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It was made for me. Rose laid the gown on to the counter and examined the skirts. Yes, there was the place where a cinder from the fire had burned a hole. Jane had cut out a strip and resewn it, but Mama had turned up her nose at the result, convinced the reduction in the fullness of the skirt ruined the line, so Rose had given it to the maid.
Her hands shook as she looked inside for the dressmaker’s label. It would have her name on it, or at the least, her initials. A few threads hung where it had been cut out.
Rose sank down on the chair beside the counter. She could have wept in earnest now. So close…
‘Are you quite well, mademoiselle? A glass of water, perhaps?’
‘I…I am just a little faint. I had no noon meal. I will take that gown, and the walking dress and other items. Tell me, monsieur, is there a respectable café nearby where a woman alone might eat?’
‘But certainly, mademoiselle. The Pot au Feu at the end of the street is quite unexceptional.’
He began to wrap up her purchases in brown paper, looping and knotting string to create ingenious carrying handles. That was another clue, she realised. She was not used to carrying her own shopping, which meant the family kept at least one footman. Rose paid, took her parcel and made her way to the square in the direction the shopkeeper had indicated.
The café was more of a bistrot and was crowded with working people, including several young women. A couple got up to go as Rose entered and she slipped into a chair at the vacated table, right by the window.
The waiter was polite, the chalked-up menu short but appetising. Rose ordered an omelette and looked around. This was rather fun, she decided. She had probably never eaten outside a private house before and certainly never alone. Now she relaxed and settled down to watch the passers-by.
She had just lifted the first forkful of egg and fried potato to her mouth when two blue-jacketed soldiers came into view, stopped and turned to look at the bistrot. Rose burned her mouth, choked and took a gulp of water. Adam and Sergeant Hawkins. Hawkins gestured towards the restaurant, Adam shrugged, then nodded, and they came up the steps and in through the door.
The room was crowded and there were few free places, except at her table. Hawkins glanced her way, apparently did not recognise the bonnet, said something to Adam. He turned as she sat there, fork halfway to her mouth, like a rabbit in front of a stoat.
Rose felt both exposed and curiously guilty, then common sense took over. What was she afraid of? She was doing nothing wrong, just learning to be herself again. ‘Gentlemen, won’t you join me?’
Hawkins’s jaw dropped and Adam’s expression darkened into one of his better scowls. The waiter began to move towards them and Rose realised what he, and everyone else in the place must think, that she was a woman of easy virtue soliciting the men’s attention.
‘Please lay places for my brother and his sergeant,’ she said in French to the waiter. ‘And bring some wine, I am sure he will need putting into a good mood when he sees all my shopping.’
The man glanced from the brown paper parcel to Adam’s expression and winked. ‘At once, mademoiselle.’
‘What the devil are you doing here?’ Adam hissed as they sat down.
‘Shopping. And I missed the noon meal. A shopkeeper told me this was a respectable place to eat.’
‘You did not tell me you were going out.’
‘We were hardly discussing…’ She noticed Hawkins staring out of the window with heavy-handed tact. ‘I only made up my mind late this morning.’
‘You should not be out by yourself.’ Adam was still looking thunderous.
‘Why not? This is a perfectly safe area and dressed like this no one will give me a second glance.’
Adam’s expression suggested he would have more to say about it if it were not for the waiter putting the wine on the table. ‘The special, for two. And another glass for my sister.’ He waited until the man was weaving his way back to the kitchen between the packed tables. ‘It is perfectly safe until someone thinks you are a streetwalker.’
‘Really, Adam, do you think you ought to be mentioning such women to me?’ she enquired in mock-shocked tones.
Hawkins turned a snort into a cough and Adam’s expression reminded her all too clearly that he was used to receiving unquestioning obedience to orders and no back talk. He was looking, she decided, exceptionally smart. His shave had been close, his uniform was brushed, his boots and his sword belt shone. And I am not the only person here who thinks so, she thought, noticing covert glances from the other women in the room.
Broad shoulders, straight back, an air of authority and danger. Really, he was a most impressive male specimen. My impressive male. It was a titillating thought.
‘What is wrong, Rose?’ Adam asked, his voice gentler now.
‘Nothing at all. You just startled me, marching in here and scowling,’ she said with a smile to soften the words. ‘I feel as wary as any woman does when the man paying the bills spots a large parcel from a dress shop.’
And I do not like the knowledge that he is paying the bills, she realised. I do not like feeling like a kept woman. Idiot, what did you expect when you got into bed with him? You made him your protector in every sense of the word. I really am ruined. It had never occurred to her, she thought while the men were distracted by the mild confusion of plates of food arriving, that it was possible to be more than ruined. Eloping with an officer was one thing. Living as a mistress was a whole step more shocking.
But I want to be with him, part of her argued. Yes, her conscience retorted, but who am I?
They all fell silent, eating. Rose snatched glances at Adam under cover of sipping her wine, watched the muscles in his jaw and throat moving as he chewed. In profile it was a strong, determined jaw. The curve of his ear, the flare of his nostrils, had a masculine elegance that she suspected he would share with his half-brother, but she doubted anyone would ever mistake Adam Flint for a fashionable member of the ton. He looked half-tamed, feral, dangerous, even sitting quietly eating in a bourgeois bistrot.
