‘Major.’ It was a p
urr. ‘Are you in charge of a very big, very long, gun?’
‘I am, my lady.’
Rose trod firmly on Adam’s toe. ‘We mustn’t monopolise Lady Fitzhugh, Major.’ He bowed and they moved off. ‘For goodness’ sake! She was going to start quizzing you about the size of your shot next, the hussy—and you were encouraging her.’
‘Stopped her poking at you though, didn’t it? Who is this glaring at me?’
‘General Anstruthers. He’s about ninety-nine and thinks Wellington is a young upstart. Good evening, General. May I introduce Major Flint?’
‘Hah! Artillery, eh? What do you think of the direction of the battle? Eh? Not how I’d have done it.’
‘I was rather in the thick of it, General. Difficult to assess the overall strategy as yet. What is your view, sir?’
That was tactful, Rose thought, and tried to feign interest as the General launched into a critique of the deployment of troops at Quatre Bras. The problem was, they were probably trapped until dinner was served.
Across the room she could see Mrs Grace talking to Lady Fitzhugh and the last arrival, Lady Glenwilling. From the direction of their gaze it was obvious that she and Adam were the subject of their conversation.
‘Lady Fitzhugh is taking an interest in your magnificent major,’ murmured a soft voice behind Rose.
‘Lady Grantly, good evening. Hardly my major.’
The other woman’s expression was far less friendly than it had been last night at the soirée. Rose suspected she had taken the trouble to find out who Adam was. ‘No? He came with you tonight, did he not? A risky acquaintance for a young lady.’
‘Why? Because his parents were not married?’ Rose murmured outrageously as she turned her back on the General and Adam.
‘Well, that of course. And his naughty reputation. I have heard that they called him the Grass Widow’s Comforter in the Peninsula.’
I can well believe it. Rose kept her smile in place with an effort. ‘We are not in the Peninsula now, Lady Grantly. He is a friend and my parents approve him as an escort.’
‘I suppose young women who turn down a succession of eligible offers must take what they can before they are at their last prayers,’ Lady Grantly observed. Rose recalled, rather too late, that one of the offers she had turned down out of hand was from her ladyship’s nephew.
She had not taken one of the glasses of champagne that footmen were bringing around, which was a good thing. Rose itched to tip one over Lady Grantly’s carefully tinted coiffure. As it was she could only fix an insincere smile on her lips and turn back to the two men. The General was apparently ten minutes into Quatre Bras.
‘Dinner is served, madam,’ the butler announced as Mr and Mrs Grace swept through the room, organising gentlemen and their partners. Adam, with no rank at all, was left with Mrs Grace’s companion, a depressed spinster cousin, while Rose found herself on the arm of the General’s grandson, Lord Philpott.
When they were seated she was diagonally across from Adam who was several places further down the table. He flashed her a wicked look and bent to listen to the companion’s nervous chatter.
‘I am certain I saw you this afternoon, Miss Tatton,’ Lady Glenwilling remarked across the board with a lofty disregard for convention. ‘We were on our way to see what damage had been done to the Jardin Botanique and you seemed to have just come out of a house.’
‘Yes, I believe I saw you, too,’ Rose rejoined brightly. Her stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch. That carriage…and it had passed as she was standing on the doorstep adjusting Adam’s neckcloth or something equally possessive. There was nothing for it but to attack. ‘I have to confess that I have quite fallen in love with two of the gentlemen in that household. Shocking, is it not?’
The whole company stared at her, then, when it became obvious from her smile and the very outrageousness of the remark that this must be a joke, relaxed.
‘They are both black haired and both very handsome foreigners,’ Rose continued in a confiding tone. ‘One is Spanish and one Belgian.’
‘My horse and my dog,’ Adam explained, his voice rueful. ‘Miss Tatton has developed a passion for the pair of them and I fear I am quite cut out and reduced to the office of mere escort.’
There was general laughter around the table, but Rose was not deceived. Her name was now firmly linked with Adam’s but not, as Mama had hoped, as a couple at the beginning of a courtship. Adam had been escorting her unchaperoned, she had been to his lodgings, she was familiar with his animals. If she had acquired those pieces of gossip about another unmarried lady she would have put them together and reached a perfectly accurate, and perfectly scandalous, conclusion by now.
*
‘That did not go well,’ Flint said as they got into the carriage. He felt faintly queasy and it was not as a result of eating too much confit duck.
Lady Thetford was visibly upset now she was away from prying eyes and the viscount’s face was stony.
‘They know you left the ball early, at the same time as the officers,’ Lady Thetford said with a sigh. ‘There was some gossip about you and Lieutenant Haslam, but now they obviously believe you left with Major Flint and that you were with him from then until your reappearance. They will come up with a version of what was the truth, that an elopement was planned and foiled by the sudden order to march to Quatre Bras.’