A Rose for Major Flint (Brides of Waterloo) Read online

  Adam reared up on his elbows, then sank back with a groan of surrender. ‘All right, you win. And you’re safe for now, I suppose. At this moment I couldn’t rise for the entire ballet at the Lyceum if they came and offered themselves. Let me get a couple of hours’ sleep and we’ll talk.’ He lifted his hips as she dragged off the trousers, then rolled away on to his side.

  Rose wriggled out of her nightgown and slid into the space Adam had left. She pulled the covers over them both and laid her lips against his back, ran her hand lightly over the bandage around his ribs to make sure it was still secure. He was asleep already, she realised, hearing the soft purr of his breathing. If they’ll only let him rest… She sank down into slumber beside him.

  *

  Rose woke to full daylight and the delicious drift of hands over her body. ‘Mmm…’

  ‘Mmm?’

  When she opened her eyes Adam was lying next to her, propped on one elbow. He had tossed back the covers and his gaze was on her naked body, sprawled in sleepy, immodest abandon.

  ‘Is that, Mmm, yes? Or, Mmm, what the devil’s going on?’

  ‘Yes.’ She lifted one hand to caress his cheek. The dark marks were still smudged under his eyes, but he looked a thousand times better than he had in the early-morning light. Somewhere a clock struck seven.

  ‘I’m as bristly as an old badger.’ He went on stroking his fingertips from collarbone to hip bone, just brushing the side of her breast, then back again. Down and up, up and down, savouring her skin as though she was made of silk and satin.

  ‘I like your stubble.’ She ran her nails through it and watched as he closed his eyes like a big cat being scratched. ‘It is very masculine. I like it when you shave close as well, you look elegant then.’

  Adam snorted and opened his eyes, deep, troubled blue. ‘Rose, last night, there’s no going back from that. But we don’t need to go forward either. I’ll think of something to make it right for you.’

  ‘I am twenty-three years old. I may not have all my memory, but I know my own mind. Adam, I want to be your lover, for as long as…as long as we both want it. You don’t need to worry, I’m not going to expect you to marry me, I swear it.’

  ‘All women want to get married,’ he said.

  ‘Perhaps you aren’t up to it, like last night,’ she suggested innocently. ‘You were so tired.’

  Adam tweaked her nipple in retaliation. When she gasped, his eyes narrowed and he began to play with the hardening nub.

  ‘That has a mind of its own,’ Rose murmured, fascinated by the reaction, struggling to keep some control over her body and its riot of sensations.

  ‘Not the only thing,’ Adam said. When she looked at him his mouth twitched into a reluctant grin. Against her hip she could feel the eager jut of his erection.

  My heavens, I am glad it was fast last night or I would have been shaking with apprehension. Dare I ask how he really is this morning? No, he did not need reminding about those dreadful memories and the effect they had on him. He would see it as weakness. Masculine pride was a delicate flower, Mama had observed.

  Mama. This was no time to be trying to recall her mother. Rose twisted round and began to explore the curls of hair on Adam’s chest, scratched at his nipples and was immoderately pleased with herself when they tightened into knots.

  ‘Baggage.’ Adam’s eyes were closed.

  Daring, she looked down, then curled her hand around him. ‘Is this right?’

  His eyes flew open. ‘Tighter.’ It was a growl. ‘Like this.’ His hand closed over hers, moved as his eyes closed again.

  Emboldened because he was not watching her, Rose came to her knees and bent over to study him better. So soft over so much hardness. So movable. With her free hand she cupped him below.

  Adam groaned, pushed upwards into her fingers, then opened his eyes and caught her hand with his. ‘No…not unless you want this to be over very quickly.’ He tugged at her hand, pushed and moved her until she was lying spooned against him. ‘Lift your upper leg across mine, that’s it.’

  But this is backwards… Confused, Rose gasped when his fingers slid through the curls at her apex. She was spread open for him, pinned like a butterfly against his unyielding body, his free hand encircling her to toy with her breasts.

