A Mistress for Major Bartlett

by Annie Burrows

  ‘Did I? I didn’t think so. They didn’t seem to stop.’

  ‘They didn’t entirely. But somehow, the scent of you reached me even during the worst of them. The scent of violets will always remind me of you. Of the feeling of security that came from lying in your arms.’ He breathed in deeply. ‘For I knew the hellish landscape couldn’t be real, because surely violets couldn’t bloom in such a place. Even when I couldn’t recall how I’d got there...’ He shook his head.

  ‘Oh, dear. The surgeon said you might never fully recover your memory.’

  ‘I know I’d been in the thick of fighting all day. My ears were ringing. But to be honest, I can still only recall bits and pieces. The noise and the smoke. I know there was thunder, the night before we fought the battle in which I was injured. In my dreams, that thunderstorm got all jumbled up with the thunder of the guns. And the smell of the smoke became the flames from the pits of hell.’

  ‘I’m not surprised you got dreams like that. We could hear the guns as far as Antwerp, on Friday. It did sound like a distant thunderstorm. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to have actually been there.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have to,’ he said fervently. A shiver went through him as her hand slid across his chest and came to rest, trustingly, over his heart.

  ‘What else did you dream about?’

  ‘I dreamed I was dead,’ he said bleakly. ‘And buried in my grave. Of course, I was only pinned down by all the stones from the wall that fell on me. But in my half-conscious, confused state, the men roaming the field by night looking for plunder became demons, collecting the souls of the damned. I wasn’t totally convinced I wasn’t dead until morning, when birds started singing. I knew birds wouldn’t sing in hell. But even they got muddled up in my nightmares. The singing birds, and the wraith-like looters, merged into great black crows. There are always crows after battles, pecking at the bodies. I felt as though every cut of mine, every bruise, was evidence that they’d been there, feasting on my flesh.’

  ‘Oh, Tom!’ She flung her arms round his waist, hugging him tight. ‘All those odd things you said make perfect sense now. It must have been dreadful.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m such an idiot.’ Heaven help him, he’d just planted a whole new set of images in her head. ‘I shouldn’t have spoken about all that. It can’t have helped.’

  ‘It did, actually,’ she retorted, ‘because you’re a man. And a soldier. If even someone like you can have dreams like that, then it makes me feel that I’m not such a poor sort of creature, after all.’

  ‘Everyone has nightmares after a battle,’ he said grimly. ‘Nobody knows how to stop them. And nobody speaks of them.’ He gave a puzzled frown. ‘Not usually, anyway.’

  Without warning she pulled out of his arms, got up and disappeared behind the screen.

  He sighed. Just when he thought he’d been making progress he went and said something that sent her running for cover. As though she didn’t she trust him.

  He snorted in derision. Of course she didn’t trust him. Which was just as well. Every chivalrous impulse he felt towards her was almost immediately countered by an appallingly lustful one.

  To his amazement she reappeared with one of the blankets from her bed draped over one arm.

  ‘Just for tonight,’ she said, climbing on to his bed beside him, on top of the sheet that covered him, ‘we’ll hold each other. I will keep your nightmares away from you,’ she said, snapping the blanket open and arranging it over her legs. ‘And you will keep mine away from me.’

  She snuggled down next to him, tucked her head in the crook of his arm and draped her own arm over his waist. ‘What do you say to that?’ She twisted her head to look up at him.

  It sounded like heaven.

  It sounded like hell. It had been bad enough when she’d been across the room, with a screen and four foot of empty space between them. Now she was in his arms, close enough to kiss if she moved her face just a fraction further.

  ‘I say yes.’ He groaned and moved his own face just the necessary fraction.

  His lips brushed hers lightly. Surely, just once wouldn’t be such a terrible crime, would it? A kiss goodnight.

  She gasped, and for a moment he thought she really was going to tip him out of bed. But then, miraculously, she pressed her own lips against his. Clasped him more tightly and wriggled closer.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ he gasped.

