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A Mistress For Major Bartlett
ANNIE BURROWS
His Virgin Mistress!Major Tom Bartlett is shocked to discover that the angel who nursed his battle wounds is darling of the ton Lady Sarah Latymor. One taste of her threatens both her impeccable reputation and his career!An honourable man would ask for her hand, but Bartlett is considered an unrepentant rake by polite society – sweet Sarah would be spurned as his mistress and even as his wife. He demands she leave, but Sarah is just as determined to stay…by his side and in his bed!Brides of Waterloo: Love Forged on the Battlefield


BRIDES OF WATERLOO
Love forged on the battlefield
Meet Mary Endacott, a radical schoolmistress, Sarah Latymor, a darling of the ton, and Catherine ‘Rose’ Tatton, a society lady with no memories of her past.
Three very different women united in a fight for their lives, their reputations and the men they love.
With war raging around them, the biggest battle these women face is protecting their hearts from three notorious soldiers …
Will Mary be able to resist Colonel Lord Randall? Find out in
A Lady for Lord Randall by Sarah Mallory
Discover how pampered Lady Sarah handles rakish Major Bartlett in
A Mistress for Major Bartlett by Annie Burrows
What will happen when Major Flint helps Lady Catherine ‘Rose’ Tatton discover her past? Find out in
A Rose for Major Flint by Louise Allen
AUTHOR NOTE (#ulink_d96ea6b0-ce4c-55cd-9642-a9b1c757916e)
I was thrilled when Louise Allen and Sarah Mallory asked me if I’d be interested in working with them on a mini-series of stories to commemorate the two hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo.
I’ve mentioned this pivotal battle in a couple of my books before, but never actually taken any of my heroes or heroines to the battlefield itself.
My journey with Brides of Waterloo began in April 2012, when Louise Allen and I met up in the grounds of Ickworth House in Suffolk, where several historical re-enactment groups had set up camp. I was taught how to make cartridges, watched a cannon being loaded and fired (and learned how to protect my ears from the blast!), saw what an infantryman would have carried in his pack, and what the inside of an officer’s tent would have looked like.
Over the next few months we spent hours e-mailing each other as we created the fictional unit known as Randall’s Rogues and shared pictures of what we thought our heroes should look like (all for the purposes of continuity, of course!). We even met up to double-check all those little details which ensured that our heroes and heroines could walk in and out of each other’s stories with ease.
If you’d like to see pictures of our day at Ickworth, or find out more about the background research for this series, you can visit our Facebook page: facebook.com/WaterlooBrides (http://facebook.com/WaterlooBrides)
A Mistress for Major Bartlett
Annie Burrows

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ANNIE BURROWS has been writing Regency romances for Mills & Boon
since 2007. Her books have charmed readers worldwide, having been translated into nineteen different languages, and some have gone on to win the coveted Reviewers’ Choice Award from CataRomance.
For more information, or to contact the author, please visit annie-burrows.co.uk (http://annie-burrows.co.uk) or you can find her on Facebook at facebook.com/AnnieBurrowsUK (http://facebook.com/AnnieBurrowsUK)
To Louise Allen and Sarah Mallory.
It has been a great experience working with you two on this trilogy.
Contents
Cover (#u49f15333-cea0-50c4-a8e6-c7c63226fc0e)
Excerpt (#ud09941db-542e-5be9-90ac-f20746fed786)
AUTHOR NOTE (#u9ddd0f47-bf6f-5675-b5b4-e4fc3f2fa166)
Title Page (#u681d22be-e2cc-581b-bde4-1da664fa7df3)
About the Author (#ua2825976-37c2-50e3-93f8-00b770e25559)
Dedication (#u54185822-413a-5656-bf92-72874cf84b7f)
Chapter One (#ud525386a-5c96-5920-906a-b680d0427453)
Chapter Two (#u1dde2619-dcdf-5968-a6c2-f397e77054f6)
Chapter Three (#u54fdabe2-d546-5300-b661-aefa100bbf6f)
Chapter Four (#u9b7a0621-b3a3-5794-9094-6b8b679b51d8)
Chapter Five (#u8ccb0b49-4afd-5692-bf91-064e4b5a9c36)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ulink_15aa47d4-bd7b-5979-8921-16201cfdfbad)
Sunday, 18th June—1815
‘Limber up, fast as you can!’ Colonel Randall rode up to Major Bartlett and pointed to a spot to the rear. ‘We are heading to the ridge up yonder. You will recall we came in that way yesterday, past a place—what was it called?—Hougoumont. The French are massing their heavy cavalry between the château and the Charleroi road. Take up your position between the two infantry squares up there. And be quick about it!’
Major Bartlett kept his face impassive as he saluted. Quick? That was going to be a relative term given the sodden state of the ground.
‘Right, lads,’ he said, turning to his men. ‘You heard the Colonel. At the double!’
The speed at which they turned the gun carriages and started ploughing their way across the field had much more to do with the shells exploding all around them, spraying them with mud, than willingness to obey their commanding officer. The sooner they got to higher ground, the sooner they could start inflicting some damage on the Frenchmen currently trying to blow them to kingdom come. Not that Major Bartlett had any complaints. He had a rather elastic attitude to obeying orders himself. In any other unit his tendency to interpret orders to suit himself would have got him up on a charge—indeed, had done so on several occasions. Only Colonel Randall had appreciated that his ability to think on his feet, rather than dumbly obeying orders, could be an advantage, taking him into his unit and giving him promotion.
Still, when he glanced across the ridge, and saw that his team had beaten Major Flint’s to reach their designated position, he felt a twinge of pride in his men. They’d worked with a swiftness and efficiency he’d drilled into them, even if, at this moment, they’d worked the way they had because their hides depended on it.
Flint’s guns were ready to fire mere seconds after his own. Even Rawlins, who’d only been promoted a matter of days before, had his guns in position not long after. And just as well. The French cavalry were approaching at the trot.
The first salvo his men fired mowed down the leaders. But they kept coming. Big bastards. On big horses.
‘Dear lord, they’ll charge right over us!’
Major Bartlett whirled round. Had one of his own men dared say that?
‘Not Randall’s Rogues, they won’t,’ he snarled. ‘Remember our motto—always victorious!’ By any means. Particularly when sent behind enemy lines, where his, and his men’s, talents for causing mayhem had so often been given free rein.
‘Aye,’ roared Randall, drawing his sword and holding it aloft. ‘Semper Laurifer! Ready, Rogues... Fire!’
The guns roared again. Horses and men fell. Smoke swirled round the scene, blotting out the sight of the dead and dying, though Bartlett could still hear their screams and groans.
And then he heard cheering. From the infantry squares behind him. The cavalry charge was over. This one, anyway. He cast a quick, appraising glance over his men. All of them steadily reloading, preparing for the next attack, not wasting their time cheering, or capering about and having to be pushed back into position.
At this point, between cavalry charges, their orders had been to retreat into the infantry squares for cover. But his men, seasoned veterans, knew as well as he did that if they didn’t stay right where they were, the squares would break and scatter. They’d seen it happen elsewhere already today. The infantry—with little or no experience—were watching the way the Rogues calmly went about their business as though those huge French horses were no more than skittles to knock down. Their staunch disregard of danger was probably the only thing giving them any hope.
Hope—hah! It was the one thing neither he, nor his men, had felt for a very long time. They were the damned. Doomed to death, one way or another. They just preferred to take as many of the murdering French to hell with them as they could. At least they could die like men, if they did so in defence of their country, instead of dancing on the end of a rope.
‘Here they come again, lads,’ he heard Randall shout.
And then came the thunder of hooves. The roar of the guns. The smoke, and the screams, and the mud, and the carnage.
And his men reloaded and fired. And loaded and fired.
And still there was no end to the French.
The next morning
Lady Sarah Latymor rubbed her eyes and peered up at the manger above her head. Could she really make out wisps of straw sticking through the grating, or was it just wishful thinking?
In the stall next to hers, she could hear Castor shuffling about, lipping at whatever provender Pieter had placed in his own manger. She reached out her hand and laid the palm against the partition. Being able to hear her horse, Gideon’s last gift to her, moving about in his stall during the night, had been all that had kept her flayed nerves from giving way altogether. But it looked as though the worst day of her life was over now. She could, at last, make out the pale rectangle of her hand against the planking. Dawn was definitely breaking. And Brussels was quiet. Though Madame le Brun had warned her that French troops might overrun the city during the night, they’d never come. Which meant the Allies must have won. She could come out of hiding.
And continue her quest.
To find out what had really happened to Gideon.
He couldn’t be dead. He was her twin. If his soul had really departed this earth, she would feel it, wouldn’t she? Her stomach twisted and dropped, just as it had when her brother-in-law Lord Blanchards had broken the news. While her sister Gussie had broken down and wept, Sarah had stood there, shaking her head. Grown more and more angry at the way they both just accepted it.
Blanchards had brushed aside her refusal to believe that the hastily scrawled note he held in his hand could possibly be delivering news of that magnitude. He’d practically ordered her to her room, where he no doubt expected her to weep decorously, out of sight, so that he could concentrate on comforting and supporting his wife.
Well, she hadn’t wept. She’d been too angry to weep. That anger had simmered all night and driven her, on Sunday morning, all the way to Brussels, the only place where she was likely to be able to find out what had really happened to Gideon. Had driven her about half a mile along the road to the Forest of Soignes before she’d been beaten back by a troop of Hussars, claiming the French had won the battle, and were right on their heels.
Hussars, she snorted, sitting up and pushing a hank of hair off her face. What did they know?
As if in agreement, Ben, the dog she’d teamed up with in the wake of the Hussars’ cowardly scramble to safety, sat up, stretched and yawned.
‘Did you have a lovely sleep, Ben?’ she asked as the dog came to swipe his tongue over her face in morning greeting. ‘Yes, you did. You marvellous, fierce creature,’ she added, ruffling his ears. ‘I could feel you lying at my feet all night long and knew that if any Frenchman dared to set one toe inside this stable, you’d bite him with those great big teeth of yours.’ She’d felt safer with him to guard her than she would have done had she had a loaded pistol in her hand.
‘Woof,’ Ben agreed, settling back to give his ear a vigorous scratch with one hind paw.
‘Well, I may not have had a wink of sleep,’ she informed him as she flung her blanket aside, ‘but at least I didn’t waste all those sleepless hours. I have,’ she said, reaching for the jacket of her riding habit, which she’d rolled up and used for a pillow, ‘come up with a plan. We’re going to find Justin.’
She frowned at the jacket. Pale blue velvet was not the ideal material for rolling up and pillowing a lady’s head. Especially not a lady who’d taken refuge in a stable. She shook it, brushed off the straw and slid her arms into the sleeves.
Ben stopped scratching, and gave her a hard stare.
‘It’s no use telling me that now the battle is over, I should go to the authorities and ask them for details,’ she informed him testily. ‘They would simply order me to go home, like a good girl, and wait for official notification. Which would get sent to Blanchards. Well,’ she huffed as she went to rummage in her saddlebag—which she’d draped over the stall door in case she needed it in a hurry—and came up with a comb, ‘they did send notification to Blanchards, didn’t they? And much good it did me.’
She raised a hand to her head, discovered that most of her braids were still more or less intact and promptly thought better of attempting anything much in the way of grooming.
‘And anyway,’ she said, shoving the comb back into the saddlebag, ‘if I walked into headquarters, unescorted, they’d want to know what I was doing in Brussels on my own. And don’t say how would they know I’d come here on my own, Ben, it’s obvious. If Blanchards had come to Brussels with me, he would be the one at headquarters asking the questions. See?’
