Free His Heart's Delight by Mary Blayney

trust.”
    They joined the others and made their
farewells.
    As he escorted the group from the building to
their carriages, he let the banter float around him as he
considered their last words. He had no doubt Christiana Lambert was
worthy of his trust. The only thing that worried him still was how
widely known her attachment to Richard Wilton was.
    Though little more than a farce, this game he
hoped to play was not with dice, but with society and his family.
He did not want to destroy her reputation or his own.
    He needed to know how things stood between
the lovely Miss Christiana and her Richard. She insisted that their
romance was a secret, but he had only her word for that. If her
attachment to Wilton was more than that—an understanding, or worse,
an engagement in the eyes of all back home—then word would reach
Sussex and Braemoor as easily as it reached London. Society would
take umbrage and James would call him a cheat.
    He hoped to find out tonight at dinner. What
young Wilton knew would be the deciding factor on his part. As for
Christiana, he knew she would not proceed without her sister’s
support.
    He bowed to the party as their carriage moved
away and looked to his own, wondering if he would have to hire a
new cook when Pratt learned that he was preparing dinner for four
on five hours’ notice.
    ~ ~ ~
    The dinner went better than Morgan had hoped.
Pratt was neither French nor temperamental and had a family to
support, so the food was ready on time with little complaint. If it
was not as elaborate as some he’d enjoyed at this table, the
quantity of dishes more than compensated for its simplicity.
    More to the point, with the aid of some
excellent wine and a few probing questions, Peter Wilton seemed
willing, even eager, to tell Morgan of his family and his older
brother’s hopes, both military and matrimonial.
    “Richard’s been army mad since he was old
enough to understand what 1066 meant. We played with soldiers for
hours on end.” The covers had been removed and the four sat with
glasses of port and an evening of amiable play ahead of them.
    Rhys and an Oxford mate, William Gaffney,
were discussing some esoteric astronomical discovery with the
intensity only two inebriated intellects could command. Morgan gave
Peter his undivided attention.
    He sipped his port, wondering how much of
Wilton’s childhood he would hear about before Christiana entered
the picture.
    “When my mother was ill with her last
confinement, all three of us, even our oldest brother Henry, spent
much of our time at Lambert Hill. Christiana’s brother was as keen
on battles as Richard and we would combine our soldiers for some
dashed fine fights.”
    “Miss Lambert has a brother?”
    “Yes.” Wilton nodded. “George. He is in
Jamaica visiting an uncle.”
    “If you three and George were anything like
me and my brothers, more than once those battles escalated into
fist fights and bloody noses. Did the Miss Lamberts nurse the
wounds?”
    “Christiana and Joanna were always underfoot.
So we put them to work, constructing the Alps from papermaché when
we reenacted Hannibal’s invasion and then made up battles of our
own. But Richard tired of those games years ago.
    “Father knew General Moore and after Corunna
he finally consented to purchase a commission for Richard and in
his old regiment. Now he is off on what Father calls ‘Napoleon’s
version of the Grand Tour.’”
    “Hardly the pleasure trip the Grand Tour was
supposed to have been,” Morgan drawled and recalled the awful
stories of the Corunna retreat. “Your father is Sir Howard
Wilton?”
    Peter nodded. “A second son who inherited
when my uncle died from an inflammation of the lungs. Father was
set on a military career himself. He loved the army but had only
six months’ service before he had to sell out.”
    Which explains why he was willing to let his
second son go off and risk his life.
    Morgan had dismissed the footmen with the
covers and offered to