style="font-size:15px;"> Recognizing from past experience that Diana had finally come to the crux of her conversation, he asked neutrally, “Do you want me to talk to someone at the Horse Guards about this, uh, Captain Carver? Perhaps the captain can be assigned another post. Say, in Calcutta?”
Diana’s eyes opened wide. “Could you do that?”
He smiled, his harsh-featured face suddenly very attractive. “Yes, I could do that—if it pleases you.”
She looked uncertain. “Well, I don’t think that Calcutta would be very healthy for a man who was wounded, do you? I would feel dreadful if something terrible happened to him. Couldn’t you just have your friends at the Horse Guards see that he is kept very busy—too busy to dangle after my daughter?” She paused, struck by a new worry. “Oh, dear, that might not be wise. Suppose it was discovered that you are keeping them apart. Why, they might be compelled to do something rash.” In a voice full of horror, she breathed, “Oh, Julian, you don’t think that Elizabeth would consent to a runaway match, do you? She is so innocent, of such a sweet, easy-going nature that there is no telling what this man might convince her to do.”
His patience at an end, Julian rose to his feet. He needed to escape before he did something rash. Bowing in her direction, he said, “Do not worry, Diana. I shall take care of it.” Dryly he added, “As I always do.”
Chapter 2
Since it was Saturday, and he doubted that he would find his friend Colonel Stanton at the Horse Guards, Julian put off the chore of settling Captain Carver’s fate. The problem could wait until the beginning of the week. But Diana was not so convinced and to head off the incipient hysterics he could see brewing, before he left the house that afternoon to follow his own pursuits, he wrote to Stanton, requesting a private meeting on Monday afternoon. He was not worried about the situation and he doubted that Elizabeth would throw her cap over the windmill for a mere captain—no matter how dashing. Elizabeth had a good head on her slender shoulders. His mouth twisted. Unlike her mother.
The woman was quite mad, Julian decided several hours later as he strolled down St. James Street toward Boodle’s. Quite mad if she thought he would ever make another marriage based solely on pleasing his family. His lips thinned. His marriage to Catherine had taught him the folly of that!
Catherine had been an heiress, the only child of the Duke of Bellamy and she had been very beautiful. His father had been pleased at the match—Julian had been twenty-nine at the time and to his father’s despair, he had not shown the slightest interest in marriage. “Think of the title,” Lord Wyndham had exhorted him on many an occasion. “When I am gone, and you stick your spoon in the wall, I want your son, not Daniel’s—fine boy that he is—to be the one stepping into your shoes. You need to marry, boy, and present me with grandchildren. It is your duty.” His father had winked at him. “Pleasant one, too.”
When the alluring Lady Catherine had crossed his path a few months later, to please his father, Julian had offered for her. Their wedding had been the most anticipated social affair of the Season of 1795. As he and his new bride had driven away from the reception, Lord Wyndham had fairly rubbed his hands together in glee at the thought of the grandchildren that were sure to be soon forthcoming from the union.
Except, he had thought wrong, Julian recalled grimly. Catherine was not eager for children and Julian discovered almost immediately that behind that beautiful face lived a spoiled and petulant child. Before many months had passed they were openly sniping with each other, and before they were married a year, except for necessity, were seldom seen in each other’s company. Neither one of them had been happy, he admitted, and Catherine had probably found him as boring, insipid and infuriating as he had found her. But they had hobbled along together for a few years, like many other couples in their position, and might still be yoked together if Catherine, pregnant and hating every moment of it, had not been killed in a carriage accident. Julian sighed at the memory.
Despite the fact that the marriage had been a mistake, he had never wished Catherine dead and her sudden death had stunned him. He had felt both guilt and grief and it had been years before he could think of her and the unborn child without an anguished pang. It had all happened over six years ago, but Julian would not have been honest if he had not admitted to himself that with every passing year his determination never to marry again had grown. Let Charles or Raoul step into my shoes, he thought sourly, I’ll be damned if I tie myself to another woman simply to oblige the family!
He was scowling by the time he walked into Boodle’s. Unaware of the fierce expression on his face, he was startled when his friend Mr. Talcott accosted him in the grand salon and demanded, “By Jove, but don’t you look glimflashy this evening! And with hunting season just started!” He studied Julian’s face. “I’ll wager that stepmother of yours has put you out of sorts.” Talcott’s usually merry blue eyes became thoughtful. “She’s a taking little thing, won’t deny it, but think she’d drive me mad.”
Julian laughed, his dark mood vanishing. Clapping Talcott on the back, he said, “Very astute of you. Now come join me in a drink, and tell me that you have decided to accept my invitation to stay at Wyndham Hall.”
They had just started to leave the grand salon when Julian caught sight of a slim blond man. His expression grim, he asked, “Since when has Boodle’s started letting any ragtag bobtail join its ranks?”
Talcott looked startled, then, following Julian’s gaze, he stiffened. “Tynedale! He is pushing his luck, isn’t he? Surely not even he would dare—” Catching sight of the burly man who stood to Tynedale’s left, he muttered, “Well, that explains it—he must have prevailed upon Braithwaite to sponsor him.”
Julian started forward, but Talcott grabbed his shoulder and jerked him into a nearby small alcove. “Don’t be a fool!” he hissed. “You’ve already fought one duel with him—and won. Leave it be. Challenging him again is not going to bring young Daniel back.”
Julian’s gaze never left Tynedale’s handsome form. “He killed him,” he snarled, “as surely as he had held the pistol to the boy’s head himself. You know it.”
“I agree,” Talcott said quietly. “Tynedale ruined Daniel, but Daniel is not the first green ’un to fall into the hands of an unscrupulous scoundrel like Tynedale and lose his fortune at the gaming table. Nor is he the first to kill himself rather than face what he had done—and he will not be the last.”
Julian glared at his friend, his expression one of anguished fury. “I remember the day when Daniel was born and his father asked me if I would be willing to be Daniel’s guardian if something ever happened to him.” He sighed. “We were both half-drunk, celebrating his son’s birth and neither one of us ever thought that the need would arise. Why should it? John was only twenty-two and I wasn’t even of age—not yet eighteen. Who could have guessed?” Julian looked down, his thoughts far away. “Who could have guessed,” he said in a low tone, “that my cousin would be murdered when his son was not quite eleven years old? That I would actually become Daniel’s guardian?” One hand clenched into a formidable fist. “John trusted me to keep his son safe, not only from a rakehell like his own brother but safely away from any other danger that might cross the boy’s path.” His voice bitter, he added, “I was so busy making certain that his uncle Charles did not corrupt Daniel that I failed to protect him from the likes of Tynedale.”
“Daniel was not,” Talcott said bluntly, “your ward when Tynedale fleeced him and he killed himself.” His voice urgent, he added, “I know that you loved Daniel’s father, I know that John was your favorite cousin and I know that you were shattered when he was killed. But none of it was your fault! Not John’s murder, or Daniel’s
