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He stood now observing the woman he'd idly pursued before leaving for the Peninsula. In her early twenties, with the bloom of youth still upon a skin cleverly augmented by expensive cosmetics, the countess was perhaps more strikingly attractive than he remembered, if no longer presenting an aura of virginal innocence.
Not that Lucinda Blaine had ever been truly innocent. From her debut in the ton, she'd known she'd wanted the most elevated title her looks and her father's maneuvering could buy. Loving a second son like Garrett Fairchild- if love him she ever had-would not have swayed that purpose.
With Garrett off to the army and the earl's heirloom ring upon her finger, she'd quickly tired of her aging husband. Rumor had already linked her with several reckless ton bachelors when she'd embarked upon that flirtation with Tony. Despite their contretemps in the park a few days ago, he expected she might be susceptible to flattery from an old admirer, especially if preceded by an abject apology and a little groveling.
To protect Jenna, Tony was fully prepared to grovel.
Given the size of her court and his weak leg, it took him some time to muscle a spot amid the circle of swains surrounding Lucinda Blaine. Once propped against a convenient pillar, he fixed what he hoped was a look of soulful admiration on his face and waited.
A few moments later, she scanned a restless eye over the crowd, first passing by him, then returning to focus with amused recognition. "Why, Anthony Nelthorpe, what brings you here? I thought you were far too preoccupied by good deeds to bother with pleasure."
"Simply doing my duty to assist the widow of a fellow officer, my lady," Tony replied, limping over to kiss the hand she offered. "Alas, too often for a soldier's liking, duty must take precedence over pleasure-and," he added with a silent apology to Jenna, "one's own preference."
She made a self-satisfied murmur. "Given the prudish prune of a widow you were assisting, I'm sure there wasn't any pleasure." She smiled as several of her courtiers tittered. "Which is only what you deserve for being so ill-advised in your choice of...friends."
"I protest, dear lady! Never did I mean to slight you. If it appears I did, you have my deepest apologies."
"Confess, my lord, you come here only because, I hear, your virtuous widow dismissed you." She shook her head in mock-pity. "Such is the reward of benevolence."
"But benevolence is not always a mistake. If you will only, in your mercy, forgive my maladroit behavior, I promise to demonstrate my most ardent contrition."
"La, Tony Nelthorpe, you were ever a honey-tongued rascal." She leaned closer to tap him with her fan. "Very honey-tongued, as I recall," she added for his ears alone. "Whatever am I to do with you?"
"As you so generously offered, let us renew old bonds-and explore new ones. Leave this dull party and come have supper with me."
"What's this?" inserted Wardsworth, one of the courtiers loitering beside her. "You can't carry off the belle of the evening, Nelthorpe! Not sporting!"
"Ah, but Wardsworth, you gentlemen have been able to worship at her feet these past three years. 'Tis only fitting that those of us off doing valiant service for our nation should now have a chance. A gracious boon granted-" he turned to Lucinda "-to one of the victors of war."
"Now, why should I grant you such a boon?" she asked, her gaze playing down his person to linger at his groin.
He let his eyes follow the path hers had taken. "That the conquerors might demonstrate the vigor that made them victorious?" he suggested.
She giggled. "Naughty boy! But we have many vigorous men here-who have not been so fickle in their loyalties."
"Ah, but you have suffered their faces-and their technique-times out of mind. I offer the benefits of novelty... and foreign experience."
A spark of interest lit in her eyes. "Does-foreign experience-enhance one's enjoyment?"
He shrugged and gave her a lazy smile. "Have dinner with me and you can decide." He held out his arm.
She tapped a finger against her lips, considering, prurient curiosity apparently warring with the desire to punish him for his lapse in slighting her earlier. Tony knew he dare add nothing else, lest he seem too suspiciously eager.
Fortunately her three-parts-castaway swain intervened at that moment. "Nay, you mustn't!"
Wardsworth objected, grabbing the countess's hand to prevent her placing it in Nelthorpe's. "You cannot leave us just because this latecomer offers you a few pretty words."