  ‘Am I hurting you?’

  ‘No. Yes. It’s agony,’ he growled, burying his face in her neck. He hadn’t been so aroused since his first fumbling encounter with a willing chambermaid. But this was no chambermaid. This was Sarah. An innocent. An angel.

  He couldn’t sully her. Not in his imagination and not in reality, either. He might have crossed many lines during the course of his career, but debauching respectable females hadn’t been one of them.

  ‘Go to sleep,’ he bit out. ‘Lie still and go to sleep.’

  ‘But what about you?’

  Yes, what about him? His aim had been to get a kiss from her, nothing more. But now he had kissed her, it wasn’t enough. And if she didn’t lie still and stop wriggling in that inviting way, he might forget what he owed her and attempt to go further.

  ‘I will lie here and hold you. It is my turn. Whenever the bad things try to come back, you will feel my arms round you and know it’s not real.’

  ‘But...’

  ‘Hush. I will keep you safe. I won’t...’ He shifted slightly, so that she wouldn’t be able to feel his newly awakened arousal pressing into her hip. ‘I would never harm you, Sarah. I couldn’t.’ His whole being revolted at the thought of any harm coming to her, from any source. ‘I’d rather die.’

  She went very still. And very quiet. For a moment he wondered if she knew the effect she’d had on him and was trying to decide whether it was more dangerous to stay in the bed with a randy soldier, or go back to her own bed and risk the nightmares returning.

  Eventually, she gave a little sigh and snuggled back down. It seemed, for whatever reason, she’d decided to stay right where she was.

  She trusted him.

  His eyes stung. When was the last time anyone had trusted him? With so much as sixpence, let alone their very virtue?

  Never. Nobody had ever had such faith in him. They’d all expected him to break his word. To behave badly. To let them down and cause mayhem.

  His grip on her tightened as he swore to himself that he’d never do any of those things. He’d never break his word to her. Never let her down or cause her a moment’s grief.

  No matter what it cost him.

  Chapter Nine

  Lady Sarah woke with a smile on her face. Tom had been right. Whenever the dreams had threatened to turn troubling, she’d somehow sensed his arms round her. Known she wasn’t alone, the way she’d been when she’d really gone to the battlefield. And though there were times when her dreams grew distressing, they never descended to the depths of horror she’d suffered before.

  But even better had been his physical reaction. He’d stood to attention for her. She snuggled into his side, basking in the knowledge that he could feel desire for her, after all. She’d never been pretty, but these last few days, without a maid to help her, she hadn’t even looked presentable. Her choice of outfits was limited to those few gowns sent to her by Odette, from that last order before they’d fled for Antwerp. Her hair was a complete mess. And her complexion must be blotchy, too, since she’d been crying on and off practically the whole time. She always looked particularly unappealing when she wept, which was one of the reasons she didn’t do it often. Her nose, always her worst feature, glowed deep crimson, making it even more obvious and unattractive than ever. And her eyes, which actually were the one feature that wasn’t half-bad, got bloodshot, her eyelashes all clumpy, ef
fectively destroying their appeal.

  And yet he’d been aroused. Better than that, she hadn’t had to risk her pride by trying to get him to kiss her. He’d done it without the slightest provocation. Well, not deliberate provocation, anyway. She hadn’t been thinking about getting him to kiss her when she’d climbed into bed with him. Not at all.

  She sighed happily. He’d promised she need not fear, that he would rather die than harm her. By which, she knew, he meant he wouldn’t act on the desire that his masculine body had made all too obvious.

  Which, now she came to think of it, was a very unrakish thing to do. Rakes didn’t care about anyone but themselves. She should know. Her father really had been a rake. Whenever he’d wanted a woman he’d just taken her—whether she was willing or not.

  How could people accuse Tom of being a rake? Tom was...Tom was...just a man, an unmarried man, who enjoyed life to the full. It wasn’t as if he was doing anything so very different from what her brothers and other officers did. Only, by the sound of it, more regularly and with a greater variety of women than them.

