The Memory of Your Kiss Read online

  It was at the ball that Sydney met Lieutenant Zachary Quintin, who had come to Bath on convalescent leave from the Iberian Peninsula. There, he served with the inimitable Arthur Wellesley, Lord Wellington, whose troops continued to wage a hard struggle against Napoleon’s French and Spanish armies. Quintin, leaning on a cane, stood on the sidelines of the ball with two other uniformed soldiers, the three of them watching the dancers and undoubtedly commenting on the young women present.

  When the Carstairs party arrived, Aunt Harriet waved the younger people off to the ballroom as she joined her friends, the Crowleys.

  On spotting the soldiers, Herbert immediately steered his sister and their cousin across the room. “Celia. Sydney. You must meet these fellows. Great guns, all.”

  Sydney suspected Cousin Herbert of a serious case of hero worship, or envy at least. One of the trio, Ensign Trevor Harrelson, had been in a class two years ahead of Herbert’s at Winchester. The third man, Ensign Robert Pelham was of an age with Trevor and Herbert, while Lieutenant Quintin was three or four years older than they.

  When he had made the introductions and the others bowed or curtsied as custom required, Herbert added, “Did I not assure you that I would arrive with the prettiest girls in all Somerset?”

  “That you did,” Ensign Harrelson said, looking at the golden-haired, blue-eyed Celia. “Amazing how pesky little girls grow into such phenomena of beauty.”

  Celia laughed and tapped him on the arm with her fan. “No, Trevor. The amazing thing is that boys finally notice us. I remember very well begging you and Herbert to let me go riding or climb trees with you.”

  “Well, you needn’t beg now! And if I’m not too late, may I claim you for the dance just starting?” She agreed and Harrelson cast a look of insincere sympathy at his fellow soldiers. “Sorry, fellows. It falls to me to uphold the army’s honor on the dance floor.”

  Sydney had felt a strange sensation pervade her body as her eyes met those of Lieutenant Quintin and she quickly lowered her lashes, lest he and others standing near perceive her confusion. Despite a still angry-looking scar—a jagged red slash running from his left temple nearly to his chin—and the fact that he had to rely on a cane to walk with ease, the lieutenant was a very striking figure. Seen only from the right, he was breathtakingly handsome with brown eyes so dark as to be almost black. He had black hair, too, and distinct black brows, a straight nose, and a firm jawline. He had a rather wide mouth and white, even teeth that shone against a suntanned complexion.

  And he is probably a conceited ass, she told herself, trying to assert control over what was, for her, a most unusual reaction to any man. Good heavens! This was probably what her friend Marianne had meant when she had told the other girls, in a forbidden midnight gab session—and with sigh-bedecked gushes of praise—that she felt “all squashy inside” whenever, William, Viscount Asterly, chanced to touch her hand. Of course Viscount Asterly was now Marianne’s husband and there was absolutely no possibility that this, this Lieutenant Whatever, could ever be anything but the merest chance acquaintance to Miss Sydney Waverly.

  Herbert’s voice abruptly drew her out of this moment of reverie. “I say, cousin, having arrived in Bath only yesterday, you may not know that you stand in the presence of genuine war heroes.”

  “Oh?” Her tone evincing polite interest, she gestured at a group of empty chairs nearby. With Harrelson’s parting comment about the army’s honor, she had noticed that Pelham, too, leaned on a cane, so she added, “We surely are standing. Let us sit and you may regale me with tales of heroism and derring-do.”

  “Carstairs exaggerates,” Lieutenant Quintin said as the four of them sat down.

  “Only when he includes me in that description.” Freckle-faced, sandy-haired, and displaying boyish enthusiasm, Pelham reminded Sydney of her young brother. He jerked a thumb at his companion. “Quintin here is the genuine article. He single-handedly held off twelve or fifteen Frenchies on a bridge at Badajoz to allow others to escape. Captured one of Soult’s cannons in the process.”

  Sydney thought Lieutenant Quintin was genuinely embarrassed as he said, “I assure you, Miss Waverly, Pelham embellishes the story—which is, in any event, hardly suitable as ballroom discourse, or for the ears of a delicate young woman.”

