The Heiress Objective (Spy Matchmaker Book 3)

by Regina Scott

  “So sorry to be late,” Martha said, hurrying down the stairs. Fiching helped her into the black velvet cloak that lay waiting, the folds swallowing up the lighter grey of her plain satin dress.

  “You did remember the invitation, my dear?” she asked Jenny.

  “Right here in my reticule,” Jenny assured her. How easy it would have been to misplace the thing. She’d have much rather faced Countess Lieven’s displeasure than Kevin Whattling’s charm just then, for his charm could cost her all.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Jenny kept her hand firmly on Kevin’s arm as he led her up the stairs to the assembly rooms, Martha right behind. She wasn’t sure what to expect of the fabled hall. Certainly the size of the crowd exceeded her expectations. Ladies in brilliant satin gowns far more daring than hers swirled about on the arms of their darkly clad escorts. Conversation buzzed like the drone of a hundred bees. Perfume clouded the air, or perhaps it was nerves dimming her senses. At least the plastered walls were set with statuary where a bluestocking might safely hide. Alcoves offered sofas where she might sit out the dances. The musicians were tuning up in their place above a door that likely led to the supper room—another place she might go unnoticed.

  “You’re doing marvelously,” Kevin murmured, and all thoughts of escape fled in the warmth of his gaze.

  Countess Lieven greeted them, dark eyes glittering like the diamonds at her throat. “Miss Welch, Mr. Whattling, good of you to come.”

  “Thank you for the invitation, your ladyship,” Jenny said. “May I present my friend, Miss Tindale.”

  Martha curtsied, pale and trembling at such an honor.

  The countess inclined her head. “I believe your other friends have already arrived. Enjoy the evening.”

  Friends? She could not imagine that she had many here, but as Kevin led her deeper into the room, Susan St. John hurried to meet them, emerald skirts fluttering.

  “Would you have thought it?” she asked, color high. “Us, at Almack’s? It defies logic.” She turned to Kevin before Jenny could respond. “I understand I have you to thank for this miracle, Mr. Whattling.”

  Jenny stared at him. He offered Susan a bow. “It was my great pleasure to suggest you and Lady Trevithan to the countess. Your beauty and wit would grace any event.”

  Susan shook her head as she transferred her gaze to Jenny. “Is he always like this?”

  “Yes,” Jenny said with no little awe. “He is.”

  Even Martha was gaping, but at their surroundings or Kevin’s kindness, Jenny wasn’t sure. Kevin smiled as Susan gave Jenny’s arm a squeeze. “I saw Joanna a moment ago. Let me bring her to you.” She hurried off.

  “Thank you,” Jenny murmured to Kevin, stepping closer to him.

  He nodded. “I thought you might like reinforcements. Not that you need them tonight. I will have to fight the other gentlemen for the chance to dance with you.”

  “No fighting,” Jenny teased. “Not tonight.”

  He sobered, as if reminded of his challenge to Mr. Safton, and she wanted to call back the words. But he offered her his arm again, and she realized couples were gathering for the first set. She ought to wait for Susan and Joanna, but suddenly she wanted only him. Martha gave her an encouraging look as Kevin led her onto the floor.

  The first was a country dance, the same one he had stood up with her for last fall. Had he told the musicians to play it? This time she resolved to be neither awkward nor tongue-tied.

  She focused on the steps, acquitted herself well, even earned a smile or two from the other gentlemen with whom they partnered in the figures.

  “I actually enjoyed that,” she marveled as Kevin led her from the floor.

  “Your praise would swell my head if your presence hadn’t already swelled my heart,” he promised her.

  “How is it you always know what to say?” she asked as they reached the wall. Martha, she noted, had ensconced herself in the dowager’s circle, where she was deep in conversation with another companion.

  “I take my inspiration from my company,” he assured her. “I have never met anyone who didn’t appreciate sincere encouragement.”

  And he was sincere. How easily he found things to admire about the people who approached them for conversation. He complimented this one’s sense of style, that one’s manner of address, another’s agility on the dance floor. Everyone grew more at ease in his company. Even her.

