The Rogue's Wager (Sinful Brides Book 1)

by Christi Caldwell

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  Four.

  How many times as a child had she hovered outside shop windows much like this one, hungering to step inside and trail her coarse, dirtied fingers over those satin and silk fabrics?

  She paused, staring blankly down at the fifth blue ribbon in the pile. She’d spent so many days yearning to know how the other half lived, casting wishes up at the dirty star-studded London sky for a chance to dance just once outside the streets of the Dials and inside the ballrooms of the elegant lords and ladies who’d failed to so much as see a small starving child.

  Now Helena looked about the oblivious ladies in the shop, so casually throwing away their wealth, the same way their husbands, brothers, and fathers tossed coins upon the gaming tables. How much that love of frivolities and waste said of the people her brother had sent her to live amongst.

  “They are lovely, aren’t they?” A voice sounded just at her shoulder. “I think with your coloring you’d look magnificent in a shade of green, but alas Mother insists you don pale yellows and beiges.”

  That prattling pulled Helena from her own musings. She shifted her attention from the assorted bows to the fresh-faced, oft-smiling daughter of the Duke of Wilkinson. His only legitimate daughter. At seventeen, and only just having made her Come Out, Lady Diana was either hopelessly naïve or incredibly generous of heart to not mind that her Season had been crowded by her father’s by-blow.

  “Hmm?” Lady Diana urged, holding up two ribbons: a striped mint-and-white scrap and a sage-green bow. “Which would you choose?”

  As much as she despised the world she’d been thrust into by Ryker, she could never muster a hint of meanness for the always-kind half sister who’d been far more tolerant than any other lady surely would have ever been.

  Absently, Helena touched the ribbon in Diana’s right hand.

  “Lovely choice.” The girl beamed. “I shall tell Mother . . .”

  “No,” Helena said, her high-pitched request bringing the young lady to an abrupt halt. At the questioning look shot her way, she mustered a smile. “Her Grace has already been generous enough.” Which was not untrue. The woman had proven magnanimous with the garments and fripperies that filled Helena’s once-drab wardrobe. Just not with any true kindness. From the front of the shop, the blonde duchess, with her pinched mouth, glanced at Helena.

  She made little attempt to stifle the loathing teeming from her gaze.

  “Oh, do not be silly,” Diana protested. “Papa would wish you to have it. You are, after all, their daughter.”

  Helena choked on her swallow, that sound lost to the smattering of giggles from the twin beauties, who whispered and gestured all the more. She would never be a daughter to the hateful Duchess of Wilkinson, and she would only be a child to the duke in the strictest sense of blood. Through the hint of the other girls’ meanness, Diana chatted on, as she always did, hopelessly oblivious. The girl gathered her ribbons and carried them to one of Madame Bisset’s girls.

  A rush of energy surged through Helena; her feet twitched involuntarily with her need to flee this stifling world to which she’d never belong. The scar down the side of her right cheek throbbed, a kind of mocking reminder of just how out of place she was.

  The stinging fury, the blinding sense of betrayal burned now as strong as the day she’d left. Not for the first time since she’d been scuttled off by Ryker and sent away to the man who’d never been any real kind of father, beyond the seed he’d planted in Helena’s fool mother, a healthy fury and rage gripped her for that stranger who’d entered her rooms and ripped her life asunder.

  Lord Robert Westfield. She’d read enough of his name in the papers to know he was a rogue, and future duke. Beyond that, there was nothing to recommend the man. In short, there was really nothing to recommend him, then.

  What if I’d locked the door? Then he would have never entered my rooms. I would have continued sleeping. He would have continued walking. And even now, she’d have been closeted away in her office at the Hell and Sin Club, where no one gave a jot about the scar down the right portion of her face, or the marks on her arms and back, because they were the manner of people who saw a person’s worth.

  Her throat worked spasmodically under the force of her hungering to return to the Hell and Sin Club, to a gaming hell that had been more home than any other she’d before known.