  ‘Don’t resist me, just relax,’ he murmured in her ear and began to nuzzle the nape of her neck while one hand teased her nipples and the other explored the slick folds. One finger slid inside, then his thumb touched something that made her contract around the intrusive finger.

  ‘Adam!’

  ‘Shh. I have you.’ He shifted his hips, pushed and then slid slowly, inexorably into her from behind. It felt deeper than the first time. There was no soreness now, only fullness and pressure in places that were new and startling. Her head fell back into the angle of his shoulder as he moved in and out with relentless care.

  ‘I can’t…I can’t touch you.’ She was panting, needing, not understanding what her body wanted, only that he was driving her completely out of her mind.

  ‘You are all around me. Hold me.’

  She tried to find some control of muscles she had never known she possessed and was rewarded by his gasp of pleasure. The pressure of his fingers on her nipple increased, the wicked, knowing pressure on that devilish little nub of flesh became more insistent, his thrusts slowed into deep, impossible, surging demands. She wanted to move, to thrash around, to scream. Rose jammed her palm against her mouth as everything reached fever pitch, erupted, threw her into lightning-spiked darkness.

  She was barely conscious of her inner flesh convulsing around Adam, of his gasping breath, the urgency of his strokes. With a sudden jerk he came out of her body and she felt wet heat against her back as he pressed himself to her, groaned and went still, his arms lashing her to his torso.

  ‘Rose?’

  She blinked and opened her eyes. How long had they lain there, entangled? Her body hummed with an entirely new satisfaction and a tingling desire to experience it again. And again. ‘I am here.’

  ‘So am I. It seems improbable.’

  ‘You…that was all right? I mean, I couldn’t do anything.’

  Adam’s gasp of laughter tickled the back of her neck. ‘All right? It was more than all right, Rose. We are going to be good together, I promise you.’

  She wriggled round into a sticky, tangled embrace. ‘I thought so,’ she murmured against his chest and the delicious friction of hair.

  ‘Wicked one,’ Adam murmured. ‘Are you tired or shall we try something else?’ He hardly waited for her murmur of assent.

  *

  Flint drowsed, listening to the bells. Nine. He could not recall the last time he had lain in so late, simply out of laziness or to enjoy a woman. Beside him Rose slumbered. There was a certain smug masculine satisfaction to be had in reducing a woman to that degree of boneless content. He found he was smiling as he climbed cautiously out of bed, pulled on his trousers and moved, soft-footed, to the door.

  Downstairs Maggie was folding sheets with the maid-of-all-work, their stately to-and-fro dance taking up most of the kitchen as they reduced each sheet to a neat package. Moss was cleaning a musket in a corner and through the open door he could see the men lounging around the yard playing cards and yarning. One of the younger men sat propped up against a pillar, throwing a stick for Dog with his good hand.

  All the heads came up as he entered the kitchen, there was a murmur of greeting and then they all, rather obviously, went back to what they had been doing. Flint contemplated calling an impromptu sick parade, just to shake them up, then settled for, ‘Good day’, before he dipped a pitcher full of hot water out of the copper and went back upstairs.

  Rose did not stir as he picked up his shaving tackle and clean shirt and shut himself into her room. Let her sleep. Let me come to terms with this.

  Chapter Eight

  Flint stripped and washed all over, uncoiled the bandage, slapped a dressing from his pack over the half-hea
led slash and then tilted the dressing mirror to the right angle for a shave.

  Look at yourself, he addressed himself as he lathered his chin. Great hairy brute. What the hell does she see in you? Even the modish crop he’d suffered for the ball was growing out. The razor slid through the bristles and foam, leaving a stripe of smooth, tanned cheek behind it. Rose saw something, that was obvious, for she was not some little wanton hot for any man.

  She was honest and loyal. She had said she didn’t want or expect marriage, but might she possibly consider marrying him? Flint flicked soap off his razor into the basin. Where had that come from? He had told her he wasn’t the marrying kind, or a man who stuck long with one woman. But I might be. If he had stayed a private, even a sergeant, he would have married by now, he supposed. But an officer, however murky his past, did not marry a camp follower.

