Meet Meg, Bella and Celina—

three loving sisters, desperate to escape

the iron rule of their fanatical rector father…

One by one they flee the vicarage—

only to discover that the real world holds its

own surprises for the now-disgraced Shelley

sisters! How will they get themselves out of the

scandalous situations they find themselves in?

Can betrayed widow Meg learn to love again?

Will pregnant and abandoned Bella find the man to turn her blush of shame to the flush of pleasure?

And how will virginal courtesan-in-training Lina discover the meaning of true passion?

Find out in…

The Transformation of the Shelley Sisters

Three sisters, three escapades,three very different destinies!

Author Note

Welcome to the world of Margaret, Arabella and Celina Shelley. Brought up by a harsh and repressive father, all the sisters wanted from life was love—and by looking for it they found themselves branded as sinners and parted from each other.

Early nineteenth-century England was an unforgiving place for fallen women. Dreamy Meg, practical Bella and innocent Lina fought back against Society, and their own fears, to rebuild their lives and find their true loves, transforming themselves in the process.

This is the story of Meg, the middle sister. Dreamily romantic, she eloped with her childhood soldier sweetheart and found herself learning to be practical and realistic in the brutal world of the war-torn Iberian Peninsula. Now, alone and virtually penniless, she must find her way back to England—and her only hope is dark and brooding Ross Brandon, a man wounded in body and soul.

I hope you enjoy Meg and Ross’s journey as much as I enjoyed discovering it, and that you will rejoin the Shelley sisters to meet Bella in the next book in the trilogy.

Practical Widow to Passionate Mistress
Louise Allen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Louise Allen has been immersing herself in history, real and fictional, for as long as she can remember, and finds landscapes and places evoke powerful images of the past. Louise lives in Bedfordshire, and works as a property manager, but spends as much time as possible with her husband at the cottage they are renovating on the north Norfolk coast, or travelling abroad. Venice, Burgundy and the Greek islands are favourite atmospheric destinations. Please visit Louise’s website—www.louiseallenregency.co.uk—for the latest news!

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Recent novels by the same author:

VIRGIN SLAVE, BARBARIAN KING

THE DANGEROUS MR RYDER*

THE OUTRAGEOUS LADY FELSHAM*

THE SHOCKING LORD STANDON*

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between a very proper baroness and a

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—RT Book Reviews

THE OUTRAGEOUS LADY FELSHAM

‘Allen’s daring, sexy and, yes, outrageous

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gently borders on erotic romance because of the

manner in which she plays out her characters’

fantasies (including a marvellous bear rug!) without ever losing sight of Regency mores.’

—RT Book Reviews

THE SHOCKING LORD STANDON

‘Allen continues her collection of novels

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Prologue

July 1808

‘North Wales?’ Celina repeated blankly as Meg finished pouring out her news. ‘But that’s hundreds of miles away. We will never see you.’

‘That wouldn’t be so bad if we knew you were happy,’ Arabella ventured, ‘But Great-Aunt Caroline? She’s a recluse—’

‘She is mad as a hatter,’ Meg Shelley retorted, biting back the tears. ‘You only have to listen to those horrible letters she sends Papa. She is worse than he is.’ She reached out and took her sisters’ hands, wincing and letting go as the grip tightened on the livid weals across her palms. ‘I would rather be here with you both and be whipped every day, than go there.’

‘Perhaps if you promised Papa you would not read novels again?’Arabella suggested, picking up the worn shirt she was darning for the poor box and then dropping it back into the basket with a sigh. Meg felt the affection surge through her; at nineteen, her elder sister tried so hard to be dutiful, to do what was expected, despite constant carping and coldness from their father. How did she manage it? Meg wondered. Could she ever be as good, as submissive?

‘Or anything else but the Bible?’ she demanded. ‘If it is not books, it is going for walks, or trying to grow flowers, or talking to people or singing—I cannot do it. I cannot promise to stop thinking, stop doing everything that gives me any pleasure. I will go as mad as Great-Aunt Caroline. I don’t mind the housework and the laundry and the mending and the praying. I don’t mind working hard, but to be punished for wanting joy and beauty…’

‘And I don’t understand what he said about Mama,’ Celina said with a frown. ‘How can he say we all carry her bad, sinful, blood? Mama wasn’t a sinner.’

‘He has not been right since she died.’ Arabella glanced towards the door, as though expecting the Reverend Shelley, switch in hand, to stalk in at any moment. Meg shook her head impatiently. They had discussed this so many times, and still could not fathom what, beyond natural grief, had turned a naturally serious and strict father into an embittered and suspicious domestic tyrant.

‘He says Great-Aunt Caroline’s health is deteriorating and I must go and nurse her and be a companion. She could perfectly well hire a dozen nurses and companions, she is wealthy enough,’ Meg said. ‘It is just an excuse to punish me. We would all be better off in a nunnery.

‘You, Bella, are to look after him in his old age, you, Celina, will marry the curate—if he ever finds one dour and puritanical enough to suit him—but I am just a nuisance and, this way, he will be rid of me.’

‘But what can we do?’ Celina whispered. Meg shook her head. Celina was too sweet and too pretty for coldness and drudgery, but her seventeen-year-old sister always seemed unable to rebel.

All three glanced at the sampler hanging over the cold grate. Arabella had worked the first line, Margaret had stitched the second and Celina had managed the plain cross-stitch border. It was a favourite saying of the Reverend Shelley, one he fervently believed to be true.

Woman is the daughter of Eve—

She is born of sin and is the vessel of sin.

‘Is that a horse in the lane?’ Meg pushed open the window: any distraction was welcome. From high in the eaves of Martinsdene’s vicarage, the old schoolroom had a clear view down to the church and the village green.

‘Oh, don’t!’ Half-lying across the sill, Meg ignored the nervous plea from Celina. ‘You know how angry Papa was last time he saw us hanging out of the window, like common hoydens, he said.’

‘It is James!’ How very strange she felt inside. Was it love? It must be. ‘He’s come home at last and he’s in regimentals! He has joined the army as he said he would, despite Mr Halgate forbidding it. Oh, but he looks so handsome. Bella, don’t you think he looks handsome?’

‘James Halgate may look like Adonis…’ Arabella countered. Bella’s common sense was a predictable as Lina’s nervousness. Meg glanced back into the room. ‘And he might be a very pleasant and well-bred young man,’ her sister continued. ‘But you know Papa would never let him call and I shudder to think what would happen if you tried to get out to see James again. Remember before he went away? Papa had you locked in the attic for a week on bread and water. Really, Meg—’

Meg leaned out precariously and waved. ‘He must see me!’

Celina joined Meg at the window.

‘Look at him.’

Lina’s pretty mouth curled into a smile, but she glanced over her shoulder at the door before agreeing. ‘Oh, yes, he does look very fine. The Squire is going to be so proud of him. Surely he will forgive him for going off enjoying himself in London for almost a year?’

‘He has seen me,’ Meg whispered. Something inside her contracted, as though her heart had faltered for a moment. All those long nights dreaming about her childhood sweetheart, and now here he was and she still felt as she had when he had left. She was in love with him, she knew she was, and the fields of buttercups still stretched out in the sunlight where they had run hand in hand and exchanged soft, innocent kisses. Although perhaps, in retrospect, James’s had not been so very innocent.

Even as he reined in, taking advantage of the tall hedge to doff his shako and wave it to the two young women in the window, he was casting a careful eye around. Every one in Martinsdene knew the Reverend Shelley’s views on the upbringing of girls and how closely he guarded his three motherless daughters.

‘Now what is he doing?’ Celina wondered as James made gestures towards the stream that ran on the other side of the lane.

‘He means to leave a message in the old willow, just like we used to do before he went away.’ Meg clutched her hands to her bosom, although it did not stop her heart thumping. ‘He means to meet me.’ It was just like the fairy stories. Her knight in shining armour had come for her, he would scale the castle walls, cut through the hedge of thorns that surrounded her, carry her off to a lifetime of happy ever after.

Meg watched as the bay mare walked on down the lane and out of sight, then there was nothing to do but go back to the table. She kicked the mending basket out of sight.

