Man Most Worthy

by Ruth Axtell Morren

  No. She clamped down on those old emotions. She had come a long way from the girl she’d been. The wounds were long since healed over and the scars practically faded.

  The thoughts and questions tumbled through her mind in chaotic jumble. What was Nicholas Tennent doing here after all these years? Where had he been all this time? Surely not in London? Wouldn’t they have run into each other at some point?

  Leaving her companions in mid-conversation, she began walking toward him. She no longer recollected how long it had been since her heartbreak. Her glance skimmed over his features. His hair was as dark as she remembered, combed away from his high forehead, his bearing straight, still slim but his shoulders broader.

  Did he remember her at all? He must, the way he was looking at her. His dark eyes hadn’t moved from her face.

  They reached each other and she held out her hands, hesitating only an instant before she spoke. “Mr. Tennent, is it truly you?”

  “Miss Shepard.” He bowed, taking both her hands in his.

  “Mrs. Lennox, now. She is the lady I have been telling you about.” Lord Asquith’s amused drawl came from the side.

  Alice drew her gaze with difficulty away from Mr. Tennent’s bowed head to see Asquith swirling his champagne glass around. “Telling him about…?”

  “The newly arrived Nicholas Tennent, who has come all the way across the Atlantic to attend one of your galas.”

  Her eyes turned back to Mr. Tennent unable to absorb what Asquith was telling her. “America?”

  “Yes.” His dark scrutiny was unnerving. “You are Mrs. Lennox now?”

  She nodded.

  Lord Asquith drew her attention away again. “May I infer from this that you two are old acquaintances?”

  Mr. Tennent answered before she had a chance to collect her thoughts. “I worked for her father for a short time.”

  Indeed her thoughts felt scattered in a thousand different directions. All her years of social poise slipped away at the keen way Mr. Tennent was regarding her. Her hands still felt the pressure of his hands on hers although he’d let them go immediately.

  Lord Asquith rocked back on his heels. “You worked for old Shepard? When was this?”

  “A long time ago.”

  “I must hear more.” He turned to her. “Come, Alice, if the man is going to be close-lipped, you must give me the particulars.”

  Before she could think how to answer, Mr. Tennent turned to her. “Would you care to dance?”

  “I beg your pardon?” She couldn’t seem to stop staring at him. In the few seconds in his company, she felt like the girl she used to be.

  “I merely asked you for this waltz.” His voice, by contrast, sounded smooth and composed.

  When had he undergone such a transformation? Realizing he was awaiting her reply, she nodded, hardly knowing what she was saying. “All right.”

  He handed Asquith his glass and offered her his arm. As he led her toward the ballroom, he leaned closer to her. “I thought it the best way to escape Lord Asquith’s curiosity.”

  “Oh, I see.” His proximity was making her dizzy. It was just the shock, she told herself, like seeing someone one had thought long dead.

  Only years of training enabled her to follow the waltz that was just commencing. She kept her eyes fixed on Mr. Tennent’s even as her thoughts wondered where he had learned to dance so effortlessly. Had he known when she’d met him? She remembered how he hadn’t ever ridden, or played tennis. Long suppressed memories tumbled into her head, sitting beside him at the desk, working and laughing over any silly thing that struck her, all ending the day of that fateful kiss.

  “What are you thinking? You seem far away.”

  “I was thinking about Richmond.”

  His dark eyes looked into hers as if he, too, were remembering that day. But then he answered and she only detected amusement in his tone. “You doubtless remember an awkward young clerk. As I recall you said I was too serious.”

  It seems he didn’t recall their kiss at all. Taking her cue from him, she put aside the memory and strove for a light, cordial tone. “I remember the serious, but I don’t recall awkward. My memory is of a young man of great intelligence and ambition with a very strong sense of purpose.”

  He looked slightly taken aback with her description and she found herself blushing. “I didn’t think you’d remember me at all,” he said quietly.