  But nor did an officer marry a lady, not if he was a bastard who’d clawed his way up from the ranks, even one with the support of an earl behind him. He had learned that lesson very early on. Flint missed a patch, swore and steadied the razor. The Honourable Miss Patricia Harte, blonde and pretty as a picture, had been very, very happy to flirt with the newly made Lieutenant Flint. And kiss him on the terrace and sneak away from her chaperone and sisters for clandestine meetings in the park.

  He’d controlled himself with all the restraint of a young man in love who was determined to behave honourably, even if gentlemanly honour was a new concept he was still learning. He was not going to take advantage of the lady he loved, however much she ran her soft little hands over his shiny new dress uniform with its gold lace and tipped up her pansy face for his kisses.

  So, like the fool he was, he took himself off to speak to her father and found himself out on the pavement five minutes later with threats of a horsewhipping ringing in his ears. And when he’d seen her in the park and had tried to speak to her she had laughed in his face.

  ‘How could you think me serious? You aren’t a gentleman.’ She’d pouted. ‘Now Papa is cross with me for encouraging your pretensions. I just thought you’d be fun later, when I’m married and it doesn’t matter.’

  He’d walked away, too hurt and angry to respond. The lesson was learned, not just about his place in society, but about the character of ladies. At least the cheerful tavern girls had no hypocrisy about them.

  But Rose—even if she was ruined—was from a respectable family, he could tell. She’d had a decent education and upbringing, she had nice manners and an elegant way with her. She would be perfect for a mongrel officer.

  He rinsed his face and stared into the mirror. She found him attractive apparently, she seemed to enjoy his lovemaking. They had communicated well even when she could not talk. Might she?

  But what could he offer her? The war was over, that seemed certain. He was more than ever convinced he did not want to be a peacetime soldier in Britain. But could he drag her off to India and the heat and disease? Or into the unknown that was South America?

  For the first time since he was fourteen he contemplated life outside the military. But if he sold out, what else could he do? Even farming was going to suffer with the end of the war, it always did as the demand for food dropped back to peacetime levels. Not that he had any idea how to be a farmer. Perhaps Rose had some thoughts about the life she’d like to live—but how could he give it to her?

  Flint dressed with more care than usual, then stared again into the long mirror. The eyes that looked back at him were hard, cold as iced seawater, windows into what passed for his soul. What had come over him, thinking those thoughts? He was an artilleryman, an officer, a professional killer. That was what he was good at. That was his life. And as for women—he enjoyed them, he liked them and he seemed to be able to make them happy in bed. Not exactly qualifications for a respectable, genteel courtship, let alone marriage.

  He retrieved his jacket and his sword belt from the main room and eased the door shut, leaving Rose still curled up under the covers. It was the aftermath of the worst battle he had ever been in, that was what had prompted this unexpected desire to settle down. Perhaps this urge was simply nature’s way to repopulate the nation after all that killing, an animal reaction that a rational man should ignore.

  Rose aroused feelings in him that ranged from fierce protectiveness to raging desire, but it didn’t mean he had to marry her, or that he’d be anything but a dreadful husband. What did he know about marriage, anyway? He’d been brought up in a stable yard with a mob of other lads, more like a litter of puppies than a family. He’d no father to emulate, only one to reject and abhor. This unsettling feeling certainly didn’t mean he had to throw away his career and the only life he understood.

  Downstairs everyone was jammed into the kitchen, even Dixon with his bandages reduced to a pad over the cheek. By some miracle his eye had been spared.

  ‘Where’s Rose?’ Maggie asked, handing round mugs of tea.

  Flint picked up a mug in one hand and a roll stuffed with gammon in the other. ‘Asleep.’ He looked round for his saddlebags as he munched and made a mental list. Randall, HQ, check the hospitals… ‘She’s tired.’

  There was complete silence. Not a word, not a snigger. When he glanced up sharply every face was expressionless. He recognised this. It was dumb insolence and he was very, very good at it himself, which was why he knew it when he saw it. He could hear the thoughts, the ribald comments, just as loudly as if they’d been shouted. Worn her out, Major? Cor, you must be a demon in bed, sir! Well done, sir.

