A Fine Passion

Early May
Avening village, Gloucestershire

A
pple blossoms in springtime.

Julius—Jack—Warnefleet, Baron Warnefleet of Minchinbury, reined in on the rise above Avening valley and looked down on the pink-and-white clouds surrounding Avening Manor. His first sight of his home in seven years could, he felt, have been more apt.

Apple blossom always reminded him of brides.

Regarding the blossoms with a jaundiced eye, he twitched the reins and set his gray gelding, Challenger, ambling down the long hill. Everything, it seemed, was conspiring to remind him of his failure, of the fact he hadn’t found a bride.

Avening Manor had been without a lady for most of his life. His mother had died when he was six years old; his father had never remarried.

Jack had spent the last thirteen years fighting for king and country, almost entirely behind enemy lines in France. His father’s death seven years before had brought him briefly home, but only for two days, just long enough for the funeral and to formally place the running of Avening into the hands of old Griggs, his father’s steward, before he’d had to slip back over the Channel, back to the varied roles he’d played in disrupting French shipping and commercial links, draining the lifeblood from the French state, weakening it.

Not the sort of battles most people imagined a major in the Guards engaged in.

Along with an elite group of fellow officers, he’d been seconded to work under a secretive individual known as Dalziel, who’d been responsible for all covert English operations on foreign soil. Neither Jack nor any of the six colleagues he’d met knew how many operatives Dalziel had commanded, or how wide the arena of their activities had been. They did know those activities had directly contributed, indeed been crucial, to the final ultimate defeat of Napoleon.

But the wars were now over. Along with his colleagues, Jack had retired from the fray and turned his mind to picking up the reins of civilian life. The previous October, he and his six colleagues, all gentlemen blessed with title, wealth, and the consequent responsibilities, and therefore all sorely in need of wives, had banded together to form the Bastion Club—their bulwark against the matchmakers of the ton, their castle from which each would sally forth, do battle with society’s dragons, and secure the fair maid he required.

That, at least, had been their plan. Matters, however, hadn’t fallen out quite as they’d supposed.

Tristan Wemyss had stumbled across his bride while overseeing the refurbishment of the house that was now the Bastion Club. Shortly after, Tony Blake had even more literally stumbled across his bride along with a dead body. Charles St. Austell, fleeing the capital and his too-helpful female relatives, had found his bride haunting his ancestral home. And now Jack was fleeing the capital, too, but not because of female relatives.

The rattle of carriage wheels reached him. Through the screening drifts, he glimpsed a black carriage bowling along the road from Cherington. The carriage crossed the junction with the Tetbury lane down which Jack was descending, and continued west toward Nailsworth.

Jack wondered who the carriage belonged to, but he’d been away so long he had no idea who might be visiting whom these days.

On returning permanently to England, he’d had to decide which of his responsibilities to attend to first. He was an only child; his father’s death had set Avening in his lap with no one else to watch over it, but he knew the estate from the ground up—he’d been born and raised there, in this green valley on the northwest slope of the Cotswolds. Avening had been in sound hands; he trusted Griggs as his father had. Much more pressing had been the need to come to grips with the varied investments and far-flung properties he’d entirely unexpectedly inherited from his great-aunt Sophia.

His mother had been the daughter of an earl and his father the grandson of a duke; an eccentric spinster, Great-aunt Sophia had been a twig somewhere on his paternal family tree. Her hobby had been amassing wealth; although Jack could only recall meeting her briefly twice, on her death two years ago, Great-aunt Sophia had willed a sizable portion of her amassed wealth to him.

By the time he’d returned to England, various decisions associated with that inheritance had grown urgent; learning about his new holdings and investments had been imperative. He’d duly suppressed a deep-seated longing to return to Avening—to reassure himself it was all as he remembered, that after all his years away, after all he’d had to do, witness, and endure, his home was still there, as he remembered it—and instead had devoted the last six months to coming to grips with his inheritance, welding the whole into one workable estate.

Although he now owned numerous elegant country houses, to him, Avening was still the centerpiece, the place that was home, the place that held his heart.

