Wicked Wager

by Beverley Eikli

  Hailing the ferryman in the distance at the top of his voice while he tore off his coat and shoes, in the next moment Peregrine had plunged into the detritus-laden depths and was plying a good strong stroke in the direction of the panicked whimpers.

  Thank God Miss Rosington had had the good fortune to discover a log to cling to and the foresight to hang onto it.

  The water was bitingly cold and his clothing hampered him, but how would Miss Rosington cope with her many restrictions? It was a miracle she’d not sunk to the bottom like a stone.

  ‘Don’t let go!’ he gasped at the top of his lungs. ‘There’s a ferry nearby. I’ll save you.’

  Suddenly he was nine years old again and his mother was flailing in the cold, muddy lake, just out of reach, her skirts billowing as they took in water, her panicked expression marring that beautiful, beloved face that had always brought him such comfort.

  Before the nightmares began.

  The nightmares that reminded him he’d been the only one close enough to aid her, but he’d been too weak and too afraid.

  I’ll save you. Empty words, or could he? Could he reach her before Xenia’s evil and the water’s voracious appetite swallowed her up forever? Before Perry, too, was subsumed into a swirling hell from which, he knew, this time, there would be no reprieve?

  He heard her choked gurgle just as he heard the thump of an oar against the side of a boat, and then suddenly she was gone.

  Disappeared beneath the surface in a billow of skirts, like his mother.

  It was hopeless in the darkness yet still he dived beneath the surface, his hands flailing in the filthy depths, grasping helplessly, hopelessly.

  Until they snagged upon something feminine: trailing hair. And skirts. He gripped both, propelling himself upwards with all his might, lungs near to bursting, a final effort enabling him to break the water with a cry of triumph.

  ‘A king’s ransom if you can get this woman into your boat,’ he gasped, in case the ferryman needed any incentive. ‘A king’s ransom if you can deliver me from the gates of hell.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘Please, Celeste, try and wake up, dearest.’

  She’d heard the words before but had been too weary and disinclined to respond. No, Celeste never wanted to wake again. Far better to revel in a soft bed with warm coverings and exist in the dream world of her creation. Lord knew, reality was not a desirable place right now.

  ‘Celeste, please.’

  With a sigh, she fluttered open her eyes to see Aunt Branwell sitting on the chair at her bedside, bending over her and smoothing back her hair.

  ‘Is it my wedding day?’ she asked, a stab of pain knifing her side.

  ‘Your wedding day was yesterday.’

  ‘Yesterday?’ Shocked, she blinked her eyes open. ‘So I am married?’ How had this happened?

  ‘No, my dear. You’ve been very ill. But Celeste, there’s someone who wishes to see you. He’s been waiting here a long time. In fact, for almost two days. Really, he is most anxious to speak to you.’

  A myriad of characters Celeste had no wish to see floated into her mind as possibilities. ‘He?’ she asked suspiciously.

  ‘Lord Peregrine.’

  And of all the people who epitomised the hideousness of her situation, Lord Peregrine was the worst. She shook her head. ‘I won’t see him.’

  To her surprise her aunt seemed upset. ‘Surely you wish to at least thank him? He’s been in a fever of agitation ever since he brought you here, returning every few hours and waiting for you to wake. For a while we wondered if you’d even survive.’

  ‘Survived? Who brought me here? What do you mean?’ Celeste tried to clear her brain as she rose onto her elbows. ‘Who brought me here?’

  Her aunt soothed her back down upon her pillows. ‘My dear, the whole town has been agog with the revelations his lordship made public about you—’

  Gasping, Celeste rose up again, clutching the covers to her chest and looking around her wildly. ‘Where’s Raphael? He believes in me, doesn’t he? He hasn’t reneged? Surely he knows what is fact and what is not? He’s taking me to Jamaica. It’s the only future I have left. If he casts me aside there’s not a man who’ll take me on, and I won’t live my life in this country under a cloud of ignominy.’ Even in the midst of panic, Celeste knew exactly how vulnerable she was as a woman, not in control of her fortune. No, her fortune and thus her future were in the hands of the men who pulled the strings, and if they chose to cast her to the wolves of public opinion her life would be untenable. She could not—would not—live it as a ruined spinster.

