“She can keep the damned cloak,” Martin cursed. “Brett’s already seen her. You know she’s better looking than the titled beauties you normally seduce. And you won’t have to wait until midnight, or until her husband’s out of town, either, for your little bit of fun.” He leaned down the table and sank his voice into a conspiratorial whisper. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a warm little ladybird to cuddle up to whenever the mood strikes? She’s a tasty morsel. Her temper’s a bit sharp, but you ought to be able to handle that with some of your famous charm.”
Brett was not accustomed to having his personal life discussed publicly, but to have his intimate affairs talked about in front of a gently bred female caused his temper to boil over.
“You contemptible swine,” he rasped. “I’ll oblige you with any wager you like, but I don’t traffic in humans.”
“The man’s gone completely off his head,” broke in Feathers, who had been making odd noises for several minutes. “I’m as fond of the game as any man alive, but I wouldn’t wager my sister, even if I had one, which I don’t, being an only child.”
“I doubt there’s any way to still his tongue, short of death,” groaned Edward.
“It doesn’t matter what you think, stripling,” Martin roared. “I’m offering her to Brett, and he’s honor-bound to accept any wager I propose.”
“I cannot see how Brett can in honor accept your wager,” Edward objected, clearing his throat. “Miss Vareyan may not be of any value to you, but she is a person, albeit a female, and should be treated with consideration. To drag her half naked about a castle and then offer her as a stake in a card game is behavior that would reflect poorly on us all.”
“Westbrook’s not afraid of what people might say about him,” Martin exploded. “He’s rich enough to thumb his nose at your whole bloody class.”
“I’m nearly unmanned by your tribute, Martin,” Brett snapped, “but I wish you wouldn’t try to explain me to my friends.” Martin flushed, but he held his gaze.
“You’re nearly correct,” Brett continued. “I’ll accept almost any wager, but I’m not drunk enough, or heedless enough of society’s customs, to toss the dice for your sister. Marry her off if you don’t want her. With that face, you shouldn’t have any trouble finding someone to take her off your hands. How about young Feathers here?”
Kate bit her lip to keep from speaking. How dare he talk about her like she was property to be disposed of at will. He was just as bad as Martin, a ruthless man used to having his own way and willing to walk over anybody to get it. She wouldn’t be surprised if he had seduced half the women in London.
“You’re so rich you can probably find half a dozen properties you didn’t know you owned,” Martin grumbled impatiently, “but Kate is all I have left. It’s her against the whole estate. You can’t refuse me.”
Barnaby Rudge had sat quietly for the last while, but at those words, he turned and stared at Martin, his piglike eyes wide with the light of intense interest. “Estate?” he questioned.
“Shut up, Barnaby,” Martin barked in warning. “This is none of your business.” He glared so threateningly that the others thought he might attack his corpulent friend.
Unfazed by Martin’s menace, Barnaby looked as though he was about to say something, but he apparently changed his mind and settled back in his chair. “Suit yourself,” he muttered. “It’s not my money.”
“That’s right,” Martin snarled. “And Kate’s not your sister. If anybody else has a mouthful of high-flown words and mawkish sentiment, you can keep it to yourself. For the last time,” he said, whirling about to face Brett once more, “are you going to accept my wager, or are you going to let these spineless ditch rats talk you into backing down?” Brett was silent.
“No doubt he’s overcome by the eloquence with which you state your case,” Edward purred, but Martin continued to watch Brett like a cat at a mousehole.
“Come on, don’t keep me waiting all night,” Martin erupted. “Dammit, you can’t leave me like this. I demand satisfaction.”
Brett turned his eyes from Kate; he was afraid if he continued to look at her, he would be willing to take any risk to get her in his possession. He told himself that one didn’t gamble for human beings, that one person couldn’t own another person, but after one glance at Kate, the primitive instinct to take what he wanted threatened to bury his carefully acquired veneer of refined behavior.
“Has it occurred to you that I might win this time as well?” Brett asked, hoping he could persuade Martin to withdraw his offer.
