by Louise Allen
‘Stop right there!’ Rose jerked her hand free of his grip. ‘Adam Flint is most certainly not emasculated and he is not a lapdog, he’s a wolf and I am not empty-headed, you rude man. You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about this.’
‘No? I know Flint as well as a brother. Better than a brother. We’ve fought together, been wounded together, half-frozen and starved together. I’ve been drunk with him, I’ve chased women with him, I’ve told him things in the small hours of the morning when I expected to die the next day that I daren’t even think about now. So do not tell me I don’t know him.’
‘The war is over.’
‘This one is, but there is always a place for soldiers. Do you think Flint wants to spend the rest of his life pretending he is something he is not, just for the sake of your reputation?’
‘Reputation? I know you do not care about reputations. After all, you are the rake who seduced Adam’s half-sister.’
‘We are getting married and she is following the drum.’ There was a look in those hard green eyes that made Rose’s breath catch in her throat. Pride and love. ‘Sarah’s a woman with the courage to become a soldier’s wife.’
‘And I am not?’
‘Quite obviously not. Good day to you, Miss Tatton. I wish you well of your marriage, I am sure it will be everything you hope for, because you are marrying a man of honour who will never break his word. He will never let you see that you have scooped out his soul like an oyster and left an empty shell in its place.’ He gave her a bow that was an insult in itself and strode away.
Rose heard his voice, light and amused and charmingly apologetic. When she looked at the entrance he was bidding Lady Anderson farewell.
She rubbed her hands up and down her arms in an effort to stop the shivering, then realised she was standing in a patch of full sun. She could not be cold. She wondered vaguely if she was going to faint and whether she should move off the gravel path to do so on the grass. Everything had gone very quiet although she could see people were laughing and talking. An edge of darkness rimmed her field of vision.
‘Rose?’ A warm hand caught both her cold ones and an arm went around her shoulders. Heat, shelter, protection.
‘Adam.’
‘You aren’t well, you’re as white as a sheet. Here, sit down before you faint.’
The iron garden seat was hard and chill, but she clutched at the arms and let the back with its moulded ferns stiffen her spine. ‘Adam,’ she said again.
‘I’ll get your mother.’
‘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.
Go after the command of the Rogues, fight Major Bartlett for it, and one day, when you are a general, I will boast that I met you once, on the field of Waterloo.
Rose
Flint ran his fingers over the marks where tears had fallen, blotting her writing. I won’t marry anyone else…I will boast that I met you once…the life you gave back to me.
He waited until his v
ision cleared and his hand was steady before opening out the other sheet. She had left in the night, taking her maid with her. Papa was not to worry, she had plenty of money with her and she knew the way. She was going home to England to think.
‘How will she be travelling?’ He realised that Lord Thetford had a greatcoat slung around his shoulders, and his hat and gloves lay on the table.
‘Canal passenger boat would be cheapest, but she has funds. I imagine she has hired a carriage to Ostend for speed.’ He picked up his hat. ‘Why has she done this? I don’t understand it.’
‘I thought she loved you,’ Lady Thetford said, glaring at Flint over her handkerchief. ‘What did you do to drive her away?’
‘Failed to listen to her.’ Failed to speak to her about what was in his heart with conviction because he was so shaken by it himself. Failed to make her trust him. Failed her. ‘If she hired a chaise and four, she’ll be almost in Ostend by now. If she can catch the tide she’ll be at sea by the time I get there. Where will she go in England?’
‘The London town house or the place in Kent she inherited from her godfather.’ Lord Thetford turned to the door. ‘Come on.’
‘I’ll ride, go alone, it will be faster. Give me the addresses. You stay here with Lady Thetford, sir. She needs you and it will cause talk if both of us leave Brussels.’
*
‘Moss!’ The ex-sergeant was on his feet as Flint slammed into the kitchen. ‘Find Major Bartlett. Tell him to go to headquarters, tell them I have had to leave the country on urgent family business. Give him my papers and tell him to take over my work.’
‘You’re going absent without leave?’ Moss was already jamming his battered hat on his head.
