The Major Meets His Match

by Annie Burrows

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jack did a complete circuit of the ballroom on the pretext of exchanging a few pleasantries with all his old army cronies, as well as every single member of his club that he could spy. But eventually he could see he had no choice but to surrender to the necessity of approaching Lady Tarbrook. Who looked about as eager to speak to him as he had been to have to ask her the one question uppermost on his mind.

  ‘Good evening,’ he said, bowing over her hand. And coming straight to the point. ‘Lady Harriet not here tonight? I was so hoping to be able to dance with her again.’ Or, to be more precise, to making her dance with him again. It wasn’t going to be enough, he’d decided about the time he was putting the finishing touches to his neckcloth earlier that evening, to simply flirt with other women. Or dance with other women. Since that was what she’d indicated she wanted. No, what would be a far more fitting revenge would be to challenge her and force her to choose. The rules governing the behaviour of young ladies were incredibly strict. If she refused to dance with a perfectly eligible man, then she could not dance with anyone else for the rest of the ball. Which would put her in bad odour with her aunt.

  He’d been hoping to pitch her into a maelstrom somewhere between the devil and the deep blue sea. And now he felt cheated. How was he going to plague the life out of her if he couldn’t even find her?

  ‘Now that her own mother is in Town,’ Lady Tarbrook said, with what looked like a forced smile, ‘naturally she will be taking her about.’

  ‘Yes, I noticed that she wasn’t sitting with you. But surely you must have some idea whether she will be attending tonight? Did she not say?’

  ‘I should perhaps explain,’ she’d said, her smile growing even more strained, ‘that my sister and niece have removed to Stone House. So I am no longer aware of what their plans may be.’

  That all sounded plausible. And yet there was a touch of desperation lurking in Lady Tarbrook’s eyes which convinced him she was not telling him the complete truth. And he recalled the way Harriet’s uncle had called her out of the drawing room, with a face like an offended prune, for the purpose of giving her a trimming, if all the shouting he’d subsequently heard was any indication.

  Whatever had the little minx been up to? Well, if she could sneak out of the house alone, at dawn, to indulge in an orgy of forbidden galloping, what other crimes might she not have contrived to commit?

  He bowed over Lady Tarbrook’s hand, murmuring all that was necessary to convince her that he accepted her version of events at face value. But inside he was whistling a jaunty air as he quit the ballroom, which no longer contained anything to hold his interest. He couldn’t wait to find out what she’d done to provoke her uncle to wash his sanctimonious hands of her. Because that, he suspected, was what the old rascal had done.

  * * *

  So, next morning, early, he headed north towards Grosvenor Square where Archie was currently putting up with Zeus—probably in more ways than one.

  ‘And to what,’ said Zeus, laconically, ‘do we owe the pleasure of your company?’

  ‘I’ve come to collect Archie,’ he said, with complete honesty. ‘He said he wanted to call upon Lady Balderstone. The famous lady scientist.’

  Zeus had, predictably, pulled a face and claimed a prior commitment. So it was only he and Archie who set off, on foot, for St James’s Square a few minutes later.

  ‘Now, you just give the butler your name and tell him you met her ladyship at that lecture we went to, and that she asked you to call whenever you liked.’

  ‘B-but she didn’t...’

  ‘She meant to. I could tell from the way she was talking to you that she’d be glad to welcome you into her house whenever you chose to pay a visit.’

  With any luck, she’d be so excited to hear Archie’s name that she wouldn’t bother enquiring who his friend was. So that Jack would be able to get into the house without Harriet hearing about it. It would be like a kind of ambush.

  His heart beat in anticipation throughout the short walk to Stone House. For once they’d gained admittance to the drawing room, the two scientists would naturally draw apart from any other callers, as they launched into the kind of conversation that nobody outside the scientific community would understand. They would become so engrossed in their talk that they wouldn’t notice anything going on around them, short of a grenade exploding, he shouldn’t wonder. Archie would, in short, provide perfect cover for his sortie upon Lady Harriet.

