Wicked Wager

by Beverley Eikli

  Lord Peregrine arched his eyebrow. ‘Don’t tell me you had no choice, Miss Rosington,’ he said under his breath.

  Despairingly Celeste swung out of his orbit, held up by a different kind of passion. ‘I have no choice, now, when it comes to marrying my cousin,’ she hissed, turning to run lightly back up the stairs, stopping near the top to add over her shoulder, ‘Don’t blame me for the fact you still want me, even if you can’t believe the truth from my own lips—though I don’t understand how any decent human being could pretend kindness while engineering the ruin of the woman he professes to love. I rue the day I ever met you!’

  ***

  Well, didn’t he just feel the same?

  Yet for the first time her impassioned denial of culpability hit a nerve. Xenia and Charlotte had been convincing in their condemnation, while he had exhausted every counter argument. Yet could there be a kernel of truth in her fiery protestations?

  Weary now with spent passion, Perry returned to his carriage where he rested his head against the window while the coachman awaited orders.

  How could he distinguish truth from fiction, when on the one hand all he had were Miss Rosington’s denials of wrongdoing, counterbalanced with the irrefutable evidence of finding her in bed with Harry Carstairs, an illicit relationship backed up by a mountain of hearsay, rumours and innuendo that Carstairs and Miss Rosington were long-time lovers?

  ‘Where to, my lord?’ The coachman’s impatient, yet respectful tones floated down from the box.

  Perry rubbed a weary hand over his face. He should call on Charlotte and see how she fared if he were the loyal brother he professed to be. Last night he’d assured her he believed her assertions against Miss Rosington, if only to stop her taking a knife to her wrists.

  Nevertheless, the thought of spending a gloomy fifteen minutes in his sister’s company was the last thing he felt like. He hoped Charlotte would be sufficiently satisfied by the social ruin of the woman who’d caused Harry Carstairs to abandon her at the altar to stop harping on about it.

  To his dismay he found Charlotte in a listless mood, staring out of the drawing room window when he was announced.

  ‘Should I order refreshment, Perry?’ she asked, languidly waving him over. ‘Or is this a bolting visit to satisfy your conscience that I’ve not tried to slice my wrists again?’ She held up her hands and contemplated the lace ruffles that festooned from the elbows of her polonaise. ‘Well, I haven’t, but nor have I ruled it out.’

  Perry rolled his eyes as he took up position at the window beside her. ‘Harry Carstairs was clearly not for you, Charlotte, so now that your nemesis has received her just desserts, don’t you think the time has come to move forward? You’re beautiful, with a sizeable dowry, and the season is only half over. Consider it a wonderful opportunity.’

  ‘My nemesis?’ She turned and blinked at him. ‘You mean Miss Rosington?’ With another sigh she dropped her head to study the half moon of her nails. ‘Oh, I don’t think she’s my nemesis,’ she said vaguely.

  Startled, Perry cocked his head. ‘I don’t understand you, Charlotte. Are you sure you’re all right? Last night your angry assertion that Miss Rosington was the devil incarnate had you ready to take your own life. Why, you came dangerously close to ruining yourself with your public diatribe against her at Lady Montague’s ball.’

  Charlotte shrugged. ‘Whatever happened between Harry and Miss Rosington the night Harry fled, I don’t think Harry was interested in her. Not romantically—though it would be preferable.’

  ‘Good God, now you are talking in riddles!’ Perry exclaimed, gripping Charlotte’s shoulders and forcing her chin up so that she had to look at him. ‘You swore it was so. That the two were long-term lovers. And pray, what do you mean? Preferable to what?’

  Charlotte focused her troubled gaze upon her brother while he searched her face, wondering if Miss Rosington’s actions accounted for the fact that his sister was now losing her wits.

  Charlotte shrugged herself out of his grasp and put the gold velvet curtain between them, her look uncertain as she returned her gaze to the street.

  In the silence he waited, while his own thoughts churned over all the conflicting doubts and emotions he’d entertained regarding Miss Rosington and her seemingly inexplicable actions.

  Her own anger at the Tower seemed more than just the expected defensiveness of a woman caught in the wrong.

