A Rose for Major Flint (Brides of Waterloo)

‘Well, then, we cannot be certain. And I am not going to lie to your father, whether you are with child or not. I do try to at least counterfeit some pretence of honour.’

‘I wish you would stop doing that,’ she snapped. Flint raised an eyebrow at the sudden flare of temper from the woman changing before his eyes into a lady he did not know. ‘Stop putting yourself down. You are an officer and you have made yourself a gentleman.’

‘And you are exceedingly naive, Rose. Unless your father has a gullible candidate lined up, then we are going to be married once I have given him whatever satisfaction he requires, but I can assure you, he will know exactly what I am.’

‘I do not know if I wish to marry you.’ Rose turned on her heel and went into the main bedchamber. It was clearly a retreat.

‘What has that got to do with it?’ Of course she did not want to marry him. All she’d wanted, like all the well-bred ladies who made eyes at him, was his body in her bed. ‘Just when did you realise you were a gentlewoman?’ Flint demanded, staying close on her heels. There was no way she was going to wriggle out of this, or charm him out of doing the right thing. ‘Before you got between my sheets?’

‘I realised when you were talking about Lady Sarah being ruined. I was beginning to piece things together,’ she admitted.

‘You knew the consequences of what we did. How in heaven’s name can you say you do not want to marry me after that? The scandal is going to be bad enough as it is, but if we don’t marry it will be infinitely worse and you know it.’

‘Because I do not know myself.’ Rose threw up her hands in obvious frustration and began to pace. ‘I know how I feel about you now. I admire you, I feel safe with you, I like you. I desire you. But I am not the real me, now. I am changing, you must have seen it. I am not the frightened, speechless, helpless creature you rescued. What will I be when I am my real self again? What will I think and feel when I know who I am, when my memory comes back?’

‘You will think you were a damn fool.’ Rose flinched at the roughness in his tone, the language, but he did not relent. ‘You will bitterly regret that desire. You will certainly not want to find yourself married to me, my lady, but married you will be.’

‘Not Lady. Miss, I am certain,’ Rose said, coming to a stop right in front of him.

‘Oh, that is excellent news, I am relieved,’ he jibed, fighting with the only weapon he had, words. ‘A viscount or below for a father. At least I have not ruined a duke’s daughter.’

‘I do not know myself,’ she repeated, standing her ground, toe to toe with him as if that would somehow make him take her more seriously. His words, his sarcasm, his bitterness slid off her skin as though she recognised them for what they were, a desperate deceit.

‘You don’t know me, either, but that did not stop you coming to my bed,’ Flint pointed out.

‘Yes, I do,’ Rose said slowly. He saw himself reflected in the wide, honest depths of her eyes, saw his own bitterness staring back. ‘I knew who you were the moment I saw you, Adam Flint. Even when I thought you were the Devil himself come to take me down to hell for my sins, I trusted you.’

‘You thought I was the Devil?’

‘I thought the men who were coming for me were demons, but you vanquished them. You smelt of fire and brimstone and blood and you rode a great black horse. It was the only way to make sense of the world I found myself in.’

‘Rose.’ Flint took her shoulders. Within his grasp they felt as fragile as eggshells. He made himself keep the hold gentle, acutely aware of how big and calloused his hands were. He must not drag her towards him, kiss her until she yielded. ‘We will find your parents and I will marry you.’ And somehow I will make it right for you.

‘You do not want to,’ she said stubbornly, her eyes fixed on the topmost button of his jacket.

‘Yes, I do. I was thinking about it today.’ He banished all the doubt from his tone, pushed away the uncertainty, the vagueness of his plans. When you were leading men into a situation you knew was lethally dangerous, but your orders gave you no choice, you put just that certainty into your voice. It wasn’t deceit, it was survival and he’d always come through alive before. He had dishonoured her, so he must marry her. It was that simple. That complicated.

‘Liar. In the stable you were far from sure about anything.’ Her voice shook, just a little.

He forgot to be gentle, simply pulled her hard against his chest and wrapped his arms around her and felt her tremble. His anger ebbed a little with the realisation of just how frightened and confused Rose was for all her composure and her brave words. ‘I would fight any man who called me a liar.’

‘There is no time for this. You’ll be leaving for Paris soon,’ Rose muttered, her voice muffled in broadcloth. She had been washing her hair in something herbal again. Rosemary, lemon and a herb he could not identify.

Flint closed his eyes. ‘I told you, my orders are to stay here in Brussels. I have no expectation of being ordered to Paris.’

‘But you will be sent somewhere eventually, won’t you? Moss seems to think so. Or you’ll be ordered back to England or off to somewhere else unless you sell out now and I don’t believe you’ll forget the army, just like that. Wellington isn’t going to let you sit around in Brussels, finding my parents. Then you’ll need to arrange what you are doing next, join the East India Company. I heard you talking about it.’

‘I will resign.’ He could not drag Rose to India or to follow the drum in whatever foreign land he ended up. Nor could he leave her alone in England while he was away for months, years. He avoided examining why it was that fellow officers routinely left their wives behind, but he could not contemplate it.

He held her, his cheek against the crown of her head and felt himself relax, just a little. There was a certain relief in having the decision taken away. This was what must happen and now all he had to do was to make it work, however unpleasant the process.

‘No! Adam, you can’t do that.’ She strained back against his arm to look up into his face. ‘You are a soldier, an officer. This is what you do, who you are. And you need time to decide what to do next, not be pushed into a marriage you don’t want. I can’t do that to you.’

‘But I can. I don’t want to be a peacetime soldier, putting down unrest in the industrial towns or marching about Hyde Park firing gun salutes as one of Prinny’s toy soldiers.’ He buried the other options, the other armies, the other wars.

‘No.’ Rose wriggled free and sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘You can’t make a rushed decision. What about India? What about the German states? Moss said you’d be a general. I’ll find my parents, we’ll soon see I am not pregnant, they don’t need to know where I was. Oh…’