A Rose for Major Flint (Brides of Waterloo) Page 12

  ‘No! Adam, you can’t do that.’ She strained back against his arm to look up into his face. ‘You are a soldier, an officer. This is what you do, who you are. And you need time to decide what to do next, not be pushed into a marriage you don’t want. I can’t do that to you.’

  ‘But I can. I don’t want to be a peacetime soldier, putting down unrest in the industrial towns or marching about Hyde Park firing gun salutes as one of Prinny’s toy soldiers.’ He buried the other options, the other armies, the other wars.

  ‘No.’ Rose wriggled free and sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘You can’t make a rushed decision. What about India? What about the German states? Moss said you’d be a general. I’ll find my parents, we’ll soon see I am not pregnant, they don’t need to know where I was. Oh…’

  ‘Oh?’ Flint spun round the upright chair so the back was towards her and straddled it, his arms along the top rail, its wooden frame a fence against the urge to touch her, pull her into bed and make love to her until they were both convinced this was the only thing to do, without any further argument.

  ‘Miss Endacott. She came round today with your notebook. She might guess…’

  Flint scrubbed one hand over his face and sighed. ‘Rose, you have a very strange idea of male honour. I will not pretend I have had nothing to do with you and I do not care if anyone else knows or not. I have ruined you and I will marry you.’

  Rose reached out and closed her fingers around his as they clenched on the chair rail. ‘Shall we go to bed, Adam?’

  ‘You have just refused to marry me. Have you changed your mind so quickly?’ The words seemed to come from a long way down. Was she going to yield and agree without any further struggle?

  ‘One might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb,’ Rose said with a shrug. ‘There is nothing we can do tonight except argue ourselves into knots. I want to be hugged. I want to hug you.’ She looked at him and bit her lip, but not before he saw the betraying tremor. ‘We don’t have to make love, if you don’t want to.’

  ‘I’ll always want to make love to you, Rose.’ And he wanted to sit in the corner and howl like a dog, but that was not an option. He had a duty to Randall if the man was at death’s door. He had a duty to Rose. He had a duty to his own hard-won sense of honour and to the army in which he was still an officer. He was sick of duty. ‘But I am not going to make things any worse than they already are. A hug sounds tempting.’

  He wondered, fleetingly, if he could simply seduce her into compliance, make love to her until she was too befuddled to protest any longer. No, she had to agree because her head told her this was right. But agree she would. From somewhere he dredged up a smile, a lightness in his voice, and was rewarded by her answering smile. A somewhat uncertain one, to be true.

  ‘Can you manage the fastenings on that gown?’ Heaven preserve him from having to unbutton it, wrestle with stay laces, feel her skin warm under his fingers as he unwrapped her like a delicious ripe fruit nestled in tissue paper.

  ‘Yes, thank you.’ Her eyes were cast down, there was colour on her cheekbones. Somehow not having sex was more embarrassing than the intimacies themselves, it seemed. She went to her own room and closed the door.

  Flint shrugged, undressed, fell into his own bed and wondered whether he wanted Rose to come to him or not. He had decided she was staying in her room and his hand was on the edge of the covers, ready to get out and snuff the candles, when her door opened and she came out clad in a nightgown that fitted her, made from a filmy lawn that fluttered around her ankles. He closed his eyes and waited, focused on his breathing and not the uncomfortable excitement that the sight provoked. Obviously he had sinned very badly if this temptation was to be his punishment. There was a soft huff of breath and she dealt with the lights, then she slid in beside him, turned trustingly into his arms and laid her cheek on his chest, her hand on his shoulder.

  He had endured sleepless nights before, Flint told himself. This time it would be his conscience keeping him awake, not the fear of French snipers.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Adam, what are we to do first?’ Rose sat up against the pillows and watched Adam shave, the long, steady strokes of the blade cutting through the foam-covered bristles to leave a track of shining skin behind it. His chin was tipped up, displaying the strong lines of his throat, and his hands were sure on the ebony handle as he wielded the razor.

  He was naked except for a damp linen towel slung around his hips. It seemed, if anything, to enhance the sheer masculinity of his body. Rose told herself it was only natural to want to look at him like this. There was no surplus fat on him, nothing that was not necessary to make a strong, supple fighting machine out of a frame that was naturally tall, broad and perfectly proportioned.

