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Though he'd expected withdrawal, nonetheless a pain much sharper than he'd anticipated lanced through him when she pulled away, refusing even to meet his gaze.
"I should get back now," she murmured, lifting her skirts as if to step around him.
He didn't want to let her go-not now, not like this. With a touch of desperation, he blocked her path.
"Without first slapping my face?"
She shook her head, still evading his eyes.
"I suppose I should apologize-though I can't in good conscience say I am sorry. For upsetting you-if I did upset you, yes. But not for the kiss. At least no one saw us. I did make good on that promise. I shouldn't blame you if you did strike me, though."
Faith, now he was babbling, he realized, clamping his lips shut. But would she not say something, anything?
"How could I, in good conscience, slap you, when what...happened was more my fault than yours? But please-" she raised a hand to forestall his reply "-I do not wish to speak of it further."
Obviously, what had been a moment of pure enchantment for him she saw as regrettable and embarrassing. But what had he expected, he asked himself, suppressing a burgeoning sense of hurt and disappointment. She was no Lady Ellsmere, to whom moonlight rendezvous and serial lovers were sport.
No, this lady would not give her person without first giving her heart. And that, she had made perfectly clear three years ago, she would never offer to a man like Anthony Nelthorpe.
The distress he felt now went deeper than the chagrin he'd suffered on that occasion. This despairing sense of loss, he suddenly realized, more sharply resembled the emotion that had engulfed him all those years ago when Miss Sweet abandoned him to the tender mercies of his father.
Hadn't he learned then that no lady who was truly a lady would concern herself with him?
That Jenna had permitted him close at all was simply testament to how unsettled grief had left her. No doubt she was already chastising herself for the lapse.
Perhaps he could at least do something about that. "Had I not insisted on a dance, it wouldn't have happened. You mustn't reproach yourself for it."
At last she looked up. "You are too kind."
Her face was so bleak that a second wave of anguish skewered him. He would infinitely have preferred that she struckhim or shredded his character, heaped all the blame on his shoulders. Anything but know that the crime of kissing him had left her desolate.
With a little sigh she dropped her eyes, squared her shoulders and stepped beyond him, back toward the hall.
He raised a hand to halt her, then let it fall. What else was there to say? Probably better that he not accompany her back to the ballroom, lest her eagle-eyed cousin assume them to have enjoyed a tryst.
An assumption both too close and much too far from the truth.
He followed at a discreet distance, arriving just in time to see Jenna, face once again a serene mask, being hailed by Lady Charlotte Darnell. Not sure whether he wished to leave immediately or try approaching her again after he got his chaotic thoughts in order, he halted behind a pillar some distance away, still close enough that their voices carried to him.
After a warm exchange of greetings, Lady Charlotte said, "Our arrival was so delayed, I feared you might have already departed. Lord Riverton brought a friend who's just returned to London-and whose conversation was so fascinating, we quite forgot the time."
A distinguished-looking man with dark hair graying at the temples, Riverton bowed to Jenna. Beside him stood a colonel in the dress uniform of the Coldstream Guards, his tall form erect and his gold-burnished hair glowing almost as brightly as the braid trimming his regimentals.
The soldier was opposite Tony, giving him a clear view of the handsome face and intelligent eyes now fixed, with obvious interest, on Jenna.
An instantaneous, instinctive dislike bristled the hair at the back of Tony's neck.
"Lady Fairchild," Riverton said, "may I present Colonel Madison Vernier. He was, as you can see, formerly of the Guards before the Duke requested his services."
"Mayhap you know each other already?" Lady Charlotte interposed. "Lady Fairchild is the daughter of the late Colonel Montague of the Fighting Fifth and accompanied her father both in India and on the Peninsula."
"An honor, Colonel," Jenna said, curtsying. "Though we've never met, I've heard of Colonel Vernier, of course. Who has not thrilled to the tales of his regiment's valor at Barrosa, Salamanca and Vittoria? Not to mention their glorious efforts in holding Hougoumont and saving the Duke's right flank at Waterloo."
A flush rising in his cheeks, the colonel waved a deprecating hand. "My lady, the honor is mine. Though the regiment fully deserves those accolades, I must protest that I did no more than my duty, like any other soldier."
