“Oh, how I would love to see all eight of them together.”
“You could always come back with m—”
“Please don’t!” she said, cutting him off. “You promised you wouldn’t ask me again.”
“Today. Yes, I’m sorry,” he said, not sorry at all. As he thought, she was entranced by the idea of what he and Ethan were trying to do. So what the hell was she doing going to a place like London where all that would be stifled?
“Why are you going to London?”
She gave him a narrow look. “I’m looking for someone.”
“A man?”
“No.”
“Who?”
“That’s my business.”
Harry could see she wasn’t going to get any more specific. “Are you in love with anyone else?” he found himself asking.
She stopped and turned to frown at him.
“I’m not breaking my promise,” he said hurriedly. “Just . . . making conversation.”
“Conversation? It feels more like an interrogation.”
“Sorry. I’m not very good at conversation,” he told her.
She gave him a doubtful look.
“It’s true,” he assured her. “When I was growing up, Great-aunt Gert used to have my brother Gabe and me in for ‘polite conversation’ every Sunday afternoon. It was agony. I was a miserable failure at it. Still am.”
Her face softened. “Really?”
He nodded ruefully. “My friend Ethan calls me a stump. Mind you, he could talk the leg off an iron pot. He’s Irish, and a born storyteller.” He smiled reflectively. “On the peninsular Ethan’s tales could make men forget their fear and empty bellies . . .”
“Papa had the gift, too,” she said after a moment. “So much charm . . . and the stories he could tell . . . He even believed his own stories.”
She sighed and walked on. “Tell me more about your friend, Ethan,” she said.
“He’s older than the rest of us, about forty, an ugly-looking brute with more than a touch of the dandy about him. Ethan’s the sort who’d emerge from a battle bleeding from half a dozen wounds and loudly lamenting the ruination of his waistcoat.”
She laughed. “He was the man with you in the forest, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, that was Ethan.” Encouraged by her interest, Harry continued, “In the army he wasn’t really one of us; we were officers and he was a sergeant, and officers and men don’t mix. But he has a cool head and we were green young fools, and he saved us from making disastrous mistakes a time or two. I always liked Ethan and he’s a genius with horses, so after we’d left the army we went into partnership in this horse-breeding enterprise.”
“You say he’s older. Does he have a family?”
“No. He says he’s courting, though I don’t know who it can be. I’ve never even seen him with a woman since the war. As I said, he’s no oil painting—not that the señoritas and mademoiselles seemed to mind—but the only woman I’ve seen him with in England is—” He broke off, frowning. “—Tibby? No, that can’t be right.”
“Tibby?” she prompted.
“Miss Tibthorpe. She was my sister-in-law’s old governess.”
“She’s old?”
He shook his head. “No. She’s a prim little sharp-faced spinster well on the wrong side of thirty, as buttoned up a woman as ever I’ve seen—” He looked at Nell and added slowly, “But with backbone enough for two. Now I come to think of it, they did spend rather a lot of time together last year. I thought it was because of the boys, but . . .”
“I like the sound of Tibby,” she said. “I like the sound of Ethan, too.”
“Yes, Tibby’s a good little stick, and Ethan’s an excellent fellow—and what he can’t do with a horse . . . It’s uncanny. But no, Tibby’s in Zindaria. It can’t be her. Ethan’s always had the most ravishing mistresses; why would he want to marry an aging spinster with no looks to speak of? She doesn’t have a penny to her name, either.”
“She sounds a lot like me,” Nell said quietly.
“No, you’re beautiful,” he said absentmindedly. “But Tibby and Ethan . . . I wonder . . .” He walked along, deep in thought.
Nell watched him, a bittersweet taste in her mouth. He’d just called her beautiful, without thought, without calculation, without even realizing . . .
Nobody in the world had ever called Nell beautiful. Except perhaps her mother when she was a baby. And Papa, of course.
“I, I really must go now,” she said huskily. “I hope Tibby and Ethan both find happiness.”
He turned with an apologetic expression. “I’m sorry, I’ve been boring on about people you don’t even know. I told you I was no good at conversation.”
