A Wager Worth Making (Arrangements, Book 7)

by Rebecca Connolly

  Even if he did not come, even if she had to save herself, she would hold on.

  Lucas had given her that strength and confidence.

  He had never left her alone in truth.

  She had simply been too blind to see him there.

  She sniffed back the last of her tears and glanced over at her captors, chewing on her lip as she strained to catch what she could of their conversation. She may not have all of the skills of a refined woman of Society, might have no idea of the current fashions or styles of hats, and certainly had not garnered the attention and respect a viscountess ought to have done.

  But none of those skills would help her here.

  There was one skill, however, that Gemma had always possessed, her greatest strength and most unconventional attribute.

  And that just might save her now.

  Lucas rode wildly along the miles to Feltham, and the man beside him rode just as madly.

  He’d been joined shortly after reaching the outskirts of London, and there had been no conversation between them at all. It had been unnecessary and unwanted. He could feel the drive and fire of his friend, dressed almost unrecognizably as the Gent, and it was a comfort to have such a man beside him.

  His mind conjured several scenarios of how they might find Gemma, what she might have suffered, and he somehow found the strength of will to force them aside. It made no difference to him, except for the agony slashing his heart at each. He would take her in whatever form she was in, however ruined she might be. She could not be ruined in his eyes, could never be less than his perfect match and ideal, would never be anything but the woman he loved.

  This horrifying, cruel plan would not succeed.

  “Stanford is your man,” Rafe suddenly announced from his saddle.

  “I know,” he grunted in response.

  “I’ve taken the liberty of informing his brother of that. Hope you don’t mind.”

  He almost smiled in satisfaction. “Not a bit.”

  “Thought not.”

  “Bow Street?”

  “Them too.”

  “Good.”

  Feltham was approaching and his throat was suddenly on fire, every breath and swallow agony. His horse sensed his change and jolted forward awkwardly against him.

  “Steady on,” Rafe ordered, ever the controlled man. “You don’t know what we’re facing.”

  “Gemma’s in there,” he replied roughly. “That’s all I need to know.”

  Rafe had no response, and as the warehouse loomed before them, he veered off to scan the perimeter. Lucas let him, his eyes focused on the barely lit building.

  His wife was inside.

  Was there any way to prepare for the sight he was about to see?

  Rafe reached his side as he dismounted before the building. “No additional guards, no other exits. We should… Wait! Don’t do anything stupid!”

  Lucas ignored him as he marched forward, not waiting for him to dismount and enter with him. He barged through the door and scanned the darkened room anxiously.

  In the furthest corner, next to a poor makeshift cell, sat three figures around scattered candles, a lone female with tattered dress and scattered golden hair chatting animatedly.

  “You cannot simply tell her what to do,” she was saying, giving the largest man a scolding look. “It sounds to me that Agnes is a woman of strong opinions…” She paused as both men laughed heartily. “…which you sorely need, and if you would try for a bit of understanding, you might find her more agreeable to your opinions.”

  Lucas’s heart jumped into his throat, and he barely heard Rafe enter behind him, nor the cocking of his pistol.

  The three figures turned at the sounds they made and all froze.

  Gemma’s eyes widened and a hand went to her mouth.

  “Gemma?” he managed, hardly able to believe that she was not only well and whole, but charming the very men holding her captive.

  That was, in effect, the brilliance of his wife.

  “Lucas,” she replied, the whisper carrying across the room.

  Then they were moving, and she was flying into his arms. He clutched her head to him in one large hand, shaking and barely able to breathe as he enveloped her against him.

  “Thank God,” he breathed. “Thank God.”

  Gemma said nothing as she clung to him, the quaking of her frame the only sign of her distress. She eventually pulled back and cupped his face as he stroked her hair and cheeks. “You didn’t believe him, did you? You knew I would never leave you, right?”

  He opened his mouth, but he could not say anything. The truth was too painful. He had doubted, for a moment, and he would not deny that he had.

  Her eyes welled up and she pulled his head down to hers, touching her forehead to his. “Oh, Lucas. Can’t you see that I love you? Can’t you see that you are everything to me?”

  “I want to,” he vowed, holding her tightly, his fingers clutching at her hair. “I want to so badly.”

  Gemma sniffled and kissed him gently. “Then open your eyes. I am right here in your arms where I will always be.”

  He shook his head against her, running a hand along her hair. “I love you,” he whispered in a low, growling, passionate voice that seemed to be ripped from his chest.

  One of her delicate hands gripped the back of his neck tightly. “I know you do,” she replied as she kissed him, her lips effectively shredding the last of his resolve.

  He clung to her, letting his kisses confess everything he had felt and feared, and all the promises he would make later.

  A scattered sniffling broke the moment and Gemma gave a small laugh against him, breaking off. “Would you two stop?” she scolded, turning towards the captors. “I told you he would come for me, did you think I was lying?”

  “I’m jus’ happy to see you so happy, my lady,” one of the thugs said as he mopped his eyes.

  Lucas raised a brow and looked down at his grinning wife. “You made friends with your captors?”

  She shrugged, sliding her hands to his chest. “It seemed a better option than cowering in my cell and waiting for you. I can be quite charming when I put my mind to it.”

