He had become a soldier, like many a lad before him making the best of a difficult home life, a limited upbringing. And then he had made himself, remade himself, as an officer, as a gentleman. And now he was going to have to remake himself all over again.
‘And now…’ The sentence petered out. She had no words of comfort, only platitudes. Adam had to work this out for himself.
Old Nick tossed his head, a solid blow between Adam’s shoulder blades that pushed him the final few inches against her body. ‘And now, what I do know is that I am your lover, Rose.’ He lifted her, his hands at her waist, and carried her, his mouth hard on hers, the few long strides that brought her against the wall.
‘Hold on,’ he rasped before his kiss sucked the air from her lungs.
Rose clung to his shoulders, curled an arm around his neck and by instinct hooked her leg up, over his hip. ‘Adam.’ She managed a gasp when he came up for air. ‘Here?’
‘Here. Now. Like this.’ Somehow he wedged her firmly enough to be able to free a hand and pull up her skirts, bundling them into the small space between their bodies. She felt him fumbling with the falls of his trousers and then he was against her, insistent flesh against her own damp, yearning softness.
A voice said, ‘Yes, Adam. Yes, now.’ She recognised it as hers, recognised a desperate need that matched his.
He shifted, pressed into her, held her against the rough boards as he impaled her. ‘Rose, forgive me, but I can’t be gentle.’
‘Good. Stop talking,’ she gasped and heard the huff of laughter shaken out of him as he buried his face in the angle of her neck and thrust. It was completely without finesse, relentless, yet she came apart in his arms on the first stoke, shuddering around him as he drove into her.
‘Again.’
‘Adam, I can’t.’
‘Yes. Come with me. Again.’
Through the ebbing shock waves of pleasure she felt another surge growing, realised that she had both legs wrapped around his hips and that her mouth was fastened on his neck, the taste of desire and man and heat on her tongue.
‘Now,’ he demanded and she obeyed, cresting another impossible wave of pleasure, her body arching into his, her cries muffled against his neck as he groaned and shuddered and went rigid against her. Inside her.
Afterwards Rose had no idea how long they stayed like that, locked together against the stable wall. The sound of a hoof stamping on the stone floor finally shook Adam out of the trance.
‘Old Nick approves,’ he said, a grim smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. ‘Two things he understands, sex and violence.’ He helped her on to unsteady feet. ‘Did I hurt you, Rose? I’m sorry.’
‘No, I don’t think so. I didn’t notice, it was too good. I hurt you, though.’ She reached up to touch the red mark at the angle of throat and shoulder. ‘I bit you.’
‘I didn’t notice—it was too good,’ Adam echoed. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, dipped in a bucket of water, wrung it out and offered it to her. ‘There, just until you can get to your room.’ He turned aside to give her privacy for a moment, then spun back, his face stark with realisation. ‘Hell, Rose, I didn’t withdraw. I could have got you with child.’
Surely a heart cannot stop from alarm, can it? Rose gasped, breathless with sudden panic until the sheer horror on Adam’s face acted like a slap on the cheek.
‘Unlikely, surely, after just the once?’ she said as calmly as she knew how. When are my courses due? About two weeks? Not long to have to wait.
‘It only takes once.’ Adam still looked grim. ‘We’ll marry.’
It was hardly a resounding declaration of devoted love, Rose thought miserably, more a statement along the lines of, Impossible odds, but we attack at dawn. Or, All the ammunition has gone, fix bayonets.
‘No we will not. Not unless it is absolutely necessary,’ she said with a brisk confidence she was far from feeling. ‘I promised you I did not expect marriage. Stop looking like that, Adam. We were both carried away.’
The expression on his face said as clearly as words that he did not consider she had any responsibility in the matter whatsoever.
Chapter Eleven
‘I’ll go in. Give me a moment.’ By some miracle her hair was not the bird’s nest she feared. Rose pushed in some pins, brushed dust from her skirts and walked out of the stable as briskly as her trembling legs would allow her. Once she was round the corner she sat down with a thump on the mounting block. There was the sound of tramping feet and the little yard was full of the men forming up in ranks, shouldering packs and weapons.
‘Where are you going?’ Rose asked Hawkins.
‘Roosbos, which is where we were based before Quatre Bras.’ He looked at her, a very straight, fatherly look. ‘You take care of yourself, Miss Rose.’
‘I will. Good luck, Sergeant.’ She managed a bright smile as she went down the row of men, wishing them goodbye. And then they were gone, marching out of the yard, out of her life, the motley crew of brave, foul-mouthed artillerymen, some of them rogues in more than name, all of them unlike anyone she had ever had contact with before.
Rose drifted into the strangely quiet kitchen, then jumped as Moss shouldered his way through the door and dumped a load of sheets into the boiler in the lean-to. ‘Lord, but those lads made a lot of work. Still, I’m sorry to see them go. They’re forming up at Roosbos while they wait to see what Wellington wants them to do. Could be Paris, could be home to England, could be the Lord knows where.’