  ‘Perry, you remember when Harry offered for me, just before he went to Jamaica all those months ago? I was the happiest woman in the world, for I truly believed he loved me and not only because of my dowry.’

  Perry forced his thoughts away from Miss Rosington’s complex counterattack. Of course she’d lashed out and wanted to blame him. She was guilty and, having been discovered in the wrong, she was ashamed.

  Well, a little too late, he thought, choking down his disgust.

  He returned his attention to Charlotte’s words. What she said was true. Charlotte had been like an uncontrollable puppy. He’d wanted to suggest to her back then that she tone down her high spirits, for she’d been wont to surprise her husband-to-be with tokens of her regard when he might least expect it. Still, Perry, too, had thought Harry Carstairs had been smitten with Charlotte for, at a little over thirty, he’d never been linked with another female to the best of Perry’s recollection.

  ‘But I was wrong.’ She turned soulful eyes upon him while her agitation grew. She twisted her hands and the tiny rosebuds adorning her stomacher rose and fell as her bosom strained against her bodice. ‘As you know, Harry went away to Jamaica not long after his proposal.’ For a moment her eyes shone as if she were once again reliving those heady days of infatuation. Then the sorrow returned to her voice and shoulders slumped. ‘After five months the anticipation of seeing him again was almost more than I could bear so I decided to surprise him, calling unannounced at his house. He wasn’t expecting me—clearly.’ She swallowed and dropped her eyes, saying finally, at her brother’s prompting, ‘He was with Lord Ogilvy. They were in a window embrasure at the far end of the room and they both swung round when I was announced.’ Charlotte looked increasingly distressed. ‘There was something about their attitude that seemed … out of place. I couldn’t put my finger on it, and I was uncomfortable but I put on a bright show, saying when I observed the gold locket Harry was holding, ‘Why, is it a gift for me?’ and pretending to seize it from him. He grew quite angry then and it was Lord Ogilvy who said in genial tones, ‘Why, it is for Harry to contain the miniature he’s commissioned of you and which is now done. See. Do you not like it?’

  Perry cocked his head and frowned. ‘I don’t know why he couldn’t have been truthful.’ He hesitated, unsure whether to tell Charlotte what he knew. She was highly excitable, but then, she also deserved the facts. Slowly he went on. ‘In fact, the locket had been left to him by his great-aunt and was engraved with the numbers of the security box that held his inheritance. He’d just visited his lawyer who’d given it to him. Of course he would not gift it to you—at least not then.’ His tone changed and he was unable to conceal his pain, which he wrapped up in irony. ‘Retrieving this locket was the reason Miss Rosington was so keen to make my acquaintance after she learned you’d handed it over to me. Obviously Miss Rosington was directed by Carstairs to do whatever it took to reclaim it.’

  There! How could he dismiss that fact? It was all but irrefutable proof that Miss Rosington saw him as nothing more than a means for her and Harry Carstairs to be together.

  Charlotte shrugged. ‘I think you’re wrong. However, the locket did not concern me. Harry’s agitation when I walked in did. You see, Perry, now I think upon it, I do not believe Harry was ever interested in me as a woman. I do not believe Harry could ever be interested in a woman.’ Her mouth worked and her voice dropped to a whisper. Rubbing agitatedly at a spot on her hand, she said faintly, ‘I’ve had a long time to come to this conclusion but … I believe Harry only ever wanted to be with Lord Ogilvy.’
>
  Perry, who’d been about to say something, was struck dumb. For a second he could only stare as he tried to imagine the notion his sister suggested. The idea was shocking, disgusting and preposterous. He shook his head. ‘No, Charlotte. Harry and Miss Rosington are lovers and have been for a long time. Their illicit liaison is the entire reason you’ve landed in such an appalling situation. You said it, yourself. At the ball on Friday. To the whole world, I might add.’ Whatever doubts or confusion he entertained, he had to share them with Charlotte.

  Sighing, Charlotte trailed her hand across the windowsill. She bit her lip as she raised her head to look at her brother. ‘Xenia persuaded me it was true the night Harry left me and I found the note. That Miss Rosington and Harry were lovers, I mean. At the time I was filled with fury and vengeance. Xenia told me Miss Rosington had been seen not once, but twice, in compromising circumstances with Harry. By the time she’d finished I believed it to be the truth myself, even though I’d long harboured other suspicions.’

