Free A Valentine Wedding by Jane Feather Page A

myself.”
    Cranham didn’t dignify this impossibility with a response. He bowed and withdrew.
    Alasdair’s grin faded. He’d spent the last four days racketing around the Hampshire countryside, staying in damnably uncomfortable inns, because he couldn’t return to London without having been away a sufficient length of time to justify a trip to Lincolnshire. Emma would have made some comment. It was possible, of course, that she would hear from the Grantleys of his visit, but he considered it unlikely. There was so little love lost between Hester Grantley and her niece that communication would probably extend no further than yuletide greetings. However, if it did come out, by that time this business should be settled once and for all.
    He took the sheet of vellum out of his pocket and opened the wafer with his fingernail. It was from his contact at Horseguards. He scanned the vigorously penned lines. Charles Lester was a man of unsoldierly bearing, but his stick-thin frame, hunched shoulders, and concave chest belied a mind as sharp as a razor. He spoke in short, concise sentences and he wrote as he spoke.
    It has come to our attention that others are interested in the document in question. We are making further inquiries, but you should be on your guard. I will keep you informed. CL.
    Alasdair scrunched the missive in his fist and threw it into the fire. Very informative it had been, he thought aridly, refilling his wineglass. Telling him to be on his guard without the slightest clue against whom.
    He glanced at the clock. It was close to seven. WasEmma dining at home? he wondered. Once he would have thought nothing of dropping in and inviting himself to dinner, claiming the privilege first of an old friend and then of a fiancé. He shook his head impatiently and went into his bedchamber next door, where Cranham was laying out his evening clothes.
    Half an hour later, he was walking across the hall when his upstairs neighbor came down the stairs almost as if on cue. “Lord Alasdair, you are returned,” said Paul Denis with his charming smile.
    “As you see.” Alasdair nodded politely, taking the other’s outstretched hand. “I am going to dine at White’s. Are you a member?”
    “Oh, yes, indeed. Prince Esterhazy put up my name. He is an old acquaintance of my father’s. I was on my way to dine there myself, as it happens. Perhaps I could …” He waited politely.
    “By all means,” Alasdair said. He was not averse to company after four days of his own, and it was always useful to maintain good relations with one’s neighbors.
    The evening was convivial, and when the company moved to the card tables, Paul Denis was quick to take his place at the first invitation to join them. Alasdair brought to the gambling table the same clearheaded skills he brought to investing. In fact, the two activities were inextricably combined. What he won at the card tables, he augmented at the Exchange in stocks and shares. It would have explained to Emma his apparent ability to live on air, had he chosen to enlighten her. Ned had known of his uncanny skill at making much of little. It had presumably been one reason why he had entrusted his old friend with Emma’s fortune.
    But not the only reason. Although Alasdair hadn’tadmitted it to Emma, he agreed with her that Ned had hoped to achieve a reconciliation between his sister and his friend by throwing them together in such intimate conjunction. It would have grieved him to see how far off the mark he’d been. Alasdair took up his cards, a tiny sigh escaping him.
    The subject, as he’d expected, came up within a very short time.
    “I hear Emma Beaumont’s back in town,” Lord Alveston commented, pushing a rouleau of guineas across the table.
    “Yes, and, as no doubt you’ve also heard, under her brother’s will I am her trustee,” Alasdair said coolly, making his own bet.
    “Deuced awkward, that,” remarked a gentleman with a startlingly painted face.
    “Oh, and why