A Mistress For Major Bartlett

Ben dropped down on to his haunches, tilting his head to one side.

‘Yes, I know. She doesn’t like me. And I don’t blame her. But you have to admit, since she’s lived in Brussels for years, and knows everyone, she’s bound to know who we can ask for his direction if she doesn’t already have it. And what’s more,’ she added, when he didn’t look convinced, ‘she’s the one person who is likely to want to know it just as much as I do, since the poor girl is in love with him.’

She lowered her head to fumble the buttons of her jacket closed as her mind dwelt on the last time she’d seen Mary, when Justin had been ordering her to leave Brussels, too. If she’d done as he’d told her...

No. Mary wouldn’t have left, not even had they still been betrothed. The school she ran was her livelihood. And Justin had forfeited any authority he might have thought he had over her the minute he broke off their relationship in such a brutal fashion.

Besides, she wasn’t the sort of woman to give up hope and sit about weeping, any more than Sarah was. Even after Justin had said all those horrid things, Mary would want to make sure he’d survived the battle, even if he didn’t want to have anything more to do with her.

She lifted her head, squared her shoulders and strode out of the stall on her way back to the water pump. This time she saw Pieter shambling across the yard, rubbing his eyes sleepily.

‘Be so good as to saddle my horse,’ she said.

He hesitated for a moment, only tugging at his cap and making for the stable once he saw Ben come trotting out and joining Lady Sarah at the pump, where she was now filling her water bottle.

‘I’m so glad I found you yesterday,’ she said, bending down to stroke Ben’s head as he lapped up the water splashing to the cobbles. ‘At first I just thought stumbling across the regimental mascot was a sign I was in exactly the right place, at the right time. But today I’m thankful that having you with me means I won’t have to face Mary alone.’ It wasn’t going to be easy. Mary had no reason to greet her warmly. Yet what was the worst Mary could do? Show her the door? Or not even let her inside? What was that, compared to what had already happened? If Gideon really was dead.

Which she wasn’t going to believe until somebody gave her some solid proof.

She mounted Castor and, with Ben trotting at her side, that determination carried her as far as the Rue Haute, where Mary’s school stood. But then doubts started assailing her from all sides. If Mary wouldn’t speak to her, then who else could she turn to?

‘At least I won’t have to knock on the front door and beg for permission to speak to her,’ she observed, drawing Castor to a halt. For Mary was standing outside alongside a horse, talking to a group of bedraggled-looking men who stood with their mounts.

But even though this meant she’d overcome the first hurdle she’d imagined, Sarah’s spirits sank. For Mary was, as always, looking neat as a pin.

Whereas she must look exactly as though—well, as though she was still wearing the same gown in which she’d spent a whole day on horseback, fighting her way against a tide of refugees fleeing the very place she wanted to reach more than anywhere on earth. And crawled through the mud to rescue Ben, and ended by sleeping in a stable because the landlady, upon whose compassion she’d relied, refused point blank to permit a muddy, fierce dog inside her house.

No, you couldn’t feel your best in a gown you’d been wearing for two days, especially when you’d put it through all that. Besides which, women like Mary, petite, pretty women with pert little noses, always did make her feel like a gangly, beaky beanpole.

It was Ben who came to her rescue, for at least the second time in as many days, by letting out a series of joyful barks and bounding right into the group of men milling about on the front path. Because she’d been staring at Mary and wondering how on earth she was to persuade her to help, she hadn’t been paying the men much heed. But now she noticed, as they bent to ruffle Ben’s shaggy head rather than scattering in terror, that they were wearing the distinctive blue jackets of artillerymen. The blue jackets of her brother’s unit, their facings and insignia only just recognisable under a coating of dirt of all kinds.

Randall’s Rogues. Here? What could that mean?

Forgetting her own qualms about how Mary might treat her, Sarah urged Castor forward.

‘What is it? What has happened?’ A chill foreboding ran a finger down her spine. ‘Is it Justin?’ Mary’s lips thinned as she glanced up and saw Sarah. But after only a moment she appeared to relent.

‘We don’t really know. Nobody can find him. They think...they think...’ She gave an impatient little shake of her head. ‘Can you believe they came here to look for him?’