‘Oh, Meg. Do you truly still feel affection for him?’ Arabella asked, her expression the familiar one of mingled sympathy and exasperation. ‘You know Papa will whip you if he finds out.’

‘I don’t care.’ Meg sank down on her chair, perilously close to tears again. It was not the thought of the switch. It hurt and was humiliating, but she went away in her head while she was beaten or lectured, off into her imagination. ‘If he would only treat us with some trust then I would not have to sneak out. I am eighteen, I know my own mind. And I love James. I always have. We are meant to be together. I love James and he loves me, so where is the sin in that?’

What was so wrong with love that it was classed with crimes like theft or murder? She had asked that once, when she was fifteen, and had hardly been able to sit down for a week.

‘Only in the defiance of Papa’s authority,’ Bella said, with a thoughtful frown. ‘Otherwise it is a perfectly eligible match, I am sure—for anyone else. Lina, would you be very kind and go and ask Cook if we might have some lemonade?’

There was something in Bella’s placid tone that had prickles running up and down Meg’s spine. Hope?

Bella waited until the door closed. ‘You are the one he punishes most, because you are such a dreamer, so romantic. And being shut away with Great-Aunt Caroline would be dreadful for you. If James truly loves you, means to marry you—then I’ll help, somehow. We mustn’t say anything to Lina, then she can swear she was ignorant, and I never do anything wrong—Papa will not suspect that I had anything to do with it.’

More than hope. A plan. A surge of feeling, of joy and anticipation and fear, and with it the realisation of loss. But this would not be like losing Mama. Bella and Lina would still be there, she would be with them again one day. ‘Bella, thank you! But to leave you both—’

‘In any other household but this we would have to part soon anyway, because we would become betrothed and move away. We will miss you, dearest, but it will be more tranquil without your constant friction with Papa, so perhaps Lina will become less nervous.’ Arabella reached for her hand, her own warm and strong. ‘And I want you to be happy. James will have to swear you have Papa’s permission for a licence, of course, but once you are married, even Papa is not going to object—think of the scandal if he did!’

‘It is a good match. Provided we are married there will be no scandal.’ Meg’s mind was racing. ‘James will be going overseas. I sneaked a look at Papa’s Morning Post yesterday and it says they are sending troops to the Peninsula. If he does go to Portugal, I will go with him. But—oh, Bella, it could be years before we see each other again!’

It felt like goodbye already, the fierceness of Bella’s hug. ‘It would be years if you are sent to Wales. I want you to be happy. Let us see if he proposes first. If he does, then love will find a way. Somehow.’

Chapter One

20 April 1814—Bordeaux

The breeze funnelling down the Gironde estuary from the sea was chill, Meg told herself, snuggling her shawl around her shoulders. And it was a long time since she had eaten much and the bag containing her pelisse was somewhere on the battlefield of Toulouse with an abandoned wagon train. That was all these shivers were, not fear.

A group of people were coming along the quayside, making for the England-bound ship moored further along. She put her shoulders back and her chin up. It was important to look respectable, competent and not at all needy. One of them, surely, would welcome a willing pair of hands to help on the voyage in return for her passage? That did not seem a very certain plan, but it was the only one she had now.

A tall gentleman with a lady on his arm, a valet and maid, a stack of baggage—they most certainly had no need of her. A plainly dressed middle-aged man with a valise in one hand, a clerk at his elbow. A businessman, no doubt. Then more luggage. The porters shoved a loaded cart to one side to reveal another passenger and shock had her stepping back in superstitious dread.

Death was striding—no, limping—along the quayside in the bright spring sunlight. For goodness’ sake! Meg took a grip on her nerves. He was a flesh-and-blood human being, of course he was. Just a man. But very much a man. He seemed to dominate the long quayside until there was nowhere else to look.

Tall and strongly built, clad in the dark green of the Rifle Brigade uniform, he was bare-headed, his sword at his side. His red officer’s sash was stained and blackened and, unusually for an officer, a rifle was slung over his shoulder. The right leg of his trousers had been slashed to allow for the bulge of a bandage just above his knee and flapped around the long black boot with each stride.

His hair was crow-black, a stubble beard shadowed his jaw and his dark eyes squinted against the sun beneath heavy brows as he scanned the quay with the intensity of a man expecting enemy sniper fire.

His scrutiny found Meg. She forced herself to look back indifferently, letting her glance slide across him. Her experience had taught her to size men up fast, a habit that was no longer one of life and death and which perhaps she should lose. Not that she had ever had to assess anyone who looked quite this dangerous.

Not only was this dishevelled officer big, dirty and obviously wounded, even cleaned up he would not be a handsome man. His big nose had been broken, his jaw was brutally strong, his expression grim and those dark eyes had a slant to them that was positively devilish under the thick brows. No wonder she had thought of Death when she first saw him.

Then he was past her, a porter following with a trunk and a few battered bags stacked on his barrow. Meg had heard yesterday that now that Napoleon had surrendered they were sending part of the Rifle Brigade straight off to America. But this man was obviously not fit for the rigours of that war; like her, he was heading back home.

To England, she corrected herself. Was that home? It was so long since she had seen it that it felt more alien than Spain. But it was where her sisters were and she had to find them.

More passengers. Forget the grim officer and focus on this group. In front was precisely the sort of person she had been hoping for: a well-dressed Spanish or Portuguese lady with three—no, four—children and a maid with her arms full of the fifth, a squalling baby. Meg fixed a respectful smile on her lips and stepped forwards to approach the harassed woman.

‘Whee!’ A small boy rushed past her, following his hoop as it bounced and clattered over the cobbles. How good to see a child happy and safe after so much death and destruction.

‘José! Mind that lady—come back here!’ The woman’s voice was shrill with an edge of exhaustion. She would welcome help, surely?

‘Signora, excuse me, but may I be of assistance?’ Meg asked in Spanish. ‘I see you have a number of children and I—’

‘José!’ There was a splash. Meg spun round to see no child, only the hoop teetering, then falling to the ground by the edge of the quay.

She picked up her skirts and ran. There might be a boat…She looked over the edge at the brown swirling water fifteen feet below her and realised that not only was there no boat, but that the tide was flooding out, the level was falling by the second and there were no steps down. She couldn’t swim in this, no one could. A small head bobbed up, then vanished again. She ran along the edge, trying to keep up with the child in the water. Where was everyone? Where was her pitiful French when she needed it to call for help?

Then a dark figure brushed past and launched into a long, flat dive that took him slicing into the river just behind the boy. ‘Aidez-moi!’ Meg shouted as men began to run to the edge of the quay. ‘Une corde! Vite!’

He had him. She was panting with the effort of keeping up, the need to somehow breathe for all three of them. The black head turned as the man struck out for the quay, the child in his grasp. But he was slowing, hardly making any way against the ebbing tide. It was the darkly sinister officer, she realised. With his bandaged leg, the heavy, painful limp, it was a miracle he could swim at all. Ahead she saw an iron ladder disappearing down the stone face of the quay and measured the angles with her eye. Would he make it to there? Could he make it to the edge at all?

The breath rasped raw in his throat; his right leg had gone from burning pain to a leaden numbness that dragged him down. Ross shifted his grip around the child’s chest and fought the muddy current, angling towards the sheer cliff of the quayside. Diving in with his boots on didn’t help. And only one leg was obeying him anyway.

The boy struggled. ‘Keep still,’ he snapped in Spanish. He wasn’t going to let this brat drown if he could help it. He’d seen too much death—caused too much death: he couldn’t face another. Not another child.

Then the sheer weed-slimed granite wall was in front of him without a single handhold up the towering face except perhaps…‘Boy!’ The child stirred, coughed. ‘See that metal ring?’ They bumped hard against the stone, the water playing spitefully with them as he tried to keep station under the rusty remains of a mooring ring. It was big, large enough to push the boy’s head and shoulders through.

‘Si.’ The brat had pluck. He was white with terror, clinging with choking force to Ross’s neck, but he looked up.

‘Let go and reach for it.’ He boosted the child up, the force of the lunge pushing him completely under the surface once, twice, and then the weight was gone. He surfaced, spewing water, and saw the boy half through the ring, wriggling into it like a terrified monkey. ‘Hold on!’ The child managed to nod, his little face screwed up with determination as he clung to the rusty metal.