Ben shuffled forward a little and licked his lips hopefully.
‘Yes, I do have more sausage in here,’ she told him, dipping her hand once more into the saddlebag. ‘You may as well have it,’ she said, breaking off a piece and tossing it to the straw at his feet. Her stomach was still coiled into the hard knot that had made eating virtually impossible since the moment Blanchards had told her Gideon was dead. Though she’d still packed plenty of provisions when she’d run away from Antwerp, thinking it might take her a day or so to locate Gideon, or his commanding officer, Colonel Bennington Ffog.
She wrinkled her nose as Ben disposed of the sausage in a few gulps. Why she’d thought, however briefly, that Bennington Ffog might be of any use, she couldn’t imagine. It would be far better to find her oldest brother, Justin.
‘Now, Justin might be cross with me,’ she said as she pushed open the stall door and ventured into the aisle, ‘but he won’t send me back to Antwerp without telling me what I need to know first. He might be the stuffiest, most arrogant, obnoxious man,’ she said, peering out into the stable yard to make sure nobody was about. ‘He may give me a thundering scold for leaving the safety of Antwerp, against his explicit orders, but he does at least understand what Gideon means to me.’
With Ben trotting at her heels, Sarah made her way to the pump, where she quickly rinsed her face and hands. Ben took the opportunity to relieve himself and have a good sniff round.
When she made for the stable again, though, he was right beside her.
‘Good boy,’ she said, pausing to pat his head, before reaching for her riding hat, which she’d set on one of the doorposts.
‘The only problem is,’ she said, holding her hat in place with one hand, while thrusting as much of her hair as she could under it, ‘I’m not entirely sure where to find him. However,’ she added, deftly securing everything in place with a hatpin, ‘Mary Endacott will.’
Ben dropped down on to his haunches, tilting his head to one side.
‘Yes, I know. She doesn’t like me. And I don’t blame her. But you have to admit, since she’s lived in Brussels for years, and knows everyone, she’s bound to know who we can ask for his direction if she doesn’t already have it. And what’s more,’ she added, when he didn’t look convinced, ‘she’s the one person who is likely to want to know it just as much as I do, since the poor girl is in love with him.’
She lowered her head to fumble the buttons of her jacket closed as her mind dwelt on the last time she’d seen Mary, when Justin had been ordering her to leave Brussels, too. If she’d done as he’d told her...
No. Mary wouldn’t have left, not even had they still been betrothed. The school she ran was her livelihood. And Justin had forfeited any authority he might have thought he had over her the minute he broke off their relationship in such a brutal fashion.
Besides, she wasn’t the sort of woman to give up hope and sit about weeping, any more than Sarah was. Even after Justin had said all those horrid things, Mary would want to make sure he’d survived the battle, even if he didn’t want to have anything more to do with her.
She lifted her head, squared her shoulders and strode out of the stall on her way back to the water pump. This time she saw Pieter shambling across the yard, rubbing his eyes sleepily.
‘Be so good as to saddle my horse,’ she said.
He hesitated for a moment, only tugging at his cap and making for the stable once he saw Ben come trotting out and joining Lady Sarah at the pump, where she was now filling her water bottle.
‘I’m so glad I found you yesterday,’ she said, bending down to stroke Ben’s head as he lapped up the water splashing to the cobbles. ‘At first I just thought stumbling across the regimental mascot was a sign I was in exactly the right place, at the right time. But today I’m thankful that having you with me means I won’t have to face Mary alone.’ It wasn’t going to be easy. Mary had no reason to greet her warmly. Yet what was the worst Mary could do? Show her the door? Or not even let her inside? What was that, compared to what had already happened? If Gideon really was dead.
Which she wasn’t going to believe until somebody gave her some solid proof.
She mounted Castor and, with Ben trotting at her side, that determination carried her as far as the Rue Haute, where Mary’s school stood. But then doubts started assailing her from all sides. If Mary wouldn’t speak to her, then who else could she turn to?
‘At least I won’t have to knock on the front door and beg for permission to speak to her,’ she observed, drawing Castor to a halt. For Mary was standing outside alongside a horse, talking to a group of bedraggled-looking men who stood with their mounts.
But even though this meant she’d overcome the first hurdle she’d imagined, Sarah’s spirits sank. For Mary was, as always, looking neat as a pin.
Whereas she must look exactly as though—well, as though she was still wearing the same gown in which she’d spent a whole day on horseback, fighting her way against a tide of refugees fleeing the very place she wanted to reach more than anywhere on earth. And crawled through the mud to rescue Ben, and ended by sleeping in a stable because the landlady, upon whose compassion she’d relied, refused point blank to permit a muddy, fierce dog inside her house.
No, you couldn’t feel your best in a gown you’d been wearing for two days, especially when you’d put it through all that. Besides which, women like Mary, petite, pretty women with pert little noses, always did make her feel like a gangly, beaky beanpole.
It was Ben who came to her rescue, for at least the second time in as many days, by letting out a series of joyful barks and bounding right into the group of men milling about on the front path. Because she’d been staring at Mary and wondering how on earth she was to persuade her to help, she hadn’t been paying the men much heed. But now she noticed, as they bent to ruffle Ben’s shaggy head rather than scattering in terror, that they were wearing the distinctive blue jackets of artillerymen. The blue jackets of her brother’s unit, their facings and insignia only just recognisable under a coating of dirt of all kinds.
Randall’s Rogues. Here? What could that mean?
Forgetting her own qualms about how Mary might treat her, Sarah urged Castor forward.
‘What is it? What has happened?’ A chill foreboding ran a finger down her spine. ‘Is it Justin?’ Mary’s lips thinned as she glanced up and saw Sarah. But after only a moment she appeared to relent.
‘We don’t really know. Nobody can find him. They think...they think...’ She gave an impatient little shake of her head. ‘Can you believe they came here to look for him?’
Only too well. Because none of these men had been at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball and therefore couldn’t know their Colonel had broken things off. To them, Mary’s school must seem the obvious place to look.
‘So, we decided we had better go and search the battlefield for him, in case...’
She could tell, from the way she seemed to brace herself, that Mary feared the worst. Sarah couldn’t bear to think of Mary giving up on her brother. Not in that way.
Besides, she refused to believe she could have lost two brothers in the space of as many days.
‘He isn’t dead,’ said Sarah firmly. ‘He’s indestructible.’ At least, he would have been, had he been carrying his grandfather’s lucky sword. The one that protected its wearer during battle. The one he’d accused Mary of stealing because he couldn’t find it.
An icy hand seemed to clutch at the back of her neck.
‘You cannot possibly know that,’ said the ever-practical Mary.
‘Yes, I can,’ she insisted, even though she knew she was being totally irrational. Even though he might not be carrying the Latymor Luck, after all.
‘Why else would fate have led me to Ben? And why else would we have arrived just as you are setting off to search for Justin?’
Mary’s expression turned from one of barely repressed despair to barely concealed contempt.
But the men all perked up.
‘She’s got a point,’ said one of them. ‘Dog has a good nose. Best chance of finding Colonel Randall, since he’s not where we all thought he was.’
‘Aye, for the colonel’s own sister to turn up here, right now...it must mean his luck is still holding,’ said another.
Mary only shook her head, closing her eyes for a moment as if summoning patience.
‘I think you would be better returning to Antwerp,’ Mary said to her. ‘You are in no fit state to come with us.’
‘I have been looking for Gideon and I will not, cannot, give up my search,’ Sarah replied, struggling to control her emotions now. ‘I cannot go back until I know what has happened to my brothers.’
Mary sighed, clearly reluctant. ‘Oh, very well, I suppose you had better come with us, then. But try not,’ she snapped as she mounted up, ‘to get in the way.’
Get in the way? How dare she assume...?
But then, of course, Mary only saw what everyone else did when they looked at Sarah: a spoiled, empty-headed society miss. For which she had only herself to blame. She’d taken such pains to appear to be the model of decorum, always doing exactly as her parents or guardians told her without demur and observing every rule of etiquette. She’d even overheard Lord Blanchards remark that he couldn’t understand how a woman with Gussie’s strength of mind could possibly be related to such an insipid girl.
‘Here,’ said Mary, producing a large, scented handkerchief from her pocket. Then gave her a little lecture about why she might need it.
‘Thank you,’ Sarah replied, pasting on a polite social smile to disguise her true feelings. Mary might say Sarah would need to hold a scented hanky to her nose for her own sake. But was she also hinting that everyone could tell Sarah hadn’t stopped to bathe that morning? She’d thought the odour of dog and horse were disguising her own stale sweat pretty well, but perhaps that dainty little nose was more efficient than it looked.
It was some consolation that Ben, who’d been so delighted to see the men at first, didn’t stay with them when they mounted up, but came back to her and loped along beside her own horse.
Of course, that probably had more to do with the scent of sausage still lingering round her saddlebags, but at least he appeared to prefer her to the others.
* * *
Even though it was early in the morning, the road from the Namur gate was already crowded with wounded men struggling back to Brussels for treatment. And little groups, like hers, going searching for loved ones.
The closer they got to the scene of the previous day’s battle, the more gruesome the sights became.
Not to mention the smells. Some of it was gunpowder. But underlying it was something far worse. Something which made her jolly grateful Mary had thought to drench a couple of handkerchiefs in scent and share one with her. Though at the same time, Mary’s foresight only made her even more aware of her own shortcomings.
‘Steady, there,’ she crooned, over and over again, patting Castor’s neck when she needed to urge him past a pile of what she’d identified, from the briefest of glances, as bodies, both horse and human. Although the words were almost as much for herself, as her horse.
She tried not to let her eyes linger on what lay beside the roads. It put her in mind of a butcher’s shop. So many men, reduced to so many cuts of meat...
A dog ran across the road in front of their little party, a long trail of what looked like sausages dangling from its jaws.
She clenched her teeth against a sudden surge of nausea. Sweat prickled across her top lip. Ben, who’d been darting from one side of the road to the other, in an agitated manner, lifted his head and watched the other dog as it ran down a fork in the road ahead.
Sarah closed her eyes, just for a minute, breathing deeply to try to clear her head which had started spinning alarmingly.
I must not faint. I must not faint.
‘Are you all right, miss?’ One of the Rogues had noticed her lag behind. Sarah forced her eyes open, to see that the rest of the party had reached the fork in the road. Oh, lord, she hoped they weren’t going to have to go past the place where the scavenger dog had taken its obscene booty. Thank goodness she hadn’t taken any breakfast, or she would be bringing it straight back up.
She couldn’t go that way. She wouldn’t go that way!
‘No, not that way!’ She raised her arm and pointed to the other fork in the road. ‘We must go that way,’ she said, in as steady a voice as she could muster, considering her whole body was shaking.
‘Begging yer pardon, miss, but down along there is where Colonel Randall ought to be, if he’s anywhere,’ said the soldier, pointing the other way.
Mary had turned in her saddle and wore the look she’d seen on so many faces during her life. The look that told her she was an exasperating ninnyhammer.
‘You said yourself,’ Sarah replied haughtily, ‘that you’ve already looked where you thought he ought to be and couldn’t find him.’
At that moment Ben, who’d been running back and forth with his nose to the ground, suddenly let out a bark and ran a few paces down the road she’d just indicated. Then turned and looked over his shoulder as if to ask why they weren’t following him.