“No, no, it’s been fascinating,” she said truthfully. “I’ve loved every minute of it.”
Their eyes locked. She was the first to break it.
“I never had a chance with you, did I?” he asked quietly.
“No. I’m sorry, not the way things are now.”
He gazed into her face, as if trying to glean a hidden meaning in what she’d said.
Unable to stand the intensity of his gaze she dropped her eyes. “If we’d met a year ago, then perhaps . . .” She made a fatalistic gesture. “But now, I really do have to go. We leave tomorrow morning.”
“So this is the last time I’ll see you?”
She hesitated. “Yes. Mrs. Beasley requires one more visit to the Pump Room to complete the course of waters her physician prescribed. She’ll go first thing in the morning so we can get on the road early.”
He nodded gruffly. He had one more day. Less.
“It’s been an honor knowing you, Mr. Morant,” she said with only the faintest quiver in her voice. She held out her hand to him over the stone wall.
His eyes locked with hers as Harry turned her hand over and placed a kiss in the center of her palm. Her fingers curved around his jaw in a featherlight caress, then she withdrew her hand.
“P-please give my love to everyone at Firmin Court when you return there and—” Her voice cracked and she continued huskily. “T-take good care of them. And of yourself. G-good-bye, Harry Morant.” She turned and hurried away down the hill, disappearing in minutes.
Harry mounted Sabre thoughtfully. Everything he’d learned about her in the last hour only confirmed what he’d been thinking for days now. She’d make him the perfect wife.
Not because she was an earl’s daughter, but because she was Nell.
Seven
H
arry found it hard to get to sleep that night. Nell was still set on going to London. It wasn’t because of a man; she’d said she wasn’t in love with anyone else, and he believed her.
And the Beasley woman had no hold over her, she was just
convenient
.
Harry kicked at the blankets that had become tangled around his legs.
The only reason Nell was going to London was to find someone.
He could find people. He could go to London.
And he wouldn’t make her run out in the rain fetching things for him. He would make sure she was warm and dry and comfortable.
She was not indifferent to him, he was sure. Almost sure. Fairly sure.
As sure as a man could be who had been turned down twice.
But she had kissed him back that time in the storeroom. She’d wanted him then.
And he wanted her with a power that almost drove the breath from his body.
More than any woman in his life. Just why she affected him so strongly, he wasn’t sure, just that she did. And every instinct he had was telling him to keep her, now that he’d found her again.
His instincts had kept him alive though years of war. He’d learned not to question them.
Harry thumped his pillow decisively. The solution was obvious. He would take Nell to London and help her find whoever it was she had to find. And while they were doing that, he would find out what it was that made her say she couldn’t marry him and . . . fix it.
Simple.
As long as he could persuade her to go to London with him.
She hadn’t been amazingly persuadable up to now, he reflected. But a man could only try.
And dammit, he would.
They were going to the Pump Room early. What time was early? Dawn, Harry decided. No, before dawn—dawn was around eight, and he had an idea the Pump Room opened before that for ordinary folk. And perhaps for people intending to make an early start to London.
He would get up at five a.m. then, to shave and dress. He wanted to look his best. Every little bit helped.
Third time lucky, they said.
The doors opened at six. Harry entered and sat down beside a column to wait. An amazing collection of invalids passed before him; clearly the times he had come before were the fashionable hours.
He watched people hobbling in, being wheeled and carried and supported in. Poor bastards. They took the waters and left. Harry thanked God for his health and checked his fob watch.
They arrived at half past eight. Mrs. Beasley swept in dressed in a scarlet velvet traveling dress and wearing a hat that bore enough flowers to cover a grave. Nell was in brown again with that ugly little brown hat she always wore. It was the kind of hat that deserved shooting, Harry thought.
He pulled back behind the column a little as La Beasley swept past. Not that she would have noticed. Expecting nobody fashionable, she spared not a glance for anyone else, but imperiously brushed aside anyone in her way.
