Читать книгу Wicked Wager - Julia Justiss - Страница 10

BEFORE JENNA COULD SAY A WORD, the woman continued in shrill tones, “Losing Colonel Fairchild was only what you deserved, after choosing to rescue men such as him—” the widow jerked her chin at the viscount “—whilst leaving good soldiers like my husband to die in the mud!”

’Twas no point trying to reason with this obviously grief-maddened widow, Jenna realized, trying not to let the cruel words wound her as she wondered what supposed incident had led to this outburst. Better to simply soothe and send her away. “I am so sorry—”

“Keep your regrets!” the woman cried. “Just wait until you, like I, have lost everything you hold dear!”

Before Jenna could imagine her intent, she hauled back her arm and slapped Jenna full across the face.

Reeling with the force of the blow, Jenna would have fallen but for Nelthorpe. After steadying her, he moved with surprising speed to seize the wrists of the widow, who’d drawn her hand back as if to deliver another slap.

“Madam, remember yourself!” he barked.

After a brief struggle, the woman’s fury seemed spent and she burst into tears, going limp in her captor’s grip.

As the butler and two footmen hurried up to assist Nelthorpe, Cousin Lane entered the hallway at a run. “Manson, what the devil is going on?”

He stopped short, taking in with a quick glance the milling servants, the weeping woman hanging in Nelthorpe’s arms—and Jenna, with her palm to her stinging cheek.

“For the love of God, Jenna, are you all right?”

Fighting back a sudden faintness, Jenna nodded. “I am fine, cousin. I—I should like to retire, however.”

“I’ll escort you up at once. James, keep watch over this…person while Manson fetches a constable.”

“No need for that,” Jenna interposed. “’Twas a…a misunderstanding. Manson, have a hackney summoned. I’m sure the lady is anxious to return home.”

Frowning, Fairchild seemed as if he would countermand her order before waving an impatient hand. “As you wish, Jenna. But, madam,” he said, turning to the woman, “if you ever approach my cousin again, I shall prosecute you.”

As the weeping woman was led away, he turned a hostile gaze on Lord Nelthorpe. “Did you bring that creature?”

Apparently her cousin’s opinion of Nelthorpe was no better than her own. Little as she liked the viscount, though, Jenna couldn’t let this pass. “Indeed not! In fact, he acted immediately to assist me.”

Lane Fairchild’s frosty gaze didn’t thaw. “Did he? How convenient. I suppose I must thank you for that.”

Lord Nelthorpe nodded. “Any paltry assistance I may have offered Lady Fairchild was entirely my pleasure.”

With some concern, Jenna noted that Nelthorpe was breathing rather heavily and looked even more unwell. Although grateful for his aid, Jenna hoped he wasn’t about to end the binge that had brought on that unhealthy pallor by casting up his accounts on the carpet.

Before she could intervene to speed him on his way, to her intense irritation, the parlor door opened and Lady Montclare stepped into the hallway, followed by her sister.

“Dear Jenna, whatever could be keeping—oh!” Lady Montclare ended on a gasp, her widening eyes taking in Jenna’s red cheek, Cousin Lane’s grim face and Nelthorpe, once again swaying unsteadily on his feet.

“Nothing to concern yourselves about, ladies,” Fairchild said. Ignoring the viscount in unmistakable insult, he took Jenna’s arm. “My dear cousin is rather fatigued. As soon as I’ve seen Jenna to her room, I’ll return to thank you more properly for your gallant support of the Fairchild family this afternoon.”

“Of course she is exhausted!” Mrs. Anderson said, her avid gaze flitting between Jenna and Nelthorpe. “But do allow us to assist. Sister, let us take dear Jenna upstairs and offer what comfort we can.”

“Nonsense, ladies, I am quite capable of going up alone,” Jenna objected. “I need only some solitude in which to repose myself. Please do return to the parlor with Mr. Fairchild and refresh yourselves with some tea.”

Then she felt it again—the almost palpable touch of Nelthorpe’s gaze on her. Without conscious volition, she looked over to him.

“I shall take my leave now, Lady Fairchild,” he said quietly. “Thank you again for your time.”

“A most thoughtful suggestion, ladies,” Cousin Lane interposed, again ignoring Nelthorpe. “Cousin, let me give you into these kind ladies’ care.”

She might not like Anthony Nelthorpe, but neither did Jenna approve Fairchild’s rude treatment of the man who had just rendered her timely assistance. Turning her back on the sisters, she extended her hand to the viscount.

“Thank you again, and good day, Lord Nelthorpe.”

He took her fingers. Her nerves jumped at the first contact of his gloved hands, then again at the unexpectedly intense heat of his lips brushing her bare skin.