  ‘But how could you have other suspicions?’ Perry shook his head. What Charlotte suggested made no sense as far as Miss Rosington was concerned. ‘The scrap of note in the locket contained the last four letters of Miss Rosington’s Christian name. It’s what determined you, Charlotte, upon Miss Rosington’s guilt.’

  Charlotte’s brow creased. ‘There was more,’ she admitted haltingly. ‘I haven’t told you this, but I found the rest of the note in the half seam of one of the discarded petticoats signed by Harry.’ She swallowed. ‘It was addressed to ‘‘My Dearheart”—’

  ‘Referring obviously to Miss Rosington.’

  Charlotte reddened. ‘It couldn’t have been, for the note referred to Miss Rosington later, saying “send Celeste immediately”, however, as you say, a few letters were torn and left with the glue.’ She looked searchingly at her brother. ‘I showed Xenia the letter and told her of my suspicions and that I couldn’t understand why Harry would address a letter to Lord Ogilvy with the salutation, “My Dearheart”, only she said I must be mistaken and that clearly Miss Rosington was the woman Harry was consorting with.’

  ‘Xenia had no right to meddle,’ Peregrine said, uncomfortably aware of his own willingness all those weeks ago to proceed with Xenia’s plan to ruin Miss Rosington. ‘What would Xenia know, anyway?’

  Charlotte shrugged. ‘Xenia has been a good friend to me. She understands what it’s like to feel society’s scorn and she’s done everything she can to protect me from the scandal.’ She put her hand on her brother’s wrist, her look plaintive. ‘I know she admires you very much, Peregrine, so even if she has confused matters, her motives were pure.’

  ***

  When Perry finally extricated himself to return home and prepare himself for a rout that evening, his thoughts were in turmoil.

  If his own sister did not believe Harry Carstairs capable of desiring a woman, then why had the wretched man been discovered in bed with Miss Rosington?

  Again the doubts loyalty had forced him to dismiss returned. Miss Rosington swore she’d been tricked. She even insinuated he was behind her fall from grace, but then, what did a cornered animal do? Lash out, of course.

  Wretchedly, he shook his head. In whose interest was it to trick Miss Rosington into sharing a bed with Harry?

  With an hour before he was to go out again, Perry stood in his dressing room and submitted himself to the ministrations of his manservant.

  Tonight was a long-standing engagement and Perry had promised to escort Xenia, but as was increasingly the case he had little enthusiasm for it.

  Little enthusiasm for anything, really. Not the gaming that once fired his blood, or the hunting party he was to join five days hence.

  ‘My lord is not in a good frame,’ Nelson observed drily as Perry flicked a piece of lint from his lace sleeve with a gesture of irritation.

  ‘A good frame?’ Perry repeated, before understanding his valet’s meaning and mimicking his choice of words in his plummy accent. ‘No, my lord is indeed not in a good frame, a good mood or a good mind to do anything except thrash a certain gentlemen out of London Town, if he hadn’t already disappeared again.’

  ‘And which certain gentleman might that be?’

  ‘No gentlemen that concerns you, Nelson.’ He frowned at his reflection, thinking how bad-tempered he appeared, and looking considerably more bad-tempered. He and Xenia were well suited, he thought cynically. Neither of them had morals or a heart. Loathing for mankind in general, and himself in particular, welled up in his breast. He was no better than any of them, yet it was Miss Rosington with her particular talent for appearing the innocent ingénue for whom he reserved most of his spleen.

  He had to dismiss Charlotte’s ramblings and his own doubts or he’d drive himself mad. The proof was irrefutable and Miss Rosington’s unbelievable denials only to be expected. Charlotte had been present when Carstairs and Miss Rosington were caught déshabillé the first time, and Perry had been on hand the second to discover them naked and in bed together.

  No good reason other than Nelson’s silence was the prompt to expand on his theme. He muttered, ‘This gentleman who shall remain nameless has caused my sister great heartache, but it is not only for that reason I would be avenged.

  ‘Avenged? Vengeance is a very serious business, my lord.’