  Rose jerked her mind back to all the things they had to be worried about. There were enough of those, surely, to counteract inconvenient physical attraction? She had slept all night, safe and peaceful in Adam’s arms, but the dawn had brought no answers.

  Adam flicked soap off the razor. ‘I must call on Randall, find out about this operation. Then I will go to headquarters, talk to the surgeon, see how Bartlett is. After that I’ll find out if anyone has been asking after your Lieutenant Gerald. While I’m away you can go back to your notes and do your level best to remember more. We’ve got days to resolve this, Rose, not weeks.’

  Should I tell him I can recall my first name? But that wouldn’t help, it would simply be confusing. She couldn’t think of herself as Catherine.

  ‘I know. I’ll try, I promise. Adam—’

  ‘Hush.’ There was the sound of knocking at the front door. Adam took a last stroke with the razor and wiped his face, his head cocked to one side, listening.

  ‘It is a woman’s voice. Miss Endacott with news, perhaps?’ Rose suggested as she reached towards the end of the bed for a wrapper. The caller sounded agitated.

  There was silence, then the bedchamber door was flung open so hard it slammed back against the wall. From the foot of the stairs came Maggie’s voice raised in protest, ignored by the young woman who stood there, clenching a frivolous little parasol like a weapon. Her fashionable ensemble seemed to have been flung on in haste, her blond hair was already coming loose where she had jammed it under her bonnet.

  She swept into the room, apparently uncaring about Adam’s near nudity or Rose watching aghast, half in, half out of bed. She stalked up to Adam and poked him in the chest with one ungloved finger. ‘Justin is going to die and it is all your fault, you horrible man!’

  Rose gasped and the intruder spun round. Her jaw dropped and for a moment they stared at each other. Rose met furious blue eyes that were suddenly very familiar. This was Adam’s sister, Lady Sarah Latymor.

  ‘You!’ Recognition and surprise quenched the fury for a moment.

  She knows me? ‘Lady Sarah, who am—?’ Rose’s foot tangled with the bedsheet and she landed on the floor in a sprawl of limbs.

  Adam took a step towards her, but she waved him away. Perhaps he could calm his furious half-sister down and then she would tell Rose just what her real name was.

  Sarah rounded on Adam again. ‘You hypocrite! You storm and shout at me about immorality, you put Justin’s life in danger by telling tales, you pretend to be so sanctimonious with your protestations about how young ladies should behave. You called poor Tom a rake and accused him of corrupting my innocence while all the time you have your own little love nest here. You say I am ruined—well, what about her?’ She pointed a quivering finger at Rose.

  ‘At least I am with a gentleman. You are going to be sorry you ever crawled out of your gutter, Adam Flint! If Justin survives he’ll see you drummed out of the army—if Tom hasn’t killed you first. To think I told him it was a stupid idea to shoot you. I should have loaded his pistols for him and sent him straight after you when I had the chance!’

  Adam reached for his robe and pulled it on. ‘Stop ranting, you foolish chit. Is Bartlett recovered?’

&nbs
p; ‘You mean you don’t know? He isn’t here?’ Momentary alarm flitted across her face. ‘Well, I still hold you to blame. And I’m going to make you both sorry you ever set foot in Brussels!’

  She was gone before Rose could speak. They heard her run down the stairs, then the front door slammed behind her.

  ‘Are you all right, Rose?’ Adam asked in the echoing silence. When she nodded and got up from her tangle of sheets, he remarked, ‘You guessed that was my half-sister, Lady Sarah? Sounds as though Bartlett is up and about if she’s misplaced him. That’s good news by the sound of it. He’s not with her and he can take over from me if it comes to it.’

  ‘Over your dead body, from what she said about his pistols. Adam, I am so sorry. You won’t fight him, will you?’

  Lady Sarah knew who she was. But if she told Adam that now he would chase after his sister, demand to be told Rose’s real name. And she wanted to discover her identity and come to terms with it before she told Adam. Leave it today, instinct told her. Go tomorrow. She could recall the address Lieutenant Foster had blushingly revealed. Surely if she spoke to Sarah calmly, without Adam there to inflame her, she would help.