  He shook his head in wonder. “Weren’t you scared at all?”

  She reared back and snorted. “Of course I was! I was hauled into a carriage at gunpoint and bound and gagged and sat in that horrid cell for hours before I wore Brutus and Arthur down. It took all of my best efforts, I have never had to work so hard.”

  He shuddered and held her closer. “I believe it, love.” He kissed her quickly. “You are so brave, so brilliant.”

  “And I was worried for you.”

  He jerked in surprise. “For me? You’d been abducted and could have been killed, and you worried for me?”

  Gemma shook her head with a small smile. “Silly man, when will you realize that my life is bound up in yours?”

  It took him several attempts to properly breathe or swallow. “I don’t deserve you,” he admitted roughly.

  Her smile grew and she tugged on his greatcoat. “And that, my dear viscount, is precisely why you do.”

  She glanced behind him at Rafe and her brow furrowed. “I know him, don’t I?”

  He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Do you?”

  She nodded. “I do, and yet I don’t.”

  He assumed rather than heard Rafe shrug. “That happens a lot,” Rafe admitted in a fake Cockney accent that was really quite good. “I’ll jus’ be waitin’ outside, milord.”

  Lucas closed his eyes, suddenly wanting to laugh hysterically at the one secret he may actually have to keep from his witty and captivating wife.

  “I do know him,” Gemma muttered to herself. “I’ll figure it out, see if I don’t.”

  “I am sure you will, love,” he assured her, only half placating. Knowing Gemma, she just might do it.

  She looked up at him, slipping her hands around his neck again. “How did you find me?”

  His jaw tightened and he
pulled her closer, suddenly more fiercely protective. “I went to Stanford. He was at home, all superior and preening, and then I figured it out, and… quite lost my temper. It did the job.”

  Gemma tilted her head, seeming torn between smiling and frowning. “You don’t have a temper.”

  He smirked at her. “Oh yes, I do. When someone interferes with my wife, I very much do have a temper. When someone threatens her and abuses her and takes her from me, I have quite the temper indeed.”

  Her eyes widened and her throat worked on a swallow. “Oh dear. Did you kill him?”

  Now it was he who cocked his head at her. “I thought you said I could never kill anyone.”

  “I am revising my opinion, just this once.”

  That oddly pleased him. “No, I didn’t kill him.”

  Gemma exhaled in relief. “Thank God.”

  “But I was damn close.”

  And then, of all things, Gemma sighed, smiling a bit dreamily.

  Confused and amused, he nudged her with his nose. “What on earth was that for, love?”

  She shrugged, sighing again. “Every now and then, I must give in to some distinctly feminine impulses and sigh pathetically over my husband. If you give me a moment, I may work up a swoon and be quite overcome.”

  He barked a short laugh. “From my temper?”

  She gave him a devious look that started a fire in his bones. “From you, my love. I could become quite accustomed to swooning over you.”

  Lucas smiled a slow, heated smile that made his wife’s eyes darken. “Swoon away, darling. I won’t tell a soul.”

  Gemma’s fingers began toying with his hair. “Oh, I wouldn’t mind if you did. I should swoon publicly.”

  “Why ever for?” he asked, afraid to hear her answer.

  “So that the world will know that Lady Blackmoor swoons and pines for her husband. Let them speculate on that for a time.”

  Lucas threw his head back and laughed, then kissed her quite thoroughly.

  When he allowed it, she broke from his lips. “You owe me money for that laughter, my lord,” she said in a breathy voice that curled his toes. “And even more for such a kiss.”

  He swung her up into his arms. “Bill me,” he growled as he kissed her again.

  Epilogue

  The party was a truly glorious one, far exceeding any of the previous events, however incomparable they had been declared. It was extravagant, elaborate, and entirely overdone, yet with such taste and refinement that one did not even notice how excessive it truly was.

  Such was the nature of the Rivertons.

  But this, Gemma thought with a wry grin, was bordering on the ridiculous, even for them. Or perhaps it was excessive and ridiculous and overdone because all of the finery of the Riverton events was suddenly in place at the Blackmoor residence. And that was the most bewildering part for the majority of the guests.

  It was a bit much even for the hostess.

  She shook her head at Sophie, who had been watching her from across the room. Sophie shrugged and rolled her eyes in response, then returned her attention to the conversation at hand.

  Gemma had no such needs, as she was currently unimpeded by conversations and could observe the fine gathering at her own leisure.

  It was slightly untoward, having what was technically an engagement ball after the couple had already married, but Will had been asked to serve as a liaison for several months in Spain, and his bride-to-be refused to wait at home without him.

  As the Rivertons had been quite delighted with Will’s choice, and quite desperate to marry him off, they agreed and allowed the slight twist of protocol.

  Given the splendor now, it seemed that no one else in Society truly minded either. It was as much a welcome home ball as it was an engagement ball, and all had been reassured that a true Riverton event would be set up in the coming weeks.

  Just what they all needed, more excesses.

  Gemma frowned as she looked around, catching sight of Henry mingling with several influential guests, Lord and Lady Riverton being fawned over by their enthusiastic admirers, and Will laughing jovially with some of his former Naval associates.

