by Wicked Wager
“Did you come here this morning to seduce me into staying?” he asked with a smile.
“No! Well, perhaps. Oh, I don’t know!” Her cheeks coloring, she looked away. “I only knew I did not want you to go. You’ll stay for Christmas? Help me afterward with purchasing the property and resettling the soldiers?”
“I must begin setting my own estate to rights, but yes, I shall help you with whatever you wish.” He made himself inspect her face. “You are sure you want that?”
She gazed back steadily, her certainty unquestionable. “I do.”
“Then,” he said slowly, teetering between caution and fondest hope, “you must…care for me, at least a little.”
She sighed, her lips quirking into a rueful grin. “I do care—far more than I would like. Since I don’t seem to have much control over the emotion, I’ve decided to stop trying to resist or explain it away and just accept it.”
Before he could bring order to the muddle of shock, relief and exuberant gladness her admission evoked, she reached out to gently touch his cheek. “I don’t know yet where my feelings will lead. Sometimes it seems I will never cease mourning, never escape the grief and regret for what will never be. It’s selfish, I know, to ask you to dance attendance on me when I can offer—”
“No!” he interrupted, seizing her hand. “I am happy to help you. Besides, there’s the matter of my character to finish reforming.”
“Then we still have a bargain?”
Tenderly he smoothed the hair at the nape of her neck. “It appears we do.”
EPILOGUE
THE PLEASANT JULY SUNSHINE warming her face, Jenna stood before a small stone building, gazing down at the fields and dwellings she now called home. Below her stretched meadows of gently-waving grain, the harvest from which would later fill the storehouse behind her. The wooded crest to her right was crowned by a spacious manor house built of the same stone, stables and outbuildings clustered behind it; across the fields to her left, workmen labored to complete the new school which, after the harvest, would fill with the children of the workers and the war orphans Evers and Sergeant Anston had collected.
Thanks to Lady Charlotte’s help in recruiting employers, the first of the widows who had begun training last winter under Sancha’s watchful eye would soon leave to take up positions as housekeepers, cooks and seamstresses. Lady Charlotte had also insisted on collecting subscriptions to help defray the cost of the school construction and to pay the salary of the headmaster she’d employed. All in all, Jenna had good reason to feel satisfied with the work of the last six months.
Somewhat to her surprise, after having lived such a vagabond existence all her life, she had discovered she loved her quiet, settled days as mistress of a country estate on the Hampshire downs. From the moment the agent had led her through it, Farrendean House had seemed like an old friend. She’d made an offer to purchase the property on the spot, removing here immediately after the holiday festivities at Lady Charlotte’s.
In the intervening months, the sense of purpose she’d found in offering a haven to lives blighted, like hers, by the war had gradually helped fill the terrible emptiness that had tortured her after losing Garrett. The long rides through Farrendean’s rolling hills and meadows soothed her restlessness of soul, gradually strengthening the tentative sense of peace she’d felt last Christmas when she’d first given herself permission to move forward into a life without him.
She’d known last spring that she had chosen the right direction when she journeyed to London for supplies and encountered Colonel Vernier, in the capital briefly for consultations about his ongoing diplomatic mission. Not only did she feel no envy at being fixed in rural England while he moved in the glittering international arena of Vienna, she had felt for him personally only respect and warm admiration. Without a qualm she gently turned down his request to call on her.
Upon the anniversary last month of the great battle, she’d refused all invitations to the various memorial services and come instead up here. Alone with her memories, she’d gazed out across the vista of fields, a view very similar to that from the cemetery above the Waterloo plain where Garrett lay. Acceptance of her losses that dreadful day settling deep into her soul, she’d descended the hill knowing she was ready not just to go on with her life, but to risk sharing it.
Casting a glance down the farm road to find it still deserted, she sighed. If only she could be as certain about Nelthorpe’s inclinations as she was about her own.
He’d been a solid supporting presence these past months, encouraging, offering counsel on her purchase of the estate and its supplies, teasing her out of lassitude when recurrent sadness ambushed her. He alternately amused and exasperated her, impressed her with the diligence with which he’d thrown himself into learning the business of estate management, moved her to chastise him when he tried to distract her to drive or ride instead of work. He challenged her intellect with his wit, soothed her lonely spirit with his friendship, and had generally made himself so indispensable to her well-being that she could no longer imagine a future without him.
In short, though her feelings for Tony Nelthorpe were in many ways different from the almost hero-worship she’d felt for her husband, she knew she had come to love him.
She was not at all sure how he felt about her.
Somewhat to her chagrin, he’d readily agreed to the one caveat she’d added to their original bargain: that he refrain from attempting to seduce her. Of course, given that she’d all but compelled him to take her on two previous occasions, his ability to tempt her was moot. Though occasionally lackadaisical about other things, since the New Year he’d shown an all-too-assiduous sense of responsibility in refraining from encouraging her to any further intimate contact.
Indeed, aside from taking her hand to help her in and out of the carriage, or giving her a leg up into the saddle upon occasion, he’d scarcely touched her since their last kiss under the mistletoe just before Christmas. Despite her having offered him several excellent opportunities to repeat that gesture on his last several visits, he seemed perfectly content to continue in his avuncular, elder-brother role.
Perhaps, having twice had his fill, he no longer desired her? At Christmas she’d practically begged him to continue their relationship. Perhaps he merely felt obligated to watch over the grieving widow who’d saved his life until she found her feet again. After all, he’d never offered more than companionship—never even hinted at cherishing for her emotions warmer than friendship.