“The honor was mine, Lady Fairchild,” he said, giving her fingers a brief squeeze that sent another glancing shock through her. Then he turned and, leaning heavily on the balustrade, descended the stairs.

Mrs. Anderson imprisoned Jenna’s still-tingling hand in her firm grasp. “Come along, my dear. After that encounter, I can well believe you need a respite!”

Suddenly weary, Jenna gave up attempting to escape the sisters’ unwanted attentions, though she suspected this sudden urge to accompany her stemmed more from a desire to determine all that had just transpired than any genuine concern for her welfare.

Confirming her suspicion, as soon as they’d distanced themselves from the servants, Lady Montclare whispered, “Whatever happened to your cheek, my dear? Surely that wretch didn’t have the temerity to touch you!”

If she hadn’t been so tired, Jenna might have found it amusing to be in the novel position of defending Anthony Nelthorpe. “Of course not! I—I stumbled and struck my cheek,” she invented. “Nelthorpe came to my assistance.”

Lady Montclare sniffed. “Indeed. Though he served in the army, apparently with some distinction, Nelthorpe is exactly the sort of man you must avoid! A fortune hunter who fled England to escape his debts, I’m surprised he wasn’t clapped into prison the moment he landed. Though the title is ancient, he and his father, the Earl of Hunsdon, have made the name such a byword for vice that Nelthorpe’s uncle, who was to have settled a sum on him, decided to disinherit him. Without a prospective fortune to offset his other failings, Nelthorpe is completely ineligible.”

“Indeed?” Jenna said, wrinkling her brow in mockconfusion. “Mrs. Anderson, do I not remember you praising Nelthorpe to me as an eligible parti after Papa died at Badajoz, before I married Garrett?”

Lady Montclare threw a look at Mrs. Anderson. “Sister! Surely you did nothing of the kind!”

Mrs. Anderson’s plump face colored. “’Twas before I’d learned of the gaming debts that prompted him to flee to the Peninsula, nor had I yet heard his uncle had cut him off. As a future earl, you must admit, he would otherwise have been considered an exemplary choice.”

Waving away her sister’s excuse, Lady Montclare continued, “In any event, suffice it to say that Nelthorpe is a man to avoid. In fact, since he’s been away from England long enough that he no longer has ties with anyone of importance in the ton, I believe you can safely give him the cut direct.”

From recommended suitor to ineligible in the blink of a fortune, Jenna thought cynically. Little sympathy as she had for Nelthorpe, she could only be disgusted with the shallowness of the standards by which Society measured men.

“I assure you, there is no chance of my being taken in by Lord Nelthorpe,” she said dryly.

Having reached the hall outside her room, Jenna decided with an unexpected spurt of determination to rid herself of her unwanted guardians before the sisters tried to insinuate themselves into her bedchamber.

Hands on the door handle, she said, “Ladies, thank you most kindly for your help. As I dare not keep you any longer from your tea, good day.” With a nod, she slipped inside and closed the door in their faces.

She leaned against it and exhaled a long breath, feeling for the first time in many days a warming sense of satisfaction. Ah, but it felt good to take charge again!

Perhaps it was time to shake off this lethargy and find a new sense of direction.

As she wandered to the window and glanced idly down, her gaze caught on the figure of Lord Nelthorpe. The viscount stood motionless halfway down the entry stairs, both hands braced on the railing, his head hanging between hunched shoulders.

He must still be feeling ill, she thought with a dismissive shake of her head. At least he’d made it out the front door before another wave of nausea overcame him.

Then Nelthorpe straightened and, arms locked above hands still gripping the railing, stepped down—dragging his left leg. After hauling that limb down two more steps, he halted again, as if fighting off a wave of dizziness.

Her perceptions of his appearance suddenly realigned into a drastically different conclusion. Having nursed casualties after many a battle, she wondered with shame how she could have so badly misread the clammy skin, the shadowed eyes, the nausea and vertigo—of a man in pain.

Nor, now that she thought about it, had there been about him the odor of spirits or the cloying scent some men used to cover up the stench of liquor.

If she hadn’t been so self-righteously preoccupied by nursing instead a three-year-old sense of grievance, she might also have noted the fact that he’d only just arrived in London. All but the most severely injured of Wellington’s troops had returned months ago. Nor had she troubled to ask whether he’d recovered from whatever injuries had left him bleeding on the field after the end of June’s great battle.

When she’d literally stumbled over Nelthorpe that day, she’d been frantic with worry, knowing Garrett would have returned to her unless he were gravely wounded—or dead. She’d expended as little time as possible seeing Nelthorpe received treatment before resuming her search for him.

