Wanted: One Scoundrel by Jenny Schwartz Page A

in technological tomfoolery. “And this isn’t your fight? I understand, but you’re wrong. Travel with me, tomorrow. Hear for yourself Bambury’s insidious, pernicious nonsense. I saw you at the tea and the ball. You have charm, and now, you’re a hero. You can do a lot of good—for however long you’re here.”
    “I fear you overestimate me, sir. But I accept your sponsorship.” He had, after all, promised Esme to represent her Women’s Advancement League in the men’s clubs. “With thanks.”
    They shook hands and the doctor departed.
    Jed stood at the window. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his dressing gown.
    He had entered into agreement with Esme light-heartedly enough, intent only on learning more of her and perhaps indulging a pleasant flirtation.
    “I should have stayed with my trade.” He looked at the sky. The clouds were back, grey and low, promising more rain. “Politics!” A rueful smile tugged at his mouth. “Oh lord. What would Father say?”
    Perhaps there was no escaping one’s heritage?
     
    Esme hung her coat in the hall. “I’m fine, Maud.” She refused offers of assistance and the recommendation of a hot bath. “A little rain won’t hurt me.” She ran up the stairs to her room.
    A personal maid was one of the trappings of wealth she’d steadfastly refused, just as her father rejected the notion of a valet. If you weren’t careful, wealth could rob you of all privacy.
    She closed her bedroom door with a sense of relief and leaned back against it. A deep tremor shook her.
    When Jed had dived from the bridge, all the horror stories she’d heard of lives lost in the river had risen to torment her. Only the strongest of disciplines enabled her to maneuver the gig through the crowd and wait with outward composure. She’d been so relieved, so glad, when Mr. Vann pulled Jed and the boy from the river.
    Common sense said a handful of days wasn’t nearly long enough for her heart to stop at the thought of losing Jed.
    The intensity of her reaction spooked her and she’d grabbed for the excuse of returning Gupta Singh to his family and an ayurvedic practitioner’s care. She’d left the boy excitedly recounting his adventure to his aunt and uncle, and singing Jed’s praises.
    “Jed Reeve.” She straightened from the door. If he was a scoundrel, he was one with intelligence and courage, and compassion—she’d seen how he’d danced with the wallflowers at the ball. A small sign, and yet…
    Perhaps her intense response to his peril wasn’t so strange? He’d become a friend.
     
    “So you’re the hero of the hour?” Nicholas Bambury drawled. “Rescuing a Hindoo from the river. Quite an achievement.” His tone disparaged it.
    The wood-paneled, leather-furnished, understated luxury of the men’s club fit Bambury like a tailored backdrop. Here, he was the undeniable leader, handsome, athletic, a son of the aristocracy.
    Jed shrugged. “I felt like a swim.”
    The comment won a few laughs and the tension Bambury had been building dissipated. Men turned back to a discussion of horses and, by degrees, of newer forms of transport.
    An elderly gentleman was loudly in favor of automobiles. Although he wanted them powered by steam. Younger men decried such adherence to old-fashioned notions. Steam was all very well, indeed, they wanted tracks laid for steam locomotives to power across the country, joining the west and eastern coasts.
    “But gasoline is the future.”
    “The smell?” Jed queried mildly.
    Questions of smell were brushed aside as nothing compared to horse dung on a hot summer’s day.
    As in the Smiths’ drawing room, a miniature railway circled the room, but nothing moved on it.
    “One of Amberley’s failures,” a young man said dismissively. His protuberant eyes blinked behind smoked glass goggles. Wearing those brass-framed monstrosities inside was a misguided fashion decision in every sense. “The old dabbler hooked it up to run on electricity using