  ‘I’m not dead yet and Tom Bartlett has more sense than to issue a challenge, let alone commit murder, on the say-so of my little sister.’ Adam seemed unaware that her silence was anything more than shock over the scene. ‘The man was the worst rakehell in the regiment, Rose. Even if he’s fallen head over heels in love and reformed, he’s not going to forget that. He knows as well as I do that he shouldn’t have been with Sarah.

  ‘If they are lovers, he is going to have to marry her.’ He raked his hands through his hair. ‘I’d have said he’d make a worse husband than I would, but the girl’s got guts and determination, I’ll say that for her. Perhaps she can cope with him.’

  Adam was dressing with the economy and speed of a man used to dawn emergencies. ‘Have a decent breakfast, then sit down quietly and see what you can recall and I’ll be back by noon.’

  He took her in a swift one-armed embrace, his kiss rapid, hard and possessive. ‘Find out who you really are, Rose. And then be prepared to choose a wedding gown.’ He clattered down the stairs, called ‘Good morning’ to Maggie and was out of the front door, before she could react.

  *

  Rose took her slips of paper to the kitchen and sorted them on the table as she ate sweet rolls and sipped Maggie’s strong coffee in an effort to calm her stomach. If she could remember who she was without having to rely on Lady Sarah, so much the better. She had an uncomfortable feeling they had never been friends.

  Maggie had frowned when she heard who the visitor had been. ‘Spoiled little madam by the look of her. She’ll make trouble if she can.’

  ‘Childhood… My likes and dislikes. England. People,’ Rose muttered as she shifted the slips around into piles and tried to ignore Maggie’s warnings.

  ‘Why don’t you want to marry the major?’ Maggie demanded, demolishing Rose’s attempts to duck the issue. She planted herself on the opposite seat and reached for the butter.

  ‘I don’t know who I am and neither does he. And all Adam said about marriage before he realised I wasn’t a camp follower was that he wasn’t the marrying kind. So he doesn’t want to marry me. Or marry at all.’

  ‘There are plenty of things in life we don’t want to do—it doesn’t mean that things aren’t worse if we do what we like.’

  ‘That’s what Mama said to Papa when he didn’t want to go to dinner with the Hutchinsons around the corner in Rue du Nord,’ Rose said, half-listening to Maggie as she pushed the papers around. ‘He said Mr Hutchinson’s a bore and Mama said, “James Tatton, for once in your life do…”’ Her voice trailed off as she stared at Maggie. ‘I remember. I know who I am! I’m Catherine Tatton and Papa is Lord Thetford and we’ve been living in Rue de Louvain for six months because it is so cheap over here in Brussels and Papa wants to economise.’

  ‘A lord?’ Maggie had turned pale. ‘Oh, my goodness,’ she added faintly. ‘You’re Lady Catherine.’

  ‘No. Papa is a viscount. I’m just Miss Tatton.’

  Maggie was fanning herself with a napkin. ‘Just? A viscount’s daughter in my house and in Adam Flint’s bed. Now what are we going to do? And what is the major going to say when he finds out?’

  ‘I’m going home and I’ll tell my parents something. Something so Adam won’t have to marry me or ruin his career or change his life,’ Rose said grimly. ‘He saved me and I am not letting him do this to himself.’

  *

  It was not so very far to the smart rented house on Rue de Louvain, not if you ran, the breath sobbing in your throat until it was raw, and not if you went by the steep steps up the hill past the cathedral towards the Parc and the fashionable quarter.

  It took her twenty minutes. Rose arrived gasping and clung to the railings of the house at the end of the street while she fought for composure. Her breakfast rolls lay like lead in her stomach, she felt dizzy with the implications of what she had remembered and what she must do.

  She had to look perfect. Untouched, ladylike. Not a bedraggled victim, not a ruined woman. She smoothed down the skirts of the walking dress, tucked an errant lock of hair back under the brim of her bonnet and fanned her flushed face with her pocket handkerchief while she rehearsed her story.

