The Major Meets His Match

‘You are not injured,’ said Zeus pithily. ‘You are indestructible. And I have that on the best authority.’

‘Must have been speaking to m’father.’

‘Your brother,’ Zeus corrected him.

‘Oh? Which one?’

‘I forget,’ said Zeus with a wave of his hand. ‘He did tell me he was Viscount Becconsall when he walked up to me in White’s and presumed friendship with me because of my friendship with you.’ His mouth twisted in distaste.

‘Could have been either of them, then,’ said Jack, who’d recently acquired the title himself. ‘Poor sod,’ he said, and not only because both his brothers were now dead, but because he could picture the reception such behaviour would have gained them. They hadn’t started calling him Zeus without good reason. From the very first day he’d attended school, he’d looked down on all the other boys from a very lofty height. He didn’t require an education, he’d informed anyone who would listen. He’d had perfectly good tutors at home. It was just that his father, who had suddenly developed radical tendencies, had decided the next Marquis of Rawcliffe ought to get to know how the lower orders lived.

Jack chuckled at the vision of his bumptious brother attempting to take such a liberty with Zeus. ‘I can just see it. You gave him one of your freezing stares and raised your eyebrow at him.’

‘Not only my eyebrow, but also my quizzing glass,’ said Zeus, leaning down to offer him a hand, as though deciding Jack had been cluttering up the ground for long enough. ‘It had no effect. The man kept wittering on about what a charmed life you led. How you came through the bloodiest battles unscathed. As though you had some kind of lucky charm keeping you safe, instead of being willing to acknowledge that you owed your successes on the battlefield to your skill as a strategist, as well as personal valour.’

Jack gasped as Zeus pulled him to his feet. That was the thing about him. He might be the most arrogant, conceited fellow he’d ever met, but he’d also been the first person to look beyond the way Jack clowned around to distract the bullies who’d been hounding Archie at school. The only person to take one look at him and see the intelligence he’d been at such pains to disguise.

To believe in him.

‘Didn’t come through this tussle unscathed,’ he said, rubbing his posterior to explain his involuntary gasp. Zeus gave him one of his looks. The kind that told Jack he knew he was avoiding an issue, but was magnanimous enough to permit him to do so.

‘Which brings me back to the girl. Did you notice the way she spoke? And the horse? Expensive bit of blood and bone, that dappled grey.’

‘Hmmph,’ said Zeus. ‘I grant you that she may have been gently reared, but just because she speaks well and rides an expensive horse does not mean she is an innocent now.’

‘No, truly, I would stake my life on it.’

‘Since n-none of us know who she is,’ said Archie. ‘There is n-no way for us to v-verify your conc-clusion.’

No, there wasn’t.

Which was a horrible thought. In fact, the prospect of never seeing her again gave him a queer, almost painful feeling in his chest. And not only because she’d melted into his arms as if she belonged there. It was more than that. It was...it was...well, out of all the disappointments the night had brought, those few moments kissing her, holding her, and, yes, even fighting with her, had been...a breath of fresh air. No, he shook his head. More like a...well, the way the night had been going, he’d felt as if he was sinking deeper and deeper into a dark well of disappointment. And then, all of a sudden, she’d been in the centre of the one bright spot of the whole night. And that kiss...well, it had revived him, the way the sight of a lighthouse would revive a storm-tossed mariner, he suspected.

Hope, that was what she’d brought him. Somehow.

Was it a coincidence that right after meeting her, he’d seen that Atlas was still the same man, deep down, where it mattered? That there was even hope for Zeus, too?

Hope. That was the name he’d give her, then, while he searched for her. And why not? Why not remember the one bright spot of the evening as a glimmer of hope in what was, of late, a life that contained anything but?

And another thing. Hope was always worth pursuing.

‘Right then,’ said Jack, rubbing his hands together. ‘We’ll just have to search London until we find her.’

Zeus’s eyes narrowed with interest. ‘And then?’

‘And then, we will know which one of us is right.’

‘Another wager?’ Atlas shook his head in mock reproof. Though nobody had said anything about a wager. ‘At this rate, you will beggar me.’

