A Mistress for Major Bartlett (Brides of Waterloo)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘In my delicate condition?’ He glared at her ferociously, as though to prove there was nothing the least bit delicate about him. Her last sight of him that morning was of him staring at he

r, with an expression on his face she was going to cherish for ever. As though he wished he had the strength to get up and chase after her. Although she wasn’t totally sure what he would do to her, if he could catch her. Put her over his knee and spank her, as likely as kiss her, probably.

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

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