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He hefted the saddle on to Old Nick’s back, dodged a half-hearted attempt to bite his arm and tightened the girth. What was the matter with him? Flint puzzled over his own reaction to the knowledge that the men knew about his relationship with Rose as he argued the stallion into accepting the bit. ‘Look, you want to go for a gallop. You know that means a bridle, so open your confounded mouth.’
He’d never had any shyness about life in camp. You just got on with it, despite the fact that everyone else was separated from you by the thicknesses of two pieces of canvas. You ignored their lovemaking, their rows, the sounds of bodily functions and their nightmares just as they ignored yours. The womenfolk were even less reticent than the men, or perhaps they were simply better at crea
ting their own little world wherever they found themselves.
But Rose…Rose was different. He led Old Nick out into the yard and mounted, dealt with the stallion’s predictable desire to trample on the stable cat and waited for Hawkins. He did not want speculation about Rose. He recoiled at the thought of anyone else hearing her soft cries, her murmurs of desire, her gasps of pleasure when she came to climax in his arms. She had been so beautiful, her lips swollen and parted, her face soft with passion, her eyes tender.
She’d be appalled if she realised the men had already accepted that she was his woman, with all that implied. They knew perfectly well that he kept no woman with him for more than a month or so and he knew, too, because he’d overheard the gossip, that they were well aware that married ladies sought him out and welcomed him into their beds.
He’d heard the ladies talk, too. ‘My dear, the most deliciously wicked creature,’ he’d overheard one colonel’s wife say to another at one of Wellington’s impromptu balls in the Peninsula. ‘So rough and fierce and big.’
‘All over. I can vouch for it,’ the other lady had replied. She’d been an amusing and voluptuous bed companion for a few nights and very appreciative, given that her husband seemed more interested in his port and his hounds than her charms.
It had shaken him to discover that ladies gossiped as bawdily as men about bed sport. But Rose was different. He realised that if anyone else so much as looked at Rose with sensual speculation in his eye, then he’d gut the man. Slowly.
‘Problem, Major?’ Hawkins brought the bay out and mounted.
‘No. Why?’
‘Your…er…frown, sir.’
Flint stayed silent as they wove their way through the crowded streets. When they finally reached the Parc he reined in and watched a group of nursemaids playing with their charges under the trees, the picture of innocence amidst the damage left by the mustering army in the elegant gardens. ‘We were talking the other morning about what we’d do when peace is declared, Jerry.’
His use of the sergeant’s first name was a signal that this was man-to-man talk. Hawkins shrugged. ‘Thought we’d agreed. Find another war. There’ll be one soon enough, that’s for sure, and there’s always the East India Company, like you said.’
‘Yes, that was what I said. But…carry on fighting?’ There was a small girl with auburn hair throwing a ball for a puppy. They both chased it, both tripped over their feet. The little girl burst into laughter. ‘There’s got to be something beyond that, I’m thinking,’ he said slowly, his mind filled with the unsettling uncertainties again. ‘What are we fighting for? All those men dying, all our wounds—we fight to win and for peace. But I just can’t see peace in my head.’
Hawkins shifted to follow his gaze and watched the child’s nursemaid scoop her up, laughing. ‘Never had a yen to settle down. If I found a woman I liked well enough, then perhaps…’ He let his voice trail off. Flint was very conscious that the other man kept his eyes forward.
‘I’m changing my mind and I don’t much like it. I’m thinking I should sell out, settle, if I knew what to settle to,’ Flint admitted. There, he’d said it out loud. Something like panic lodged under his breastbone as the vague thoughts and uneasiness found solid words.
‘Officers’ pay isn’t bad,’ Hawkins said casually. ‘I expect you’ve a bit put aside.’ Enough for a wife. The words did not need to be spoken.
‘I’ve been saving,’ Flint agreed. A major’s pay had been beyond his wildest imaginings when he’d enlisted. Now it arrived in his bank account regularly. A bank account, for goodness’ sake! And what had he got to spend it on? His mother was dead, there was no one else relying on his support. He didn’t patronise smart clubs—they wouldn’t have him even if he wanted to—he wasn’t fool enough to get fleeced in gambling dens, and he didn’t keep high-flying mistresses. He certainly didn’t bother Jermyn Street tailors. His two extravagances were his boots and his weapons.
Once he realised the money was mounting up he had swallowed his pride and asked Randall how to invest safely. That was years ago. His half-brother had put him in touch with his own man of business and now the quarterly reports showed an improbably large sum growing and growing. Enough to keep Rose in comfort, that was sure.
‘I’d be bored out of my mind,’ he said now, fighting the feeling of unease at the thought of life beyond the army.
‘You could buy a tidy little property, manage that,’ Hawkins suggested.
‘Might breed horses, I suppose.’ Flint slapped Old Nick’s shoulder. ‘This brute has the manners of a rabid leopard, but his bloodlines are incredible. Might run a stagecoach line…’ Or look into investing in industry. Steam engines, now they sounded interesting. Didn’t understand them, but that could be remedied. It was only machinery and mathematics, and so was artillery. Perhaps there was something beyond firing a cannon and killing people that he could be good at.
But whatever else he did, he wanted land, he realised, the ideas galloping now he had let them loose. He might always be a half-bred almost gentleman, but if his sons had a decent education and land behind them, they’d rise. That would be the perfect revenge on the man who’d so carelessly fathered him—provided he could work out how to be a father himself first.
He was building castles in the air now. An estate, sons, good schools. He needed a wife for all that and Rose might very well change her mind about even liking him once she got her memory back and knew who she was. He might change his mind, the way he was feeling. It was the aftermath of battle, just a reaction, just a particularly solid-seeming daydream.
‘Aye, well, enough of this.’ He turned Old Nick’s head towards headquarters. ‘Let’s run our surgeon down and set him on the men. We’re still at war, so far as I know.’
*
Rose woke to find herself alone and Adam’s side of the bed cold. Her stomach growled in protest at the lack of breakfast, but she lay there for a while, sorting her thoughts out, her spread fingers running over the place where he had slept. Everything had changed, totally. She could speak, she had some of her memory back, she was no longer a virgin and Adam had made love to her three times last night.
She still glowed with remembered pleasure and her body, despite its aches in unexpected and naughty places, was suggesting it would like it if he was back in bed now. Even the way she felt when she stretched, long and languid, sent little ripples of remembered pleasure through her body. Adam desired her and he had shown her just how much.
‘Time to get up,’ she murmured and went to investigate the wash stand. There was a pitcher of clean, cool water so she stood in the basin and had a standing sponge bath rather than go downstairs and draw attention to the fact that she had slept the morning away, worn out by passion.
Rose paused in the middle of a precarious one-legged balance while she washed her left foot. It was more than passion. She felt relief and happiness. She felt safe, as though she was somewhere she belonged. It was Adam, of course. He had saved her life, he had cared for her when she must have been nothing but an utter nuisance, and he had made love to her with a mixture of strength and sweetness, care and sensual abandon, that was beyond her wildest dreams of what the physical relationship between a man and a woman would be like.
