Lady Fairchild,” he said, giving her fingers a brief squeeze that sent another glancing shock through her. Then he turned and, leaning heavily on the balustrade, descended the stairs.
Mrs. Anderson imprisoned Jenna’s still-tingling hand in her firm grasp. “Come along, my dear. After that encounter, I can well believe you need a respite!”
Suddenly weary, Jenna gave up attempting to escape the sisters’ unwanted attentions, though she suspected this sudden urge to accompany her stemmed more from a desire to determine all that had just transpired than any genuine concern for her welfare.
Confirming her suspicion, as soon as they’d distanced themselves from the servants, Lady Montclare whispered, “Whatever happened to your cheek, my dear? Surely that wretch didn’t have the temerity to touch you!”
If she hadn’t been so tired, Jenna might have found it amusing to be in the novel position of defending Anthony Nelthorpe. “Of course not! I—I stumbled and struck my cheek,” she invented. “Nelthorpe came to my assistance.”
Lady Montclare sniffed. “Indeed. Though he served in the army, apparently with some distinction, Nelthorpe is exactly the sort of man you must avoid! A fortune hunter who fled England to escape his debts, I’m surprised he wasn’t clapped into prison the moment he landed. Though the title is ancient, he and his father, the Earl of Hunsdon, have made the name such a byword for vice that Nelthorpe’s uncle, who was to have settled a sum on him, decided to disinherit him. Without a prospective fortune to offset his other failings, Nelthorpe is completely ineligible.”
“Indeed?” Jenna said, wrinkling her brow in mockconfusion. “Mrs. Anderson, do I not remember you praising Nelthorpe to me as an eligible parti after Papa died at Badajoz, before I married Garrett?”
Lady Montclare threw a look at Mrs. Anderson. “Sister! Surely you did nothing of the kind!”
Mrs. Anderson’s plump face colored. “’Twas before I’d learned of the gaming debts that prompted him to flee to the Peninsula, nor had I yet heard his uncle had cut him off. As a future earl, you must admit, he would otherwise have been considered an exemplary choice.”
Waving away her sister’s excuse, Lady Montclare continued, “In any event, suffice it to say that Nelthorpe is a man to avoid. In fact, since he’s been away from England long enough that he no longer has ties with anyone of importance in the ton, I believe you can safely give him the cut direct.”
From recommended suitor to ineligible in the blink of a fortune, Jenna thought cynically. Little sympathy as she had for Nelthorpe, she could only be disgusted with the shallowness of the standards by which Society measured men.
“I assure you, there is no chance of my being taken in by Lord Nelthorpe,” she said dryly.
Having reached the hall outside her room, Jenna decided with an unexpected spurt of determination to rid herself of her unwanted guardians before the sisters tried to insinuate themselves into her bedchamber.
Hands on the door handle, she said, “Ladies, thank you most kindly for your help. As I dare not keep you any longer from your tea, good day.” With a nod, she slipped inside and closed the door in their faces.
She leaned against it and exhaled a long breath, feeling for the first time in many days a warming sense of satisfaction. Ah, but it felt good to take charge again!
Perhaps it was time to shake off this lethargy and find a new sense of direction.
As she wandered to the window and glanced idly down, her gaze caught on the figure of Lord Nelthorpe. The viscount stood motionless halfway down the entry stairs, both hands braced on the railing, his head hanging between hunched shoulders.
He must still be feeling ill, she thought with a dismissive shake of her head. At least he’d made it out the front door before another wave of nausea overcame him.
Then Nelthorpe straightened and, arms locked above hands still gripping the railing, stepped down—dragging his left leg. After hauling that limb down two more steps, he halted again, as if fighting off a wave of dizziness.
Her perceptions of his appearance suddenly realigned into a drastically different conclusion. Having nursed casualties after many a battle, she wondered with shame how she could have so badly misread the clammy skin, the shadowed eyes, the nausea and vertigo—of a man in pain.
Nor, now that she thought about it, had there been about him the odor of spirits or the cloying scent some men used to cover up the stench of liquor.
If she hadn’t been so self-righteously preoccupied by nursing instead a three-year-old sense of grievance, she might also have noted the fact that he’d only just arrived in London. All but the most severely injured of Wellington’s troops had returned months ago. Nor had she troubled to ask whether he’d recovered from whatever injuries had left him bleeding on the field after the end of June’s great battle.
When she’d literally stumbled over Nelthorpe that day, she’d been frantic with worry, knowing Garrett would have returned to her unless he were gravely wounded—or dead. She’d expended as little time as possible seeing Nelthorpe received treatment before resuming her search for him.
And after she found her husband—confirming her worst fears about his condition—she’d devoted three weeks to the ultimately losing battle to save him. Numb, devastated, denying, she’d continued on nursing other survivors until, realizing she must be with child, she’d slowed her pace. Even then, she’d not been able to make herself leave the room she’d shared with Garrett or her life as a soldier’s wife and daughter, the only life she’d known.
Colonel’s daughter indeed! Shame deepening, she acknowledged that not once in all her weeks in Belgium had she thought to inquire about Nelthorpe’s fate after he’d been carried away that awful afternoon. This, for a man who had once been under her father’s command.
Regardless of what might have transpired between them, Father would have expected better of her than that.
Gauging by the trouble it had given Nelthorpe to navigate the stairs, she knew from her nursing experience that simply remaining upright must be akin to torture. Seized by conflicting emotions, she could not seem to tear her gaze from where he remained stoically standing, evidently awaiting the return of his horse.
The nurse in her urged her to rush downstairs and check his condition. The woman and the patriot ached for the obvious pain he was suffering.
The soldier in her saluted the pride and fortitude that had prompted him to mask his injuries and come to her aid, despite what it must have cost him to restrain the widow who’d attacked her.
She would not shame that pride by revealing that she’d observed him in his weakness.
When finally a groom appeared leading a tall gelding, she exhaled with relief. Apparently he’d mastered mounting and riding, for he managed those tasks without a falter.
Nelthorpe still rode with the same effortless grace she remembered from observing him in the Peninsula. Indeed, seeing him in the saddle, she would never have suspected his injury.
Long after he guided his mount out of sight, Jenna remained at the window, staring into the afternoon brightness as she recalled their conversation and each detail of his appearance and expression.
It appeared her first assessment had been correct. Anthony Nelthorpe had done more than just exchange his swagger for a limp.
And she owed him another apology.
IN LATE AFTERNOON of the following day, Tony Nelthorpe sat tying his cravat in preparation for dining at his club.
He’d been relieved to discover upon waking that, despite the wretched condition in which he’d returned home yesterday, he was now able to walk fairly well—so his exertions at the Fairchild townhouse had not, as he’d feared, set back his recovery. Which meant, praise heaven, that his leg must be healing at last.
Heaven knows, he’d seen little evidence of it yesterday. After having secluded