Free June Calvin by The Dukes Desire Page A

his horse needed cooling down. Henry had, perforce, to excuse himself also, leaving two excited girls, two worried parents, and one agitated young man in his wake.
    “Where had you met Fortesque?” Harwood asked him.
    “He was in my regiment.”
    Harwood raised an interrogative eyebrow. Jennifer was waiting for more, too. When none was forthcoming in spite of John’s obviously carefully reined emotion, she pressed him. “Was he not a good soldier, sir?”
    John looked at her regretfully. “Yes, indeed, one of the best. Quite without fear.”
    “But?”
    “Jennifer,” Lady Cornwall cautioned, “do not badger Mr. Warner.”
    But Sarah joined forces with her friend. She had seen the tension between the two young men as well. “Yes, John,” she urged. “You may as well say it, for we will only be imagining much worse than it is, you know.”
    “I expect it was just because of the anxiety that precedes battle, but he was inclined toward gaming beyond his means,” John slowly admitted, not liking the role of talebearer. “Doubtless he has mended his ways now.”
    “And do you know anything against Lord Alexander?” Sarah held her breath.
    “No. He is a bit younger. He didn’t take up his colors until after Boney was defeated.” Taking pity on Sarah’s anxious look, John added, “Certainly he was very competent in his duties as the Regent’s equerry last year when we were planning your ball.”
    Sarah’s smile was radiant. “Yes, he was, and so kind when I felt intimidated by it all. And doesn’t he look splendid in his uniform? And Mr. Fortesque, too.”
    Jennifer and her mother quickly agreed, while John and the duke exchanged amused glances. “Ready to have that uniform mended now?” Harwood asked sotto voce, for his secretary’s ears only. “Polish up your medals?”
    John nodded solemnly. “Perhaps instead of standing for Parliament I should buy back my commission.”
    Jennifer startled them both by abandoning the distaff side of the conversation to put her slender gloved hand on John’s arm. “Oh, please do not, Mr. Warner,” she begged, raising adoring brown eyes to his. “You have been wounded in the service of your country. That is quite enough military glory, and now Britain needs your abilities in the government.”
    “I am very flattered,” John responded promptly, “and will do exactly as you bid me.”
    Jennifer, as if suddenly aware of her boldness, blushed and looked down shyly, but her mouth curved into a pleased smile. Since she did not glance at her mother then, she did not see, as Sarah and her father did, that Lady Cornwall was looking decidedly alarmed at this exchange.
    Hoping to distract her, Sarah coughed and waved her handkerchief about. “Such dust! And the heat is excessive. I am perishing of thirst.”
    “I have heard it said that only ices at Gunter’s will overcome parade dust.” Winking at his daughter, Harwood gave the coachman his orders.
    ***
    Much later that evening, the day’s dramas continued to have their effect on the various participants. In the Harwood mansion, Sarah and her father and John dined
en famille
, and Sarah ingeniously observed that she had changed her mind about purchasing new gowns. Only a few days earlier, she had refused her father’s urgings to outfit herself in the newest fashions, remarking dispiritedly that her wardrobe from last season would be more than sufficient for her role in helping her father seek a wife.
    But this evening she informed him that she had underestimated the number of gowns she would need, and as well, the extent of the changes in fashions. “It would not do your consequence any good, would it, Father, to appear the dowd? Indeed, it might discourage a very fashionable woman from marrying you.”
    Harwood quickly agreed. Delighted to see the sparkle back in his daughter’s eyes, he offered to accompany her on a shopping expedition on the morrow. Silently, he prayed that John’s investigations of Meade and