Julia Justiss

by Wicked Wager

  It appeared his instincts had been right, he thought as Mrs. Staines prosed on. Jenna’s fall had indeed been orchestrated. But by a mysterious lady, not her cousin.

  The widow? The Countess of Doone? Causing the loss of Jenna’s child seemed to Tony the sort of spiteful thing a female might do. But he had a harder time reconciling the shot fired at them with a woman’s revenge. Still, the two must somehow be connected.

  Finally able to break away, Tony directed his mount back to London. Somehow he must convince Jenna to receive him—and this time, talk her into leaving.

  Knowing he’d look like a looby if he appeared at Fairchild House still covered in mud, Tony stopped briefly at North Audley Street to clean up, change and gulp down a hasty mug of ale. But he reached her house to be given the frustrating news that Lady Fairchild was out for the evening—in company with Colonel Vernier. Nearly gnashing his teeth, Tony called instead for Sancha.

  After remarking delicately that gentlemen who were truly gentlemen accepted a lady’s decision without hectoring her, a disapproving Manson reluctantly summoned the maid. In an urgent undertone, Tony told her what he’d learned in Woodcote and asked her to arrange an immediate audience with Jenna.

  “She must leave here, Sancha, as soon as possible. ’Tis foolish to risk further danger! Surely you see that!”

  Sancha sighed. “I have urged her to leave, as strong as I dare. She will not go until she learns the truth, she says—so like her father she is! Also have I advised her to work with you, my lord. She says it was her child lost and her battle, not yours. That you—endanger each other.”

  Tony felt himself flushing at the look Sancha leveled at him, but before he could decide what to reply, she continued, “You did not learn for certain who this lady is, or whether the groom meant for the horse to throw my mistress?”

  “No,” he admitted reluctantly.

  “Then though I, too, see danger, I do not think I can make her leave—or meet you.”

  Agitation and anxiety boiled in his veins. But short of tracking her to whatever entertainment Vernier had escorted her and hauling her off by force, Tony didn’t see what else he could do to protect her tonight.

  “Speak to her anyway, please. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “I will try again, I swear it,” Sancha said. “And I will sleep in her room. I, too, my lord,” she said with a little smile, “am good with a knife.”

  With that, Tony had to be content. He hauled his saddle-weary body into the hackney Sancha summoned, trying not to think that even at this moment, Jenna might be in Vernier’s arms, waltzing in secret on some balcony—letting him kiss her in the darkness. A furious hurt exploded through his fatigue at the thought of the colonel slipping with her into some deserted bedroom.

  He mustn’t think, he reprimanded himself, that just because he, rake that he was, couldn’t be close to Jenna without thirsting to make love to her, that the proper colonel would be equally lost to propriety.

  Idiot, a voice answered. He’s a man, isn’t he? Jenna wasn’t some innocent ton virgin, beyond the touch of a gentleman of honor, but a mature woman who was mistress of her own conduct. Could any man who found her alluring—and Tony had seen lust in the gaze the colonel had rested on her—resist attempting to seduce her?

  Resist, in the intimacy of some shadowed chamber, peeling down the scanty bodice of her evening gown, so much less an impediment to caresses than the traveling clothes she’d worn the morning of their tryst? Keep himself from baring her breasts, suckling the nipples Tony hungered to tease, cushioning her against the accommodating surface of a real bed while he eased up her skirts and tasted her, unleashed that rapid, fierce response?

  He fought to contain the images boiling out of his brain, an amalgam of fondest memory and bitterest imagining. Until just as the hackney turned into North Audley Street, out of the agony and envy evoked by those thoughts, a more selfless realization emerged.

  He, who had been banished for good cause, might not be able to get close enough to protect Jenna. But Colonel Vernier certainly could.

  If he met with Vernier and convinced him Jenna was in danger, the colonel had just as much skill and many more resources to provide her protection.

  Even if by going to the colonel, Tony was thrusting the woman he loved straight into the arms of his rival.

