A Mistress For Major Bartlett. Annie Burrows

lord—if this had been what happened to Gideon, no wonder they hadn’t sent his body to Antwerp. Justin might be overbearing, but it was always in a protective way. He wouldn’t have wanted her, or Gussie, who was in such a delicate condition, to be subjected to the sight of Gideon, reduced to...to...that.

      Just as it finally hit her that it might be true, that Gideon might really be dead, one of the men gave out a great cry.

      She looked up, to see Ben go bounding across a field to a sort of tumbledown building, round which even more bodies were stacked than by the side of the road.

      ‘He’s found him! The blessed dog’s only gone and found him,’ cried one of the men. And they all went charging up to the ruin.

       Chapter Two

      She heard somebody say charnel house.

      Sarah’s stomach lurched. She drew Castor to a halt as Ben scrabbled at the door of the barn until he found his way in.

      ‘Justin is in there,’ she cried in an agony of certainty. In the charnel house. Which meant he was dead. ‘I know he is.’

      ‘We shall see,’ said Mary calmly, dismounting.

      Sarah slid from her own horse, her legs shaking so much she had to cling to the pommel to stay upright.

      ‘Here,’ said Mary, thrusting her reins into her hands. ‘You stay here and...and guard the horses while I go and see.’

      Then, in a rather kinder tone, added, ‘It might not even be him.’

      But Sarah knew it was. Ben had scented...something. He’d ignored heaps and heaps of dead bodies. The dog wouldn’t have barked so excitedly for no good reason.

      And the Rogues hadn’t come out yet, either.

      It was her brother in there. In there, where Mary was going, her face composed, her demeanour determined and brave.

      While the prospect of seeing Justin, her strong, forceful brother, lying lifeless—perhaps even torn to bits like so many of the poor wretches she’d seen scattered in heaps along the roads...

      And then any pretence she was guarding the horses fled as blackness swirled round the edges of her vision. Eddied up from the depths of her, too, as the extent of her uselessness hit her. What point had there been in snatching up that bag of medical supplies when she’d fled Antwerp? Bridget, her old nursemaid, had told her she would need it. And Bridget had a way of seeing things. So yesterday, she’d imagined she was riding to Gideon’s rescue, armed with the very herbs that he needed. But the truth was that Gideon was beyond anyone’s help. And that she was so overset by the thought of seeing any of her brothers chopped and hacked about that she would have been no more use to Gideon than a...than a...

      Actually, she would have been of no help to Gideon at all. Just as she wasn’t being of any help to Justin.

      They were right about her—those people who wrote her off as a weak, empty-headed nuisance. All she’d done by coming here was create problems for everyone else. Gussie and Blanchards would be worried sick about her, and even though she’d promised Mary she wouldn’t get in the way— Sarah groaned. She was growing more and more certain that she was either going to faint dead away, or cast up her accounts.

      Well, she wasn’t going to do it in front of Justin’s men. Only a couple had stayed in the barn with Mary. The rest had come outside again, probably, she suspected, to keep an eye on their rather suspiciously magnificent horses.

      There was a half-collapsed wall to her left, which would shield her from view if she was going to be sick. Which would conceal the evidence from the stalwart Mary, too, when she eventually came out.

      If her legs would carry her that far...

      They did. But only just. The effort of clambering over the lowest, most broken-down portion of the wall proved too much for both Lady Sarah’s legs, and her stomach, which both gave way at the same time. She hadn’t even gained the privacy she’d sought, either, because there was a group of peasant women busily ferreting amongst the rubble so they could rob the men who’d been partially buried under it.

      They paused for a moment, but only a moment. With mocking, hard eyes, they dismissed her as being no threat as she retched fruitlessly, then calmly went back to stripping the corpse they’d just exhumed.

      Or what had appeared to be a corpse. For suddenly, as the women turned him to ease the removal of his shirt, the man let out a great bellow, which both startled and scattered them.

      Sarah gasped as he uttered a string of profanities. Not because of the words themselves, but because they were in English. His jacket, the one they’d just torn from his back, was blue, so she’d assumed he was French. But not only was he English, but his voice was cultured, his swearing fluent.

      He was an officer.

      And he was trying to get to his feet, though his face and shoulders were cloaked in blood.

      Instinctively, she got to her feet, too, though with what aim she wasn’t sure.

      Until she saw one of the peasant women hefting a knife.

      ‘No!’ Sarah’s fist closed round one of the stones that had once been part of the wall and, without thinking of the consequences, threw it as hard as she could at the woman who’d started to advance on the wounded man. She couldn’t just stand there and let them rob him of his very life. It was unthinkable!

      She’d been of no use to Gideon, but by God she wasn’t going to stand back and let those women casually despatch another Englishman before her very eyes!

      ‘Leave him alone,’ she screamed, throwing another stone in their direction.

      Rage and revulsion at what they were doing had her quivering with outrage now, instead of despair.

      The women paused, eyeing her warily.

      The man, too, turned his head when he heard her shout.

      He stretched his hand towards her.

      ‘Save me,’ he groaned, then swayed and slowly toppled forward.

      Oh, no! If he landed face down in the mud, that would finish him off as surely as the peasant woman’s knife. Sarah flung herself in his path, arms outstretched as if to catch him. Though, of course, his weight proved too much for her. She landed with a wet thud on her bottom, the unconscious, half-naked officer half on top of her.

      But at least he was still breathing.

      For now. The peasant women were still hovering. And her legs were pinned in place by his dead weight.

      Well, this was no time to hold her pride too dear. Throwing back her head, she screamed for help.

      At once, there came a familiar, deep throaty bark.

      The women ran for it as Ben came bounding over the wall, barking and baring his fangs, and looking gloriously, heart-warmingly ferocious.

      Once he was satisfied the women weren’t going to come back, Ben turned and licked her face just the once, then started nosing at the man who lay face down in her lap.

      Because the women had managed to strip the officer of everything but his breeches and one boot before they fled, Sarah could clearly see that his back was a mass of bruises. His hair was matted to his scalp with blood, which was still oozing from a nasty gash. She didn’t know how he was alive, but he was. He was.

      And Ben seemed terribly excited by the fact. He kept nosing at the man, then prancing away, and barking, only to come back and nose at him, and lick him as though he knew him.

      And it suddenly struck her that the Rogues uniform was blue. And that her brother was lying not ten yards away.

      Was this another of his men? One of his officers, if the tone of his voice was anything to go