That was why he was there, slowly ambling down the lane, letting his jaded senses absorb the achingly familiar sights and sounds, letting them soothe his abraded temper, his less-than-contented mood, and the dull but persistent ache in his head.

Temper and mood were due to his failure to find a suitable bride. He’d accepted he should and had bitten the bullet; while in London organizing his inheritance, he’d applied himself to looking over the field. Once the Season had commenced, he’d assumed suitable ladies would be thick on the ground; wasn’t that what the marriage mart was all about? Instead, he’d discovered that while sweet and not so sweet young ladies littered the pavements, parks, and ballrooms, the sort of lady he could imagine marrying had been nowhere to be found.

He would have said he was too old, and too finicky, yet he was only thirty-four, prime matrimonial age for a gentleman, and he had no physical preference in women. Short, tall, blond, or brunette were all the same to him; it was being female that counted—soft, perfumed skin, feminine curves and, once they were beneath him, those breathy little gasps falling from luscious, parted lips. He should have been easy to please.

Instead, he’d discovered he couldn’t bear the company of young ladies for longer than five minutes; beyond that, he grew so bored he had difficulty remembering their names. For reasons he didn’t comprehend, they possessed no power whatever to focus, let alone fix his attention. Inevitably within minutes of being introduced, he’d be looking for an avenue to escape.

He was good at escaping. Or so he’d thought, until he’d met Miss Lydia Cowley and her gorgon of an aunt.

Miss Cowley was the daughter of a wealthy industrialist, her aunt distantly connected to some Midlands peer. Jack had found little in Miss Cowley to interest him. He, however, had been of great interest to Miss Cowley and her aunt.

They’d tried to entrap him. His mind elsewhere, he hadn’t seen the danger until it had been upon him. But the instant he had, his well-honed instincts had sprung to life, the same instincts that had kept him alive and undetected through thirteen years of living with the enemy. They’d thought they’d cornered him alone with Miss Cowley in a first-floor parlor, yet when her aunt had swept in, with Lady Carmichael in the role of unwitting witness by her side, the parlor had been empty, devoid of life.

Put out, confused, the aunt had retreated, leaving to look elsewhere for her errant niece.

She hadn’t looked out on the narrow ledge outside the parlor window, hadn’t seen Jack holding Miss Cowley locked against him, her eyes starting above the hand he’d clapped over her lips.

He’d held her there, silent and deadly, precariously balanced two floors above the basement area, until the parlor door had closed, and the retreating footsteps died, then he’d eased the window open, swung her inside, and released her.

One wide-eyed look into his face, and she hadn’t been able to get out of the parlor fast enough. He hadn’t tried to hide his understanding of what had happened, or his reaction to that, and her. She’d stumbled through a garbled excuse and fled.

He’d canceled all further social engagements and retreated to the club to brood over his situation. But then Dalziel had sent word that Charles needed assistance in Cornwall. The information had seemed godsent; he’d finished dealing with his inheritance, and, he’d decided, he was also finished with searching for a wife. In company with Gervase Tregarth, another club member, he’d ridden away from London, back to a world he understood.

While the action in Cornwall had ultimately ended in success, he’d suffered a crack on the head that had been worse than any he’d received before. Once the villain had been dispatched and Charles back in his own fort, he’d returned to London, head still aching, for Pringle to check him over. An experienced battlefield surgeon the members of the club routinely consulted, Pringle had informed him that had his skull not been so thick, he wouldn’t have survived the blow. That said, there was nothing seriously amiss, no damage a few weeks of quiet rest wouldn’t repair.

He’d stayed at the club for a few more days, finalizing business, then headed down to Cornwall for Charles’s wedding.

That had been two days ago. Leaving the wedding breakfast, he’d ridden across Dartmoor to Exeter, then the next day had taken the road to Bristol, where he’d rested last night. Early in the morning, he’d set out along the country lanes on the last leg of his journey home.

It had been seven long years since he’d set eyes on the limestone facade of the manor and watched the westering sun paint it a honey gold. He knew just where to look to glimpse the manor’s gables through the trees lining the lane and the intervening orchards. The scent of apple blossom wreathed about him; for all it meant bride, it also meant home. His heart lifted; his lips lifted, too, as he reached the junction of the Tetbury lane and the Nailsworth–Cherington road.

