Louise Allen - Practical Widow to Passionate Mistress

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.