“I’m going to win,” Martin screamed furiously. “I’ve got to win.”
“Have you considered your sister’s feelings?” Brett held up his hand to forestall Martin’s explosive outburst. “I won’t have it said I abducted anyone. I’d rather travel with fighting cocks than a female suffering from the vapors or fainting spells.”
“She’s my ward and she’ll do as I say,” Martin shouted, but Brett cut short his objection.
“How do you feel about being a wager in a game of high stakes, Miss Vareyan?” he asked in a voice not entirely free of mockery.
“Women have always been wagers in games of ‘high stakes,’ as you so carefully put it,” she said, regarding him with scornful eyes. “Whenever a man takes a wife, her looks, breeding, dowry, family, and ability to breed heirs are all he considers. If the whole estate were my dowry and you were asking Martin for my hand in marriage, it wouldn’t be any different, except that Martin seems to have lost his estate and I have no dowry.”
Brett stared at her, the boredom and mockery gone from his glance and a questioning look filling his dark eyes, but Kate was staring at Martin. She knew she risked losing her reputation if she left Ryehill with Brett, but Martin hadn’t allowed her outside the castle in four years; he could murder her and throw her body in the cellars and no one would know.
“As for my being a wager …” she resumed at last, “it might as well be now as another time. He’s gambled away my dowry—do you know how unlikely it is that a penniless girl will receive an honorable offer of marriage?—and you see how he uses me.” She massaged her bruised cheek. “In a few years I won’t be pretty enough to attract a husband.”
“Surely it’s not that bad,” Edward exclaimed, startled by the sadness in her voice.
“How can a man know what it’s like to be a woman?” she demanded, turning on him with unexpected fury. “You come and go as you please and your honor isn’t questioned, but I’m locked up like a prisoner, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it, even if they wanted to.” She started to cry and Feathers, startled out of his trance by her tears, offered her his handkerchief, but she drove him back to his seat with a gesture of furious rejection.
“You don’t care about me,” she shouted accusingly at all of them. “You’re just embarrassed at being caught in such a disagreeable situation and hoping it will soon end.” She buried her face in the cloak to hide her hot tears.
The truth of her words made Brett angrier still. Now, damn and blast, Edward and Feathers were looking to him to resolve this squalid little imbroglio. What in the world could he do with this girl? There was always the possibility he would lose the game, but that was no longer an acceptable solution. Kate was calmer now, but the tears still glistened on her lashes. By God, she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. He could feel his pulses start to race and his desire rise just by looking at her. She had intelligence, beauty, and spirit. He turned abruptly to Martin.
“I’ll accept your wager, but only on my terms.”
“Any conditions you want,” Martin panted.
“You haven’t heard them yet,” Brett replied with biting disdain. Ignoring Martin’s eagerness, he paused to clear his head of the effects of the brandy. “If I win, everything goes to your sister. You’ll leave this castle as soon as it can be arranged and have no claim on her.”
“All right,” Martin muttered impatiently. “Just get on with the game.”
“I’m not finished,” Brett continued. “I’m not betting the money, just the estate.” Martin’s eyes opened wider and his mouth worked nervously. “Is Rudge there your legal man?”
Martin nodded.
“Then remember what I say. I don’t want any questions about it later. If Martin wins, he gets the estate free and clear, but the money on the table and the equivalent of one year’s income goes to his sister as her dowry.” Martin looked mutinous, but he nodded his acceptance.
“I’m leaving for Paris in a few days, but I’ll have my lawyers set up banking arrangements and see that Miss Vareyan is settled in London and provided with a suitable companion. Finally, I’m not going to throw those accursed dice again. We’re going to cut for the highest card. One card each. Whoever wins the cut, wins everything.”
Martin regarded Brett steadfastly, his eyes glowing with hatred, but he’d gone so far he had no other choice but to continue. And his bitch of a sister was looking at Brett like he was an avenging knight! He’d settle with her later. She’d rot in hell before he handed over a single penny.
