A Mistress For Major Bartlett. Annie Burrows

one thing she didn’t want Gussie to know exactly where she was, or what she was doing, because it would worry her. And anyway, Gussie wouldn’t send what she needed. She’d send Blanchards instead, with strict instructions to bring her back to safety. Which would mean poor Major—poor Tom—would be left to the care of strangers. Well, technically she was a stranger, too, but he’d asked her to look after him. Not Madame le Brun. Or anyone else. Not even Mary Endacott.

      And he was staring at her in a fixed, glazed way as though she was his only hope.

      ‘Drink this,’ she said, in as calm a voice as she could, holding a cup of meadowsweet tea to his lips. Meek as a lamb, he opened his mouth and swallowed.

      Because he trusted her. He didn’t care that she had no experience. Was too feverish to notice what she was wearing. Unlike that day in the park, when he’d run a connoisseur’s eye over the riding habit she’d just obtained from Odette, the brilliant dressmaker they’d discovered in a little street off the Place de la Monnaie.

      Oh, my goodness! She’d placed an order with Odette only last week—and Blanchards had been in such a hurry to get them on to the barge bound for Antwerp last Friday that he hadn’t let her go to collect it. She placed Tom’s empty cup on the bedside table, watching his eyelids droop, though her mind was on all those gowns awaiting collection from the shop. She could very easily send a message to the modiste, requesting immediate delivery of everything that was ready and include a list of all the other items she needed, too. Stockings and stays and petticoats and so forth. No doubt the bill for doing her shopping would be steep, but then when had she ever had to worry about money? Not even the management of it. Justin, as head of the family, took care of all that side of things, so that all she had to do was send her bills to whomever he’d appointed to take care of her day-to-day needs. At the moment, it was Blanchards.

      That thought brought a grim sort of smile to her lips as she went to the writing desk and turned up the lamp. He’d already written, in response to the explanation she’d scrawled as she’d been cowering in the stable, with Castor in the next stall and Ben at her feet. And his letter had been so horrid and unfeeling she’d crumpled it up and thrown it in the kitchen fire on her way back from fetching the medicine pouch. He’d totally ignored her attempt to reassure Gussie she was safe. He’d accused her of having no consideration for her sister’s delicate condition, of flitting off to Brussels on a wild goose chase, and ordered her to come back, without once acknowledging it might be the depth of grief she felt over losing Gideon that had sparked her rash behaviour.

      He hadn’t let Gussie know she wasn’t in Antwerp at all. Because of his over-protective nature, he’d simply told his wife Sarah was with friends and would return soon.

      Oh, but she could just see his face, when her bills started turning up in Antwerp. He would be so vexed with her for disobeying his order to return. Doubly vexed at not being able to tell Gussie why he was annoyed, since he’d kept Sarah’s whereabouts secret.

      Well, she sniffed, that served him right for keeping secrets from his wife. No man should try to deceive his wife, not even if he thought it was for her own good. Indeed, she was teaching him a valuable lesson.

      As well as proving that she could manage without him. That she could manage fine without him.

      * * *

      Tom blinked at the angel’s fierce profile as she dipped her pen into the inkwell and wrote something down. Her golden hair glowed, the way he’d seen angels in churches glow when the sun shone through the stained-glass windows.

      ‘You’ve even got a halo,’ he said.

      She looked up, startled, and dropped her pen.

      ‘I’m disturbing your writing. Is it important?’ But, of course, it must be important. Anything an angel wrote was bound to be important. ‘Sorry.’

      ‘You don’t need to be sorry. It’s just a list.’

      ‘Of my sins?’ Then he would be sorry. ‘Have you got enough paper?’

      She came close. Floated towards him on a violet-scented cloud.

      ‘I have plenty of paper, thank you.’

      She sat on a chair next to his bed. The wicker work creaked.

      He was in a bed. She was on a chair. He frowned.

      ‘This is a strange sort of hell.’

      ‘That’s because it isn’t hell,’ she said in that clipped, practical voice he was coming to recognise. ‘It’s Brussels.’

      ‘Not hell? Why not?’

      ‘Never you mind why not,’ she said sternly. ‘Come on, drink some of this.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘It will make you feel better.’

      ‘Just looking at you makes me feel better.’

      ‘I wish that were true,’ she said tartly. ‘Then looking after you wouldn’t be half so much work.’

      ‘Why are you doing this, then?’

      ‘Because...I...I...well, if you don’t get well again I will never forgive myself.’

      ‘Not your fault.’

      ‘I will feel as if it is if you die on me,’ she said glumly.

      ‘You don’t want me to die?’

      ‘Of course I don’t want you to die. How can you even ask?’

      ‘Better dead. Nothing to live for really. Just got into the habit.’

      ‘Well it’s about the only habit of yours, from what I’ve heard of you, that I don’t want you to break.’

      ‘You’re crying again. Didn’t mean to make you cry.’

      ‘Well, then stop talking about dying and concentrate on getting better.’

      ‘And now you’re angry.’

      ‘Of course I’m angry. Hasn’t there been enough death already? Stop it, Tom. Stop it right now.’

      He reached out and found her hand.

      ‘Sorry. Will try and do better.’

      ‘Promise me?’

      ‘If it means that much to you,’ he said slowly, hardly able to credit that anyone could really care that much whether he lived or died, ‘then, yes.’

      After that, every time he felt the pit yawning at his back, he reached for the angel. She was always there. Even when he was too exhausted to drag his eyes open and look for her, he could tell she was near. He only had to smell the faint fragrance of violets for a wave of profound relief to wash through him. For it was her scent. And it meant she hadn’t left him.

      He’d thought he would always be alone. But she hadn’t left him to his fate. And had promised she wouldn’t.

      ‘Hush,’ she whispered, smoothing that cool balm over his burning face and neck. ‘Don’t fret. You are going to be fine. I won’t let anything happen to you.’

      * * *

      He doubted her only the once, very briefly. When he thought he saw the brigade surgeon hovering over him like a great vulture.

      She couldn’t have saved his life, only to turn him over to that ghoul, could she? The man liked nothing better than cutting up poor helpless victims, to see what made them tick. Oh, he said he was trying to cure them, but he spent far too much time writing up his findings in all those leather journals. The journals that were going to make his name some day. His findings, he called them.

      Cold sweat broke out all over him at the prospect of falling into his hands. He’d cut him up, for sure. Lay his kidneys out in a tray.

      ‘Lieutenant...’ He had to screw up his face. ‘What’s the name?’