Hanover Square Affair, The by Ashley Gardner Read Free Book Online Page B

to see you, though you do not look the same. What happened to you?”
    “That,” I said, “is a very long story.”
    Sergeant-major Foster rubbed his hands. “Well, well, quite a reunion tonight. How’s the colonel, Captain?”
    I dragged my gaze from Janet back to Foster’s tanned and smiling face. “I beg your pardon?”
    “Bless me, he’s forgotten already. Our commander, sir. Colonel Brandon. Your best mate.”
    I flinched as the truth wanted to come out, but I masked it in politeness. “The colonel is in good health. As is his wife.”
    Janet cocked her head, her eyes skeptical, but she said nothing.
    “Pleased to hear it,” Foster said. “I’ve had a bit of luck meself. Me old uncle passed on and it seems he had quite a bit of money laid by. All came to me. I’m thinking of going to Surrey and finding a nice little house in the countryside. What do you think of that for an old sergeant, eh, Captain?”
    “I think it excellent news, Sergeant-major.”
    “When I’m all settled in, I’ll send word, and we’ll have a nice long talk over old times.”
    “I’d like that.”
    My mouth spoke the expected responses, but my thoughts, and eyes, were on Janet. She looked back at me, her smile pulling me to her and telling me all I needed to know.
    “We’ll let the captain get on now, Mrs. Clarke,” the sergeant-major was saying. He saluted again, stiff and exact. “Good night, then, sir.”
    I saluted back. “Good night, Sergeant-major. Mrs. Clarke.” I wondered who the devil Mr. Clarke was, but that question would have to wait.
    Janet took my offered hand, and the brief, warm pressure sent a slight tremor through me. I realized then that although I’d sent Janet away all those years ago, I’d never truly let her go.
    They said their good-byes and walked on together. My feet led me the other way, toward Long Acre. After I’d gone perhaps ten paces, I stopped and looked back. Janet walked beside Foster, equal to the small man’s height. She turned her head and looked back at me.
    She’d always been able to tell what was in my heart. I imagined, as our gazes locked, that she could tell what beat there now.
    At last she turned away, and I walked on, but the world had changed.
    *** *** ***
    “Gossip is flying about you, my friend,” Lucius Grenville said as his butler silently presented me a goblet of French brandy. I thanked him and sipped the fine liquid, my eyes closing briefly in appreciation.
    We reposed in the upstairs sitting room of Grenville’s Grosvenor Street house. The façade of the house was simple, almost austere, in the style of the Adam brothers from the later years of the last century. The inside, however, was lavishly furnished. This room in particular showcased items from Grenville’s travels: carpets from the Orient piled the floor, a silk tent hung overhead. Ivory and bits of Egyptian jewelry filled a curio shelf near the door, and a gold mask of some ancient Egyptian adorned the fireplace mantel. Furniture ranged from a Turkish couch to mundane straight-backed chairs set at random around the room. Real wax candles, dozens of them, brightened the gloom and softened the colors around us.
    I recalled the faux Egyptian room in Horne’s house and wondered if the man had tried to emulate this chamber, though it was unlikely he’d ever seen it in person. If he’d meant to imitate, he’d fallen far short of the mark.
    Grenville himself was a slim man a few years younger than I, with dark hair that curled over his collar and sideburns that drew to a point just below his high cheekbones. His eyes were black in his sharp face, his nose long and sloping. He could not be called a handsome man, but there were hordes of women, respectable matrons and Cyprians alike, willing to forgive him for it.
    In that morning’s post, I had found a letter from Grenville, informing me that his carriage would call for me at eleven o’clock to carry me to his home. I was torn between annoyance and