‘Not I,’ said Jack, his heart lifting. Because Atlas was clearly doing his best to raise morale amongst his friends. He must have seen the effect the wager over Lucifer had on Zeus, the way Jack had. ‘You and Archie will just act as witnesses,’ he therefore informed Atlas. ‘This wager, just like the one over Lucifer, is between me and Zeus.’

‘And the stakes?’ Zeus had gone all narrow-eyed and sneering again, as though he suspected Jack of trading on their long-ago connections to take advantage of him.

What the hell had happened to him, since school, to turn him into such a suspicious devil?

‘Why, the usual, naturally,’ said Jack. Which was almost as good as drawing his cork, since his head reared back in momentary surprise.

‘The...the usual?’

‘Yes. The usual between the four of us, that is.’

‘You...’ For a moment, Zeus looked as though he was about to express one of the softer emotions. But only for a moment.

‘Which reminds me,’ he drawled in that ghastly, affected way that set Jack’s teeth on edge. ‘You have already lost one wager.’

‘Are you demanding payment?’ Jack planted his fists on his hips and scowled. ‘Are you accusing me of attempting to welch on the bet?’

‘No,’ he said softly. ‘I was only going to suggest...double or quits?’

For a moment the four of them all stood in stunned silence.

And then Archie began to giggle. Atlas snorted. And soon, all four of them were laughing like the schoolboys they had once been.

Chapter Three (#uab8dd46f-076a-5ef6-b8a7-a4fdff1b2b36)

‘Nobody is going to ask you to dance if you don’t sit up straight and take that scowl off your face,’ said Aunt Susan, sternly.

They might if Aunt Susan hadn’t already repulsed the young men who’d shown an interest in her when she’d first come to Town, on the grounds that they were all fortune-hunters or scoundrels.

Nevertheless, Harriet obediently squared her shoulders and attempted the social smile her aunt had made her practise in the mirror every day for half an hour since she’d come to Town.

‘That’s better,’ said Aunt Susan out of the corner of her mouth which was also pulled into a similarly insincere rictus. ‘I know it must chafe that Kitty is having so much more success than you, but you must remember that you are no longer in the first flush of youth.’

Harriet only just managed to stop herself rolling her eyes. She was only twenty, for heaven’s sake. But eligible gentlemen looking for brides, her aunt had informed her, with a rueful shake of her head, wanted much younger girls. ‘It’s perfectly natural,’ she’d explained. ‘Gels usually make their debut when they are seventeen, or eighteen, unless there’s been a death in the family, or something of a similar nature. So everyone is bound to wonder why any girl who looks much older hasn’t appeared in society before. And,’ she’d added with a grimace of distaste, ‘draw their own conclusions.’

‘Please, dear,’ she was saying now, ‘do try to look as if you are enjoying yourself. Gentlemen are much more likely to ask you to dance if you appear to be good-natured.’

Harriet was beginning to suspect that actually she was not the slightest bit good-natured. She’d always thought of herself as being fairly placid before she’d come to Town. But ever since her aunt had descended on Stone Court like a fairy godmother to take her to the ball, she’d been see-sawing from one wild emotion to another. At first she’d been in a froth of excitement. But then had come the painful discovery that no amount of fine clothes could make her compare with her prettier, younger, more sociable cousin Kitty. After that, in spite of her aunt’s best efforts to bring her up to scratch in the short time they had, had come the discovery that actually, she didn’t want to conform to society’s notions of how a young lady should behave. And now she just felt as if she had a stone permanently lodged in her shoe.

‘Now, there is a young man with whom you might safely dance,’ said Lady Tarbrook, nudging Harriet in the ribs. And drawing her attention to the slender young man who’d just come into the ballroom. A man she’d been dreading coming across for the last two weeks. Ever since he’d fallen off his horse and tricked her into kissing him.

‘Though I shouldn’t like to raise your hopes too much. He hasn’t asked any eligible female to dance since he came to Town. Not that he’s actually attended many balls, to my knowledge. Well, not this sort of ball,’ Lady Tarbrook was muttering darkly. ‘Not his style. Not his style at all.’

No, his style was roistering all night with a pack of reprobates, then taking part in reckless wagers that ended up with him almost breaking his stupid neck. To say nothing of molesting people who went to help him.

And yet Aunt Susan was prepared to give her permission to dance with him. In the unlikely event he were to ask her.

It beggared belief.