I ran away with a man called Gerald. We were going to get married. It was the night before Quatre Bras.
I realised almost at once I had been foolish, that I was not in love with him. He was very handsome—the uniform… Idiotic of me. But it was too late then. I had to stay with him. I’d promised.
I spent the night in his tent but we didn’t… After the big battle I looked for him. He is dead. I forgot I could write until I saw Maggie this morning.
I am sorry. I don’t remember much else, just little snatches.
Adam picked up the paper. She made herself watch the strong, long-fingered, scarred hand and not his face. The paper was quite steady in his grip. After a minute he laid it down again. ‘Could you speak before the battle?’
Yes. Until I found him. His head…half his face…was gone. I wanted to scream, but nothing would come out. The scream is still there, somewhere, and words won’t come.
He was reading as she wrote, one hand resting on her shoulder, his weight pressing a little as he leaned over, his body warm, close. It should have made her feel safe. When she put down the pen he pushed the cork into the ink bottle. ‘It is shock. Probably another one will bring your voice and your memory back.’ His hand brushed against her cheek as he straightened. She thought it was an accident, for his voice held no tenderness. ‘Or time will. Go to bed now, Rose.’
When she looked towards the rumpled bed he shook his head. ‘I need to sleep and to think. And I will not do either with you in my arms. Go to your own room.’
His voice was not unkind now, but she could sense the banked anger. With me or with himself?
She would have ignored his words, walked into his arms, tried everything she could to change his mind, then she saw the shadows under his eyes like the bruises left by the pressure of a thumb, saw the darkness in that blue gaze. He did not take what had just happened between them at all lightly and he was exhausted. And he says he is no gentleman, she thought with a wry smile as she turned and did as he asked.
Sleep refused to come in her narrow, lonely bed. Her body was sore and restless. Rose felt cheated, as though she had been allowed the tiniest taste of something wonderful and then it had been snatched away. She moved, turned and heard the answering creak of bed ropes in the other room. Adam was not sleeping either.
Now the initial shock was past the realisation was creeping over her that she had hurt him very badly. He had not been born a gentleman and his sense of honour had been hard-won, something he held to himself like a shield. She had breached that, unwittingly led him to behave in a way he despised.
The temptation to go to him was like a physical force. To distract herself Rose got up, lit a candle and got out the slips of paper she had covered in notes. Each slip had one remembered fact or impression and she began to sort them out on the coverlet, searching for links and patterns.
I am a gentlewoman from a family that is comfortably off. I have a mother and father still living and I take after my mother in looks. Our home is somewhere in England but we have been in Brussels for…months? Weeks? Why?
I am well educated. I can ride and play the piano and sew. I play the harp very badly. I was at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball. I was dazzled by a handsome face, a red coat and a dashing soldier who proved to be just a frightened boy, full of bravado.
And I am twenty-three years old.
Something about that stuck her as strange. Why was she not married, not betrothed? Am I on the shelf? Faint echoes of arguments came back. ‘Why are you so stubborn? So fussy? So independent? You’ll be left in the wallflowers’ corner if you don’t stop turning suitors down, my girl…’
With a sigh she stacked the notes away, blew out the candle, burrowed down into the softness of the bed and willed sleep to come.
*
Hours later Flint lay and stared up into the darkness. His thoughts had circled all night, broken by snatches of restless sleep. R
ose. A decent girl who had fallen for a pretty face and a scarlet coat and who’d had the sense to realise she had made a mistake, and the loyalty and courage to stick with her promise. By some miracle he had not been quite as tired, or as randy, as he’d thought himself, he’d withdrawn as soon as he had realised and at least there was little chance of a pregnancy. But the damage was done all the same.
He scrubbed his hands over his bristly jaw. Oh, yes, a fine first experience that must have been, crushed under an unshaven, angry, aroused man using less finesse than a rutting bull. The courage of the woman struck him again like a slap in the face of his conscience. Never once in all of this had she wept, except those few tears when she thought he had rejected her. Not on the battlefield, not when she found herself dumb, lost and confused amongst strangers, not when he ordered her about, not when he took her innocence.
Rose had guts and grace and she deserved more of him. As an officer and a man he deserved more of himself than to treat her as a whore. He turned over yet again, seeking for a cool spot in the creased bedding, his nostrils full of the scent of her. Could he find Rose a decent man to marry? Something in him revolted at the thought although he did not understand why. Perhaps it was simply that he did not want to force her into anything until she had voice and memory back. He owed her that, at least, he thought as he dozed again.
*
The scream brought him out of bed before he could make sense of the sound. Attack! He stumbled towards his sword in the corner, dragged his eyes open on to the faint light of dawn.
Chapter Seven
‘Aah!’ It was wordless, desperate.
Flint flung open the door of Rose’s room. She was thrashing amongst the sheets, her eyes closed, her face contorted in anguish as yet another scream was wrenched from her throat.
‘Rose, wake up!’ He fell to his knees, dragged her into his arms as the door to his room crashed open.
‘Sir!’