The Memory of Your Kiss Read Free

entertaining callers in the drawing room. Later there would be a small gathering at the home of retired Admiral Crowley for cards and charades, and, tomorrow, a ball in the assembly rooms.
    It was at the ball that Sydney met Lieutenant Zachary Quintin, who had come to Bath on convalescent leave from the Iberian Peninsula. There, he served with the inimitable Arthur Wellesley, Lord Wellington, whose troops continued to wage a hard struggle against Napoleon’s French and Spanish armies. Quintin, leaning on a cane, stood on the sidelines of the ball with two other uniformed soldiers, the three of them watching the dancers and undoubtedly commenting on the young women present.
    When the Carstairs party arrived, Aunt Harriet waved the younger people off to the ballroom as she joined her friends, the Crowleys.
    On spotting the soldiers, Herbert immediately steered his sister and their cousin across the room. “Celia. Sydney. You must meet these fellows. Great guns, all.”
    Sydney suspected Cousin Herbert of a serious case of hero worship, or envy at least. One of the trio, Ensign Trevor Harrelson, had been in a class two years ahead of Herbert’s at Winchester. The third man, Ensign Robert Pelham was of an age with Trevor and Herbert, while Lieutenant Quintin was three or four years older than they.
    When he had made the introductions and the others bowed or curtsied as custom required, Herbert added, “Did I not assure you that I would arrive with the prettiest girls in all Somerset?”
    “That you did,” Ensign Harrelson said, looking at the golden-haired, blue-eyed Celia. “Amazing how pesky little girls grow into such phenomena of beauty.”
    Celia laughed and tapped him on the arm with her fan. “No, Trevor. The amazing thing is that boys finally notice us. I remember very well begging you and Herbert to let me go riding or climb trees with you.”
    “Well, you needn’t beg now! And if I’m not too late, may I claim you for the dance just starting?” She agreed and Harrelson cast a look of insincere sympathy at his fellow soldiers. “Sorry, fellows. It falls to me to uphold the army’s honor on the dance floor.”
    Sydney had felt a strange sensation pervade her body as her eyes met those of Lieutenant Quintin and she quickly lowered her lashes, lest he and others standing near perceive her confusion. Despite a still angry-looking scar—a jagged red slash running from his left temple nearly to his chin—and the fact that he had to rely on a cane to walk with ease, the lieutenant was a very striking figure. Seen only from the right, he was breathtakingly handsome with brown eyes so dark as to be almost black. He had black hair, too, and distinct black brows, a straight nose, and a firm jawline. He had a rather wide mouth and white, even teeth that shone against a suntanned complexion.
    And he is probably a conceited ass, she told herself, trying to assert control over what was, for her, a most unusual reaction to any man. Good heavens! This was probably what her friend Marianne had meant when she had told the other girls, in a forbidden midnight gab session—and with sigh-bedecked gushes of praise—that she felt “all squashy inside” whenever, William, Viscount Asterly, chanced to touch her hand. Of course Viscount Asterly was now Marianne’s husbandand there was absolutely no possibility that this, this Lieutenant Whatever, could ever be anything but the merest chance acquaintance to Miss Sydney Waverly.
    Herbert’s voice abruptly drew her out of this moment of reverie. “I say, cousin, having arrived in Bath only yesterday, you may not know that you stand in the presence of genuine war heroes.”
    “Oh?” Her tone evincing polite interest, she gestured at a group of empty chairs nearby. With Harrelson’s parting comment about the army’s honor, she had noticed that Pelham, too, leaned on a cane, so she added, “We surely are standing. Let us sit and you may regale me with tales of heroism and