‘Even Ben thinks we ought to go that way,’ she insisted.
And though they hadn’t wanted to listen to her, they all seemed to have complete faith in Ben’s instincts. To a man, they turned and followed him.
Leaving Mary no choice but to do so, too.
Sarah’s stomach lurched again. Only this time it was from guilt. What if she was leading them in the wrong direction, simply because there didn’t seem to be so many gruesome sights this way?
Mary was right to despise her. She wasn’t strong and brave. Or even sensible. She should have just admitted that the sights and smells were proving too much for her. Except that, to admit to such weakness, in front of Mary and those men...
She didn’t just have the Latymor nose. She had the wretched Latymor pride, too. That made her go to any lengths rather than admit she might have made a mistake.
Not that it had done her much good. For things were no better on this road, than they had looked on the one the scavenging dog had taken. The bright colours of uniforms lay stacked in heaps where the men who wore them had fallen, smeared now with mud and blood, and worse.
And there were pieces of uniforms, too, containing severed limbs. And bodies without heads. And horses screaming. And men groaning.
And Sarah’s head was spinning.
And her heart was growing heavier and heavier.
Because she was finally seeing what war really meant. Men didn’t die from neat little bullet wounds. Their bodies were smashed to pulp, torn asunder.
Oh, lord—if this had been what happened to Gideon, no wonder they hadn’t sent his body to Antwerp. Justin might be overbearing, but it was always in a protective way. He wouldn’t have wanted her, or Gussie, who was in such a delicate condition, to be subjected to the sight of Gideon, reduced to...to...that.
Just as it finally hit her that it might be true, that Gideon might really be dead, one of the men gave out a great cry.
She looked up, to see Ben go bounding across a field to a sort of tumbledown building, round which even more bodies were stacked than by the side of the road.
‘He’s found him! The blessed dog’s only gone and found him,’ cried one of the men. And they all went charging up to the ruin.
Chapter Two (#ulink_7c04073e-5374-5e94-905b-b8f2b9acf099)
She heard somebody say charnel house.
Sarah’s stomach lurched. She drew Castor to a halt as Ben scrabbled at the door of the barn until he found his way in.
‘Justin is in there,’ she cried in an agony of certainty. In the charnel house. Which meant he was dead. ‘I know he is.’
‘We shall see,’ said Mary calmly, dismounting.
Sarah slid from her own horse, her legs shaking so much she had to cling to the pommel to stay upright.
‘Here,’ said Mary, thrusting her reins into her hands. ‘You stay here and...and guard the horses while I go and see.’
Then, in a rather kinder tone, added, ‘It might not even be him.’
But Sarah knew it was. Ben had scented...something. He’d ignored heaps and heaps of dead bodies. The dog wouldn’t have barked so excitedly for no good reason.
And the Rogues hadn’t come out yet, either.
It was her brother in there. In there, where Mary was going, her face composed, her demeanour determined and brave.
While the prospect of seeing Justin, her strong, forceful brother, lying lifeless—perhaps even torn to bits like so many of the poor wretches she’d seen scattered in heaps along the roads...
And then any pretence she was guarding the horses fled as blackness swirled round the edges of her vision. Eddied up from the depths of her, too, as the extent of her uselessness hit her. What point had there been in snatching up that bag of medical supplies when she’d fled Antwerp? Bridget, her old nursemaid, had told her she would need it. And Bridget had a way of seeing things. So yesterday, she’d imagined she was riding to Gideon’s rescue, armed with the very herbs that he needed. But the truth was that Gideon was beyond anyone’s help. And that she was so overset by the thought of seeing any of her brothers chopped and hacked about that she would have been no more use to Gideon than a...than a...
Actually, she would have been of no help to Gideon at all. Just as she wasn’t being of any help to Justin.
They were right about her—those people who wrote her off as a weak, empty-headed nuisance. All she’d done by coming here was create problems for everyone else. Gussie and Blanchards would be worried sick about her, and even though she’d promised Mary she wouldn’t get in the way— Sarah groaned. She was growing more and more certain that she was either going to faint dead away, or cast up her accounts.
Well, she wasn’t going to do it in front of Justin’s men. Only a couple had stayed in the barn with Mary. The rest had come outside again, probably, she suspected, to keep an eye on their rather suspiciously magnificent horses.
There was a half-collapsed wall to her left, which would shield her from view if she was going to be sick. Which would conceal the evidence from the stalwart Mary, too, when she eventually came out.
If her legs would carry her that far...
They did. But only just. The effort of clambering over the lowest, most broken-down portion of the wall proved too much for both Lady Sarah’s legs, and her stomach, which both gave way at the same time. She hadn’t even gained the privacy she’d sought, either, because there was a group of peasant women busily ferreting amongst the rubble so they could rob the men who’d been partially buried under it.
They paused for a moment, but only a moment. With mocking, hard eyes, they dismissed her as being no threat as she retched fruitlessly, then calmly went back to stripping the corpse they’d just exhumed.
Or what had appeared to be a corpse. For suddenly, as the women turned him to ease the removal of his shirt, the man let out a great bellow, which both startled and scattered them.
Sarah gasped as he uttered a string of profanities. Not because of the words themselves, but because they were in English. His jacket, the one they’d just torn from his back, was blue, so she’d assumed he was French. But not only was he English, but his voice was cultured, his swearing fluent.
He was an officer.
And he was trying to get to his feet, though his face and shoulders were cloaked in blood.
Instinctively, she got to her feet, too, though with what aim she wasn’t sure.
Until she saw one of the peasant women hefting a knife.
‘No!’ Sarah’s fist closed round one of the stones that had once been part of the wall and, without thinking of the consequences, threw it as hard as she could at the woman who’d started to advance on the wounded man. She couldn’t just stand there and let them rob him of his very life. It was unthinkable!
She’d been of no use to Gideon, but by God she wasn’t going to stand back and let those women casually despatch another Englishman before her very eyes!
‘Leave him alone,’ she screamed, throwing another stone in their direction.
Rage and revulsion at what they were doing had her quivering with outrage now, instead of despair.
The women paused, eyeing her warily.
The man, too, turned his head when he heard her shout.
He stretched his hand towards her.
‘Save me,’ he groaned, then swayed and slowly toppled forward.
Oh, no! If he landed face down in the mud, that would finish him off as surely as the peasant woman’s knife. Sarah flung herself in his path, arms outstretched as if to catch him. Though, of course, his weight proved too much for her. She landed with a wet thud on her bottom, the unconscious, half-naked officer half on top of her.
But at least he was still breathing.
For now. The peasant women were still hovering. And her legs were pinned in place by his dead weight.
Well, this was no time to hold her pride too dear. Throwing back her head, she screamed for help.
At once, there came a familiar, deep throaty bark.
The women ran for it as Ben came bounding over the wall, barking and baring his fangs, and looking gloriously, heart-warmingly ferocious.
Once he was satisfied the women weren’t going to come back, Ben turned and licked her face just the once, then started nosing at the man who lay face down in her lap.
Because the women had managed to strip the officer of everything but his breeches and one boot before they fled, Sarah could clearly see that his back was a mass of bruises. His hair was matted to his scalp with blood, which was still oozing from a nasty gash. She didn’t know how he was alive, but he was. He was.
And Ben seemed terribly excited by the fact. He kept nosing at the man, then prancing away, and barking, only to come back and nose at him, and lick him as though he knew him.
And it suddenly struck her that the Rogues uniform was blue. And that her brother was lying not ten yards away.
Was this another of his men? One of his officers, if the tone of his voice was anything to go by.
Oh, dear. Justin had refused to introduce any of his officers to her, when she’d tried to show a sisterly interest in his brigade, on the day of a mass review of all the Allied troops mustering around Brussels. He’d told her that they were decidedly not gentlemen and she was to have nothing to do with them. Gideon’s commanding officer, Colonel Bennington Ffog, had gone so far as to describe them as the very dregs of humanity. They’d both be appalled if they could see her sprawled on the ground with his head in her lap.
Just as the thought occurred to her, she heard a scrabbling noise and looked up to see two of the Rogues who’d escorted her and Mary out here, pushing their way through the lowest bit of wall.
The first one to reach her knelt down and, without so much as a by-your-leave, turned the officer’s face so he could peer at it closely.
‘Strike me if it ain’t the Major,’ he said, confirming her suspicions.
‘How’d ’e come to be out here?’
‘Damned if I know,’ said the First Rogue to reach her. ‘Last I ’eard ’e’d come to and was going to make for the field hospital.’
‘Well, ’e went the wrong way,’ said the Second Rogue on the scene grimly. ‘Looks like ’e ’ad a second go round with more Frenchies, too, else I don’t see ’ow ’e come to get buried under that wall.’
‘Lucky you come over this way, miss.’ They’d been talking to each other, but now they both turned to her with what looked like gratitude. ‘Else we’d never have guessed ’e was ’ere.’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘No, I...really...’ She’d only stumbled on him because of her appalling squeamishness. She didn’t deserve their gratitude.
‘Aye, but it was you as drove off them filthy bi-biddies, what would have finished off the Major,’ said his companion, hunkering down beside her.
‘It was Ben,’ she said glumly. They hadn’t been scared of her at all.
‘You was the one that called him, though, wasn’t you?’
Yes. Oh, very well, she had done one thing right today.
‘And you stopped ’im from falling face down in the mud and like as not drowning in it.’
That was true, too. She felt a little better. Until she recalled that she hadn’t been strong enough not to get knocked to the ground.
‘Any way you look at it, you’ve saved Major Bartlett’s life.’
‘Major Bartlett?’ She looked down at the motionless man whose head she cradled in her lap. This poor, broken, battered wretch was all that was left of Major Bartlett? He’d been so handsome. So full of...of, well, himself, actually. He’d been lounging against a tree, his jacket slung over one shoulder, watching her and Gideon ride past, on the day she’d learned who he was. She hadn’t been able to help peering at him, her curiosity roused by Justin’s vague warning.
And as if he’d known she was wondering what kind of things he’d done, to make Justin think she might be corrupted merely by talking to him, Major Bartlett had grinned at her.
And winked.
Oh, but he’d looked like a young lion, that day, basking in the sun, with his mane of golden curls tumbling over his broad brow.
So vitally alive.
Just like the last time she’d seen Gideon. Her twin had been laughing as he preened before her mirror, telling her what a fine sight he was going to make on the battlefield. How she wasn’t to worry about Frenchman wanting to shoot him, because they’d all be too busy riding up to enquire who’d made his exquisitely cut uniform.
Had anyone, she wondered, her lower lip quivering, held Gideon in their arms as he was dying? Or had he been left face down in the mud, because the only woman anywhere near was too worried about her reputation to go to his aid?
Her eyes welled with tears.
The Second Rogue cleared his throat. ‘No need for tears, miss. You done well, leading us ’ere.’
‘Aye, saved both ’im and yer brother, I reckon,’ hastily put in the other, as though equally appalled by the prospect of being landed with a weeping female.
‘Saved? My brother?’ She blinked rapidly a few times. They weren’t talking about Gideon. They didn’t know him. They meant Justin. ‘Your Colonel...is he...?’
‘Stopped a bullet, but Miss Mary, she reckons as how she knows someone what can patch him up.’
‘Oh, thank God. Thank God for Mary, anyway.’ She’d been worse than useless.
‘Aye, she’s doing a grand job with ’is lordship, in there,’ he said, jerking his head towards the barn, ‘by all accounts.’
