Practical Widow to Passionate Mistress
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Speculation was pointless, her dratted imagination had drawn her out of the present and into daydreams again. The task at hand was to serve out the stew on to the platters she had stuffed into the cloth with the bread. She passed one across with a horn spoon and a hunk of bread and received a nod of thanks.
‘The other passengers—the ones who have not taken to their beds with seasickness already—are eating at communal tables down the centre of the next deck up.’ The arrangements were interesting, she had found, and very different from the discomforts of the troop ship on the way south, six years before. ‘They strike the tables between meals and it becomes the public salon. We’re almost at the mouth of the estuary, but the captain is going to drop anchor for the night. He says the news about the peace will not have reached all the enemy ships yet and he would rather wait until daylight before venturing into open waters.’
The major was demolishing the stew as though he had not eaten in days. Perhaps he had not. Or perhaps he always ate like a bear; there was certainly enough of him to keep nourished.
‘We do not have to pay separately for the food.’ She put down her own plate, ladled more on to his and cut another wedge of bread. ‘It is better than I thought it would be and all included in the passage.’ She finished her portion and poured ale. The major’s vanished in one swallow, so she topped up his mug again.
‘We are a very strange assortment of passengers.’ Meg peered into the pan. ‘There’s more stew if you are still hungry.’ He held out his plate so she scraped the rest on to it. ‘And not as many people as I thought there would be. Officers’ wives and children, merchants, someone I think must be a minor diplomat. No military men, unless they are out of uniform. I did wonder—’
‘Mrs Brandon, do you never stop talking?’
The major was regarding her with an air of exasperation. When she fell silent he went back to his food. Presumably he was even less sociable over his breakfast. If that were possible.
‘Yes, I do occasionally fall silent. Especially in the face of an indifferent conversationalist. As we are going to be spending several days—’
‘And nights,’ he interjected, apparently intending to make her pay fully for inflicting herself upon him.
‘And nights together—’ I am not going to blush ‘—I thought it would be more pleasant to make conversation and to get to know each other a little.’
‘Did you?’
‘Yes, I did. I am Meg Halgate. I am twenty-four years old. My…James was a lieutenant with the 30th Regiment of Foot and he never returned from Vittoria. I had followed the drum with him for five years. I told you what happened after he died.’
At least, she had told him all that she was prepared to reveal. Certainly not the shocking fact that had been revealed when James was killed, the truth that meant she could not go to her in-laws as everyone expected her to do. Their curt letter had made it clear that they would not welcome the arrival on their doorstep of a woman who had lived in sin with their son for five years, even if she had genuinely believed James had been free to marry her.
She had seduced their son from his duty so that she could escape from her home, they believed. Or so she told herself; it was too bitter to think that they were simply unfeeling and uncharitable.
And returning home to the vicarage had never been a possibility, not then, even if she could have found the money for the journey. Sometimes she wondered whether it would be worth it, just to see her father’s face, but it would be a petty revenge for the misery he had made of her childhood. Besides, he would probably say that he expected nothing better of her.
‘Only twenty-four?’ Major Brandon was infuriating, but at least he presented a practical problem she could deal with: get his leg healed. ‘You seem older.’
The dark eyes rested on her face. Was he was referring to her tanned skin, or the roughness of her hands? Perhaps she just had an air of experience from the life she had led. She was not going to ask him.
Meg tidied the dirty plates and spoons away into a pail and stood it outside the door for the boy. Then she wrapped the remains of the loaf up in its cloth, stoppered the ale and went to sit on the trunk, hands folded demurely in her lap.
‘Are you waiting for me to reciprocate with personal revelations?’ Major Brandon lay back against the planked wall, his big hands clasped, apparently relaxed. Yet he still exuded an air of barely controlled impatience. He must hate being cooped up in here with her.
‘What I told you were hardly revelations. But if I am to pretend to be your wife I should at least know your name and how old you are and where you were wounded.’
‘Ross Martin Brandon. Thirty. Battle of Toulouse. If you preserve some distance from the rest of the passengers, that is all you need to know.’