  Perry raised an eyebrow. ‘I was asked the other night how I could sleep at night with you so close, Nelson. A slave. I bought you. I own you yet I allow you great freedom as a slave. Why have you never tried to escape? Should I fear for my life? There. Answer that if you will. It will take my mind off my current troubles.’

  ‘To discuss, instead of your wish for vengeance, my lord, mine?’

  ‘If that is how you like to look at it.’

  Perry watched Nelson’s smile as the black man brushed Perry’s fine brocade coat. During the years he’d owned him, Nelson had grown from a young stripling he’d admired for his developing physical prowess into an intellectual Perry admired now for his deep thinking.

  ‘You have nothing to fear, my lord, if it’s worrying about your throat being slit.’ Nelson paused, the brush suspended an inch from Perry’s coat sleeve, as if weighing up something of great gravity. Quietly he added, ‘You have friends who might do well to guard their backs, however.’

  Startled, Perry shot him a look in the cheval glass. His slave looked as if he were caught in the middle of a moral dilemma, and for the first time Perry felt a frisson of alarm. ‘Are you giving me notice of an insurrection, Nelson?’ he asked. ‘I hope you realise I cannot dismiss your words without demanding greater explanation, which may well lead to outcomes you can not foresee.’ His alarm only grew as he observed the deepening of his manservant’s frown. ‘I insist you tell me what you know, Nelson, so I may warn these so-called friends of mine.’

  ‘Oh, they know who they are, and if they were human beings with true consciences they would understand that what they have done is so terrible that they invite murder and insurrection. But I think, my lord, their arrogance blinds them to the real danger they face.’

  Perry turned slowly so that he faced Nelson, eye to eye. His servant lowered the arm that held the clothes brush, and his look contained none of the deference Perry would expect or should demand.

  He swallowed. ‘You cannot remain silent, Nelson, you do know that.’

  ‘With all due respect, my lord, I would be obliged if you allowed me to tell you my tale without this … what do you call it? Cross-examination.’

  The bluster left Perry as he acknowledged that Nelson had been the one to initiate the topic and, for all Perry knew, may have been looking for an avenue for some time.

  In a rare act of contrition, he actually apologised. Then he added more calmly, ‘Pray tell, Nelson, what are the details of this planned attack you speak of?’

  ‘I speak of no planned attack. I merely point out that recent certain happenings to my fellow black man might well justify—in their eyes—thoughts of vengeanc
e.’

  ‘Indeed. And what happenings do you refer to?’

  ‘The loss of one hundred and thirty-four slaves aboard the Batavia last month, sir.’

  With a mixture of relief and unrealised fear, Perry released the pressure of air built up in his lungs. The heat had been taken out of the topic, though it remained one that concerned him deeply. ‘Alas, slavery is an abomination and I would fight to have it outlawed. I regret the loss of these poor creatures from Africa as much as you do, believe me.’ His words were heartfelt. ‘Their conditions are inhumane. It is small wonder so many die. And I now realise to whom you refer. Nevertheless, Captain Higgins operates within the law. He’s made it a common practice to transport slaves aboard his vessels and has done so for many years. It is how he has become so wealthy. He has no fear and he is well protected, I’ve no doubt. So just make sure your black friends know that any hint of violence is likely to see them at the end of a noose.’

  For a long moment Nelson said nothing. Perry frowned as he watched him, a vague uneasiness beginning to grow from the roots of his former relief.

  Finally Nelson looked up, wearing an expression of great sorrow. ‘Ah, but my lord, I am afraid the slaves did not die from disease.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘And Captain Higgins did not act within the law.’

  A strange tingling in the tips of Perry’s fingers was a portent of something truly ominous to come, he feared. He took a breath. ‘Explain yourself, Nelson.’

  Nelson ran the clothes brush over the arm of his own livery, clearly lost in thought. Finally he raised his head, and his mouth worked with a deep emotion he was quick to master as he drew himself up to say stolidly, ‘These slaves were thrown overboard, my lord. Thrown overboard so the captain could make an insurance claim, as he saw greater profit in that than bringing the poor half-starved souls, weakened as they were by disease, back to port.’