  “I will not ask for your hand again so soon,” he murmured beside her as couples took the floor for the next set, Joanna on her husband’s arm and Susan with Mr. Witherspoon. “However, I hope you will save me a set later.”

  Jenny laughed. “It will likely be the only other set I dance.”

  “Miss Welch?”

  Jenny turned to find a handsome man with hair nearly as gold as Kevin’s and sparkling green eyes standing beside her. He swept her a bow. “Might I have the honor of this dance?”

  “Cheeky, Prestwick,” Kevin said when she stood there with her mouth hanging open. “Have you been introduced?”

  He pressed a hand to the chest of his celestial blue waistcoat. “What gentleman does not know the most intelligent woman in London?”

  Jenny still could not credit it. “Did you arrange this too?” she accused Kevin.

  His brows shot up.

  “Miss Welch, you wound me,” Mr. Prestwick said. “Can you not accept my offer as genuine?”

  “No,” said another tall, lean, dark-haired man, elbowing Mr. Prestwick aside. “Because she’s about to accept mine. Miss Welch, I stood up with you last Season at the Baminger ball. Surely I acquitted myself well enough to warrant a repeat performance.”

  “Lord Petersborough,” she acknowledged, remembering. She glanced between the two men, noting the eager looks, the pleasant smiles. They really wanted to dance with her. Her!

  “I couldn’t possibly choose,” she said.

  “I can,” Kevin said. He transferred her hand to Lord Petersborough’s arm. “Be a good sport, Prestwick, and let his lordship take a turn.”

  Mr. Prestwick pouted, and his friend preened as he escorted Jenny out onto the floor.

  If she had doubted their motives, the line of gentlemen importuning her for dances over the course of the evening disabused her of that notion. Even Kevin Whattling could have not convinced so many of them to wish her company. She sighted him with a dowager on his arm more than once; once with Martha, who alternated between blushing at the honor and paling at the company surrounding her; and once with Susan. She could hardly wait until it was her turn again.

  “Enjoying yourself?” he asked as he led her forth at last.

  “More than I had thought possible,” she answered.

  He had gone to fetch her and Martha refreshments when Susan and Joanna joined them.

  “What a crush,” Joanna said, waving her ivory fan. An alabaster-skinned beauty with raven hair and sparkling eyes, she had married last Season in June. “Everyone must have returned to town early this year.”

  “Wait until Easter,” Susan predicted. “With Wellington’s victory last year, everyone will still be celebrating.”

  “You have been much in demand,” Joanna said with a smile to Jenny. “I’m glad to see the gentlemen have finally realized your worth. Or should I say one gentleman in particular?”

  Jenny’s cheeks heated.

  “Who is that?” Susan asked with a nod toward the door.

  An auburn-haired gentleman had just entered. He stood tall and stately in his regimentals, gaze sweeping the ballroom. Was it Jenny’s imagination that the look hesitated over Susan?

  The countess met him as if fully intending to refuse him entrance at so late an hour, but his words to her made her pale, and she stepped aside.

  “Sir Richard Collins,” Joanna supplied. “He’s something of a hero, according to Allister. He was wounded on the Peninsula.”

  As they watched, he moved through the crowd, cane supporting one leg, until he drew up before a kno
t of older gentlemen. Jenny recognized Lord Hastings, Lord Petersborough’s father, in the center. Sir Richard bent and spoke into his lordship’s ear. Lord Hastings stiffened.

  “Now, what do you suppose that is all about?” Susan wondered.

  They didn’t have long to wait for an answer. Sir Richard and Lord Hastings had barely reached the countess, perhaps to take their leaves, when another man burst through the door.

  “He’s free! Napoleon has escaped and is marching toward Paris!”

  –

  Kevin froze halfway back to Jenny’s side, hands tightening on the glasses of ratafia. Napoleon? Escaped? Would the war start again?

  Cries rang out around the hall. Gentlemen rushed to reassure the ladies. The officers in attendance, so newly returned home, gathered as if for solidarity. Kevin strode to Jenny’s side.