Tony clenched his jaw. He'd heard of Vernier, too- the man was a gazetted hero, frequently mentioned in Wellington's dispatches. And modest as well, it appeared.
"Would that every soldier had performed so excellently," Jenna replied.
"I met your father several times, though we never served together. And I'd been told my old Oxford mate Garrett married a beauty. I see rumor was correct."
Tony frowned. Not only was the man a golden-haired hero, he was silver-tongued as well.
Damme him.
"Now it is you who are too kind," Jenna said coolly, relieving Tony a trifle. Not his Jenna, to be reduced to simpering gratification by a handsome man's compliment.
"My sincerest condolences upon your loss, Lady Fairchild," Vernier said. "I knew Garrett from Eton onward and often enjoyed working with him. His competence, courage and character will be sorely missed."
Did Jenna blush as she nodded in acknowledgment? Mortified, perhaps, to remember how much less exemplary was the man she'd just kissed in the moonlight?
Glaring at the colonel, as if it was Vernier's fault he'd made such mice-feet of the situation on the balcony, Tony missed entirely the man's next words.
Which was just as well. Now that Lady Charlotte had presented Jenna to a military man who was even more a paragon of virtue and valor than her late husband, he might as well go home. Jenna Fairchild was unlikely to spare another thought tonight for the likes of Tony Nelthorpe.
Who had taunted rather than praised her for her virtue and tempted her into succumbing to the pull between them, a connection her senses relished but her mind refused to admit. Thus inducing a lapse in behavior which would likely cause her to keep him at a chilly distance, if she did not terminate their agreement altogether.
Yes, Tony, quite an evening's work you've accomplished, he told himself bitterly.
But like a castaway gamester who had lost his last sovereign and yet stayed at the table, compounding the damage by scrawling vowel after vowel, he could not seem to make himself leave. After Lady Charlotte's party departed for the supper room, he trailed them.
Contrary to her declared disinterest in potential suitors, Jenna did not seem adverse to the colonel's attentions.
And after observing them for some minutes, teeth clenched, Tony's masculine intuition told him that despite his courteous demeanor and impeccable manners, Colonel Vernier was definitely interested in Jenna Montague as well.
Vernier might not let his hands or eyes linger, but he certainly took every opportunity chance afforded him to stay close, taking her elbow to assist her through the crowd, clasping her hand when she placed it on his arm, leaning over to murmur in her ear as they walked.
Finally having enough of observing this subtle courtship-in-the-making, Tony was debating whether to interrupt the group and bid Jenna good-night when Lady Charlotte's party, with Jenna still on Colonel Vernier's arm, exited the supper room.
By the time Tony managed to reach the hallway, Vernier had already handed Jenna into her evening cloak and was leading her in the wake of Lady Charlotte and Lord Riverton, whose carriage it appeared they would be sharing.
Was the colonel conveying her home? Or would he persuade her to remain for an intimate tete-a-tete at the house of Lady Charlotte?
Whatever enjoyment he'd once had in the evening now completely dissipated, Tony limped out into the cold night to summon a hackney.
It seemed only fitting that the moon that had kissed her before he did had now vanished behind a veil of clouds that spit a chill drizzle into his face.
He still had tomorrow's excursion, he told himself. Regardless of how taken she might be with her Perfect Hero, Tony knew Jenna would not abandon her work for the soldiers. Though after tonight, would she still allow him to escort her?
Suddenly the chill seemed to creep into his bones, as it had on more nights than he'd care to remember as he lay shivering in sodden blankets under a Peninsular downpour. His knee, strained by the dance and several hours of walking about, had commenced a familiar, resonant aching.
Grimacing as he climbed out of the hackney, he limped in to the faint glow of the single light Carstairs had left burning in the front hallway. He'd take Cicero and a brandy up to bed, the book to wean his thoughts from this evening's events and the brandy to take the edge off his throbbing knee.
Tomorrow would be soon enough to discover whether that enchanted episode in the moonlight was a memory to cherish-or a curse, for having robbed him of Jenna's company forever.
Late that night, Jenna sat at her bedside, sipping a sherry to ward off the chill. Lady Charlotte's offer of a ride home had spared her the scold she knew Cousin Lane would have given her for having spent so much of the evening in Anthony Nelthorpe's company.
