Amy got up and dressed slowly, going downstairs to breakfast late and alone. Lady Bainbridge had not risen and was no doubt still recovering from her migraine. Richard had mentioned going to White’s the previous night and had probably not returned. It was bright and warm in the dining room, but Amy’s spirits did not reflect the day. If Joss chose to come in person to pay the debt…But he would not. Amy was sure that Richard had been right and that she would receive the money that morning and that would be the end to it. She devoutly hoped that she was right.
Amy stirred some curd into her stewed apple and reflected that she must make sure that the household budget was increased immediately so that they actually had something appetising to eat for breakfast. That would mean supplementing their income from the thirty thousand pounds, of course, but since no one had claimed the money…
She stared at her reflection in the spoon’s uneven surface. She had always been intrigued as to why it appeared upside down. Not that she would look much better the right way up. If she was about to spend her lottery winnings, then it could be argued that the most needy cause was still her appearance. She had bought several dresses now but she was aware that what she really needed was an entirely new wardrobe. Yet her heart was not in it. Looking good in the way that Amanda always did, for example, seemed unconscionably time-consuming. It was also expensive and she had already spent what seemed like an inordinate amount of money on the new carriage. What she really wanted to do was to give serious thought to her charitable causes. There were so many deserving cases.
Amy wrinkled up her nose as she tried to think of them. Climbing boys and street women and the people who had been rescued from drowning in the Thames and orphans and widows…Really, thirty thousand pounds was nothing when confronted with such a need for charity. She did not know where to start.
Feeling slightly better at the thought of some benevolent activity, Amy got to her feet. She had almost reached the dining room door when it opened and Patience, her face as disapproving as the sole of an old boot, stuck her head around.
‘The Earl of Tallant is here to see you, Miss Amy. I have put him in the parlour. He says his business is most urgent.’
Amy jumped. Until now she had just about managed to keep at bay any thought of the outrageous wager that Lady Juliana had made. Now, however, she was forced to confront it and the prospect was not pleasant. She realised that she had been hoping that Joss would not honour the bet. The thought of seeing him again, and in such circumstances, was painful to her.
Her footsteps were slow as she crossed the tiny hall to the parlour door. She tried to console herself by thinking that Joss had only come to pay the money and explain that it was all a joke. She paused outside the door and brushed her old cambric dress down with a defiant gesture. She would take the money, of course—she could not really refuse a debt of honour—and then she would send him away with a flea in his ear for making her the object of a joke between himself and his sister. They might think that it was funny. She did not.
Nevertheless, she felt more than a little apprehensive as she opened the parlour door. Joss was standing by the window and the pristine austerity of his black coat and buff pantaloons made the small room seem even shabbier to Amy’s eyes. This made her want to dislike him all the more but in this she failed miserably. He looked as elegant as ever—elegant enough to make her pulse race. She cleared her throat.
‘Good morning, Lord Tallant.’
Joss bowed. ‘Good morning, Miss Bainbridge. I apologise if I have disturbed you by arriving at this hour, but I did not wish to seem tardy.’
Amy frowned slightly. ‘It is very early to call, but I assume…That is…’ She realised she was making rather a hash of this and started again, somewhat bluntly.
‘Have you come to settle Lady Juliana’s debt, my lord?’
Joss smiled. ‘Certainly I have, Miss Bainbridge. Did you think I would renege?’
Amy looked away from the mockery in his eyes. ‘Oh, no, indeed. Of course not!’
‘Good. For here I am at your service, Miss Bainbridge.’ Joss bowed again. ‘So, what are you going to do with me?’
Amy sat down rather quickly in one of the armchairs. ‘Oh, but surely…I thought that you meant simply to pay? You cannot intend…to honour your sister’s bet by…um…pledging yourself to my company for an entire week?’
Joss frowned. ‘Certainly I intend it. You cannot know much about me, Miss Bainbridge, if you think I would fail to honour such a debt.’