  She frowned in puzzlement. “Why shouldn’t I remember you?” She wanted to add that she’d never forgotten him, but realized how foolish that would sound.

  “It’s been a long time.”

  Slowly, she nodded. His face had matured. Gone was the thin, pale, slightly long visage. In its place was a darker, more rugged complexion, as if he’d spent much time in the outdoors. “I’m surprised you remember me at all,” she said with a laugh that sounded nervous to her ears. “An awkward young girl, pestering you as you tried to carry out your secretarial duties.”

  Amusement crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Let me assure you my memory is of a beautiful young girl poised on the verge of womanhood.”

  She could feel the warmth steal into her cheeks and felt shaken by her reaction. It couldn’t be, not after so many years. She’d been married and known real love.

  As if reading her thoughts, he said, “There have been a few changes since that time. You are married.”

  She looked away. “Was. My husband…passed away four years ago.” Dear, sweet Julian. How she still missed him.

  “I’m sorry,” was all he said, his tone betraying little.

  Her gaze traveled back to his face and she found him still watching her. “There’s something different about you.”

  She caught a hint of humor in his eyes. “Perhaps the cut of my suit? Savile Row’s finest.”

  She remembered the dark, stiff suits he wore on the tennis court and almost laughed. Then she shook her head, hardly giving his black cutaway coat and snowy white shirt a glance except to note how handsomely he filled them out. “No, it’s not that.” She tilted her head a fraction. “There’s a self-assurance I don’t remember.”

  “The suit—and enough money in the bank to buy out half the people in this room.” His glance went beyond her and skimmed the ballroom.

  The words gave her pause. They had a harsh ring to them. “Have you achieved your dream?”

  His gaze returned to hers. “You remember?”

  She nodded her head. “Of course I do.”

  The music came to an end and the two stood there as other couples walked by them. With an inquiring lift of an eyebrow, he took her arm and led her to the edge of the dance floor.

  “Things didn’t quite turn out the way I expected,” he said.

  She wasn’t sure what he was referring to but suddenly she needed to know. “What happened the day Father found us?”

  If she’d thought he’d forgotten their kiss, she’d been mistaken. He stared at her. “You don’t know?”

  “No. Father never told me anything but that he’d sent you away.”

  “I was sacked immediately—deservedly so.”

  She drew in her breath. “I didn’t know. The only thing I knew for certain was that you’d disappeared. I’m sorry you lost your job over me.”

  “Don’t be. As it turns out, it was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.”

  The abrupt tone cut her to the quick. What had been her banishment had meant freedom for him.

  “You’ve prospered in America.”

  “I left London determined to seek my fortune across the Atlantic.”

  “And have you?”

  He shrugged. “America has treated me well.”

  Something in her felt saddened at the man standing before her. He was no longer the earnest young secretary but a hardened, self-assured businessman. The kind of man she’d vowed never to give her heart to.

  She didn’t catch what he was saying. “I’m sorry?”

  “I said, was your father very an
gry with you that day?”

  She looked down at her clasped hands. “As it happens, he sent me away, too.”

  “He sent you away?”

  At his sharp tone, she lifted her head. “Yes, to some relatives in Scotland. I spent the holidays with them from then on.”

  “I didn’t know.” He cleared his throat, the first sign of hesitation since she’d been in his company. “Did they treat you well?”

  “They were tolerable.” She smiled, not wanting to dwell on the unpleasant things of the past. “Father concluded he could do no more with his wayward daughter. They kept an eagle eye on me for the next year or so, until he finally allowed me to come back to London when I finished school.”

  He was staring at her. “I’m truly sorry. I should have behaved more honorably.”

  She felt herself redden again. “You did nothing wrong.”

  After a moment, he said, “You were married.”

  “Yes. I met my husband shortly after I returned to London. We were married after my twenty-first birthday.” Without her father’s approval, she added silently. “Julian—my husband—was ill when we met but he recovered for a while. But then the consumption recurred. But he left me with a great gift.”