  His plans met with a check when they mounted the front steps only to find there was no knocker on the door.

  ‘Are you sure Lady T-Tarbrook told you they’d c-come here?’ Archie stepped back from under the roomy portico to peer up at the white-stuccoed façade. ‘Don’t look to m-me as though anyone is in residence.’

  Jack’s heart sank as he followed Archie’s gaze and saw that all the blinds were half-drawn.

  ‘Are you sure she didn’t m-mean they’d gone b-back to the c-country?’

  ‘No!’ He rejected the notion with every fibre of his being. She couldn’t have gone back to the country. Not before he’d had a chance to...to...

  His stomach turning over, Jack stepped smartly up the front steps and pounded on the door with his clenched fist.

  The sound echoed through what sounded like an empty hallway beyond. And, no matter how hard he pounded, there were no answering footsteps. No sign that anyone was coming to let him in.

  No sign of anyone at all.

  ‘So that’s that, then,’ said Archie gloomily.

  It appeared so. For some reason, Lady Balderstone had not informed Lady Tarbrook of her plans. Or Lady Tarbrook might have said Stone House, when she meant Stone Court, he supposed. In either case, the result was the same. Lady Harriet was out of his reach. He could no longer pursue her.

  Worse, he might never see her again.

  In brooding silence, he escorted Archie back to Grosvenor Square where they parted company. And then he wandered the streets aimlessly for some time. Though part of him wanted to go to ground somewhere, somewhere quiet where he could lick his wounds in peace. However, the part of him that had seen him through so much of his life thus far refused to even admit that he was wounded. It made him greet every acquaintance with a cheerful smile and crack puerile jokes, and generally behave as though he hadn’t a care in the world.

  * * *

  That evening, his determination to prove he had no interest at all in Lady Harriet’s whereabouts saw him presiding over the most riotous table at Limmer’s.

  ‘Never a dull moment since you came to Town,’ said Captain Challinor, clapping him on the back. ‘What say you we repair to the Guards Club? Liven them up a bit?’

  With a grin, he agreed. There was nothing he’d rather do, he decided on the spur of the moment, than shake up some of the stuffy set that presided over that place. He staggered along Bruton Street arm in arm with Captain Challinor, plotting various ways he could wreak havoc on the men who’d written him off as a clown and a fool, and a wastrel.

  And then they reached Berkeley Square. And there was Tarbrook House. Where Lady Harriet wasn’t living any longer. Lady Harriet, who also thought he was a clown and a fool, and a wastrel, he shouldn’t wonder, else why would she have rebuffed him so forcefully?

  And suddenly he no longer saw the point in making a nuisance of himself with the military set. It wasn’t them he wanted to...shake.

  ‘Just remembered, something I need to do,’ he said.

  Captain Challinor shrugged and set off south along the square, while Jack, having glared one last time at Tarbrook House, set off in a northerly direction.

  The sun was just crawling sluggishly out of a bed of purplish clouds as he entered Hyde Park. He didn’t know what good it would do to come and stand by the very tree under which he’d kissed her. Before h
e’d even known her name. And yet that was where he found himself standing. Gazing down at the ground. Remembering the taste of her. The feel of her coming alive in his arms. The moments he’d spent with her since. The way her little face came alive after only a moment or so of his teasing. The way her eyes flashed up at him as she sent him a stinging riposte.

  ‘You really fell for her, didn’t you?’

  ‘Good God!’ He whirled round at the sound of Zeus’s laconic voice, emanating not five feet from behind him. ‘Did you follow me here?’ He hadn’t noticed anyone following him. He hadn’t thought there was anyone in the park at all, apart from a couple of sleepy park-keepers, either.

  He clenched his fists. This was what his aimless existence had brought him to. This state of...dulled wits that rendered him vulnerable to ambush. If this had been northern Spain, he could well be dead.