‘Thirty? You look older.’ She echoed his own remark, but he reacted as little as she had. ‘Why should I keep a distance from them? It is only sociable to talk and it helps pass the time.’
He shrugged. ‘Nothing in common. Civilians.’ The word seemed to give him pain, for the corner of his mouth contracted in a fleeting grimace.
Meg stared at his lips, then dragged her eyes away. His mouth was one of his better features. It was generous without being fleshy, mobile and expressive in the rare moments when he let his guard down. What would it be like to be kissed by that mouth? Would it slide over her skin, licking and kissing, or would it be brutal and demanding? But the mouth went with the man, and she had no desire at all to be kissed by Ross Brandon, however much some foolish feminine part of her quivered when she met those brooding eyes.
‘It is dark,’ he observed. Meg got up and picked her way to the small porthole. If she stood on tiptoe she could see out. There were distant lights from the shore.
‘We must have anchored. The motion of the boat is different. Shall I leave the porthole open?’
He nodded when she turned to look at him, his face eerily shadowed now by the swinging lanterns. ‘Are you tired?’
It was the first sign of any concern for her that he had shown. The tears swam in her eyes again. Yes, she must be tired if she was so close to that weakness. Bone weary, if she was truthful. And frightened of the future. Damn him for being kind. Sparring with him was keeping her going.
‘Yes.’ She managed a smile. ‘It is such a relief to know I am going back to England that I seem to be quite drained.’
‘Nothing to do with hauling dead bears out of the river, setting this cabin to rights and doctoring me, then?’
‘Oh, no, Major Brandon. That is all in a day’s work.’
‘Call me Ross,’ he said abruptly. ‘If you would go and take the air on deck for a few minutes, I will get ready for bed.’
Meg drew her shawl around her shoulders and went out. The euphemism produced a smile, despite a nagging discomfort at the thought of spending the night together in such enforced intimacy. She had tucked another pewter pot and a jug of water behind the curtain in one corner and she would just have to make do with that; she could hardly throw an injured man in his nightshirt out into the passageway while she undid her stays. There were some odorous little cupboards for the passengers’ use—heads, the sailors called them—but she could not undress in those.
When she came back only one light was burning and Ross was lying on his left side facing the wall, the sheet pulled up to his shoulders. Ross. She moved past softly. I’m thinking of him as Ross.
Meg wriggled out of her gown, unlaced her stays, took off shoes and stockings and let down her hair from its net at the nape of her neck. The water was cold, but refreshing, and the simple fact of being clean was a source of pleasure. When she crept out in her petticoat and sat on the edge of the trunk to comb out her hair and plait it, the cabin was quiet with just the slap of waves on the ship’s side, the creak of wood and ropes and the familiar sound of a man’s breathing. Peace. No more war, no more alarms and trumpets in the night. No more death and maiming.
She unrolled her blankets on the deck, found the pillow and the sheet and settled down, blowing out the lamp. It was hard under her hip bone and shoulder, but she’d slept in worse places. This was warm and dry and safe…
‘What the devil do you think you are doing?’
Meg sat bolt upright, clutching the sheet to her petticoat bodice. There was not much light to see by, but Ross was sitting up and sounded as though he was glaring at her.
‘Trying to go to sleep, of course!’
‘On the floor?’
‘Well, yes. Obviously. There is only one bunk and you are injured and I am perfectly fine down here.’
‘Get into bed.’ The sheet flapped as he tossed it back.
‘I will do no such thing! I thought we had dealt with this—I am not sleeping with you, Major.’
‘You most certainly are. I’ll not have you lying on the floor and I’m damned if I see why I should.’
Meg huffed, lay down and drew the blanket up to her shoulders, her back to him. She was not going to argue with him. Overbearing man. Sleep in the same bunk with him, indeed! She knew what would come of that: men were not to be trusted. She punched the pillow and wriggled down. Behind her there was a muffled thump on the deck. She ignored it.
