Regency 09 - Redemption (12 page)

Lady Prestwich spent the rest of
that day contemplating ways of murdering Dare that would cause him
as much pain as humanly possibly.

She also wondered how the devil she
was going to tell her husband while preventing him from doing much
the same thing. She was quite sure she’d never be able to convince
him.

Her thoughts went to Miles and she
couldn’t help but wonder why Dare had not left a note for his twin.
But then, they didn’t behave as the few twins she knew; they seemed
constantly at each other’s throats and not in the brotherly fashion
that most siblings were. Their rivalry seemed
almost…bitter.

But mostly her
thoughts centered on Lady Genevieve Northwicke. She knew the young
lady well enough to know that her headstrong curiosity was probably
as much or more to blame for her predicament than Dare was—not that
she didn’t place the bulk of the responsibility squarely upon
the
gentleman’s
shoulders.

Bri sighed, her shoulders slumping.
Could she have been so very wrong about Dare? She had loved him
from the first moment she met him, seeing in him a kindred spirit.
He was injured inside, hurting, and using humor and wit—along with
a healthy dose of biting sarcasm—to cover it up. He was everything
she would have wanted in a brother and her sympathy for his
feelings of self-doubt gave her an insight into his, sometimes, odd
actions.

But now she wondered if perhaps
she’d been very, very wrong about him. It irked her that she could
so misjudge another person, especially one in the same family as
her husband—the only other person she’d so grievously, and
erroneously, reviled.

“
Lady Connor Northwicke, my
lady.”

As thrilled as she always was to
see her dearest friend, Bri nevertheless wished she had informed
West that she was “not at home” to callers.

Rising, she embraced her friend
warmly. “Verena! What brings you by? I wasn’t even aware you were
in Town yet.”

Lady Verena, her violet eyes
twinkling with some secret merriment, explained her sudden
appearance. “Connor was lonely without me so he sent a retinue of
servants to conduct me hither. I just arrived last night and so
thought to come here immediately this morning.” Her smile
disappeared, replaced by concern. “Are you quite all right, my
dear? You look peaked.”

Bri glanced at the door. West
lingered. “Tea, West.” He bowed, withdrawing, silent as a
ghost.

“
Oh, Verena, I am in a
quandary.”

Moving to the settee, the two
ladies sat, their arms linked companionably.

“
Tell me, dear. What has you so
troubled?”

Bri explained, her fingers
uncharacteristically pleating and un-pleating the muslin of her
skirts. When she realized what she was doing, she uttered an oath,
apologizing immediately afterward.

“
So, now I’m at an impasse. I
can’t tell Adam because nothing on earth will stop him from
committing murder. And obviously, I can’t tell Con as he would do
much the same.”

Verena’s horrified look spoke
volumes. “Are you sure? I mean…have you talked to
Jenny?”

“
Dare didn’t come right out and
confess anything in his note, but I assure you, the tone was far
too intimate and apologetic to be otherwise.”

“
Oh dear,” murmured Verena, her
shoulders slumping just a bit. “This is quite a pickle, isn’t
it?”

Bri released a staccato laugh. “A
pickle, yes. I’m just not sure what to do about it short of gelding
Dare.”

Verena was oddly
silent, her dark brows creased in thought. “I’m not sure you need
to
do
anything,”
she finally replied, slowly.

Bri leaned forward. “What do you
mean?”

“
Well, even if what you suspect it
true, there may not be any consequences. Perhaps Jenny will emerge
with little more than a loss of virtue.”

“
In other words,
I hold my peace until we find out whether or not she’s
enceinte
.”

“
Precisely.”

“
And the note?”

Verena’s gaze was frankly puzzled.
“What about it?”

Bri shrugged. “It’s plain he
doesn’t want to marry her, or can’t. I wonder if it would be wise
to give her the note that he left. She may take it as a sign of his
good regard despite the goodbye inherent in the message. Would it
not be cruel to raise her hopes?”

“
You feel she may move on if she
believed his heart was not constant?” Bri nodded. Verena pondered
that idea a moment. Then, “Would you have moved on had Adam done
the same?”

