Reunited with the Major Read online

  For honor…

  Major Harry Brockley gave up on love long ago, when he lost his heart to his colonel’s wife, Samantha Scatterby. Now, years later, Brock agrees to a loveless marriage to save a damsel in distress—only to have Sam reappear in his life!

  …or for love?

  Courageous Sam, now a widow, is happy to see the one man she’s secretly adored for years, even if he is engaged to someone else. And when Brock seeks Sam’s help, she’s powerless to resist this chance to be reunited with her handsome major…

  Regency Brides of Convenience

  Deals made at the altar

  “Brock…” Samantha said, and felt as if a large hand had squeezed her heart so that she could not breathe, and the pain was almost more than she could bear.

  He was saying things that made her long to be in his arms, to taste that sweetness her senses told her she would find there, yet he had said nothing that made her think he spoke of more than true friendship, the love of comrades in arms. “Percy told me once that I could trust you implicitly, and I always have.”

  “Samantha, you can have no idea of how I feel…”

  Brock gave a little moan of despair and clasped her to him as though he would never let her go. His lips pressed against hers in a kiss of passion and need, and then he suddenly thrust her from him.

  “I want so much to tell you what is in my mind. You are all that any man could desire, but I have no right to speak until— No, this is not fair to you,” he muttered. “You lost the man you loved and now I would ask so much of you, and yet I have no right until this business is settled…” He smiled oddly. “Forgive me, Samantha.”

  Praise for

  Anne Herries

  “Anne Herries has crafted a densely plotted, immensely enthralling and mesmerizing historical romantic adventure.”

  —Cataromance on Forbidden Lady

  “Pride and Prejudice meets Agatha Christie in this enthralling, captivating and wonderfully passionate Regency romance by award-winning author Anne Herries.”

  —Cataromance on Courted by the Captain

  “Another enjoyable romp.”

  —RT Book Reviews on An Innocent Debutante in Hanover Square

  REUNITED WITH THE MAJOR

  is the final book in Anne Herries’s trilogy

  Regency Brides of Convenience

  Don’t miss

  RESCUED BY THE VISCOUNT

  CHOSEN BY THE LIEUTENANT

  Already available.

  Anne Herries

  Reunited with

  the Major

  Anne Herries lives in Cambridgeshire, where she is fond of watching wildlife and spoils the birds and squirrels that are frequent visitors to her garden. Anne loves to write about the beauty of nature, and sometimes puts a little into her books, although they are mostly about love and romance. She writes for her own enjoyment, and to give pleasure to her readers. Anne is a winner of the Romantic Novelists’ Association Romance Prize. She invites readers to contact her on her website, lindasole.co.uk.

  Books by Anne Herries

  Harlequin Historical

  Regency Brides of Convenience

  Rescued by the Viscount

  Chosen by the Lieutenant

  Reunited with the Major

  Officers and Gentlemen

  Courted by the Captain

  Protected by the Major

  Drawn to Lord Ravenscar

  Melford Dynasty

  Forbidden Lady

  The Lord’s Forced Bride

  Her Dark and Dangerous Lord

  Fugitive Countess

  A Stranger’s Touch

  The Rebel Captain’s Royalist Bride

  Secrets and Scandals

  The Disappearing Duchess

  The Mysterious Lord Marlowe

  The Scandalous Lord Lanchester

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Excerpt

  Prologue

  Samantha had felt the tears sting her eyes as she’d seen the grave faces of the young officers who had carried her wounded husband home to her. Every one of them had seemed devastated, torn with genuine grief by the sight of their colonel lying so badly wounded on the makeshift stretcher.

  ‘We’re so sorry, Mrs Scatterby,’ each of the young men had said in turn before they’d left. ‘It was just bad luck. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time...caught by the blast.’

  She’d raised her head to look at them proudly through her unshed tears. She was a beautiful young woman, her hair like pale silk, and her eyes a shade of blue that defied description. Much younger than her wounded husband, she looked vulnerable and in need of a protective shoulder—and not a man there would have refused it had she asked, but she was too proud.

  ‘I shall not give up,’ she said. ‘He’s still alive. I’ll take him home to England and I’ll nurse him back to health.’

  She saw the pity in their eyes, but refused to give way to her grief until they had all gone. Her dearest Percy was clinging to life despite the wounds he’d received in the heat of battle. The doctor visited, taking his time in examining his patient, before turning to her with a shake of the head.

  ‘I can patch up his wounds, but he has been damaged internally and that I cannot heal. Even if he survives for a few weeks I doubt he will ever be strong again. The best you can do for him is to take him home to an English country house with a garden and care for him until the end. I fear you will find it a trying task for he will be an invalid and in pain.’

  ‘He took me in when I had nothing,’ Samantha told him proudly. ‘I will care for him while he has breath in his body.’

