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her.
    “A lovely party, Amelia. I am delighted I could fit it in, since I will be staying in England for only a few days before returning to the Continent. But I trust that your granddaughter is not ill.”
    The duchess summoned up a false smile. “India? The girl’s healthy as a horse. I expect it’s just the heat and crush. She’s unaccustomed to balls or to town life.”
    “She was in Brussels, I think? I seem to remember her from Lady Richmond’s ball.”
    The duchess was amazed that the duke could recall such a detail in a night that must have been sheer chaos on the eve of Waterloo. “So she was. She stayed on afterward. I’m afraid the war left its mark on her.”
    “As it did on all of us,” Wellington said grimly. “Our victory was hard won. Still, she’ll forget. If gossip runs true, Lord Longborough as well as a score of junior officers would be only too happy to teach her how.”
    The duchess frowned at the door of the study where India now lay resting. Longborough was a spineless fool and the junior officers were not much better. What India needed was a man of courage and honor, a man with an adventurous spirit to match hers. The duchess remembered how the girl’s joy had slid into shattering pain when she had looked across the crowded room that evening.
    Who had she seen?
    “You are certain there is nothing I can do to help?”
    “Nothing. You are more than kind, but my granddaughter will be fine. Just enjoy yourself. Of course, if you should happen to hear Lady Jersey spreading cattish tales about my granddaughter falling into a decline, I would be most grateful if you would cut them off promptly, Your Grace.”
    “I would be delighted. Ah, there’s an old friend up from Sussex. I really should—” The duke stopped suddenly, his body rigid.
    “Your Grace, is something wrong? You look disturbed.”
    Wellington straightened his sleeve, eyes on the thronged ballroom. “It is … nothing. For a moment I thought I saw the face of someone I knew. Forgive me.”
    The duchess frowned, turning back to the study. She had sent a servant to fetch the family physician from Montagu Street. He was old, but thorough. He had tended India since her birth, though the girl had been sick only twice that the duchess could recall.
    The duchess heard the ring of Lady Jersey’s high-pitched laughter followed by Helena Marchmont’s irritating titter. Shrews, both of them, the duchess thought. She only prayed that Wellington would do his part to scotch any gossip about India’s condition.
    But let a single soul try to say a word to her, the duchess vowed. Every inch of her tiny frame went stiff at the thought. Family had always come first in her life, and anyone attacking India would soon be cut into tiny ribbons.
    The duchess swore to begin with Lady Jersey and that fox-faced Helena Marchmont.
    ~ ~ ~
     
    But India’s illness did not become the byword of the evening that it had promised to become. A new source of curiosity had gripped the ton in the arresting sight of its greatest rake turned valiant soldier, newly returned from the dead.
    Wellington, too, had noticed Thornwood. He nodded coolly to his former aide and for a moment their eyes met, turquoise to slate. Without another word the duke left the room.
    Only Ian Delamere, standing just outside the study, noticed the faint nod that the duke had made before he left.
    And it was Ian, his face hard with resolve, who ran Thornwood down in the broad alcove of the duchess’s town house as the earl prepared to make his departure from the ball he obviously found of little interest.
    “A word, if you please.”
    Thornwood turned slowly. His brow rose. “Yes?”
    “Have you nothing to say, man?” Ian stared in amazement at the officer with whom he had marched through Portugal and the snows of half of Spain. “I thought you were dead. We all did.”
    “An obvious error, as you can see.”
    “Where have you been all these months?” Ian’s eyes narrowed.