Louise Allen Historical Collection by Louise Allen

‘Will-power. Right. You undress behind that curtain and I will get into bed. If you extinguish the lantern before you emerge you may pretend I am that large dame we have just met and I will pretend that
you
are.’
    ‘That might work,’ Meg conceded. She retreated to wrestle with hooks and eyes behind the screen. She could not decide whether Ross had a sense of humour or was being deadly serious. She pulled the gown over her head. ‘This is a momentary awkwardness, after all,’ she observed to the unresponsive silence in the cabin. ‘In the morning, after a good night’s sleep, we will hardly regard it.’
    Ross lay in the gloom deliberately flexing his thigh muscles so the pain would provide a distraction from the ache in his groin. He shifted on to his side to ensure the evidence of the effect of that kiss was not visible through the thin sheet. What was the matter with him? He’d kissed the woman when she needed comfort and she had responded, that was all. He had not thought for a moment of it leading anywhere and he was certain Meg had not.
    But it was easier to tell his mind that than it was for his body to understand. He was not an undisciplined adolescent, according to Meg. It was a good thing she could not see the proof that he was responding to her like a randy seventeen year old. He did not even have the excuse of a long period of abstinence; up to the eve of the battle he had kept any frustration at bay with the willing camp followers who were the army’s constant companions and sources of comfort. It occurred to him that he had been aroused by her since he met her.
    The curtain flapped and the light went out. Even Meg’s soft
huff
of breath as she breathed on the wick was provocative. Her lips, soft and pink, would have formed a circle as she blew, pouting…
    Stop it.
Ross conjured up the fat woman’s round, rather foolish, features, her thin lips and her nondescript brown eyes, her inconsequential chatter. That was better. The sheet was tugged as Meg wriggled up from the bottom of the bunk into the space between his back and the wall. The
narrow
space.
Wriggling.
The image of the other woman vanished as the scent of warm female and plain soap reached him.
    Ross controlled his breathing and resigned himself to a long night. He had lain still and endured silently when the surgeon dug the bullet out of his leg—once the shouting match over the man’s intention to cut the limb off had been won—he could endure this torture now.
    But this was a stimulating kind of agony, he had to admit that, he thought as he resisted the urge to get out of bed and pace about on the deck. Meg Halgate was a frustrating, opinionated, infuriatingly commonsensical thorn in his side, but she was giving him something to think about besides his own woes. Eyes open in the darkness, Ross admitted that he had thought about little other than himself from the moment he had been carried off the field and into the surgeon’s tent, with the battle and his men entirely out of his hands and the future he had been trying to ignore inescapable in front of him.
    He woke in the morning in exactly the same position as he had fallen asleep, which was a miracle. He had slept, he had managed to stay still and Meg had not unwittingly wrapped herself around his suffering body in the night. He felt, in fact, quite calm and in control of himself.
    Ross turned over and found himself nose to nose with her. Her eyes were open, the dark pupils dilated. She looked nervous. His own reflection stared back at him. She had every reason to be uneasy. His feeling of calm control vanished, leaving him wanting nothing more than to reach out for her, take her, lose himself and the darkness in her softness and light. Bury himself in her, make her scream with needing him…
    ‘Good morning,’ she remarked with caution. ‘You slept well?’
    ‘I slept.’ He felt like a randy bear with a sore head. ‘I am getting up today.’ Let her protest, then they could