapproved of me surviving at the cost of the only woman he’d ever loved.’

  ‘Our fathers were both as bad as each other,’ she said, her lips tightening. ‘How could yours abandon his child the way he abandoned you? Leaving you with nothing? Worse than nothing! He burdened you with the belief that somehow his failings were your fault. Ooh—’ she clenched her fists ‘—I thought my father was a bad man, but to act the way yours did is downright unnatural.’

  Tom had never really talked about this with anyone before. It was something everyone who knew him knew, anyway. He’d been taunted about it, frequently, but nobody had ever asked him how he felt about it. Let alone taken his part, the way Lady Sarah had just done.

  She had such a generous heart, to get all indignant on behalf of a little orphaned boy, rather than react to the disgrace she’d just learned was his inheritance. In that, she was unique. Society ladies, in his experience, had always fallen into one of two camps. There were the ones who turned their noses up at him. Who even twitched their skirts aside to avoid getting accidentally contaminated.

  And those who got sexually aroused by the aura of disrepute surrounding him.

  Not one of them had appeared to understand exactly how he felt about it, or had even been that interested, come to that.

  ‘What happened to you next? You were only six, you say?’ Sarah curled up in the chair next to the bed and rested her cheek on her hand. ‘Did you have to go into a foundling home?’

  ‘No. Worse. My father’s sister took me in.’

  ‘How could that possibly have been worse?’

  ‘Well, her husband looked upon me as the spawn of a weak, degenerate man, who was in his turn the spawn of a traitor. And felt it was his Christian duty to ensure I didn’t follow in their footsteps. Which was his excuse for taking every chance he could to beat the evil out of me.’

  ‘Did not your aunt try to stop him? After all, your bad blood ran in her veins, too.’

  ‘Ah. Well, looking back, I can see she was too afraid of him to stand up to him. He was a vicious bully. But as a child, I didn’t understand. I just thought she believed what he said and didn’t think it worth the bother of looking for some evidence of good in me. Of course,’ he said, his smile turning a little wicked, ‘their attitude had a predictable effect. Since I soon learned that trying to be good didn’t ameliorate their treatment, there didn’t seem much point in trying. In fact, rather the opposite. If I was going to get a beating, I decided I may as well have done something worth getting the beating for.’

  ‘Good for you.’ She gave a determined nod. ‘I hope you made their lives as miserable as they made yours.’

  He gave a bark of laughter. ‘Well, do you know, I rather think I did. I became a regular little hellion. They couldn’t keep me in school. I much preferred being out of doors with the other village lads, of whom I was pretty soon the ringleader. Before long, if there was any trouble within fifteen miles of our village, they laid it at my door,’ he finished with a glimmer of pride.

  ‘My uncle said if he didn’t put a stop to my criminal career I’d end up hanging, just like my father. And so he decided the best course was to let the army have me. Only then he faced a bit of a dilemma. As the son of a gentleman, he couldn’t very well have me enlist like a common man. But neither did he want to go to all the expense of buying me a commission. So he sent me off to the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, where they trained me to become both an officer and an engineer,’ he finished with a grimace.

  ‘There is nothing wrong with that,’ she retorted. ‘Justin himself chose to serve in the artillery, like our grandfather.’

  ‘Yes, but it isn’t the done thing, is it? Far more acceptable to go into the cavalry, or the Guards.’

  ‘People don’t just go into the cavalry to be acceptable,’ she said, a little flash of annoyance in her eyes. ‘Gideon wanted to... He would have...’ She stopped and drew in a shuddery sort of breath. ‘He idolised Justin, but he didn’t want to ape him. So Mama bought him a commission in a cavalry regiment. She was the
one who wanted him to be fashionable. Gideon never cared for any of that. He’s like... I mean, he was like me. Never happier than when on horseback. Whenever he was home we used to pack our saddlebags and just take off. We’d stay out all day,’ she said with a faraway look in her eye. ‘It started when we were very little. We’d slip away from the schoolroom and hide somewhere on the estate. We’d dam streams and climb trees, and make dens in the woods. Even when they sent him away to school, he couldn’t wait to come home so we could play together. And tell each other all the things we couldn’t put in any of the letters we wrote. Once or twice he brought friends to stay, but they only spoiled things by asking why on earth he let a girl tag along. And he’d declare I wasn’t a bit like most girls. That I could stay out all day and not get tired, or complain about mud, or brambles. And he never invited them again.’