‘Rose has left, gone to England.’ Flint grabbed pen and paper and scrawled two lines. ‘Here. That’s my resignation. Give that to Bartlett, too, tell him to deliver it. And tell him I’m going to jam his teeth down his throat and tie his balls in a knot next time I see him.’
Maggie, uncharacteristically grim-faced, handed him his wallet from the dresser. ‘I’ll pack a valise. You going to hire a carriage?’
‘No. I’ll ride. Just what you can fit in a saddlebag while I fetch Old Nick, Maggie.’
He did not stop to hear her reply, but ran. The stallion, sworn at, behaved. Dog, ordered to his bed, cowered. But Maggie stood her ground when he brought Old Nick to a snorting stand in the yard and took the saddlebag from her.
‘Do you love her?’
‘Yes.’ He tightened the straps and gathered up the reins.
‘Tell her, then.’
‘I did. She doesn’t believe me.’ He gave the stallion its head, hooves skidding on the cobbles.
Behind him he heard Maggie shout, ‘Don’t talk to a woman about honour and duty, you id—’ The rest was lost in the noise of the street.
*
Four days after he had left Brussels, Flint watched the harbour at Margate come closer as the Channel’s choppy waters finally calmed in the shelter of the breakwater. The easier motion was a relief: the aftermath of the gale that had kept every ship in port at Ostend had done nothing for guts already churning with anxiety for Rose.
The harbourmaster confirmed that a passenger hoy for Margate had left a few hours before the gale struck. It was a sturdy vessel with a reliable, experienced captain, the man had assured Flint, but his imagination, always so reliably under control, was running away with him. Rose drowned, Rose clinging to wreckage, Rose driven ashore goodness knew where…
‘There you are, Major, the Channel Star, last packet boat out of Ostend before the gale blew up.’ The mate of the fishing vessel Flint had chartered leaned on the rail beside him and pointed. He scratched his chin and eyed the furled sails and bustle of activity around the vessel tied up on the Margate pier. ‘She’s been in a while by the look of her, they’re reloading and taking up a powerful lot of room doing it. We need to find a clear stretch to get that animal of yours ashore.’
It had taken considerable persuasion backed up by a great deal of hard cash and some unsubtle hints about secret military business to get them to winch Old Nick on board. At least a trained warhorse knew all about boats and the men had been vocally surprised at how cooperative the stallion was at the indignities of winches and hobbles. The stallion’s rolling eye promised retaliation to come, just as soon as his hooves met solid land.
*
‘Come on, you bloody-minded animal.’ An hour later Flint dodged snapping teeth and loosened the hobbles as the winchman pulled the canvas sling free from under the horse and scuttled to safety. ‘Behave and you can have a rest and a feed in a minute.’
He led Old Nick across to the man who stood at the foot of the Channel Star’s gangplank, a list in one hand. ‘Sorry, sir. Full complement of passengers and we don’t take animals.’
‘I don’t want to sail with you. I’m interested in your last load of passengers. Was there a young lady, brown hair, hazel eyes, slightly above average height, slender, accompanied by a maid?’
‘Aye.’ The man sidled round behind a bollard out of range of Old Nick’s teeth. ‘Poor lass.’
‘What? What’s wrong with her?’
The man took another unwary step back, his heels on the edge of the dock. ‘Dreadful seasick she was. It was a right rough passage and I don’t think she was too good to start with. I’d have thought her a lady what’d lost her husband in the late battle if it weren’t for the fact she wasn’t in mourning and she didn’t have a ring. White as a sheet, hardly a word to say for herself, then she took to the cabin.’
‘Where is she?’ In mourning? Perversely the thought raised his spirits despite his worry. If she was grieving over leaving him then there was hope. Just as long as Rose was not simply laid low by the fact she thought he had lied to her. ‘Did she go to one of the inns?’
‘No, sir. Sent a boy to the livery stables for a chaise and pair, had her bags loaded and off they went. Not what I’d want, one of those yellow bounders to travel in, not right after a rough voyage.’
