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Where, she discovered, Nelthorpe stood-watching them.
Jenna felt her face heat. "By Nelthorpe? I hardly think so!"
"He's not such a bad fellow now," Harry said. "No Garrett, of course, but how many men are? We didn't see him much after his transfer into the Royals, but I hear he turned out to be a rather good officer.
Cautious, prudent, careful of his men. His troopers respected him."
"Papa always said that was the best measure of a soldier," Jenna said, surprised and impressed.
Apparently Nelthorpe had changed from the bored aristocrat who'd once tried to take advantage of her.
Though, she thought, remembering his kiss on the bridge, there was still plenty of rogue left in him.
"If you choose to divert yourself with him, you will come to no harm. Whatever makes you happy, Jenna."
With greater difficulty this time, Jenna stemmed the tears that seemed ever-threatening. "Thank you, Harry. I appreciate that more than you could know. But now, I believe I must find the ladies' withdrawing room."
He tossed down the last of his wine and took her glass. "I'll escort you out."
After promising to write, Jenna left him-and Nelthorpe, who seemed to be shadowing her-in the hall and searched out the ladies' room.
Meeting Harry had been a comfort-but her memories of him were so irretrievably bound up with those of Papa and Garrett that she could not see Harry, could not reminisce about their shared past, without inevitably being ambushed again by her grief over the dear ones she'd loved and lost.
Marrying Harry would not be the right solution to fill the cavern of emptiness that loomed before her, she told herself as she fixed an errant curl. Though for the next several weeks, she had a task, however ludicrous. She'd given Nelthorpe her word.
Jenna was about to depart when a tall, strikingly beautiful blond woman glided into the room. "Lady Fairchild," the lady said in a soft, breathy voice. "So good to see you out again after your sad accident.
You remember me, I trust? Lucinda Blaine?"
As if she would ever forget the Lovely Lucinda, the woman whose image had been branded on her brain the moment she'd first glimpsed the miniature Garrett had carried with him until practically the day he'd proposed to Jenna. The portrait of the fiancee who'd broken her engagement-and Garrett's heart-to marry the Earl of Doone.
"Yes, I remember you, Countess," she said at last.
The beauty sank gracefully into the chair beside Jenna's. "I'm sorry I was not able to pay my respects at Garrett's service last month, but my poor nerves would just not support it!" She glanced at Jenna through her impossibly long lashes. "I suppose you understand."
"Does your husband?" Jenna asked.
The countess shrugged. "Oh, Doone? He knew when he married me that I really loved Garrett. If only Papa hadn't forced the match on me!"
From what Jenna had heard around the regiment, it hadn't been Lucinda's papa who had urged her to cry off when a wealthy and aging earl became besotted with the Season's reigning Diamond. "Indeed,"
Jenna said at last.
The countess sighed. "So ironic, isn't it? If only I had convinced my father to let us marry, Garrett would eventually have come into the title Papa wanted for me."
A pleasant fiction, Jenna thought acidly. But having had enough of the woman's distorted recollections, she said, "Such observations do no honor to either your husband or mine, Lady Doone. Pray, refrain from any further."
The beauty's eyes flashed. "You might not wish to hear me, but I will not be silent! You stole Garrett-"
"Stole!" Jenna interrupted incredulously. "Are you forgetting the small matter of your having already married another man?"
"Do you really think," the beauty said, looking at Jenna with contempt, "that Garrett would have married you, had you not somehow managed to compromise him? There could be no other reason-not when we still loved each other!"
When she'd first met Garrett in Spain, he'd been still obsessed with the beautiful, spoiled girl who'd betrayed him. But over the months, she'd watched him struggle out of her grasp. By the time circumstances pressed Jenna to marry, he'd been able to offer her his whole heart.
Hadn't he?
Anger shook her that this woman who had wounded Garrett so deeply could cause her even an instant's doubt.
"I don't believe there is any further point to this conversation. Good evening, Lady Doone."
As she tried to walk past, the countess grabbed her wrist. "Garrett visited me last March when he was back in England gathering troops for the Duke, you know. We had a long, private, quite satisfying visit."
Once again, the acid of doubt burned into Jenna. She and Garrett had been in London last March. And Garrett had been absent for hours, sometimes days, occupied with the business of organizing Wellington's army.