To his left lay the village proper. He turned Challenger to the right; head rising, he touched his heels to the big horse’s flanks and cantered down the road.

He rounded the bend, heart lifting with anticipation.

A little way ahead, a phaeton lay overturned by the side of the road.

The horse trapped in the traces, panicked and ungovernable, attempted to rear, paying no attention to the lady clinging to its bridle, trying to calm it.

Jack took in the scene in one glance. Face hardening, he dug his heels in, urging Challenger into a gallop.

Any second the trapped horse would lash out—at the lady.

She heard the thunder of approaching hooves and glanced fleetingly over her shoulder.

Eyes glued to the trapped horse, Jack came out of his saddle at a run. With hip and shoulder, he shoved the lady aside and lunged for the reins—just as the horse lashed out.

“Oh!” The lady flew sideways, landing in the lush grass beyond the ditch.

Jack ducked, but the iron-shod hoof grazed his head—in exactly the spot he’d been coshed.

He swore, then bit his lip, hard. Blinking against the pain, weaving to avoid being butted, he grabbed the horse’s bridle above the bit, exerted enough strength to let the animal know he was in the hands of someone who knew, and started talking. Crooning, assuring the horse that all danger had passed.

The young bay stamped its hooves, shook its head; Jack hung on and kept talking. Gradually, the horse quieted.

Jack shot a glance at the lady. Riding up, all he’d seen was her back—that she had a wealth of dark mahogany hair worn in an elegantly plaited and coiled chignon, was wearing a plum-colored walking dress, and was uncommonly tall.

Sprawled on her back on the bank beyond the ditch, she struggled onto her elbows. Across the ditch, their gazes locked.

Her face was classically beautiful.

Her dark gaze was a fulminating glare.

Jack blinked. She looked like she wanted to rend him limb from limb, metaphorically at least, and had every intention of doing so—soon. He would have looked again, more closely, but the horse shied, still skittish; he refocused his attention and crooned some more.

From the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of petticoats and slim ankles as the lady got to her feet. He glanced at her again, but she didn’t look his way; instead, she nimbly leapt the ditch and went quickly to the side of the overturned carriage.

Jack realized the driver was nowhere to be seen. “Is he conscious?”

After an instant, the lady replied, “No.” The carriage rocked as she tried unsuccessfully to lift the side. “He’s trapped. His leg’s broken and possibly one arm. Once the horse is calm enough, you’ll have to help me get him out.”

To Jack’s relief, her voice showed no hint of agitation, much less hysteria. Her words were brisk, her tone commanding, as if she was used to being obeyed.

He looked at the horse. “I can’t let the horse go—he’s too nervous—but he’s calm enough for you to hold. Come and take the reins, and I’ll get the driver out.”

The lady straightened; hands on hips, she rounded the wrecked phaeton and stopped five feet away, regarding him through dark, narrowed eyes, her ruby lips a thin line, her sculpted jaw set.

He’d been right; she was tall. Only a few inches shorter than he.

“Don’t be asinine.” Her glance was measuring—measuring and dismissive. “You can’t lift the carriage and get him out at the same time.”

Jack narrowed his eyes back; pain stabbed through his skull. His tone verging on lordly arrogance, he retorted, “Just take the reins and leave getting him out to me.”

He offered the reins he’d gathered to her.

She made no move to take them. Instead, she caught his eye. “Unharness the horse.” Her words were a clipped order. “If he panics again, I won’t be able to hold him, and if he drags the carriage, he’ll harm the driver more.” She turned back to the side of the phaeton. “Or worse, you’ll drop the carriage after you’ve lifted it.”

Jack bit his tongue and manfully swallowed his less-than-civilized response. It was, he told himself, only because his head was throbbing that he hadn’t thought of unharnessing the horse himself.

Talking nonsense to the horse, he played out enough rein to reach the harness buckles along one side. The lady returned and, without so much as a glance his way, went to work on the buckles opposite. Tugging the leather straps free, he studied her face, alabaster ivory, exquisitely molded features set in aloof dispassion. Arched brows and lush dark lashes framed large dark eyes; he hadn’t yet got close enough to be sure of their true color.