  Before he could ask her anything about that, she said in a determinedly bright tone. “So, you’ve been in America. Is that the reason I haven’t seen you in a London ballroom until tonight?”

  He nodded slowly, as if still puzzling over what she had told him.

  “How long have you been away from England?”

  “Since I last saw you.”

  “But that’s been—”

  “Fifteen years.”

  “Has it really been that long?” she whispered, not sure which stunned her more, the fact of how much time had passed, or that he remembered.

  He nodded, his dark eyes studying her.

  They were interrupted by one of the trustees of the housing charity. “Mrs. Lennox, may I have a word with you?”

  Alice looked at Mr. Tennent, torn between wanting to continue speaking with him and wondering if it were not better to let the past remain where it was. “I’m sorry, Mr. Tennent. If you will excuse me?”

  He bowed over her hand. “Thank you for the dance, Miss—Mrs. Lennox.”

  She smiled. “The pleasure was mine.” Against her better judgment, she asked, “Are you in London for long?”

  “That depends.”

  His gaze held hers, and she found herself saying, “If you are free tomorrow, I will be home in the afternoon.”

  He nodded. “What time?”

  “Two o’clock? Number fifteen, Park Lane.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Nick watched Miss Shepard—Mrs. Lennox, he reminded himself—finding it difficult to reconcile his image of a carefree girl with this elegant lady. Soon, she was surrounded with other guests, and if he thought he’d have another opportunity to approach her, he saw it was a vain wish. Better to wait until the morrow when he could find out more about what had happened to her since that fateful day of their kiss.

  A widow. What kind of man had she married?

  A thousand questions swirled in through his mind.

  Seeing Lord Asquith heading his way, and reluctant to answer even the most general interrogation about his acquaintance with Miss Shepa—Mrs. Lennox, Nick turned and weaved through the crowded room until able to exit without being seen.

  Although the evening was young, he headed back to his hotel suite. His mind was too full of memories and questions to be able to concentrate on anything else. Not even work would distract him tonight.

  Chapter Six

  Nick arrived promptly the next day at Mrs. Lennox’s address. He paid his cab fare and proceeded through the black wrought-iron gates up the walkway to the colonnaded façade of the Park Lane mansion. Similar imposing structures lined the wide, tree-lined avenue. Once, he’d aspired to such a London address. Now, he glanced indifferently at them, his thoughts fixed on the coming visit.

  He’d found it hard to sleep when he’d arrived back from the gala. For so many years he’d worked toward this moment until as the months turned into years and his goal nowhere in sight, he’d realized what a pipe dream it was and gradually he’d abandoned it.

  And now, he’d seen her again, when he was the man he’d dreamed of becoming and she was free.

  The moment had found him unprepared.

  Why hadn’t he come back sooner? The question had plagued him all night, and he’d not been able to come up with a satisfactory answer.

  He adjusted his silk tie and rang the bell, feeling as nervous as a boy on his first courtship.

  He thought again of what she’d told him of her being sent away. Shepard had proved more hard-hearted than he could have ever imagined. If he’d known she’d be sent away, would he have left like that? But what could he have done? A penniless clerk with no job prospects would make a poor knight to a sixteen-year-old damsel in distress.

  No. He’d had to make his fortune to be worthy of courting Miss Shepard. And that had taken him many more years than he’d foreseen.

  But was he fifteen years too late?

  He smoothed his hair back and gave his tie one final adjustment just as a maid opened the door.

  As soon as Nick gave his name, the servant stood to one side. “Yes, Mrs. Lennox told me to expect you. Come this way, please.”

  He was led to a drawing room at the rear of the house where no street noises penetrated. “I will inform madam that you are here.”

  “Thank you.” Left alone, Nick glanced about the well-appointed room. Oil landscapes filled the walls in gilt frames, dark velvet couches graced two sides of the room. Everything exuded refined taste. He walked over Oriental carpets to peer through the long windows facing the back. Precisely clipped yew hedges formed geometrical shapes within the walls of the wide garden. Bright flowers bobbed their heads within the green borders.

