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The earnings from the Nelthorpe estates, financially crippled like so many farming communities after the war's end, had diminished to a trickle that would barely pay to seed this year's crops. Not attempting to hide his disapproval, the solicitor told him that his father had sold or gambled away the investments left by Tony's grandfather, mortgaged nearly every property it was possible to mortgage, and was in arrears in paying back even the interest.
Like his father, the solicitor advised him to head off the disaster by marrying an heiress. At least this man had the grace to remain silent when Tony, angry and despairing, snapped back at him to ask which fair flower of virginity had a rich Papa, still in possession of his senses, who might agree to offer Tony her hand.
Perhaps something could be worked out, the man had said weakly. On that hopeful note, they'd parted.
He'd gone back to gaming to pay off the most pressing bills he'd found stuffed in his father's desk.
Thanks to a merciful Providence, thus far, he'd been winning.
But he'd gambled too long not to know that, skillfully and soberly as he was now playing, his luck wouldn't last forever. The blunt he'd accumulated after two week's play offered a small cushion against immediate ruin, but gaming could be no more than a temporary solution.
His only real chance to recoup their fortune would be, as everyone suggested, to marry one.
However, Tony's few forays into polite Society had confirmed that his soiled reputation, no doubt reinforced by the activities of his sire, remained intact. Society matrons with marriageable daughters in tow took care to avoid him. His older sister, now Lady Siddons, had distanced herself from her Hunsdon kin immediately after her marriage and could not be looked to for any assistance.
His chances of finding a suitably wealthy aristocratic bride were thus virtually nonexistent. Accepting that fact, he'd started a list of wealthy men in the City who, rumor said, had pretensions of seeing their daughters rise in Society. He still had no idea how he was to wangle introductions to those fathers, much less charm one into gifting him with his daughter and her fortune.
The question of how he'd manage to coexist afterward with a woman who was little more than the prize in this most high-staked of card games, he avoided considering.
As Tony watched his opponent struggle to extract a card, the lad's face went slack and he slumped forward onto the table. With a resigned sigh, Tony hopped up to catch him before he slid onto the floor, then plucked a coin from the stack before him to give the servant who relieved him of the lad, instructing him to transport the boy home.
Who had ever done as much for him? he asked himself, irritated by the unpleasant taste that still lingered in his mouth as the youth was carried off. He could easily have trebled the bets, come away with a stack of the greenling's vowels as well as all his blunt. A true Captain Sharp would have done just that.
As he idly gathered up the boy's coins, his mind wandered back to Jenna. Though he'd called nearly every day, finally coaxing his way into seeing Sancha, he'd never been admitted to Jenna's presence.
She was recovering, Sancha assured him. She thanked him for his flowers and the book he'd brought, one he'd laughed through and thought she would enjoy.
If only these long nights of smoke and liquor and bad company could earn him a future with a woman like that, a woman he could respect and care about and look forward to sharing his life with, maybe he wouldn't feel so... alone.
Tony my lad, you're growing maudlin, he told himself. When, after all, had he ever not been alone?
"Tony Nelthorpe! By heaven, I see you made it out of hospital after all!"
Recognizing the man who'd hailed him, Tony's melancholy dissolved in a surge of gladness.
"Ned Hastings!" he cried, rising to shake the hand being proffered. "You're looking well yourself. Fully recovered from that episode in Belgium, I trust?"
"Yes, thanks to your timely intervention. And you?"
"Much better than when last you saw me."
"Praise the Lord for that! But what are you doing here?" Hastings looked about them with disdain.
"Thought if you wished to play, you'd take a chair at White's."
Shrugging, Tony offered him wine. "I decided to amuse myself in a setting with a more... varied clientele."
"Everyone from old aristocracy to jumped-up Cits to Johnny Raws straight from the country."
Hastings's grin faded as he took a glass. "Too many of our old Oxford mates now forever missing at White's, eh?"
Leaving it to the jackals who never served.
"And the tulips who remained while the rest of us answered the call, one doesn't wish to see," Hastings concluded, giving voice to Tony's thought.
"Indeed."
After staring into the distance, Hastings shook himself, as if to break free of the ghostly fist of memory.
