A Rose for Major Flint (Brides of Waterloo)

‘Oh?’ Flint spun round the upright chair so the back was towards her and straddled it, his arms along the top rail, its wooden frame a fence against the urge to touch her, pull her into bed and make love to her until they were both convinced this was the only thing to do, without any further argument.

‘Miss Endacott. She came round today with your notebook. She might guess…’

Flint scrubbed one hand over his face and sighed. ‘Rose, you have a very strange idea of male honour. I will not pretend I have had nothing to do with you and I do not care if anyone else knows or not. I have ruined you and I will marry you.’

Rose reached out and closed her fingers around his as they clenched on the chair rail. ‘Shall we go to bed, Adam?’

‘You have just refused to marry me. Have you changed your mind so quickly?’ The words seemed to come from a long way down. Was she going to yield and agree without any further struggle?

‘One might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb,’ Rose said with a shrug. ‘There is nothing we can do tonight except argue ourselves into knots. I want to be hugged. I want to hug you.’ She looked at him and bit her lip, but not before he saw the betraying tremor. ‘We don’t have to make love, if you don’t want to.’

‘I’ll always want to make love to you, Rose.’ And he wanted to sit in the corner and howl like a dog, but that was not an option. He had a duty to Randall if the man was at death’s door. He had a duty to Rose. He had a duty to his own hard-won sense of honour and to the army in which he was still an officer. He was sick of duty. ‘But I am not going to make things any worse than they already are. A hug sounds tempting.’

He wondered, fleetingly, if he could simply seduce her into compliance, make love to her until she was too befuddled to protest any longer. No, she had to agree because her head told her this was right. But agree she would. From somewhere he dredged up a smile, a lightness in his voice, and was rewarded by her answering smile. A somewhat uncertain one, to be true.

‘Can you manage the fastenings on that gown?’ Heaven preserve him from having to unbutton it, wrestle with stay laces, feel her skin warm under his fingers as he unwrapped her like a delicious ripe fruit nestled in tissue paper.

‘Yes, thank you.’ Her eyes were cast down, there was colour on her cheekbones. Somehow not having sex was more embarrassing than the intimacies themselves, it seemed. She went to her own room and closed the door.

Flint shrugged, undressed, fell into his own bed and wondered whether he wanted Rose to come to him or not. He had decided she was staying in her room and his hand was on the edge of the covers, ready to get out and snuff the candles, when her door opened and she came out clad in a nightgown that fitted her, made from a filmy lawn that fluttered around her ankles. He closed his eyes and waited, focused on his breathing and not the uncomfortable excitement that the sight provoked. Obviously he had sinned very badly if this temptation was to be his punishment. There was a soft huff of breath and she dealt with the lights, then she slid in beside him, turned trustingly into his arms and laid her cheek on his chest, her hand on his shoulder.

He had endured sleepless nights before, Flint told himself. This time it would be his conscience keeping him awake, not the fear of French snipers.

Chapter Twelve

‘Adam, what are we to do first?’ Rose sat up against the pillows and watched Adam shave, the long, steady strokes of the blade cutting through the foam-covered bristles to leave a track of shining skin behind it. His chin was tipped up, displaying the strong lines of his throat, and his hands were sure on the ebony handle as he wielded the razor.

He was naked except for a damp linen towel slung around his hips. It seemed, if anything, to enhance the sheer masculinity of his body. Rose told herself it was only natural to want to look at him like this. There was no surplus fat on him, nothing that was not necessary to make a strong, supple fighting machine out of a frame that was naturally tall, broad and perfectly proportioned.

Rose jerked her mind back to all the things they had to be worried about. There were enough of those, surely, to counteract inconvenient physical attraction? She had slept all night, safe and peaceful in Adam’s arms, but the dawn had brought no answers.

Adam flicked soap off the razor. ‘I must call on Randall, find out about this operation. Then I will go to headquarters, talk to the surgeon, see how Bartlett is. After that I’ll find out if anyone has been asking after your Lieutenant Gerald. While I’m away you can go back to your notes and do your level best to remember more. We’ve got days to resolve this, Rose, not weeks.’

Should I tell him I can recall my first name? But that wouldn’t help, it would simply be confusing. She couldn’t think of herself as Catherine.

‘I know. I’ll try, I promise. Adam—’

‘Hush.’ There was the sound of knocking at the front door. Adam took a last stroke with the razor and wiped his face, his head cocked to one side, listening.

‘It is a woman’s voice. Miss Endacott with news, perhaps?’ Rose suggested as she reached towards the end of the bed for a wrapper. The caller sounded agitated.

There was silence, then the bedchamber door was flung open so hard it slammed back against the wall. From the foot of the stairs came Maggie’s voice raised in protest, ignored by the young woman who stood there, clenching a frivolous little parasol like a weapon. Her fashionable ensemble seemed to have been flung on in haste, her blond hair was already coming loose where she had jammed it under her bonnet.

She swept into the room, apparently uncaring about Adam’s near nudity or Rose watching aghast, half in, half out of bed. She stalked up to Adam and poked him in the chest with one ungloved finger. ‘Justin is going to die and it is all your fault, you horrible man!’

Rose gasped and the intruder spun round. Her jaw dropped and for a moment they stared at each other. Rose met furious blue eyes that were suddenly very familiar. This was Adam’s sister, Lady Sarah Latymor.

‘You!’ Recognition and surprise quenched the fury for a moment.

She knows me? ‘Lady Sarah, who am—?’ Rose’s foot tangled with the bedsheet and she landed on the floor in a sprawl of limbs.

Adam took a step towards her, but she waved him away. Perhaps he could calm his furious half-sister down and then she would tell Rose just what her real name was.

Sarah rounded on Adam again. ‘You hypocrite! You storm and shout at me about immorality, you put Justin’s life in danger by telling tales, you pretend to be so sanctimonious with your protestations about how young ladies should behave. You called poor Tom a rake and accused him of corrupting my innocence while all the time you have your own little love nest here. You say I am ruined—well, what about her?’ She pointed a quivering finger at Rose.

‘At least I am with a gentleman. You are going to be sorry you ever crawled out of your gutter, Adam Flint! If Justin survives he’ll see you drummed out of the army—if Tom hasn’t killed you first. To think I told him it was a stupid idea to shoot you. I should have loaded his pistols for him and sent him straight after you when I had the chance!’

Adam reached for his robe and pulled it on. ‘Stop ranting, you foolish chit. Is Bartlett recovered?’