  ‘You are awake, aren’t you?’

  She wriggled round at the sound of his low, gruff voice, to look up into Tom’s face, and couldn’t help sighing. Overnight his beard had started growing in, which made him look much more like her very own Tom again. The rather desperate, powder-blackened warrior who’d fallen into her lap on the battlefield. Though that wasn’t what made her sigh. Not entirely, anyway. It was the look in his sea-green eyes. Such a look. Even a sensible, practical woman would want to drown in it.

  And she’d never been, either.

  She sighed again. ‘Thank you for last night.’

  ‘Hmmph.’ He shifted as though he was in pain. ‘Lady Sarah, I am glad I could be of service, but right now...’

  ‘Yes? What is it?’ She sat up, searching his face intently. He looked as though he was in great discomfort. ‘Are you in pain?’

  He grimaced. ‘I need...I need...’ He closed his eyes, clenching his fists on top of the sheet that covered him. ‘Could you send for Gaston, do you think? And then give me a few moments’ privacy?’

  He probably needed to use the chamber pot.

  She blushed and got out of bed. ‘Of course.’ She went to the bell pull by the fireplace and tugged on it sharply. ‘Now that you are a little better, you probably want to try to get out of bed for a short while today, too.’

  ‘And shave,’ he growled, rubbing his hand over his chin. ‘It is amazing how much better I felt yesterday after Gaston gave me a wash and shave.’

  It was the proper thing to do—have a manservant see to his most intimate needs. The sensible thing. Yet hearing him start to think of propriety and sense saddened her. She’d much rather he wanted to do something improper, and reckless, like a bit more kissing and cuddling.

  Oh, well, there was no point in refining on what wasn’t to be. She might as well go to the little dressing room next door to wash and dress herself, while Gaston saw to Tom.

  The moment she’d poured out her water, though, she started to get cross with herself. Why had she just meekly walked away, when it hadn’t been what she wanted? Why had she allowed him to dismiss her so easily?

  Her irritation made her movements jerky and brisk, so that she was ready to ring for Jeanne to do up her day gown in no time at all. Funnily enough, it never did take her very long to prepare for the day now she no longer had a personal maid in constant attendance. Since returning to Brussels she’d dispensed with all the other nonsense, such as trying to get her hair to curl and then arranging it in a fashionable style. She simply combed it, braided it, coiled it up and pinned it out of the way. And since she only had the choice of two or three outfits, she didn’t have to agonise for ages about which would be the most appropriate for the events she was scheduled to attend, either.

  She tapped on Tom’s door. Tom’s door. She pulled herself up short. When had it become his room? And how had he managed to make her feel like a visitor?

  She felt even more like a visitor when she saw that he’d rearranged the furniture. Or had Gaston do it, anyway.

  ‘I can see out of the window from here, without having to get out of bed,’ he said hastily, when her reaction must have flitted across her face.

  ‘Of course. It must be very boring for you having nothing to look at all day.’ Yet another sign he was recovering. He needed something to do. Something to look at. Other than her.

  ‘It looks like a glorious day,’ he said. ‘You should make the most of it. Go out and get some air.’

  She didn’t wince. Nobody, looking at her face, would guess how much his attitude hurt. But then she’d had years of enduring brutal attacks from her father, more subtle campaigns waged by her mother, followed by the cut and thrust of society gossip. Letting anyone know what she was thinking would have been fatal, on so many occasions.

  ‘Well, if you really don’t need me,’ she said brightly, ‘I would love to go for a ride.’ He wanted her to leave him in peace, did he? Very well, then. At least Castor would be genuinely pleased to see her. No blowing hot and cold with him.

  No wonder she preferred horses to people. They didn’t play games. Say one thing one minute, making you think...

  Not that horses could talk. But if they did, they would be honest and open, and straightforward.

  ‘Aside from my brief ride out yesterday I have been woefully neglecting Castor. And after he looked after me so splendidly, too.’