"So, what are you doing, now that you're up and about?" Hastings asked. "Understand the earl is up to his usual tricks. Can...can I do anything to assist?"
Tony felt his face flush. Having known him since Oxford, Hastings also knew he was perpetually purse-pinched. Discovering Tony in an establishment that possessed no pretensions to being aught but a gambling den, he could surely guess how things currently stood.
"You've already helped enough," Tony replied. "Pax is a superior mount. Given my recent difficulties in navigating on my own two limbs, I should have been in bad case indeed had you not generously provided me with him."
Hastings waved away Tony's thanks. '"Twas little enough, considering that if you hadn't ridden down the cuirassier who was about to gut me in Quatre Bras, I'd not be here drinking wine with you tonight."
"If I hadn't gotten him, someone else would have."
"Perhaps, but you did, and I shall never forget that." Hastings took a sip before saying diffidently, "My father's investments in the India trade prosper. Should you find yourself a trifle under the hatches, I'm sure he-"
"No need. I shall come about shortly. As soon as I decide which tender virgin to honor with the offer of my hand," he added, trying to keep bitterness from his voice.
'"Twould be a sensible solution," Hastings said with a nod. "Have you anyone in mind?"
"I'm still, shall we say, reconnoitering the ground."
Hastings's eyes brightened and he set down his glass. "You remember 'Guinea' Harris, don't you?"
"That corporal in first company who could shoot the center out of a yellow boy from fifty paces?"
"Yes. I saw him just last week. His father's some sort of banker in the city, full of juice, if rumor can be believed. Perhaps you ought to call on him. Mr. Harris might be able to suggest suitable bridal candidates for a man who, like his son, survived Waterloo."
Probably Banker Harris, like most people awed by the great and terrible victory over the French, thought "Waterloo survivor" was synonymous with "courage."
Tony knew he didn't qualify. But he couldn't afford to be too finicky about honor. An influential City banker would be of great help in finding him an heiress to marry.
And so, despite his discomfort, he made himself say, "If the opportunity should arise, I'd like to meet him."
"I'd be happy to arrange it. Mayhap 'Guinea' Harris's papa can send some golden coins rolling in your direction!"
Tony murmured his gratitude. He ought to feel encouraged-and virtuous, that he'd made himself take this first step toward the solution everyone was recommending. A solution that was both logical and commonplace. Most men of his station married to secure alliances and fortunes.
Hadn't he, once upon a time, urged Jenna to make just such a match-with him? Though, he recalled with a grin, the bargain had been rather one-sided: her fortune for his somewhat tarnished title. Ah, what a coxcomb he'd been!
But though he had certainly coveted her fortune, there had been something about Jenna, something beyond an undeniably strong physical attraction, that had drawn him and made the idea of marrying her compelling even to a man who scoffed at the notion of love and fidelity.
Her serenity, sense of honor and courage, perhaps, qualities that had resonated when tried by the adversities of war like the steel of the finest saber.
Qualities that drew him still.
Miss Sweet's final legacy, he thought with a self-mocking smile. Somehow in his youth she'd managed to instill deep within him an ironic yearning for purity and valor, qualities he himself had never possessed.
A yearning unlikely to be satisfied in the match between avarice and social advantage he was now contemplating.
Though he'd lately come to believe that courage, honor and fidelity were possible, he wasn't sure he yet believed in lifelong, selfless love. Not for Anthony Nelthorpe.
So why did the notion of binding himself in a loveless marriage of convenience continue to seem so distasteful?
*CHAPTER SEVEN*
A week later, Jenna reposed in the sitting room adjoining her chamber while Cousin Lane settled a shawl about her shoulders. "Rest a while longer, Jenna. I've business this morning, but this afternoon, if the weather holds fair, I shall try to tempt you out for a carriage ride." He stroked her cheek gently.
"Promise me you'll consider it, eh? That pretty face is far too pale."
"Thank you, cousin. I will consider it," she answered politely, then sighed with relief when he exited the room.
She turned her gaze to the window. It was fair today, she noted, though whether it was sun or rain mattered little to her. A book lay on the table beside her, a gift, Sancha told her, from Lord Nelthorpe-of all people! And though she found the author, one Jane Austen, quite clever, Jenna hadn't read more than a page.
