A Mistress for Major Bartlett (Brides of Waterloo)

‘It will make you feel better.’

‘Just looking at you makes me feel better.’

‘I wish that were true,’ she said tartly. ‘Then looking after you wouldn’t be half so much work.’

‘Why are you doing this, then?’

‘Because...I...I...well, if you don’t get well again I will never forgive myself.’

‘Not your fault.’

‘I will feel as if it is if you die on me,’ she said glumly.

‘You don’t want me to die?’

‘Of course I don’t want you to die. How can you even ask?’

‘Better dead. Nothing to live for really. Just got into the habit.’

‘Well it’s about the only habit of yours, from what I’ve heard of you, that I don’t want you to break.’

‘You’re crying again. Didn’t mean to make you cry.’

‘Well, then stop talking about dying and concentrate on getting better.’

‘And now you’re angry.’

‘Of course I’m angry. Hasn’t there been enough death already? Stop it, Tom. Stop it right now.’

He reached out and found her hand.

‘Sorry. Will try and do better.’

‘Promise me?’

‘If it means that much to you,’ he said slowly, hardly able to credit that anyone could really care that much whether he lived or died, ‘then, yes.’

After that, every time he felt the pit yawning at his back, he reached for the angel. She was always there. Even when he was too exhausted to drag his eyes open and look for her, he could tell she was near. He only had to smell the faint fragrance of violets for a wave of profound relief to wash through him. For it was her scent. And it meant she hadn’t left him.

He’d thought he would always be alone. But she hadn’t left him to his fate. And had promised she wouldn’t.

‘Hush,’ she whispered, smo

othing that cool balm over his burning face and neck. ‘Don’t fret. You are going to be fine. I won’t let anything happen to you.’

* * *

He doubted her only the once, very briefly. When he thought he saw the brigade surgeon hovering over him like a great vulture.

She couldn’t have saved his life, only to turn him over to that ghoul, could she? The man liked nothing better than cutting up poor helpless victims, to see what made them tick. Oh, he said he was trying to cure them, but he spent far too much time writing up his findings in all those leather journals. The journals that were going to make his name some day. His findings, he called them.

Cold sweat broke out all over him at the prospect of falling into his hands. He’d cut him up, for sure. Lay his kidneys out in a tray.

‘Lieutenant...’ He had to screw up his face. ‘What’s the name?’ Foster, that was it. ‘Angel...’ He thought he didn’t care whether he lived or died, but the prospect of being dissected in the name of science?

‘Don’t let him cut me up.’

* * *