‘No.’
‘Then I am taking you home, now.’
‘Home?’ Home for Adam was a tent, or a bivouac in the ruins of a shelled building or lodgings, warm and honest and simple, like Maggie’s house. Family were his soldiers, his fellow officers, the whole army.
‘Yes, home. Can you stand?’ He took her arm as she came to her feet. ‘Best not to make a fuss about it, we’ll just slip out and I’ll send a footman with a message for your mother.’
‘I am all right.’ Sound had come back fully now and she was warm, almost too hot.
What have I done? I almost let him make his whole future a lie. Major Bartlett was right, I am trying to turn a wolf into my lapdog. I even forced him to mouth lies about love.
‘Take me back to Rue de Louvain, please.’ That was not home, not without Adam, but then, nowhere ever would be now.
He took her out of the garden through a conservatory, down a corridor, without meeting anyone until they reached the front door. Adam sent the footman off with the message then guided her out on to the street and hailed a hackney coach. ‘Faster than waiting for the carriage to be sent round,’ he said as he bundled her in, sat down and pulled her on to his lap. ‘There now. Tell me what the matter is. Just women’s troubles?’
‘Yes. No.’ To lie back against his chest was blissful indulgence. ‘That was…difficult.’
‘You are overtired.’ Adam settled back and closed his arms around her. ‘You’ll be better for a night’s sleep. It went very well. I was hearing the whispers all around the garden. The hard-to-please Miss Tatton has confounded everyone by choosing to take on the Latymor mongrel, with the subtext that I scrubbed up reasonably well and that as it isn’t a wedding at the point of a shotgun, then I must have hidden depths.’ He paused. ‘Or heights.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t put yourself down,’ she murmured into the knobbly front of his uniform jacket.
‘Calling myself a mongrel? But I am. Not my fault any more than it is my sister Sarah’s fault that she’s inherited the Latymor nose.’ Again that hesitation. ‘You want me to pretend I am something I am not?’
She hated that anything she said or did made Adam hesitant. ‘No. Never.’
‘Good, because we might fight if you did.’ He sounded more thoughtful than annoyed.
Tell me you love me, make me believe it. ‘Adam, you do love me, don’t you?’
He stared at her, eyes narrowed, as though he had scented danger. ‘Of course I do.’ The carriage juddered to a halt. ‘We’re here.’
Suddenly the way was quite clear. ‘Kiss me. Now.’
‘In a public hackney, on the street in broad daylight?’ When she twisted in his arms she saw he was smiling. Relief that she was not pursuing that awkward question of love, no doubt.
‘Yes, please.’
For a kiss that had to last her for the rest of her life it was not perfect. The carriage smelled of mould and tobacco. Adam was being careful, too careful, not to be anything but respectful. Rose breathed in deeply, filling her senses, her memory, with the scent of his skin, the smell of warm wool and clean linen, metal polish and leather soap and the faint tang of black powder that he never seemed to be able to wash off.
When he opened his arms and lifted his head she turned her face away, unable to meet his eyes, not wanting him to see the truth in hers, not able to cope with the well-meaning lie in his. ‘Goodbye. Don’t come in.’
‘All right.’ He climbed down, helped her descend, then took her arm as she climbed the steps to the front door that Heale was already opening. ‘Rest, Rose,’ he said and then she was inside and he was gone.
Chapter Twenty-One
‘What the blazes do you mean, she’s gone?’
Lady Thetford winced at the volume and sank back on to the sofa behind her handkerchief. Her husband thrust two letters and a small package at Flint. ‘See for yourself. The opened letter was to me, but read that, too.’
The package was obviously his ring. Adam shoved it into his pocket and thrust a thumb under the sealing wax on the letter with his name.
I am sorry, Adam, but it will all be my fault, no one will blame you, they will all be too busy talking about my dreadful reputation for refusing men…
I know you don’t love me, that it was a well-meant untruth. You have always been so honest with me, so I could tell this was different, that you were making yourself say those words. Even so, I let myself believe you would have more choices, more freedom married to me. That you’d be safer.
That was foolish. Major Bartlett made me see that. He says you are the best artillery officer he knows. I should have realised that safety and comfort and choice don’t matter if you are doing what you were born to do. It seems that loving you doesn’t make me understand you. It only made me find excuses for selfishly keeping you. And it forced you to lie to me.
You saved my life, you saved my reason and you showed me another world. I won’t marry anyone else, I wouldn’t want to—not after you. But I am going to find something useful to do with my life…the life you gave back to me.