Practical Widow to Passionate Mistress. Louise Allen

unrolled her blankets on the deck, found the pillow and the sheet and settled down, blowing out the lamp. It was hard under her hip bone and shoulder, but she’d slept in worse places. This was warm and dry and safe…

      ‘What the devil do you think you are doing?’

      Meg sat bolt upright, clutching the sheet to her petticoat bodice. There was not much light to see by, but Ross was sitting up and sounded as though he was glaring at her.

      ‘Trying to go to sleep, of course!’

      ‘On the floor?’

      ‘Well, yes. Obviously. There is only one bunk and you are injured and I am perfectly fine down here.’

      ‘Get into bed.’ The sheet flapped as he tossed it back.

      ‘I will do no such thing! I thought we had dealt with this—I am not sleeping with you, Major.’

      ‘You most certainly are. I’ll not have you lying on the floor and I’m damned if I see why I should.’

      Meg huffed, lay down and drew the blanket up to her shoulders, her back to him. She was not going to argue with him. Overbearing man. Sleep in the same bunk with him, indeed! She knew what would come of that: men were not to be trusted. She punched the pillow and wriggled down. Behind her there was a muffled thump on the deck. She ignored it.

      Then a hand took hold of her shoulder and rolled her on to her back, another slid under her knees and she found herself rising through the air as Ross Brandon, apparently unhampered by his wounded leg, lifted her and deposited her on the bunk.

      Chapter Three

      ‘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