Julia Justiss

by Wicked Wager

  Jenna laughed. “From what Lady Mulhollan has been telling us of the throng of visitors in Vienna for the talks, the beauty and charm of the ladies and the gaiety of the entertainments, I take leave to doubt that!”

  “Oh, there are crowds of people and scores of entertainments. But in the midst of all that, one can still be lonely.”

  His words struck a resonant chord, and Jenna’s smile faltered. “One certainly can.”

  “I see my observation upset you,” Vernier said, studying her face. “Pray, excuse me.”

  Jenna forced back the smile. “’Tis not your fault. Sadness is a constant companion, but I do not intend to let it monopolize me tonight.”

  “I am glad of it! I did not mean to suggest my reasons for melancholy are nearly as compelling as yours. I’ve simply found that I sometimes wish I were back in the field, in the company of comrades with whom one could speak freely without worrying over every nuance.”

  “I imagine ’tis wearying to be always on display.”

  “Indeed! Having had no assurance of surviving the war, until our final victory I shied away from making commitments not connected with my army duties. But now that I shall probably, praise God, never walk a battlefield again, I find that I—I long to have someone with whom I can spend time without having to watch every word. Someone who finds the work I do important, who would enjoy discussing it, perhaps even offering advice.”

  So, Jenna thought, the colonel is looking for a wife—or a long-term lover. And apparently he was concluding that she might fit the requirements.

  Maybe she would. And maybe he could fit hers.

  “I think all of us seek that,” she said at last.

  He held her gaze. “Do we? Then I am emboldened to speak further. Before you think, in presuming to proceed, that I am not giving due regard to your widowhood and the brevity of our acquaintance, please hear me out!”

  He inhaled a shaky breath. Incredibly enough, Jenna realized, this seasoned soldier who had withstood wave after wave of attacking French infantrymen was nervous. About addressing her.

  The thought was so ludicrous, she had to bite her lip to keep from giggling. Fearsome Jenna Montague, making a gazetted hero tremble.

  “As you may have guessed, I shall be in London only a short time, and in any event, it is far too early for you to consider what you will do after your year of mourning ends. But as I likely will be away from London most of those months, and because you have made a most deep and striking impression on me in the few days since we were presented, I wanted to beg you to consider allowing me to call on you when I do return—once you are ready to entertain calls from gentlemen, that is.”

  He cleared his throat and ran a finger along the edge of his uniform collar, as if it were suddenly too tight.

  Jenna found this evidence of uncertainty in the hitherto supremely confident colonel rather endearing. “I should be honored. Now, that was not so bad, was it?”

  He looked at her sharply, then grinned. “Was it so obvious? I must confess, I’d rather have undergone a barrage from Boney’s artillery! I’m afraid I’m not much at expressing myself with ladies.”

  Jenna laughed. “That, Colonel, I refuse to believe!”

  “Making fulsome compliments or conducting light flirtation is a great deal different from referring to that which deeply touches the heart. Now, I should get you back—not that you need worry that our absence might cause talk. We are among friends tonight, none of whom engage in gossip. But our host shall be very cross with me if I monopolize your company any longer.”

  He offered his arm, and during the transit back to the parlor, kept her amused with a story of a contretemps between one of Wellington’s staff and a Prussian officer. When they reached the threshold, though, he halted and brought her fingers to his lips.

  “Thank you, my lady, for warming my heart with hope.”

  Lady Charlotte raised a speculative eyebrow as they entered, but said nothing to Jenna until some time later, when she accompanied her to the ladies’ withdrawing room.

  “Did you have a pleasant chat with the colonel?”

  “Yes,” Jenna replied. “I found the landscapes striking, especially those by Mr. Turner.”

  “Vernier was not importunate, I trust,” Lady Charlotte said, a trace of anxiety in her tone.

  “Oh, no! Quite the gentleman. Would you have reason to suspect otherwise?”

