The Bartered Bridegroom

by Teresa DesJardien

  She did, however, find plenty to say to Mr. Cullman, admiring his alfresco table, the china from which they ate, and the fine wine that they drank.

  Benjamin stifled a sneer, and turned to Miss Mansell. “My horse is running in the next race,” he informed her.

  “Is it?” Miss Mansell appeared genuinely interested. “What is its name? Is it the favorite?”

  “No, not the favorite. A two-year-old. A mare, called Fallen Angel.”

  “Oh my.” Her eyes widened. “A somewhat wicked name, is it not? Have you wagered on her?”

  “Of course,” he answered, just as the horn blew to announce the race.

  “Oh dear! I am too late to place a wager as well.” Miss Mansell pouted prettily.

  Benjamin shrugged. “Well, perhaps you have saved yourself some coins.”

  To his surprise, he was mistaken: As Miss Oakes clapped her hands and murmured encouraging, urging cries of “Go, my beauty! Oh, fly, Angel, you have the heart for it!” Fallen Angel came in second, only a neck’s length behind the winner.

  He’d won eight pounds, Benjamin realized in stunned gratification. On his own horse, the horse whom he had briefly hoped he might keep. And the eight pounds was only the beginning, because there was a purse provided for the first two horses in the race—thirty pounds for the winner, and ten for second place. Eighteen pounds! It was enough, with care, to see Benjamin through until quarter day, even minus the percentage that went to the horse’s rider and stabler.

  He turned to Miss Oakes, who returned his stunned gaze with a delighted one of her own. “I told you I did not think she would finish in the field!” she crowed, her brown eyes dancing.

  “Good guess,” he said, still a little numb from the stroke of good fortune. It was difficult to concede Miss Oakes had been exactly right—even after she’d done so well in calling the first three races. She’d told her brothers to wager on the winner in the first race, had missed calling the winner in the second—but only by the length of an equine nose—and named the three who won, placed, or showed in the third race, albeit reversing the last two.

  To his surprise, Miss Oakes took no offense at his flat tone. “That’s all it ever is, of course, a good guess,” she agreed. “But there is a kind of science at work here, too, you must realize. Patterns, and statistics, and calculation of age, experience, training, timing, health of the animal. ..” He must have been staring at her, for her voice faded away and she ducked her head for a long moment.

  “Well, she won,” she went on in a more subdued manner. “And she will win again, I feel sure.” Her enthusiasm could not wane for long, however. “Oh, do say you will send her to Helm- man’s!”

  “Perhaps,” he said, even though he’d already half hoped he might somehow manage to pay the entry fee for Helmman’s. After all, how could the horse earn anything toward its keep if it did not run?

  Now he could afford the fee—not to mention his own rent— and yet he said “perhaps” simply to vex Miss Oakes. He knew he was being contrary, but eating from Cullman’s dishes seemed to have put him in a perverse mood.

  “Now all the excitement is behind us, I find I would like to stroll for a bit,” Miss Mansell suggested, looking directly at Benjamin.

  “Oh, er, may I escort you?” Benjamin asked, as manners insisted he must. Miss Mansell accepted with a smile as he wondered how he might stroll and yet still manage to keep Cullman from flirting all the more with Miss Oakes.

  To Benjamin's relief, Miss Oakes said she would also like to stroll, and Cullman offered his arm. They ended with a space between the two couples as they strolled, allowing for privacy in conversation, but Benjamin made sure Miss Oakes went before him and was ever in sight.

  As they walked, speaking of the crowd and the races already run, they also stopped now and again to chat with other racegoers. It was impossible to miss that Miss Mansell’s presence on Benjamin’s arm created a noticeable shift. Those who had snubbed Miss Oakes before, now turned to greet Miss Violet Mansell. They might still cast wary' glances at Benjamin, but they greeted him with nods or small curtsies, and introductions were made. All to the good, especially in the arena of employment for Benjamin, who could only stand to profit from a widening circle of acquaintances.

  Miss Mansell, for one, seemed to approve of him. She placed both hands upon his arm, one draped over the other, the posture necessitating she walk nestled near his side. She did not fit against him in the same unaware but intimate way Miss Oakes did. but that could hardly be counted a fault. In fact, there was not much about Miss Mansell to be faulted.

  She was pretty, lovely even, with her blond hair and blue eyes. If her slender figure could not rival Miss Oakes’s fuller, curvier shape, it was still not a figure to be overlooked. At least she did not spout nonsense about numerical patterns and race performances, nor carry a large tome about, filled with facts that could only be considered useless to a young woman.

  Not useless, Benjamin had to correct himself, not to Miss

  Oakes, who means to breed and sell horses—howsoever foolish such an endeavor must be reckoned.

  When he and Miss Mansell approached the table to which Cullman and Miss Oakes had already returned, it was to find Miss Oakes’s brothers gathered around their sister, asking which horse to wager on in the fifth race.

  “Really, gentlemen, this will not do,” Benjamin said in a low voice. He glanced around, hoping others were not so keenly aware of Miss Oakes’s “pastime” as he was—no thanks to her brothers. “Enough of racing for today. I propose we return to the City.”

  “There are two more races set to be run!” Lewis cried.