Neither would Flint. He led Old Nick to the livery stable the seaman described, and fed and watered the stallion while he questioned the staff.
‘Aye,’ the head ostler confirmed. ‘Right poorly she were, the young lady. Still, she’d not far to go, which would be a mercy.’
‘Not London?’ Flint eyed Old Nick, solidly demolishing a bucket of feed after inhaling a bucket of water. He wouldn’t want to push the animal on to London, but if Rose had gone to the Kent house that was not such a stretch.
‘No, sir. Whitstable way.’
She had gone to her own house and that, he reckoned, was twenty miles or so. He could do it by evening without killing the stallion. Flint pushed aside the urge to gallop the entire way. Years of army manoeuvres had taught him the importance of rest, of food, of getting where you were going in a fit state to fight.
It was just seasickness. No one died of seasickness, he told himself. But they did die of broken hearts, he thought as he led Old Nick out an hour later. I love you, she had said when he had given her the ring and told her that he loved her, too. But there had been sadness in her kiss, he recognised it now. She had believed he was lying to her and he hadn’t explained, hadn’t let her see how he felt, explained his inner confusion, his feelings.
That honesty had been what she had asked him for and he had been too much of a coward to let Rose see just how vulnerable he was to her, so he had sounded awkward, clumsy, like a man lying when he had never wanted to be so honest in his life before.
*
That thought kept him company on the easy ride to Whitstable, a black crow of conscience on his shoulder. Coward, it croaked in his ear as he reined the stallion into a walk down the hill into the port. Half-breed excuse for a gentleman, it muttered as he rode out of town again with directions to Knap Hill House, rehearsing all the reasons why Rose would be better off without him.
‘Can’t miss it, Major,’ said an innkeeper with the unmistakable look
of an old soldier about him. ‘Up the hill, bear to the west, fork right at the gibbet. Two miles on you’ll see the gatehouse.’
*
The middle-aged woman who opened the gate for him curtsied politely. ‘Yes, Miss Tatton arrived yesterday, sir. We weren’t expecting her, but there’s always a skeleton staff up at the house.’
He touched his hat to her, tossed a coin to the small boy hiding behind her skirts and let Old Nick walk slowly up the curving driveway towards the house. It was old, he could tell that, and of no style he recognised. One wing looked ancient, built of brown stone. A more modern redbrick central mass was flanked by what once might have been a barn, now much altered. It looked like an overgrown farm that that collided with a small castle, he decided as he guided his horse towards the stableyard arch.
A groom on a sturdy cob clattered through the arch and reined in as he approached. ‘Sir?’
‘I have a message for Miss Tatton from her father.’ That was true enough.
‘Don’t rightly know if she’ll be able to see you, sir.’ The man circled his mount impatiently. ‘She’s none too well, I’m off for Dr Fowler now. If you put your horse in the stable there, sir, I’ll see to him when I get back. There’s only me…’ And he was gone, cantering down the drive.
Flint did not recall afterwards getting Old Nick into the stable or stripping off saddle and bridle. He pushed past the footman who opened the door and was halfway up the stairs before the man panted to his side.
‘Sir! You can’t go up there, sir!’
‘Where’s Miss Tatton’s woman? Jane, isn’t it?’ Flint took the remaining steps in two strides and found himself confronted by three corridors, more steps, endless doors.
Naming the maid seemed to reassure the man that he at least knew the family. ‘If you’ll wait here, sir.’ He hastened down one of the corridors and tapped on a door.
Jane emerged, pushing her hair back under her cap, her freckled face pale and drawn. ‘Major!’
‘How is Miss Tatton?’ Flint demanded.
‘Poorly, Major. She’s exhausted. I’ve never seen anyone so seasick. Twenty-six hours at sea and she couldn’t keep anything down, not even water. And she wasn’t feeling too strong beforehand.’ The look she sent him was cool. It seemed she knew who to blame for Rose’s lowered spirits. ‘I couldn’t get her to rest at an inn in Margate, she said she wanted to come to her own place. She’s worse today, so I sent for the doctor.’