‘Can you stay ’ere and keep an eye on the Major while we go and sort out ’ow we’re going to get ’im and the Colonel back to Brussels?’
Exactly where they thought she might go, when she was pinned to the ground by a heavy, unconscious male, she had no idea.
But they were still crouched there, watching her, as though waiting for a response.
Did they really think she would try to wriggle out from under their major and leave him lying in a pool of mud?
With a little shock, she realised that it was what most people who knew her would expect. And what Justin would demand.
But she wouldn’t leave a dog in a state like this. In fact, she hadn’t. Yesterday, when she’d seen Ben trapped underneath an overturned wagon, she’d thought nothing of crawling under it to untie him from the broken axle, after pacifying him with bits of sausage, because she’d recognised him as the regimental mascot. And Randall’s Rogues never left one of their own behind. Not that she was one of them, except by virtue of being Lord Randall’s sister, but if she couldn’t turn her back on a dog, even a dog she feared might bite her, simply because he belonged to her brother’s regiment, then she definitely couldn’t do any less for one of his officers. It wouldn’t even be as hard, in some ways. The dog had been so frantic with fear she was half-afraid he would bite her. This man could do nothing to her. He wasn’t even conscious.
‘Of course I can,’ she snapped. ‘I shall be fine.’ Even though mud was steadily oozing up through the fabric of her riding habit, chilling her behind. Well, she wasn’t going to take any harm from sitting in a puddle for a few minutes, was she? She was as healthy as a horse. Nor was it as if she was ever going to be able to wear this outfit again, after what she’d put it through the day before.
And at least she was shielding this poor wretch from one minor discomfort. Without her lap to lie on, he would have been frozen, never mind at risk from inhaling mud and drowning in it.
The two Rogues looked at each other and a message seemed to pass between them because, as one, they got to their feet.
‘Dog will stay on guard,’ said the Second Rogue. ‘Dog. Stay.’
Ben promptly lay down, head on his paws, just as though he completely understood the command.
‘We’ll get some transport fit for you, don’t you worry,’ said the First Rogue gruffly, before vaulting over the wall with his comrade.
She wasn’t the least bit worried about how she was going to get back to Brussels. It was this poor man that needed all the help he could get. And her brother. Justin.
Oh, dear. Justin would be furious if he could see her now. Even Gideon had warned her to stay away from Major Bartlett. Although, Gideon being Gideon, he’d explained exactly why.
‘For once I agree with Justin,’ he’d said with a slight frown, when he’d caught the major winking at her. ‘He’s such an indiscriminate womaniser they call him Tom Cat Bartlett. The only reason he’s out here in the Allée Verte this early in the morning is no doubt because he’s slinking away from the bed of his latest conquest.’
On hearing that Bartlett was a rake, she’d put him out of her mind. She detested rakes. And she would never have willingly gone anywhere near him again. She sucked in a short, sharp, breath. For here she was, cradling his head in her lap, comparing him to her beloved brother Gideon, who’d warned her against him.
And yet, weren’t they both soldiers, too? Wounded in the service of their country?
He certainly didn’t look like a rake any more. If the men hadn’t told her, she wouldn’t have recognised him. The once-handsome face had become a grotesque, smoke-blackened, bloodied mask through which wild green eyes had stared at her.
Beseechingly.
Her heart jolted.
The poor man was in such a state that he’d thought she, who’d have just lost her breakfast beside the same wall that had buried him, if she’d been in any state to eat any, could help him.
He must be out of his mind.
‘All right, miss?’
She looked up to see the two Rogues had returned, looking mighty pleased with themselves.
‘We’ve got one of those French sick wagons,’ one proclaimed. The other nudged him in the side, with a quick frown.
Oh...oh, dear. They’d obviously stolen it. Well, what could she expect, when robbery with violence was, according to Gideon, what Justin’s men did best?
‘Can’t very well drape him over the back of an ’orse, miss. Jolting a man with a head wound would finish ’im off for sure.’
‘Yes. Of course. I quite see that,’ she said mildly, employing the vague smile that had stood her in good stead in so many awkward situations. It worked again. The men made no further attempt to justify their actions.
They just manoeuvred Major Bartlett off her lap and into the vehicle they’d parked on the other side of the wall—far more gently than she would have expected from men who acted and spoke so coarsely, and who’d just committed who knew what violence in order to ensure their officers had the best transport back to Brussels.
They’d no doubt go and fetch Mary now, so that she could oversee the journey and then their nursing. So Major Bartlett was off her hands.
She glanced down, then, and winced at the state of them. But there was a small stream not far away, she thought, where she could rinse them. Behind that thick border of rushes.
As she dabbled her bloodstained hands in the water, she wondered what she should do next. Gideon must be dead, she supposed, even though her whole being revolted against the notion. And Justin didn’t need her to stay and nurse him. Mary would do a much better job. Besides, seeing his sister, when he came to himself—if he came to himself—would make him so furious it would probably cause an immediate relapse. He hadn’t wanted her to come to Brussels at all. Had ordered her to leave, more than once.
There was nothing for it but to go back to Antwerp and explain herself. Her shoulders drooped as she pictured the scold Blanchards would give her for worrying his poor wife at such a critical stage. Gussie had suffered a couple of miscarriages early in her marriage and then, for some inexplicable reason, failed to become pregnant again for a worrying length of time. The Marquis of Blanchards was naturally very protective now that it was looking as though his wife might finally be about to present him with an heir. And his patience with Sarah had been wearing thin even before she’d run away. He hadn’t minded taking her to Paris, when Gussie had suggested the trip. No, it wasn’t until Bonaparte had fled Elba, and most of polite society had scurried back to England because France was no longer safe, that he’d begun to look at her sideways. For Gussie wouldn’t have been so determined to go to Brussels if Sarah’s twin hadn’t been stationed there. Nothing, now, would prevent him from packing her off to England, where he could return her to Mama’s care.
And he’d do so in such blistering terms that Mama would marry her off to the very next person who applied for her hand, no matter what Sarah thought of him.
But what did it matter who they chose to take her off their hands? Without Gideon, she was only going to be able to live half a life, wherever she was. Whoever she was with.
Her head bowed, she made her way laboriously up the bank, picked her way though the mud and clambered over the wall.
‘Ready, now, are you, miss?’
The First Rogue was standing at the rear of the wagon, his arms folded across his massive chest.
‘If you will excuse me,’ she said, lifting her chin and gesturing for him to step aside, ‘I need to let Mary know that I am returning to Antwerp, so that she can inform Justin when he recovers.’
‘Antwerp?’ The man gave her a quick frown.
‘Yes. If you wouldn’t mind going to fetch my horse.’
The man gave her a dirty look and muttered something that sounded a bit unsavoury. She shrugged and went to look inside the wagon.
Only the Major was there.
‘Just a moment,’ she said. ‘Before you go and fetch my horse—’ which he’d shown no sign of doing as yet, anyway ‘—could you tell my why Justin isn’t in here? And where is Miss Endacott?’
‘Miss Endacott was adamant we wasn’t to move the Colonel,’ the Rogue growled. ‘Not yet a while.’
‘But the Major must have treatment. At once! Why, he’s already been lying out all night, with an open wound. Somebody needs to clean him up and stitch him up.’
She’d been about to leave both men to Mary’s care. But would Mary have the time to do anything for Major Bartlett if Justin was too poorly to even move? Besides, he’d begged her to save him. Her. Not pretty and practical Mary Endacott, but her.
Well, there was no question of riding off and leaving the Major behind, not now. She couldn’t simply abandon him, hoping that somebody would do something for him. No matter what kind of man he was, he didn’t deserve to be left untended. Perhaps to die of neglect. She wouldn’t wish that fate on any man.
With half her mind troubled by the thought that might have been exactly what had happened to Gideon, she scrambled up into the back of the wagon.
‘I will stay with the Major until we can get him to a hospital,’ she informed the rather startled Rogue.
She’d seen makeshift hospitals springing up outside the Namur gate. Wounded men had been staggering, or been carried, towards those with medical expertise even while the battle had been raging.
‘I’ll go and fetch your horse then, miss,’ said Rogue One. ‘Wouldn’t do to leave a fine animal like that out here. Someone’s bound to try to steal him.’
The other Rogue, who’d been leaning nonchalantly against the side of the wagon, shook his head as Rogue One darted off.
‘Terrible amount of thieving goes on after a battle,’ he observed drily as they waited for Rogue One to fetch not only Castor, but also the two horses they’d ridden to the battlefield, and tether them to the sides of the wagon. ‘You wouldn’t credit it.’
‘Oh, wouldn’t I?’
They both glanced up at the tart tone of her voice, then grinned at each other.
‘Now look, miss,’ said the one she’d come to think of as the First Rogue. ‘The road is mortal bad. No matter how careful we drive, won’t be able to help jolting the Major. You must do what you can to cushion his head.’
‘Need both of us up here, see,’ said the Second Rogue, ‘making sure nobody thinks they can swipe this cart off of us to carry their own wounded.’
Which was all too real a threat, since it was clearly what they’d just done.
‘Heaven forbid,’ she said, smiling her vague smile again, then going to the head of the stretcher, just as they’d suggested.
She watched out of the corner of her eye as the First Rogue climbed into the driver’s seat and took the reins, while the Second Rogue got up beside him and draped his musket across his knee.
She’d half-hoped Ben would jump up into the wagon with her, but he chose to run alongside, snarling at anyone who got too close.
* * *
It didn’t seem to take half as long returning to Brussels as it had coming out. Which was probably because concentrating on the Major’s welfare kept her mind, and her eyes, off the sights and smells that had disturbed her so much before.
Not that trying to prevent an unconscious man’s head from coming to further harm was without its own perils. Even though the wagon was well sprung, it couldn’t compensate for the churned-up state of the road. Every time they went over a particularly deep rut, Major Bartlett’s head would jolt no matter how firmly she thought she was holding it in her hands.
Pretty soon, she wondered if the only way to really protect him would be to kneel on the floor, wrap her arm about his neck and sort of cradle him to her bosom.
The thought of doing so made her blush all over. But then she chided herself for being so missish. He wasn’t taking liberties, after all. The poor man had no idea where his nose would be pressed.
Just imagine if this had been Gideon, she told herself sternly. Wouldn’t she have cradled him to her bosom, to prevent further injury during the trip back to Brussels?
The sad fact was, she’d never know.
Her vision blurred for a second or two. But she resolutely blinked back the tears, sniffed and reminded herself that though Gideon was past helping, this man wasn’t. By some miracle, he’d survived. So even though she hadn’t found Gideon, her search for him hadn’t been a total waste of time. She might not be good for much, but she could at least prevent the Major from coming to any further harm as the wagon bounced along over the bumpy road.
It was one small thing, one practical thing she could do to stem the tide of death that had swept Gideon from her. Gritting her teeth and consigning her gown to perdition, she wrapped her arms round Major Bartlett’s neck and held his bloodied head as tight as she could.
Chapter Three (#ulink_d394a248-2811-594c-badd-8a6349d9e45e)
The scene that greeted her when they reached the makeshift hospital was one of chaos.
She clambered out of the wagon, and went to the driver’s seat to speak to the Rogues.
‘This is awful,’ she said, indicating the men with terrible injuries who were lying groaning all over the ground, flies buzzing round open wounds.
‘Aye, well it’s like this, miss,’ said the First Rogue. ‘Surgeons are too busy hacking off the arms and legs of the poor b-blighters they think they can save to bother with the ones who lie still and quiet, like our Major. They put those to the back of the queue. And by the time they get round to them, well, mostly there’s no need for them to try anything any more.’
