A Mistress For Major Bartlett. Annie Burrows

       Chapter One

      Sunday, 18th June—1815

      ‘Limber up, fast as you can!’ Colonel Randall rode up to Major Bartlett and pointed to a spot to the rear. ‘We are heading to the ridge up yonder. You will recall we came in that way yesterday, past a place—what was it called?—Hougoumont. The French are massing their heavy cavalry between the château and the Charleroi road. Take up your position between the two infantry squares up there. And be quick about it!’

      Major Bartlett kept his face impassive as he saluted. Quick? That was going to be a relative term given the sodden state of the ground.

      ‘Right, lads,’ he said, turning to his men. ‘You heard the Colonel. At the double!’

      The speed at which they turned the gun carriages and started ploughing their way across the field had much more to do with the shells exploding all around them, spraying them with mud, than willingness to obey their commanding officer. The sooner they got to higher ground, the sooner they could start inflicting some damage on the Frenchmen currently trying to blow them to kingdom come. Not that Major Bartlett had any complaints. He had a rather elastic attitude to obeying orders himself. In any other unit his tendency to interpret orders to suit himself would have got him up on a charge—indeed, had done so on several occasions. Only Colonel Randall had appreciated that his ability to think on his feet, rather than dumbly obeying orders, could be an advantage, taking him into his unit and giving him promotion.

      Still, when he glanced across the ridge, and saw that his team had beaten Major Flint’s to reach their designated position, he felt a twinge of pride in his men. They’d worked with a swiftness and efficiency he’d drilled into them, even if, at this moment, they’d worked the way they had because their hides depended on it.

      Flint’s guns were ready to fire mere seconds after his own. Even Rawlins, who’d only been promoted a matter of days before, had his guns in position not long after. And just as well. The French cavalry were approaching at the trot.

      The first salvo his men fired mowed down the leaders. But they kept coming. Big bastards. On big horses.

      ‘Dear lord, they’ll charge right over us!’

      Major Bartlett whirled round. Had one of his own men dared say that?

      ‘Not Randall’s Rogues, they won’t,’ he snarled. ‘Remember our motto—always victorious!’ By any means. Particularly when sent behind enemy lines, where his, and his men’s, talents for causing mayhem had so often been given free rein.

      ‘Aye,’ roared Randall, drawing his sword and holding it aloft. ‘Semper Laurifer! Ready, Rogues... Fire!’

      The guns roared again. Horses and men fell. Smoke swirled round the scene, blotting out the sight of the dead and dying, though Bartlett could still hear their screams and groans.

      And then he heard cheering. From the infantry squares behind him. The cavalry charge was over. This one, anyway. He cast a quick, appraising glance over his men. All of them steadily reloading, preparing for the next attack, not wasting their time cheering, or capering about and having to be pushed back into position.

      At this point, between cavalry charges, their orders had been to retreat into the infantry squares for cover. But his men, seasoned veterans, knew as well as he did that if they didn’t stay right where they were, the squares would break and scatter. They’d seen it happen elsewhere already today. The infantry—with little or no experience—were watching the way the Rogues calmly went about their business as though those huge French horses were no more than skittles to knock down. Their staunch disregard of danger was probably the only thing giving them any hope.

      Hope—hah! It was the one thing neither he, nor his men, had felt for a very long time. They were the damned. Doomed to death, one way or another. They just preferred to take as many of the murdering French to hell with them as they could. At least they could die like men, if they did so in defence of their country, instead of dancing on the end of a rope.

      ‘Here they come again, lads,’ he heard Randall shout.

      And then came the thunder of hooves. The roar of the guns. The smoke, and the screams, and the mud, and the carnage.

      And his men reloaded and fired. And loaded and fired.

      And still there was no end to the French.

      The next morning

      Lady Sarah Latymor rubbed her eyes and peered up at the manger above her head. Could she really make out wisps of straw sticking through the grating, or was it just wishful thinking?

      In the stall next to hers, she could hear Castor shuffling about, lipping at whatever provender Pieter had placed in his own manger. She reached out her hand and laid the palm against the partition. Being able to hear her horse, Gideon’s last gift to her, moving about in his stall during the night, had been all that had kept her flayed nerves from giving way altogether. But it looked as though the worst day of her life was over now. She could, at last, make out the pale rectangle of her hand against the planking. Dawn was definitely breaking. And Brussels was quiet. Though Madame le Brun had warned her that French troops might overrun the city during the night, they’d never come. Which meant the Allies must have won. She could come out of hiding.

      And continue her quest.

      To find out what had really happened to Gideon.

      He couldn’t be dead. He was her twin. If his soul had really departed this earth, she would feel it, wouldn’t she? Her stomach twisted and dropped, just as it had when her brother-in-law Lord Blanchards had broken the news. While her sister Gussie had broken down and wept, Sarah had stood there, shaking her head. Grown more and more angry at the way they both just accepted it.

      Blanchards had brushed aside her refusal to believe that the hastily scrawled note he held in his hand could possibly be delivering news of that magnitude. He’d practically ordered her to her room, where he no doubt expected her to weep decorously, out of sight, so that he could concentrate on comforting and supporting his wife.

      Well, she hadn’t wept. She’d been too angry to weep. That anger had simmered all night and driven her, on Sunday morning, all the way to Brussels, the only place where she was likely to be able to find out what had really happened to Gideon. Had driven her about half a mile along the road to the Forest of Soignes before she’d been beaten back by a troop of Hussars, claiming the French had won the battle, and were right on their heels.

      Hussars, she snorted, sitting up and pushing a hank of hair off her face. What did they know?

      As if in agreement, Ben, the dog she’d teamed up with in the wake of the Hussars’ cowardly scramble to safety, sat up, stretched and yawned.

      ‘Did you have a lovely sleep, Ben?’ she asked as the dog came to swipe his tongue over her face in morning greeting. ‘Yes, you did. You marvellous, fierce creature,’ she added, ruffling his ears. ‘I could feel you lying at my feet all night long and knew that if any Frenchman dared to set one toe inside this stable, you’d bite him with those great big teeth of yours.’ She’d felt safer with him to guard her than she would have done had she had a loaded pistol in her hand.

      ‘Woof,’ Ben agreed, settling back to give his ear a vigorous scratch with one hind paw.

      ‘Well, I may not have had a wink of sleep,’ she informed him as she flung her blanket aside, ‘but at least I didn’t waste all those sleepless hours. I have,’ she said, reaching for the jacket of her riding habit, which she’d rolled up and used for a pillow, ‘come up with a plan. We’re going to find Justin.’

      She frowned at the jacket. Pale blue velvet was not the ideal material for rolling up and pillowing a lady’s head. Especially not a lady who’d taken refuge in a stable. She shook it, brushed off the straw and slid her arms into the sleeves.

      Ben stopped scratching, and gave her a hard