  Lord Trevithan beat him there. The dark-haired lord was also recently retired from Lord Hastings’s service. He bent to kiss his bride on the cheek.

  “We stopped him once, we’ll stop him again,” he promised her.

  Jenny nodded. “Well said. I only wish I knew a way to help.”

  That was all Jenny—never content merely to learn. He had been so proud of her tonight. That pride only grew as she traded ideas for a moment with Trevithan.

  “We’ll need more men,” his lordship concluded. “So many in France are still loyal to the Corsican. He’ll raise an army in no time.”

  His wife put a hand on his arm. “Lord Hastings will want to talk to you.”

  “With all who assisted him,” he said with a look to Kevin. Then he excused himself and his wife even as Miss Tindale joined the group.

  Miss St. John was watching the door as Sir Richard and his lordship quit the room. “Will Sir Richard be called back too, even with his wound?”

  Kevin could not tell her that the war hero had already made himself available to Lord Hastings. Likely he had been on duty at the War Office when word had arrived.

  “Every man may be called upon in time of need,” Kevin allowed.

  Jenny was watching him instead of the door. “Lord Trevithan made it sound as if you personally should be involved.”

  Once he would have been the first to follow Lord Hastings out the door, as the officers were doing even now. His life had taken a different course. He had too much to risk. Handing Miss Tindale the glasses, he took Jenny’s hand in his. “I have served the War Office in the past. Now, other matters are more important.

  “Surely not more important than stopping Napoleon,” Miss Tindale protested.

  Kevin gazed down into Jenny’s hazel eyes. The blue and brown swirled together like the waters of the Thames at sunrise. “Far more important than any threat to the Empire or even the world. My honor and my love are at stake.”

  Miss Tindale gasped, and Miss St. John applauded.

  Jenny’s lips trembled, and he was sorely tempted to kiss her, right there in front of London’s finest. But she merely lay her hand over his.

  “If Napoleon can escape, then anything is possible, sir, even the union of a bluestocking and a Corinthian.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It was interesting, Jenny thought that night when she was laying in her bed, that the things one feared most were generally not so terrible when faced directly. Almack’s had proven to be one of those things. Instead of the censorship she had expected, she had enjoyed herself. She had acquitted herself well with each of her partners. (She had noted that no one was waltzing, which supported her supposition that Kevin had made the dance up himself.) And, for the most part, the conversations had been pleasant, at least until it became known that danger was once more darkening the Continent.

  Lord Trevithan was right. Everyone needed to help. The diplomats would surely be recalled from Vienna, and Wellington might once more lead the English army into battle. She and Martha could roll bandages, make up meal kits to send the valiant troops. It seemed so little. And she was ashamed to admit that she was still more concerned for Kevin’s safety in the upcoming fight than what might happen on some distant shore. In the last few weeks, her priorities had certainly changed.

  She could not forget the look in his eyes when she’d said anything was possible. Such hope, such yearning! It matched the yearning in her heart. Now she must do all she could to see that he lived to propose marriage once again, for this time, she knew the answer she would give.

  –

  Lying on Nigel’s old army bedroll in his near-empty apartment, Kevin was also thinking about the evening. Despite the danger drawing closer across the Channel, his thoughts kept returning to Jenny. She had been her usual amazing self tonight, every bit the lady. Others had noticed. He could see it in the eyes of each peer and peeress they had met.

  Some had been delighted, others disappointed that she wasn’t more of an oddity. He had wanted to hoist her up on his shoulders and proclaim her champion of the ring. As that was singularly inappropriate (and would have earned her the scorn she had originally feared), he decided to settle on flowers the next day. He had never been overly fond of the onyx stick pin his mother had given him. Selling it would give him enough money for the flowers and dinner for the next couple of nights.

