A Mistress For Major Bartlett. Annie Burrows

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 by.

      Oh, dear. Justin had refused to introduce any of his officers to her, when she’d tried to show a sisterly interest in his brigade, on the day of a mass review of all the Allied troops mustering around Brussels. He’d told her that they were decidedly not gentlemen and she was to have nothing to do with them. Gideon’s commanding officer, Colonel Bennington Ffog, had gone so far as to describe them as the very dregs of humanity. They’d both be appalled if they could see her sprawled on the ground with his head in her lap.

      Just as the thought occurred to her, she heard a scrabbling noise and looked up to see two of the Rogues who’d escorted her and Mary out here, pushing their way through the lowest bit of wall.

      The first one to reach her knelt down and, without so much as a by-your-leave, turned the officer’s face so he could peer at it closely.

      ‘Strike me if it ain’t the Major,’ he said, confirming her suspicions.

      ‘How’d ’e come to be out here?’

      ‘Damned if I know,’ said the First Rogue to reach her. ‘Last I ’eard ’e’d come to and was going to make for the field hospital.’

      ‘Well, ’e went the wrong way,’ said the Second Rogue on the scene grimly. ‘Looks like ’e ’ad a second go round with more Frenchies, too, else I don’t see ’ow ’e come to get buried under that wall.’

      ‘Lucky you come over this way, miss.’ They’d been talking to each other, but now they both turned to her with what looked like gratitude. ‘Else we’d never have guessed ’e was ’ere.’

      ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘No, I...really...’ She’d only stumbled on him because of her appalling squeamishness. She didn’t deserve their gratitude.

      ‘Aye, but it was you as drove off them filthy bi-biddies, what would have finished off the Major,’ said his companion, hunkering down beside her.

      ‘It was Ben,’ she said glumly. They hadn’t been scared of her at all.

      ‘You was the one that called him, though, wasn’t you?’

      Yes. Oh, very well, she had done one thing right today.

      ‘And you stopped ’im from falling face down in the mud and like as not drowning in it.’

      That was true, too. She felt a little better. Until she recalled that she hadn’t been strong enough not to get knocked to the ground.

      ‘Any way you look at it, you’ve saved Major Bartlett’s life.’

      ‘Major Bartlett?’ She looked down at the motionless man whose head she cradled in her lap. This poor, broken, battered wretch was all that was left of Major Bartlett? He’d been so handsome. So full of...of, well, himself, actually. He’d been lounging against a tree, his jacket slung over one shoulder, watching her and Gideon ride past, on the day she’d learned who he was. She hadn’t been able to help peering at him, her curiosity roused by Justin’s vague warning.

      And as if he’d known she was wondering what kind of things he’d done, to make Justin think she might be corrupted merely by talking to him, Major Bartlett had grinned at her.

      And winked.

      Oh, but he’d looked like a young lion, that day, basking in the sun, with his mane of golden curls tumbling over his broad brow.

      So vitally alive.

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