But something was very wrong. Ross’s vision was blurring, his shoulders burned as though his muscles and tendons were on fire and his legs were too heavy to kick.

Hell. So this is it. Thirteen years of being shot at, blown up, frozen, soaked, half-starved, marched the length and breadth of the Iberian peninsula—we win the war and I die in a muddy French river. Everything was dark now. Ross tried to kick, tried to use his arms, more out of sheer bloody-mindedness than any real expectation that he could swim any further. Doesn’t matter. Didn’t want to go back anyway…Duty. I tried.

He hit something with the only part of his body that wasn’t numb—his face—put up his hands to fend it off and found himself clutching a horizontal metal bar. Hold on…Why? No point…

‘Hold on!’ The words echoed in his head, very close to his ear. In English. A female voice? Impossible—which meant he was hallucinating. Not long now. Someone took hold of him, gripped one arm, and the blackness claimed him.

When was he going to come round? Meg pushed her hair out of her eyes and stood up to pour dirty water into the slop bucket. Her soaked skirt clung unpleasantly to her legs, but that would have to wait. She had just the one other gown left and she was not going to risk ruining that. Time enough to do some washing and make herself respectable when she had dealt with her patient.

She stood back, hands on hips, and studied the man on the bunk with some satisfaction. It had taken four dockhands to get a rope round him and haul him out of the water, not helped by having to do it with Meg bent double, still hanging on to his arm, twined into the rusty ladder as the river surged around her knees. He was big; with him unconscious and soaking wet, it had felt like trying to shift a dead horse. She rubbed her aching shoulders at the memory.

The crew of the Falmouth Rose had not asked who she was when she walked up the gangplank in the wake of the men carrying his body on a hurdle. She was with Major Brandon and that, as she had gambled, was enough to gain admittance to the ship. Fortunately he had his name on his luggage, and she could read uniforms as easily as her prayer book by now—she had removed enough of them over the past eighteen months.

The men who had lugged him down to the cabin had been obliging enough to strip him for her, otherwise she supposed she would have had to cut his clothing off. It was dripping now, hung on nails that some previous occupant of the cabin had driven into the bulkhead, and he lay with just a sheet covering him from upper thigh to chest.

Meg had washed the scrape on his face where he had hit the ladder. Now she poured fresh water into the basin, opened the sturdy leather bag that sat beside her valise and took out scissors to cut away the sodden bandage on his leg. ‘Aah!’ The breath hissed between her teeth. This was battlefield surgery, rough and ready, and then he had neglected the wound. The edges of the messy hole in the side of his leg just above the knee were raw and puffy.

Lead had been dug out with more speed than finesse, and not very long ago by the look of it. No doubt he had been wounded at Toulouse. It was hard luck to take a bullet in the leg during the last battle of the war, almost within hours of the news of Napoleon’s surrender and abdication.

She would have expected them to amputate the leg—that would have been normal practice. One glance at the jaw of the man on the bunk suggested that perhaps he had refused; he looked stubborn enough. He must be either immune to pain or quite extraordinarily bull-headed to be walking with it like this. She suspected the latter. Perhaps the scowl was not natural bad temper but a way of dealing with agony. She could only hope so.

Meg sniffed the wound. It was infected, her sensitive nose told her that, but there was no sickening sweet smell of mortification. ‘Which is more than you deserve,’ she informed the unresponsive figure. ‘It is a good thing you aren’t awake because I am going to clean it up now.’

The leather bag with the initials P.F. had all its contents intact still. She supposed it was theft, taking Peter’s medical bag, but he was beyond using it now and she had seen no reason to leave it for looters. The surgeon had taught her well in the months she had shared his tent and worked at his side amidst the blood and the pain of the battlefield casualties, but neither of them had been able to do anything about his own sudden fever.

Now she washed her hands and studied the wound in front of her, trying to see it as a problem to be solved, not part of the unconscious man. She sponged and swabbed, then probed, first with her fingertips around the swollen edges and then into the wound with fine forceps, her lips compressed in concentration.

Eventually she sat back on her heels and flexed her tight shoulders. She had never learned to relax as a good surgeon should, now she would never have to. This was the last wound she would probe, thank God.

There was a satisfaction in viewing Major Brandon’s leg, neatly bandaged, and the jagged splinter of metal and several bone chips that lay on a swab. Now it might have some chance of healing, if he would only show some common sense and look after it.

Finally she let herself look at her patient. She had done what she could to clean him as she helped strip away his clothes, detached as a good nurse should be. Now he lay sprawled on his back. His chest and shoulders were tanned and the black hair that made a pelt on his chest and dusted his legs and arms only compounded the impression he gave of darkness. How old was he? It was hard to tell—those strong, harsh features made him look older than he probably was. Thirty-two?

Meg spread the sheet out to cover him from collarbone to toes now that she had finished working on his leg. It was warm in the cabin, even with the tiny porthole open, and she had to keep the lamps burning to see what she was doing, which added to the heat. He would not need a blanket, not unless he began to run a fever, but the thin sheet did little to conceal what lay beneath it.

Her gaze ran slowly down the long body and she found she was biting her lip. A heat began to build low in her belly and her mouth felt dry. He was a magnificent male creature, despite his harsh, forbidding face. All smooth, defined muscles, sculpted bulk, scarred skin she wanted to taste with her fingertips. Her lips. He was a patient and she should not be looking at him with those thoughts in her mind. Yet he was stirring feelings in her that seemed so much more acute, disturbing, than any she had felt before.

Surely after five years of living with James she had learned that sexual satisfaction for the woman was a fleeting thing at best? She had never wanted to touch him in the way that she wanted to touch this man, a way that had nothing to do with hoping for a comforting cuddle or the protection of a sleeping male body at night.

Meg gave herself a little shake. If he regained consciousness and made any sort of move to touch her in that way, she would probably flee screaming. Her intimate experience of men so far had not included anyone so big, so grim—so thoroughly frightening.

It took a while to tidy the cabin, pack the medical bag, dispose of the dirty water and soiled cloths. There would be just room to unroll blankets on the deck to sleep on and she created a tiny private space with a sheet across one corner and more of the convenient nails. She was used to living in tents and in huts; neatness had become second nature, settling in was somehow soothing. Meg paused, put her hands to the small of her back and stretched. What would her sister Bella say if she could see her now? Romantic, dreamy Meg with her sleeves rolled up, sorting out the practicalities of nursing a wounded man at sea.

The big man’s breathing seemed to fill the cabin and her consciousness. It was steady and deep despite the amount of water he had thrown up when they had dumped him on the quayside. His lungs would be all right, she felt fairly confident of that. There was no excuse to check his pulse or lay her head on his chest to listen. No excuse to touch him at all.

And then she realised he was awake. His breathing did not change, his eyelids did not flicker, but there was a personality in the cabin with her now. She put down the cloth she had been folding and watched his face. His nostrils flared, like an animal scenting the air. He had come round, not known where he was, or with whom, and he was warily assessing the situation before betraying that he was awake.

Interesting, she mused. That took a lot of self-control, a highly developed sense of self-preservation and a very suspicious nature. Then she remembered those watchful black eyes; he had stayed alive so far by using all those attributes.

Cautiously his right hand flexed on the mattress as though seeking an object.

Her self-control was less good than his, she found. ‘Good afternoon, Major Brandon. Would you like something to drink?’

His eyes opened then and she found it an effort to stare back, unflinching. ‘Where is my rifle?’ he demanded without preliminaries. When she did not respond he snapped, ‘Who are you, how do you know my name and where the hell are my clothes?’ He levered himself up on his elbows, swore as his leg moved, and looked round the cabin.

‘I am Mrs Halgate.’ It seemed important not to allow him to dominate her. Could he tell that inwardly she was quaking? ‘I know your name because it is on your baggage and your rank is obvious from your uniform. Your clothes are drying and your rifle is in that corner.’ It was with his sword, but he had not asked about that as she would have expected an officer to.

‘And why is my leg hurting like the devil?’ He hauled himself up further with no attempt to catch at the sheet. It ended up draped across his thighs within an inch of indecency. Strange how dry one’s mouth became when one was frightened. And aroused.

