A Rose for Major Flint. Louise Allen
down and cupped her palm gently around his bandaged face, smiled and shook her head. I’m sorry.
The surgeon got to his feet and picked up his bag. ‘Are you steadier now?’
Yes. She frowned at him. He was the one who had wanted to slap her, the one who had shaken her. She held out her hand and was pleased there was no tremor now. Can’t you see?
‘Are you dumb?’ he asked, as he took her elbow and steered her towards the kitchen door.
Rose shook off his hand. I can’t speak. I can walk.
Adam was standing by the window. He was watching me. The unsmiling nod he gave her was like a hug.
‘Is this a congenital condition?’ the surgeon demanded of the room in general. Rose found herself pressed down into the chair again. The man tipped up her chin. ‘Open your mouth.’
No. She gritted her teeth and shook her head.
‘There’s a deformity of the palate perhaps. She can hear normally?’ His fingers pressed against the hinge of her jaw.
‘I suspect you are in a good way to having your fingers bitten, Lieutenant,’ Adam said. ‘Leave her be. Rose will speak when she is ready, not before.’
Thank you. She could tell that he could read her expression and the hard mouth just kicked up at the corner into a suspicion of a smile. She could understand the look on the men’s faces when he spoke to them. They’d follow him into hell—they had followed him into hell—because they knew he had confidence in them and they knew he would never abandon them. He was not going to abandon her either, those blue eyes told her.
‘If you say so, sir,’ Lieutenant Foster said and, to Rose’s relief, he left her side and went to take the mug of tea Maggie held out to him. He cleared his throat and flicked open his notebook. ‘As I was explaining to the sergeant, everything is pretty much under control, Hawkins will fill you in with the details, sir, but I’m rather concerned about Major Bartlett.’
‘What about him?’ Adam demanded. ‘He’s not wounded, is he?’
‘He is. It must have been a nasty blow to the head. He seems to have significant memory loss, he’s not exactly rational and the circumstances under which he is being nursed... To be frank, sir, I am not sure what to tell the colonel.’
‘If he’s in some hovel, then we must get him moved. Damn it, are there any more of our officers wounded that no one’s bothered to tell me about?’
He looked furious, Rose thought, glad those hard blue eyes were not looking at her.
‘Er...no, none, sir. And Bartlett’s in very comfortable lodgings in the city. Perfectly clean, plenty of water, decent kitchens. A lady’s um...residence.’ The lieutenant appeared fascinated by something in his notebook.
‘Stop stammering, man. So Major Bartlett has found himself yet another lady friend. This is hardly a novel scandal to rock Brussels’ society, now, is it?’
‘I couldn’t...er...comment, sir.’
‘Give me the address. I’ll go now.’ Flint extended a hand and the surgeon scribbled a few lines and passed the note across. ‘Rue de Regence? Respectable area.’
‘Quite. Very.’ The surgeon was red around the ears.
Adam slapped his shako on his head. ‘I won’t be long. Rose, you keep busy and don’t tease Lieutenant Foster while I’m gone.’
‘Well, and what are you blushing like a maiden for, Lieutenant?’ Maggie demanded as the door banged behind Adam. ‘He’s not ended up in a brothel, has he?’ She grinned at Rose. ‘A bit of a lad is our Major Bartlett.’
‘A brothel? No, far from it! I really do not consider it my place to say, Mrs Moss. I must be going. I will come back tomorrow and Moss knows my lodgings in case anyone needs me urgently.’
‘If it wasn’t that Randall’s Rogues never ran from anything, I’d say the lieutenant was in full retreat,’ Moss remarked. He stuck a taper in the fire and lit his pipe. ‘Now what’s Tom Cat Bartlett up to?’
* * *
Flint found the address easily enough. Foster had been correct, the house was in a respectable street, well kept and as quiet as any at the moment, given the state the city was in.
The door was answered by a woman as well kept and respectable as her house. ‘Sir?’
‘Major Flint. I am calling on Major Bartlett.’
Her lips thinned but she made no move to stand aside. ‘Indeed, sir.’
‘I assume, as he is wounded, he is in?’ Don’t say he’s died. We’ve lost too many.
‘Oh, he’s in, sir, but her ladyship said I wasn’t to admit anyone but the surgeon, sir.’
Ladyship? Bartlett had found himself very cosy lodgings indeed by the sound of it. Presumably he was languishing on the snow-white bosom of some high-ranking officer’s wife while her husband was otherwise engaged chasing a fugitive emperor back to Paris. ‘I am that surgeon’s senior officer.’
‘Oh, in that case, sir, please to come in.’ She had decided he was another surgeon, it seemed. ‘Top of the stairs on the right, sir. Can you find your own way? Only I’ve left the bread rising—’
‘Thank you.’ Flint was halfway up the stairs, too irritated with Bartlett to worry about interrupting a tender tête-à-tête. If he was well enough to be taking an interest in women, then he was well enough to get up and share some of the workload.
He gave a cursory rap on the door and strode in. ‘Bartlett. They tell me you’re—’ Languishing certainly, and on a bosom which was probably snow-white, but which was, thankfully, covered by tumbling blond tresses. The owner of the tresses was curled up on the bed, her arms around the wounded major, her expensively simple muslin gown rucked up to her knees and her blue eyes glaring at Flint.
His own blue eyes, Randall’s blue eyes, the eyes of his half-sister, Lady Sarah Latymor.
Of all the circumstances to meet his half-sister for the first time. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
Bartlett closed his eyes in a reasonable imitation of a manly swoon. Lady Sarah laid him tenderly on the pillows and bounced off the bed like a mother cat defending its sole kit. Flint averted his gaze while she wrestled her creased gown into some sort of order.
‘You!’ she uttered in tones that would have done credit to Sarah Siddons as Lady Macbeth. ‘You’re Adam Flint. Justin wouldn’t introduce me to you at the review.’
‘He wouldn’t introduce you to any of the Rogues,’ Flint snapped. ‘And for very good reason.’
‘I know the reason he wouldn’t introduce me to you. You’re my natural brother and I’m not supposed to know any of you exist, let alone associate with you.’
‘None of the Rogues should be associating with you—let alone him.’ He stabbed a finger at Bartlett. Damn it, now he had to worry about his sister’s morals on top of everything else. Half-brothers were bad enough, but at least they were fellow soldiers, there was a connection there, an understanding. Sisters were another matter. He had never been responsible for a respectable lady in his life and he did not want to start now.
She swept her hair over one shoulder and began to braid it into a rough plait. ‘And stop shouting. Poor Tom’s head hurts.’
‘Poor Tom’s head is going to be ripped from his shoulders just as soon as he’s on his feet,’ Flint threatened. And his balls are doomed as well, just as soon as Randall’s halfway fit. ‘Now get your cloak and bonnet and I’ll take you home this minute. You can’t stay here.’ He shouldn’t feel anything other than irritated, he thought, but he did. Or was that just because he’d