  “Don’t forget, Quintin, I was there,” Pelham said, sounding hurt at Quintin’s reproof.

  “Nevertheless—” Quintin started.

  In jumping to Ensign Pelham’s defense, Sydney also sought to help Lieutenant Quintin divert the discussion. “Oh, I see,” she said in an overly bright tone. “It is all right for young men to live those horrors, but young women must not be exposed even to reports of such.”

  Herbert groaned. “Oh, don’t let her get started on women’s rights.”

  Lieutenant Quintin seemed to welcome a shift in topic, for he assumed a tone of mocking shock. “Do not tell me we have a follower of the scandalous Mary Wollstonecraft in our midst!”

  Mildly surprised that he so readily sidestepped a topic that could only have shown him in a good light, Sydney responded to his gambit by saying, “I will concede that her lifestyle was—uh—less than orthodox, but heavens! were we to judge the ideas of others by the way they conduct their private lives, surely we would have little of interest to read—and very little from Parliament or the Prince Regent worth attending.”

  Lieutenant Quintin chuckled. “Fascinating. A woman whose opinions are not merely an echo of some treatise on ‘How to Be Agreeable to the Male Half of the Species.’”

  Before Sydney could whip out her response to this sally, a simpering female voice intruded. “La! If it isn’t Mr. Carstairs and his cousin. We never thought to see you here so soon after a tiring journey, Miss Waverly. You must be especially eager to sample the offerings of Bath society.”

  “We country girls are hardy stock,” Sydney said to the speaker, a woman named Faith Holmsley who had also been a student at Miss Sebastian’s school, but two years ahead of Sydney. That Miss Holmsley was accompanied by Elizabeth Kenmore came as no surprise, for the Kenmore girl had always shadowed Faith’s every move. Sydney had never particularly liked either of them and she was fully aware that their interest now was not in an old schoolmate, nor in one of their Bath neighbors, but in the smart-looking soldiers. The two women had been visitors in her aunt’s drawing room when Sydney arrived the previous afternoon. Miss Holmsley’s conversation then had turned on her London debut two years ago and how utterly superior London society was to what one found in Bath, but Grandmamma insisted on her annual sojourn to take the waters and Grandmamma was, after all, supplying the wherewithal for a handsome marriage portion. Miss Kenmore’s contributions seemed limited to an occasional “Oh, my, yes.”

  The gentlemen all scrambled to rise to greet the newcomers.

  “Oh, goodness. Please do not get up, gentlemen,” Miss Holmsley said after they were all on their feet. “We would not put England’s wounded soldiers to such trouble.”

  Herbert offered to procure extra chairs for them.

  “Don’t bother, Herbert,” Sydney said. “They may have our seats as we need to find Aunt Harriet. You know what she said.” Then she added with a polite nod at the two soldiers, “If you gentlemen will excuse us—”

  Herbert looked bewildered but joined her in taking their leave of the two soldiers. As they left, Miss Holmsley was gushing. “Lieutenant Quintin, I am especially pleased to see you here this evening. You simply must tell me all about your brave stand at Badajoz—or was it Salamanca?” She giggled. “Oh, dear, those foreign places all sound so strange.”

  Sydney and Herbert drifted out of earshot as she prattled on.

  “What was that about my mother?” Herbert asked.

  “Oh, nothing. I just wanted to escape those two females. They were in school with Celia and me.”

  “I know. Celia likes them well enough, though.”

  “Celia is more tolerant than I. I did not want to listen to any more of the ‘
Bath-is-so-provincial-and-London-is-so-exciting’ chit-chat such as we heard from them yesterday.”

  “So we left Pelham and Quintin to endure it?”

  Sydney felt a twinge of conscience at this. “I think they will manage. Most men love to talk about their exploits.” She said this just as though she actually knew what might fascinate “most men.”

  “That has not been my impression of those two—especially Quintin,” Herbert said.

  Any response Sydney might have made was lost as they encountered another of Herbert’s friends, Baron Anthony Whitfield, a fashion-conscious young dandy who had also been a visitor in Aunt Harriet’s drawing room yesterday. He promptly asked Sydney to dance, and Sydney was further chagrined to find him every bit as self-absorbed as Faith Holmsley. Serves you right, she told herself.