With a contemptuous glance, the countess shook off his touch. "You are wrong, Wardsworth. I do whatever pleases me. Besides, gentlemen..." She raised her voice to carry across the assembled group.
'"Tis but my patriotic duty!"
"So, Tony Nelthorpe-" she placed her hand on his arm with the graciousness of a sovereign awarding a great beneficence "-show me what you will."
"As you command, goddess," he replied, hoping what he intended to demonstrate would move her profoundly, though not in the manner she so obviously expected.
A short time later, Tony led Lucinda Blaine through the portal of a handsome townhouse a few blocks away that, anticipating the success of his gambit, he'd arranged with an obliging fellow officer to borrow for the evening.
How much keener his anticipation would be, he thought with a sigh, if it were Jenna he had coaxed across such a threshold! But the quest that brought him here was more imperative, if much less enjoyable.
Fortunately, Lucinda had rebuffed the attempt to kiss her he felt obliged to make once they'd entered the hackney that conveyed them here. Doubtless intending to heighten his anticipation, she'd told him he owed her a fine dinner before they had any more intimate conversation.
But after they arrived and she'd refreshed herself, in the process dampening her gown to make her vaunted charms even more blatant, she apparently decided Nelthorpe deserved a taste of the pleasures to come.
After seating herself on the sofa, she patted the place beside her. "Come closer, my lord. One does not hold congress with one's friends at such a distance."
He couldn't deny that his body had risen in response to the voluptuous figure displayed by the wetted silk, despite his adverse opinion of its wearer. After her display of vanity and her treatment of Jenna, he'd as soon bed a slug.
Still, wanting to take no chances that lust might overpower good sense, he smilingly declined. '"Tis better to gaze from a distance."
"Is it?" she replied, her playful tones chilling.
"Yes, my goddess. The sages of the east proclaim that viewing without touching fires the appetite and gives greater endurance to the performance."
"I see," she said, somewhat mollified. Then, a hot light coming into her eye, she reached toward his trouser flap. "That being the case, shouldn't I-"
"No!" he cried, blocking her hand. "While, ah, gazing upon the charms of his lady strengthens the man,"
he improvised rapidly, "speculating about her courtier's attributes enflames the lady."
"Indeed? Well, if that's what the sages of the east say." After appearing to give the matter a little thought, her expression brightened. "It is rather titillating to contemplate. You promise I'll not be disappointed?"
"You may be many things afterward, my lady, but not that," he affirmed somewhat grimly.
Servants appeared with food and wine. Seeming content with his explanation for the moment, Lucinda let him ply her with champagne while she talked about her activities in London during the years he'd been gone. By the time he led her back to the events surrounding Garrett's death and his and Jenna's arrival back in London, she was more than a little tipsy.
"As you guessed, I did have hopes of seducing the widow," he admitted. "But my patient assistance in her projects led nowhere. She's still too distraught over her husband's death to succumb, even to one of my vaunted skill, and the matter grew even more hopeless after she lost the child."
"Such a tragedy," Lucinda said, but with a little giggle that belied the sympathetic words.
"Have you no empathy for a woman in mourning?"
"Well, why should I? Everyone else is fawning over her-ah, that charade of pity at Garrett's services! I lost just as much, nay even more, but no one is holding my hand and offering platitudes. He loved me, after all! She should never have married him, and if she lost everything, 'tis what she deserved."
"Harsh words. One might even suspect you wished her to have an accident."
Lucinda sniffed. "I-" she made a vague gesture, nearly upsetting her wineglass "-am not hypocrite enough to pretend I wished her well."
Tony captured the stemware and handed it back to her. "Some think it might not have been an accident."
Lucinda straightened, needing a moment to focus on him. "Indeed? Why would anyone think that?"
Nelthorpe shrugged. "There's talk that the head groom might have mounted her on an unpredictable horse and deliberately refrained from acquainting her with its habits. It seems someone suspects something, for that individual, who was discharged over the incident and is the only witness who would know the truth of it, just met with an untimely accident himself."
Wetting her lips, Lucinda put down her wineglass. "An...an accident?"
"Yes. It looks as if someone is tying up loose ends. The man was shot once through the heart."