Brett seemed to divine his thoughts. “If you accept my conditions and don’t carry them out, I’ll personally rend you limb from limb.”
“I said I would, goddamnit,” Martin snarled. “Just get on with it.”
“Here, I want your help,” Brett said to Rudge. “Edward will shuffle the cards, but I want you to shuffle them again. Then Feathers can cut and stack. Is that satisfactory, Martin?”
“I can manage without your help, damn your eyes,” Martin exploded, but the cards were prepared according to Brett’s instructions and were soon stacked in a neat pile in front of Martin. He stared at them for a long while, then his hand slowly reached out to cover the cards; the room held its breath—Kate was almost sick with apprehension—as Martin’s fingers moved nervously along the edge of the cards, stopping only to start again, afraid to make the choice on which so much depended. Then, in a moment of swift resolution, his fingers closed over the cards and he turned over the top half of the deck. Martin jumped to his feet with a shout of triumph; he had drawn the King of Hearts.
“What a singularly inappropriate card,” Edward murmured, an unfamiliar tenor of urgency sounding in his customarily languid voice. “You’re going to have to do better than that, old man.”
“Be quiet,” Brett snapped, his own nerves stretched to breaking point. Kate’s face was drained of color; anyone could see she was sure she would be left to her brother’s questionable mercy, but after what Brett had seen tonight, there was no question of leaving her behind. Abruptly he reached out and turned over the top card. The Ace of Spades lay before him.
“Gad, you do have all the luck,” Feathers marveled. Edward relaxed against the mantel and Kate, suddenly unable to support herself, slumped against a small table.
A roar exploded from Martin’s throat as he lunged to his feet, upsetting the table and sending the brandy and glasses crashing to the floor. “You bewitched the cards,” he screamed in a mad fury. “No man can have that much luck. You cheated me out of my estates, and now you want my sister to satisfy your filthy lusts. I won’t let you get away with it! I won’t …”
Brett came out of his seat with the speed of a striking cobra. He drew Martin bodily out of his chair and flung him across the table, striking his head on the black oak with a ringing crack that momentarily stunned him.
“I’ve listened to my last word from you tonight,” Brett ground out from between clenched teeth. “You kept insisting that we raise the stakes, you made absurd bets all evening, and you demanded I accept your sister as a stake. Now instead of taking your losses like a man, you whine and accuse me of hellish connivance.” Brett flung Martin from him as though ridding himself of something foul. “On your feet and face your sister. She’s going to be mistress here now.”
Feathers rushed up to Brett and clapped him on the back. “Well done. I say, well done.” He beamed and turned to Kate who still leaned on the table.
“Who’d have thought this night would end with you going to London? I’ve never been myself, but I know you’ll get along famously.”
“Do strive to contain your elation,” Edward said, interrupting Feathers’s effusion before Kate could faint. “I, too, am sure Miss Vareyan will become the toast of the ton, but at the moment she seems more in need of a good chair than vouchers for Almacks.” He took Kate by the elbow and guided her to his own chair, then he turned to Brett, outwardly his usual urban self.
“That was a rather clever scheme, my friend, but the transfer of an estate to a young woman to whom you are not related or bound by any conventional tie is certain to give rise to considerable conjecture, the nature of which would be fatal to Miss Vareyan’s reputation.”
“The lawyers can transfer everything straight from Martin to his sister,” Brett stated wearily, the strain of the tension and the long night beginning to show. “Right now I’m more concerned about the immediate future. I think it’s best if we both escort Miss Vareyan to London, but she’ll need some place to stay. My great-aunt Lindsay will take her for the season, especially once she gets a good look at her and knows she’s an heiress, but she can’t be seen like this.” Kate cringed as he pointed a condemning finger at her huddled figure still wrapped in Edward’s cloak. “She’ll have to have some decent clothes and introductions to the right people. You’re just the kind of dapper dog I need to take charge of things while I’m away.”