‘We can’t leave the Major here,’ she said, appalled. ‘Do you know of some other hospital we can take him to? A proper, civilian hospital? Where he can get the treatment he needs?’
The First Rogue scratched his chin. ‘Hospitals in town are all full as they can hold. Saw them laying the wounded out in the park and all along the sides of the streets, too. And that was before we come out ’ere. Gawd alone knows what it’ll be like by now.’
‘Well, what about taking him back to his lodgings, then? His man could help, couldn’t he?’ Justin’s own body servant, Robbins, was always tending Justin when he was wounded. Gideon had told her so.
‘His man’s used up,’ said the Second Rogue brusquely.
She’d heard Justin apply that term to the butcher’s bill after a battle. He didn’t speak of his troops dying, but of being used up.
‘What are we to do with him, then?’ It never occurred to her, not for one moment, to simply mount Castor, ride away and leave him. In some weird way, it felt that if she just left the Major’s fate in the hands of providence, it would be tantamount to submitting to the horrid inevitability of death itself.
Which would somehow dishonour Gideon’s memory.
‘You’ve got all those medical supplies in yer bags,’ said Rogue Two.
‘How...how did you know?’
He shrugged. ‘Had a look.’
He’d gone through her saddlebags, while she’d been climbing over the wall, and throwing stones at the looters? Or had it been later, when she was washing her hands in the stream?
‘I didn’t take nothing,’ he protested.
‘Look, it’s plain as a pikestaff you’ve been sent here to save our Major,’ said Rogue One. ‘If you nurse him, there’s a chance he’ll pull through.’
‘Me? But...’ She thought of the wounds covering his body, not to mention the huge tear across his scalp.
Then she saw their faces harden. Take on a tinge of disappointment. Of disapproval.
Of course, they wouldn’t believe she didn’t feel capable of nursing their Major. They had no idea how inadequate she felt. They would just think she was too high and mighty to lower herself to their level.
‘I suppose I could try,’ she explained. ‘I mean, the little I might be able to do is bound to be better than nothing, isn’t it?’
‘I took a gander when we put ’im in the wagon,’ said Rogue Two. ‘His skull ain’t broke. A lady like you could stitch him up as nice as any doctor. And then it’ll just be nursing he needs.’
‘Plenty of drink,’ said Rogue One. ‘Get all his wounds clean.’
‘We’ll help you with that. Lifting him and turning him and such.’
They made it sound so simple.
They made it sound as though she was perfectly capable of taking charge of a severely wounded man.
Her heart started hammering in her chest.
Perhaps she really could do it. After all, they’d said they’d help her. And now she came to think of it, hadn’t she already done much, much more than anyone would ever have thought possible? She’d reached Brussels unaccompanied when everyone else was fleeing the place. She’d rescued the snarling, snapping Ben from the teetering wreckage of a baggage cart. She’d ignored the Hussars and made her own judgement about whether the French were about to overrun Brussels, and been right. She’d even stood up to those women who’d been trying to murder poor Major Bartlett. And that after riding across a battlefield without totally fainting away.
And she could sew.
And even though she’d never nursed anyone in her life, she had listened most attentively to every word of Bridget’s advice, because she’d believed she was going to be nursing Gideon. Marigold was for cleansing wounds to stop them from putrefying. Comfrey was for healing cuts. And apparently she could make a sort of tea from the dried meadowsweet flowers, which was less bitter and nasty than willow bark and almost as effective at reducing fever.
Poor Gideon wouldn’t need any of that, now. He was beyond anyone’s help.
But this man had fallen, literally, into her lap.
Had begged her to save him.
And there was nobody else to do it. He had nobody.
Just as she had nobody.
Well, she thought, firming her lips, he might not know it, but he had her.
‘Very well, then,’ she said, clambering back into the wagon. ‘I will do my best. We’ll take him to my lodgings.’
She’d already begun to prove, at least to herself, that she wasn’t that fragile girl whose only hope, so her entire family believed, was in finding some man to marry her and look after her.
This was her chance to prove to them, too, that she didn’t need anyone to look after her. On the contrary!
With her head held high, she gave the Rogues her direction, then knelt down to cushion the Major’s head against her breasts once more for the remainder of the journey.
* * *
Pretty soon they were drawing up outside a house on the Rue de Regence, unloading the Major by means of the stretcher with which the cart was equipped and banging on the door for entry.
‘Oh, my lady,’ cried Madame le Brun. ‘You found him then? You found your brother?’
The men holding the stretcher glanced at her, then looked straight ahead, their faces wiped clean of expression.
Sarah blinked.
The night before, when she’d turned up frightened, and bedraggled, clutching Castor’s reins for dear life, she’d told Madame le Brun how she’d run away from Antwerp to search for her twin, because she’d heard a rumour he’d been killed, but refused to believe it. She’d explained that she’d returned to her former lodgings because she hadn’t known where else to spend the night, with the outcome of the battle currently raging still being so uncertain. The house where Lord Blanchards had rented rooms when Brussels had been the centre of a sort of cosmopolitan social whirl might not have been in the most fashionable quarter of town, but it was well kept and respectable. And Madame le Brun had been a very motherly sort of landlady.
It would be terrible to lie to her. Sarah hated people who told lies and she avoided telling them herself. Yet there was a difference, she’d always found, in letting people assume whatever they liked. Particularly if the absolute truth would cause too much awkwardness.
‘He is very gravely wounded,’ she therefore told Madame le Brun, neatly sidestepping the issue of his identity altogether.
‘I shall be nursing him myself, so it will be best to put him in my room. The room I had when I was here before.’ She smiled vaguely in Madame’s direction, but spoke to the men. ‘Careful how you get him up the stairs.’
At that moment Ben provided a welcome diversion by attempting to follow them inside.
‘Oh, no. This I cannot have,’ shrieked Madame le Brun, making shooing motions at the dog, who’d acquired an extra layer of mud since the last time she’d seen him. ‘The stables! The stables is the place for the animals.’
Ben took exception to anyone trying to get between him and the three members of his adopted pack who were already mounting the stairs. He bared his teeth at the landlady, and growled.
In the ensuing fracas, the Rogues manoeuvred the stretcher up the stairs and into Sarah’s old room. And no more questions were asked about the wounded man’s identity. By the time the landlady, the dog and Sarah caught up, in a welter of snapping teeth and loudly voiced recriminations, the Rogues had got their Major on to her bed.
‘Madame,’ said Sarah, ‘we can settle the question of what to do with the dog, who as you can see is very devoted to his master, later, can we not? What we really need, right now, is plenty of fresh linen, and hot water, and towels.’
Even though she hadn’t actually ever nursed anyone before, it was obvious that the first thing they needed to do was get the poor man cleaned up.
‘Oh, le pauvre,’ said Madame le Brun, crossing herself as she caught her first proper sight of the Major’s battered and semi-clothed body. ‘Fresh sheets, yes, and water and towels, too. Of course. Though the dog...’
‘Yes, yes, I promise you I will deal with the dog, too. He won’t be any bother. But please...’ Sarah allowed her eyes to fill with tears as she indicated Major Bartlett’s body.
‘Very well, my lady. Though I cannot think it is right for an animal so dirty to be in the room with one so badly hurt...’
‘The dog it was as found him,’ put in the First Rogue.
‘Yes, we owe Ben a great deal,’ said Sarah.
Madame le Brun grumbled about the invasion of her property by such a large, fierce and dirty dog, but she did so on her way out the door.
Sarah could hardly believe she’d won that battle. Why, only the night before, she’d cowered in the stables because Madame wouldn’t let the dog in the house, and Sarah had been afraid that someone trying to escape Brussels before the French forces arrived might try to steal her horse. She’d been too timid to do more than wheedle a blanket and some paper and ink from Madame. Today she’d got the dog and a wounded officer right into her very bedroom.
It was a heady feeling.
Which lasted only as long as it took for her to notice that the Rogues were intent on stripping the Major of his clothes. They’d already pulled off his one remaining boot. Ben pounced on it and bore it off to the hearthrug, from which vantage point he could keep an eye on proceedings while having a good chew.
‘You’ll be wanting to fetch those medical supplies, I shouldn’t wonder,’ the First Rogue suggested gruffly, pausing in the act of undoing the Major’s breeches. ‘While we start getting him cleaned up a bit.’
‘Yes, yes, I shall do that,’ she said in a voice that sounded rather high-pitched to her own ears. She turned away swiftly and scurried out of the room, thoroughly relieved the man had offered her a good excuse for making herself scarce.
She pressed her hands to her hot cheeks once she’d shut the bedroom door behind her. Her legs were shaking a bit, but she wasn’t going to succumb to a fit of the vapours just because she’d almost seen a man have his breeches removed.
She forced her legs to carry her to the head of the stairs and made her rather wobbly way down. She was going to have to get used to a lot more than glimpses of a man’s, well, manliness in the days to come, if she was going to be of any use.
In fact, she was going to have to breach practically every rule by which she’d lived. She’d always taken such pains to keep her reputation spotless that she’d never been without a chaperon, not even when visiting the ladies’ retiring room at a ball. She could scarcely believe she’d just encouraged two hardened criminals to install the regiment’s most notorious rake in her bedroom—nay, her very bed.
Where he was currently being stripped naked.
Oh, lord, what would people think? Actually, she knew very well what they would think. What they would say, if they found out.
Right, then. She squared her shoulders as she marched across the yard to the stables. She’d better think of some way of preventing anyone finding out what she was doing, or they’d all be up in arms.
At least all the gossipy society people she knew from London had fled Brussels. She’d seen many of the most inquisitive in Antwerp. Even if any of them had remained, Madame le Brun thought Major Bartlett was actually her brother, so she couldn’t let anything slip.
And as for Justin... She chewed on the inside of her lower lip, as it occurred to her he might still be in that tumbledown barn, too gravely ill to move, let alone worry about what his flighty little sister was getting up to. Actually, he might have no idea she’d returned to Brussels, if he was still unconscious. Not that she wanted him to remain unconscious.
She bowed her head and uttered a silent, but heartfelt, prayer. And immediately felt a deep assurance that Justin couldn’t be in more capable hands. Moreover, even when he began to recover, Mary wasn’t likely to mention anything that might hamper his recovery.
She retrieved the medicine pouch, then made her way back to the house, feeling sorrier than ever for poor Major Bartlett. Having to rely on such as her. Nobody, not by the wildest stretch of imagination, would ever describe her as capable.
A crushing sense of inadequacy made her pause outside her bedroom door. For on the other side of it lay an immense set of challenges. All wrapped up in the naked, helpless body of a wounded soldier.
She pressed her forehead to the door. She’d already decided she wasn’t going to be one of those people who thought propriety was more important than a man’s very survival. But even so, it wasn’t easy to calmly walk into a room that contained two rough soldiers and a naked man.
What if she tried to think of this as a sickroom, rather than her own bedroom, though? And of Major Bartlett as just a wounded soldier, rather than a naked and dangerous rake? Her patient, in fact. Yes—yes, that was better. She wasn’t, primarily, a woman who’d been forbidden to so much as speak to him, but his nurse.
It made it possible for her to knock on the door, at any rate. And, when a gruff voice told her she could come in, Sarah found that she could look across at the Major with equanimity—well, almost with equanimity. Because he wasn’t lying in her bed. He was in his sickbed. All she had to do was carry on in this vein and she’d soon be able to convince herself she wasn’t a sheltered young lady who regarded all single men as potential predators, but a nurse, as well.
