The Earl's Prize (Harlequin Historical)

by Nicola Cornick

  ‘No, I thank you. I have played enough for one evening.’

  Mrs Wren pulled a face. ‘Just like your dear papa, Miss Bainbridge! They always said that he did not have the temperament for the game. He proved it in the end, did he not?’

  Amy felt a hot spurt of anger. She knew that Emma Wren was only trying to provoke her and on most occasions she would have allowed the insult to go over her head. Tonight she found she could not. Perhaps it was the memories that crowded in on her, or perhaps it was simply her dislike of Mrs Wren, but she found that she did not wish to retreat ignominiously.

  ‘I do not believe that I am much like my papa,’ she said coolly, looking Mrs Wren in the eye. ‘Perhaps I shall play this one game…’

  It soon became apparent that the ladies were now playing for high stakes. Lady Juliana suggested an initial bet of ten guineas and proceeded to win the first game very quickly. This encouraged her to double the stake on the second. She was well in the grip of gambling fever by now, sitting forward, eyes a-glitter as she pounced on her hand of cards. Once again she beat the others to twenty-one, with Mrs Wren barely managing to conceal her hostility when she could only muster a total of nineteen points from her cards. Amy, for all her proficiency at the game, came in a poor third.

  ‘You have the very devil’s luck, Ju,’ Emma was complaining. ‘Damned if I can see why the Tallant family should be so prodigious good at cards! Give the rest of us a chance!’

  Amy jumped at her words. She had had no idea of a connection between Lady Juliana and the Earl of Tallant, and she told herself that it made little difference, except to point out that she had vastly underestimated the level of skill and passion of her opponents. These were no middle-aged ladies playing patience to pass the long evenings. These were gamesters as dedicated as their male counterparts and as reckless. She had only herself to blame if she felt out of her depth. She should have followed her first instinct and kept well away.

  Mrs Wren’s spiteful gaze turned towards her again.

  ‘I suppose one should not wholly dismiss you as a card player, Miss Bainbridge, since like Juliana you come from a gambling dynasty! Only your brother is not so lucky as Juliana’s, is he? Nor so rich!’

  Lady Juliana laughed. ‘Let Miss Bainbridge be, Emma! She has not had so much practice as I have!’

  ‘Another round?’ Mrs Wren said eagerly. ‘Let us make it the best of three.’

  Amy hesitated. She cast a look at Lady Bestable, feeling in some way that her age must make that matron the safest of her companions, but her ladyship’s eyes were riveted on the cards like a dog with a juicy bone.

  ‘Let us make it an elimination!’ Lady Bestable said. ‘Double the stake—sixty guineas!’

  Amy started to rise from her seat, then sat down again. She had sixty guineas and more, much more now that she possessed a fortune of thirty thousand pounds. But she certainly did not want to gamble her fortune away. She felt no thrill in the cards, only nervousness in the pit of her stomach and a strange, trapped feeling that seemed to be growing with each hand. The darkened card room and the eager thrill her companions took in the proceedings was horribly familiar. In her mind’s eye she could see all those images that she had striven so hard to repress—she was a small child again, peering around the door of the library to watch her father and his cronies at play; she was a schoolgirl being driven away from the latest establishment when the money ran out; she was back in Whitechapel…

  ‘I think little Miss Bainbridge does not wish to play,’ Lady Juliana put in, in her sly drawl. ‘Can you not take the heat, Miss Bainbridge?’

  ‘Or perhaps she cannot…afford…to play?’ Mrs Wren said, with deliberate innuendo. ‘Although I do hear marvellous things about your prospects, Miss Bainbridge! Can you not share some of your fortune with us?’

  Amy looked at her and reflected that she had seldom disliked anyone as much as she detested Emma Wren. It was neither noble, nor indeed, very mature in her to wish to humiliate her hostess, but the fighting spirit was suddenly there.

  ‘I shall play,’ she said, ‘but I do not believe that I shall be sharing my fortune, ma’am.’

  Lady Bestable cackled. ‘That’s the spirit, my dear!’ She dealt the cards, her little eyes flashing with cupidity. Amy felt as though the ladies were already feeling the weight of her gold in their pocket and her resolve hardened, banishing the fear. She would show them that a Bainbridge could play and win!