  For the duration of the hackney ride he remained irresolute, his last hopes of solving the mystery and perhaps winning her back warring with his growing fear that, unless she were moved soon to a place where she could be better protected, she might not survive long enough for the mystery to be solved.

  He might be a glib prevaricator and a rake, but when his hopes and Jenna’s welfare were weighed in the balance, there was no choice about the outcome.

  Swallowing the bitterest decision he’d ever had to make, Tony resolved to call upon Colonel Vernier in the morning.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  AFTER DETOURING BY Upper Brook Street to obtain Vernier’s direction from an obliging Fairchild footman, early the next day Tony rode across Westminster Bridge into Lambeth. With a tepid sun mitigating the chill, the ride might have been pleasant, were it not for the mission he must fulfill upon arriving.

  As Tony expected of a military man, despite the early hour, the colonel was already at work, so Tony was shown directly into the study. The colonel rose as he entered.

  “What can I do for you this morning, my lord? If it’s collecting funds for your veteran relief effort, I have already pledged assistance to Lady Fairchild.”

  “I didn’t come on the soldiers’ behalf,” Tony replied, taking the chair beside the desk the colonel indicated. “It’s Lady Fairchild herself who concerns me.”

  The colonel raised an eyebrow, his expression growing noticeably frostier. “And what have you to do with her?”

  At the innuendo, both proprietary and condescending, that he had no business having any personal dealings with Jenna, Tony’s noble resolve started to crack. Instead of the diplomatic address he’d practiced during his ride over, he found himself blurting, “Just what are your intentions toward Jenna Montague?”

  “Though I don’t see what concern it is of yours, rather than argue the point, let me say directly that I am considering asking Lady Fairchild to become my wife.”

  ’Twas what he’d feared and expected, yet still that bald declaration shook Tony to his boots. His mind gone blank, he could dredge up neither protest nor reply.

  The colonel’s face took on a faintly pitying look Tony resented even more than his condescension. “Since you have been something of a friend to her,” Vernier conceded, “let me point out the benefits of such a connection. Her extensive experience as a campaigner and her familiarity with many of the general officers, including some of the allied commanders with whom she dealt after the fighting in Belgium, will allow her to mix easily in the elevated Society in which I move. Her person and manners are charming, and though I am not in immediate need of it, her wealth would not come amiss. Whereas I can offer her a prestigious position for which she is well suited within a military and diplomatic world she finds comfortable and familiar. I judge it an advantageous match for us both.”

  Position. Society. Wealth. The colonel spoke in terms of assets, as if evaluating the purchase of—of investment property. Ignoring the fact that most ton marriages were based on little more, Tony couldn’t help demanding, “But how do you feel about her?”

  “Feel?” the colonel repeated with a moue of distaste. “I esteem her, of course.”

  “A rather cold assessment.”

  The colonel stiffened. “Perhaps a man of your ilk can’t understand the difference, but we are talking of choosing a wife, not an actress out of the Green Room.”

  So Vernier “esteemed” her, but passion was to be reserved for women of another sort. How dutiful and proper. Did the colonel have any idea of how very passionate and improper his prospective wife could be? Damme, Jenna’s fire would be wasted on this prig!
>
  Before Tony could reply, the colonel continued, “Now, having freely offered you any reassurances you might need of the honorableness of my intent, let me add this. Given my plans, I advise you to limit your contact with my future wife to what is strictly necessary in your consultations on the soldiers’ relief. I shall urge her to eliminate even those as soon as possible. The future Mrs. Vernier must be free from any taint of scandal.”

  Restraining the hot replies that hovered on his tongue, Tony made himself swallow the insult and focus on his reasons for coming here. “Since you confess yourself concerned with Jenna’s welfare, I must tell you I believe she is now in danger.”

  The colonel’s eyes narrowed. “Danger? What danger?”