Might he have stopped to see Lucinda Blaine?
"So, Lady Fairchild," the countess continued, triumph in her gaze, "content yourself with his name and title, but after the loss of his child, you now have even less of Garrett that I do. For I know he died still loving me."
Whether the countess's words held any truth or not, Jenna flinched at that blow to a wound still so raw.
Rage erupted, so vast it required every ounce of her soldier's training to resist the urge to call Lady Doone the bitch she was and slap a handprint into that perfect cheek.
After a moment's inner struggle, Jenna plucked the beauty's hand from her arm. "Dear Countess, you should consult a physician. I fear you suffer serious delusions."
Head held high, Jenna stalked out of the room and down the hall, agitation rendering her so oblivious, she collided with a tall object.
Which turned out to be Anthony Nelthorpe.
For an instant they were both in danger of falling. "Jenna!" he exclaimed, steadying her as he recovered his own balance. "Did a storm out of the Irish Sea blow you down the hallway?"
Jenna's eyes focused on the drawing room behind Nelthorpe, filled with far too few Harries and far too many contemporaries-and perhaps friends-of the countess.
Into how many ears had the Lovely Lucinda whispered her sly allegations? How many ladies in splendid gowns would snigger behind their fans as Jenna walked by?
The rich widow...whose husband died pining for another man's wife.
The Jenna of last spring would have faced them down. But as her fury receded, she simply didn't have the energy.
"Take me home," she said to Nelthorpe.
Eyes widening in surprise, he glanced behind himself and back, as if wondering to whom she'd addressed that order. "Me? Now?"
"Please."
Speculation colored his gaze, but he asked her none of the questions that must be crowding his mind.
"I'll summon your carriage immediately."
Relieved beyond words to escape, Jenna latched on to the arm he offered and let him lead her away.
Early the following morning, rather than take his usual ride to the park, Tony directed Pax toward the City. A few days ago Ned Hastings had dropped by the hell where Tony was currently plying his gambler's trade, inviting him to an informal breakfast with Banker Harris.
Reluctantly bowing to necessity, Tony had agreed. Delaying wouldn't sweeten the bitterness or humiliation of having to barter himself in marriage. Since he'd been able to envision no other way to avoid that fate and still salvage his estate, best to embrace the unpalatable solution before his luck with the pasteboards ran out.
Having forced himself to deal with duty, as he rode to meet Ned, Tony allowed his mind to linger on the much more pleasant memory of how Jenna Fairchild had felt in his arms after they collided in the hallway last night. How surprised and gratified he'd been that she'd trusted him enough to ask for his escort home.
After that tantalizing taste of closeness, however, she retreated from him again, enveloping herself in a cocoon of aloofness that did not invite approach.
Actually, he ought to be relieved she'd been too preoccupied to converse in the carriage. With her seated close enough that her skirts brushed his boots and her hands on the seat nearly touched his own, he'd been far too aware of her to have summoned his usual banter.
Lean but a short distance and he'd felt the softness of her breath upon his face. The warmth and scent of her so close, not close enough, made his mind stutter and his senses giddy. He let himself imagine that he'd dared lean closer still, until he captured the softness of her lips...
"Tony! Over here!"
Ned's halloo jerked him from erotic imaginings back to the prosaic bustle of the early-morning street.
Relegating thoughts of Jenna Fairchild to the back of his mind, he turned his attention to the task ahead.
The house to which Ned guided him dwarfed in size, splendor and elegant furnishings that of the Nelthorpe dwelling on North Audley Street. The elder Mr. Harris's banking business was apparently thriving indeed.
Harris welcomed them and invited the newcomers to fill their plates. Conversation during the meal ranged from the status of Europe now being debated by the Congress of Vienna to the current values in the investment market to the Whig versus Tory stands in Parliament. Tony ended the meal impressed with the shrewdness and depth of knowledge of the elder Mr. Harris.
Not by luck or accident had this man made his fortune.
After they finished the meal, Harris's son invited Ned to inspect the glass house they'd installed to shelter their fruit trees, leaving Tony alone with his father. As soon as the two exited, Harris said, "My son tells me you are in need of a well-dowered bride."
