A Mistress for Major Bartlett (Brides of Waterloo)

And if she did, then...

Oh, she couldn’t think about that. It was all happening too quickly. And she was still broken up inside about losing Gideon. Thinking of him cut to pieces by cavalry sabres. Worried about whether Justin would survive before she had a chance to mend fences with him. Because as sure as eggs were eggs she would never forgive herself if he died, with the suspicion that she’d somehow been the cause still hanging over her.

Oh, bother Tom for talking about love at a time like this! For making her wonder if her own heart was susceptible, when all her life thus far she’d been immune.

Why should she feel obliged to love him back, simply because he’d said he loved her? She’d never before thought she ought to love a man back, just because he claimed some affection for her.

Not that she’d ever believed any of the others. She probably ought not to believe Tom, either. He’d admitted he was a womaniser. Perhaps he told all his conquests he loved them. Perhaps it was a ruse to get them to become enthusiastic. Perhaps that was what made him so successful. For when he said it, with his eyes smouldering the way they did, it had certainly made her want to yield. Oh, not to him, precisely. But to the feelings he was beginning to evoke inside her. That sort of slow burn. The physical, as well as the emotional, pull he exerted over her.

Lord, even in his weakened state he was the most powerfully attractive man she’d ever met. Temptation incarnate.

She still couldn’t credit the way she’d felt last night, when she’d been getting ready for bed, knowing she was going to be sharing it with him. Running the soaped washcloth over her skin had made her wonder what it would feel like if he ran his hands over the same places. She’d lingered, her eyes half-closed, until the strange tingles and burning sensations that were mounting had begun to alarm her.

She might tell herself, and him, that she just wanted the comfort of being held in his arms all night, but that wasn’t the whole truth. She wanted his hands, too. Touching where they shouldn’t. Stroking where she had those tingles. Bringing her the pleasure he’d informed her he always ensured he gave his bed partners.

Whether she loved him or not, she wanted him. Her limbs went so weak with longing, for a moment, that she had a struggle to keep Castor under control. Angry with herself for that lapse in horsemanship, she turned back.

It would be better to exercise Castor first thing tomorrow, when it was cooler. When there were less people about, crowding the streets and providing distractions and alarms in equal measure. So that if her mind did wander, her hands grow slack on the reins, there would be less chance of Castor tossing her over his head and into the canal.

* * *

As it was, daylight was fading by the time she returned. She’d been out longer than she’d realised, while her mind had been whirling. Their room was heavily shadowed. Like Tom’s expression.

She lifted her chin as she marched in.

‘I want to sleep in your arms again tonight, Tom.’ She’d decided, as she’d handed over the reins to Pieter, that she wasn’t going to fret any longer about the rights and wrongs of it. For once in her life she was just going to do what she wanted.

‘I want that, too,’ he said gruffly.

‘I will go and get ready for bed, then,’ she said, a touch defiantly. And flounced out of the room, her heart thudding.

He would just hold her in his arms. Of course he would. She poured water into the basin, and shrugged off her dusty riding habit. Washed herself as quickly as possible, without lingering over the places that were clamouring for his hands.

Doing anything more than just cuddling would be wrong.

And exciting.

And wrong. But then the most enjoyable things always were wrong, weren’t they? For girls. Climbing trees or cantering all over the estate on her pony had always held more appeal for her than behaving decorously. It was only because she hated the scenes that followed that she’d moderated her behaviour. Especially since nothing was half as much fun without Gideon to share it.

Also, she’d shrunk inside under both the force of her father’s thundering fury, and her mother’s tart, stinging words of disappointment alike.

But now her father was gone. And her mother was never anything but disappointed, no matter what she did.

There were going to be scenes, unpleasant scenes, because she’d come to Brussels. Bringing Tom to her room, when she hadn’t been able to find Gideon, and nursing him, rather than creeping back to the safety and respectability of the Blanchards’s household in Antwerp, had just put the icing on the cake.

So the only question that mattered was what she thought of herself. She hesitated on the threshold, her hand on the door latch. She wasn’t an angel, that much she knew. Nor was she a Billingsgate doxy. She might be susceptible to Tom’s charm, but so far she was still completely innocent.

She was just a woman. A lonely woman without a friend in the world except the man in that bed. A man the rest of the world said was rotten to the core. Yet he was the only person who understood her. Who really saw her.

The only comfort she had.

And she didn’t see why she should deny herself that comfort, because of what some mealy-mouthed, judgemental hypocrites might think.

And, yes, he was dangerously attractive. But then a nursery fire could be dangerous, too, couldn’t it? If you stuck your hand into it. Or allowed your skirts to catch in the embers. Fires could be perfectly safe, as long as all you did was warm your hands at them.

And that was all she would do with Tom. Just warm her cold, lonely heart a little.

Lifting her chin, she opened the latch, and marched into their room.