An Unwilling Conquest Part 36

"There you are, brother mine! Beenelooking all over. Didn't think to see you here."

Resuming his languid pose, Harry studied Jack's blue eyes; he decided his brother had yet to hear of his preoccupation.

"It pa.s.ses the time. But why are you back in town?"

"The arrangements, of course. All set now." Jack's blue gaze, which had been idly drifting the room, returned to Harry's face.

"Next Wednesday at eleven at St. George's."

Jack's slow grin surfaced.

"I'm counting on your support."

Harry's lips twisted in a reluctant grin.

"I'll be there." "Good.

Gerald, too-- I haven't found him yet. "

Harry looked over the sea of heads.

"He's over there--beside the blonde ringlets."

"Ah, yes. I'll catch him in a minute."

Harry noted that his brother's eyes, glowing warmly, rarely left the slender blonde dancing with Lord Harcourt. Their host appeared captivated.

"How's Pater?"

"Fine. He'll live to be eighty. Or at least long enough to see us all wed,"

Harry bit back his instinctive response; Jack had heard him disparage marriage often enough. But not even his brother knew the reason for his vehemence; that had always remained his secret.

Following Jack's gaze, Harry studied his elder brother's chosen bride.

Sophia Winterton was a charming, utterly open and honest woman whom Harry was certain Jack could trust. Harry switched his gaze to Lucinda's dark head; his lips twisted. She might serve him some tricks, as she was presently doing, but her motives would always be transparent. She was open and direct, uncommonly so; she would never seriously lie or cheat--she simply wasn't that sort of woman.

A sudden longing welled within him, followed immediately by the old uncertainty. Harry shifted his gaze, looking once more at Jack. Once he had found his particular Golden Head, Jack had moved very swiftly to claim her.

As usual, his brother had been totally confident, a.s.sured in his decision.

Studying Jack's smile, Harry felt an unexpected twinge of emotion--and recognized it as jealousy.

He straightened from the wall.

"Have you seen Em?" "No." Jack glanced about.

"Is she here?"

Harry strolled with him through the crowd until he could point out their aunt, then left Jack to forge his way to her. Then, shackling his temper, he let his feet have their way.

They took him to Lucinda's side.

From the opposite side of the large ballroom, Earle Joliffe watched Harry take his place in the select circle about Lucinda.

"Odd. Very odd," was his judgement. "What's odd?"

Beside him, Mortimer Babbacombe inserted a pudgy finger beneath his neck cloth and eased the stiff folds.

"Dashed warm in here."

Joliffe's glance was contemptuous.

"What's odd, my dear Mortimer, is that, if there was ever a rake guaranteed to gain the entree into your aunt-by-marriage's boudoir, it would be Harry Lester." Joliffe glanced again across the room.

"But as I read it, he's holding off. That's what's odd."

After a moment, Joliffe went on,

"A disappointment, Mortimer. But it seems he's disappointed her, too-she's looking over the field, no doubt about that." Joliffe's gaze grew distant.

"Which means that all we have to do is wait for the first whispers--these things always percolate from under even the most tightly closed doors. Then we'll get a little hard proof--it shouldn't be too difficult. A few eye-witnesses of comings and goings.

Then we'll have your sweet cousin-and her even sweeter legacy--in our hands.

It was a rea.s.suring prospect. Joliffe was over his ears in debt, although he'd been careful to conceal his desperation from Mortimer. His erstwhile friend was reduced to a shivering jelly just knowing he owed Joliffe five thousand pounds. The fact that Joliffe had pledged the money on, with interest, and to one against whom it was never wise to default, would turn ~Vlortimer to a quivering wreck. And Joliffe needed Mortimer, hale and hearty, sound in mind and reputation, if he was ever to save his neck.

If he failed to help Mortimer to Heather Babbacombe's legacy, he, Earle Joliffe, man about town, would end life as a beggar in the Spitalfield slums.

If he was lucky.

Joliffe's gaze rested on Lucinda's dark head. Once he had seen her, he had felt a great deal more confident.

She was precisely the sort of widow who attracted the most dangerous of rakes. His hard eyes lighting, Joliffe squared his shoulders and turned to Mortimer.

"Mind you, Scrugthorpe will have to forgo his revenge."

Joliffe's lips lifted.

"But then, nothing in life is ever quite perfect. Don't you agree, Mortimer?"

"Er--ah--yes."

With a last worried glance at his aunt-by-marriage, Mortimer reluctantly followed Joliffe into the crowd.

At that moment, the opening strains of a waltz percolated through the room.

Lucinda heard it; her nerves, already taut, quivered. It was the third waltz of the evening, almost certainly the last. Relief had swept her when, only moments ago, Harry had, at last, materialised by her side. She had not seen him until then although she had felt his gaze. Breath hated, she had welcomed him with a soft smile. As usual, he had not joined in the conversation but had stood, his features hard, his expression remote, beside her. She had slanted a glance up at him; he had met it with an impenetrable look. Now, a smile on her lips as she graciously acknowledged the usual clamour of offers for the dance, she waited, buoyed with antic.i.p.ation, to hear Harry's softly drawled invitation.

In vain.

The still silence on her left was absolute.