  A slight noise behind him caused him to turn away from the view and look back into the room.

  He saw no one. His eyes traveled slowly over the furnishings, the book spines on a floor-to-ceiling shelf, a piano at one end of the room, a set of nested tables, a chintz-covered armchair and a carved trunk before backtracking.

  He heard it again, a low sniffle. He walked toward a desk, glad for the thick carpet which muffled his footsteps.

  He peered under the desk.

  A young boy, his large dark eyes looking up at him through a mop of dark bangs, sat crouched within the small space meant for a person’s legs. He clutched a furry stuffed animal to his breast.

  Nick smiled tentatively. “Hello.”

  The boy didn’t reply to the soft greeting. Could he be Mrs. Lennox’s son? The thought jolted him.

  Of course. It would be natural for her to have children. Nick straightened and took a step back. “I’m not sure how comfortable it is down there. I know when I was a lad, I liked to find odd nooks and crannies. You can pretend to be in a cave, hiding away from a band of pirates, or perhaps you’re in your tent, bivouacked with your troops, planning tomorrow’s battle.”

  The boy continued staring at him.

  Nick leaned against the back of a couch, and put his hands in his trouser pockets, pretending to be at ease. “What is your friend’s name?”

  The child looked from Nick to the stuffed animal in his hands. It appeared to be a rabbit from the long floppy ears hanging off the sides of its head. But at Nick’s scrutiny, the boy took the animal and hid it behind his back.

  Before Nick could think how to reassure him that he was not going to take the thing away from him, Mrs. Lennox entered the room.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Tennent. I’m so glad you could come today. I was almost doubting that it was really you at the gala yesterday evening.” She advanced toward him with a welcoming smile.

  She seemed more relaxed than she had last evening. But just as beautiful. She wore a high-necked blue gown with long sleeves which were gathered at the
shoulders. Her hair was done up but in the sunlight filtering through the sheer curtains, he detected once again the coppery highlights he remembered so well.

  He took her hand in his, feeling its soft warmth. Reluctantly, he let it go. “I know exactly what you mean.” To fill the silence, he looked back towards the desk.

  She followed his gaze. Immediately seeing the boy, she bent down and held out her hand. “Austen, my dear, what are you doing down there? Have you said hello to Mr. Tennent? He is an old friend of Mama’s.”

  So, it was her son. He drew in a breath, still having difficulty reconciling the young girl he’d known with the mother of a boy already in short pants and sailor collar.

  The little boy took his mother’s hand and slowly let her lead him out of his hiding place. When he stood, Nick saw that he was older than he’d supposed. Perhaps six or seven instead of four or five.

  Mrs. Lennox turned to Nick with a smile. “Let me present you to my son, Austen Lennox. Say, ‘how do you do, Mr. Tennent.’”

  The little boy held out his free hand, his large brown eyes gazing up at him through black lashes. Nick took the small hand in his, closing his hand around it. As soon as the handshake was over, the little hand disappeared into the pocket of the boy’s short pants.

  She turned to Nick again. “It’s such a lovely day, would you like to sit out on the terrace?”

  He agreed and followed her to a brick terrace overlooking the garden he had seen from the window. Mrs. Lennox ordered coffee to be brought out to them.

  Austen stood behind his mother’s skirts, and she bent over him, her hand on his head. Her hands were exactly as he remembered them, pale and slim. She wore only a thin gold band on her ring finger. “Would you like to stay with Mama and Mr. Tennent, or would you like to go up to Nanny Grove?”

  “Nanny Grove,” he whispered. She straightened and smiled at Nick. “Austen is going up to his room and wants to bid you goodbye.” With a little nudge from her, he stepped forward and held out his hand.

  Nick felt a pang, transported back to his own childhood for an instant. He used to be afraid of large strangers at that age. He stooped down before the boy and took his hand with a smile. The thin little wrist stuck out from his navy blue shirt. “It was nice to have met you, Austen. I hope we’ll see each other again.”