A Rose for Major Flint (Brides of Waterloo)

‘Good morning, Miss Tatton.’ He turned from handing his shako and gloves to Heale.

‘Good morning.’ She moderated her headlong rush down the hall to a ladylike glide. ‘Do come into the drawing room. Mama and Papa will be down directly.’ Heale opened the door for them and then, very properly, left it wide open.

‘What is wrong, Miss Tatton?’ Adam was as correctly turned out as the day before.

‘Adam, please call me Rose. I cannot get used to being Catherine or Miss Tatton.’ Especially not from you. ‘I keep finding someone has been speaking to me for a good minute without me realising.’ She frowned at him. ‘You have had your hair cut again.’

‘Is that all that is wrong?’ He rested one booted foot on the low fender rail and seemed intent on checking the highly polished leather for scuffs.

‘Your hair? No, although I prefer it longer.’ It had curled strong and soft between her fingers as she ran them into it when he kissed her. Now she closed her hands tight to stop herself reaching for him. ‘No, it is nothing really. Just my name and the fact that I miss Maggie and Moss and that cosy kitchen.’ And feeling so guilty about her parents and frightened because being in familiar surroundings had not yet brought all of her memory back.

Adam glanced towards the door and stood up straight. ‘Good morning, Lady Thetford, my lord.’

Rose noticed that her mother barely inclined her head in acknowledgment although her father returned the greeting.

‘Catherine, do you have your prayer book?’ Her mother fussed around her, rather too obviously not looking at Adam. At breakfast Lord Thetford had had to remark sharply that this was the Sabbath before she had stopped declaring that she would be seen in church with that man over her dead body.

‘Yes, Mama. And money for the collection plate.’ And a clean handkerchief and a large and brooding artillery officer.

Her father had ordered the landau with the roof down and the pair of match bays in harness. He and Adam settled opposite the ladies and embarked on a stilted discussion of horses while Lady Thetford sat, fidgeted with her parasol and glanced around as if expecting crowds of hissing ladies, all pointing at Rose and crying scandal.

It was hardly worth taking the carriage—the chapel was at no great distance for a summer’s day stroll—but Mama liked to be seen in such a smart equipage and, as she had pointed out the evening before, appearances were even more important now that her daughter was teetering on the brink of disgrace.

In Rose’s opinion the large English community in Brussels attended the weekly Protestant service at the Chapel Royal as much for the social event as for devotional purposes. Certainly the latest hats and smartest outfits were being flaunted in the morning sunshine as ladies gathered in small gossiping knots in the square. Rose swallowed hard. This would be worse than her first appearance at Almack’s under the critical eye of all the patronesses.

But her father had timed their arrival well. The bell was ringing and the congregation began to enter the building as their carriage drew up. By the time Lady Thetford had fussed her skirts into perfect order, dropped her prayer book, twitched Rose’s bonnet ribbons and taken her husband’s arm, they were able to join the stragglers without attracting attention.

Adam crooked his elbow and Rose placed her fingertips carefully on his forearm, resisting the temptation to cling on tightly. ‘Do you have your own pew?’ he asked as they stepped into the shadowy interior with its ornate white marble and grey-veined pillars.

‘No, not an allocated one. Mama likes to be about halfway down the aisle on the right though. Have you not attended services here before? They alternate between German and French. It is French today.’

‘Not services, no.’ He glanced around. ‘I brought some of our officers back here the other night.’

It took Rose a moment to realise that he meant he had brought their bodies back, not that a group of them had come here to pray. ‘Your younger brother, too?’

‘Yes.’ He stood aside for Rose to follow her mother into the pew. ‘My brother Gideon, too.’

Rose knelt, unable to find anything to say. After a moment she opened her eyes, conscious of her mother on one side and of Adam kneeling on the other, one hand covering his face. Was he thinking about his comrades lying so close? The half-brother he hardly knew? Or his own situation, trapped into play-acting the suitor?

Slightly in front of their pew, on the other side of the aisle, was a familiar blue bonnet. As if Rose’s gaze was a touch on the shoulder the woman wearing it turned. Lady Sarah Latymor stared back at them, her eyes red-rimmed, her face pale. Her coat and gloves were black as if in a distracted attempt at mourning. She looked from Rose to Adam’s bowed head and back to meet Rose’s gaze. Her lips moved soundlessly as she gripped the back of the pew in front and began to rise.

‘Adam,’ Rose whispered frantically. ‘Lady Sarah. She is going to denounce us.’

Chapter Fifteen

The organ thundered, Lady Sarah turned to face the front and the congregation rose to its feet.

Rose let out a shuddering breath. ‘She looks dreadful,’ she whispered under cover of Adam helping her find the first hymn in her book. ‘But yesterday she was angry, not upset. Do you think Lord Randall, or Major Bartlett, are worse?’

‘We will find out after the service,’ he murmured. ‘No one here looks entirely normal.’

All around were women in mourning of one shade or another, men with bandages or slings, drawn faces. Very few of the English residents would have escaped without the loss or wounding of someone they knew.

Somehow Rose got through the service without standing during prayers or singing the wrong hymn. Finally the organ thundered out the processional again, the clergy and choir filed away to the vestry and the congregation began to get to its feet.

‘May I escort Miss Tatton back through the Parc?’ Adam asked before they left the pew. ‘I can see my half-sister, Lady Sarah Latymor, over there. She appears to be alone.’

‘Please, Mama?’