And after she found her husband—confirming her worst fears about his condition—she’d devoted three weeks to the ultimately losing battle to save him. Numb, devastated, denying, she’d continued on nursing other survivors until, realizing she must be with child, she’d slowed her pace. Even then, she’d not been able to make herself leave the room she’d shared with Garrett or her life as a soldier’s wife and daughter, the only life she’d known.

Colonel’s daughter indeed! Shame deepening, she acknowledged that not once in all her weeks in Belgium had she thought to inquire about Nelthorpe’s fate after he’d been carried away that awful afternoon. This, for a man who had once been under her father’s command.

Regardless of what might have transpired between them, Father would have expected better of her than that.

Gauging by the trouble it had given Nelthorpe to navigate the stairs, she knew from her nursing experience that simply remaining upright must be akin to torture. Seized by conflicting emotions, she could not seem to tear her gaze from where he remained stoically standing, evidently awaiting the return of his horse.

The nurse in her urged her to rush downstairs and check his condition. The woman and the patriot ached for the obvious pain he was suffering.

The soldier in her saluted the pride and fortitude that had prompted him to mask his injuries and come to her aid, despite what it must have cost him to restrain the widow who’d attacked her.

She would not shame that pride by revealing that she’d observed him in his weakness.

When finally a groom appeared leading a tall gelding, she exhaled with relief. Apparently he’d mastered mounting and riding, for he managed those tasks without a falter.

Nelthorpe still rode with the same effortless grace she remembered from observing him in the Peninsula. Indeed, seeing him in the saddle, she would never have suspected his injury.

Long after he guided his mount out of sight, Jenna remained at the window, staring into the afternoon brightness as she recalled their conversation and each detail of his appearance and expression.

It appeared her first assessment had been correct. Anthony Nelthorpe had done more than just exchange his swagger for a limp.

And she owed him another apology.

IN LATE AFTERNOON of the following day, Tony Nelthorpe sat tying his cravat in preparation for dining at his club.

He’d been relieved to discover upon waking that, despite the wretched condition in which he’d returned home yesterday, he was now able to walk fairly well—so his exertions at the Fairchild townhouse had not, as he’d feared, set back his recovery. Which meant, praise heaven, that his leg must be healing at last.

Heaven knows, he’d seen little evidence of it yesterday. After having secluded himself at home for several weeks while he practiced walking, he’d decided it was time to attempt his first excursion into Society—at the reception being given to honor Colonel Garrett Fairchild.

Much as he might deserve Jenna’s disdain, he rather dreaded receiving it, so the Fairchild’s reception provided an ideal opportunity to meet her and attempt to offer his thanks. She would, he speculated, be less likely to publicly insult a Waterloo veteran during a reception honoring her husband’s military service.

Regardless of her opinion of this particular soldier.

He’d just been congratulating himself on having actually spoken with her—and on managing the stairs without limping too dreadfully—when that widow assaulted her. His whole leg flaming in agony by the time that episode concluded, he had only the haziest of memories of the ride home, his dwindling strength being invested in the battle to remain conscious and in the saddle.

Out of yesterday’s agony one bit of good news had arisen, he thought with a smile. Once he had progressed beyond simple survival, he had grown concerned that his amorous inclinations seemed to have been snuffed out by the same injuries that had shattered his knee. Having had no blunt to test the fact, even if he’d had the desire, he’d relegated that worry to the back of his mind.

But a few moments in company with Jenna Fairchild had proven that though his longer members might never fully recover, his shorter one now functioned perfectly. Jenna Montague had roused his senses from the first day they met and time, it seemed, had not dimmed that instinctive response. Indeed, her appeal was if anything stronger—for Jenna was no longer an untried girl, but a widow who had tasted passion’s full measure.

And, he was certain, she’d sensed as well as he the almost tactile pull between them yesterday. Though not surprisingly, she was no more willing to recognize it than she’d been three years ago.

Having nothing better to do at the moment, he might just have to live down to her expectation that he was planning to pester her about marrying him. His grin widened as a certain part of his anatomy offered solid support to the idea of pursuing Jenna Montague.

He was making no other progress. After three weeks at home, he still didn’t know the current status of the Nelthorpe finances, his father having not yet seen fit to meet him. Anger flared and he fanned it, irritated at how much hurt lurked beneath.

But then, when had the earl ever paid any attention to his only son’s activities, no matter how scandalous? Perhaps because Lord Hunsdon had always been too occupied with even more scandalous activities himself.

Well, Tony was no longer a stripling waiting with pathetic eagerness for any crumb of parental attention. As heir to the Hunsdon earldom, he had a right to know how things stood with the estate he would one day inherit. Though by all the signs, his father would bequeath him little more than a pack of debts and a soiled reputation.