Then a hand took hold of her shoulder and rolled her on to her back, another slid under her knees and she found herself rising through the air as Ross Brandon, apparently unhampered by his wounded leg, lifted her and deposited her on the bunk.
Chapter Three
‘Put me down!’ Indignation won over the stab of fear and the arousing awareness of strength as she landed unceremoniously on the hard mattress.
‘I have.’ Ross climbed in beside her and adjusted the sheet over them both. Perhaps fear had been the right emotion after all. Trapped against the wall, she tried to wriggle down the bed and was stopped by one outthrust foot. ‘Stop panicking, Meg. I might look like a brute, but I do not force women. If I wanted you flat on your back under me, you would be by now, believe me.’
‘You, sir, are outrageous. And you don’t…’ Reassuring him about his appearance was the last thing she should be doing. And as for being flat on her back…it was precisely what her imagination was conjuring up. And her imagination was not as horrified as it should be.
‘Why outrageous? For not ravishing you?’
‘For even alluding to such a thing.’ He was still sitting up, looming over her, and Meg was beginning to feel hot, bothered and definitely panicky. If he decided to force her, she could not hope to stop him. She was not certain she really wanted to stop him, and that was the worst thing of all. It must be his size, she thought. She was frightened at going back and she wanted to cling to him.
‘It was what was worrying you, was it not? Best to have it out of the way.’ Ross seemed completely unembarrassed by the discussion.
Shameless man, Meg thought, lingering fears of rape retreating. Which left the thought of willingly lying under him, the pair of them naked, about to make love.
‘Understand this,’ he continued when she did not respond. ‘I will not lie in a bed while a woman has to make do with the floor. If there was only room for one, then I would take the floor. As it is, it is ridiculous for one of us to be uncomfortable.’
‘You might be comfortable like this. I can assure you, I am far from being so.’ He was hot. And so close that one of them only had to take a deep breath for their bodies to touch. The disturbing pulse she had been attempting to ignore became insistent.
‘I give you my word, you will be safe.’ He sounded irritated now. Obviously she was keeping him from his sleep with her worries and scruples. It was a mercy he could not read her mind.
‘While we are awake, of course I trust your word.’ Not every officer was a gentleman, but her instincts were telling her that this one was. ‘But when we are asleep we might…touch.’
‘Meg, have you been following the drum with not one, but two, men for the past five years or have you been locked up in a vicarage?’
That was so near the knuckle she almost gasped, but the question was obviously rhetorical. The major lay down again, turned on to his right side with his back to her and gave every indication of falling immediately asleep.
If she lay with her elbows tight against her sides, her legs straight, rigid as a board in her half of the bunk, she could pretend they were not both in the same bed. Eventually, when he showed no signs of leaping on her, she turned over cautiously so her back was to him. Their buttocks touched. Recoiling, she tried the other side so she faced him. That was better, she could curve her body now to avoid his.
But what she could not avoid was the scent of him, she realised once she had managed to relax sufficiently to breathe. Man. He’d had as good a wash as he could under the circumstances and had got rid of the worst of the river water and the grime and sweat of his journey, but in a way that was even more disconcerting. There wasn’t a great deal of distraction from the natural scent of hot male. She bit her lip and tried not to fidget. Tried, very hard indeed, not to remember what it was like to be held, just held, in strong arms for a while. Safe, secure, trusting.
Not that James had ever been trustworthy, exactly, even at the start of their scandalous runaway marriage. But he had been strong and young and handsome and, when it was no trouble, kind to her. And often fun. At least, he had been fun while things went his way. His sense of humour did not hold up well, she soon discovered, under adversity.
But she had believed herself in love with him when she married him; she had made promises, even if he had been lying to her all the time. Despite the pain of the memory Meg felt her limbs grow heavy as sleep began to fog her mind. She gave a little shuffle back to press tight against the wall and drifted off, exhausted.
Ross half-woke to find himself lying on his back on a bed that was moving. A ship. Yesterday’s events began to present themselves, still confused, to his memory. The child, the river, a woman’s voice.
