A Mistress for Major Bartlett (Brides of Waterloo)

‘Really?’ He grinned at her. ‘I must say I’m flattered by this display of jealousy. Even if it is slightly insulting of you to assume I might be so inconstant. Because it means you care.’ He sobered as it hit him again what a lucky dog he was. ‘You really care.’

‘Of course I care. Can’t you tell by the way I’m willing to be cut off from my family, and live in some foreign land while you command some revolutionary army? On your wages, too, once Justin cuts me off.’

‘Yes.’ His face fell. ‘Loving me is going to condemn you to a lifetime of penury and disgrace. I wouldn’t blame Colonel Randall if he reached for his pistols the moment I set foot in his room.’

‘Then take me with you. He won’t shoot you in front of me.’

‘No.’ His face set in harsh lines. ‘I’m not going to hide behind your skirts. Nor let him think for a moment I would do so.’ He bent and gave her a swift kiss.

And, having set his jaw with determination, strode from the room to face whatever punishment Colonel Randall decided to mete out.

* * *

It was awful, being alone in this room, knowing Tom was facing Justin’s wrath. Now she knew how he must have felt yesterday, when she’d been the one to go out. She lay in bed, for a while, imagining all the dozens of methods Justin could employ to part them. Though he couldn’t, legally, prevent them from marrying. She wasn’t under age.

She flung the covers aside in vexation. Tom might have worked himself into such a state that by the time she came home, he’d convinced himself she was going to leave him, but she was a Latymor. She would never, never, fail.

So she would just have to find something to do to keep her mind off Tom’s interview with Justin. Though what?

And then she thought of Mary Endacott. Probably breaking her heart somewhere, over Justin. Because it sounded as though, even after all she’d done for him, Justin had been perfectly beastly to her, or she wouldn’t have sounded so utterly defeated in that note she’d written. There wasn’t much she could do about Mary’s broken heart. Only Justin could fix that. But she could at least go and apologise to her, properly, for her part in it.

She rang for some hot water. Apologising probably wouldn’t do any good. Mary had never responded to any of her overtures of friendship even before the disaster that had been the Duchess of Richmond’s ball. But she wouldn’t feel right if she didn’t make the attempt to offer what comfort she could. And explain Gideon’s motives for stealing the sword that had become such an issue between Mary and Justin.

Besides, if she stayed in this room all morning, wringing her hands and worrying over what Justin was doing to Tom, she’d end up positively demented.

Chapter Seventeen

His collar was too tight. There was a smudge of dust on his left boot. His bandages made him look ridiculous.

Good God. For the first time in his life, Tom actually cared what the person about to give him a trimming thought of him.

‘You can go in now,’ said Robbins, more dour-faced than usual.

‘Well?’ Colonel Randall glared at him from a bank of snowy-white pillows. With eyes that were so very much like Sarah’s. ‘What have you to say for yourself?’

Where to start? He ought to be giving an account of his movements. Report that he was fit for duty.

‘I’m in love with your sister, sir,’ he blurted, his normal laconic attitude towards superior officers totally deserting him. ‘I’m aware you must think it a great piece of impertinence.’

Randall gave a low growl.

‘I suppose I’d better resign my commission.’

Randall’s eyes narrowed.

‘She’s already told me you intend to cut off her money,’ Tom explained. ‘So there’s no point in asking for your blessing, is there?’

‘None whatever.’

‘Even so, I do ask you for it. Oh, not for me. I know I don’t deserve it. I know I’m not fit to fasten her boots, let alone marry her. But, have you considered how unhappy it will make her, to be so entirely cut off from her family? She says she doesn’t care, but I’m not sure she fully understands what it would mean.’

‘There is an obvious solution. Give her up.’

Tom gave a wry smile. ‘Do you think I haven’t tried? She hunted me down and dragged me back when I tried to do the decent thing. She’s even said she’d rather be my mistress than live without me. Naturally, I couldn’t treat her so shabbily. No, I’m going to have to marry her, sir. With or without your blessing.’

Randall glowered at him in silence for so long that Tom could hear his heart pounding in his ears.

‘She says she needs me, sir,’ he added. ‘It’s because she’s lost Gideon, you don’t need to tell me that. She clung to the dog to start with. I suppose you might think I’ve taken its place in her affections. She certainly picked me up out of the mud the same way she rescued that flea-bitten cur. And you may not believe me, given my reputation—’ he could feel his cheeks heating ‘—but I would be as faithful to her as a hound.’