A nurse, moreover, who’d promised, when his men had begged for her help, that she would do her best.
In her absence, Madame had fetched water and towels. And the men had put them to good use, to judge from the mounds of bloodied cloths on the floor.
‘He ain’t so bad as he looked,’ said the First Rogue. ‘A lot of bruising and cuts to his back where the wall fell on him, but nothing broken, not even his head.’
‘Really ’as got nine lives, ’as the Tom C—’ The Second Rogue broke off mid-speech, but Sarah knew perfectly well what he’d been about to say.
Well, well. Perhaps he hadn’t only gained that nickname because of his nocturnal habits. Perhaps a good deal of it was down to him having more than his fair share of luck, too.
‘Sooner we can get it sewn up the better,’ put in the First Rogue hastily, as though determined to fix her attention on the man’s injuries, rather than his reputation. ‘Cut right down to the bone, he is.’
They were looking at her expectantly.
Oh, yes. They’d said that she ought to do the sewing, hadn’t they?
‘I...’ She pressed one hand to her chest. In spite of the lecture she’d given herself, about proving how capable she was, now that it came to it, her heart was fluttering in alarm. At this point, Mama would fully expect her to have a fit of the vapours, if she hadn’t already done so because there was a naked man in her room.
‘You can do it, miss,’ said the Second Rogue. ‘Far better than us clumsy b... Uh—’ he floundered ‘—blighters.’
‘I don’t know how,’ she admitted, though she was ashamed to sound so useless.
‘We’ll direct you. And hold the Major still, in case he comes round.’
Yes. Yes they would need to do that. The pain of having his head sewn back together might well rouse him from his stupor. After all, hadn’t he roused once before, when the looters had been tearing off his shirt?
‘I can’t...’
‘Yes, you can, miss.’
She smiled ruefully at the man. ‘I was going to say I can’t go on thinking of you as Rogue One and Rogue Two, like characters in a play. You must have names? I am Lady Sarah.’ She held out her hand to Rogue One. ‘How do you do?’
He took her proffered hand and shook it. ‘Dawkins, Lady Sarah.’
‘Cooper,’ said the other with a nod, though rather than shaking her hand, he pressed a pair of scissors into it. ‘You need to start by trimming his hair back as short as you can get it, round the sabre cut,’ he said.
‘S-sabre cut?’
‘Cavalry sabre, I reckon,’ said Cooper. ‘Only thing that would knock him out and slice the scalp near clean off like that, all in one go.’
I will not be sick. I will not be sick.
‘Do you think he would prefer it,’ she said brightly, in a desperate attempt to turn the conversation in a less grisly direction, ‘if I cut it short all over? Only he will look so very odd, shorn in patches, when the bandages come off, won’t he?’
‘Time enough for that when he’s better, miss.’
Yes, but keeping up a conversation was still a good idea. She was less likely to either faint, or be sick, if she could keep at least a part of her mind off the grisly task she was having to perform.
‘Yes, of course,’ she said, ruthlessly snipping away the matted curls. Lord, but it seemed like a crime to hack away at such lovely hair. Not that it looked lovely any more. She felt a pang at a sudden memory of how glorious it had looked, with the sunlight glinting on it, that day in the Allée Verte. She’d never imagined a day would come when she’d be running her fingers through it. Not for any reason.
‘We can ask him how he wants it done when he’s better, can’t we? Perhaps get a barber in to do something that will disguise this hideous crop I’m giving him.’
She laughed a little hysterically. Then swallowed.
‘It is amazing what a professional coiffeuse can do, you know.’ Snip. ‘Even with hair like mine.’ Snip, snip. ‘It is completely straight, normally. It takes hours of fussing, from a terribly expensive woman, with her special lotions and a hot iron, before Mama considers me fit to venture out of doors. And it takes such a long time to prepare me for a ball that I have gained the reputation for being dreadfully vain.’
She must sound it, too, prattling on about styling her hair, at a time like this. Except that with her mind full of hairdressers, and ballrooms, somehow it was easier to cope with the grim reality of what she was doing.
‘Reckon that’ll do now, miss,’ said Cooper, gently removing the scissors from her fingers and handing her a needle and thread.
‘Th-thank you.’ She was sure her face must be white as milk. Her lips had gone numb. And her hands were trembling.
Could she actually puncture human flesh with this needle? She shut her eyes. If only she could keep them shut until it was over.
Or if only Harriet were here. For Harriet—who’d had the benefit of an expensive education—would simply snatch the needle from her hand with an impatient shake of her head and say she’d better take charge, since everyone knew Sarah was far too scatterbrained to nurse a sick man.
But Harriet wasn’t here. And backing out of the task was unacceptable. She’d just be proving she was as weak and cowardly as everyone expected her to be.
Everyone except Gideon. You show ’em, she could almost hear him saying. Show ’em all what you’re made of.
‘Al...Always victorious,’ she muttered, under her breath. ‘That’s our family motto,’ she explained to the men, when she opened her eyes and saw them looking at her dubiously. She’d chanted it to herself all the way from Antwerp, the day before, to stop herself from turning back. Had whispered it, like a prayer, when she’d been cowering in the stable with her horse, to give herself heart.
‘Motto of our unit, too,’ grunted Cooper.
‘Of course, of course it is,’ she said, taking a deep breath and setting the first stitch. ‘Justin—that is Lord Randall, your colonel—he took the words from our family coat of arms, didn’t he? From the Latin, which is Semper Laurifer. Sounds like laurel, doesn’t it? And we do have laurel leaves on our family coat of arms. I suppose whoever took that motto did so for the play on words. Laurel. Laurifer. After a long-ago battle. Because there have always been soldiers in our family. And I dare say plenty of earlier Latymor ladies have had to stitch up wounds. I can almost feel them looking over my shoulder now, encouraging me to keep up the family tradition.’
She was babbling. In a very high-pitched voice. But somehow, reciting family history, whilst imagining the coat of arms and all her doughty ancestors, helped to take her mind off the hideous mess into which her fingers were delving.
‘G-Gideon told me that in the case of your unit, Justin, I mean Lord Randall, said you could use whatever means necessary to ensure you always won. Which sounds rather ruthless, even for him. I found it very hard to believe the things he said my stuffy, autocratic big brother got up to during the Peninsula campaign. But Gideon was so full of admiration for the sheer cheek of the way he went behind enemy lines, blowing things up, smashing things down and generally causing mayhem.’
‘Confounding the French, the Colonel called it,’ said Dawkins.
‘And that’s how you got the name of Randall’s Rogues,’ she said, glancing at the unconscious Major’s face. He’d been with Justin, doing all those things that had made Gideon green with envy. ‘I know it is far more fashionable to belong to a cavalry regiment like mine,’ he’d grumbled, ‘but what I wouldn’t give to have command of a troop like Justin’s. That’s the kind of officer I want to be. One who can take the refuse from half-a-dozen other regiments and forge them into something unique.’
He might not have wanted this man to get anywhere near her, but Gideon had admired him, in a way. He was just the kind of officer Gideon had wished he could have been.
‘Not much longer now, miss,’ said Dawkins kindly, as her gaze lingered on the Major’s face, reluctant to return to the ghastly wound she was supposed to be tending. ‘You’re doing a grand job.’
‘Yes,’ she said with a shudder. Then took a deep breath. ‘I’ve decided,’ she said, getting back to work, ‘that if the men in my family can go about claiming they can do whatever they like to make sure they come out victorious, because of a couple of words engraved on the coat of arms, then so can I. From now on, I will be Always Victorious. In this case—’ she swallowed as she set yet another stitch ‘—I will do my best for this poor wretch. If, for example, I am going to be sick, I will do so after I’ve finished patching his scalp back together.’
‘That you will, miss,’ Dawkins agreed.
Though miraculously, and to her immense relief, she wasn’t sick at all. True, she did stagger away from the bed and sink weakly on to a chair while the men slathered a paste that smelled as if it consisted mostly of comfrey, on to the seam she’d just sewn.
She wished she had some brandy. Not that she’d ever drunk any, but people said it steadied the nerves. And she certainly needed it. Needed something...
‘We’ll go and fetch the Major’s traps now, miss,’ said Dawkins as soon as they’d finished covering her handiwork with bandages.
‘What?’ And leave her here, all alone, in sole charge of a man who looked as though he was at death’s door?
‘You won’t be long, will you?’
‘No, but—’ They exchanged another of their speaking looks. Oh, lord, what news were they going to break to her this time?
‘We’ll be back with his things in no time at all, miss. But we can’t stay after that. We have to report back.’
Her heart sank. When they said they’d help her, she’d thought they meant until he was fully recovered. But they had only spoken of lifting him and cleaning him up, hadn’t they? And they weren’t civilians who could come and go as they pleased. If they didn’t report to someone in authority, they would run the risk of being treated as deserters.
‘Yes. Of course you do.’
‘Nothing to do for him now but nursing, anyhow. You can do that as well as anyone. Better, probably.’
She leapt to her feet. ‘No. I mean...I have never nursed anyone. Ever. I am not trying to back out of it, it’s just that I won’t really know what to do,’ she cried, twisting her hands together to hide the fact they were shaking. ‘What must I do?’
‘Whatever he needs to make him comfortable.’
‘You’ve got meadowsweet to make a tea to help bring down the fever, if you can get him to drink it.’
‘Fever?’
‘He’s been lying outside in the muck, with an open wound all night, miss. Course he’s going to have a fever.’
Oh, dear heaven.
‘Bathe him with warm water, if that don’t work.’
‘And if he starts shivering, cover him up again,’ said Dawkins with a shrug, as though there was nothing to it.
For the first time in her life—she swallowed—she was going to have to cope, on her own, without the aid of a maid, or a footman, or anyone.
But hadn’t she always complained that nobody trusted her do anything for herself? Now she had the chance to prove her worth, was she going to witter and wring her hands, and wail that she couldn’t do it?
She was not. She was going to pull herself together and get on with it.
‘Give him the medicine,’ she repeated, albeit rather tremulously, ‘bathe him if he gets too hot, cover him if he gets too cold. Anything else?’
‘Landlady will have a man about the house to help when he needs to relieve himself, I dare say.’
Yes. Of course she would. There were a number of servants flitting about the place. She wouldn’t be all alone.
‘And we’ll tell the company surgeon where the Major is, so he can come and have a look.’
‘Oh.’ That would be a relief.
‘But don’t think he’ll do anything you couldn’t do yourself, miss,’ said Dawkins.
‘And don’t let him tell you the Major should be in a hospital,’ said Cooper vehemently. ‘They won’t look after him proper there.’
Coming from Cooper, that was quite a compliment. He’d been eyeing her askance every time she felt faint. His hostility had actually braced her, once or twice, just as much as Dawkins’s kindness and encouragement had. Because every time Cooper looked as though he expected her to fail, it made her more determined to prove she wouldn’t.
And now, to hear him say he trusted her to give the Major better care than he’d get in a hospital, made something in her swell and blossom.
‘I won’t let you down,’ she vowed. ‘I won’t let him down.’
With a parting nod, the men left.
‘Oh, goodness gracious,’ she said, sinking on to the chair again. ‘Whatever have I let myself in for?’
Chapter Four (#ulink_84999448-ad3b-5003-9fe7-03a53e786b7c)
The guns had ceased. The battle was over, then. Won or lost. Leaving the field to the dead and dying. And the crows.
