Free How to Woo a Widow by Manda Collins Page A

this?”
    “Not at all! I am merely thinking of the good of this family, something that you have been too little inclined to consider since your return from playing at war.”
    Before Leighton could argue, Fullerton continued, “Now, I know being wounded has perhaps dented your confidence a bit. But you was always in the petticoat line. Indeed that crumpet you kept in Half Moon Street before you went haring off to Portugal was a sweet piece of…”
    “Unless you care to feel the sensation of my fist against your nose, Fullerton,” Anthony’s tone was pleasant but deadly serious, “I would suggest you stop talking now.”
    Fullerton blanched, but nodded. “Quite so, quite so.” He cleared his throat before continuing. “What I meant to say, dear boy, was that it might do you a bit of good to find a bride. Set up your nursery. Perhaps Katherine was the one who suggested I mention it to you, but I think it’s a fine idea myself. All you need is to make yourself agreeable this evening and you’ll have the ladies fawning all over you. So, come along with us tonight and give it a go.”
    Anthony had agreed and swiftly took his leave lest Fullerton decide to suggest what attire might be appropriate for the evening. How Katherine could stand to live with the fellow was beyond his comprehension. And yet, she had always been a bit of a flibbertigibbet herself so perhaps they had quite a lot in common.
    But as soon as they arrived Anthony knew that blithely chatting with the other guests in their party would be impossible. He might wear the same evening rig as the other gentlemen: dark blue cutaway coat with a snowy white cravat and buff breeches. He might carry the same fashionable accoutrements as the other gentlemen: a fine walking stick in his hand and a lacquered snuffbox in his pocket. But inside, he was not like the other gentlemen. Not at all.
    No, he was nothing like these fribbles gathered here tonight to celebrate a victory, the sacrifices and losses of which they could have no conception. Indeed, he wondered if they could even tell Vittoria from Vincennes on a map. He doubted it.
    War, and all its horrors, had changed him. But if he were truly honest with himself, he would admit that the actual transformation had not begun when he set foot on the Peninsula. His world had shifted before then.
    On the day he’d killed his best friend, James Bascombe.
     
     
    As more and more people wended their way into the already crowded gardens, he sat within his family’s box and listened without hearing as his mother and sisters chattered on about the beauty of the lights and the tenderness of the ham. Smiled politely at Lady Dalrymple on his left, who kept up enough conversation for the both of them and wondered with a growing sense of alarm when he might abandon his party and stalk away into the blessed darkness of the walks beyond.
    At last, when he could endure it no more, he made his apologies in the middle of Lady Dalrymple’s monologue, nodded politely to everyone at his table, ignored his mother and sisters’ faint protests and fled.
    Now, having reached a deserted alcove amongst the trees, he allowed himself to stop, dropping in relief to a bench. He allowed his public mask to slip, leaned over with his forearms on his knees and concentrated on his own breathing. Slowly, slowly, his heartbeat calmed, his tension faded and the panic eased away.
    “Does it happen very often?” a feminine voice murmured from behind him. “It plagued my husband like the very de…deuce when he returned from Talavera. He could not bear a night at the theatre. After a few weeks in town we retired to the country where he might be spared the noise and the unwashed masses. Of course, there were other ghosts to plague him in the country. There always are with war, one finds.”
    He had raised his head at her first words, and now struggled to make her out in the dim light of the shadowy alcove. There was something strangely familiar about