‘Possibly because the wound still had bone chips and metal in it,’ she suggested, running her tongue over her lips. His eyes followed the movement. ‘It no longer has. You have neglected it and you have just immersed it in muddy water and over-exerted yourself. It is no wonder it hurts. I do have some laudanum if you find it troublesome.’

Brandon narrowed his eyes at her. Probably she would need six men to sit on him if she wanted to get an opiate between those strong teeth. He did not deign to answer the offer. ‘And who undressed me and dealt with my leg, Mrs Halgate?’

‘Two sailors helped me undress you. I imagined, given the paucity of your baggage, that you would not want me cutting your uniform off you. I cleaned and dressed your leg.’ Meg sat down on his small trunk at the foot of the bunk. Her legs were not feeling very strong. Had they cast off yet? She wanted to go and look through the porthole, but did not dare risk alerting him in case he still had time to throw her out.

‘I see. You appear to be a woman of talents, Mrs Halgate. I thank you. And where is Mr Halgate, might I ask?’

‘Lieutenant Halgate was killed at Vittoria,’ she said tightly, not wanting to discuss it. Certainly she did not want to explain that, in truth, she was not Mrs Halgate at all, that her marriage certificate was not worth the paper it was written on.

The major nodded. She was grateful that he did not launch into meaningless expressions of sympathy. ‘And Master José Rivera is safe, you will be glad to hear, although he is much subdued.’

‘Who in Hades is José Rivera?’ Brandon demanded, flipping back the edge of the sheet, reducing its coverage to little more than a loincloth in the process as he glowered at his bandaged leg. Meg fixed her gaze on an upper corner of the cabin. Looking at his naked body when he was an unconscious patient was disturbing; staring at it now with the muscles bunching and stretching beneath the skin and the dark hair arrowing down to the sheet was nothing short of disconcerting.

‘The small boy you saved from the Gironde. Do you remember diving in after him?’

He frowned more deeply. Did he have any other expression? ‘Yes. Most of it. I thought I was drowning—who was it who caught my arm?’

‘A group of sailors pulled you up.’ For some reason she did not want to admit to scrambling down that ladder and plunging half into the water to hold him. Meg got up and went to twitch his uniform into a different position on the nails.

‘That was not what I asked you.’ She turned and his eyes narrowed as he looked down her body to the wet skirts clinging to her legs. Without his expression changing she sensed he was seeing the form beneath the clothes. Or perhaps it was her own, mysteriously feverish, imagination. ‘It was a woman. You, I presume?’

‘Well, yes.’ Meg shrugged, turned her back and fidgeted unnecessarily with the wet clothing again. ‘I was nearest. I could not let you drown.’

‘I am in your debt,’ he said shortly. It was hardly fulsome, but it was sincere. It gave her some hope that he would agree to her proposal.

‘Would you like a blanket?’ Out of the corner of her eye she saw the realisation dawn on him that he was virtually naked and that she was a lady. Of sorts. Major Brandon swept the sheet over his legs and pulled it up around his waist. He did not appear bashful about his body, there was not a hint of a blush under the tan. Even with his lower body covered, the sight of his bare torso with its interesting array of old scars and fresh bruises should be enough to send any gently bred female into hysterics. It was lucky that life recently had knocked any pretensions to gentility out of her. And this strange hunger was not hysteria.

‘Thank you, no. As soon as you are returned to your own cabin, ma’am, I will get dressed.’

Oh dear, now it begins. Her smile was more to bolster her own courage than in any futile effort to charm him. ‘No, Major, you will stay in bed and keep the weight off your leg for at least another day, perhaps two, if there is to be any hope that you will not end up with a severe and incapacitating limp. Even then, you must take a good deal of rest. And I do not have a cabin; I am sleeping here.’

‘You are what?’ It was an effort not to take a step back, to retreat from the scowl and the harsh voice.

‘I am staying here.’ Her hands were knotted together. She unclenched them and congratulated herself on keeping the smile in place. The last thing she wanted now was to touch him.

‘And what does the captain say about a stowaway?’

‘Nothing at all. I told him I was your wife.’

Chapter Two

‘You told him you were my wife?’ Brandon repeated softly. She certainly had his full attention now and Meg was not at all sure that lying on a bunk with his leg in bandages made him any less dangerous. She had heard officers use that tone before, followed by a bellow of rage and some most unpleasant orders.

‘Yes. I need—’

‘Whatever you need, I do not need a wench, however good natured she is.’

The blood rising in her cheeks was either fury or shame—perhaps both. She knew what a good-natured wench was: one who would lie down with a man for a few coppers. This battered ingrate would have to offer a good deal more than coppers before she became even mildly amiable, let alone good natured, however disturbing his muscles were.

‘Indeed? And I do not need a man—of any description, Major. You possess only one thing I desire—a cabin on a ship bound to England. I will pay for it by nursing you; perhaps preventing you from drowning will give me a little credit in the ledger. But I will not pay for it with any other coin, let us be quite clear about that.’

There was a long speculative silence. He was used to hiding his thoughts behind those dark brown eyes, but the process was thorough. ‘Vittoria was ten months ago.’

It was not an inconsequential observation. She had not remarried and she had obviously not starved, so how else could she have survived in the midst of an army, he was thinking, unless she had prostituted herself? ‘The battalion surgeon took me under his protection and I assisted him in his work. He taught me a lot about surgery.’

Major Brandon would assume she had been Peter Ferguson’s mistress as well as his assistant. Everyone else had assumed it too. All that mattered was that he did not expect her to sleep with him in return for the shelter of his cabin.

‘I do not require a nurse.’ He was certainly a man of few words. Whatever he was thinking about her now, he did not feel the necessity to express it out loud, which was most irritating. She wanted to put him and his suppositions about her morals right, but he had to voice them first.

‘Yes, you do—or you will need a surgeon to take that leg off. And believe me, I can do that if I have to.’ In theory. She found her hands were fisted on her hips as she frowned at him, which was no way to ingratiate herself with the man.

He snorted. ‘Can you make it strong enough to take me back into battle?’ he asked.

‘No. I can make it heal properly, if you do what I tell you, and I can show you how best to exercise it. But you have lost bone—it will never be strong enough for an infantry officer. And I have seen the Rifle Brigade march—you will never be able to maintain that pace again.’

Some trace of emotion passed across his face, then it was unreadable again. ‘Very well, Madam Surgeon. You appear to know what you are talking about, and you are honest enough to tell me the truth. You may stay.’

‘Thank you.’ Meg turned her back and fussed with her medical bag while she blinked away the stinging sensation at the back of her eyes. How wonderful to sit down and indulge in a nice bout of weeping, just out of sheer relief. An impossible luxury that would weaken her in his eyes. ‘Which of your bags has your nightshirts?’

‘I sleep in my uniform or my skin, Mrs Halgate.’

If you think you are going to drive me blushing from this cabin, Major, you had best think again. ‘This is not some Spanish bivouac, so you must sleep in a shirt. Which bag are those in?’

‘The larger one.’ Was that a thread of amusement in his voice? Surely not? She was not at all convinced he really was human, let alone had a sense of humour. ‘Haven’t you explored them already?’

‘No.’ She snapped the catch open and began to lift out his meagre supply of shirts. Major Brandon might be earning seventeen shillings a day, if her recollection of rates of pay was correct, but he was not spending it on his wardrobe. ‘I had no intention of wrestling your unconscious body into a garment, however much civilised living might require that you wear one. You are about as easy to move as a dead bear.’

He made a wordless noise, something between a hum and a growl that resonated, not unpleasantly, at the base of her spine. Apparently he found the idea of her wrestling with his naked body interesting. She did not even want to think about it. A cat’s-tail flick of heat inside signalled that her body did not require her mind’s permission. This was ridiculous; she had been with James for five years, she knew perfectly well that sex for a woman was overrated.

‘Here you are.’ She handed him the most worn shirt, lips still tight. ‘I will go and find out about food. There is a chamber pot under the bed.’

‘And who will deal with that?’

‘I will, Major. And if you are seasick, I will deal with that also. Nurses cannot afford to be missish.’