  It was Lady Bestable who was eliminated in the first, low-scoring round. Amy managed a score of fifteen, with Mrs Wren achieving eighteen and Lady Juliana sulking because she had only seventeen in her hand. Amy remembered her father saying that cards made a man disputatious and reflected that that was true of women as well. Lady Juliana looked as though she would like to knife Mrs Wren were only a weapon to hand.

  Their game was attracting some attention now as word went round that they were playing an elimination and that the stakes were doubling each time. Some of the gentlemen drifted across from the faro table to watch. Richard was there, and a tall, fair man with a too-knowing expression, whom Amy had seen previously paying lavish attention to Lady Juliana. She felt acutely self-conscious. The stakes doubled again from sixty to one hundred and twenty guineas. Amy felt a little faint as she played her cards. She could not quite believe what she was doing and she wished she had been eliminated instead of Lady Bestable, who was sitting like a malignant toad at the side of the table and clearly resented the fact that she was no longer in the game.

  A slight gasp went up from the crowd when Mrs Wren was eliminated in the second round. Mrs Wren herself did not look as though she could quite believe it. For a second Amy thought she was going to tear her cards across, but after a moment she controlled herself and gave Amy a sharp smile.

  ‘A dark horse indeed, Miss Bainbridge! But you have not won yet.’

  Richard nudged the fair man in the ribs. ‘Always knew Amy had it in her! Gambling’s in the blood, don’t you think, Massingham?’

  The fair-haired man laughed. ‘In the Bainbridge blood for certain, Richard! But my money is still on Lady Juliana!’

  Someone went into the outer room and fetched a ledger. To Amy’s shock, she realised that they were taking bets now on the outcome of the game, on whether she or Lady Juliana would win. The most outrageous sums were being mentioned. She heard Richard wager a hundred guineas that she would triumph, and her nerve almost failed her on the spot.

  Lady Juliana sat across the table from Amy, her green eyes glittering with excitement. ‘Double or quits, Miss Bainbridge! The bet is two hundred and forty guineas. Will you accept?’

  Richard was lounging against the doorframe, his face alight with a gambler’s excitement. Amy met his eyes. She felt a little sick and her hands shook slightly. She could not believe what she was doing. The crowd pressed closer about the table.

  Amy cleared her throat. ‘I will play.’

  Lady Juliana gave a crow of laughter. ‘Oh, how we underestimated you, Miss Bainbridge! Let’s play, then!’

  Though, down to two players the game took much longer. Amy, keeping cards and discarding, was conscious of nothing but the flickering candlelight, the circle of avid watchers, and the frown between Lady Juliana’s eyes as she faced her across the table. There was a buzz in her blood that was like excitement and wine; a part of her wanted desperately to escape but another part, the stronger, wanted equally desperately to win. The heat in the room seemed stifling and unreal—Amy told herself that none of it mattered; that soon it would be over like the dream it seemed to be.

  ‘I do believe that Miss Bainbridge has won,’ one of the gentlemen murmured as Amy, a little blindly, put her cards down on the table at the end of the game. ‘A perfect vingt-et-un. Twenty-one precisely, Lady Juliana, unless you can match it?’

  Amy’s vision cleared. Lady Juliana was looking furious, a black frown between her brows. ‘I have a twenty but not a twenty-one. Damnation! I cannot believe it.’ She threw her cards dow
n and they scattered like leaves in the wind. ‘Do you care to play again, Miss Bainbridge—winner takes all?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ Amy said. Her mouth felt parched and she had a headache behind her eyes. The excitement had melted away as swiftly as it had come. ‘I shall not play further.’

  Lady Juliana’s eyes narrowed. ‘That is your right, of course, since the elimination is at an end. Alas, I cannot pay my debt immediately, Miss Bainbridge. You will take a promissory note?’

  Amy knew the rules well enough not to decline. ‘Of course.’

  Lady Juliana’s face broke into a sudden smile. ‘Oh, no, I have a better idea! I will settle my debt of honour, Miss Bainbridge—by offering my brother in return!’

  The crowd had started to break up, drawn back to their own tables and the promise of play, but they stopped at this new twist. A ragged laugh ran around the room.

  ‘Good try, Juliana!’ Massingham said humorously. ‘Tallant is hardly yours to sell, though, is he?’

  Lady Juliana’s feline smile broadened. ‘Oh, I do not know, Clive. If Captain Gramond can sell his sister in a game of faro, why can I not use Joss as my stake? He might be persuaded to help me…for one reason or another. You, there!’ She turned imperiously to a footman. ‘Fetch Lord Tallant! We shall see if he will come to my aid!’

