A Mistress for Major Bartlett (Brides of Waterloo)

‘I shan’t apologise. You are equal to anything. Even attending service at the Chapel Royal in a mismatched outfit.’

She laughed. Dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief she pulled out of a little pale-blue reticule and hurried from the room without looking back.

Chapter Fifteen

How much difference a week made. The Sarah of one week ago would have been quaking in her shoes at the prospect of bearding Justin in his den. In fact, she reflected as she knocked on the door of the house in the Rue Ducale where he was staying, she wouldn’t have come here at all. She would have stayed hidden away with Tom, hoping that by the time Justin was well enough to get up and come round, something would have happened to avert disaster.

She wasn’t even all that nervous. In fact, if anything, she was looking forward to clearing the air.

Robbins said nothing as he showed her to Justin’s room. Before she went in, however, she took a large white handkerchief from her reticule and extended it before her, waving it like a flag.

Justin’s grim expression didn’t falter.

‘I hope that ridiculous display signals your unconditional surrender,’ he said, in a voice that was so reedy she could barely make out the words.

‘Not a bit of it,’ she replied firmly, even though his attempt to both breathe, and speak, was clearly something of a struggle. She went across to the bed in which he sat propped against a bank of such snowy-white pillows they made his complexion looked positively grey. No wonder Robbins had been so angry with her.

‘I was given to understand that even the bitterest enemies,’ she said sadly, ‘could conduct negotiations under the flag of truce, though.’

‘I am not your enemy, Sarah.’ He drew another breath. ‘I have your best interests at heart.’

‘Yes, well—’ she sighed, settling herself on a chair at his bedside ‘—that is a matter of opinion.’

‘No such thing!’

‘Justin, don’t get yourself into a pucker,’ she said, pulling off her gloves with as much nonchalance as she could muster, given the shock his weakened appearance had given her. ‘I am aware you think you have my best interests at heart. The only trouble is that, like everyone else in my family, you have no real idea what that would be.’

‘It most certainly isn’t that...’ His lip curled. ‘That libertine Bartlett.’

‘Now, there we shall have to disagree. However—’ she raised one hand to stop him when he drew in a sharp breath to remonstrate with her ‘—I didn’t come here to talk about Tom. I know that my taking up with him has upset you and for that I am sorry. Most dreadfully sorry that hearing about our association caused you to become so dangerously ill. Oh, Justin, I never dreamed anything I did could cause you any harm.’

‘I know that. But—’

‘No. Let us speak no more of it, not today. Please, Justin, if you love me. I know you are angry with me for all sorts of reasons, but when I heard that Gideon had died, I—’ She sucked in a short, sharp breath, blinking rapidly a couple of times in order to stop the tears before they could gain hold.

Justin reached out his hand, his gaunt face softening just a touch.

‘You foolish child,’ he growled. ‘What on earth possessed you to leave the safety of Antwerp? And at such a time. Gussie must be out of her mind with worry.’

‘No, oh, no.’ She took the hand he offered and held it firmly. ‘I have been writing to Blanchards, from the very first, with very carefully worded reports of what I have been doing. And you know how he dotes on Gussie. There is no way he would have let her know I was in any sort of scrape, even if he suspected it.’

‘You really are the most cunning creature.’ He frowned. ‘I would never have suspected you of such duplicity. Or of such reckless behaviour. Gideon was always the reckless twin.’

She smiled at him impishly. ‘You should have known that, as a member of the Latymor family, I had it within me to act in the most reprehensib

le, reckless manner. It was just that, until they told me that Gideon had died, I never had sufficient motive to step beyond the bounds of what is considered proper. I wasn’t really interested in anything but what Gideon was doing. I lived for his letters, or for him to come and tell me what he had been doing. It was as if,’ she pondered out loud, ‘he was the one who went out and lived life for both of us.’

‘But what, precisely, did you think you could achieve by coming to Brussels?’

‘I don’t know.’ Her voice wavered. ‘It was just that I couldn’t believe Gideon was dead. It was too dreadful. He was my life. Without him...’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t expect you to understand, but I felt I should have known if what they said was true. We always had this connection, you see. I was sure that if it had been broken, by death, I would have been aware.’

When she saw his lips twist cynically, she added hastily, ‘And then again, there was the Duke of Brunswick.’

‘The Duke of—?’

‘Brunswick. They brought his body to Antwerp. Laid it out in the inn for everyone to see. So I couldn’t understand why they hadn’t brought Gideon, too. But you all spent so much time telling me not to bother my head about things, whenever I used to ask questions you didn’t want to hear, that I got out of the habit of trying. I could see Blanchards patting me on the head, so to speak, and telling me not to make a fuss, because he didn’t want Gussie upset. And of course, it would have been unforgivable to have gone and wept all over Gussie and plagued her with all my worries while her own health is so uncertain. So there was nobody. I had nobody. But then I thought you would be bound to know the truth. Or would be able to find it out for me. So I came looking for you. Only when I got here nobody knew where you were, either.’

‘Did you really have to come right out to the battlefield to look for me, though?’