‘I am beginning to appreciate that,’ he said, his face without a trace of expression. Meg stalked out. Either he was utterly humourless or possessed a gambler’s control of his face and was secretly laughing his head off at her. It was uncomfortable not knowing which. ‘And see what there is to drink,’ he called after her. Meg closed the cabin door with exaggerated care. If he thought he was going to get overheated drinking rum or brandy and inflame that leg, Major Brandon was in for a surprise. Ale, and perhaps some claret when the wound was less inflamed, was what he was going to get.

Ross waited until the brisk click of her heels faded away, then delved under the bed. He could not place his nurse—his wife—he corrected himself with a grimace. She was not a whore, even if she had been a camp follower of some sort, and her voice was that of a well-bred woman. Her clothes, although worn, were decent and modest, shielding a trim, curved figure, and she moved like someone used to physical work. If she had held his waterlogged body against the pull of the river until help came, then she was stronger than she looked.

Perhaps she was just what she said she was—a widow who had been forced to accept the protection of another man, one who did not see fit to marry her. He frowned. Why not? He shrugged, pushing the battered pewter pot back under the bunk, and lifted his legs back with wincing care. As he drew up the sheet he hesitated. She might be reduced to nursing, but she was no drab from a dockside tavern to have to perform the most menial tasks for him. He put his feet back on the deck and stood up, the long shirt flapping around his thighs as he hobbled painfully to the door, cracked it open and leaned against the frame while he watched the passageway.

‘Here, boy!’

The skinny lad stopped, eyeing him warily. He was used to that reaction to his saturnine looks and size. Looking like a killer was useful on the battlefield, less so in everyday life. ‘Aye, sir?’

‘You part of the crew?’

‘Aye, sir. Cabin boy, sir. Name’s Johnny.’ He tugged his forelock, his expression changing to an ingratiating smile. ‘I’ll do odd jobs, sir.’

‘Then you can empty the slops from this cabin and fetch hot and cold water every day.’ The deck pitched and Ross had to grab at the doorframe, cursing his weak, throbbing leg. The damned woman had been in there with an entrenching tool by the feel of it. ‘Are we at sea yet?’

‘No, sir, still the estuary. Do you want hot water now?’

‘Yes. Now, and get a move on. There’s three pence a day for you if you’re sharp.’ He’d wash and shave himself before she came back. He had a pretty fair idea that he looked and smelled like the dead bear Mrs Halgate had likened him to, not that he was ever much to look at, shaven or bearded.

The boy shot off and Ross cursed his way back to bed. He hated being unfit, loathed the vulnerability of it and the loss of control. It was easiest to carry on as though nothing was wrong. Eventually most things healed if they didn’t kill you first. To find himself relying on a woman, for anything, was the outside of enough.

The lad came back with a steaming bucket and dealt with the dirty water and the pewter pot so fast he was probably overpaying him. When he was gone Ross wedged the door closed and stripped off his shirt.

It was perhaps half an hour later, while he drew the razor in a satisfying glide down the last strip of foam, that the handle rattled. ‘Major Brandon! Open the door, if you please.’

‘I’m stark naked.’ He wiped the razor and packed away the things with a casual efficiency born of long practice, waiting for the explosion from outside.

Ross counted in his head while he pulled the shirt back on and dragged a comb through his hair. Nine…ten.

‘Then kindly put your shirt on and open the door.’ So she had decided on sweet reason, had she? Ross grimaced. He was not used to having a woman underfoot, certainly not a halfway respectable one. The women in his life were for one purpose only, were paid well enough for that and then left.

His body stirred at the thought of those purposes. No need to frighten the poor woman with the evidence of what she was sharing a cabin with, although she did not seem alarmed by the sight of him. He limped back, got on to the bunk under the sheet and reached out to pull the wedge out of the latch.

‘You’ve been out of bed,’ she accused the moment she was inside, balancing a precarious assortment of objects. For some reason the bossiness amused him. A bottle fell on to the bunk and Ross scooped it up: claret.

Mrs Halgate put down a small pail with a lid, a bundle that looked loaf-shaped, a flagon and two beakers, then turned and twitched the bottle out of his lax grasp while he studied the seal. Perhaps bossiness was not so amusing. ‘Tomorrow, if you have no fever. Ale now, and stew and bread. You deserve to have a fever,’ she added, peering at him. ‘I told you to stay in bed.’

‘I needed to shave.’ She continued to stare, probably wondering if he looked any better without stubble or perhaps she thought she could cow him into apologising. Hah! Still, it gave him a chance to study her. Oval face, tanned, with freckles across her nose that should send any lady into despair. Dark brows and lashes—darker that the heavy plait of medium brown hair that lay across her shoulder or the sun-lightened curls that softened her forehead. A firm, determined mouth that betrayed strong will and courage. Candid blue-grey eyes that seemed to reflect her changing mood. A lance of lust had him hardening all over again.

‘Where did the hot water come from? And where has the dirty water I used gone?’

‘I have hired a cabin boy. His name is Johnny, I’m paying him three pence a day and don’t be cozened out of any more.’

‘I could have done all that.’ She dished up the food, managing it neatly in the confined space. There was a vertical line furrowed between her brows and she glanced again at the pile of worn shirts.

‘Just because I do not choose to spend my money on linen does not mean I cannot afford to pay a servant,’ he observed, seeing the colour touch her cheeks when she realised her thoughts had been so obvious. She was used to making ends meet, it seemed.

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘And it ill befits the wife of a major to be carrying the slops,’ he added, interested to see if he could provoke her.

‘Yes, of course,’ she agreed gravely. ‘We must preserve your dignity at all costs. James was a mere lieutenant, so I must be more aware of your status.’

Ouch. That was a nasty dig. ‘I was thinking more of yours, Mrs Brandon,’ Ross said, then remembered that if she was his wife, she would not be plain Mrs at all. He really was going to have to get used to the title and life awaiting him in England, now it appeared that Fate was not going to drown him in the Gironde or allow a French sniper to kill him. He could stop worrying about whether his leg was ever going to work properly again: he wasn’t going back to the army, however much he might try to forget the fact.

The darkness deepened in the major’s eyes, turning them black. Best not to answer back, perhaps. Just because he had not savaged her with his tongue or the back of his hand yet did not mean he was not capable of either. There was something beyond his wound that was troubling him and whatever it was, it was hurting him deeply. And in her experience men who were hurt, in body or mind, were more than likely to lash out.

Was it as simple as the fact that he would no longer be fit enough to serve in the Rifle Brigade and had lost his occupation? But he was a gentleman, however impossible it was to imagine him in a London drawing room. Did he need the employment?

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.

Meg shivered and found to her shame and shock that it was partly a shudder of sensuality. What on earth was the matter with her? Perhaps it was simply the unfamiliar shipboard world, the freedom, for a little while, from disapproving stares and whispers.

A tap on the door. Johnny with the hot water. Meg ducked behind the curtain, glad of a distraction from her thoughts.

‘Put that can by the screen so Mrs Brandon can reach it,’ Ross instructed the boy. ‘And pour me some coffee. You can come back in half an hour with more hot water.’

A wash in hot water was a pleasure. In water someone else had heated and carried, it was luxury. By dint of contortions that would not have been out of place in Astley’s Amphitheatre, Meg managed to sponge herself all over and felt her spirits rise. Her water-soaked gown had dried, the worse for wear, but not looking as bad as she feared.

When she emerged Ross was propped up in bed, one large hand enveloping a mug of coffee. The aroma curled rich and strong through the air.

‘I’ll go and have my breakfast with the other passengers. And get Johnny to bring you some food down with the hot water. When I get back we can look at your leg.’

‘Can we?’

‘Yes, we can. I want you to have a good look at the wound so you understand my concerns. Perhaps you will take care of yourself better, then. You really do not deserve to keep that leg.’

Irritated with him now, she stuffed her hair into a net, tied her shawl around her shoulders and went out, telling herself that she misheard the muttered, It scarce matters, that she caught as the door closed.

It seemed a long time since that stew last night and the prospect of exchanging civil conversation with the other passengers was pleasant out of all proportion to the occasion. Just the brief contact last night as she had been greeted, had mingled while she collected their supper, had been enjoyable.