  ‘Did he?’ Tom didn’t sound interested. He was gazing out of the window with a rather wild air, as though planning his escape. From the clutches of a respectable female, no doubt. Now that he’d started to respond to her, as a man, he clearly felt it was time to put some distance between them. Why, he’d told her he didn’t want to get married. He’d couched it in terms of not having anything to offer a woman. But she knew what he’d really meant was that he didn’t want to get tied to just one. She knew how men’s minds worked. Unless they had a title and needed an heir, or a bride with a dowry to solve their financial problems, not one of them really wanted to get leg-shackled.

  She’d seen it in her father’s behaviour. She’d observed it in Justin’s. But most important, she’d heard it from Gideon’s own lips.

  That kiss, and then spending the night in each other’s arms had probably scared the life out of him. He probably thought she was going to get silly, romantic ideas now. Which was why he was acting all starchy and unapproachable.

  In another day or so, he would be up and about, and, to judge from the way he was acting this morning, that would be the end of their strange friendship.

  All of a sudden, some imp of mischief, some spirit of rebellion that had been fermenting over the past few days, came to a head.

  She marched over to the bed, seized him round the back of the neck with one hand and planted a kiss full on his mouth.

  He made a strange gasping, gurgling sound. The green part of his eyes got almost entirely swallowed by the rapid expansion of his pupils. He reached up to put his arms about her, too.

  ‘No. That’s quite enough of that for now, Tom,’ she said, darting away. It would have been different if he’d started it, if he’d shown any inclination to take things further. She might have...well, actually she didn’t know how she would have responded to a flirtatious, eager Tom this morning. She only knew that she wasn’t going to let him think he could dictate how she should behave any longer.

  Nor give him the idea that she was so desperate she was flinging herself at him. That wasn’t what the kiss was about at all.

  ‘I don’t want to get you over-excited. Not in your delicate condition.’

  ‘In my delicate condition?’ He glared at her ferociously, as though to prove there was nothing the least bit delicate about him. Her last sight of him that morning was of him staring at he
r, with an expression on his face she was going to cherish for ever. As though he wished he had the strength to get up and chase after her. Although she wasn’t totally sure what he would do to her, if he could catch her. Put her over his knee and spank her, as likely as kiss her, probably.

  Either of which would, at least, be preferable to his indifference.

  * * *

  Although the day was fine and Castor had been keen to get out and gallop away the fidgets, there was too much evidence of the battle wherever she looked to be able to fully enjoy her ride.

  By the time she returned, her pleasure in provoking Tom into a reaction had completely dissipated. And it wasn’t just the sight of soldiers lying wounded all over the road, the broken gun carriages, splintered wagons, or the smoke rising from mounds of carcasses that had been made into great bonfires, that had done it.

  It was the guilt. Guilt caused by realising that whenever she was with Tom, actually in his presence, Gideon always got pushed to the back of her mind.

  So it was with a heavy heart that she finally stepped through the back door of the lodgings, later that morning.

  ‘Ah, ma petite,’ said Madame le Brun, bustling up towards her, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘It is such sad news, is it not? To hear that your gallant officer, your beau, he has fallen in battle.’

  ‘My...my beau?’

  She hadn’t had a beau.

  ‘Who do you mean?’

  ‘Why, that cavalry officer with all the moustaches. The colonel.’

  ‘Oh. Colonel Bennington Ffog,’ she responded dully. She’d experienced a jolt, it was true, when she’d read his name on the lists of the dead, but it was hardly more than she’d felt for any of the other names she recognised of men she’d talked to, and danced with, in the preceding weeks. Even though he had been her most frequent escort. After Gideon.

  ‘Never mind,’ said the landlady, placing her hand on the sleeve of Sarah’s riding habit. ‘The major, he is much more the man for you than that other one.’

  Sarah felt her face flood with heat. ‘The...the major? You mean you know that Tom isn’t...isn’t my...’