Page 37

“Would you be willing to risk the experiment now, if you thought it might help him?”

“Perhaps, if I thought him growing worse, or if I truly could not manage to keep him at the inn.” It struck her that Harry Clare should have thoughts similar to her own about Adam. She gathered that he had been at war from the long Peninsular campaign through the final decisive battle at Waterloo. He must have been quite young when he began soldiering. She had had a glimpse of his scars, but he had survived. He must have seen other men with worse wounds, perhaps even wounds of the mind such as Adam suffered.

There was a bit of a jam entering the park, and he slowed the horses to a halting walk.

“How do they bear it?” she asked. “They are made for freedom and speed, but we put them in harness and blinders, tug on their poor mouths, and insist that they barely move.”

“We ask much more of them than that,” he answered.

“In war, you mean?”

“And wherever there’s money to be made from their strength. Radcliffe is a notorious abuser of horses, you know.”

She shook her head. “Tell me.”

“He wears his teams out and shifts the weakest horses to the night run. They die in the traces at an appalling rate.”

“So why is someone stealing those horses?”

“I’d like to know.”

“Is that why you drove out to the scene of the robbery the other day?”

A brief flash of surprise showed that she’d caught him off guard. “Cole abandoned his passengers. I thought I might offer some help.”

It was a quick recovery, but he was not telling her the true reason he’d gone out to the scene of the robbery.

They passed at last into the park proper and joined the fashionable parade. It was plain from the looks and laughter and gaiety of most of the crowd that it was the hour for flirtation. Lucy caught the glances ladies directed at her companion. Perhaps they envied her, but she had to laugh at herself at how little interest in her he showed. Their talk was all of Adam or horses. If she had to sum up his character, she would say that Harry Clare was a man who put duty first, kindness second, and ladies, nowhere. She could put to rest the question of his having any special interest in her. Still, she thought to rally him a little. She was startled from the thought when a gentleman on a tall bay gelding rode straight at them, reining in, blocking their path. Harry pulled the carriage to the side.

The gentleman stared hard at Lucy while he brought his restive mount to order with a harsh application of pressure on the horse’s mouth. The lathered animal stood, snorting and quivering.

“I see you’ve found an heiress already, Harry,” the man said.

“Good afternoon, Richard.” Harry angled his shoulder forward, so that his body was between Lucy and the stranger. “Miss Holbrook, my brother, Lord Mountjoy.”

Over Harry’s shoulder Lucy nodded to the earl. His angry pallid face offered no answering acknowledgement. Lucy saw little resemblance between the brothers.

“Time is running out, brother,” he said to Harry. “If you’re going to marry money, you’d best have the banns called at once and get on with it. I had an offer for Mountjoy today.”

“You’ll have others, I’m sure,” Harry answered.

Richard turned his gaze to Lucy. She met his pointed stare as steadily as she could. “Do you fancy him, girl?” Richard asked Lucy. “Your friends can help you to a better match, I’m sure.” He leaned forward in his saddle. “My dear brother has neither charm nor money. I’m surprised he’s left off his uniform. It’s been his meal ticket for years. I hear he gives a firsthand account of the great battle for a mutton chop and pot of ale.”

As abruptly as he’d come, Lord Mountjoy wheeled his horse around and set off down the carriage drive against the traffic.

Harry Clare maneuvered their vehicle back into the moving line of carriages. It was several moments before he spoke. “I’m sorry you had to endure that. I did not expect to meet him here.” Nothing in the cool manner of his driving suggested that he was the least disturbed by his brother’s anger. “You know Adam talks of you and Queenie. Of the pair of you, he may miss Queenie more.”

Lucy swallowed. She understood him. They were to keep the conversation light and teasing. It wouldn’t do to say that she thought the unpleasantness of the encounter was nothing for her, a moment’s discomfort, while for him the pain of such an estrangement from a brother did not end.

“Queenie, I’d quite forgotten her for the moment. She must have come home by now.”

The captain said nothing in reply, apparently preoccupied with his horses in the London traffic.

* * * *

Lucy was becoming an old hand at dinner parties. She tried not to feel the least bit let down at the absence of Harry Clare. He was hardly essential to her pleasure. He had taken her driving in the park. She could not expect him to dance attendance on her.

She paced herself through the inevitable courses and removes on Lady Eliza Fawkener’s table, avoided the buttered prawns, kept an overzealous footman from refilling her wine glass, and picked her moment for the ladies’ retiring room. But she could not elude her new acquaintance, Miss Sophia Throckmorton.