How long was it since she had behaved like a lady? Since just before Vittoria, of course, when, as a junior officer’s wife, she had a certain status. After James’s death, she became merely the scandalous woman who had lived in sin with a man. A few of the regimental wives had believed that she really did not know her marriage had been bigamous, but others were prepared to believe she knew perfectly well. They had all shunned her. And when she had taken refuge with Peter Ferguson and had lowered herself to nursing wounded common soldiers, then of course she was utterly beyond the pale.

It had seemed strange to her then, and still did, that it was as shocking that she tended to brave men in pain and distress as it was that she was apparently living in sin. Perhaps the sense of betrayal, the shock, had been so great that their attitude had hardly hurt. It was James’s betrayal that wounded her, kept her using her married name in a desperate attempt to deny this had happened.

Signora Rivera, surrounded by three of her older children, beckoned her to a place opposite them at the long table and she made an effort to shake off the ghosts of the past and smile. ‘How is young José, signora?’

‘Much recovered, I thank you, Signora Brandon. In fact, I am having much trouble keeping him in his bed. Fortunately my maid can watch him while she tends to little Rosa. And how is your brave husband?’

‘Quite well, signora, although he must rest today. He has a wound in his leg.’

‘You have been married long?’ Signora Rivera buttered toast, her eyes bright with curiosity. Meg told herself that she was unaccustomed to female company and that it was only natural that Signora Rivera would want to gossip to pass the journey. She controlled a natural impulse to recoil from the probing.

‘It seems like only yesterday,’ she said with a laugh and the other woman laughed too, accepting the reply as a jest before pouring out the story of her journey to England to join her husband, a wine importer.

Her meal eaten, Meg took a turn around the deck. She had to clutch her shawl against the brisk wind and her eyes watered as she squinted to try to catch a glimpse of coast. But they were well out into the Bay by now and perhaps would not see land again until they passed Brittany.

When she judged that Ross would have safely finished washing and shaving and eaten his breakfast Meg went back below decks. The cabin door was unlocked and when she entered she found him standing by the porthole, his legs encased in the loose white cotton trousers the sailors wore and wearing one of his better shirts, open at the neck and with the sleeves rolled up.

The purely visceral jolt of desire at the sight of broad shoulders tapering to taut hips and the sheer, powerful size of him brought her to a standstill. And then, before she could completely recover herself, he turned and it was the same dark, dangerous face, the same cold eyes, and the desire turned to something more like anger.

‘What the devil do you think you are doing?’ The door banged behind her as she marched in to confront him. ‘I told you to stay in bed and rest and here you are—’

He raised one brow and the slant of his eyes looked even more satanic than usual. ‘Your language shocks me, Mrs Brandon.’

‘And you shock me!’ she retorted, finding in the excuse to lecture him a refuge from the decidedly contradictory feelings that were unsettling her. ‘Take those trousers off and get back to bed.’

With an obedience that was patently provocative his hands went to the fall of the trousers. It seemed that just as she had got over her fright, so he had moved from worrying about her fears to actively provoking her. No doubt it appealed to his dark humour. As he undid the buttons the trousers started to slide from his hips. It was not funny.

‘No! Let me go out first, for goodness’ sake.’ If he so much as chuckles, she thought grimly, I’ll… But, of course, he did no such thing. Major Brandon did not smile, let alone laugh, she remembered when she was out in the passage, her back flat against the door.

It was shocking how arousing the sight of those trousers sliding down had been. Yesterday she had seen the man stark naked, and although she had certainly been able to admire his fine physique, it had not disturbed her half as much as what had just transpired.

It was because he was conscious now and fully aware of what he was doing—which had to be provoking her, punishing her for having him at her mercy when he was already seething with frustration over his injury. It was not attempted seduction. There was no heat in that dark stare, no amorous intent in his gestures and she believed him when he explained what had happened that morning.

The wood was rough under her knuckles as she tapped on the door. ‘Are you in bed yet?’

‘Yes,’ he said, amiably enough as far as one could tell through half an inch of panelling.

‘Where did you get those trousers?’ She walked past him without a glance to open her medical bag. She would not give him the satisfaction of looking at him. ‘From Johnny, I suppose.’

‘Yes. They are practical,’ Ross said indifferently. ‘But it hardly matters.’

The contents of the medical bag blurred out of focus. Four words, yet they told her so much. His indifference was not about trousers, or her presence or their cramped accommodation. Anyone else might read merely annoyance at her interference or weariness after a bad night in the way he said those few words. But they betrayed something else, something that explained his dark mood and unsmiling face.

She had heard that tone before in the voices of men who were exhausted from battle and pain, men who would not have taken action to end their own lives but who were beyond minding if someone else did. It was the voice of a man who hardly cared whether he lived or died and it was all of a piece with the way he had neglected his leg, the darkness in his gaze. But it was not battle fatigue that had brought him to this, nor the pain of his leg. Something deeper had wounded him.

She spread a towel on the trunk and laid out what she needed, filled a bowl with water and set it by the bed, her hands steady, her thoughts reeling. It was not just his leg that needed saving, it seemed. If helping drag him from the river yesterday was to have any value, then she had to hope he could find something to live for as well.

‘It has not bled.’ She lifted back the sheet above the bandage, laid her hand on the bare skin just at the edge of the linen bindings and felt his flesh contract at the touch. ‘It is not inflamed, or over-hot.’ Ross made no reply as she undid the knots and unwrapped the bandage, finally lifting away the pad directly over the wound.

‘That looks better,’ she said, bending her head to sniff discreetly, hoping he did not realise what she was doing. ‘Look now, it is less swollen. It is important to keep it clean and to exercise very gently. Apparently the blood must continue to flow in the muscles all around in order to help it heal.’

‘No sign of mortification, then?’ Ross asked, as casually as if he was enquiring what was for dinner, not establishing whether she was going to deliver a death sentence or, at the very least, tell him his leg would have to come off.

‘No.’ Meg sprinkled basilicum powder over the wound, laid on a fresh pad and began to bandage it again. ‘I will leave this for a couple of days now and tomorrow you may begin to walk on it again.’ He made no comment so she risked a little more. ‘I suppose we will be at sea three or four days. By the time we dock it should be much more comfortable, although you should not ride even then.’

‘No doubt I would have hired a post chaise in any case,’ Ross observed, as though he had given no thought at all to the practicalities of his arrival in England.

As if he expects there to be no future. The thought made her shiver. For herself, she had everything planned out: a cheap but decent lodging in Falmouth for a night or two while she recovered from the journey and accustomed herself to England. And then she was going straight to Martinsdene and Bella and Lina. But her imagination would not take her beyond that, beyond that first embrace, the tears. They had to be all right, she told herself as she had every time she had thought of them, day in and day out. The silence was because Papa destroyed her letters, that was all.

Ross Brandon, it seemed, had looked no further than getting on to this ship. And a ship was the perfect mode of transport for a man who did not want to make decisions. You got on it and it took you where it was going—no opportunities to change your mind, vary your route or interfere with its direction until you arrived in port.

‘Is it a long journey to your home from Falmouth?’ She tied the final knots and pulled back the sheet.

‘A long way home?’ Ross turned his heavy gaze on her as though she had asked a deeply philosophical question that he must ponder with care. ‘Thirteen years,’ he said at last.

Chapter Four

Meg was staring at him as though he had said something strange. ‘Thirteen years,’ she repeated eventually. ‘But how long by road?’

Ross shrugged. He was not going to explain his choice of words. Until they had left his lips he had not realised what he was going to say. ‘Not far, although the roads are narrow.’ It was not miles that separated him from the place where he had been born, it was guilt and loss and the man he had become because of that.

‘And where is your home?’ Meg persisted. She was packing away her bag again, apparently engrossed in the task. But the question had not been casual.

‘I am going to a village some distance outside Falmouth, on the Roseland Peninsula.’ It was easier to answer her than to evade her questions. Social conversation seemed difficult, as though he were speaking in a foreign language that he had not quite mastered the grammar for. And yet he had never been an unsocial man, not until the last few months when the reality of his future had begun to close in around him as a duty as heavy as chains. A bullet in the leg had removed any last lingering illusion of choice that he could stay with his beloved Rifles. His fate was plain: go back to where he had been bitterly unhappy and take over the reins from a father he disliked while surrounded by the ghosts that would never leave him.