  ‘No. I did not follow you.’

  ‘Then what the devil are you doing prowling around the park at this hour?’

  ‘I could well ask you the same question,’ said Zeus, glancing briefly at the spot on the grass where Lucifer had deposited him. ‘But in your case, there is no need, is there?’ He sighed. ‘It is obvious that you are...in need of a friend.’

  ‘Is it?’ Jack gave a bitter laugh. ‘I have it on good authority that there is never a dull moment while I am in Town.’

  ‘That’s as may be, but that doesn’t mean you don’t...hurt all the same.’

  Hurt? He didn’t hurt. He might be a touch disappointed that this...whatever it was with Lady Harriet had been nipped in the bud. But that was all.

  ‘Damn you, Zeus!’ Jack struggled with the urge to take a swing at him. ‘You think you know everything...’

  ‘No. Not everything,’ he said with infuriating calm. ‘But I do know what I saw when you were with her. You reminded me of a twelve-year-old boy, pulling the pigtails of a girl you liked, to try to get her attention. And now she’s gone, perhaps only now she’s gone, you are having to face the fact that she meant more to you than you knew. And also that your tactics were the worst you could possibly have employed.’ He turned his head to gaze across the park, as though watching someone walking along the path, though Jack couldn’t see anyone through the mist. ‘Because the way you made her feel about you, the last time you spoke to her, means that you have no valid excuse for following after her and admitting what is really in your heart.’ He uttered a strange, bitter kind of laugh. ‘Even if you were to admit it, she now regards you with such suspicion that she won’t believe a word you say. Not even should you demean yourself by grovelling. All you would do would be to make a complete cake of yourself.’

  What? ‘It’s not as bad as that. Lady Harriet—’

  ‘Who?’ Zeus raised one hand to his head. It was only at this point that Jack began to wonder if Zeus was as foxed as himself. Only thing to account for him wandering about the park at this hour.

  ‘Oh, her,’ said Zeus. ‘Yes, we were speaking of Lady Harriet, were we not?’

  Jack wasn’t at all sure any longer.

  ‘You know what? You don’t look quite the thing. I think you should go home.’

  ‘Home. Hah.’ His face contorted into a sneer. ‘A great big house, that’s all it is. Not a home.’

  ‘Nevertheless, that’s where I’m going to take you,’ said Jack, going up to Zeus and taking him by the arm. He’d never seen his old friend reduced to such a state. Perversely, it made him feel a touch better to see proof that Zeus wasn’t invincible after all. That a woman had managed to pierce what he’d thought was unshakeable belief in himself.

  That Jack wasn’t alone in his misery.

  * * *

  Jack slept most of the next day away. Awoke with gritty eyes and a sore head, and a determination to pull himself together. He could forgive himself one night of excess. But he was never going to get so drunk that people could creep up on him unawares again. Besides, it was ludicrous to permit one failed love affair to drive him to drink in the first place. If you could even classify it as a love affair. He hadn’t actually declared himself to Lady Harriet and been repulsed, or anything near.

  It was just that Lady Harriet’s disappearance, coming on top of all the other blows he’d sustained of late, had been the last straw, that was all, he told himself as he went down to his study.

  He was, slowly, making inroads into the mountain of paperwork he’d inherited from his supposedly magnificent predecessor. He glanced askance at himself as he passed the mirror placed strategically close to the desk. From what he’d been able to gather, George had caused it to be hung there when his father had first started looking as though he’d been given notice to quit. He must have imagined checking his appearance in it, before admitting callers. He could just see him standing there, stroking those magnificent moustaches, and giving a final flick to his neckcloth. Though not actually sitting behind the desk. Not to judge from the utter chaos he’d found in here when he’d first inherited.

  His father had put all his effort into training his oldest son, William. That was what had gone wrong. And George had spent most of his time hunting or whoring.

