Page 47 of Wicked Wager

"We don't know that," Riverton said soothingly. "The sudden disappearance of a peer's widow would not go unnoticed, making it much more difficult for someone to profit from arranging her demise, as her abductor must surely realize."

Tony had a sudden image of Jenna rising from her bed, pistol trained on his chest. With just such skill and daring had she dealt with his threat long ago. For the first time since he'd heard of her disappearance, a small bubble of hope buoyed his spirits.

"Her abductor will find Jenna Fairchild is not so easily dispatched," he said to Lady Charlotte.

Riverton gave him a long look. "Then may she shoot straight," he replied.

To Tony's relief, at the inn they found Riverton's agent waiting. He had indeed trailed the hackney, to a manor not far north of their current location, he told them. Leaving Sancha and Lady Charlotte, over their strenuous objections, at the inn for safety, Riverton gathered Tony and his men and headed there on horseback.

The afternoon light was dimming when at last they reached a winding carriage road. "We'll leave the horses here, approach the house from the shadow of the woods," Riverton told him. "I'll have my men creep in to ascertain her position and then bring her out."

"No!" Tony said urgently. "Let me help. I'll go mad if I can't do something, and I know a bit about creeping into houses."

Riverton studied him. "You will follow my orders."

Tony nodded.

"Come along, then."

After a nerve-straining interval advancing through the woods, they reached the manor, where a dark-clad man slipped up to inform Riverton he'd observed three men-servants, a handful of maids and a lady, who'd been seen at the window of an upper chamber at the back of the manor. A well-dressed gentleman had arrived and joined her a short time ago.

Riverton motioned them to follow. As they rounded the corner, Tony's breath froze and his heart skipped a beat.

Framed by the window, Jenna stood facing Lane Fairchild-both with pistols raised.

*CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR*

"Up the stairs!" Riverton ordered his men, who set off at a run.

"Too late," Tony told him. "She's close enough to the window to escape, but she needs a diversion-now."

Without waiting for Riverton to reply, Tony launched himself toward a thick growth of wisteria that trailed up the wall and framed the window. Willing his knee to cooperate, he climbed swiftly upward until he paused, his body parallel to the window, one foot braced at the ledge's outermost edge. Then he pried free a sturdy branch and swung himself through the casement, booted feet first.

The window shattering before him in a hail of glass and splintered wood, he staggered to a landing between Jenna and Lane-as both discharged their pistols.

A searing tongue of flame blasted through his shoulder. Praying his rash action had saved rather than condemned her, he spun backward into darkness.

After dinner ten days later, Tony limped up the stairs to his bedchamber, glad of the returning strength that made such simple movement possible. After awakening the day after Jenna's rescue from a hazy, pain-filled daze to see her face hovering over his, feel her hands wiping his brow, he'd made rapid progress toward recovery. But like a man who has supported a burden for so leng that when it is lifted, he is more disoriented than relieved, he could not decide what he should do now that Jenna was no longer in danger.

Lane Fairchild was dead, she'd told him, her aim under pressure being better and her finger on the trigger faster than her cousin's-fortunately, she'd scolded him, else she might have blown a hole through his back rather than Fairchild's chest. In a final twist of irony, she added, the local magistrate had promised to put abroad the story that Lane had died in a hunting accident-so as not to tarnish the Fairchild name.

Over the days of his convalescence at Lady Charlotte's country house outside London, where they'd brought him after the incident, Jenna tended him faithfully, seeming to enjoy his company, even with the physical pull that still buzzed between them despite his injuries.

He was terribly tempted to accept Lady Charlotte's invitation and linger on for the holidays, to tease and cajole Jenna with enough evidence of his continuing need for character improvement that he persuaded her to renew the bargain she'd tried to repudiate. He no longer questioned the certainty of loving her or the knowledge that each day together was, for him, a gift.

But it was also torment. Torn between wishing he'd spoken to her the words of love that had trembled on his lips that night in her moonlit bedchamber and believing it wiser that he'd kept silent, he knew he soon must leave.

Not that he wanted to. He thirsted for her touch, her smile, her laughter like a badly wounded soldier in the wake of a battle craves water. She'd brought into his life a dimension of joy and peace he'd never known, and he desperately wanted to hang on to it.