  “Not really, else I would never have allowed him to spirit you away. Though he is more Lord Riverton’s friend than mine, I have never heard of him going beyond what is courteous and attentive. Which he has certainly been to you. In fact, he has been so unusually attentive I felt I must assure you that I have not been playing matchmaker!”

  Jenna gave her a look. “Have you not?”

  “Only so far as to introduce him and then agree to include you in several entertainments we were to attend.”

  “He did mention during our walk that he would like permission to call upon me, once he’s completed his mission in Vienna,” Jenna confessed. “When I am ready, he said. If I’m ever ready,” she added in an undertone.

  Lady Charlotte pressed her hand. “I did wonder, now that the war was over, if he might decide ’twas time to seek a wife. But I understand your hesitance and shall be happy to help warn him away, if you wish.”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary, but thank you.”

  Lady Charlotte shook her head. “During my widowhood, I have been subjected to far too many matchmaking schemes by well-meaning friends and relations ever to indulge in such meddling myself.”

  Lady Charlotte’s vehemence was convincing, if a bit surprising. “You have no desire to remarry?”

  Lady Charlotte continued to adjust the pins in her golden hair, remaining silent for so long Jenna began to regret asking so personal a question. Finally she said softly, “I was an impetuous young girl when I married, convinced that my handsome husband and I should be eternally happy. But over the course of our marriage, I discovered that…that his desire for an heir was stronger than his affection for me.”

  When Jenna murmured sympathetically, she added, “Of course, every man wants an heir, so I cannot really fault him for growing bitter when we suffered disappointment after disappointment. Still, that young girl’s heart never recovered. I suppose I’ve become a coward, unwilling to trust that any vows of affection could withstand the trials time and adversity make upon marriage.”

  Even Lord Riverton’s, Jenna heard the unspoken conclusion. Thanks to the loquacious Lady Montclare, she’d been told the full story of the duke’s lovely daughter who’d been courted by two rival suitors, one whom she married and the other who had swallowed his disappointment to remain her lifelong friend.

  How sad, Jenna thought, recalling as they walked back to the parlor how often Riverton’s gaze lingered on Lady Charlotte, how he seemed ever ready to escort or assist her. Ready to be so much more.

  Yet she could understand just how hard it was to risk the precarious peace one had painfully assembled out of the wreckage of one’s dream by daring to embrace another.

  Which recalled to her Nelthorpe’s speculation that someone might have assisted in the wreckage of hers. He’d urged her to leave Fairchild House and seek refuge with Lady Charlotte.

  While, for the reasons she’d given him, she had no intention of doing so at this moment, perhaps it would be wise to confide their suspicions to this lady who was highly-placed enough that, should something happen to Jenna, her demand for an inquiry into the affair would not be easily dismissed.

  She would tell Lady Charlotte, Jenna decided—but not until after she’d called upon the Widow Owens and determined whether their conjecture about her accident had some validity or were as much a grief-stricken woman’s delusion as that lady’s accusations of her.

  Whether by chance, or Lady Charlotte’s design in the wake of their talk, the four of them took a single carriage home. Colonel Vernier walked her into the foyer, not releasing her
arm until Manson took her cloak. Then, after gazing at her a long moment, he kissed just her fingertips.

  Thoughtfully Jenna watched him depart. From his expression, she guessed he’d wanted to kiss more than her hand, but had not dared. Curious how she might have reacted to that, she was a bit sorry he’d refrained.

  Nelthorpe would not have hesitated.

  She sighed as she mounted the stairs to her room. Surely she didn’t really prefer the behavior of a presumptuous rogue like Anthony Nelthorpe to that of a true gentleman like Colonel Madison Vernier.

  Near noon the next day, Tony returned to Fairchild House. Knowing Jenna would not receive him, he demanded instead to speak with Sancha.

  Though Manson shook his head over Nelthorpe’s request, he did send for the maid. A few moments later, Sancha met him in the smallest of the downstairs parlors—a testament, Tony thought with grim humor, to how his worth had fallen in the eyes of the butler. Still, the pose of discarded swain, which was only too close to the truth, would serve them well as a cover for his snooping.

