The Passionate Friends. Meg Alexander

for. Her pithy little vignettes describing the foibles of the world about her reduced her tiny audience to tears of laughter.

      Now, at the mention of Dan’s name, Judith started and turned her head. Naked emotion showed for an instant on her face, but it was quickly banished.

      “How is Dan?” she asked in an even voice. Not for a second must she betray the wrenching agony of that final interview six years ago. These loving friends must never know how bitterly she regretted her decision to refuse the man she loved. They loved him too, and they would not forgive her.

      “He’s home at last,” Elizabeth said with satisfaction. “He’s changed, of course—quite the elegant man about town now that he is grown so tall and broad—but beneath it all he is still the same old Dan.”

      Judith felt a twinge of panic. She must not see him, especially now when she had steeled herself to wed the Reverend Truscott. That would be a refinement of torture. She rose to take her leave.

      “Do stay!” Elizabeth begged. “The men will be home quite soon. Perry and Sebastian will be sorry to miss you, and you haven’t seen Dan for years—”

      “Judith may have other appointments,” Prudence broke in swiftly. She was well aware of what had happened all those years ago. Had she not spent months listening to an inconsolable Dan? How she’d struggled to provide him with diversions, but nothing had served to comfort him. In the end it was Sebastian who had suggested a solution. Dan had been accepted as a chartmaker on a trip to the Antipodes. To part with the boy she’d first known as a terrified nine-year-old foundling had been a wrench, but Dan had welcomed the suggestion, and therefore she’d agreed to it.

      Judith would not be swayed. She drew on her gloves with what she hoped was not unseemly haste. Then she looked down at the anxious faces of her friends.

      “My dears, you must not worry about me,” she said quietly. “I am persuaded that this is for the best. I shall have my own home, and hopefully a family. That must count for something…” Her smile wavered only a very little.

      Judith’s expression cut Elizabeth to the heart. She flung her arms about her friends.

      “Promise me one thing,” she cried. “Don’t set your wedding date just yet! Give yourself time to consider…”

      “I have considered,” Judith replied. “We are to wed in four weeks’ time…”

      “Oh, no—!” Whatever Elizabeth had been about to add to this unfortunate remark was stilled as the door to the salon opened, and three gentlemen entered the room.

      It was obvious at once that two of them were brothers. The family resemblance between Sebastian, Lord Wentworth, and the younger figure of Peregrine was strong. Both men were well above the middle height, and powerfully built, though Peregrine topped his brother by an inch or two. They had the same dark eyes, strong features, and a decided air of authority. Perhaps it was something in the clean lines of the jaw, or a certain firmness in the mobile lips which did not invite argument.

      Now both men were smiling as they led their companion towards Judith.

      “Here is an old friend come to greet you,” Peregrine announced cheerfully. “He is grown so large that I shall not wonder if you do not recognise him.”

      Judith was forced to proffer a trembling hand, but she could not meet Dan’s eyes. Then the familiar head, topped with a mass of red-gold curls, bent to salute her fingertips. Dan stopped just short of pressing his lips against her skin. The gesture was all that courtesy demanded, but the touch of his hand was enough to set her senses reeling.

      She drew her own away as if she had been stung, but Dan did not appear to notice.

      “I hope I find you well, Miss Aveton,” he said with cool formality.

      Elizabeth looked startled. “Great heavens, Dan, what is this? You are grown mighty high in the instep since you lived among the aborigines. This is our own dear Judith. Have you forgot?”

      “I have forgotten nothing.” He laid no stress upon his words, but Judith understood. The wound had gone too deep. She would not be given an opportunity to explain, and perhaps it was better not to try. They must go their separate ways, though the thought of her own future filled her with despair.

      Later she could not remember how she got herself out of the room and into her carriage. She had some vague recollections of promising another visit, but her head was spinning. It was all she could do to take her leave with an exchange of mechanical civilities, struggling for self-control until she could be alone.

      As the door closed behind her, Peregrine looked at his wife.

      “Well, my love, had you not best tell us all about it? I know that look of old. Something has happened to distress you—”

      “Judith is going to be wed,” Elizabeth said flatly.

      Sebastian smiled at her. “That, surely, is a matter for congratulation, is it not?”

      “No, it isn’t!” Elizabeth cried. “Oh, Perry, you won’t believe it! She is to marry that awful creature, the Reverend Truscott.”

      “My darling, I hope that you did not tell her of your views. It must have been her own decision, and hardly your concern.”

      “It is my concern. Judith is my friend. I can’t bear to see her throw herself away on that…that snake!”

      “These are strong words, Elizabeth.” Sebastian’s smile had vanished. “The man is a well-known preacher. Why have you taken him in such dislike?”

      Elizabeth glanced at her husband, and knew that she must speak with caution. Perry’s temper was as hasty as her own. She must not mention the leering looks with which the preacher always greeted her, the silky murmurings in her ear with offers to counsel her alone, or the fact that the Reverend Truscott always held her hand for much longer than courtesy demanded.

      “I don’t quite know,” she murmured. “I find him sinister. There is something of the night about him.”

      “It must be your imagination, dearest.” Perry took Elizabeth’s hand. “I suspect that you have no wish to lose your friend to anyone.”

      Sebastian looked at Prudence. “You are very quiet, my love. Have you no opinions on this matter?”

      Prudence was struggling with her own emotions. She knew Dan’s heart almost as well as she knew her own.

      Dan had stiffened for just a moment at Elizabeth’s news, but when she forced herself to glance at him his expression was carefully neutral.

      “Judith’s announcement came as a shock to us,” she said lightly. “We had no idea, you see, that Mr Truscott thought of Judith, or she of him. He gave no indication of any special attachment to her.”

      “Until she became an heiress,” Elizabeth cried fiercely. “Can you be in any doubt of the reason for this sudden offer?”

      “My darling, that is unfair,” Perry protested at once. “We all love Judith for her special qualities. I wonder only that she had not wed before.”

      It was at this point that Dan excused himself, with a muttered explanation of a forgotten engagement. He had grown so pale that the freckles stood out sharply against his fair skin, and there was a strange, lost look in his blue eyes.

      “Everyone is behaving so strangely today,” Elizabeth complained. “What ails Dan? Have I said something to upset him?”

      “Perhaps he doesn’t care to listen to gossip,” Prudence soothed. “He is still out of things as yet. He doesn’t know the people of whom we speak.”

      “He knows Judith. I should have thought that he’d like to know about the man whom she is to wed. Oh, Prudence, now that he is back, do you think that she will change her mind?”

      “I doubt it. She seemed quite determined.”

      “Then something