He would be good for her, he tried to convince himself, amuse her, challenge her reforming abilities, and bring her limitless pleasure.

Add the power of a declaration of love to the gratitude she'd already voiced about his rescue, and he might be able to talk her into marrying him, binding her sweet courage and passion to him forever. But he didn't really want her to marry him out of gratitude, did he?

With a sigh, he had to admit he was still enough of a rogue that he'd take her on any terms he could get.

But with the danger past, she no longer needed a rogue. He couldn't seem to force from his head Colonel Vernier's disparaging final words: if he truly cared for Jenna, he would walk away and leave her to a better man.

He had to admit that in reputation, character, wealth- everything except love for her-the colonel was superior.

He thought, too, of Miss Sweet, who'd begged him to redeem the sins of the father by becoming the man she'd hoped he might be.

Could he do that without a heart? For if he walked away from Jenna, he'd leave that in her keeping.

The ache settled deep within him at the certainty of what he must choose. If he were ever to break away from his father's pattern of selfishness, 'twas time to begin. Christmas was almost upon them.

Tomorrow he'd seek out his hostess, express his gratitude, and leave.

The season of miracles, he'd once called it. But though he knew he was making progress in putting his wastrel's life behind him, even the holy season wasn't miraculous enough to turn Tony Nelthorpe overnight into the caliber of man Jenna Fairchild deserved.

Knowing his only partly reformed character would never withstand the temptation to stay if he had to say goodbye to Jenna in person, he decided to borrow her tactics and leave her a note. Which he would compose- tomorrow.

Stifling the clamor of his protesting heart, he turned his thoughts to where he would go. London? But the thought of encountering his father didn't appeal.

Hunsdon, perhaps. 'Twas also time he began learning to manage the estates his old comrade's father, Banker Harris, had salvaged for him. And perhaps eventually, if the adage that virtue was its own reward had any truth, he'd find a measure of solace for his lonely soul.

Early the following morning Jenna answered a rap at her chamber door to find Lady Charlotte on the threshold. Wondering what news would have brought her friend to her room before breakfast, she ushered her in.

"Jenna, Nelthorpe just came to bid me goodbye," Lady Charlotte said, taking the chair Jenna offered.

"He insists that he must depart this morning as soon as he completes packing. Something about pressing business awaiting him at Hunsdon. Did he mention this to you?"

An unpleasant tightness squeezed Jenna's chest. "No. He didn't say a word about leaving."

Lady Charlotte watched Jenna's face. "If you mean to do anything about it, I advise you to make haste.

I've had the staff delay finding him a trunk, but that will not slow him for long." She swept Jenna into an impulsive hug. "You have more courage than I, dear friend. Use it."

After Lady Charlotte went out, on legs gone suddenly weak Jenna stumbled back to her chair. What did she mean to do about Anthony Nelthorpe?

Perhaps it was good that he was leaving. She had grown quite attached to seeing him every day. She wasn't sure she had the strength of mind, in the wake of her recent ordeal, to demand that he go.

Once he left, she could rebuild the serenity that had shattered while she'd watched in horror as he took a bullet meant for her. She could return to the business of purchasing property for the soldiers, anticipate the return of the eminently more suitable Colonel Vernier.

Except, as perfection sometimes does, Vernier inspired her to admiration but not to affection. She enjoyed his company, but did not pine for it. She found him attractive, but experienced no unquenchable desire to touch, taste and explore him.

Unladylike reactions, those latter. But honest ones.

She now knew Tony Nelthorpe was far from as venal as she'd once thought him, though admittedly a man who could sneak into ladies bedchambers, deceive country people with Banbury lies, and threaten a peer's wife was not the sort of upright man Garrett would choose for her. But as many imperfections as she'd recently uncovered in her own character, who was she to cast stones?

Perhaps her greatest flaw was in believing she could master this weakness for Nelthorpe's company and his caresses. If she were to stop denying the truth and allow herself to consider the possibility of a legitimate relationship between them, that weakness would become not a flaw but a bond. Based on what happened between them whenever he was near, a powerful one.

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