  Maggie cleared her throat. ‘No more nightmares, then?’

  ‘She can talk again,’ he said curtly. ‘The nightmare last night made her scream and that seems to have released the words.’

  ‘Nightmare, eh? One word for it. Blimey, the major’ll raise the dead next,’ someone whispered, forgetting caution. ‘Must be true what the girls say about him.’

  ‘I’ll send Lieutenant Foster down to hold sick parade,’ Flint said without looking round. ‘The lot of you look fit enough to march back to Roosbos.’ There was a general groan. ‘And you can clean the place up for Maggie before you go. Quietly.’ He drained his tea and tossed the remains of the roll to Dog.

  Hawkins followed him out to the stables. ‘They could do with a flogging, all of them.’ He sounded as though he could hardly suppress his own grin. When Flint spun round and glowered at him he raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘They’ll not show Miss Rose any disrespect, sir. They’re just feeling their oats and that’s down to good food, rest and discovering they’re alive and more or less in one piece. They need some work to straighten them out, that’s all. Hard drill, camp food, some women to get a leg over.’ It seemed to strike him that the last was not the most diplomatic comment. ‘Er…want me with you, sir?’

  ‘Found a horse yet?’

  ‘Aye. Mouth like iron, but not bad. Paid a Hussar with a broken leg for it.’ Hawkins opened the stable door and jerked a thumb at a bay gelding.

  ‘In that case, yes, with me until we find Foster, then you go with him to the convents and hospitals, muster everyone who can manage the march and get them back to Roosbos. Take your own kit and stay there, knock them into shape. Moss can keep an eye on any of this lot who need to stay a bit longer.’

  He hefted the saddle on to Old Nick’s back, dodged a half-hearted attempt to bite his arm and tightened the girth. What was the matter with him? Flint puzzled over his own reaction to the knowledge that the men knew about his relationship with Rose as he argued the stallion into accepting the bit. ‘Look, you want to go for a gallop. You know that means a bridle, so open your confounded mouth.’

  He’d never had any shyness about life in camp. You just got on with it, despite the fact that everyone else was separated from you by the thicknesses of two pieces of canvas. You ignored their lovemaking, their rows, the sounds of bodily functions and their nightmares just as they ignored yours. The womenfolk were even less reticent than the men, or perhaps they were simply better at crea
ting their own little world wherever they found themselves.

  But Rose…Rose was different. He led Old Nick out into the yard and mounted, dealt with the stallion’s predictable desire to trample on the stable cat and waited for Hawkins. He did not want speculation about Rose. He recoiled at the thought of anyone else hearing her soft cries, her murmurs of desire, her gasps of pleasure when she came to climax in his arms. She had been so beautiful, her lips swollen and parted, her face soft with passion, her eyes tender.

  She’d be appalled if she realised the men had already accepted that she was his woman, with all that implied. They knew perfectly well that he kept no woman with him for more than a month or so and he knew, too, because he’d overheard the gossip, that they were well aware that married ladies sought him out and welcomed him into their beds.

  He’d heard the ladies talk, too. ‘My dear, the most deliciously wicked creature,’ he’d overheard one colonel’s wife say to another at one of Wellington’s impromptu balls in the Peninsula. ‘So rough and fierce and big.’

  ‘All over. I can vouch for it,’ the other lady had replied. She’d been an amusing and voluptuous bed companion for a few nights and very appreciative, given that her husband seemed more interested in his port and his hounds than her charms.

  It had shaken him to discover that ladies gossiped as bawdily as men about bed sport. But Rose was different. He realised that if anyone else so much as looked at Rose with sensual speculation in his eye, then he’d gut the man. Slowly.

  ‘Problem, Major?’ Hawkins brought the bay out and mounted.

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Your…er…frown, sir.’

  Flint stayed silent as they wove their way through the crowded streets. When they finally reached the Parc he reined in and watched a group of nursemaids playing with their charges under the trees, the picture of innocence amidst the damage left by the mustering army in the elegant gardens. ‘We were talking the other morning about what we’d do when peace is declared, Jerry.’