“
He’s gone? Just like
that? He said nothing?”

Realizing that her voice
rose alarmingly with each word, Lady Genevieve took a deep calming
breath. It would not do for her to lose her poise now.

She stared at Lady Brianna
Prestwich hopefully, hardly daring to believe that Dare might have
left something for her, some word, some sign that he was returning
one day or that her feelings were reciprocated.

Bri shook her head, patting
Jenny’s hand. “No, dear, he said nothing. He was gone before the
servants were even up this morning.”

Jenny was sure her face was
crumpling. She knew her heart was. It folded into itself until it
resembled nothing more than a hard little stone.

After last night, he would
just leave? Had he no honor after all? Dear God, she’d given him
her virginity! The least he could do was stay and see how she
fared.

A shiver traversed her
spine at the memory of what he’d done to her. She wanted a repeat
of the encounter even though she knew it was insane and wrong to
want such a thing outside of marriage. It only led to heartache and
illegitimate offspring.

“Are you cold, Lady
Genevieve?” Bri asked solicitously.

Coming swiftly to herself,
Jenny shook her head, denying the truth that she was indeed very
cold—but from inside.

“Is anything wrong, Lady
Genevieve?”

Jenny gave a jerky shake of
her head, rising to her feet. She simply had to get away. If she
stayed another moment, she would break down and cry.

He wasn’t worth her tears,
she told herself sternly. Accepting her outer clothing from the
butler, she hurried out to her carriage.

She tried to shrug off the
incipient pain, telling herself she had to forget what happened
between them and go on from there.

It became her
mantra.

Lady
Genevieve Northwicke was seen at all the
ton
events a person could possibly
attend in one season. She could be found at four to five events in
each evening, sparkling and shining as never
before.

Society watched her in open
curiosity, wondering at her odd behavior. She had always been a
pleasant girl, but never had she so openly flirted and charmed her
partners.

She seemed to show marked
interest in Mr. Miles Prestwich, the significance of which was not
lost on anyone. She had previously enjoyed an oddly close
friendship with that gentleman’s twin brother and it was
universally acknowledged that she was nursing a broken
heart.

Had Jenny been privy to any
of these rumors, she’d have been horrified. As it was, she was so
miserably lonely that she acted purely on instinct. Everything she
said, everything she did was mechanical. She spent her days and
evenings like an automaton, going through the motions of living
without really experiencing any of it.

And yet, she would have
been the first to deny a broken heart as her malady. Her pride
would not let her admit that Dare had broken her heart, making her
feel less than worthy.

A month after he left, with
no word from him, Jenny finally gave up…at least, she told herself
she did. He wasn’t coming back, he’d moved on, forgotten her. She
was nothing more than a convenient, there for his pleasure and cast
aside.

How lowering.

Hyde Park was Society’s
showcase. It was there—in sparkling raiment and glittering jewels,
with high-stepping cattle and flashy carriages—that the upper
echelons preened like so many peacocks.

It was where Lady Genevieve
Northwicke and her sister, Lady Guinevere shined. They usually rode
with their brother and sister-in-law but occasionally they could be
found in the company of whatever gentlemen had managed to catch
their attention.

And they were inseparable
as never before. Jenny clung to her sister as if afraid to lose
her. And Gwen, puzzled, clung right back, a niggling fear in the
back of her mind telling her that something was very, very
wrong.

Jenny laughed joyously,
flirted modestly, and behaved properly at all times. But to anyone
who cared enough to look beyond the surface, it was apparent in the
cornflower blue of her eyes that she hid a deep and miserable
fear.

It was her family who saw
it, wondered at it, and privately attributed it to any number of
female megrims. Lady Verena and Lady Prestwich, however, had a
sinking feeling that they knew its cause and hoped against hope
that they were mistaken.

It was while riding with
Con and Verena that Jenny came to a startling realization. It had
lingered in the back of her mind, festering for some weeks, but
she’d managed to avoid giving the fear words.