The Courtesan's Wager

by Claudia Dain

  Upon which they both looked at Sophia, for who else could be responsible for shocks that resulted in faints if not Sophia Dalby?

  “I’m afraid, Lord Hawksworth, that I am responsible for that,” Sophia said without a shred of guilt or even shame.

  “Is that so?” Hawksworth said pleasantly, stretching his long legs out before him. “I am quite certain you take too much on yourself, Lady Dalby. My sister has not been feeling well today. Why, not two hours ago she was sound asleep and snoring upon the sofa at Aldreth House.”

  “I was not sleeping, Hawks, and I was certainly not snoring,” she snapped, her cheeks flushed. “I was thinking.”

  “And your thinking led you here, to me,” Sophia said. “Perfectly understandable. Lord Hawksworth, Lady Amelia and I were discussing how she should best attain her marriage goals. You understand to what I am referring?”

  “But of course,” he said on a drawl, “it is to be a duke or no one for dear Amelia. That decision, to date, has resulted in no one, I fear.”

  “Hawksworth!” Amelia said, not at all amused.

  “Yes?” he said, looking at her from beneath heavy lids and without a scrap of remorse. “One must face it squarely, Amy. What else is one to do in the circumstance?”

  “One can retain some dignity, for one,” she said. “I’m afraid I have wasted your time, Lady Dalby.” Amelia rose to her feet and looked down at her brother. He sighed and rose slowly to his feet alongside her. Dolt.

  Sophia rose to her feet as well, her smile looking almost genuine. It was quite remarkable. Amelia was in a very good position to know that good will was not in Lady Dalby’s catalogue of skills. She was the most devious, the most ruthless woman that Amelia had ever had the opportunity to meet. Which of course was the reason she had sought her out in the first place.

  “Lady Amelia,” Sophia said, “are you quite certain? As you are not feeling quite completely well, perhaps your decision is precipitous? ”

  “I am very much afraid, Lady Dalby,” Amelia said, “that most of my decisions today have been precipitous.”

  “The desire to marry is certainly a most ordinary wish, Lady Amelia,” Sophia said softly, her smile looking genuine for once, “and the desire to marry well is certainly always far beyond ordinary and always exemplary. You are only to be commended. And aided, if you will allow.”

  Sophia looked deeply and fully into her eyes, and for the first time Amelia was comforted by the dark sparkle in Sophia’s gaze. Here was a woman in whom to put one’s trust. She would not, unless provoked, betray either trust or confidence.

  Amelia was entirely aware that she’d just made another precipitous decision, but perhaps this one would prove wise. It was not entirely impossible.

  “Why would you help me, Lady Dalby?” Amelia asked in a voice just above a whisper.

  “Because,” Sophia answered swiftly, her smile growing, “should not every woman get exactly what she wants?”

  Amelia felt her heart warm at the words. It was a startling philosophy. She thought it was completely brilliant. Sophia Dalby, when she had a moment or two, ought to write a small book on the subject.

  “I should say that would depend entirely upon what it is a woman wants,” Hawksworth said in an annoyed mumble.

  Whereupon Sophia and Amelia exchanged a glance of ripe amusement and complete understanding. At Hawksworth’s expense. Perfect.

  Smiling at each other, Amelia and Sophia sat back down upon their matching milk blue sofas, Amelia taking her first full breath in perhaps two years. She was going to marry. Sophia would ensure it.

  “Now,” Sophia said, “we must make certain that we advertise in the precise manner to actually attract our quarry. I shall manage it, shall I? I have rather more experience in these sorts of things.”

  “Of course,” Amelia said, leaning forward in her seat.

  “Advertise?” Hawksworth said, leaning back on the sofa and gazing at Amelia with a look that was both bored and annoyed. “What are you advertising for? A husband?”

  “Precisely,” Sophia said. “How very astute you are, Lord Hawksworth. You do your father proud.”

  “Father,” Amelia said, her confidence falling at the word. “How shall we ever manage to get this past Aldreth?”

  Sophia smiled slightly and said, “I shall manage the duke, Lady Amelia. Never fear.”