  Lieutenant Quintin was annoyed. Miss Waverly had simply dismissed him and Pelham out of hand with a lame excuse, and not ten minutes later she was whirling through the forms of a country dance on the arm of that fop Whitfield!

  Even with this ugly scar slashing across his face, Zachary Andrew Quintin was not accustomed to being treated with indifference. In fact, in the last few weeks, he had found that the scar, along with the limp which he hoped to be rid of sooner rather than later, had given him a certain cachet with the fair sex. And now this slip of a girl—whose expressive gray-green eyes, light brown hair, and very kissable lips had set his senses to humming—this slip of a girl had first intrigued him, then left him to endure the usual pointless ballroom chatter. Still, he thought her suggestion that they all sit had come from her sensitivity to his and Pelham’s injuries, so she was not so concerned with herself as many other young women seemed wont to be—like the two with whom she had left them.

  Miss Waverly’s virtually snubbing you did you a favor, he told himself, his natural sense of humor winning out over the annoyance. Talk about self-absorbed! Too full of yourself by half. This sojourn into civilian life is making you soft and complacent. Next you will be worrying about such momentous matters as how many folds you can manage in a cravat—like that coxcomb, Whitfield. At least an army uniform protected one from that extreme.

  On a very practical level, however, Zachary was aware of—but deliberately chose to ignore—his worth on the social scene, though it was very well known by hopeful misses and their avaricious mamas. As a civilian, Zachary Quintin was just a plain “mister,” but his mother was Lady Leonora, daughter of the sixth Earl of Paxton, and Zachary was the principal heir to the immense fortune his father had amassed in the last century during service with the East India Company. But Zachary himself dismissed these attributes, for they had not come from his efforts.

  He might have commanded a good deal of attention for his status as a war hero, but so far he’d not been tempted to play that card—and did not anticipate ever doing so. The very idea was repugnant, disrespectful to men who were real heroes, whereas he had merely been in a particular place at an opportune—or perhaps inopportune—time.

  Within a few weeks he fully intended to be on his way back to the Peninsula. By then the leg should have fully mended, and he would have got through his cousin Henry’s wedding. His mind drifted to Cousin Henry, eighth Earl of Paxton, who seemed to Zachary to be inordinately indifferent to the whole idea of his upcoming marriage.

  Henry, returning via Bath from a hunting expedition in the Highlands, had stopped, along with two companions, in Bath a week ago “to discuss a bit of business.” Zachary had been surprised to receive Henry’s letter, for, despite only two years’ difference in their ages, the two had never been close. Zachary’s mother had been estranged from her family after her marriage. As youngsters, the two cousins had attended different schools—Henry at Harrow, Zachary at Winchester—and they shared few interests.

  In the past week, they had spent three days attending sporting events—horse races as well as a pugilists’ match and a dog fight in a neighboring town. Henry bet heavily on these affairs with little care about how much he won or lost. Zachary tagged along because he was genuinely glad to see his amiable, devil-may-care cousin—certainly not because he felt a burning need to watch men and animals tear each other apart. God knew he had already seen enough of that sort of brutality on the Peninsula, and likely faced a good deal more. Enough to last a lifetime. The four of them—their numbers often augmented by Pelham, Harrelson, and Carstairs—had also consumed an incredible amount of alcohol. Enough to float the proverbial ship, Zachary thought.

  Only when Henry and his hunting companions were about to leave Bath did Zachary learn the purpose of his cousin’s side trip to England’s most famous spa. He and Henry were at breakfast; the others had not come down yet.

  “So, Henry, what was this ‘business’ you mentioned in your letter?” Zachary asked as he made selections of bacon, sausages, kippers, eggs, and muffins from the sideboard. He sat, poured himself coffee, and laced it with a liberal splash of cream.

  Henry looked with disgust at the pile of food. “Good God! Are you going to eat all that?” He himself nursed a cup of coffee laced not with cream but with brandy if the bottle in front of him was any indication.

  Zachary grinned. “I surely am. We champions of freedom and protectors of the realm must gain sustenance when we can.”