Knowing she might drive herself to distraction with such doubts and speculations, she’d decided to ask him to meet her here in this secluded place, where servants, workers and household staff were unlikely to interrupt them. Rather than agonize over the matter any longer, better to baldly inquire about his feelings and discover straightaway whether she’d pierced together her shattered heart only to break it again over a man who didn’t really want her.
A flicker of movement caught her eye. Joy and nervousness warred in her breast as she watched Tony Nelthorpe round the bend in the lane. Taking a deep breath, she advanced to meet him.
“Jenna, you’re looking as lovely as this sunny afternoon,” he said, kissing the hands she offered. “Rested and refreshed! Evers must be finding fewer recruits to occupy you.”
She took his arm, an automatic zing of awareness shocking through her. Surely he still felt it, too!
“Yes, we’ve had only a handful of soldiers and one more widow arrive since your last visit,” she replied, guiding him toward the stone storehouse. “Your spring planting has prospered, I trust?”
“As yours has, I see,” he said, nodding toward the fields below them. “A pretty site, this. You asked me to meet you here to admire the view?”
“It is lovely, isn’t it? But you must be hot after that long walk up. Come, let’s get out of the sun. I’ve brought some wine.”
Did she only imagine his minute hesitation on the threshold, as if troubled when he noted the deserted
building’s relative isolation? “That would be most refreshing,” he said an instant later, following her into the cool dimness within.
She let him gaze around as she poured wine from the basket she’d carried up. Primitive but solidly built, the one-room storehouse was unfurnished, its single small window looking out over the vista of hill and meadow.
“Does the place remind you of somewhere?” she asked after a moment.
Nelthorpe gave a short laugh, the tips of his ears reddening. “It does rather bring to mind that abandoned monastery outside the walls of Badajoz.”
“Where you lured me under false pretenses, then tried to seduce me? Threatening, I recall, not to allow me to leave until I succumbed to your advances?”
Nelthorpe groaned. “What an arrogant, chuckleheaded coxcomb I was! Still following the sage advice of that great arbiter of correctness, my father, who’d preached that a woman rebuffed a man’s advances only as a sap to her conscience. That she really wanted him to take her, despite any protests to the contrary.”
Jenna laughed. “I dispelled that illusion rather pointedly.”
“I’ve got the scar to prove it,” he acknowledged with a rueful grin. “I couldn’t have been more shocked—I was so presumptuously sure you wanted me as I wanted you!”
This was her opening, Jenna thought. Gathering her courage, she said, “I did want you. I just didn’t know it yet. I…I still want you.”
He jerked his gaze back to her face, the sudden blaze in his eyes mitigating her uncertainty. An instant later, however, he tightened his hands into fists and stepped away.
“I thought we’d already decided that would be…unwise.”
She stepped after him, took his arm and made herself continue. “Do you no longer want me?”
His fists flexed, unflexed, as if he could not decide whether to leave her hand on his arm or brush it away. Finally, he left it, covered it gently with his own. “You know I do,” he said gruffly. “But the result of indulging that desire might be a child, and I couldn’t risk that. You are honorable to your bones! I would expire of frustration before I would place you in a position where doing what was right compelled you to accept something you didn’t want, weren’t ready for.”
“And if I were to tell you that I am now ready?”
Once again he snapped his gaze back to her. “Are you implying what I think you’re implying?” he demanded, studying her face.
“Let me say it plainly. I love you, Tony Nelthorpe. Once, another world and time ago, we came together to a room like this and you asked me to marry you, threatening to detain me until I was fit to be no man’s wife but yours. I wish more than anything for you to ask me again, but this time there must be no coercion. Don’t offer out of gratitude for my saving your life, or pity for the widow left alone. Don’t offer even out of passion for a wanton who cannot seem to resist your advances. Offer only if you love me, Tony. Only love can insure you are meant to be no woman’s husband but mine.” Her courage beginning to falter, her voice wobbled as she asked, “D-do you love me, Tony Nelthorpe?”
For long, nerve-shredding moments he simply stared at her. Her face was flaming in chagrin, her heart lacerating in anguished disappointment, when finally he stuttered, “L-look in my waistcoat pocket.”
“Your waistcoat pocket?”
He grabbed her hand and thrust it inside his jacket. “Here.”
For half an instant she wondered if he wanted her once again to seduce him, until her fingers touched folded paper. At his curt nod, she drew it out.
“Read it.”
Still baffled, she unfolded the document—and discovered it to be a special license, permitting one Anthony Nelthorpe to wed one Jenna Montague Fairchild at a place of their convenience, any time within the next three months. The paper was dated June 25—the anniversary of Waterloo.
Incredulous, she looked back up at him. “But we’ve met three times since you obtained this! Why have you said nothing?”
“I sensed—I hoped—that you had at last recovered from your grief, but every time I thought to propose, my courage failed me. I was terrified you might dismiss my pretensions as contemptuously as you did that day in Badajoz, or be so insulted by my unworthy offer that you banished me. I lost you once. Difficult as it was to be with you as a friend when I wanted so much more, I could better stand that than the thought of losing you forever.”
He seized her hands, still holding the special license, and kissed them fervently. “I love you, Jenna! And though a lifetime might not be enough for you to remake me into the kind of man you deserve, will you marry me anyway? Will you love and cherish and mold me for the rest of my days?”
He loved her. After the anguish and despair of the last year, she could hardly allow herself to believe it. A fierce joy welled up, swelling her chest, making her throat ache and bringing the sting of tears to her eyes. “I will,” she replied, her voice unsteady. “Indeed, I suspect a lifetime will be just long enough.” Clutching the special license in one hand, she threw herself into his embrace.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-4005-0
WICKED WAGER
Copyright © 2003 by Janet Justiss
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