  And for perhaps the first time in two years, Amelia didn’t.

  Four

  THE Duke of Aldreth had a mistress. Having a mistress was not at all unusual and certainly no one would have thought to comment upon the fact, but Aldreth had enjoyed the same mistress, a failed French actress, for twenty years. That did excite some comment among those who knew, which was practically everyone. In fact, as Aldreth had been a widower for well over a decade, his mistress was blamed entirely for his negligence in not remarrying.

  Zoe Auvray, his French mistress, deserved every bit of the blame, and because she was the sort of woman who would be a mistress, she did not even have the civility to feel at all guilty about depriving some English heiress of the chance of snaring Aldreth. Zoe quite liked keeping Aldreth all to herself and Aldreth quite liked being kept.

  Which was the exact opposite of how these affairs were supposed to run, but she was French and he was a duke and there was no predicting events from that precise point of origin.

  As Aldreth was a duke of rather formidable reputation and as he had a daughter of marriageable age and an heir of a somewhat peculiar degree of lethargy but, nevertheless, an heir apparent of sound mind and body, no one was in a particular hurry to beard Aldreth in his den concerning his mistress, his daughter, or his son, which was exactly as Aldreth liked it. Of course his mistress was not at all intimidated by his savage roars or savage silences or savage scowls, which was inconvenient in the extreme.

  “One would think, Aldreth, that you have no wish for a husband for your daughter,” Zoe said.

  She was engaged in her toilette, an activity he found strangely and endlessly fascinating, and she was facing him in the mirror. She was not as young as she had been the night he had stumbled upon her in the theater at Drury Lane, but she was just as beautiful. He was quite certain he was unmistaken in that. She was, truly, just as beautiful, perhaps even more beautiful. Yes, she most assuredly was.

  “Aldreth, you are wandering,” Zoe said softly, studying him in the reflection. “We were speaking of your daughter, Amelia. She is quite ready for a husband.”

  “Yet no man has stepped forward for the role,” he said. “What can be done? There must be something wrong with the girl.” Though he could not see what. She was pretty and pleasant and endowed with a sufficient fortune to attract almost anyone, yet no one had stepped forward. It was very nearly remarkable.

  “There is nothing wrong with Amelia, Aldreth,” Zoe said. “She is perfectly lovely and has every advantage.”

  Which was exactly what he had been thinking for the past two years. Yet something had to be wrong with the girl. It was not at all difficult to find oneself married. People did it every day. Just look at Melverley’s older girl, Louisa. She had found herself wed in a matter of days when no man had appeared willing to do the deed until it had actually happened.

  Of course, Sophia Dalby had been involved in that somehow, he was almost entirely certain. Sophia Dalby, whom he had known even longer than he had known Zoe, though in a different capacity entirely, was in the habit of meddling in almost everything. Why, he was not completely certain even all these years later that she had not had something to do with his meeting Zoe. In twenty years he had not reasoned out how she could have done so, but the suspicion lingered.

  “Yet no one appears to want her,” Aldreth said. “What’s to be done, Zoe? Certainly I can do nothing more.”

  “Ridiculous,” Zoe said, turning upon her stool to frown at him. He found her frowns quite as charming as her smiles. “One can always do more, Aldreth. The poor child cannot be left as she is. Some man must be found for
her. Someone worthy. Someone quite as wonderful as you are.”

  Aldreth smiled reluctantly. Zoe was always finding occasions to flatter him. He quite enjoyed it.

  “Is anyone as wonderful as all that?” he said, rising to his feet and walking over to her.

  “But of course!” Zoe said in a burst of unflattering enthusiasm. “There are so many lovely men about Town, truly and completely as delightful as you, dear Aldreth. You must not think so ill of men, Aldreth. Very many of them can be quite … satisfying.”

  Aldreth scowled instantly. Zoe was always finding occasions to tweak his tail. He had never quite got used to it.

  “Hearsay, I presume?” he said sternly, glaring down at her.

  “Aldreth, I am not a nun in a cloister,” she said, grinning up at him. “I do manage, in my own little way, to find out the more interesting of the events that entertain the whole of Town. You cannot think that I spend my time doing needlework and waiting for you to arrive on my doorstep?”

