The Memory of Your Kiss Read Free Page A

derring-do.”
    “Carstairs exaggerates,” Lieutenant Quintin said as the four of them sat down.
    “Only when he includes me in that description.” Freckle-faced, sandy-haired, and displaying boyish enthusiasm, Pelham reminded Sydney of her young brother. He jerked a thumb at his companion. “Quintin here is the genuine article. He single-handedly held off twelve or fifteen Frenchies on a bridge at Badajoz to allow others to escape. Captured one of Soult’s cannons in the process.”
    Sydney thought Lieutenant Quintin was genuinely embarrassed as he said, “I assure you, Miss Waverly, Pelham embellishes the story—which is, in any event, hardly suitable as ballroom discourse, or for the ears of a delicate young woman.”
    “Don’t forget, Quintin, I was there,” Pelham said, sounding hurt at Quintin’s reproof.
    “Nevertheless—” Quintin started.
    In jumping to Ensign Pelham’s defense, Sydney also sought to help Lieutenant Quintin divert the discussion. “Oh, I see,” she said in an overly bright tone. “It is all right for young men to live those horrors, but young women must not be exposed even to reports of such.”
    Herbert groaned. “Oh, don’t let her get started on women’s rights.”
    Lieutenant Quintin seemed to welcome a shift in topic, for he assumed a tone of mocking shock. “Do not tell me we have a follower of the scandalous Mary Wollstonecraft in our midst!”
    Mildly surprised that he so readily sidestepped a topic that could only have shown him in a good light, Sydney responded to his gambit by saying, “I will concede that her lifestyle was—uh—less than orthodox, but heavens! were we to judge the ideas of others by the way they conduct their private lives, surely we would have little of interestto read—and very little from Parliament or the Prince Regent worth attending.”
    Lieutenant Quintin chuckled. “Fascinating. A woman whose opinions are not merely an echo of some treatise on ‘How to Be Agreeable to the Male Half of the Species.’”
    Before Sydney could whip out her response to this sally, a simpering female voice intruded. “La! If it isn’t Mr. Carstairs and his cousin. We never thought to see you here so soon after a tiring journey, Miss Waverly. You must be especially eager to sample the offerings of Bath society.”
    “We country girls are hardy stock,” Sydney said to the speaker, a woman named Faith Holmsley who had also been a student at Miss Sebastian’s school, but two years ahead of Sydney. That Miss Holmsley was accompanied by Elizabeth Kenmore came as no surprise, for the Kenmore girl had always shadowed Faith’s every move. Sydney had never particularly liked either of them and she was fully aware that their interest now was not in an old schoolmate, nor in one of their Bath neighbors, but in the smart-looking soldiers. The two women had been visitors in her aunt’s drawing room when Sydney arrived the previous afternoon. Miss Holmsley’s conversation then had turned on her London debut two years ago and how utterly superior London society was to what one found in Bath, but Grandmamma insisted on her annual sojourn to take the waters and Grandmamma was, after all, supplying the wherewithal for a handsome marriage portion. Miss Kenmore’s contributions seemed limited to an occasional “Oh, my, yes.”
    The gentlemen all scrambled to rise to greet the newcomers.
    “Oh, goodness. Please do not get up, gentlemen,” Miss Holmsley said after they were all on their feet. “We would not put England’s wounded soldiers to such trouble.”
    Herbert offered to procure extra chairs for them.
    “Don’t bother, Herbert,” Sydney said. “They may have our seats as we need to find Aunt Harriet. You know what she said.” Then she added with a polite nod at the two soldiers, “If you gentlemen will excuse us—”
    Herbert looked bewildered but joined her in taking their leave of the two soldiers. As they left, Miss Holmsley was gushing.