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I suspect she felt guilty about causing your brother pain and was hoping I'd be able to write her that he had recovered from his disappointment." Tony, you're a hopeless prevaricator.
Mrs. Staines let out a breath. "Be ye sure, sir?"
Offering a quick prayer that easing this woman's anxiety would mitigate the sin of all the untruths he'd spun her, Tony nodded. "I'm certain. Keep the money your brother left without worry." The brother already paid dearly for it.
"How can I thank you?" Mrs. Staines cried, relief lightening all her features.
Tony shrugged, possessed of enough conscience to feel ashamed at deceiving her. "No need for thanks."
"I've got fresh bread from this morning's baking and ham in the larder. Let me make you up some for the road."
Tony let himself be persuaded to accept that and another mug of cider, trying not to show his impatience to be gone, now that he'd obtained the news he sought.
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."
