&nbs
p; ‘You mean you don’t know? He isn’t here?’ Momentary alarm flitted across her face. ‘Well, I still hold you to blame. And I’m going to make you both sorry you ever set foot in Brussels!’
She was gone before Rose could speak. They heard her run down the stairs, then the front door slammed behind her.
‘Are you all right, Rose?’ Adam asked in the echoing silence. When she nodded and got up from her tangle of sheets, he remarked, ‘You guessed that was my half-sister, Lady Sarah? Sounds as though Bartlett is up and about if she’s misplaced him. That’s good news by the sound of it. He’s not with her and he can take over from me if it comes to it.’
‘Over your dead body, from what she said about his pistols. Adam, I am so sorry. You won’t fight him, will you?’
Lady Sarah knew who she was. But if she told Adam that now he would chase after his sister, demand to be told Rose’s real name. And she wanted to discover her identity and come to terms with it before she told Adam. Leave it today, instinct told her. Go tomorrow. She could recall the address Lieutenant Foster had blushingly revealed. Surely if she spoke to Sarah calmly, without Adam there to inflame her, she would help.
‘I’m not dead yet and Tom Bartlett has more sense than to issue a challenge, let alone commit murder, on the say-so of my little sister.’ Adam seemed unaware that her silence was anything more than shock over the scene. ‘The man was the worst rakehell in the regiment, Rose. Even if he’s fallen head over heels in love and reformed, he’s not going to forget that. He knows as well as I do that he shouldn’t have been with Sarah.
‘If they are lovers, he is going to have to marry her.’ He raked his hands through his hair. ‘I’d have said he’d make a worse husband than I would, but the girl’s got guts and determination, I’ll say that for her. Perhaps she can cope with him.’
Adam was dressing with the economy and speed of a man used to dawn emergencies. ‘Have a decent breakfast, then sit down quietly and see what you can recall and I’ll be back by noon.’
He took her in a swift one-armed embrace, his kiss rapid, hard and possessive. ‘Find out who you really are, Rose. And then be prepared to choose a wedding gown.’ He clattered down the stairs, called ‘Good morning’ to Maggie and was out of the front door, before she could react.
*
Rose took her slips of paper to the kitchen and sorted them on the table as she ate sweet rolls and sipped Maggie’s strong coffee in an effort to calm her stomach. If she could remember who she was without having to rely on Lady Sarah, so much the better. She had an uncomfortable feeling they had never been friends.
Maggie had frowned when she heard who the visitor had been. ‘Spoiled little madam by the look of her. She’ll make trouble if she can.’
‘Childhood… My likes and dislikes. England. People,’ Rose muttered as she shifted the slips around into piles and tried to ignore Maggie’s warnings.
‘Why don’t you want to marry the major?’ Maggie demanded, demolishing Rose’s attempts to duck the issue. She planted herself on the opposite seat and reached for the butter.
‘I don’t know who I am and neither does he. And all Adam said about marriage before he realised I wasn’t a camp follower was that he wasn’t the marrying kind. So he doesn’t want to marry me. Or marry at all.’
‘There are plenty of things in life we don’t want to do—it doesn’t mean that things aren’t worse if we do what we like.’
‘That’s what Mama said to Papa when he didn’t want to go to dinner with the Hutchinsons around the corner in Rue du Nord,’ Rose said, half-listening to Maggie as she pushed the papers around. ‘He said Mr Hutchinson’s a bore and Mama said, “James Tatton, for once in your life do…”’ Her voice trailed off as she stared at Maggie. ‘I remember. I know who I am! I’m Catherine Tatton and Papa is Lord Thetford and we’ve been living in Rue de Louvain for six months because it is so cheap over here in Brussels and Papa wants to economise.’
‘A lord?’ Maggie had turned pale. ‘Oh, my goodness,’ she added faintly. ‘You’re Lady Catherine.’
‘No. Papa is a viscount. I’m just Miss Tatton.’
Maggie was fanning herself with a napkin. ‘Just? A viscount’s daughter in my house and in Adam Flint’s bed. Now what are we going to do? And what is the major going to say when he finds out?’
‘I’m going home and I’ll tell my parents something. Something so Adam won’t have to marry me or ruin his career or change his life,’ Rose said grimly. ‘He saved me and I am not letting him do this to himself.’
*
It was not so very far to the smart rented house on Rue de Louvain, not if you ran, the breath sobbing in your throat until it was raw, and not if you went by the steep steps up the hill past the cathedral towards the Parc and the fashionable quarter.
It took her twenty minutes. Rose arrived gasping and clung to the railings of the house at the end of the street while she fought for composure. Her breakfast rolls lay like lead in her stomach, she felt dizzy with the implications of what she had remembered and what she must do.
She had to look perfect. Untouched, ladylike. Not a bedraggled victim, not a ruined woman. She smoothed down the skirts of the walking dress, tucked an errant lock of hair back under the brim of her bonnet and fanned her flushed face with her pocket handkerchief while she rehearsed her story.
There was no escaping the fact that she had eloped. She could tell the truth about that, about what happened on the battlefield, about how Major Flint had rescued her. How he had taken her to stay with the respectable wife of his old sergeant. There was no need to say anything about her relationship with the major, except to tell how gallant he had been. All Adam had to do when her father called on him with his grateful thanks was to look starched up and modest and mutter about doing his duty towards defenceless females.
Her breathing was back to normal and her face felt no more flushed than could be excused by emotion, although the churning in her stomach was pure nerves now. Just as long as her courses came when they were due, everything would be all right. Rose started to walk in a ladylike manner towards the house. It would be wonderful to see Mama and Papa again, but it would be harrowing, too. They must have been frantic with worry and that was all her fault.
She was halfway to the door when it opened and someone came out. A young lady in a forget-me-not-blue spencer and a darker blue bonnet paused on the top step, opened her pretty little ivory silk parasol and made her way down to the pavement and then along the street towards the Parc. She was too late. Lady Sarah Latymor had taken her revenge on Adam.
There was no going back now, her plans were in tatters and there were no lies or evasions that could serve. Rose forced her unwilling feet on, up the steps and knocked.