  Amy felt herself turn hot all over. Everyone was laughing and waiting to see the outcome of Lady Juliana’s extraordinary suggestion. Amy closed her eyes and prayed fervently that Joss had already left the ball. She could not imagine facing him in this situation, and as for Lady Juliana’s offer—well, that was quite ridiculous.

  ‘I do not accept your stake,’ she said, a little desperately. ‘It was not what we originally agreed.’

  Lady Juliana raised her eyebrows mockingly. ‘Alas, my brother is not acceptable to Miss Bainbridge! Now, what shall we do?’

  Mrs Wren leaned forward. ‘Your brother is acceptable to me, Juliana!’ she said with a meaningful smile. ‘Miss Bainbridge—’ she turned to Amy ‘—I will buy up your debt for three hundred guineas if you will turn Lady Juliana’s offer over to me!’

  Someone guffawed. ‘Is Tallant worth that much, Emma?’

  Mrs Wren flashed a wicked smile. ‘That and more, so I hear!’

  Amy felt her blush deepen. This was all getting far too complicated. When she had accepted Amanda’s plea to play a hand of whist it had only been to oblige her friend, and now she had got herself into the most frightful fix. She had never intended to play for so long, or for such high stakes and she was starting to feel quite shocked at the gambling passion that had gripped her, albeit briefly. Besides, where had Amanda gone? It was dreadful of her to desert her like this! There was not a single friendly face in the room—even Richard seemed utterly unable to understand her distress—and the louche atmosphere was making Amy deeply uncomfortable. Massingham had paused to drop a kiss on Lady Juliana’s pouting lips and Amy looked hastily away.

  Richard came across and crouched down by Amy’s chair. ‘I think you must accept the stake or pass to Mrs Wren, Amy,’ he said. ‘It is a debt of honour after all and you cannot really refuse. Though it all depends on what Joss has to say to it, of course—’

  ‘On what I have to say about what?’

  A whisper ran round the room like the wind through corn. Amy turned in her seat. The Earl of Tallant had just come in, accompanied by the Duke of Fleet. She could see that Joss already had his coat on, as though he had been on the point of leaving when Lady Juliana’s message had reached him. Amy wished with her whole heart that he had been less tardy. For a second her eyes met his and she saw a flash of some emotion there—surprise, perhaps, followed by a strange tug of empathy—before she dropped her gaze from his. Her heart was beating a swift tattoo.

  ‘Joss, darling…’ Lady Juliana stretched out an elegant hand ‘…the most dreary thing! I have just lost to Miss Bainbridge and do not have the means to meet my debt at the moment. I know that you could settle it for me, but then I thought that perhaps it would be more entertaining to use you to pay the wager instead. You must be worth at least two hundred and forty guineas—’

  ‘They charge more in Covent Garden,’ someone in the crowd put in.

  ‘So if I promise you to Miss Bainbridge for a week,’ Lady Juliana finished sweetly, ‘would you do that for me to help me settle my debt? Please, Joss dearest…’

  Amy, shifting uncomfortably in her chair, thought that Joss looked utterly unmoved by the plea. She held her breath, waiting for him to refuse. She was desperate to be out of there. The raffish atmosphere, the insinuations of the crowd, made her deeply unhappy.

  ‘What does Miss Bainbridge have to say about this?’ Joss asked. His amber gaze fastened on Amy and her heart missed a beat. His expression was unreadable.

  ‘Miss Bainbridge doesn’t want to take my stake,’ Lady Juliana said with a mournful sigh. ‘She finds you unacceptable, Joss.’

  Joss inclined his head. Amy saw the flash of amusement in his eyes, the cynical twist to his lips before his customary impassivity returned.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I find you more than acceptable, Joss,’ Mrs Wren purred. ‘I have already offered to buy up Lady Juliana’s debt.’

  Amy saw Joss’s eyes narrow on her. She could read a definite challenge in them now. ‘Thank you, Emma,’ he said, his gaze never leaving Amy’s face, ‘but Miss Bainbridge has the prior claim. I regret, ma’am—’ his bow to Amy was immaculate ‘—that you cannot decline my sister’s offer. As it is a debt of honour you would give offence in the refusal…’

  The chatter in the room died to silence.