“You’re going a little too fast for me,” Edward protested. “I hate to sound disobliging, even though I don’t mind being disobliging in the least, but I’ve never acted the duenna for a young woman and I don’t propose to begin now.”
“You’re all going too fast,” announced Rudge’s voice from the corner. “The money’s not yours to give to anybody.”
“What do you mean?” Brett demanded with a gathering frown. “Martin lost his whole estate. It’s all there on these pieces of paper. It may not be stated in the legal language you prefer, but it’s a binding debt nonetheless.” Unaffected by Brett’s disdain, Rudge’s eyes searched out Martin as he backed away from the circle around Kate.
“I doubt Martin would have honored that debt, but in this case, he can’t honor it. According to his father’s will, Martin doesn’t come into control of his estates until he’s thirty-five, is married and the father of an heir, provides a tenth of his income or the revenue of two years for his sister’s dowry, and his trustees feel he has become settled enough not to gamble away his inheritance the way he tried to do tonight. Until then, he may not sell any part of the estate, pledge any part of it, or legally raise funds against it. The only money he has in the world is the income paid to him each quarter, and that was gone before midnight. Everything else was a cheat.” All eyes gradually turned to where Martin stood apart from the group; as usual it was Feathers who spoke first.
“The stinking swine!” he exclaimed. “When I think of how we gave in to him, letting him set up a lot of rules nobody liked, and all the time he was cheating every one of us. It doesn’t seem possible.”
“It does seem to bring the evening to an unnecessarily lurid conclusion, but somehow it fits with the rest of this hellish night,” Edward said, meticulously straightening his waistcoat. His eyes searched out Martin, scorching him with contempt. “It hardly needs to be stated that you have placed yourself beneath reproach. I will leave as soon as my departure can be arranged and never set foot inside this house again. Until then, do not speak to me. Should you be so unwise as to address me in future, I shall be obliged to cut you completely.”
Edward broke off, certain he heard a sob from Kate, but when he turned around, she was sitting ramrod-straight in her chair, head held proudly erect, her face an impassive mask. What a magnificent creature, he thought. How could she be related to Martin?
Kate raised blank eyes to Brett’s face. Her voice was tight and a trifle unsteady, but she resolutely forced the words from between her lips.
“Thank you for your kind and thoughtful gesture. I had hoped I might somehow have enough money to live modestly, but if this can not be, I’ll waste no time repining. I only want to know what you plan to do with me.”
In that moment Brett would have gladly strangled Martin with his bare hands. He had planned it so either way the cards fell Kate would be free, but instead she had ended up on his hands. He might want her in his bed, but he didn’t want to be responsible for her, and he certainly didn’t know what to do with her. He had thrown his aunt Lindsay’s name out as a gambit, but he wasn’t at all sure she would take a debutante under her wing, no matter how rich, beautiful, and well-connected. He was damned sure she would slam the door in his face if he showed up with a penniless girl whose brother was a double-dealing skirter. God, what a tangle.
Brett’s gaze encountered Kate’s brilliant blue eyes so hopefully turned in his direction, and he cast all thoughts of Lady Lindsay from his mind. By God, she was a beauty, one to make a man’s blood churn just to think about her. She was still wrapped in Edward’s cloak, but it was impossible to look at her without imagining her lying naked in his arms. Desire instantly inflamed his senses, yet there was something more that compelled his interest. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but maybe that was why he had agreed to Martin’s preposterous wager.
“How soon can you be ready to leave?” he demanded, throwing caution to the winds.
“Two hours.” Brett pulled out his watch. “It ought to be light enough to travel by then. Make sure you’re ready.”
Kate started to leave, but turned back to Edward. “Thank you for your kindness,” she said shyly, her unexpected gratitude causing Edward to shift his weight self-consciously. “I hope I may see you again under more pleasant circumstances, but if not, please know I’ll never forget you.” She hurried from the room leaving an awkward silence behind her.
Edward raised his eyes to Brett’s face; neither man said a word, but their glances remained locked for some time before Edward spoke with jarring fierceness.
Seductive Wager Page 3