  And flowers were the least he should shower upon her. He had to win her. With each advancing day, it became clearer to him that he needed her. She made him think before acting. He had never considered it before, but, in her presence, he realized he had been too precipitous. It has stood him well on occasion during his service to the War Office, but even his superior had remarked on his luck. He often reacted rather than thinking through the situation. Had he been married to Jenny when Robbie had first come to him with his gambling debts, he had little doubt things would have ended differently. Small wonder he had fallen in love with her. Now all he had to do was convince her she was in love with him.

  Still in a celebratory mood, he arrived at her door in the early afternoon, but, to his surprise, he found none other than Gentleman Jackson himself on the sitting room sofa, calmly sipping lemonade with Miss Tindale at his side and Jenny across from him. Jenny at least had the good sense to look embarrassed, as Kevin handed her the flowers, that he would find her in such company. Miss Tindale offered him a rather saucy smile, as if she enjoyed being the one to shock for once.

  He recovered and bowed over first Jenny’s and then Miss Tindale’s hand. Jenny shifted on the sofa as if nonplussed by his frown. It was her home, after all, and he wasn’t her husband yet. He had nothing to say about who she invited to visit.

  “Mr. Jackson was explaining the circumstances of your upcoming fight with Mr. Safton,” Miss Tindale told Kevin as he was seated. “I must say, I never knew it was all so complicated.”

  “She is referring to the umpires and the setting up of the ring,” Jenny explained. “We did not realize the bout had been moved out of London because of the expected crowd.”

  Kevin looked to the boxer. “Neither did I. Odd that Safton didn’t think to let me know.”

  Gentleman Jackson shook his head. “Are you truly surprised? Then you are the only one, sir. I do not like to speak ill of any man, but, for George Safton, I could make an exception. He was only too glad to have the bout moved from my rooms, out from under my direct supervision. I could hardly stop him. The wagering is simply too frenzied. The magistrates would have forced me to close.”

  “But surely they would have little interest in an amateur bout between two gentlemen,” Kevin protested. “I can understand the wagering, sir, and if you say you think there will be a crowd, I will not gainsay you. However, this is hardly a championship fight. There isn’t even a purse.”

  Jenny started and looked at Jackson askance.

  Kevin felt as if he had been punched in the stomach as the realization hit. “Eugennia Welch, you didn’t!”

  She blanched, and even Miss Tindale quailed.

  “There is a purse, Mr. Whattling,” Jackson answered, glancing between the two of them. “And it doesn’t m
atter who put it up.”

  “Of course it matters.” Kevin surged to his feet. “You know as well as I do that this fight could get ugly. I refuse to take money for it, hers or anyone else’s.”

  Jenny slumped, as if she wanted to sink into the sofa.

  “If you win, you can refuse the purse, of course,” Jackson replied calmly. “But I’d think about it if I were you. It’s an impressive pot, lad, one of the largest I’ve seen. You could clear your debts and live well for years to come.”

  Kevin stared at him, mind whirling. He knew Jenny was worth a great deal, but even she would surely have had difficulty raising the kind of blunt Jackson was talking about. “Then it cannot be all Miss Welch’s money,” he protested.

  Jackson nodded. “That’s correct.”

  Jenny started. “What?”

  Jackson smiled at her. “Several others have approached me as well, and I’m sure I’ll see a few more before Friday. I can tell you the exact amount if you like in a day or so. I just thought you should know.”

  Kevin nodded, dazed. Could this odious fight with Safton really serve to clear all his debts? He hated to profit by it; it felt too much like blood money. But if he could truly settle all his debts and have something to build upon for the future, how could he in good conscience refuse? He could live a normal life again. He could hold his head up in public. He wouldn’t have to offer his services to the Crown for a pittance. And he wouldn’t have to marry for money.

  He glanced at Jenny and was surprised to find tears building in her eyes. She looked away as if to hide it from him. What had he missed in his moment of introspection? He couldn’t very well ask her in front of Gentleman Jackson and Miss Tindale. As it was, he had to suppress the urge to take her onto his lap and smooth the worry from her face.

  As if nothing had happened, Miss Tindale clapped her hands. “How very splendid! Now we shall have even more to look forward to hearing about after the match.”