‘How lovely that sounds.’ Meg straightened up and scanned the cabin, apparently looking for trifling signs of disorder as she folded his new trousers, put away the towel and twitched the corner curtain into place. ‘I am looking forward to arriving in Falmouth. I have always wanted to see the West Country and the coast, ever since I found a ridiculous novel about pirates and smugglers in the charity box.’ She smiled, apparently amused at the memory of her youthful self. ‘I read it secretly at night, straining my eyes and filling my head with tales of adventure and secret coves.’

‘I was seventeen when I left,’ Ross said. ‘Hardly an age when the beauties of the countryside are of much interest. But I did explore caves and climb cliffs and learn to swim in the sea.

‘But escape and the army were all that had truly interested me then. I knew I could shoot better than anyone for miles around despite my age. I’d haunted the footsteps of my father’s head keeper Tregarne by day, and I sneaked out to spend nights with Billy Gillan, a poacher.’ He closed his eyes, recalling the thrill; it had not all been unhappiness. ‘I could bring down a pheasant or a pigeon and I could stalk game unseen and evade Tregarne’s men as easily as the crafty old rogue who taught me.’

‘It will be good to return to the peace of the countryside, then, to be away from war and noise and killing.’

‘No.’ The thought of the quiet, the lack of the purpose he understood, appalled him. ‘The Rifle Brigade was what I dreamed of, a chance to use and hone my skill. The countryside taught me, that is all.’ The thought of the silence and the memories made him shudder. Strange that he had never anticipated that, far from becoming hardened to death as he had expected, it would come to haunt him. Other young men started out shaken by their first experience of battle or of killing the enemy by sniping from cover. Gradually they became used to it, indifferent. But for him it seemed as though it was the other way around and the horror had grown, slowly, insidiously until he felt as though Death himself walked constantly at his shoulder and sighted along the barrel of his rifle whenever he took aim. But then he had left a legacy of death behind him in England.

‘I suppose young men are interested in other things,’ Meg agreed. ‘Do you have a large family waiting for you?’

‘No one.’ He said it matter of factly and was unprepared for the sadness that transformed Meg’s face.

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘There is no need for you to be. My mother died eighteen months after I joined the army. My younger brother six years later. My father four months ago.’ Said flatly like that it betrayed no embarrassing emotion at all.

‘I have two sisters.’ Meg sat down and began to shake out his shirts, checking each for tears or loose buttons. Ross contemplated telling her that she should not be valeting him, but if she was busy it kept that clear gaze off his face and he could watch her, which was curiously soothing. ‘I am the middle one. Celina, the younger, is sweet and biddable and very good. Arabella, the elder, is practical and kind and sensible.’

‘Like you.’ It was a surprise to see her blush.

‘I had to learn to be practical.’ Meg tugged at a button and then apparently decided it was secure. ‘I used to be the dreamer, the romantic one. I was always in scrapes, always in trouble with Papa.’As he watched she put down the shirt for a moment and spread her right hand, palm up, looking at it as if seeing something that was no longer there. She shivered and picked up the sewing again.

‘But you married your true love in the end? Your childhood sweetheart, no doubt.’ How charming. How very romantic.

‘Yes.’ Meg nodded, her head bent over her sewing roll, apparently not noticing the sneer in his voice. ‘I eloped. Bella helped me, which was brave of her.’ She apparently found the cotton she was seeking and began to thread a needle, squinting at the eye in concentration. ‘But I am sure Papa would never guess she would do anything so dreadful, so I do not think she would have suffered for it. I do hope not.’

‘Suffered for it? Your father was very severe?’

‘Oh, yes, although it was usually me who got the whippings. Bella was too sensible to annoy him and Lina too timid. One thing that convinced me to go was that I was sure life would be much saf…quieter for my sisters with me not there to infuriate Papa.’

Safer, was what she almost said. And the tyrant whipped her? A young girl? It was his right, of course, in law. A father was lord of his household. He could still recall the bite of the switch on the numerous occasions when his own transgressions had been found out. Boys were always being chastised and he bore his father no ill will for that. But the thought of someone taking a switch to that slim frame, that tender skin, sickened him. What sort of man beat a woman? A girl?

‘And they are all right now? They have married, left home?’

‘I do not know. I wrote, often, but I never heard from either of them. I expect Papa stopped the letters.’

‘But that is where you will go as soon as we land?’

‘I—ouch!’ Meg dropped the needle and sucked her thumb. ‘Yes. But I will not arrive on the vicarage doorstep, begging to be taken back.’ Her voice held a hard edge he had never heard before, not even when she had been angry with him. But when Ross looked closely at her face all he could see was concentration as she whipped a section of torn hem into place.

‘Why not hire a reliable man, a Bow Street Runner, perhaps, to go and make enquiries?’ Ross asked. ‘That will put your mind at rest without you having to undertake the journey.’

She folded the shirt and added it to the pile, shaking her head. ‘No. I want to go myself, at once.’

‘But your in-laws, surely they will help you?’ Ross found he was becoming positively outraged over the fact that Meg was on her own. Which was ridiculous. She was an independent adult woman and what she did was no affair of his.

‘I had eloped,’ she said simply, although her eyes were dark with emotions that seemed to go far beyond her words. ‘And they blamed me for leading James astray.’ Ross felt a stirring of puzzlement. It was a long time since he had been in England, but surely the fact that she had married would have squashed the little scandal of a vicar’s daughter eloping.

‘They made their position very clear when I wrote to tell them what had happened,’ she continued with a shrug. ‘I couldn’t even bring them a grandchild. Now, of course, I am quite beyond the pale with everyone, although I am not sure whether it was sharing a tent with Dr Ferguson or soiling my hands by tending the wounded that most scandalised the ladies of the regiment. No, I must make myself a new life.’

The day passed slowly. It was hard to accept inactivity, to have the comparative silence of the ship after the bustle of camp and, perhaps most of all, the absence of duties to keep him focused on the here and now, to give some purpose to life. And without something to keep him occupied all he had to think about was the alien English world and its inescapable responsibilities and memories that waited for him.

Meg seemed to find plenty to keep herself busy, although he suspected their meagre combined wardrobes would not hold enough mending to occupy her for another day. She came and went, leaving him tactfully alone for half an hour at a time. He must get up tomorrow, whatever she said, and give her privacy. It must be hard, managing modestly behind that scrap of curtain. But she never once complained—not at the confined space, the gloom of the cabin, the insidious smell of the bilges. Or his dark mood.

Meg returned in the late afternoon to report heavier seas—which he could feel in the roll of the ship and the creaking that seemed to come from every part of it. ‘But the sun is shining and apparently we are making good time,’ she added as she worked on the last of his deplorable shirts. ‘There.’ She shook it out, looked at it critically, then folded it up. ‘You now have five shirts that are halfway decent. I’ll just put them back and then I will see what I can do with your uniform now it is dry.’

Ross found himself staring at the undeniably attractive sight of her rounded backside as she bent over the open trunk and shifted his gaze to the deck over his head. The lust he had felt when he had woken that morning to find her in his arms had not lessened and he was not going to add fuel to its flames by ogling Meg’s figure. It had been hard enough getting to sleep last night, with her warm in the bed next to him: tonight would be worse, now he knew how good she felt against him.

‘Oh! You have books!’ She was on her knees, staring into the bottom of the trunk. ‘Lots of them.’

‘Take one if you want to read.’ Someone might as well enjoy them.

‘May I?’ She was lifting them out before he could reply. ‘Gulliver’s Travels—I have always wanted to read that. Would you like one?’

‘No.’ Reading military tactics would be rubbing salt in the wound, the thought of classical texts made his head ache and poetry and fiction held not the slightest charm. He had carted those books with care the length and breadth of the Iberian Peninsula, had read them with passion whenever he could, and now he found he had not the slightest desire to see them ever again. The urge to discover all the literature he had spurned as a youth had suddenly left him. ‘Thank you,’ he added, aware that he was probably sounding like a lout and not really caring much about that either.

‘I’ll read to you.’ Meg opened the book carefully on her knees.

‘I want to sleep.’