  “Actually, yes. I do think that is exactly what you should be doing.”

  “I suppose you’d like me to supply you with a portfolio of erotic needlework?”

  “I’m not adverse to the idea.”

  He was grinning again. Zoe always managed to make him smile; he thought that it was likely why he found her so engaging and so endlessly fascinating after so many years. She was no longer young, but she was still a coquette. And she was his, no matter what she said to torment him.

  “I’m not particularly skilled with my hands,” she said, running her hands up his thighs to his hips.

  “I completely disagree,” he said.

  “How charming of you, Aldreth,” she said, smiling up at him seductively. “Now, wouldn’t it satisfy you deeply to have Amelia safely and blissfully wed to a man who finds her hands skillful and wants only to keep her for himself, as you so delightfully do me? ”

  Which, naturally, killed the moment completely as he did not care to think of his daughter in that way at all.

  “Of course,” he said, moving away from Zoe’s hands, turning his back on her completely, actually. Zoe laughed, which was entirely in character for her. “But, I repeat, there is nothing I can do to change the situation as it now stands. If my daughter cannot attract a man of the appropriate degree of suitability …” He shrugged slightly.

  “But Aldreth, she is a woman without a mother. Little Amelia needs help in achieving her man.”

  “She’s hardly a child, Zoe.”

  “Of course she is not, but without a mother to guide her,” Zoe said, shrugging her slender shoulders most expressively. “I, naturally, am in no position to aid her, though you know I would if it were at all possible, dear Aldreth.”

  “But you know someone who is in a position to aid her?” Aldreth asked suspiciously.

  “But of course I do! Did you imagine that I would bring the subject up if I did not, even now, have the solution?”

  “And the solution’s name?” Aldreth asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Sophia Dalby, as if you didn’t know,” she said, kissing him at the very base of his neck, which was quite as far as she could reach without standing on a chair.

  “Sophia Dalby,” he said sternly, staring down at her, holding her at arm’s length. She didn’t look the slightest bit alarmed by his severity, which was a continual problem in his dealings with her. “Why should Sophia help Amelia, and how could she possibly help her in any event?”

  “Why? Because I have asked her to, darling Aldreth,” Zoe said, smiling up at him. “As to how, I leave that entirely up to her, and so should you. She is, you know, responsible for me finding you that night in the theater.”

  “I don’t see how,” he said, allowing her to snuggle against his waistcoat.

  “But of course you don’t, Aldreth. It was never meant for you to see how, as indeed, no man ever sees how he ends up with a particular woman when there are so many other women available to him.”

  “I was under the firm impression that it was the man who did the choosing, Zoe.”

  “But of course you were, darling. Of course,” she said, very nearly laughing. “And you shall be under that impression again, once Sophia arranges everything beautifully for Amelia. Then you may go back to thinking whatever suits you. And doing whatever suits you. What does suit you, my dear?”

  Finally, a question he could answer without having to reason it out. Aldreth kissed her soundly, picked her up in his arms, and carried her to bed.

  Five

  “WE shall begin with Calbourne. He should do very nicely,” Sophia said to Amelia and Hawksworth, who stared, slack-jawed, at her.

  “But I thought you said that the Duke of Calbourne was more than, that is to say,” Amelia said, casting an uncomfortable glance at her brother, “was a bit more than a girl of my years and experience could … manage.”

  “But, darling, he is not more than I can manage and I shall be with you every moment,” Sophia said, smiling into her cup.

  “I hope I shall be pardoned for sounding as green as grass,” Hawksworth said with an idle air, “but how does one go about interviewing dukes, Lady Dalby? I’m quite certain I’ve never heard of it being done before.”

  “But of course it’s been done, Lord Hawksworth,” Sophia said. “The difference in this instance is that it will be done blatantly, which will make everything so much more interesting, not to mention more productive, don’t you agree?”

  Sophia clearly did not care if anyone agreed with her or not. Amelia, who had spent her life to date making certain that everyone found her eminently agreeable, found Sophia’s blunt approach remarkable. Sophia feared no one; on the contrary, most of the ton were careful not to annoy Sophia in the most minor fashion as it was well-known that she made a spectacular enemy.