‘It was not your integrity I was questioning, but the nature of the payment,’ Amy said, rubbing her hand across her forehead. The headache, lurking during breakfast, had returned with a vengeance. ‘It seems so much easier to pay the two hundred guineas and have done with it.’
‘May I?’ Joss indicated the other chair and sat down. ‘Well, of course it would be easier to pay, but I confess to a certain curiosity to spend a week in your company, Miss Bainbridge.’ His gaze dwelt on her indignant face and he smiled a little. ‘It might prove rather more amusing than merely handing over the money.’
‘I am not an entertainment!’ Amy said sharply. ‘Nor do I consider this joke to be remotely amusing, my lord!’ She fidgeted crossly with the frayed material on the arm of the chair, unravelling it even more. ‘The next time that you and your sister design such a trick I beg that you will find an alternative dupe. I have no desire to provide you with diversion! Upon my word, you must be very bored to indulge in such behaviour!’
Joss laughed. ‘I assure you this is no diversion, Miss Bainbridge, nor did Juliana and I design it for our amusement. She lost a bet to you. I am here to pay her debt because I wish to do so. That is all.’
Amy looked at him defiantly. ‘Then you may go away again, my lord! The bet is cancelled. You do but waste your time here.’
Joss sat back in his chair. ‘That seems a shame, Miss Bainbridge. Do you have no wish to spend a week in my company?’
‘Certainly not!’ Amy glared at him. The emotions inside her—a tumble of dread, nervousness and an edgy excitement—were not to be discussed with him. ‘You are the last man I would wish—’ She broke off, aware that she was about to be unpardonably rude. She took a deep breath. ‘This is a foolish nonsense. I thank you for honouring your sister’s pledge, my lord, but now I must ask you to go.’
Joss showed little sign of doing so. ‘I am disappointed that I am not acceptable to you as a companion, Miss Bainbridge. In order to help me improve, perhaps you could give me a little advice. What is it about me that is particularly…inappropriate?’
Amy looked at him suspiciously. She was certain that this was just another way for him to amuse himself at her expense.
‘I cannot believe you in earnest, my lord, but as you have asked…We have no interests in common and I am sure we should be bored with each other’s company within an hour!’
Joss glanced at the clock. ‘Let us put that to the test, Miss Bainbridge. If in an hour’s time you find me tedious beyond bearing, then I shall go without further complaint. What do you say?’
Amy looked a little shamefaced. ‘You make me sound very ungracious,’ she said. ‘All that I meant was that I feared we should have little to talk about.’
‘Let us see, then.’ Joss settled back. ‘What do you imagine my interests to be, Miss Bainbridge?’ He eyed her telltale blush with amusement. ‘Dear me, are they all so shocking?’
‘Yes…no!’ Amy was thrown into confusion. ‘I do not know, my lord.’
‘But you must know, for you made a judgement that we had nothing in common. Take gambling, for instance, which I know you consider my chief pursuit. You were gambling last night, or we would not be sitting here. Therefore it must be something that we have in common.’
Amy looked at him. ‘I thought you seemed a little surprised when you saw me in the card room.’
‘I was. On the basis of our previous conversations I should say it was the last place that I would have expected to find you.�
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Amy felt a little confused. ‘Oh, I was only gambling last night because…’ She hesitated. ‘Amanda persuaded me to play a hand of whist and then Lady Juliana suggested vingt-et-un…’ She met his gaze a little defiantly. ‘I have to confess to all the wrong motives, I fear, my lord. Mrs Wren provoked me and I let my anger overcome my scruples. I was once quite good at vingt-et-un, you see, and I wanted to show her…’ She hung her head. ‘It does not reflect well on me, I know!’
Joss looked amused. ‘You played for revenge, Miss Bainbridge? I would never have thought it of you!’ He gave her a quizzical look. ‘And did you get drawn in by the lure of the game? You did, didn’t you! Admit it! The excitement of the cards is a fever in the blood—’
‘I most certainly did not!’ Amy said virtuously and untruthfully.
‘So, how comes it that you were playing for doubling stakes, Miss Bainbridge?’