  Briefly Tony related the facts about Jenna’s accident, the shot fired at her and inquiries he had begun. “I have not yet been able to investigate all the possibilities, but since I—I am not in a position to safeguard her, I felt it necessary to bring this to your attention. I’ve urged her to remove from Fairchild House until the matter is resolved, but thus far she is resisting. I’m hoping you will add your entreaties to mine.”

  The colonel sat silently, obviously pondering what Tony had related. “You have no real evidence that her fall was other than accidental?”

  “No,” Tony admitted. “Not being able to talk with the groom responsible, I have no way of determining for certain whether he deliberately switched mounts and then withheld information about the borrowed horse’s temperament, hoping Jenna would induce the mare to bolt.”

  “Although it’s possible, I suppose, it doesn’t seem reasonable to me that any lady of the ton—one of them a countess, no less!—would have the means or experience to arrange such an accident. To conspire with a groom,” Vernier exclaimed with a grimace of distaste, “much less to engage some assassin to shoot at her. And it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me that a servant discharged for his negligence would have made up a story to cover his guilt—or be melancholy over a lost love.”

  “The latter story was my invention!” Tony protested.

  “Still, your conclusions seem a bit far-fetched. Scheming relations, jealous former lovers, mysterious assassins—and you offer no proof beyond vague suspicions?”

  “That shot was not fired by any wandering hunter.”

  “So you say. You’ve no proof of that, either.”

  “Her maid thinks the danger real as well,” Tony said doggedly.

  The colonel sniffed. “She, of course, being trained in intrigue?”

  “She traveled all those years with the army, and developed an instinct for danger as keen as any soldier’s,” Tony snapped back.

  “I’m sorry, Nelthorpe, but I simply don’t find your so-called ‘evidence’ convincing, nor with all I have to do before my imminent departure do I have the time to indulge in a game of blindman’s bluff with some probably imaginary villain. It would be most disconcerting as well to discover Lady Fairchild to be involved in so tawdry a scheme. However, since it is her welfare we are discussing, I will mention the matter to Lord Riverton. He has many contacts in and out of the government, and can investigate this properly, if he thinks it warranted.”

  “So you’ll not urge her to leave Fairchild House?”

  “On what grounds?” The colonel waved an impatient hand. “I’m to have her spurn the hospitality of her relations, insinuate that her own husband’s cousin and member of a family with an impeccable reputation for honor and valor, might have tried to engineer the demise of her child, on the basis of no hard evidence whatsoever?”

  “Then you don’t really care about her,” Tony said, his jaw tight.

  “That is both presumptuous and preposterous, sir,” Vernier retorted hotly. “I found, while investigating her fitness to become my wife—”

  “You investigated her?” Tony said incredulously.

  “—that she had been often in your company and so made some inquiries about you. Although your war record is unexceptional, your conduct prior to your military service leaves much to be desired, while your father—”

  “Let’s leave my father out of this.”

  “Given the man’s character, or lack thereof, I can understand that wish. The bare truth, I’m afraid, is that your reputation remains unsavory. Though it may be easy for you to imagine rogues under every bush, I myself would not consider accusing—or suspecting—members of my own class of such villainy on the basis of nothing but wild supposition. And if you claim to actually wish the best for Lady Fairchild, then I suggest you prove it. Summon whatever nobility exists within your dubious character and distance yourself from her before her own stainless reputation is soiled by your own. Now, sir, I must ask you to leave. I have important work and little time left in which to accomplish it.”

  The colonel stood, indicating the interview was over. Hands curled into fists that he burned to smash into the colonel’s handsome, self-righteously smug face, Tony gave him a brief nod and stalked out.

  He was streets away before the fog of rage cleared enough for him to consider what he must do next. Spotting an entrance to the archbishop’s gardens off Lambeth Road, he turned his mount from the busy street and rode in.

  It appeared he’d held his temper and abased himself to no purpose. Tony liked neither the man’s evident opinion that his diplomatic work was more important than investigating a possible danger to Jenna nor his insinuation that if the matter were true, the scandal sure to follow its disclosure would render Lady Fairchild less worthy to become Vernier’s wife.