He stretched out his legs, opened his eyes and came fully conscious as a jolt of pain stabbed down through his right knee. Several things were apparent all at once. It was daylight, the ship was under way again and beside him was not his rifle but a warm, sleeping, woman.
In fact, it was amazing she had not been the first thing he had been aware of. Her head was on his shoulder, her right arm was across his chest and she was snuggled up close down the length of him. At some point he had got his arm round her while they slept so she was cradled in a way that was positively possessive. She was so tight against him that he could feel every swell and dip and softness of her body. His became instantly hard.
It was a remarkably pleasant, and novel, sensation, if he ignored the ache in his groin. His life had never been lacking in women to satisfy his needs, but he was not in the habit of spending the night with them. That was a reliable method of waking up to find the woman gone and with her, his money.
This woman, his temporary wife, was not after his money. She was a strange creature, expecting conversation and confidences as though their chance alliance was actually a real relationship, and yet not asking anything in return for saving his life and tending to him beyond her passage back to England.
Had he thanked her properly? He rather doubted it. Yesterday he had been feeling like the devil when he had arrived at the docks and had been in no mood afterwards to analyse whether he was actually grateful for having been fished out of the river at all.
Today…Today was time to get a grip on himself and stop kicking against fate. He was wounded, he was never going back to the Rifles, he would probably limp for the rest of his life and that life was going to be something utterly alien. He had run away from it when he was seventeen, but it was catching up with him fast now.
There was a tap on the door and he reached out, careful not to wake Meg, and unjammed the wedge from the latch. The door opened a foot and Johnny’s tousled head appeared. ‘Hot water, Major?’
‘Yes. Bring coffee and take away the slops. Quietly, now.’ But Meg was awake. With a gasp she recoiled from him until she was tight up against the wall.
‘Wha—?’ Her eyes were wide, fixed on him with a mixture of shock and fear that was like a kick in the guts. Her lack of fear last night had obviously been an act; now, shocked awake, she was showing what she really thought of him. She looked terrified and she was drawing breath to scream.
‘The boy is here, my dear,’ Ross said, putting one large hand hard over her mouth, his body shielding her from Johnny. ‘I’ve asked him for hot water and coffee.’ She struggled against him and he tipped his head towards the door. ‘That’s all, boy, nothing else at the moment.’
He managed to hold her, one handed, until the latch clicked home, then she wrenched her head away and came at him with fists and nails. ‘You brute! You lying, lecherous—’
‘Hey!’ Ross swivelled round, ignoring the pain in his leg, and pinned her to the pillow with both hands. ‘Don’t you dare scream,’ he threatened. ‘What the devil’s the matter with you? I told you, I don’t force women.’
‘You said I would be safe,’ she panted. ‘You gave me your word and I wake to find you groping me, you—’
Ross slapped his hand over her mouth again, coming down on to his elbows over her as he did so. His leg hurt, he wanted his coffee and the blasted woman had called him a liar. Under him her body felt slight, soft, feminine, yet she was tensed to fight him even though he was crushing her.
‘Listen to me,’ he said between gritted teeth, his face so close to hers that he could have counted the lashes that fringed her wide, defiant eyes. Under his hand she was trying to find the purchase to bite his palm. ‘I do not lie. I do not break my word. I woke up and you were cuddled up to me, your arm was over my chest and I had one of mine around you.’ She stopped trying to bite. ‘And that is all. We had passed an uneventful night and if you take a moment to think you will find I managed to not ravish you.’
He had not thought it possible for her eyes to open wider, but they did, with such a look in them that he felt as though he had hit her. ‘Has someone…did someone hurt you?’ He took his hand away.
‘They tried.’ Her lids closed to cut off his scrutiny. ‘Three of them. I was trapped. I knew what they wanted, what they were going to do. James had only been dead two weeks.’
‘They tried,’ he repeated. ‘What happened?’
‘Peter—Dr Ferguson heard me scream. He took me back to his tent. The next day the news came that his lover had died. He was heartbroken. Beside himself. So I stayed.’
‘Just two weeks after your husband was killed?’ He did not make a very good job of keeping the judgemental tone out of his voice.