Amy bit her lip. ‘I am not entirely sure,’ she said. ‘Someone suggested it and then I found myself swept along with the game…I kept imagining that I would be out in the next round, you see, but I had some luck and ended up winning.’
‘Just like a country squire who finds himself winning at White’s for the first time,’ Joss said drily. ‘Did it not go to your head, Miss Bainbridge? Were you not tempted to carry on playing and see where your beginner’s luck might take you?’
‘No, indeed,’ Amy said feelingly, ‘for I soon felt quite sick at the thought of what I was doing! That must be where I differ from the likes of Sir Humphrey, I suppose. I have no urge to try my luck further.’ She looked him straight in the eye. ‘Yet I do understand how an innocent might be lured into thinking that they might win and win…or, if they lose, that they only need gamble again to recoup their losses. There are always unscrupulous people leading them on.’
Joss shifted in his chair. ‘Is that aimed at me, Miss Bainbridge?’
Amy shrugged. ‘If the cap fits, my lord…’
‘Well, it does not. It was your brother who put Sir Humphrey up for membership of White’s, for example. You may acquit me of deliberately leading any man into gambling just so that I may fleece him. I am not so unscrupulous.’
Their gazes met and held, Joss’s challenging, Amy’s very straight. After a moment she said, ‘I accept what you say, my lord, but at the very least it confirms that this is a topic which we do not have in common.’
‘On the contrary, we may not see eye to eye but we have been enjoying a stimulating discussion for the past fifteen minutes! One need not always agree on a subject, you know. Sometimes it is more interesting not to do so!’
Amy smiled. ‘I will concede that, but it does not make it a common interest.’
‘True. So what else is there?’
Amy blushed. ‘I do not know.’
Joss eyed her closely. ‘Ah, I see that you are remembering I told you I was a rake and you are thinking that it must keep me quite occupied! That, alas, is probably not a topic for further discussion between us, at least not yet.’
Amy blushed crossly. ‘I did not need you to tell me! Everyone speaks of it.’
Joss stretched. ‘Now that is an interesting topic. Reputations. Why should we believe that everything we are told is true? That is tantamount to believing gossip!’
Amy frowned. ‘In this case it is presumably true since you confirmed it yourself!’
‘Yes, of course. But the wider discussion would be interesting. I am told that Miss Bainbridge is a reserved lady with scarcely a word to say for herself, yet I have found that manifestly untrue. You appreciate my example?’
‘Of course,’ Amy said, trying not to feel even the tiniest bit flattered by his words. ‘This is nothing to the purpose, my lord. We were trying to establish that we had nothing in common.’
‘You were trying to do that, I was not. I was looking for common ground. What else do you know of me?’
‘You are a noted whip.’
‘And do you enjoy driving?’
‘Yes,’ Amy said, incurably truthful, but feeling the ground opening up at her feet as she saw where this was going, ‘although I have little opportunity.’
‘Capital! Then I may take you driving in the park. That will wile away a few hours.’
‘A few hours of what?’
‘A few hours of our week together. But the time is not yet up. Are you bored, yet?’
‘No,’ Amy admitted, feeling the trap yawning wider, ‘but…’
‘But? Do you have some other objection to my company?’
‘No…’ Amy was struggling. She did indeed object, but she could not tell him why. It was not that she disliked Joss’s company—the reverse was true, though she was at a loss to explain why. He should have been exactly the sort of man she disliked and despised, but oddly she found herself drawn to him. It made her most uncomfortable and it was the last thing that she wished to admit to him.
‘I am encouraged that we have found at least one thing in common,’ Joss continued. ‘Perhaps we should make a list of all the activities we might indulge in together?’
Amy stared. ‘A list?’
‘You are familiar with the concept?’
‘Yes, of course…’ Amy made countless lists to help her manage her household duties.
‘Or perhaps you feel there will not be sufficient items to put on the list?’
‘It is not that.’ Amy looked at him in reluctant fascination. ‘It is simply that I cannot imagine you as a list maker, my lord. The idea seems absurd.’