Only too well. Because none of these men had been at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball and therefore couldn’t know their Colonel had broken things off. To them, Mary’s school must seem the obvious place to look.

‘So, we decided we had better go and search the battlefield for him, in case...’

She could tell, from the way she seemed to brace herself, that Mary feared the worst. Sarah couldn’t bear to think of Mary giving up on her brother. Not in that way.

Besides, she refused to believe she could have lost two brothers in the space of as many days.

‘He isn’t dead,’ said Sarah firmly. ‘He’s indestructible.’ At least, he would have been, had he been carrying his grandfather’s lucky sword. The one that protected its wearer during battle. The one he’d accused Mary of stealing because he couldn’t find it.

An icy hand seemed to clutch at the back of her neck.

‘You cannot possibly know that,’ said the ever-practical Mary.

‘Yes, I can,’ she insisted, even though she knew she was being totally irrational. Even though he might not be carrying the Latymor Luck, after all.

‘Why else would fate have led me to Ben? And why else would we have arrived just as you are setting off to search for Justin?’

Mary’s expression turned from one of barely repressed despair to barely concealed contempt.

But the men all perked up.

‘She’s got a point,’ said one of them. ‘Dog has a good nose. Best chance of finding Colonel Randall, since he’s not where we all thought he was.’

‘Aye, for the colonel’s own sister to turn up here, right now...it must mean his luck is still holding,’ said another.

Mary only shook her head, closing her eyes for a moment as if summoning patience.

‘I think you would be better returning to Antwerp,’ Mary said to her. ‘You are in no fit state to come with us.’

‘I have been looking for Gideon and I will not, cannot, give up my search,’ Sarah replied, struggling to control her emotions now. ‘I cannot go back until I know what has happened to my brothers.’

Mary sighed, clearly reluctant. ‘Oh, very well, I suppose you had better come with us, then. But try not,’ she snapped as she mounted up, ‘to get in the way.’

Get in the way? How dare she assume...?

But then, of course, Mary only saw what everyone else did when they looked at Sarah: a spoiled, empty-headed society miss. For which she had only herself to blame. She’d taken such pains to appear to be the model of decorum, always doing exactly as her parents or guardians told her without demur and observing every rule of etiquette. She’d even overheard Lord Blanchards remark that he couldn’t understand how a woman with Gussie’s strength of mind could possibly be related to such an insipid girl.

‘Here,’ said Mary, producing a large, scented handkerchief from her pocket. Then gave her a little lecture about why she might need it.

‘Thank you,’ Sarah replied, pasting on a polite social smile to disguise her true feelings. Mary might say Sarah would need to hold a scented hanky to her nose for her own sake. But was she also hinting that everyone could tell Sarah hadn’t stopped to bathe that morning? She’d thought the odour of dog and horse were disguising her own stale sweat pretty well, but perhaps that dainty little nose was more efficient than it looked.

It was some consolation that Ben, who’d been so delighted to see the men at first, didn’t stay with them when they mounted up, but came back to her and loped along beside her own horse.

Of course, that probably had more to do with the scent of sausage still lingering round her saddlebags, but at least he appeared to prefer her to the others.

* * *

Even though it was early in the morning, the road from the Namur gate was already crowded with wounded men struggling back to Brussels for treatment. And little groups, like hers, going searching for loved ones.

The closer they got to the scene of the previous day’s battle, the more gruesome the sights became.

Not to mention the smells. Some of it was gunpowder. But underlying it was something far worse. Something which made her jolly grateful Mary had thought to drench a couple of handkerchiefs in scent and share one with her. Though at the same time, Mary’s foresight only made her even more aware of her own shortcomings.

‘Steady, there,’ she crooned, over and over again, patting Castor’s neck when she needed to urge him past a pile of what she’d identified, from the briefest of glances, as bodies, both horse and human. Although the words were almost as much for herself, as her horse.

She tried not to let her eyes linger on what lay beside the roads. It put her in mind of a butcher’s shop. So many men, reduced to so many cuts of meat...

A dog ran across the road in front of their little party, a long trail of what looked like sausages dangling from its jaws.