‘You cannot possibly be tired and if you sleep now you will not rest well tonight.’ She sounded remarkably like his old nanny when he was five. Ross rolled his eyes and settled back, resigned to his fate.

‘Travels into several remote nations of the world in four parts by Lemuel Gulliver, first a surgeon, then a captain of several ships. Part the first, a voyage to Lilliput,’ Meg read. ‘My father had a small estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the third of five sons…’ Her tone deepened as she realised she was reading a first-person account by a man, and Ross closed his eyes, caught immediately by the fluency of her clear voice. Perhaps, after all, he would not sleep.

‘…and lie at my full length in the temple.’ Meg closed the book and sighed, revelling in the luxury of a book and the time to read it in. ‘Oh! Have I put you to sleep after all?’

‘No.’ Ross opened his eyes. ‘No, I was quite lost in the story you were recounting—you have the knack of reading aloud very vividly.’

‘Thank you.’ He almost smiled. Meg closed the book and set it aside, careful not to stare at Ross directly, as though the fleeting look of pleasure on his face was a wild animal she might scare away by confronting it. ‘I am agog to know what happens next, but that is the end of the chapter and time, I think, for dinner. I’ll send Johnny down with yours.’

It was more difficult to move about now the ship was well out into the bay and receiving the full strength of the swell. Meg found herself putting out both hands to fend off from each side of the passageway in turn and smiled to find herself staggering about like a drunk.

When she reached the stairs—companionway, she remembered to call it—she took a firm grip of the rail and then slipped as her foot skidded on the worn wood. Immediately a hand cupped her elbow and steadied her.

‘Ma’am. Have a care.’ There were two gentlemen standing behind her; one had reached to steady her.

‘Thank you, sir. I have not yet got my sea legs, I fear.’ He kept hold of her arm as they climbed and Meg glanced up at him, recognising his face. He and his companion were merchants, she had decided when she had seen them at breakfast. They certainly did not appear to have wives or families with them. Both men were well dressed, in their thirties, perhaps.

‘Thank you,’ she repeated when they reached the next deck where the food was being served, but it took a pointed glance at his hand before he released her.

‘Gerald Whittier, ma’am. And this is Henry Bates.’

‘Mrs Brandon.’ Meg began to feel uncomfortable at the way they stood so very close. She scanned the long tables between the hanging lanterns for Signora Rivera or some other lady. ‘If you will excuse me, gentlemen, I must organise dinner for my husband.’

‘Oh, yes, he is a cripple, is he not?’ Whittier observed. ‘We saw him being carried on board. Difficult for you, ma’am, being all alone with him in that state. Perhaps you would care to join us for dinner?’ His smile made her uneasily aware of the warmth in his eyes. ‘We would be delighted to entertain you.’

I am sure you would. ‘My husband, Major Brandon,’ Meg said with all the frost she could inject into her voice, ‘is not crippled, but wounded.’ She glanced up and down their immaculate civilian clothing. ‘My husband is an officer and a hero.’ Whittier flushed at the scorn in her voice, but stepped back as she swept past him.

There, the colonel’s lady could not have been so haughty. She found a seat between a clerk who had a book propped up on the table before him and a fat woman and her husband whose occupation she was quite unable to guess.

As she ate she kept a wary eye out for the two men, but, when they made no move to join her and took a table on the far side, she gradually recovered her equilibrium. Perhaps she had been over-sensitive and had read more than a somewhat unconventional invitation into Mr Whittier’s words. But she was still angry at the way he had described Ross.

‘Anyfink wot you want, mum?’ It was Johnny, standing at her elbow.

‘Yes, you may carry some food down to the major, if you will. I am not very steady on my feet in this sea.’

‘Wot would the major like, mum?’

‘Everything, and lots of it, he has a good appetite,’ she said, smiling at the boy. ‘And ale.’

‘He’s a big ’un, he is,’ Johnny said. ‘My ma would say she’d rather feed him for a day than a sen’night.’ He scurried off in the direction of the serving table.

Meg was so amused by that she decided to save it up to tell Ross. Perhaps she might tempt that elusive half-smile out again.

She lingered a little, then went up and out on to the deck to give Ross some more time alone. He was probably thoroughly tired of her company, although if he was up and about tomorrow he would probably find some congenial male passengers and would not need her efforts to entertain him. If he did, then perhaps it would prove her wrong about his dark, fatalistic mood. Perhaps, after all, he had merely been exhausted, in pain and bored.

She wandered up towards the bows and leaned her elbows on the rail. It was quiet on deck, most of the passengers apparently preferring the stuffy, poorly lit communal stateroom to the stiff breeze and salty air. The sea was liberating after years of heat and dust and danger. Somewhere out there beyond the darkening sea, where the vanished sun still made a glow on the horizon, were Bella and Lina. Would they be happy and well? Would they have found—?

‘Still alone, ma’am?’ It was Whittier, his friend Bates smirking behind him. ‘That won’t do, a young lady like yourself. You need some lively company; no wonder you don’t want to go back below to your wounded hero.’

‘I am alone, Mr Whittier, because I choose to be. Thank you, but I do not wish for company.’

‘Come now, there’s no need to be standoffish.’ They moved in close, far too close for comfort. The rail pressed into her back, no escape that way. Panic began to catch at her breath as she glanced around the deserted deck. Not even a deckhand was in sight. ‘We are much more fun for a lady like you than that cripple of yours below decks.’ Bates put his hand on her arm, his fingers hot through the cotton of the sleeve.

Where was their cabin? Could they bundle her down there without anyone realising? She looked around for a weapon and saw none. It was up to her; no one was going to save her this time.

‘Mr Bates, if you do not remove your arm, I am going to scream—very loudly.’ Someone, surely, would hear? The threat did not appear to alarm them. Still, she must try. Meg dragged down a deep breath, opened her mouth and—

‘But not as loudly as you will scream, Mr Bates, when I rip your testicles off and throw them to the sharks,’ said a cold voice from the shadows of the rigging. Ross. And sounding like Death. An hysterical giggle rose in her throat at the sight of the men’s faces as they swung round to confront the threat in the shadows.

Ross was wearing his stained, filthy uniform, his sword at his side and a pistol pushed into the sash. He looked as if he had just walked out of the swirling smoke and bloody carnage of the battlefield—or straight from hell. He looked, Meg thought, as she sagged back against the rail, big, dangerous and utterly wonderful—provided he was on your side.

‘Who the hell are you?’ Whittier demanded. ‘This woman is with us.’

‘This lady is my wife.’ For the first time, Meg saw Ross smile. And then wished she hadn’t. ‘I believe she expressed the desire to be left alone. Are you hard of hearing, perhaps?’ His sword ripped out of its scabbard as the men backed away. ‘Are you as attached to your ears as your friend is to his balls?’ He had them trapped now, pressed back against the rail with nowhere to go. It was time to intervene.

‘Major Brandon.’

‘My dear?’ It was hard not to be distracted by the warmth in those two drawled words.

‘The captain would dislike blood on his deck.’

‘So he would.’ There was a thoughtful silence while the sword point remained unwavering. ‘And the men work so hard holystoning it. Did these scum touch you?’

She knew what he meant and shook her head. ‘No, they were merely offensive.’

Ross kept the sword up while Meg and the two men eyed it like rabbits in front of a stoat. ‘Very well. You two—undress.’

‘What?’ Bates’s voice wavered between fear and incredulity.

‘You heard me. Every stitch. Avert your eyes, my dear. This will not be a pretty sight.’

Meg hastily turned her back. Amid sounds of spluttering indignation it was apparent that Bates and Whittier were obeying Ross. She could hardly blame them for giving in, not once they had seen his smile and looked into his eyes.

‘Now throw it all over the side. Good. And now, walk back to the companionway and down the stairs.’

‘But that’s the public saloon! And we’re stark naked!’

‘Yes, indeed. And hardly a vision to inspire an artist, I fear. Off you go. I’ll be right behind you.’

As he passed her, Ross murmured, ‘I thought I told you to avert your eyes, wife.’

Meg dragged her gaze from two pairs of pale, goose-pimpled buttocks retreating towards the companionway and laughed. ‘And, as always, husband, your judgement is entirely correct. I have never seen a more revolting sight.’

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