‘Peter’s lover was a man,’ Meg said, staring him out defiantly. ‘A young lieutenant.’
‘But that’s—’
‘A hanging matter at worst, a dishonourable discharge at best,’ she finished for him. ‘Peter was in too bad a state to be discreet. By staying with him I could cover things up—I told everyone he had a contagious fever. In a few days he could function again and his pallor and depression were put down to the illness.’
‘So you were never his mistress?’
‘No. But I was safe and so was he. We were protection for each other. Major Brandon, do you think you could get off me now?’
His legs bracketed hers, his groin and what he could feel was a fairly impressive erection was grinding into her in all the right…in the worst possible place and her breasts were flattened under his weight.
‘Hell!’ He rolled off to his side of the bed and sat up. For a few moments it had seemed so good to be that close to her. Beside him Meg sat up too, the sheet rumpling around her. ‘I’m sorry. I just wanted to stop you screaming.’
Meg put up both hands and pushed the loose strands that had escaped from her plait back from her flushed face. ‘I woke and didn’t know where I was. I didn’t recognise you at first.’
At least he was under no illusion what she thought of him as a man. Ross turned a shoulder to give her a little privacy as she slid from the bed. The rejection and fear on her face as she had stared at him told him all he needed to know about that.
‘You can credit me with controlling my wild animal passions, then.’ Easier to make a bitter joke of it.
Meg gave a little gasp, but when he looked at her she smiled and came back at him with the tart retort he was coming to expect from her. ‘If you can sustain wild animal passions after exhausting yourself saving that child, being half-drowned and having your wound probed and redressed, then I am full of admiration for your stamina, Major Brandon. I should have realised you were in no fit state to be any kind of threat to me, without needing your word.’
Don’t count on it. Apparently she had not noticed the erection, or it was less impressive than he thought it was. Or perhaps as a lady she was above noticing such things. He should look away as the light from the porthole struck through the thin material of her petticoats, outlining her body. He did not.
An unfamiliar muscle twitched in his cheek, then he realised he had almost smiled. How long ago had it been since anything had seemed worth smiling about? And how long since he had felt any passion—or desire that went beyond the need to satisfy a basic urge, come to that? The way she stood up to him was refreshing, amusing—and stimulating. He caught himself; the state he was in was just the normal morning arousal, best to remember that and not think this woman held any special attraction for him.
The mental darkness that seemed to be his constant companion these days swirled back and he saw her recognition of it in her eyes. The light seemed to go out behind the blue-grey pupils, but her chin came up and she gave him back stare for stare.
For some reason the stubborn face cheered him a little. If nothing else, she gave him something to kick against, a counter-irritant to the nagging thought of England and what it held. An intelligent, practical woman, his temporary wife, and one who did not appear to have a great deal of respect for male authority, to boot.
‘What are your plans today, Meg?’
‘I do not recall giving you leave to use my name, Major,’ she said.
‘I gave you leave to use mine, and I somehow do not think we are such a very proper married couple that we would not use first names when we are alone.’
‘Perhaps.’ Meg said. She looked flushed and tousled. He wanted to make her even more so. Not just the usual morning erection, then. ‘I will wash and dress and then have a look at your leg to see if it needs redressing. You will then please remain in bed. I will find something to occupy myself in between tending to your needs, I am sure.’
Ross found he was on the point of asking her whether she intended catering to all his needs, then closed his mouth with a snap. Bandying words with her would take them both where it was dangerous to go.
Now what is he glowering about? Meg threw her shawl over her shoulders in an attempt to render her petticoats more decent. If it was the prospect of staying in bed for the day, then that was just too bad because she would hide his trousers if that was what it took to keep him there. He really ought to rest for at least a week, but she was a realist—he would have to be tied to the bed and she doubted the captain would lend her anything substantial enough to tether this bear with.
Her heart was still pounding from the terror as she had woken to find the big male body trapping hers, the dark, shadowed face with its heavy morning beard that for one terrifying moment she had not recognised. And then his strength as he had pinned her down.