  There was no escaping the fact that she had eloped. She could tell the truth about that, about what happened on the battlefield, about how Major Flint had rescued her. How he had taken her to stay with the respectable wife of his old sergeant. There was no need to say anything about her relationship with the major, except to tell how gallant he had been. All Adam had to do when her father called on him with his grateful thanks was to look starched up and modest and mutter about doing his duty towards defenceless females.

  Her breathing was back to normal and her face felt no more flushed than could be excused by emotion, although the churning in her stomach was pure nerves now. Just as long as her courses came when they were due, everything would be all right. Rose started to walk in a ladylike manner towards the house. It would be wonderful to see Mama and Papa again, but it would be harrowing, too. They must have been frantic with worry and that was all her fault.

  She was halfway to the door when it opened and someone came out. A young lady in a forget-me-not-blue spencer and a darker blue bonnet paused on the top step, opened her pretty little ivory silk parasol and made her way down to the pavement and then along the street towards the Parc. She was too late. Lady Sarah Latymor had taken her revenge on Adam.

  There was no going back now, her plans were in tatters and there were no lies or evasions that could serve. Rose forced her unwilling feet on, up the steps and knocked.

  ‘Miss Tatton!’ Heale, their butler, looked ready to burst into tears as he held the door wide. ‘You are home, praise be!’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Heale, here I am, safe and sound.’ Years of training in deportment kept the smile on her face, the cheerful tone in her voice. You never showed weakness in front of the servants, you certainly did not lose your breakfast in front of them through sheer nerves. ‘It is good to see you, too. My parents?’

  ‘In the drawing room, Miss Tatton.’ He bustled down the passage in front of her. ‘I’ll send for tea,’ he added as he threw open the door. ‘Miss Tatton, my lady.’

  ‘Catherine!’ Her mother was huddled on the sofa beside her husband. She looked up, her face blotchy with tears, and burst into fresh floods at the sight of Rose.

  ‘You foolish, wicked girl.’ Her father thrust a handkerchief into his wife’s hand and got to his feet. ‘And before you attempt to cozen us with some cock-and-bull story about where you have been, I should tell you that we know all about it. As if eloping with that moneyless whelp wasn’t enough!’

  ‘Lady Sarah Latymor has been here, I know. She has taken her brother, Major Flint, into dislike and as a consequence is determined to do him harm.’ Somehow she kept her face calm, even as she rec
oiled from the anger and grief she had caused. ‘Mama, Papa—I am truly sorry I ran away with Gerald Haslam. I thought I was in love with him and I wasn’t. I never meant you to have so much worry and distress over me.’

  ‘And now he’s dead and you cannot even marry him.’ Mama emerged from the white linen and gazed at her hopelessly.

  ‘I would not want to marry him. It was all a horrible mistake and besides we didn’t…I mean, we never…’ Oh, for goodness’ sake, you are not some innocent girl, say it. ‘We were not lovers.’

  ‘Then why did you not come home as soon as you realised you were mistaken?’ her father demanded. He seemed to have calmed down a little. ‘We would have done our best to salvage the situation. And sit down, for goodness’ sake, Catherine.’

  Catherine, that is me. But I do not feel like that woman any longer. I am Rose now. Adam Flint’s Rose. But I must not be. She shook her head, dizzy with impossible choices.

  She sat beside her mother and reached for her hand. The desperate clutch of fingers around hers was a knife to her conscience. ‘I had promised to marry Gerald and I could not go back on my word. Then we were caught up in the preparations for battle. I was with the baggage train during the fighting.’

  ‘With the camp followers,’ her mother lamented.

  ‘The women are brave and loyal to their men,’ Rose protested. ‘They helped me. After Quatre Bras we retreated to Waterloo and then there was the battle and Gerald did not come back. I went to look for him.’

  ‘On the battlefield?’ Her father sat down with a thump on the nearest chair. ‘What were you thinking of?’

  ‘That I had a duty to Gerald,’ she said. ‘If he was still alive but wounded, I had to help him. But I do not think I was rational by then. I was very tired and wet. Hungry and terrified. Then when I reached the battlefield…’ She could not go on, not with her mother gasping in distress beside her. She would never comprehend one tenth of the horror and Rose could not put those images into her head. ‘I found his body. I think I must have been in shock after that. I tried to scream, but my voice would not work, I didn’t know who I was.’