  ‘Has he not done enough already to destroy my life?’ she sobbed. ‘What are these revelations you speak of? I have done nothing wrong, I promise you! Where is Raphael?’

  ‘Raphael has gone to Jamaica, my dear.’

  She gasped again, pain tearing through her. It was too much. ‘Without me?’

  Her aunt pushed down her shaking shoulders in an attempt to soothe her, but Celeste raised her voice above her ineffectual protests, her breath catching in her throat as the door opened and Mary squeaked, ‘Miss, I couldn’t stop him. He would speak to you!’

  And there was Lord Peregrine, tall and dark and brooding, dressed all in black today, which reinforced his satyr-like presence as a cruel reminder of all that was wrong with her life.

  Rage galvanised Celeste into action. By God, if Raphael had left her, it was because of this man who’d now returned to gloat. Seizing the candlestick by her bed, she hurled it at him as she gave vent to a cry encompassing every cruel hurt he’d inflicted on her. ‘How dare you show your face?’ she screamed. ‘Ha! It’s only a little scratch, though I wish to God my aim had been better.’

  Checked, he raised his head, eyes wide with surprise as he wiped the blood from his cheek, then continued his advance, while Celeste’s rage coalesced into a life force of its own. Casting around for something else to hurl at the viscount while her aunt attempted to wrest from her the book that was her next intended missile, it was cold comfort, but comfort nevertheless, to express her anger. ‘Get out of my sight! You’ve ruined me, stolen everything that constituted a life worth living and now you’ve returned to rub my face in the power you yield over me—’

  ‘Stop Celeste! You don’t understand!’ Her aunt was flapping about her like a flustered hen, the fringes of her Kashmir shawl tickling Celeste’s nose as she tried to silence her niece’s tirade. ‘Lord Peregrine brought you here. He rescued you from the river, he saved your life and then he broadcast to the world the cruel manner in which you’d been used by Raphael and Mr Carstairs and, worst of all, that evil woman, Lady Busselton!’

  Her words only registered after Celeste had released the book, which Lord Peregrine caught deftly. Amidst the flurry, he’d now insinuated himself at her bedside, gently returning the book to her, his hands covering hers as he repeated the title of her reading matter with clear amusement: ‘A Discourse on Maidenly Virtues by the Reverend B. Attwell. A jolly fine choice of reading matter to throw at my head. But hush my love and, even if it’s the only time in the years to come that you listen to me, pay heed now.’

  He smiled at her shock, his deep, but gentle tones cutting into the silence created by her sudden obedience. ‘I came here anticipating heart-melting gratitude and instead I’ve sustained a shattered cheekbone, yet I hope you’re impressed at the manner in which I’ve reined in my temper. I had no idea you were such a spitfire beneath the demure exterior.’

  Still mute with shock, Celeste did not miss his subtle nod of dismissal, which to her amazement had her Aunt Branwell obediently quitting the room; a fact which Lord Peregrine immediately took advantage of by lowering his face to whisper with unconscionable familiarity, ‘Though such spirit augurs well for our future, my little termagant.’

  Celeste managed to inject the right degree of disdain into her voice, despite the fact she was shaking. ‘Oh, so you’ve come in for the kill have you, my lord?’ she responded haug
htily. ‘My reputation is in tatters, I am ruined, and now you’re here to propose I become your mistress. Well,’ she shrugged as if it were of no matter, ‘Raphael has left me now. I have little choice other than to join your sister in a nunnery or live out my days a scorned, pitiful creature or, as you’ve just suggested …’ she hoped her eyes flashed fire, because the thought was as hideous as it was secretly exciting, ‘lower myself to the basest level to which any creature could ever reduce herself and … become your mistress. But, let me warn you, it’s a proposition you should seriously reconsider since I swear I will devote my lifetime to making you pay for what you’ve done to me.’

  ‘Celeste, please—’ He stopped midway to putting his finger to her lips, adding with a wry smile, ‘For fear of having my middle digit nipped in two, let me explain first why I’m here, though perhaps it would make more sense if I tell you what’s happened during the twenty-four hours you’ve been blissfully unaware of your surroundings.’

  ‘Blissful is hardly a term I would use to describe any aspect of my life right now.’