  She wasn’t a bit like most girls. Most women. He could talk to her. As though she was a...a friend.

  He wished he’d known her when he’d been a grubby, half-starved boy. He might not have grown up so certain the whole world was against him. He was just wondering whether to tell her so when Madame le Brun came in with a breakfast tray.

  ‘Good morning. You are looking so much better,’ she said, running her eyes over him assessingly.

  ‘Down to your amazing cooking,’ Tom replied, casting aside the temptation to confess things better left unsaid. He gave the landlady the benefit of his most flirtatious smile. ‘And having my every whim catered to by two such beautiful women.’ He leaned back and tucked both hands behind his head. ‘You are making me feel like a sultan in a harem.’

  To Sarah’s amazement, the landlady, who must have been fifty if she was a day, blushed and laughed in a very girlish way, then shook her finger at him, in mock admonishment. She then spent rather longer than she needed, flitting about the room setting things to rights. When she left, Sarah shook her head at Tom.

  ‘What?’ He shrugged and widened his eyes in mock innocence. ‘Flirting does no harm. She enjoys it.’

  He’d got in the habit of flirting with women, he realised, as he took a spoonful of the eggs Madame had brought. All women, no matter what their age. Making them blush and simper gave him the upper hand. By making them react to what he was doing, rather than letting them get in first, he controlled them. Kept them in their place.

  Flirting was the quickest way to discover whether they’d be willing to lift their skirts, too. If a woman was amenable, his next objective was normally to find out how quickly. If she wasn’t, he always moved on to the next likely prospect without hesitation. It was a ruthless method. A foolproof method that got him bedded more frequently than any other officer in the Rogues. Or any other unit in which he’d served.

  Maybe that was why he’d toned things down with Lady Sarah. He didn’t want to try and control her, or keep her in her place. It felt more important to get to know her—right down to the very bones of her. And flirting too brazenly would only put her on her guard against him.

  Oh, he still wanted to kiss her, make no mistake. More than that. Much, much more. Though he didn’t want it to be like the crude encounters of his past, that satisfied a momentary itch. He wanted...he wanted...

  All of a sudden the words of the marriage vows popped into his head. With my body, I thee worship...

  A chill curled its fist round the back of his neck. He wasn’t contemplating marriage. It was just that Sarah was the kind of girl who deserved marriage. Yes, that was it. She should have someone who loved and cherished her, and all the rest of it. Hadn’t she already roused all sorts of similar responses from him? Feelings of protectiveness, and friendship, and loyalty. The chill receded. Now he knew where the sudden understanding of the marriage lines had come from, there was no need to panic. He wasn’t in danger of doing anything stupid, like falling in love with her, and proposing marriage himself.

  Men like him didn’t fall in love.

  Didn’t know how.

  Chapter Eight

  Sarah took her dish of chocolate to the writing desk and gazed out of the window as she sipped at it. Another funeral procession was snaking along the street. Every day, more young men were dying of wounds inflicted in the battle that had taken Gideon from her. Her nose felt hot. Though she blinked rapidly, she couldn’t prevent a single tear sliding down her cheek. Though why should she even try to hold it back? She’d lost Gideon, and to know so many more young men were dying was utterly tragic.

  She wasn’t upset by the fact that, though Tom was now well enough to flirt with the landlady, he’d started treating her more like a...like a sort of sister. Yes, a sister, that was it. They’d just spent the morning talking with each other exactly the way she and Gideon used to. Sharing thoughts openly. Trusting the other with cherished beliefs and the pains of their past.

  She delved into the top drawer and pulled out a handkerchief. She blew her nose as quietly as she could, glancing at Tom in case he’d noticed her distress.

  But he was lying back on the pillows, his face ashen, his breakfast tray tilting at a dangerous angle.

  She got up quickly and saved it before it went crashing to the floor. Didn’t pause to look back, but went with it to the door.

  ‘I will leave you to sleep,’ she said, keeping her face, and in particular the evidence of her tears, averted. ‘You look exhausted.’

