A Fine Passion (Bastion Club 4)

Closing the door, he waved the sheets. “Not just the final nail but the hammer as well. We’re ready to bury the allegations.”

“What is it?” Alton asked. The others looked the same question.

Jack dropped back into his chair. “When we interviewed him, we managed to drag from Humphries the specific information the courier said James had passed at these three meetings. Much of it James would have known—troop strengths and deployments are precisely the things he researches. However, there was one piece of information I couldn’t imagine James knowing—ever bothering to learn—namely the details of demobilization. As a military strategist, he’s interested in battles and the preparations for those. What happens afterward holds no interest for him. Why would he have researched the specifics of demobilization?”

Christian grinned. “I take it that sheaf of papers proves he didn’t?”

“Indeed.” Jack smiled fondly at the papers in his hand. “I sent that friend of ours in Whitehall a list of all the military personnel James had interviewed between the fall of Toulouse and Waterloo. This is the result. Statements from all those interviewed stating that their discussions with James at no time touched on demobilization, plus statements from the staff at the War Office and Army Headquarters who managed the demobilization stating that they at no time had any contact whatever with James Altwood.”

Deverell smiled and raised his glass. “When he acts, that friend of ours is nothing if not effective.”

Their celebration continued for another half hour, then they all recalled it was the middle of the Season and they had social events to attend, however reluctantly. Alton left, eyes bright, saying he’d see Jack later. Closing the front door behind him, Jack grinned. Alton wasn’t slow; he’d understood enough of their references to have gained a more complete and accurate view of Jack. The brotherly concern that had been directed Jack’s way had largely evaporated, laid to rest. One more hurdle removed from his path.

Smiling to himself, pleased with his day and looking forward to his night, Clarice’s eager questions, and her likely response to their accummulating successes, he climbed the stairs to dress for the evening.

“My dear, your return is the talk of the ton!” Old Lady Swanley beamed at Clarice. “I’m absolutely delighted that Emily could persuade you and Lord Warnefleet to attend tonight.”

Clarice smiled; confident and assured, she settled on the chaise beside Lady Swanley. A childhood friend of Clarice’s mother, Lady Swanley was one who had never wished her ill; it was pleasant to be able to circulate in such company again, to relax with people she didn’t need either to manage or guard against.

Gathered about her ladyship’s table, they’d dined with a select group of guests, then the ladies had left the gentlemen to their port. Ranging in age from Lady Swanley’s venerable years to her granddaughter’s seventeen, the ladies disposed themselves on the chaises and chairs in comfortable groups and settled to their favorite occupation, discussing all they’d seen and heard that day.

Relaxed, Clarice responded easily to questions and comments about herself and her life in the country, her brothers’ romances—romances the ton was only just realizing were being conducted under their collective nose—and rather more carefully to questions touching on her return to the ton and the adjustment likely to flow from that, specifically to Moira’s standing.

“For there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind, my dear, that she’ll take against your success and do her best to hobble you.” Lady Swanley nodded sagely. “She was always a flighty, demanding miss. She thought marrying your father would gain her the status she wanted, and so it would have if she’d behaved appropriately.”

“If she’d had any sense, you mean.” Henrietta Standish snorted. She caught Clarice’s eye. “Moira’s idea of behaving in a manner appropriate to a marchioness is shrilly demanding all due honors.” Henrietta humphed. “It’s never occurred to her that respect is earned, and true status bestowed on one. Neither is given because one stamps one’s foot and insists.”

Every night as she moved through the ton, with Jack’s aunts and Lady Osbaldestone’s backing gradually, step by step, reclaiming her position, Clarice heard more of Moira’s misdeeds, increasingly learned just how close to being deemed persona non grata her stepmother stood. There were moments she almost felt sorry, or at least concerned for Moira, but then the specter of what Moira was holding over Alton’s and Sarah’s heads, what she’d done to Roger and his Alice returned to her mind, and Clarice put aside such softer emotions as unjustified.

Every evening with Jack by her side she continued to juggle the balls they’d tossed spinning into the rarefied atmosphere of the ton’s ballrooms and drawing rooms. Her reemergence, her reinstatement as it were, was focusing the ton’s attention better than they’d hoped; most were agog to learn why she’d returned and were keeping close watch for any hint of an answer.

Her brothers’ romances were of interest, too, but not, yet, as keenly watched. Few had yet realized how serious said romances were; once they did, the majority would assume that her brothers’ impending nuptials were the cause of her return.

In comparison, the rumor about James, a whisper they’d succeeded in coloring as too dangerous to inflate to fully fledged gossip, had faded, almost withered away. The kernel still resided dormant in some minds, but no one felt the need to nurture it, not with so much else to talk about.

Not with the senior branch of the Altwood family so very much the cynosure of the ton’s collective eye.

Later, after the gentlemen had returned to Lady Swanley’s drawing room, and she and Jack had done the rounds, they left for the next event on their schedule, a ball given by one of Clarice’s cousins, Helen Albemarle.

“I find it rather strange”—Clarice leaned back against the carriage’s cushions—“that the family, those I’ve had little contact with over the years, like Helen, seem so ready to welcome me back.” She glanced at the facades sliding past the window. “I hadn’t thought to be so readily reembraced.”

She’d been musing out aloud, something she was falling into the habit of doing when there was only Jack to hear. Somewhat to her surprise, his hand closed more firmly about hers.

“Anthony told me that the wider family, especially the younger generation, didn’t view you with the opprobrium you seemed to expect.”

When she turned to stare at him, Jack smiled at her amazement. “You didn’t seriously imagine I’d rattle up without knowing what we’d face?”

Put like that…she inclined her head, acknowledging that, knowing him as she now did, that would indeed have been a silly notion. However…

He’d asked, had thought to ask Anthony even before they’d set out.

He’d been thinking of her, of what she would face, if she knew anything of him, thinking of how to protect her even then.

Facing forward, she left her hand resting in his, felt the strength of his fingers surrounding her slighter bones, and felt…she wasn’t sure what it was she felt, only that it was novel and somehow precious.

She didn’t have time to dwell on it, not then. The carriage rocked to a halt before another set of front steps, at yet another fashionable address. They alighted beneath an awning and walked up the narrow red carpet laid out to welcome her cousin’s guests. When they reached the ballroom, Helen came sweeping up to greet them.

“I’m so thrilled you could come, and that you’re back with us—I mean among the ton—again.” Helen beamed and embraced her, then turned to greet Jack; Clarice introduced him.