  ‘No? Well, for the moment mark it down as an aspiration I would hope to entertain you with. Hear me out, I beg of you.’ He attempted to take her hand, and when she snatched it away, sighed and continued patiently, his hand lying across her knees in the most familiar fashion, which made her insides cleave with a longing she swore she’d fight for all time. ‘First of all, I’d hope that if Charlotte can make an about-turn and decide that holy matrimony is vastly preferable to a nunnery, then perhaps you can too.’

  ‘Good God! She’s marrying Mr Carstairs after all?’

  ‘No, in fact …’ Lord Peregrine looked rather bemused. ‘She’s marrying Sir Samuel.’

  ‘Sir Samuel … Wray?’ Celeste leaned forward, eyes gleaming, sharing in her companion’s clear bewilderment as she forgot for a moment her own predicament. The familiar scent of ambergris that wafted from the man beside her was a harsh reminder of the intimacy she’d once enjoyed in his arms; an intimacy he’d traded upon in order to use her so badly. Before she could snatch away her hand again, he brought it to his lips.

  ‘Celeste, I’m the first to admit I’m guilty of gross wrongdoing.’ His voice was filled with remorse, and in the pale sunlight that sliced across the bed she saw it reflected in his beautiful eyes. She shivered. He looked so sincere she was almost taken in all over again. ‘I agreed to Xenia’s wager before I even met you, and because I thought you were in fact a wily fox parading as an innocent dove.’

  She tossed her head. ‘The knowledge that I wasn’t didn’t stop you continuing with the wager, did it?’

  ‘I was trying to protect you—’

  ‘A fine way of showing it!’

  ‘You must believe it’s true,’ he protested. ‘Xenia was determined to see you destroyed. It became ever clearer all the time I was falling in love with you, and as her hatred of you grew, so did my desire to protect you from her. First, though, I needed to find out why she had you in her sights. I couldn’t voice my suspicions to anyone, but please believe me when I say that at no stage did I ever set out to deliberately embroil you in scandal, as Xenia would have me.’

  Celeste wished she could be immune to the tingling desire his words and the gentle caressing of her hands was having on her. She drew in a laboured breath, expelling it in a tone that did not hide her hurt.

  ‘You were quick to believe I was guilty of … having an affair with Harry.’

  Lord Peregrine made a noise somewhere between a snort and a sigh of exasperation. ‘It was difficult to immediately discount what was in front of my very eyes, Celeste.’

  Celeste acknowledged this with a brief nod.

  He went on, ‘Lady Busselton knew that Raphael and Harry had a terrible secret they needed to hide from the world. She also saw I was becoming exceedingly interested in you, so when Harry was conveniently discovered just after she’d learned of my plans to marry you, she blackmailed Harry to tarnish you.’

  ‘And you believed what you saw.’

  ‘Of course I did! What other explanation was I offered?’

  ‘My assurances of innocence were not good enough?’

  Lord Peregrine rolled his eyes. ‘Lady Busselton had thought of every contingency—’

  ‘Including sending me to a watery grave if I didn’t go quietly to Jamaica with Raphael.’ She gasped as a sudden flood of memory overtook her. ‘Dear Lord, Lady Busselton tried to kill me! She pushed me into the river.’ Celeste stared wildly at Lord Peregrine. ‘You fished me out of the river?’ She shook her head. ‘It’s all coming back to me. Forgive me for being so stupid, but a great deal has happened to me over the past few days and there’s a lot I’m trying to come to terms with. Not least that my intended has deserted me and I have no idea what’s to become of me.’ She ended on a sigh of despair as she collapsed back onto the pillows.

  ‘That’s one of the reasons I’m here now—’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Celeste responded on a note of resignation. ‘I suppose Aunt Branwell sees it’s the only way I shan’t be a burden on her limited resources. She was remarkably civil to you, I thought.’

  Lord Peregrine gripped her hand tighter. ‘I was hoping that—’

  ‘Hoping? When you’ve called the shots from the start, my lord?’ She shook her head. ‘Just as long as you choose a bower for me that’s not a tiresomely long walk from the debating societies and the galleries. I shall have to go veiled, of course, for fear of my former friends throwing stones at me.’