  ‘Debt of honour. Absolutely,’ Richard Bainbridge said. ‘You are honouring Lady Juliana’s pledge then, Joss?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Joss repeated, still refusing to take his gaze from Amy. She felt as though she was burning beneath it. ‘It is my pleasure.’

  Richard turned to his sister. ‘Amy, I do not believe that you can refuse…’

  Amy looked from him to Joss Tallant and back again. ‘I see. Lady Juliana, your offer is accepted.’

  Lady Juliana gave a crow of triumph. There were catcalls and lewd jokes that made Amy’s cheeks burn.

  ‘That little girl will learn enough in a week to fit her for Abbess Walsh’s whorehouse!’ she heard Juliana say to Clive Massingham in an undertone.

  She stumbled to her feet, shaking Joss off when he put one hand on her arm to steady her. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. She had gambled and won, and in the process she had betrayed her principles and made a fool of herself into the bargain. As for Joss…Amy cast him one searing glance as she hurried from the room. If she had made a fool of herself, he had connived at it. She would not forgive her own folly and she certainly would not forgive him.

  Amy was barely in the carriage before she turned on her brother and all her pent-up feelings from the gambling session came pouring forth.

  ‘How you could have let me do such a thing, Richard! I must have been mad! It was quite dreadful! Oh! For you to stand by when Lady Juliana made that monstrous wager—’

  Richard raised a placatory hand. ‘Amy, I don’t know why you are making such a fuss! Juliana Myfleet was only joking and Joss decided to call her bluff. I have no doubt that you will have the money tomorrow rather than Joss himself.’

  ‘Well, if that is the Earl of Tallant’s idea of a joke, I do not want to be the butt of it.’ Amy shivered and drew her cloak closer. ‘Your friends and their exploits are too sophisticated for me, Richard!’

  ‘You may be right,’ Richard said unexpectedly. ‘You should never have been playing cards with Lady Juliana, Amy, not an unmarried girl like you! Now if you were married of course, it would be different—’

  ‘Which just goes to show how foolish society can be,’ Amy said crossly. ‘If I was married it would not make a jot of difference.’

  ‘Except that you would have understood more of the jokes,’ Richard said.

  ‘I would s
till have no wish to gamble,’ Amy said mulishly. ‘It was the most dreadful experience.’

  Richard shrugged. ‘No one forced you to do it, Amy! Could’ve knocked me down with a feather when I saw you at the table! After all your high-flown sentiments…’

  Amy shuddered. She felt sick and empty now, to think of what she had done. ‘Richard, do not! I cannot bear it! It was so foolish of me—I wanted to show that odious Mrs Wren that she could not slight Papa and expect me to accept it so meekly! So I gave in to an impulse to play—’ She broke off.

  ‘And found that gambling fever can lurk in the blood of even the most innocent!’ Richard finished, with a grin. ‘And to think that I believed you were only there to oblige Amanda Spry!’

  ‘I was originally!’ Amy frowned. ‘And that is another thing. Amanda vanished into thin air and left me to my fate! Oh, of all the miserable things for a friend to do.’

  Richard shook his head. ‘Seems to me that you are trying to blame everyone but yourself!’ he said acutely. ‘Besides, you won! I confess that I do not understand you, Amy—’

  ‘Nor I you.’ Amy huddled back against the seat. ‘What a dreadful evening. I cannot understand how anyone can enjoy gaming. It makes me feel sick in the stomach.’

  ‘Maybe you feel sick because you are shocked that you enjoyed yourself,’ Richard said, with the same uncomfortable percipience. ‘And before you deny it, Amy, think a little! Even if you did not enjoy the game itself, you liked administering a set-down to Mrs Wren. You enjoyed the winning!’

  Amy did not contradict him. She stared out at the darkened streets. ‘What a disastrous evening. And now I apparently have the Earl of Tallant for a week into the bargain, and I have no idea what to do with him!’

  Chapter Eight

  The morning following the ball was another glorious May day, but Amy awoke with a headache and a feeling that there was something very wrong. She rolled over in bed, opened her eyes, and immediately remembered her win at cards the previous night. A mixture of disbelief and guilt hit her hard, tempered by a very faint, stubborn pride. It was lowering to find that she had compromised her principles, that she was not immune to the lure of gambling. On the other hand she had no intention of playing again and so should just put the matter behind her. Except…except that there was the problem of the payment of the wager…