  It was a skill, a trait, and a habit that Amelia believed had definite possibilities.

  “We shall begin immediately, shall we?” Sophia continued, again, not waiting for anyone to agree with her. It truly was a useful skill. She simply must acquire it at the earliest opportunity. “I am scheduled to dine with the Duke of Calbourne tonight. I shall simply include you in our party, Lady Amelia. Of course, I do think things would go more efficiently if you were not present, Lord Hawksworth. You understand, I am quite certain.”

  The fact that Sophia spoke with a knowing smile did nothing to lessen the impact of her suggestion. In point of fact, it was rather more alarming than not.

  “Unfortunately, I’m quite certain I do, Lady Dalby,” Hawksworth said, showing just the slightest bit of warmth. It was entirely unlike him, and it was rather sweet. “I can’t think that this could possibly be in Lady Amelia’s best interests. Certainly reducing her to that sort of awkward situation would add another layer of tarnish to her reputation in Town, and she can scarcely afford another layer, can she?”

  Dolt.

  “I’m not tarnished in the least, Hawks,” Amelia said stiffly. “My reputation is precisely as it should be—pristine. I am as pristine as it is possible for a woman of my years and station to be.”

  Which was nothing but the truth. She was twenty-one years old and quite as pristine as any normal twenty-one-year-old woman could be expected to be.

  “And it is quite obvious to anyone with eyes to see that you are exactly so, Lady Amelia,” Sophia said. “Pristine in the extreme.”

  It was most peculiar, but Sophia made being pristine sound like an insult when it was quite obviously nothing of the sort.

  “As bad as that, then?” Hawksworth drawled, looking at Amelia in what could only be described as pity.

  Before Amelia could draw breath to berate Hawks, almost completely past caring that Sophia Dalby would see her in a not entirely attractive light for doing so, and almost equally certain that Sophia might derive malicious amusement in revealing her lapse to her future husband, the duke, Sophia answered Hawks.

  “Nothing, Lord Hawksworth, is as bad as all that,” Sophia said, lookin
g kindly at Amelia. “We shall act quickly, one might almost say with martial aggression, and the matter will be settled. Your sister, the lovely Lady Amelia, will find a most suitable match, and her reputation will only be enhanced by the endeavor. I trust that is satisfactory?”

  It was with some horror that Amelia realized that she was being discussed in some mildly disparaging fashion for no cause whatsoever.

  “There is nothing whatsoever wrong with my reputation!” Amelia said, not entirely certain what she was defending herself against, but somehow certain that she did require some sort of defense. Ridiculous, really, as she had lived her life beautifully and indeed, flawlessly. “I am exactly the sort of woman to make any man proud, and indeed I think I would make an ideal duchess. I am quite certain of it. Quite certain,” she finished a bit heatedly.

  Sophia smiled, her dark eyes flashing. “And it is just this level of conviction and fire which you must display before your suitors, Lady Amelia. A proper woman of proper fire is how they must see you. A natural fit for you, certainly. You shall not have a bit of trouble, I am quite certain. Why, I should not be at all surprised if the matter of your marriage is not settled within a week’s time. The men of your list are all in Town at present, which is most convenient. A week’s time, at the very latest,” Sophia said musingly.

  It was not at all reassuring. It should have been, but Sophia had the most unappealing gleam in her black eyes. It was nearly impossible not to shudder in anticipation.

  “I do think that I should be present,” Hawks said, sounding not at all glad about it. “I can’t think that it would look quite the thing if I were not in attendance.”

  “Lord Hawksworth,” Sophia said, leaning forward and giving Hawks a charming view of her décolleté, “surely you must realize that a man of your bearing and prominence in Society would hamper Amelia from making the necessary … maneuvers a woman must deploy in snaring a duke of the realm. Surely you have ample experience at avoiding ladies with similar goals. You are, as you must be aware, a most compelling man with absolutely everything to recommend you. A woman would be a fool indeed if she did not do everything in her power to entertain your interest.”