Wicked Wager

“Keep your regrets!” the woman cried. “Just wait until you, like I, have lost everything you hold dear!”

Before Jenna could imagine her intent, she hauled back her arm and slapped Jenna full across the face.

Reeling with the force of the blow, Jenna would have fallen but for Nelthorpe. After steadying her, he moved with surprising speed to seize the wrists of the widow, who’d drawn her hand back as if to deliver another slap.

“Madam, remember yourself!” he barked.

After a brief struggle, the woman’s fury seemed spent and she burst into tears, going limp in her captor’s grip.

As the butler and two footmen hurried up to assist Nelthorpe, Cousin Lane entered the hallway at a run. “Manson, what the devil is going on?”

He stopped short, taking in with a quick glance the milling servants, the weeping woman hanging in Nelthorpe’s arms—and Jenna, with her palm to her stinging cheek.

“For the love of God, Jenna, are you all right?”

Fighting back a sudden faintness, Jenna nodded. “I am fine, cousin. I—I should like to retire, however.”

“I’ll escort you up at once. James, keep watch over this…person while Manson fetches a constable.”

“No need for that,” Jenna interposed. “’Twas a…a misunderstanding. Manson, have a hackney summoned. I’m sure the lady is anxious to return home.”

Frowning, Fairchild seemed as if he would countermand her order before waving an impatient hand. “As you wish, Jenna. But, madam,” he said, turning to the woman, “if you ever approach my cousin again, I shall prosecute you.”

As the weeping woman was led away, he turned a hostile gaze on Lord Nelthorpe. “Did you bring that creature?”

Apparently her cousin’s opinion of Nelthorpe was no better than her own. Little as she liked the viscount, though, Jenna couldn’t let this pass. “Indeed not! In fact, he acted immediately to assist me.”

Lane Fairchild’s frosty gaze didn’t thaw. “Did he? How convenient. I suppose I must thank you for that.”

Lord Nelthorpe nodded. “Any paltry assistance I may have offered Lady Fairchild was entirely my pleasure.”

With some concern, Jenna noted that Nelthorpe was breathing rather heavily and looked even more unwell. Although grateful for his aid, Jenna hoped he wasn’t about to end the binge that had brought on that unhealthy pallor by casting up his accounts on the carpet.

Before she could intervene to speed him on his way, to her intense irritation, the parlor door opened and Lady Montclare stepped into the hallway, followed by her sister.

“Dear Jenna, whatever could be keeping—oh!” Lady Montclare ended on a gasp, her widening eyes taking in Jenna’s red cheek, Cousin Lane’s grim face and Nelthorpe, once again swaying unsteadily on his feet.

“Nothing to concern yourselves about, ladies,” Fairchild said. Ignoring the viscount in unmistakable insult, he took Jenna’s arm. “My dear cousin is rather fatigued. As soon as I’ve seen Jenna to her room, I’ll return to thank you more properly for your gallant support of the Fairchild family this afternoon.”

“Of course she is exhausted!” Mrs. Anderson said, her avid gaze flitting between Jenna and Nelthorpe. “But do allow us to assist. Sister, let us take dear Jenna upstairs and offer what comfort we can.”

“Nonsense, ladies, I am quite capable of going up alone,” Jenna objected. “I need only some solitude in which to repose myself. Please do return to the parlor with Mr. Fairchild and refresh yourselves with some tea.”

Then she felt it again—the almost palpable touch of Nelthorpe’s gaze on her. Without conscious volition, she looked over to him.

“I shall take my leave now, Lady Fairchild,” he said quietly. “Thank you again for your time.”

“A most thoughtful suggestion, ladies,” Cousin Lane interposed, again ignoring Nelthorpe. “Cousin, let me give you into these kind ladies’ care.”

She might not like Anthony Nelthorpe, but neither did Jenna approve Fairchild’s rude treatment of the man who had just rendered her timely assistance. Turning her back on the sisters, she extended her hand to the viscount.

“Thank you again, and good day, Lord Nelthorpe.”

He took her fingers. Her nerves jumped at the first contact of his gloved hands, then again at the unexpectedly intense heat of his lips brushing her bare skin.

“The honor was mine, Lady Fairchild,” he said, giving her fingers a brief squeeze that sent another glancing shock through her. Then he turned and, leaning heavily on the balustrade, descended the stairs.