  Henry snorted, but his tone was amiable. “Champions and protectors be damned. I never have understood your insane fascination with the military.”

  Because the comment seemed born of genuine interest, Zachary answered seriously. “I suppose the attraction was romance and glory for a young boy. Alexander the Great. The Crusaders. Achilles and Hector. Later, it seemed a natural progression from sporting contests at school.”

  “Surely you have outgrown all that nonsense by now.”

  “Yes. Now it’s more a matter of duty, I think. Doing something worthwhile—to give back. I’ll not inherit a title and a seat in Parliament like some I could name.” He took a swig of coffee. “Your ‘business,’ cousin?”

  “Ah, yes. Two things, actually.” Henry ran a hand distractedly through his hair. “I’m to be married a few weeks from now. I’d like you to stand up with me.”

  “Good God! You mention this only now? And—and as sort of an afterthought?” Zachary shook his head in wonder, then quickly recovered himself. “I do wish you happy, cousin. What lucky damsel managed to capture your heart?”

  “It isn’t like that, Zachary. As with many alliances in the ton, ours is an arranged marriage. Her father is our vicar. He and my father were lifelong friends from school days on. Her family is distantly related to the Howards. There’s a duke on the family tree somewhere. Some sort of ‘Fitz,’ though.”

  “Poor relations?”

  “Something of that sort. But it’s not like I need to hang out for an heiress now, is it?”

  “No, but I cannot believe you just accepted this—this ‘arrangement’—as a fait accompli.”

  Henry shrugged. “Why not? I cannot marry Louisa—ever—no matter how much I want to. Eventually I must marry. Bella is good looking. Comes of good stock. Gently reared. I’ve known her for ages. We’ll rub on well together.”

  “I take it Louisa is your latest venture into the demimonde.”

  “Not at all. Louisa is received in the highest circles.”

  “So, why do you not marry her then?” Zachary reached for the carafe to refill his coffee cup.

  “She’s already married. To Baron Ryesdale.”

  “Oh. I can see where that might be a problem. Still, divorce is not unheard of. We have the example of the Prince of Wales to confirm that. Is he not seeking to divorce the Princess Caroline?”

  “In Louisa’s case, that is not an option.”

  “Why? She could not face the ostracism?”

  Henry sat up straighter and clenched a fist on the table. “No. That’s not it. For one thing she is not royalty. And because her husband is quite literally mad—confined to one of those exclusive asylums for the very rich who have lost c
ontrol of their faculties. He cannot bring a suit. Nor can she—largely because she’s a woman. But both her husband’s family and her own oppose her.”

  “I see. That truly is an untenable situation.” Zachary felt a surge of sympathy for his cousin.

  “She has a son,” Henry went on. “Three years old. If she does anything to upset the social apple cart, her husband’s family will take her child—the Ryesdale heir.”

  “But they turn a blind eye to her liaison with you?”

  Henry nodded glumly.

  “Unbelievable,” Zachary said. “Not to mention hypocritical.”

  Henry shrugged. “You know how it is when a title and money and property are involved.”

  “Does your prospective bride know about Louisa?”

  “Oh, God, no.”

  “Is she not likely to find out?”

  “Perhaps. But men have mistresses and wives pretend they do not exist. That’s the way it’s done.”

  “If you say so.” Zachary shook his head again. “Sounds to me like a disaster just waiting to happen.” He paused. “Does Louisa know you are marrying?”

  “Not yet. I’m actually on my way to London to tell her. I doubt it will come as a total surprise, though. She knows it had to happen sometime. I must have a son—a legitimate heir—or all of Paxton will be lost.”

  Zachary chewed thoughtfully on a piece of bacon; Henry replenished the brandy in his cup. Then Zachary said, “From a vicar’s daughter to a countess? That’s quite a leap, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose so, but Bella is very capable. She will be able to handle it—and handle Anne and Amy as well,” Henry said, naming his much younger half siblings.

  “Seems a lot for a new bride to take on,” Zachary said.

  “Well, it isn’t as though she won’t have sufficient help,” Henry said. “My God, we must have a staff of fifty or more in Paxton Hall alone, what with footmen, maids, a governess, and so on.”