  ‘He loved you very much. We all thought him a lucky man, Mrs Scatterby. I have no doubt that if anyone can pull him through it will be you.’

  Samantha thanked him.

  For some weeks Percy was too ill to move, but then, as the wounds to his leg and shoulder healed, he seemed to improve, though often he was caught by a racking cough that made it difficult for him to breathe.

  His devoted wife hardly left his side. During the sea voyage from Spain she spent most of the crossing in their cabin, tenderly caring for his needs. Kind and considerate young officers designated as their escort took them to a pleasant country house. The house had been provided by one of their number and Samantha was assured that she and the Colonel were welcome to stay for as long as they wished.

  Once she and Percy were settled, the young men came to take their leave of her and return to the fighting. Samantha thanked them all for their kindness.

  ‘If ever you need anything,’ one of the officers said. He was the quiet one amongst them, strong and dark-haired, his face attractive rather than handsome with a firm chin that spoke of determination. ‘Just write to me, Sam. I shall come as soon as I can and, wh
atever you need, I shall do my best for you.’

  ‘That is very kind of you, Brock,’ she said, and smiled, feeling pleased that he had used her name. They had all been in the habit of calling her by her name on the Peninsula, but since Percy’s wounding it seemed they were all so polite and distant. ‘I do not know what I should have done had you not all been so very kind.’

  ‘He was our colonel,’ one of them said. ‘We all thought the world of him, Mrs Scatterby—and if ever you should need anything, you have only to ask. We are at your command.’

  Samantha thanked them and one by one they took their leave. All save one, who stayed behind to tell her that the house was hers for as long as she wished.

  ‘My parents live only twenty miles away. If you need anything...anything at all...’

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, emotion almost choking her because he could never know what his kindness meant to her. ‘I do not know what I should have done without your help.’

  Suddenly Samantha could bear her grief no longer, perhaps because he was leaving her and she did not know how she could have borne these past weeks without his comforting presence. The tears trickled silently down her cheeks, in her eyes a look of mute appeal that drew a response from the handsome young officer.

  ‘Sam, my dearest love,’ he said thickly, the words wrenched from him almost reluctantly, because they were both aware of the beloved man lying on his sickbed upstairs, yet both knew that this had been inevitable. Brock reached for her, drawing her close against him, his mouth seeking hers in a tender and yet passionate kiss that made her cling to him desperately. ‘I adore you, want you so much. You know, have known, haven’t you?’

  For a moment the naked truth was in her eyes, the longing and need that she had suppressed all these months since she’d first known that she’d fallen in love with one of her husband’s men. She felt that he wanted her, loved her in return, and yet there was a barrier there between them. Samantha wasn’t sure what had kept them from speaking of their love before this; perhaps duty on her part, and a genuine affection for Percy, for she did love her husband, but it was a gentle, grateful love and not this wild passion that was now roaring through her body, setting her aflame with need and desire.

  She longed to confess her love, to speak of a future when they could be together, but that would be disloyal to the man who trusted them both. Suddenly, she realised that she had been on the verge of giving herself to the man she loved more than she could ever have dreamed and her darling Percy was lying upstairs in constant pain, needing her, trusting her. A surge of revulsion swept through her at her own behaviour. How could she treat the man who had done so much for her so despicably?

  ‘I know we must wait, but one day...’ Brock began, but she thrust him away, shaking her head, the horror of what she was doing flooding through her.

  ‘No, we must not even think such a thing. We must think of Percy. He trusts us, Brock. He trusts us. This is wrong, wicked.’

  Brock drew back, looking at her as he saw the horror and revulsion in her eyes, and recoiled from it, a slash of pain in his face so terrible that it made Samantha want to recall her words, but she could only turn away in confusion.

  ‘I shall not call again before I return to the regiment,’ he said, ‘but if you need anything go to my father. He will help you.’

  Her heart was breaking as she struggled with the confusion of her feelings, and she turned, but he was walking away, leaving her, and she did not have the strength to call him back.

  Samantha was left alone and she thought her heart would break, but she did not know then that there was worse to come. That the pain she felt now would increase tenfold and stay with her for ever.

  Chapter One

  Major Harry Brockley, known as Brock to his friends, stood outside the convent and stared at the forbidding grey walls. He had visited this place for the last time and the empty feeling inside him seemed to engulf his whole self.

  ‘Sister Violet died peacefully in her sleep last night, Major,’ the Abbess had told him gently. ‘Her fever came quickly and gained a hold before we had any idea of how ill she really was. I am truly sorry to give you this news, for I know you were fond of her—my only consolation for you is that she is at peace in the arms of her Maker.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps,’ Brock had answered. ‘Peace at last, but at what cost?’

  ‘You are still so angry and bitter,’ the gentle nun said. ‘Sister Violet was not bitter. She forgave the man who destroyed her life—and I know she would wish you to do the same.’