  She would be a fool to sit about all day, waiting for this connoisseur of women to look at her that way. It wasn’t going to happen. Men didn’t find her attractive. Oh, plenty of them had shown an interest in marrying her, once they knew who she was, who she was related to and how much wealth she had at her back. But as a woman? No. She had less appeal, apparently, than a fifty-year-old Belgian landlady.

  It was all very well Tom saying he was willing to stay sick for as long as she needed him. But he didn’t mean it. As soon as he was strong enough to walk, he would reclaim his freedom. He’d told her he wasn’t the marrying kind. Which meant, really, that he didn’t want to be tied to one woman.

  Particularly not a foolish, fey, plain one like her.

  ‘I need to wash and change, and, well, heavens, but I have been neglecting Castor. Talking about how I used to spend all day riding about with Gideon has made me quite...’ She bit down on her lower lip. It was one thing making excuses, another to embroider them to the point where they became outright lies.

  ‘Of course,’ he said with a tight smile. ‘You should go out and get some fresh air. It will do you good. And in truth, I do want to sleep. There really is no point in you sitting here all day, is there?’

  ‘None whatever,’ she said with a toss of her head.

  * * *

  It was a relief to reach the stables, with its familiar smells and sounds.

  ‘It’s not as if I want him to flirt with me,’ she informed Castor, giving his velvety nose a rub. ‘Why would I? I detest rakes.’ Though she didn’t detest Tom.

  ‘It’s just as well I did want to come out for a ride, isn’t it? Because the last thing I would ever do is sit about all day waiting for some man to admire me. Or pretend to, because that is what rakes generally do. Ooh,’ she breathed, leaning into the reassuringly solid column of Castor’s neck, ‘I thought he looked full of himself, the first time I saw him. He may not have a title, apart from his army rank, but he’s certainly become lord of that room. He’s one of those men who are born bossy, just like my brothers. Both Justin and Major Flint expect everyone else to do what they say. In fact, they don’t even always need to say anything. Just the way they walk shows they think they are lords of all they survey. Not that Tom can actually walk at the moment, but if he did, he’d be strutting about the place, turning heads. Female heads, that is.’

  Castor blew heavily through his nostrils, as if in complete agreement.

  ‘And the worst of it is, I don’t really understand why I mind.
I knew he was a habitual womaniser when I scooped him up out of the mud. It’s more than likely that he’ll have a go at getting Jeanne to kiss him while I’m out.’

  Her stomach clenched into a cold knot. She half-wanted to run back upstairs, to prevent any such thing from happening.

  Instead, she firmed her mouth and led Castor to the mounting block. ‘If I find he’s done any such thing,’ she muttered between clenched teeth as they set off, ‘I shall tip his next bowl of broth over his head.’

  She hadn’t gone more than a few yards before revising this punishment. But only because she remembered she was the one who’d have to change Tom’s bandages if she did douse them in broth.

  By the time she reached the end of the Allée Verte, she’d devised and discarded a dozen plans for punishing Tom. None of which would make her feel the slightest bit better. No, the only thing that would make her feel better would be making certain, somehow, that he wasn’t kissing anyone else.

  Even if it meant keeping him occupied with her own lips. It went against her principles, but it was the only course she could see that would satisfy her pride. Not that she’d ever kissed a man before, but how hard could it be? Anyway, Tom’s vast experience would more than compensate for her own ignorance.

  If she could get him to see her as kissable, that was.

  * * *

  Her determination to appear amenable to kisses took a nosedive the moment she set foot in his room, for in her absence he’d washed and shaved, and put on a shirt. In her imagination, during the ride home, it had been the piratically whiskered, half-naked Tom she’d approached and snuggled up to, and offered her mouth to.

  This Tom, this clothed, clean, proper man, didn’t look like her Tom at all. He made her feel shy and nervous, and aware of how improper her plan had been. Without the four days’ growth of beard, he also looked very pale, which smote her conscience. He was her patient, for heaven’s sake. He’d been grievously wounded. The last thing he needed was for some inquisitive spinster to fling herself on his chest and make demands he’d shown no sign of wanting to fulfil.