  ‘Good God, Celeste, please don’t talk like this. What if your aunt should hear you?’ Then his mouth dropped open. ‘Why, you really believe it, don’t you?’

  ‘Believe what?’

  ‘That I’m here to make you my mistress.’

  She blinked at him in an attempt to clear her head. ‘Why else would you be here?’

  It was his turn to blink at her. Stupidly. ‘Do you consider me so beyond redemption that I’d even consider suggesting such a thing to … a paragon like you, Celeste?’

  She snorted. ‘Paragon? Go outside and quiz any bystander and they’ll give you a different epithet to describe the poor, fallen Miss Rosington.’

  Outraged, Lord Peregrine rose, and without ceremony hauled Celeste to her feet, dragging her, shocked and protesting, to the window. ‘Is that what you really think, Miss Rosington?’ he asked, an edge to his voice as he forced up the sash and thrust his head outside.

  ‘Lord Peregrine! Stop!’ she cried, as he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted into the street. ‘Ahoy there! Yes, you madam! And you, too, sir! Pray attend to me a moment. Do you recognise me? Yes? And this is Miss Rosington!’

  Cringing with embarrassment, Celeste tried to withdraw, for a small group of people, both well dressed as well as street urchins, had gathered below. About a dozen from all walks of life were staring up at her, and she with her hair about her shoulders and barely respectable with a shawl wrapped about her.

  But Lord Peregrine wouldn’t let her go, and was about to address the crowd when a young woman in a simple homespun dress called out, ‘Lor’ is that really you, Miss Rosington? You survived yer dunkin’ ‘an all?’

  The young woman beside her grew excited as she added her voice, ‘So that evil Lady Busselton’s wicked wager came right back to bite her on the bum, eh, Miss?’

  Celeste turned a shocked and enquiring look upon the viscount beside her, swinging back when she heard a familiar voice. Focusing her gaze, she identified young Mr Danvers in the crowd. He doffed his derby hat and bowed deeply. ‘I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you’ve made a full recovery,’ he declared upon rising. ‘Lady Busselton got everything she deserved, and I’m only ashamed to have once considered her my friend.’

  ‘Got what she deserved—?’ Celeste began, turning again to Lord Peregrine, but one of the younger, rowdier men in the small crowd pushed his way forward, making a rude gesture as he snorted, ‘She and her father, both! The slimy captain put a bullet through
his head and seems like his daughter went and throwed hersel’ in the river, just like she’d a gone an’ done to you. Gone to hell, the two of ‘em, wiv respect. Not that what the cunning plan they hatched weren’t worth the entertainment it brought, an all—beggin’ yer pardon, Miss.’

  ‘Lady Busselton’s dead?’

  ‘Hardly a tragedy you’d shed tears over, considerin’ how she used you to shift the blame from her own doin’s,’ the young man called up. This was endorsed by a chorus of voices.

  Celeste could barely formulate a coherent sentence. ‘All of London knows … everything?’ she whispered to Lord Peregrine.

  ‘Bar a few minor details,’ he murmured. ‘As you know, Lady Busselton was very desirous of locating Harry Carstairs and she’d hoped to use you to flush him out of his hiding place, since he’d witnessed a shocking event aboard the Batavia.’

  ‘I knew he was in danger but I wasn’t sure what he’d witnessed,’ Celeste whispered quickly. ‘Raphael said something about a murder.’

  ‘The murder of over a hundred slaves, in fact. The captain had them thrown overboard so he could claim the insurance.’

  Celeste’s mouth dropped open. ‘Captain Higgins killed them all?’

  ‘He ordered his crew to do the evil deed, not knowing Carstairs had witnessed it, until one of Lord Ogilvy’s servants told one of Lady Busselton’s servants that Carstairs had been overheard telling Lord Ogilvy.’

  Celeste liked the low timbre of Lord Peregrine’s intimate murmur, but another shout from the crowd recalled their attention.

  ‘So have yer asked Miss Rosington to be yer bride yet?’ A young lad with carroty hair sticking up from his ears beamed at them from below. ‘Considerin’ you saved ‘er an all, an’ that you was the one wot made all them declarations in the papers and in the street ‘bout her bein’ innocent of everyfink wot evil Lady Busselton were in fact guilty of?’