  There was one person missing from this melee.

  Her husband.

  She smiled to herself and shook her head, knowing exactly where he would be at this moment. She slipped out of the ballroom, smiling at Lily and Marianne, talking with Lady Raeburn and her new husband, Lord Roger Tinsdale. That was an odd pairing, but Gemma was not about to question it.

  Tibby did whatever she wanted, and always made it work for her.

  Gemma moved up the back stairs to the family wing, the pattern easily one she could have done in her sleep. It was second nature to venture up the back stairs for one reason or another during events now, especially since they had become all the more infamous as a couple.

  In the last three years, the announcement of the now public relationship between their family and the Rivertons had become accepted as the most unexpected turn of fate for them. No one could believe the good fortune that had fallen upon that horrid Lord Blackmoor and his peculiar bride.

  They had difficulty believing it as well, but as they were now considered less horrid and less peculiar, and universally far less exciting than anyone had thought, they did not mind at all.

  It had not changed Lucas’s reclusive nature, but it had made him more inclined to warmth and laughter, which had changed everything.

  He was so alive when with his family, and they delighted in being able to claim him as a relation. They attended every Riverton event, even the masquerades Lucas despised, and dined with them at least twice a week when in Town. More than that, they hosted several events in London now, including, apparently, the unofficial Riverton events, being unofficial Rivertons themselves.

  During their time at Thornacre, Riverton relations visited often enough that they were no longer announced properly, and the children ran as wild through the house as if it were their own.

  They loved it that way.

  Gemma sighed a little to herself as she reached the door to the nursery, shaking her head. She knew the sight she would find, and she would need to steel herself for it. It always made her far too emotional, which made her husband more attentive, which made her cling more, which usually meant they would not be making whatever appearance or event they were expected to in the appropriate time.

  She was impossibly weak to the charms of her husband, even now, and he had only improved his craft with the years of marriage.

  It was a terribly distracting way to live.

  She pushed open the door, securing her most scolding, disapproving face.

  As she predicted, Lucas was sitting in the nursemaid’s rocking chair, a tiny, brown-haired girl in his lap, her mouth gaping and her thumb just out of reach as she slept.

  Lucas had the sleeping child tucked tightly against him, and one finger toyed with a curl, his eyes far away.

  “My lord Blackmoor,” Gemma murmured with disapproval. “There is a party downstairs, and you are missing it.”

  “I am missing nothing,” he replied softly, his eyes shifting to her, running over her with quick heat and appreciation.

  She folded her arms. “You know what I mean. You ought to be downstairs celebrating Will’s marriage.”

  He snorted, rocking slowly. “Will has been married for nine months, and considering the fact that it took almost two years for him to convince Rosalind that marrying him was a good idea, I don’t think we should be celebrating him at all. Pitying her, perhaps, but not celebrating Will.”

  Gemma chuckled and shook her head. “Then come and celebrate Rosalind being the best thing that ever happened to Will and try to convey your proper sympathies to her. You can’t stay up here forever.”

  He sniffed and glanced down at the girl in his lap. “I can if Violet cried for me.”

  “She’s not crying now.”

  “She might start again.”

  Gemma smiled softly and c
ame closer. “You know she only does that so you will come to her. When you are away, she never cries in the night at all.”

  He returned her smile and stroked his daughter’s hair. “I know. I know it all too well, and I can’t make myself tell her to stop. She’ll stop wanting me to come on her own eventually, and I’m not sure I can bear that.”

  “She will never stop wanting her father,” Gemma assured him, stroking his cheek with the back of her fingers. “You will always be her favorite, Lucas.”

  “Not always.”

  Gemma looked up at the ceiling with a half-smile. “She is not even three, Lucas. Can we not worry about her falling in love at the moment?”

  “You cried about Jack going off to school last week, and he’s not even walking yet.”

  She glared down at her husband and tugged sharply on part of his hair, drawing a laugh from him. “A mother can cry over her son if she wants to.”

  “And a father cannot dote on his daughter?”

  She sighed and stroked his cheek again. “I did not come here to debate on how we love our children. I came to fetch you. I don’t want to be down there alone anymore, so come and give your wife some attention.”

  He looked up at her, raising a brow. “I can give you plenty of attention without going to that blasted festival downstairs.”

  She shook her head in warning. “No, my lord, we have responsibilities. You are respectable now, and getting to be a popular sight. Come and do your duty.”

  He frowned, but rose, cradling his daughter and moving towards her bed. “Spoilsport.”

  “If you are good, we may calculate your bill later.”

  That brought his head around, his eyes sparkling with interest. “Indeed?”

  Gemma smiled in the way she knew would drive him mad. “If you are good.”

  He laid Violet down in her bed and tucked her in, then glanced over at the bassinet where their sleeping son lay. He looked back up at Gemma and slowly made his way to her. “Then I shall be the most perfectly behaved gentleman that ever behaved at all.”

  She laughed softly. “You’ve never behaved a day in your life.”

  He kissed her nose, then the corner of her mouth. “Care to wager on that?”