Читать книгу Practical Widow to Passionate Mistress - Louise Allen - Страница 12

‘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.