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She went upstairs, washed, changed, but still Adam did not come. When Maggie called she went downstairs and ate supper with the strangely reduced household, then dipped a can of hot water to take to her room. ‘I think I’ll have an early night,’ she explained when Maggie sent a look of surprise at the kitchen clock.
It was not true. She had no intention of going to bed and she was not at all tired. She washed, a proper hot sponge bath this time, then shook out her new clothes and began to dress without looking in the mirror. Chemise, petticoat, light stays, stockings. She slipped the morning gown over her head, fastened it and put on her shoes.
Still without using the glass she assembled the ribbons and hairpins she’d bought at the market and began to put up her hair into a simple style that her fingers seemed to know very well indeed. When it was done she shook out her skirts, stood in front of the long glass and looked up.
Staring back at her was a young lady in a simple but fashionable gown. She appeared groomed, even elegant. Her hair, a shining dark brown shot through with mahogany lights, needed no ornament other than the moss-green ribbon threaded through it.
She was completely familiar. Rose dropped into a formal curtsy to her own reflection. ‘Catherine.’
Catherine. That was her name, but who was she? ‘Catherine,’ she whispered again. ‘Miss Catherine…’ No that was not quite right. She was an only child so she was Miss… No, the surname would not come. But the Miss was correct.
She touched her earlobes. They were pierced and there should be pearl earrings. She wore her pearl set a lot, and the citrines, too. There was the amber necklace her godmother had given her…
‘Rose?’ Adam came through the doorway from the landing into the main room. She heard the snap of his boot heels across the boards, the clank as he set his sword belt and weapon in the corner, the sigh as he sat on the edge of the bed and began to lever off his boots. Familiar sounds, the sounds a husband coming home after a long day might make. She stood frozen, staring into her own wide eyes in the glass.
‘Rose?’ The pad of bare feet now. ‘Are you all right? Ma
ggie said you are having an early night. I’m sorry, I had to go with the men as far as headquarters. This afternoon…’ His words trailed off as he reached the doorway and she turned to face him.
The silence seemed to stretch on and on. His voice when he did speak was deadly quiet. ‘Who in blazes are you?’
*
‘Rose,’ the apparition said.
Flint stared. Of course it was Rose, but a Rose transformed. She shifted, uneasy under his regard, like a woman hiding something. Hell, of course she’s hiding something. Look at her, you fool.
‘Still Rose,’ she murmured.
‘You look like a lady.’ Yes, he had been a fool, or perhaps he’d seen exactly what he wanted to see all along. ‘You are a lady, aren’t you?’ Flint did not trouble to keep the bitter edge from his voice. ‘You keep forgetting to use that accent. I should have guessed, just from your handwriting alone.’ He studied her in the candlelight, kept quite still while everything shifted under his feet. She was not just respectable, she was well bred, possibly an aristocrat, the precious daughter of some titled household. Not only had he taken her virginity, but that afternoon he had poured his seed into her like a careless rutting fool.
‘I think I may be, yes.’ She stood as still as he did, as if chilled by the suppressed anger in his voice. Rose was not afraid of him, not physically, but she kept her own voice level, as though she was reasoning with a dangerous dog. He fought the urge to growl.
‘I found this gown in a second-hand clothes shop that ladies’ maids use to sell their mistresses’ cast-offs. It was made for me, I remember it, I gave it to my maid. But the name label has been cut out.’
He came fully into the room and fingered the fabric of her skirts, the finest wool, the smoothest silk ribbons. Silk like her skin. ‘You can afford gowns of this quality, you had your own lady’s maid. Tell me, what rank was this Gerald of yours?’ An officer, of course.
‘A lieutenant. I…we eloped from the Duchess of Richmond’s ball. I think I saw you there. Adam, I am worried about my parents—I remember I left them a letter, telling them about Gerald. They will know he is dead by now and therefore that I am missing.’
‘What was his surname? I can find out who is asking about a lieutenant of the Seventy-Third of that name.’ He made himself walk away from her, kept his voice level and reasonable. The world was falling away beneath him, but an officer had to keep calm, had to resolve the crisis, damn it. ‘Your parents will have made enquiries. The sooner we find them, the sooner we can get the horsewhipping element of this farce out of the way.’
Trust him, the blundering soldier who tried to ape the gentleman. First he had innocently asked for one lady’s hand in marriage, now he had managed to ruin another.
‘I can’t remember his last name…’ Her voice trailed away as his words registered. ‘Horsewhipping? What are you talking about?’
Flint picked up the walking dress from the bed and shook it out. He had to move and that was better than shaking her, or slamming his fist into the wall or going out and getting dead drunk. Or what he really wanted to do, drag her into bed and forget all of this doubt and conflict in the simple, glorious certainty of making love to Rose. My Rose, not this fine lady.
‘You have excellent taste in clothes, my dear.’ He laid the gown down with exaggerated care and turned back to her now he had himself under control again. ‘And you are not stupid. You know your father or your brother are not going to call me out for ruining you. Gentlemen do not duel with bastards, they have other ways of dealing with them.’
‘I do not have a brother,’ she said with certainty. ‘And it wasn’t your fault. You thought I was a camp follower, you thought I was experienced, not a virgin.’
‘It is my responsibility.’ He shrugged. ‘I saw what I wanted to see, I expect. Not for the first time.’
‘We won’t tell them. I am certain I will not fall pregnant.’
‘Sure about that?’ He watched her face, the colour ebbing and flowing under her skin. ‘Your courses started this afternoon?’ God, he really had ruined an innocent if she thought they could brush through this with a few lies.
‘No!’ Rose’s cheeks were flaming now. She had never discussed such a thing with a man, not even the family doctor, he was sure.