Dusting off his beaver hat, he limped out. He’d return early enough to catch his father before the earl began his evening’s celebrations, hopefully while Hunsdon was sober enough to converse with some intelligence.

Three years ago, Tony had associated with a group of dissolute young men with whom he’d indulged in highstakes gaming and dissipated revelry. Though during his three weeks of recovery, he had not called on any of them, the fact that he had returned to England would have been speedily telegraphed to the ton through the infallible network of servants’ gossip.

With a sense of anticipation sharpened by unease, he hailed a hackney to White’s. Would the members there greet him as a lost sheep returned—or see only the black sheep who’d disgraced himself by fleeing England with his debts of honor unpaid?

Despite his soldier’s service, he suspected that a bad reputation, thoroughly earned, would prove long-lived.

Certainly Lane Fairchild had shown yesterday in what little regard he held Viscount Nelthorpe.

Half an hour later, his heart pounding—and not just, he knew, from exertion of having climbed yet another infernal flight of stairs—he stood at White’s, scanning the occupants. Spotting two of his former compatriots seated around a bottle, he limped toward them.

Lord St. Ives noticed his approach and raised his quizzing glass. “Can it be?” he asked. “Despite that drunken sailor’s gait, the face is familiar. As I live and breathe, I do believe ’tis Tony Nelthorpe!”

Aldous Wexley looked over in surprise. “Why, so ’tis. Didn’t I hear you’d died after that great battle over in France, Nelthorpe? Watergreen or Watermarket—”

“Waterloo,” Tony inserted.

“Ah, yes. Months ago now, though.” Wexley waved a dismissive hand.

“So, Tony, tell us all about it, do! Soldiering bravely to keep England safe for—” St. Ives gestured with one languid hand “—reprobates like us.”

“Damme, Grantham told me that after he joined up, he was informed he might travel with only two trunks in his baggage,” Wexley said. “Two! Under such circumstances, how could a gentleman maintain a proper appearance?”

“There is the small matter of transporting food and munitions,” Tony observed dryly.

“I hear the mud was dreadful,” St. Ives said. “And the blood! Worse than a cockfight, I should imagine.”

Against his will, Tony’s mind returned to the battlefield as he’d seen it from his resting place beneath the two Polish lancers he’d killed after a cuirassier cut him off his horse: a sodden, muddy field of fallen men, some still, some writhing, under a pall of smoke reflected in the puddle whose reddened water lapped at his chin…

A shudder ran through him as bile rose in his throat. “Much worse than a cockfight.”

“Speaking of,” Wexley said with a broad wink, “have you seen the new dancers at Covent Garden? There’s a brown-haired chit who reminds me of my last ladybird. Such ankles! Such thighs!”

“You must present me to her tonight,” St. Ives replied. “Or there’s that new hell that just opened on Russell Street. Offers fine brandy and deep play, Nelthorpe, if you’d like to join me there. As I recall, you were a bit under the hatches when you left this sceptered isle.”

Wexley raised his glass. “To each his own vice.”

“Let’s broach another bottle before we go our separate ways, gentlemen.” St. Ives lifted his glass to Tony. “In honor of our dear Nelthorpe’s return from the dead.”

Tony silently returned the salute, the momentary warmth he’d felt at their offering a bottle in his honor swiftly dying. They don’t really want to know what happened in Portugal or the Pyranees or on the plain at Waterloo. Nor would they understand, even if you could find words to describe it.

As the chat continued through another bottle and then a third, talk of wagers and women punctuated by an argument between St. Ives and Wexley over the proper trimming of a waistcoat, Tony felt more and more isolated.

Once he had sat here, guzzling and chatting and thinking like these men, oblivious to anything beyond the streets of Mayfair. But the man who’d done so had died somewhere between the barren, windswept canyons of Spain and the bloody fields of Belgium.

Tony didn’t know who had taken his place. But whoever that man was, he no longer fit in here.

At length, the group stood to leave. “Which shall it be, Nelthorpe?” St. Ives asked, swaying on his feet. “Gaming with me? Or wenching with this fine gentleman?”

“I’m afraid I shall have to decline both offers tonight,” Tony said, not at all sorry. “My father awaits.”

St. Ives nodded gravely. “Matters of finance, of course. Chouse the old gentleman out of a few extra guineas, eh? He ought to owe you a stack of yellow boys for saving his purse by absenting yourself so long.”

With a final witticism from St. Ives, the men parted. Foreboding gathering in his gut, Tony hailed a hackney to return to the Nelthorpe townhouse—and confront at last his revered father, the Earl of Hunsdon.