  She pressed her eyes closed. Had she truly longed to step outside those comfortable walls? Because now, dwelling in this cold, purposeless world where she was prodded and fitted like a child’s doll, with no true role, she ached to have control restored.

  But it was not to be.

  Not until the end of the Season, at which time there was the foolish expectation that she’d make a match . . . and if she did not . . . Helena drew in a quavering breath. Then freedom.

  Having long found solace in numbers and calculations, she found a new solace in the three remaining months, ninety days, two thousand one hundred and sixty hours and . . . Helena frowned. Breaking the days into hours and seconds made the time she would be here husband hunting interminable.

  Regardless, she’d been in London a month, and had not had to deal with a single suitor. Where other ladies would lament, well . . . she celebrated. For when her time here was up, and no match made, she would be free to return to the world in which she fit. Her gaze wandered to the door of Madame Bisset’s, and she stared blankly at it. For happiness hadn’t truly belonged to her at Ryker’s establishment either. In the Hell and Sin she’d been trapped behind the club walls in different ways, all the while working, but also longing for freedom and control that had forever been withheld. Oh, she’d had purpose in her role, a role she’d enjoyed. But no one had listened to her. Not truly. Her brothers had been so bent on protecting her from Diggory, and the success of the Hell, that they’d stifled her voice . . . and in that, her happiness.

  “Miss Banbury,” the duchess snapped from across the shop. “We are leaving.”

  A surge of relief gripped her and she took great lurching steps to the front of the room, earning another round of giggling from the mean girls. Head held high, Helena continued marching proudly past. Having had a switch applied to her back and a candle touched to her face, any cruelties she’d known at the members of the ton paled.

  As a young servant rushed to open the door for the duchess, the regal woman filed out, not pausing to verify whether Helena followed. She hesitated and briefly contemplated slipping from this shop and taking off running in the opposite direction until the fashionable streets gave way to dirty, muddied roads, and danger lurked at every corner.

  Three months. She’d but three months left.

  With the words a litany, echoing around her mind, she started after the duchess and her daughter. Helena stepped outside and sunlight slapped her face. She lifted her hand, momentarily shielding her eyes from the blinding rays. Searching her gaze about, she found the duke’s liveried driver handing Her Grace into the elegant black barouche. Lady Diana followed close behind.

  Quickening her step, Helena made her way to the carriage, and allowed the servant to help her up. Murmuring her thanks, she climbed inside and settled onto the bench alongside her half sister.

  “You’ve lessons this afternoon with a dance instructor.” The duchess directed those words at the top of Helena’s head. “Then watercolors immediately following.” She flicked an icy glance up and down Helena’s form. “But the duke has requested to speak with you first.”

  Her heart sank. All the efforts of instructors hired by her brother had proven a lesson in extreme waste. “There is really no need for all the lessons, Your Grace,” she murmured. “Although I am . . .” She searched her mind. “Grateful, for the efforts, I’ll not be here long.”

  “No, you won’t,” the duchess concurred, her lips tightening. “Regardless, while you are here you’ll not be an embarrassment to His Grace.”

  From the corner of her eye, Dia
na flashed her a sympathetic look. In her eyes was a glint of knowing that came from a young woman who had long ago come to expect disapproving words from her mother. Dismissing the duchess, Helena peeled back the curtain and stared at the passing streets. As a child she’d envied girls born to those vaunted families. What struggle could they possibly know? In the short month Helena had been immersed in the glittering world of polite Society she’d found even ladies of the ton knew struggle.

  Life had proven that unkindness was not reserved to a station. Men, in general, had proven themselves wholly selfish, putting their needs before anyone else’s. Once again, the memory of the golden-haired lord who’d stumbled into her chambers and upended her world slid into her thoughts and a growl worked its way up her throat.

  “It is impolite to make noises like a street animal,” the duchess snapped, cutting into her thoughts.

  Heat stained Helena’s cheeks, and not for the first time she cursed Lord Robert Westfield, rogue without a care. This time for earning her further censure at the Duchess of Wilkinson’s.