  ‘That man is now dead,’ Brock said coldly. ‘Had he lived still, I should have killed him with my bare hands. He took a sweet perfect girl and hurt her so badly that she could not go on living in this world, but came here to die in this place. That is the man you would have me forgive?’

  ‘I fear that you will have no peace of your own until you can forgive him, and yourself, Major Brockley. Forgive me, but it hurts me to see a soul in such torment when there is really no need. The girl you loved was lost long ago. The woman who lived here with us has been at peace for some years now. Her only desire was that you would learn to forgive her for causing you such pain.’

  ‘Her name was Mary and she had nothing to be forgiven for,’ Brock cried. ‘I was the one that let her down. I am the one who hoped for forgiveness.’

  ‘Then let me tell you that she never blamed you, not for one instant.’

  Brock cursed aloud, knowing that he’d been rude, and left the good woman without so much as a thank-you for her kindness. He’d been furious with her for mouthing words that meant nothing. Who was Sister Violet? The girl he’d cared for deeply as a beloved sister had been Mary, the friend of his youth. How could the Abbess ever hope to understand that Brock blamed himself for what had happened to the innocent young girl whom the Marquis of Shearne had beaten, raped and left for dead?

  ‘May you rot in hell, Shearne!’ Brock cried aloud. ‘Death was too good for you.’

  The Marquis had almost managed to kill Brock, too. Had it not been for the quick thinking of Phipps’s wife, Amanda, he might have died from loss of blood or a fever, but she and Phipps had brought him through and the thought of his friends relaxed his stern features. It had seemed an unlikely marriage at the outset, because Phipps was a tall lean soldier and Amanda a plump little darling, but rather pretty. Of course, she had lost much of that puppy fat before her marriage, but Brock knew that his friend hadn’t even noticed. Phipps loved Amanda for what she was—an attractive, kind, generous and loving woman—and a wife that Brock envied him.

  The shadow of what had happened to the girl he’d loved had lain over Brock for years, haunting him, deciding him against marriage. He wasn’t a fit husband for any woman. He’d let down the girl who had trusted him, but she had never blamed him.

  Of course she wouldn’t. She was too fine and sweet and gentle to bear a grudge—even against the man who had ruined her.

  If Sister Violet had let go of the grief of that terrible day, perhaps it was time that he did, too, Brock thought as he walked to the waiting curricle. Perhaps it was time to do as his father was continually asking him to do—marry, put the past behind him and start a family.

  Brock had many times regretted his hasty decision to offer for Miss Cynthia Langton, the only daughter of Lord Langton, and an heiress. Brock had rescued her after she managed to escape from Shearne, who had kidnapped her in an effort to secure her fortune, but Cynthia had given Shearne the slip and Brock had found her wandering down the road. She’d had no money and was faint and ill, having been drugged by that fiend. They’d put out a story about her having fallen in a ditch and lain there overnight until he’d found her, though it wasn’t true—but it saved her reputation for she would have been ruined had it got out that she’d been in Shearne’s company all that time. Because he’d failed the girl he loved, B
rock had out of chivalry offered for Cynthia’s hand in marriage. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, on her part as well as his, and he believed that she had also regretted accepting him. At the time it hadn’t seemed to matter, but since then he’d cursed himself for being a fool.

  Climbing into the curricle, Brock told his groom to drive back to London. He saw the surprise in the man’s face for he normally chose to drive himself, but this particular afternoon he was in no mood for it.

  Lost in his thoughts, his eyes closed, Brock brooded as the miles melted away and his mind wrestled with his problem, but came up without a solution. If the marriage were to be called off, then the decision must be Cynthia’s. He could not—would not—jilt her. She’d been very subdued since that day, unlike the sparkling girl who had had half of London at her feet in her first Season. Brock could only think that she was unhappy, regretting her decision, as he had his—but he did not know how to broach the subject of breaking their engagement.

  Perhaps he should simply ask her to set the date of their wedding. Cynthia had hinted that she wished to wait until the summer, but it was spring now and they ought to start thinking of making the arrangements. If the wedding was to happen, it should not be much longer delayed. Nine months was sufficient even for her mama. Any longer would be ridiculous, yet he knew that something inside him was protesting against a loveless marriage.

  Brock frowned, because his bride-to-be was beautiful, and could, when she wished, be extremely charming. He was not in love with her and he was pretty sure that Cynthia felt no more than gratitude and friendship for him, but perhaps that was enough?

  Brock knew that many friends of his family had made arranged marriages based on property, rank or necessity, but quite often as successful as any other. He also knew that the marriage of a friend, purported to be a love match, had hit the rocks only two years after it began, simply because the young woman became wrapped up in her child and the husband felt neglected. He’d been unfaithful to her and she’d thrown a tantrum when she discovered it and had taken her child and gone to stay with her father, refusing to come back even when her husband begged her.