Mrs. Anderson imprisoned Jenna’s still-tingling hand in her firm grasp. “Come along, my dear. After that encounter, I can well believe you need a respite!”

Suddenly weary, Jenna gave up attempting to escape the sisters’ unwanted attentions, though she suspected this sudden urge to accompany her stemmed more from a desire to determine all that had just transpired than any genuine concern for her welfare.

Confirming her suspicion, as soon as they’d distanced themselves from the servants, Lady Montclare whispered, “Whatever happened to your cheek, my dear? Surely that wretch didn’t have the temerity to touch you!”

If she hadn’t been so tired, Jenna might have found it amusing to be in the novel position of defending Anthony Nelthorpe. “Of course not! I—I stumbled and struck my cheek,” she invented. “Nelthorpe came to my assistance.”

Lady Montclare sniffed. “Indeed. Though he served in the army, apparently with some distinction, Nelthorpe is exactly the sort of man you must avoid! A fortune hunter who fled England to escape his debts, I’m surprised he wasn’t clapped into prison the moment he landed. Though the title is ancient, he and his father, the Earl of Hunsdon, have made the name such a byword for vice that Nelthorpe’s uncle, who was to have settled a sum on him, decided to disinherit him. Without a prospective fortune to offset his other failings, Nelthorpe is completely ineligible.”

“Indeed?” Jenna said, wrinkling her brow in mockconfusion. “Mrs. Anderson, do I not remember you praising Nelthorpe to me as an eligible parti after Papa died at Badajoz, before I married Garrett?”

Lady Montclare threw a look at Mrs. Anderson. “Sister! Surely you did nothing of the kind!”

Mrs. Anderson’s plump face colored. “’Twas before I’d learned of the gaming debts that prompted him to flee to the Peninsula, nor had I yet heard his uncle had cut him off. As a future earl, you must admit, he would otherwise have been considered an exemplary choice.”

Waving away her sister’s excuse, Lady Montclare continued, “In any event, suffice it to say that Nelthorpe is a man to avoid. In fact, since he’s been away from England long enough that he no longer has ties with anyone of importance in the ton, I believe you can safely give him the cut direct.”

From recommended suitor to ineligible in the blink of a fortune, Jenna thought cynically. Little sympathy as she had for Nelthorpe, she could only be disgusted with the shallowness of the standards by which Society measured men.

“I assure you, there is no chance of my being taken in by Lord Nelthorpe,” she said dryly.

Having reached the hall outside her room, Jenna decided with an unexpected spurt of determination to rid herself of her unwanted guardians before the sisters tried to insinuate themselves into her bedchamber.

Hands on the door handle, she said, “Ladies, thank you most kindly for your help. As I dare not keep you any longer from your tea, good day.” With a nod, she slipped inside and closed the door in their faces.

She leaned against it and exhaled a long breath, feeling for the first time in many days a warming sense of satisfaction. Ah, but it felt good to take charge again!

Perhaps it was time to shake off this lethargy and find a new sense of direction.

As she wandered to the window and glanced idly down, her gaze caught on the figure of Lord Nelthorpe. The viscount stood motionless halfway down the entry stairs, both hands braced on the railing, his head hanging between hunched shoulders.

He must still be feeling ill, she thought with a dismissive shake of her head. At least he’d made it out the front door before another wave of nausea overcame him.

Then Nelthorpe straightened and, arms locked above hands still gripping the railing, stepped down—dragging his left leg. After hauling that limb down two more steps, he halted again, as if fighting off a wave of dizziness.

Her perceptions of his appearance suddenly realigned into a drastically different conclusion. Having nursed casualties after many a battle, she wondered with shame how she could have so badly misread the clammy skin, the shadowed eyes, the nausea and vertigo—of a man in pain.

Nor, now that she thought about it, had there been about him the odor of spirits or the cloying scent some men used to cover up the stench of liquor.

If she hadn’t been so self-righteously preoccupied by nursing instead a three-year-old sense of grievance, she might also have noted the fact that he’d only just arrived in London. All but the most severely injured of Wellington’s troops had returned months ago. Nor had she troubled to ask whether he’d recovered from whatever injuries had left him bleeding on the field after the end of June’s great battle.