  A short while later, the carriage rumbled to a stop beside the white stucco façade of the duke’s elegant Mayfair townhouse. Servants rushed forward, drawing the door open, and setting down a step for the duchess. All the pomp and circumstance of such a mundane activity again so at odds with the straightforward life Helena had known—until now.

  Helena waited for Diana to exit, but the girl hesitated. Fiddling with her muslin cloak, she worried her lower lip. “If you would like to practice our watercolors together, I might be able to help.” She opened her mouth, but Diana rushed to speak. “I do not presume to be any manner of teacher.” She dipped her head. “I just thought it might be . . . fun,” she finished softly.

  Helena tried to imagine what the days must be for this girl who had no hope of change from this staid, stilted lifestyle that she’d welcome even a change that came in the form of a bastard child of her faithless father. “That would be lovely,” she said softly, and the girl beamed.

  “Splendid!” With more of a spring in her step, Diana hurried from the carriage.

  Bracing for a day of tedium in the form of more lessons and lectures, Helena followed with far greater reluctance. She smiled at the servant, who averted his gaze. Even as Helena felt more comfortable around those in the duke’s employ, amongst the peerage, servants were largely invisible.

  Marching up the handful of steps, her skin pricked once again at the stares fixed on her by passersby. Then, it wasn’t every day a duke found a long-lost daughter and brought her to Town for a Season. It was quite the juicy on-dit for people who really didn’t know anything of import outside the cut of their garments.

  As Helena stepped inside the foyer, she shrugged out of her cloak and a servant rushed forward to claim the garment. She smoothed her palm over the muslin fabric, her fingers aching for the coarse, familiar brown wool she’d always donned.

  The footman waited patiently, and she blinked. Then she opened her fingers with alacrity, the cloak slipping from her hands into his waiting ones.

  “Miss Banbury, His Grace is waiting for you in his office,” the duchess snapped, with her hands on her hips. As much as Helena despised this woman for her coldness, there was at least an honesty to the furious wife’s anger that she could appreciate.

  Helena dropped a stiff curtsy, and started from the cavernous foyer done in white Italian marble. The tread of her slippers was silent as she made her way through the carpeted corridors. After all, how horrid it must be for a woman so proud to have her husband’s infidelity paraded before the ton. Except that unkindness was not reserved for Helena, but rather bestowed upon her own daughter.

  Helena continued striding through the halls, glancing at the hanging portraits of the duke’s relations.

  When she’d first arrived, she’d believed she would never learn her way about the more-mausoleum-than-home residence inhabited by the duke and his family. Alas, the only way she’d managed to put some semblance into the lavish townhouse was by assigning portraits specific numbers.

  Helena stopped beside portrait twenty-six, and rapped once on the duke’s door. Periodically, she was summoned for the express purpose of assuring the duke that she was, in fact, well.

  Which she was. Because with each day she was one day closer to returning home.

  “Enter,” the owner of that ever-cheerful voice called out.

  Helena pressed the handle and stepped inside. “Your Grace,” she murmured, closing the door behind her. She dropped a curtsy for the portly, bewhiskered gentleman.

  Oftentimes when she met him, she searched for some hint of herself in the white-haired, fleshy-cheeked duke. But for his pale skin, she couldn’t see any evidence that she was, in fact, his daughter.

  “Helena, Helena, do come in, girl,” he called in his usual jovial tones. He came to his feet, and moved around the desk with his hands outstretched.

  Having lived amongst elder brothers who by rule had shared no affection, for the ways in which it weakened you to your enemies, Helena still didn’t know what to make of this man’s warm greetings. So at odds with his frigid wife. Mayhap that coldness was what had driven him to Helena’s kindhearted mother. “Your Grace,” she said quietly.

  “None of that, now,” he said guiding her to the chair across from his desk. Instead of claiming the commanding position behind the broad, mahogany piece, he sat in the leather seat closest to Helena. “You are adjusting well?” he asked, tugging his chair closer.