Flocks of them. Tearing at his back. His head. They’d go for his eyes if they could get at them.
No! He flung his arm up to protect his eyes. And felt considerable surprise that he could move it. Hadn’t been able to move at all before. They’d buried him. Tons of rock, tumbling down, crushing him so he could scarcely breathe, let alone fend off the crows.
Who had dug him out of his grave? He hadn’t been able to save himself. He’d tried. Strained with all his might. He’d broken out into a sweat, that was all, and dragged blackness back round him in a smothering cloak.
But he’d be safer under the earth. Crows wouldn’t be able to get their claws into him any more. Or their beaks.
‘Put me back in the ground,’ he begged.
‘Don’t be silly,’ came a rather exasperated-sounding voice.
‘But I’m dead.’ Wasn’t he? Above the ringing in his ears he’d heard the other damned souls all round him, begging for mercy. Begging for water.
Because it was so hot on the edge of the abyss.
Or was it powder caking his mouth, his nostrils, so that everything stank of sulphur?
‘Is it crows, then, not demons?’ He’d thought they were wraiths, sliding silently between the other corpses scattered round him. But he’d seen knives flashing, silencing the groans. Sometimes they’d looked just like battlefield looters, not Satan’s minions.
But whoever, or whatever it had been before, they’d got their claws deep into what was left of him now.
‘There are no crows in here,’ came the voice again. ‘No demons, either. Only me. And Ben.’
Something cool glided across his brow.
He reached up and grabbed hold of what turned out to be a hand. A human hand. Small, and soft, and trembling slightly.
‘Don’t let them take me. Deserve it. Hell. But please...’ He didn’t know why he was begging. Nobody could save him. He’d begged before, for mercy, just like all the others. Or would have done if he’d been able to make a sound. He’d understood then that he wasn’t even going to be permitted one final appeal. He’d had to stay pinned there, reflecting on every sin he’d committed, remembering every man he’d killed, every act of wanton destruction he’d engineered.
‘Nobody’s going to take you. I won’t let them.’
The voice had a face, this time. The face of an angel. Though—he knew her. She was...she was...
His head hurt too much to think. Only knew he’d seen her before.
That’s right—for a moment, just one, the power of speech had returned. And he’d begged her to save him. It had something to do with the darkness ebbing and hearing the sound of birdsong, and working out that he couldn’t be dead yet, because birds didn’t sing in hell, and that if he wasn’t dead, then there was still hope. And though there had been all those great black creatures clawing at him, tearing at his clothes, he’d found the strength to make one last, desperate stand.
And she’d been there. She’d driven them away. Told them to leave him be. And they’d gone, the whole flock of them. Flapping away on their great ugly wings. And he’d fallen into her arms...
Hazy, what came next. She’d carried him away, somehow, from the mud and the stench. Pillowed on cushions of velvet, soft as feathers.
Was she an angel, then? There seemed no other logical reason to account for it. Beautiful women didn’t suddenly materialise on battlefields and carry dying men away. Which meant he’d been right in the first place.
He was dead.
‘Did you fly?’ How else could she have carried him here? Besides, she was an angel, wasn’t she? Angels had wings. Only hers weren’t black, like the crows. But blue. Palest blue, like sky after the rain had washed it clean.
‘Oh, dear, oh, dear,’ the angel sobbed.
‘Why are you weeping? I’m not worth it.’
‘I’m not weeping.’ The angel sniffed.
‘If I’m dead, why does it still hurt so much?’ he groaned. ‘Look, they know my soul belongs to their master. That’s why they’re clawing at me. Perhaps you should just let me go. No need to cry, then.’
‘No! And it’s not claws. It’s your wounds. Here, try to drink some more of this. It will help with the pain.’
Her arm was under his neck, lifting his head. And she pressed a cup to his lips.
More? She’d given him a drink before?
Ah, yes. He did remember wishing someone would give him something to drink. The thirst had been worse than the pain, in that other place. He’d understood that bit in the bible, then, about the rich man begging Lazarus to dip even one finger in water and cool his tongue. And known, too, that like the rich man he deserved his torment. He’d earned his place in hell.
But his throat was no longer raw. His tongue wasn’t stuck to the roof of his mouth. And he could speak.
So she must have given him water, before. Couldn’t have been anyone else. Nobody else gave a damn.
‘I was so thirsty.’ And now he was tired. Too tired to drink any more. Or speak. Or even think.
* * *
It was the longest night of Sarah’s life. He’d been lying there quietly enough until the Rogues left her on her own with him. But from the moment the door shut on them, it seemed to her, he hadn’t given her a moment’s peace.
Not that it was his fault, poor wretch. He couldn’t help starting to come out of his deep swoon. Or being thirsty, or hot, or uncomfortable. Only it was such a tremendous responsibility, caring for someone as ill as that. It was almost impossible to get more than a sip or two of the meadowsweet tea between his lips. And sponging him down didn’t seem to help for more than a minute or two. And then only at first. As the night wore on, his fever mounted and he started muttering all sorts of peculiar, disjointed things about hell, and demons, and thrashing about in the bed, as though trying to dig his way out from under some crushing weight.
And it was downright scary when he started speaking to her in that clear, lucid voice, in such a bizarrely confused manner.
The only thing that calmed him was to answer him as though he was making sense. To assure him that he wasn’t already in hell, whether he deserved it or not. And to promise she wasn’t going to let him die.
She would have promised him anything if only he would lie quietly and let her sleep. She was so tired. She’d hardly slept the night before, in the stable, she’d been so scared. Nor the night before that, she’d been in such a state over the report of Gideon’s death.
Yet, when Madame le Brun came in to ask how her brother was getting on, and if she wanted to take a short break, she found she was unable to leave him for long.
She was glad to have a meal, for she hadn’t eaten a thing all day. And she did feel better for a wash and a change of clothes. But once she’d seen to her immediate needs, she couldn’t rest for worrying about the Major.
Not that she must think of him as the Major, she decided, as she went to take Madame le Brun’s place at his bedside. If he really had been her brother, she would have thought of him as... What was his first name? They called him Tom Cat, so the chances were it was Tom. Well, that was what she must call him, for now. The truth would come out soon enough. The truth about his real identity. And his real name if it wasn’t Tom. And it wasn’t as if it would make any difference to him what she called him, the state he was in tonight.
His eyes flicked open, yet again.
‘It’s so hot. Are you sure...?’
‘Quite sure. This isn’t hell. It’s Brussels,’ she said, dipping the cloth in a basin of tepid water on the bedside table, then smoothing it over his face, his neck and his chest. Though it didn’t seem to be doing much good. His skin felt hotter than ever.
‘But you are my guardian angel, aren’t you?’ he said hopefully. Then groaned and shook his head.
‘Can’t be. Wretches like me don’t deserve guardian angels.’
‘Everyone has a guardian angel,’ she put in hastily. ‘Whether they deserve one or not.’
And if that were true, then she was exactly the sort of guardian angel someone as sinful as Tom probably would get. The sort who wasn’t sure what she was doing. And who was terrified of the responsibility. The sort who simply didn’t measure up. Second-best.
She was even wearing second-hand clothes. Madame le Brun had insisted she couldn’t nurse Major Bartlett wearing her muddy riding habit and had lent her one of the femme dechambre’s gowns. Jeanne wasn’t as tall as Sarah—well, very few women were. And Jeanne was a bit more stout. So that the gown both hung off her, yet was too small at the same time. It was a perfect example of all that was wrong with her situation.
If only she hadn’t been in such a hurry when she’d left Antwerp. If only she’d stopped to pack at least a nightgown. Irritably, she dashed away the single tear that slid down her cheek. How could she be crying over the lack of a nightgown, or anything else of her own to change into come morning, when poor Major Bartlett—no, she had to think of him as Tom—was fighting for his very life?
It was everything that had happened over the last few days catching up with her, that was what it was, not the lack of decent clothing. Ever since the night of the Duchess of Richmond’s ball she’d done nothing but dash from one place to another, in a state bordering on panic. Leaving a trail of personal possessions in her wake.
She could weep when she thought of the trunks and trunks stuffed full of clothes she’d bought during her brief stay in Paris, all stacked in her cramped little room in Antwerp.
If only she could write to Gussie and ask her to send her things here. But that simply wasn’t possible. For one thing she didn’t want Gussie to know exactly where she was, or what she was doing, because it would worry her. And anyway, Gussie wouldn’t send what she needed. She’d send Blanchards instead, with strict instructions to bring her back to safety. Which would mean poor Major—poor Tom—would be left to the care of strangers. Well, technically she was a stranger, too, but he’d asked her to look after him. Not Madame le Brun. Or anyone else. Not even Mary Endacott.
And he was staring at her in a fixed, glazed way as though she was his only hope.
‘Drink this,’ she said, in as calm a voice as she could, holding a cup of meadowsweet tea to his lips. Meek as a lamb, he opened his mouth and swallowed.
Because he trusted her. He didn’t care that she had no experience. Was too feverish to notice what she was wearing. Unlike that day in the park, when he’d run a connoisseur’s eye over the riding habit she’d just obtained from Odette, the brilliant dressmaker they’d discovered in a little street off the Place de la Monnaie.
Oh, my goodness! She’d placed an order with Odette only last week—and Blanchards had been in such a hurry to get them on to the barge bound for Antwerp last Friday that he hadn’t let her go to collect it. She placed Tom’s empty cup on the bedside table, watching his eyelids droop, though her mind was on all those gowns awaiting collection from the shop. She could very easily send a message to the modiste, requesting immediate delivery of everything that was ready and include a list of all the other items she needed, too. Stockings and stays and petticoats and so forth. No doubt the bill for doing her shopping would be steep, but then when had she ever had to worry about money? Not even the management of it. Justin, as head of the family, took care of all that side of things, so that all she had to do was send her bills to whomever he’d appointed to take care of her day-to-day needs. At the moment, it was Blanchards.
That thought brought a grim sort of smile to her lips as she went to the writing desk and turned up the lamp. He’d already written, in response to the explanation she’d scrawled as she’d been cowering in the stable, with Castor in the next stall and Ben at her feet. And his letter had been so horrid and unfeeling she’d crumpled it up and thrown it in the kitchen fire on her way back from fetching the medicine pouch. He’d totally ignored her attempt to reassure Gussie she was safe. He’d accused her of having no consideration for her sister’s delicate condition, of flitting off to Brussels on a wild goose chase, and ordered her to come back, without once acknowledging it might be the depth of grief she felt over losing Gideon that had sparked her rash behaviour.
He hadn’t let Gussie know she wasn’t in Antwerp at all. Because of his over-protective nature, he’d simply told his wife Sarah was with friends and would return soon.
Oh, but she could just see his face, when her bills started turning up in Antwerp. He would be so vexed with her for disobeying his order to return. Doubly vexed at not being able to tell Gussie why he was annoyed, since he’d kept Sarah’s whereabouts secret.
Well, she sniffed, that served him right for keeping secrets from his wife. No man should try to deceive his wife, not even if he thought it was for her own good. Indeed, she was teaching him a valuable lesson.
As well as proving that she could manage without him. That she could manage fine without him.
* * *
Tom blinked at the angel’s fierce profile as she dipped her pen into the inkwell and wrote something down. Her golden hair glowed, the way he’d seen angels in churches glow when the sun shone through the stained-glass windows.
‘You’ve even got a halo,’ he said.
She looked up, startled, and dropped her pen.