  Jack resisted the urge to turn the mirror to the wall before sitting down at the desk. It was a good job he’d acquired a good training in administration during his time in the army. The success of campaigns depended on officers getting through a mountain of paperwork every single day. He might not cut an impressive figure swaggering about the estates, or leading the field in a hunt, but by God he could certainly keep the paperwork in order.

  After a few minutes at work, he leaned back in his chair, and yielded to the temptation to put his feet up on the desk, twirling the pen in his ink-stained fingers. Perhaps it was time to return to Shropshire and throw his weight about a bit. Show them he wasn’t the timid boy who’d gone, shivering, into the army the moment he left school. The tone of correspondence he was receiving from his father’s steward was certainly becoming more respectful of late. Timmins no longer expressed surprise that he actually signed and returned the most urgent documents, anyway. Perhaps he should do as Zeus suggested and go down there, and take up the reins of his new life.

  Zeus.

  He growled, took his feet off the desk and pulled another document from the stack awaiting his attention. He was not going to do anything because Zeus bid him do it. He would go to Shropshire when he was good and ready.

  And not a moment sooner.

  * * *

  The next morning he woke early, thanks to the fact that he’d spent so much of the previous day sleeping and had then passed the night entirely sober. Drinking to excess had never solved anyone’s problems. It only dulled the brain, so that they no longer cared so much.

  However, the prospect of spending the best part of the day indoors did not appeal. And even though this was only London, rather than somewhere more scenic, he decided to go out for a walk.

  He could have gone in any direction. It must have been some perverse kind of desire to punish himself that sent him to St James’s Square. Where he stood gazing forlornly up at the shuttered façade of Stone House for several minutes before shaking himself and striking out towards the Strand.

  He’d walked along for several minutes before it struck him that the female hurrying along, several yards ahead of him, bore a marked resemblance to Lady Harriet.

  Was it just wishful thinking? Was he so far gone that he was conjuring up likenesses to her in every stray woman he saw? Or did he actually recognise that bonnet? His heart speeded up. Surely, no two women in London could possibly have the same shade of hair as that single strand which had escaped from the confines of her bonnet and was trailing over her collar? And would any other woman manage to have all the pedestrians walking in the opposite direction move so swiftly out of her path?

  Though she was walking very swiftly, his legs were longer. Nor wa
s he hampered by skirts. Yet, for a few more minutes, he simply relished the sight of her. The way her hips swayed seductively with every step she took. The determined way she was gripping her umbrella in one hand and her reticule in the other, which made a fond smile kick up the corners of his mouth. If he’d been on horseback, at that moment, he would have clapped his heels into its flanks, and yelled ‘View Halloo!’

  Lady Harriet was still in London. And he had a second chance. This time, knowing what it felt like to imagine a life without her in it, he was going to be more careful with her. He was not going to let her slip through his fingers again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The sun came out.

  Or maybe it had already been shining and Jack simply hadn’t noticed it before.

  It took him but a moment to dodge his way through the traffic and reach a point on the pavement past which she’d have to go. And take up a position directly in her path.

  ‘Why, Lady Harriet,’ he said, risking the cut direct. ‘What a pleasure to run across you today.’

  ‘Is it?’ She looked down her nose at him and made as if to step past him. He mirrored her move, blocking her way.

  ‘Indeed it is,’ he said. Had he ever seen anything so lovely as her narrowed, furious eyes? ‘I was convinced you had left Town altogether and that I would never see you again.’

  ‘And that would have been a tragedy, naturally,’ she said in withering tones.

  ‘It would indeed,’ he said, smiting his breast. ‘I do not know how I would have survived the loss.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you would have found some other poor unfortunate female to make the butt of your jokes.’

  He almost flinched. Zeus had been correct. He had ‘pulled her pigtails’ once too often.

  Time to rectify his error.

  ‘I have no interest in any other lady,’ he said with complete sincerity.

  She made a very strange noise, for a lady. Something between a snarl and a mew.