  She hesitated, and then nodded. “Quite,” she lied, easily. After all, for all those she held to blame for her being here, Ryker, herself, and that rogue, Lord Robert Westfield, she could never fault or blame this man. He’d attempted to at least do right by her when most powerful peers would have been quite content to leave their by-blow buried in the underbelly of London.

  “Good, that is good,” he said, his smile widening, as he leaned back in his chair. He hooked his ankle across his knee.

  Shifting in her seat, Helena glanced about. She’d never been one of those women full of words. Unlike the duke’s legitimate daughter, who was always ready with a word and story, Helena was often left searching.

  “You’ve not had any suitors, yet,” he said gently, as though he were imparting some recent information.

  “No,” she said. After all, what really was there to say? She’d not bother telling him that she was quite content free of those self-centered, pompous lords who sought to marry, and then carry on at those same gaming hells Helena called home.

  “Humph,” the duke grunted, and settled back in his chair. “There is no accounting for taste.”

  She bit the inside of her cheek. How many times had she uttered that about her mother’s dreadful proclivity for attaching herself to the worst possible men?

  “But then, all gentlemen require a little help, eh?” A little twinkle lit his kind brown eyes.

  She furrowed her brow. “Your Grace?” she asked hesitantly, while distant warning bells went off at the back of her mind.

  “All gentlemen expect a bride with a dowry.”

  Helena froze. For the course of a month, but for the snide whispers and cruel stares, she’d remained largely invisible to the ton. There had been no friends outside of Lady Diana. There had been even fewer suitors, and she’d relished the absence of those pompous prigs. Oh, God, no. She shook her head, but he continued over her rapid-growing hysteria.

  “I am attaching a ten-thousand-pound dowry to you.”

  “Ten thousand,” she repeated back dumbly, as a buzzing filled her ears and blotted out the duke’s happy ramblings.

  When she’d been a small girl saddled with governesses, Helena had hated all aspects not mathematical of the miserable women’s teachings. One afternoon, laboring through a tedious reading about ancient Greek battles Helena had stumbled upon the legend of the Ten Thousand, that great, feared, and revered mercenary unit who’d attempted to wrest power from the Persian Empire. That tale of ten
thousand ruthless warriors had resonated with a girl raised on violent streets.

  And now, in a great twist of irony, her father had turned her into one of those creatures who’d sell themselves for someone else’s gains. He’d steal her anonymity and mark her worth in coin, so that was all anyone would ever see. Fortune hunters who’d seek to trap her and confine her to a new cage—a gilded one. Helena covered her face with her hands.

  “No need for that, gel,” he said, incorrectly interpreting the reason for her response. He patted her on the knee. “I would have done more for you and your mother . . .” His voice broke, and she dropped her hands to her lap.

  Oh, how she wanted to hate this man. Had spent years despising him. Every switch that Diggory had rained down on her back. Every tear her mother had shed. Through all of it, she’d found solace in her hatred. I don’t want to feel pity for him . . . I don’t want to feel anything . . . “You have been so very generous, Your Grace,” she said quietly. “Please, I ask you. Do not do this.” Please.

  “Do not give it another thought, gel,” he said, shoving to his feet. “It is done.” He ruffled the top of her head the way he might a child of five and not a woman of almost five and twenty. “Now, I believe you have dance lessons?”

  She forced a smile, and thought her cheeks would shatter from the expression of falsity she plastered on her face. “Indeed. Thank you.” Helena dropped another curtsy.

  As she took her leave of the duke, her mind turned over the sudden complication of remaining invisible for another three months without the constant barrage of suitors. If she’d been born a male she’d not even now be in this predicament. Her brothers . . . Lord Robert Westfield . . . they, by nature of their birth, could command at will. Where society sought to stifle females, they’d not dare do so to gentlemen. Particularly a marquess, and eventual duke. No, with men such as the Marquess of Westfield came even greater power and control.