The Memory of Your Kiss Read Free Page B

“Lieutenant Quintin, I am especially pleased to see you here this evening. You simply must tell me all about your brave stand at Badajoz—orwas it Salamanca?” She giggled. “Oh, dear, those foreign places all sound so strange.”
    Sydney and Herbert drifted out of earshot as she prattled on.
    “What was that about my mother?” Herbert asked.
    “Oh, nothing. I just wanted to escape those two females. They were in school with Celia and me.”
    “I know. Celia likes them well enough, though.”
    “Celia is more tolerant than I. I did not want to listen to any more of the ‘Bath-is-so-provincial-and-London-is-so-exciting’ chit-chat such as we heard from them yesterday.”
    “So we left Pelham and Quintin to endure it?”
    Sydney felt a twinge of conscience at this. “I think they will manage. Most men love to talk about their exploits.” She said this just as though she actually knew what might fascinate “most men.”
    “That has not been my impression of those two—especially Quintin,” Herbert said.
    Any response Sydney might have made was lost as they encountered another of Herbert’s friends, Baron Anthony Whitfield, a fashion-conscious young dandy who had also been a visitor in Aunt Harriet’s drawing room yesterday. He promptly asked Sydney to dance, and Sydney was further chagrined to find him every bit as self-absorbed as Faith Holmsley. Serves you right , she told herself.
    Lieutenant Quintin was annoyed. Miss Waverly had simply dismissed him and Pelham out of hand with a lame excuse, and not ten minutes later she was whirling through the forms of a country dance on the arm of that fop Whitfield!
    Even with this ugly scar slashing across his face, Zachary Andrew Quintin was not accustomed to being treated with indifference. In fact, in the last few weeks, he had found that the scar, along with the limp which he hoped to be rid of sooner rather than later, had given him a certain cachet with the fair sex. And now this slip of a girl—whose expressive gray-green eyes, light brown hair, and very kissable lips had set his senses to humming—this slip of a girl had first intrigued him, then left him to endure the usual pointless ballroom chatter. Still, he thought her suggestion that they all sit had come from her sensitivity to his and Pelham’s injuries, so she was not so concerned with herself as many other young women seemed wont to be—like the two with whom she had left them.
    Miss Waverly’s virtually snubbing you did you a favor , he told himself, his natural sense of humor winning out over the annoyance. Talk about self-absorbed! Too full of yourself by half. This sojourn into civilian life is making you soft and complacent. Next you will be worrying about such momentous matters as how many folds you can manage in a cravat—like that coxcomb, Whitfield. At least an army uniform protected one from that extreme.
    On a very practical level, however, Zachary was aware of—but deliberately chose to ignore—his worth on the social scene, though it was very well known by hopeful misses and their avaricious mamas. As a civilian, Zachary Quintin was just a plain “mister,” but his mother was Lady Leonora, daughter of the sixth Earl of Paxton, and Zachary was the principal heir to the immense fortune his father had amassed in the last century during service with the East India Company. But Zachary himself dismissed these attributes, for they had not come from his efforts.
    He might have commanded a good deal of attention for his status as a war hero, but so far he’d not been tempted to play that card—and did not anticipate ever doing so. The very idea was repugnant, disrespectful to men who were real heroes, whereas he had merely been in a particular place at an opportune—or perhaps inopportune—time.
    Within a few weeks he fully intended to be on his way back to the Peninsula. By then the leg should have fully mended, and he would have got through his cousin Henry’s wedding. His mind