Nell followed in her wake with a shy smile or a quiet word to the people she passed, and as she paused to let an arthritic old woman hobble to a chair, Harry stepped out from behind his column. She froze for a moment, glanced at Mrs. Beasley, who was oblivious, then shook her head at Harry and hurried after her employer.
As he’d expected, she wasn’t intending to speak to him. He waited while she settled Mrs. Beasley in a chair and placed a shawl around her shoulders, then, when she loudly complained that there was a draught, helped her to shift to another chair.
Finally Nell moved toward the pump. Harry stepped into her path. “I must talk to to you,” he said.
She glanced back to check her employer hadn’t noticed. “No, we’ve said our good-byes.” She filled the glass.
“One final word.”
She shook her head and took the glass of hot mineral water to Mrs. Beasley.
Harry moved closer, making it clear to her that he wasn’t going to tamely leave. He would speak with her. He folded his arms and waited.
It wasn’t long before Mrs. Beasley noticed him, as he’d known she would. She eyed his body, glanced at Nell, then looked back at Harry to check who he was watching.
Harry inclined his head politely at her but didn’t move. The woman preened, fiddled with yet another large jewel resting in her substantial cleavage and gave him a come-hither look.
Harry didn’t move.
Nell looked away.
Mrs. Beasley leaned in Nell’s direction and said something that Harry couldn’t hear. Nell shook her head and seemed to disagree.
Harry tried not to smile. He knew exactly what was happening.
A mutinous expression on her face, Nell marched toward him. “Mrs. Beasley wishes me to convey an invitation to you to join her,” she said in a flat voice, and then with a hint of fire, added, “and
I
wish to convey my desire for you to leave.”
Harry pulled his fob watch from his pocket and consulted it ostentatiously. Then with a sorrowful expression he hoped was visible from the other side of the room said, “Tell your mistress, I’m desolated to have to disappoint her, but I have an appointment.” He smiled and added, “With you in the small room out the back in two minutes.”
“No. I won’t—”
“Otherwise I will join you both now and tell you exactly what’s on my mind.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “That’s blackmail.”
“Dreadful isn’t it?” he agreed. “But effective.”
She hesitated, her jaw tightening as she read the determination in his eyes. “Oh, very well, if you must be so unprincipled. But only for a moment.”
He inclined his head. “I’ll see you there in two minutes’ time.”
Nell returned to her seat hoping her face didn’t show the inner turmoil she was feeling. Wretched man. If she didn’t meet him he would make trouble for her.
She didn’t want to meet him. What was there to say, after all? She’d said her good-byes, she was ready to leave . . . as much as anyone could be. Oh, why did he have to make it so hard for her?
Stubborn, impossible man. Every man she’d had in her life had let her down in the worst way. Did he think she was going to trust her future and her happiness—and more, her daughter’s future happiness and security—to a man she’d met precisely four times?
Even if he was the most appealing man she’d ever met.
Papa was kind and sweet and had bucketloads of charm but he’d ruined Nell’s life. As for what he’d done with Torie . . .
And Papa had loved Nell.
Not a single word of love had passed Harry Morant’s lips. Not that she would believe it anyway, but still, she was glad of that, at least. The last thing she wanted was a man like him falling in love with her.
How impossible would he be then?
“Well?” Mrs. Beasley said as she returned.
“He said was sorry, but he had an appointment to keep.”
“Hmph. I suppose that’s why he was here at such a wretchedly unfashionable time. What a pity.” She stared across the room at him. “He’s such a divine specimen of masculinity.”
And an annoying one, Nell thought. Today he was dressed in gleaming top boots, tight buff trousers that molded to his powerful thighs, a dark blue coat and a blue and gray striped waistcoat that contrasted wonderfully with his gray eyes.
He was just too wretchedly handsome for his own good. And he knew it. He must have thought she would take one look at him and fall into his arms.
Well, she had more important things on her mind, and she wasn’t falling into anyone’s arms, even if they did look like Apollo. With dark brown hair. And gray eyes. And a smile that did strange things to her insides.