  “I am happy, my lord, that you come. I feared you would not, now that my lady…”

  “Has dismissed me?” he said bluntly. “I suppose she had cause, especially after—well, enough said. Whether or not she receives me, we must still find out what happened that morning in the park. Were you able to discover the groom’s direction?”

  “He went to his sister’s house, Minter Cottage on the Leatherhead Road near Woodcote. Southwest of the city.”

  Less than a day’s ride. Good, he would head there tomorrow.

  “Excellent work! I shall visit there directly.” He paused at the door. “Thank you, Sancha. I hope your mistress appreciates you.”

  She looked back unsmiling, sympathy on her face. “I hope my lady appreciates you.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  IN LATE AFTERNOON THE NEXT day, Tony rode into the small village of Woodcote, praising his Maker that the former groom’s sister had settled near a village off the main road and not in one down some farm track he would have had great difficulty finding in the fading dusk. From a small inn just ahead, a welcome blaze of light offered the tantalizing promise of a hot meal and a full tankard.

  The modest hostelry didn’t cater to the gentry traveling on the main road to Guildford, so in the nondescript dark clothes into which he’d changed for the journey, Tony looked little different from the clerks and merchants seated in the busy taproom. As an outsider, he would immediately become the focus of all eyes, so, wishing neither to attract undue attention nor excite suspicion by appearing to want to avoid it, he took a seat and waved to the landlord, who hurried over to serve him.

  By the time he’d bespoken a chamber for the night and partaken of an excellent roast chicken, he’d confided to his friendly fellow-diners that Anthony Hunsdon, late of Wellington’s forces, was traveling to his new position as estate agent for an Army toff under whom he’d served in Belgium. While en route, he’d promised to deliver a message to a comrade’s sister who lived near Woodcote.

  Accepting the offer from a clerk and a merchant to join them for a round of cards, as he proceeded to lose the first hand, Tony asked if either of them knew the whereabouts of Mrs. Staines of Minter Cottage. After a brief consultation, his opponents informed him that the former housekeeper lived with her unmarried daughter about a mile south of the village, just off the Leatherneck Road.

  “Have you seen her brother about?” Tony asked casually. “I understand he was paying her a visit.”

  “So he was, and used to come in here to heft a pint right regular. Paid in good coin, too,” the merchant said.

  Working to keep his voice carefully even, Tony said, “You haven’t seen him recently?”

  The cardplayers exchanged a look that made Tony straighten in his chair. “Not recently,” the clerk said at last. “Sorry if he be a friend of yourn, but we buried ol’ Nick two weeks ago. Shot through the heart, he was.”

  As if a chill breeze had suddenly blown into the room, Tony felt the hair at the back of his neck prickle.

  “Hunter’s stray bullet, the magistrate decided,” the merchant added, “though we didn’t never find anyone what claimed to be shooting near there that day.”

  Hunting accidents were not that uncommon—even fatal ones. But the suspicion driving him could only be heightened at discovering that the principal witness to the events surrounding Jenna’s accident was now conveniently dead. Killed, it appeared, by a stray bullet—just as Jenna might have been at Richmond Hill, had he not thrown her to the ground.

  Anxious as Tony was to learn more, there was no point alarming Mrs. Staines by appearing on her doorstep well after dark. But first thing tomorrow, he would pay a condolence call on the groom’s sister.

  SOON AFTER BREAKING HIS FAST the next morning, Tony rode south on the Leatherneck Road, soon coming upon a neat thatch-roofed cottage. After tethering his mount, Tony limped to the front door, anticipation speeding his heart.

  An older woman in the dark gown of a housekeeper, her graying hair topped by a white lace cap, answered his knock. “Good morning, ma’am,” he said, doffing his cap. “You are Mrs. Staines?”

  After she nodded, her pale blue eyes watching him warily, he continued, “Anthony Hunsdon, ma’am. So sorry to hear of your loss. My army mate’s sister Maggy, cook at Fairchild House in London where your brother used to work, was concerned about him after the…trouble there. When she heard I was riding south to take up new employment, she asked if I would check about him on my way through. She’ll be devastated to hear of his accident.”