‘I’m disturbing your writing. Is it important?’ But, of course, it must be important. Anything an angel wrote was bound to be important. ‘Sorry.’
‘You don’t need to be sorry. It’s just a list.’
‘Of my sins?’ Then he would be sorry. ‘Have you got enough paper?’
She came close. Floated towards him on a violet-scented cloud.
‘I have plenty of paper, thank you.’
She sat on a chair next to his bed. The wicker work creaked.
He was in a bed. She was on a chair. He frowned.
‘This is a strange sort of hell.’
‘That’s because it isn’t hell,’ she said in that clipped, practical voice he was coming to recognise. ‘It’s Brussels.’
‘Not hell? Why not?’
‘Never you mind why not,’ she said sternly. ‘Come on, drink some of this.’
‘Why?’
‘It will make you feel better.’
‘Just looking at you makes me feel better.’
‘I wish that were true,’ she said tartly. ‘Then looking after you wouldn’t be half so much work.’
‘Why are you doing this, then?’
‘Because...I...I...well, if you don’t get well again I will never forgive myself.’
‘Not your fault.’
‘I will feel as if it is if you die on me,’ she said glumly.
‘You don’t want me to die?’
‘Of course I don’t want you to die. How can you even ask?’
‘Better dead. Nothing to live for really. Just got into the habit.’
‘Well it’s about the only habit of yours, from what I’ve heard of you, that I don’t want you to break.’
‘You’re crying again. Didn’t mean to make you cry.’
‘Well, then stop talking about dying and concentrate on getting better.’
‘And now you’re angry.’
‘Of course I’m angry. Hasn’t there been enough death already? Stop it, Tom. Stop it right now.’
He reached out and found her hand.
‘Sorry. Will try and do better.’
‘Promise me?’
‘If it means that much to you,’ he said slowly, hardly able to credit that anyone could really care that much whether he lived or died, ‘then, yes.’
After that, every time he felt the pit yawning at his back, he reached for the angel. She was always there. Even when he was too exhausted to drag his eyes open and look for her, he could tell she was near. He only had to smell the faint fragrance of violets for a wave of profound relief to wash through him. For it was her scent. And it meant she hadn’t left him.
He’d thought he would always be alone. But she hadn’t left him to his fate. And had promised she wouldn’t.
‘Hush,’ she whispered, smoothing that cool balm over his burning face and neck. ‘Don’t fret. You are going to be fine. I won’t let anything happen to you.’
* * *
He doubted her only the once, very briefly. When he thought he saw the brigade surgeon hovering over him like a great vulture.
She couldn’t have saved his life, only to turn him over to that ghoul, could she? The man liked nothing better than cutting up poor helpless victims, to see what made them tick. Oh, he said he was trying to cure them, but he spent far too much time writing up his findings in all those leather journals. The journals that were going to make his name some day. His findings, he called them.
Cold sweat broke out all over him at the prospect of falling into his hands. He’d cut him up, for sure. Lay his kidneys out in a tray.
‘Lieutenant...’ He had to screw up his face. ‘What’s the name?’ Foster, that was it. ‘Angel...’ He thought he didn’t care whether he lived or died, but the prospect of being dissected in the name of science?
‘Don’t let him cut me up.’
* * *
Lieutenant Foster straightened up, and gave Lady Sarah a hard stare.
‘You can see how confused he is. Doesn’t know his own name. Seems to think he’s a lieutenant. This is often the case with head wounds. Even though the skull itself is not fractured, injury to the brain can leave a patient with no memory, or impeded memory, or even physical impairment.’
‘But he is going to get well, isn’t he? I mean, he won’t die, now?’
‘There’s no telling, with head wounds. Men can appear to be getting well, then suddenly collapse and die,’ he said, looking more animated for a moment or two. ‘Delicate organ, the brain. All you can do is keep him as quiet and as still as you can. Let nature take its course.’
The surgeon’s eyes flicked round Sarah’s room—no, the sickroom—lingering for a moment or two on the pile of material she’d been cutting up for bandages, the bedside table with the bowl of water and sponge, pausing with a perplexed frown at the potted geranium on the windowsill, that Madame le Brun had brought in to cheer the place up.
‘There is nothing I can do for him that you can’t do just as well here,’ he finally declared, brusquely. And marched out of the room.
She hadn’t expected an army surgeon to have the bedside manner of a family doctor, naturally, but couldn’t he have spared just a moment or two to advise her? Encourage her? At least let her know she’d done an adequate job of stitching Tom’s head? And congratulate her for getting his fever down?
No wonder Cooper had insisted she should nurse the Major herself and keep him out of hospital. She wouldn’t trust a dog to that cold-eyed man’s dubious care.
As if he could read her thoughts, Ben whined and nudged her hand with his nose.
‘You are supposed to be in the stable,’ she said with mock sternness, though she ruffled his ears at the same time. ‘Guarding my horse.’ Although Castor didn’t need guarding so closely now. Since the news of Bonaparte’s flight from the battlefield had circulated, the city had started to become almost civilised again, from what Madame le Brun reported. Which was both a good and a bad thing. Good in the sense that England and her allies had defeated Bonaparte’s pretensions. But somewhat dangerous for her reputation, if any of her old crowd discovered she’d returned ahead of them and was holed up with a notorious rake.
‘We both need to keep our heads down,’ she said. ‘Or we’ll be in trouble. But I can’t be cross with you, you clever dog, for bounding up here the minute that nasty doctor came calling. I felt so much better with you standing guard over both me and Tom. Even so, now he’s gone I feel completely drained,’ she told Ben, before sitting down by the bed and closing her eyes. The dog laid his head on her knee in what felt remarkably like a gesture of comfort. For a moment or two she just rested. Almost dozed. But then Ben whined and pawed at her knee.
‘What is it?’
But as soon as the words left her mouth she saw why Ben had roused her. Tom was awake. He was lying there looking at her with a faint frown creasing his brow, as though he wasn’t too sure who she was. Though for some reason, she felt his confusion was no longer due to fever. His eyes were clear and focused steadily on her. In fact, he looked like any man who’d just woken up in a strange place with no recollection of how he’d come to be there.
A pang of concern and self-doubt had her leaning forward to lay her hand on his forehead. But, no—the fever hadn’t returned.
‘He’s gone?’
The Major’s voice was hoarse, but for the first time, what he said actually made sense.
‘The doctor? Yes.’
He reached up and seized her hand. ‘You didn’t let him take me. Thank you.’ A little shiver went right through her at the look of adoration blazing from his clear green eyes. Oh, no wonder he had such a reputation with the ladies, if he looked at them all like that.
‘Of course I didn’t,’ she said, a little perturbed by both the fear the company surgeon could inspire in potential patients, and the feelings Tom could provoke in her now he had his wits about him. It was a warning that she was going to have to sharpen her own.
‘I promised I would look after you myself.’
The grip of his hand tightened. ‘Do you always keep your promises?’
‘Yes. Of course.’
His mouth tightened fractionally, as if there was no of course about promises. But then in his world there probably wasn’t. A man of his type probably made dozens of promises he had no intention of keeping. And she’d do well to remember it.
‘I am in your hands, then.’
‘Yes.’
He sighed and closed his eyes. ‘Thank God,’ he mumbled. And promptly fell asleep, as though a great weight had rolled off his shoulders.
He trusted her.
Just as those Rogues had trusted her.
Before she had a chance to let it go to her head, she reminded herself that anyone would be preferable to that doctor, who seemed to view the injured as interesting cases rather than people with feelings.
Though Tom was making her feel as if it were more than that, by the way he hadn’t let go of her hand, even though he’d fallen asleep. As though he really, really needed her.
It would wear off, once he recovered, and got to know her better, of course. Though for now, why shouldn’t she bask in his apparent need? It felt good. Since there was nobody here to tell her how she ought to behave, and think, and feel, she could make up her own mind.
She decided that even though he was a rake, whose mere glance could send heated shivers down a woman’s spine, there was no harm in just sitting holding his hand while he was asleep. Besides, she was so tired. All she wanted to do was just sit and rest for a while.
So she sat there, her hand in his, half-drowsing, until a knock on the door heralding the arrival of Madame le Brun, with a tray of food, jolted her awake.
Sarah let go of his hand to stretch and yawn as Madame placed the tray none too gently on the bedside table.
‘That smells good,’ croaked Tom. ‘What is it?’
Sarah glanced at the contents of the tray. ‘Some broth and some bread. And wine.’
‘Nectar.’ He sighed.
‘Ah! He is awake,’ said Madame, ‘and wanting his dinner.’
‘That is a good sign, isn’t it? It must mean he is getting well.’
‘Yes. But he is a strong one, that one,’ said Madame, casting her eye over his naked torso with what looked like feminine appreciation. And for the first time, Sarah looked, too. At least, for the first time since the battle, she permitted herself to look at him as a man, not just a patient.
She’d thought him handsome before. When she’d seen him in the park, fully clothed. But she’d never run her eyes over his torso, the way she was doing now. With appreciation of his muscled beauty.
She blushed at the inappropriate turn her mind was taking. She was his nurse. She was supposed to be convincing Madame le Brun that he was her brother. She had no business going all gooey-eyed because he had the kind of body artists would want to sculpt in marble.
‘Will you help me to sit him up?’ she asked Madame with what she hoped sounded like brisk efficiency. ‘Then we can feed him some broth.’
‘I can do it,’ he grumbled.
But he couldn’t. So between them, Sarah and Madame le Brun propped the Major up on a mound of pillows and fed him soup until his eyelids started to flutter closed.
‘Weak as a kitten,’ he muttered in disgust as they helped him lie down again.
‘But now you are eating and the fever has gone, you will be up and going around in no time,’ Madame chided him gently as he drifted back to sleep.
That was good news. Before much longer he wouldn’t need Sarah any more. He would be up and going around, as Madame so quaintly put it. She wouldn’t need to sit over him, alternately sponging his overheated body, or covering him when he shivered.
She would be able to leave, like as not, before anyone discovered she’d had anything to do with him at all. And her reputation would remain intact. She would be safe.
So why did she feel like crying again?
Chapter Five (#ulink_7fee2625-49f9-5e6a-bcf6-5a52392c9be3)
Stupid, stupid thing to do. Sit crying over... Sarah shook her head. She wasn’t too sure actually what she was crying about.
She was turning into a regular watering pot.
With a growl of self-disgust, she got up and went to the desk. Rather than moping, she would do better to reply to all the letters which were piling up.
Gussie first. She’d wronged Gussie. Wished she could put it right. But most of all, she didn’t want Gussie to worry about her.
Dear Gussie, she wrote. Then paused, chewing on the end of the quill. She couldn’t very well write, I’ve brought a notorious rake home with me and have been living with him. He has such a dreadful reputation Justin wouldn’t introduce him to me, even though he is an officer.
She rested her head in her hands for a moment or two. There must be a way to allay her sister’s concerns without telling an outright lie.
I am in Brussels, she wrote, with a defiant tilt to her chin. She didn’t want to keep her totally in the dark, the way her husband was so determined to keep her in the dark. It simply wasn’t right!
But neither could she tell the whole truth.
I think I went a little mad when Blanchards told me Gideon was dead. Of course, I know, really, that Blanchards wouldn’t lie to me about something like that, but then, he might have been mistaken, mightn’t he? The report might have been sent in error, or something. Anyway, I felt that I couldn’t believe it, the way you both did, without proof. I ended up going as far as the battlefield to search for answers and stumbled across Justin instead. He is gravely ill and needs constant care.

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