‘Why so? I assure you it is most useful. How could I possibly remember otherwise which gambling den to visit in which order, or which young lady I am reputed to have seduced?’
‘Now you are funning me,’ Amy said, shamefaced, ‘and it is too bad of you.’ She got up and went over to her walnut bureau, extracting her writing box. ‘Very well, let us start.’
Half an hour later, Amy had ordered a pot of tea and cake for them and they had still not finished. The time had elapsed because the list was by no means without controversy.
‘Driving in the park, or possibly riding,’ she read out. ‘Balls, parties, soirées and other social events.’ She put the paper down. ‘I am still not certain whether I wish to accept your escort to these events, my lord. Quite apart from my dislike of balls, there is the talk that would be consequent upon such action—’
‘My dear Miss Bainbridge…’ Joss made a slight gesture ‘…I thought that we had agreed that neither of us paid any regard to that sort of gossip?’
‘Yes, but Mama will have a fit if I accept your escort to a ball!’ Amy could not help giggling. ‘Oh dear, it is not funny! Whilst I have no time for gossip, it is foolish to be careless of one’s reputation!’
‘Agreed, but we shall be behaving with perfect propriety.’ Joss fixed her with a look. ‘At the very least, agree to attending Lady Carteret’s ball with me tomorrow night. Then, if you do not enjoy it, we shall attend no others.’
‘Oh, very well.’ Amy sighed and consulted her list again. ‘Attend the exhibition at the Royal Academy. I confess that might be of interest. Attend the meeting of the Bettering Society.’ She cast Joss a doubtful look. ‘I cannot believe you will find that enjoyable, my lord.’
‘Ah, but think how improving it will be for me, Miss Bainbridge!’
Amy frowned. ‘I do wish you would not jest all the time. It is not for me to try to improve you.’
‘Yet you currently disapprove of me.’
‘Yes, well…you are dreadfully bad, but that is your choice.’
Joss grinned. ‘How delightful you are, Miss Bainbridge! There will be no Spanish coin from you!’
Amy frowned. ‘Coin! Oh, that reminds me! I have yet to decide what to do with my lottery winnings. I was puzzling over it when you arrived, my lord. There are so many good causes that I can scarce think which to address first. It is most perplexing. Perhaps that is a topic on which you might help me?’
Joss raised an eyebrow. ‘You have decided to kee
p your winnings, then?’
‘Well, as I cannot find the rightful owner of the lottery money, all I can think of is to give it away. Yet it is not that simple. I wish to weigh up the rival merits of the different charities and see which is most needy, but…’ Amy wrinkled her nose up ‘…I do not have sufficient information.’
‘Perhaps the Bettering Society might be the place to start? Or the Royal Humane Society? There must be plenty of people there who could advise you. Wait until after the meeting tomorrow. I am certain that we shall find you a good cause.’
Amy looked at him dubiously. ‘Do you really intend to accompany me, my lord?’
‘Yes, I do.’ Joss smiled encouragingly. ‘I know you will probably be ashamed to be seen with me, Miss Bainbridge, but please consider it an act of charity!’
Amy gave him a reproachful look. ‘I asked you not to tease! Do you not think you will be hopelessly bored?’
‘Not at all. I am certain that I will learn something new. Which reminds me—’ Joss checked the clock ‘—are you bored now, Miss Bainbridge? We have been talking for almost two hours and we did agree that I would relieve you of my presence if you found it tedious.’
Amy avoided his gaze. ‘I must confess…I am not bored, precisely…’ She looked up to see Joss smiling at her in a way that made her feel very warm inside. She picked up her list and read an item almost at random.
‘Attend a masquerade at Vauxhall Gardens—I do believe that you have added that one when I was not looking, my lord! How dreadfully improper!’
Joss twitched the list from her fingers. ‘I admit it. I added it and it is quite improper but who knows you may find that you would like to attend? In fact, it may be that this week will be an education for both of us, Miss Bainbridge!’
The Earl's Prize (Harlequin Historical) Page 15