  Was it only acute suspicion that made him think she flinched, her pale face growing paler still when he said he came from London?

  “Thank you for your kind words, Mr. Hunsdon.”

  “A hunting accident, it seems? I don’t wish to pry, but I’m sure Maggy would want to know as much about what happened to Nick as I can glean. She had a great…fondness for him,” he added, shamelessly embroidering on his story.

  “My Nick, he was quite a devil with the ladies,” she began and then halted, a spasm of some strong emotion wiping the fondness from her face.

  Grief? Or something else?

  She certainly appeared nervous, though that might stem from being confronted on her doorstep by a strange man. Finally, after a long hesitation, she waved toward the interior of the cottage. “Would…would you like a glass of cider before you continue your journey?”

  Tony tried to tamp down a thrill of exultation. After all, he’d learned exactly nothing yet that had not already been conveyed to him by the tavern patrons.

  “That would be most kind, ma’am,” he said, following her into the cottage.

  “Maud,” she called to a tall, thin girl tending the hearth, “pour up some cider for the gentleman and fetch some apples from the storehouse, please.”

  The girl dutifully brought him a brimming mug and plodded out. As soon as the door closed, Mrs. Staines looked back at him, distress evident in her face.

  “Be ye a Bow Street man?”

  Surprise held him speechless for a moment. “No indeed! Why would you think so?”

  “Well, you said there’d been some ‘trouble’ in London and my Nick, he never said nothing of trouble.”

  “How did he explain his presence here?”

  “He told me his old master had died and the new one brung in his own man. Said he’d paid Nick off right handsome, so he meant to take some time to visit here before he looked for another situation. But…but he never looked for nothing, and he acted so strangelike, keeping to himself during the day, going down to drink every night at the Ox and Cock.”

  “Perhaps he was despondent at losing his position.”

  Twisting her apron in her hands, Mrs. Staines shook her head. “Mebbe. Then after he was shot—he didn’t die right off, you know—he rambled in his head some. Kept saying as how he was sorry, that he wished he’d never listened to that lady, sweet as she seemed. At first I thought he
meant the squire’s wife here, who told him he ought to take that job in London. But after he died, when I was going through his things to find a clean shirt to bury him in, I found—” she lowered her voice to a whisper “—a great lot of money.”

  Tony’s pulse jumped, but he kept his voice even. “His severance pay, don’t you think?”

  “Seemed far too much for that. How did he come to have such a sum? Sir, if you know that my brother committed some…crime, please tell me, and I’ll turn the money over to the constable! I don’t want no lord out of London coming down here, seizing my house and throwing my poor girl and me onto the street!”

  A sweet lady. A great deal of money. Though his nerves hummed with excitement and alarm, Tony made himself concentrate on the harried face of the woman before him.

  “Mrs. Staines, I’m sure you have nothing to fear. The Fairchilds are generous to their staff—” Garrett would have been, anyway “—so I’m certain the money you found represents wages honestly earned. As for his regrets about a lady, you should know that Maggy, whom your brother fancied, is about to marry. I suspect she felt guilty about causing your brother pain and was hoping I’d be able to write her that he had recovered from his disappointment.” Tony, you’re a hopeless prevaricator.

  Mrs. Staines let out a breath. “Be ye sure, sir?”

  Offering a quick prayer that easing this woman’s anxiety would mitigate the sin of all the untruths he’d spun her, Tony nodded. “I’m certain. Keep the money your brother left without worry.” The brother already paid dearly for it.

  “How can I thank you?” Mrs. Staines cried, relief lightening all her features.

  Tony shrugged, possessed of enough conscience to feel ashamed at deceiving her. “No need for thanks.”

  “I’ve got fresh bread from this morning’s baking and ham in the larder. Let me make you up some for the road.”

  Tony let himself be persuaded to accept that and another mug of cider, trying not to show his impatience to be gone, now that he’d obtained the news he sought.