  Perhaps what Jenna needed right now wasn’t a scrupulously honorable man who assumed, until he had “hard evidence,” that all aristocrats behaved with equal honor, but a rogue who thought like a rogue. And if the colonel could not be bothered to concern himself with taking measures to protect Jenna’s safety, Tony would have to confront Jenna himself and insist on it.

  A small measure of warmth kindled in his chest. To do so, he would have to see her again—soon. That resolve made, he kicked his horse to a trot. On the ride back, he’d ponder how to best accomplish that.

  Just before he exited the park, he passed a woman walking, market basket over her arm. His horse was three paces beyond her before something familiar about her face and form made him pull up his mount and turn in the saddle.

  A second look confirmed that first impression. Shock and incredulity warring in his mind, he wheeled his mount and rode back to dismount beside her.

  “Miss Sweet?” he demanded incredulously.

  The tall woman stared back at him, her expression wary. “Tony Nelthorpe,” she said quietly.

  “Yes! What are you doing here? How have you been all these years?” He clamped his lips shut before he could add, “Why did you leave without a word?”

  “I’m quite well, thank you. I’ve lived here for a decade and been married nearly two to a very kind man.”

  If she’d lived here that long and read the journals, she would have known from the gossip in the Society columns when he’d been in residence. He gave her a twisted smile. “I was about to ask why you never contacted me, but I imagine such news as you had wouldn’t have encouraged you to think it worth your while to communicate.”

  A flicker of a smile touched her lips. “So you are still honest with yourself, I see.” That face he’d loved so dearly in childhood, still remarkably unlined, studied his for a long moment. “The only thing I regretted about quitting Hunsdon all those years ago was having to leave you in your father’s care.”

  “I…missed you.” Dreadfully. “But Papa said you’d found a better position, so I hoped that things went well for you, and I see they have. I am happy for that.”

  “So that’s what he told you.” For an instant, a bitter expression marred the serene face. “I always wondered what he’d said—if he said anything. Whether you hated me.”

  “I was confused…angry, even,” he admitted. “Lonely. But I never stopped cherishing the friendship you’d offered me. ’Twas my dearest childhood m
emory.” He laughed gruffly to cover the emotion. “Practically the only pleasant one I had.”

  Her eyes mirrored distress. “When you were sent down from university and the stories began to circulate, I was afraid that you’d become a younger version of your father.”

  “I’ve much to answer for in those days, but I hope I’ve avoided that fate,” Tony retorted.

  “I blamed myself. But then you left for the army, and, I heard, acquitted yourself well, so I prayed there was still hope.”

  He smiled. “I’m not yet a candidate for canonization, but I am trying.”

  “I believe you are.” Once again she studied him for a long moment. “’Tis so long ago, I suppose it makes no difference, but I feel I must tell you why I left, even though you needed me so much. I had no choice, you see. I…I feared I might be with child.”

  He couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d said she’d gone to become a courtesan or tread the boards of the Theatre Royal. “With child? Whose?”

  “Whose do you think?” she asked quietly.

  The knowledge hit him with the force of a punch to the gut, twisted his insides with revulsion and regret. For a moment, he thought he would be ill.

  She grasped his hand. “You mustn’t think I ever encouraged him—”

  “No! I know you would not. Just as I know that he would have given you no choice.”

  “Once it…began, I knew he would not stop. I feared, until he tired of me, he would not even let me leave. So I had to sneak away in the dead of night.”

  “Where did you go? How did you live?”

  “How did I manage not to end up on the streets, you mean?” she asked wryly. “I’ve been very fortunate. My old governess took pity on me, took me in. Soon after, I met a kind older man who had the goodness of heart to overlook my soiled past. We’ve been very happy.”

  “And the child?”

  “Is married now to a fine young man. She believes my husband to be her father. We never told her differently.”

  Fury at his father, pain for all she must have suffered, engulfed him. “I’m so sorry. I—I wish there was something I could do. Something to make up for—”