  “All the same. I will collect the purse Fallen Angel won, and speak with my horse’s trainer and jockey, and then I wish to leave.”

  “Katherine?” Mercer made the inquiry but all three brothers looked to her.

  She nodded. “I am content to go home soon.” Her manner and her voice both lacked the liveliness she’d shown earlier when she was updating her racing journals.

  Her brothers groaned and Lewis kicked at the railing, only to yelp in pain, but all three of them ceased to argue the matter. Benjamin felt his brows lift in surprise, for Miss Oakes was unruly and undisciplined in self-restraint, but he had never realized before that she also had a kind of presence to her, call it an assurance, one that obviously held sway over her three older brothers.

  Benjamin collected his purse and winnings, spoke with the trainer and the jockey, and paid them their percentage. After a hesitation, he gave the trainer the entry fee and instructed him to run Fallen Angel at Helmman’s in Kent, with the same jockey, who happily agreed.

  After all, Benjamin was not a fool. Only a fool would ignore the evidence of his eyes and ears. He had heard Miss Oakes name the likely horses who had indeed come across the finish line foremost; he had seen her brothers’ rapt attention when she spoke on the horses; he had seen their purses expand, stuffed with the banknotes they had won. He may not think Society would approve of Miss Oakes’s skill, but even though he had tried, he could no longer deny it existed.

  “You have the oddest look on your face,” Mercer said as Benjamin stepped up last into the coach. “As if you’re smiling and scowling all at once.”

  Benjamin was tempted to put out his tongue—gadzooks, but this Oakes clan was having a poor influence on his manners!— but instead he settled for a grunt and for studiously staring out the window, which was to say avoiding Miss Oakes’s gaze.

  Chapter 12

  A week later, Katherine was grabbed by the hand and yanked close by Lord Benjamin. He made the move seem as if it were part of the dance in which they were engaged, but actually it was to pull her close enough to hear his snarled whisper. “Do not dance again with Cullman.”

  “I dance with whom I please,” Katherine hissed back.

  “It is too soon for our breakup.”

  “Who says?”

  “Good God, woman, can you not be compliant in just one matter, on
e that favors yon?” he replied, his eyes a snapping blue fire.

  “It favors you as well,” came her quick response just before she straightened for the next movement.

  ‘Ton are the one who needs time in which to have her cottage and lands readied. I need time in which to get it done,” he pointed out, still in that hissed whisper, as they passed each other in a move that left them on opposite sides of where they’d started. He had passed her deftly, too, for Katherine suspected it had looked more as if he had tried to plant a kiss on her cheek than it had looked like an excuse for a hotly whispered reminder.

  She pursed her lips and finished the dance without exchanging another word with him, vexed because he was right. He had probably long settled his wager that he could be betrothed before dawn; he presumably had no more need of her company. Katherine, on the other hand, needed the length of a month to have any hope of having her land ready before she could claim it upon her birthday. He was right, curse him for it.

  At least he had reminded her that she had something she’d been meaning to say to him. “Lord Benjamin,” she said as they

  exchanged the ending bow and curtsy of the dance, “may I talk privately with you for a moment?”

  “Oh, can you spare a moment away from Cullman’s side?”

  She wanted to slap him, but that would hardly give the impression they were delighted with one another. “If you can spare one away from Miss Mansell,” she retorted.

  Lord Benjamin scowled at her. “I hope you are not saying I have been remiss in my duty to you, in my paying polite attention to Miss—”

  “I shan’t waste much of your time,” Katherine interrupted crisply. Whether he did or did not flirt to excess with the woman was not her concern.

  Once they had retreated to a comer, she opened her reticule and took out a piece of folded parchment. “That is a confirmation from the solicitor of all that you have had done for my property.” She swallowed her annoyance, and gazed directly up at him. “I just wanted to thank you, my lord. Papa would not have done anything I asked of him concerning my property, out of meaning well and out of wanting to keep me in his home, I am afraid. He still sees me as a little girl, and he tries too hard to protect me.”

  “Not very successfully,” Lord Benjamin pointed out as he returned the list to her.

  Katherine felt her lips thin, as if to echo the thinning of her patience with this man, but she nodded all the same. “No, I suppose not.”

  Lord Benjamin gazed down at her, and shook his head on a sigh. “Were I your father, I would not think you old enough to manage a cottage and a venture on horsebreeding either. Your age aside, a woman alone has no protection. And who will buy the horses you hope to breed, Miss Oakes, assuming the land can be made to support them? Who will turn to a ... an unusual female when there are reputable men throughout the land who can supply worthy horses?”

  Katherine looked away. “I know it will be difficult. But perhaps I will marry. My husband can represent the business side of things, while I tend to the labor.”

  Lord Benjamin shook his head again. “Your horses had best all be winners, Miss Oakes, at least at first. You’ve no room for average horses—just one will kill your dream.”

  She straightened her shoulders. “At least then I will have had my dream for a short while. That is to be preferred to never even trying to fulfill it, surely?”

  Something crossed his features, understanding perhaps, or empathy. In that moment, his pleasant face acquired another quality beyond physical comeliness. It took Katherine a moment to realize it was the look her brothers used to have on their faces way back when she had been allowed to accompany them and walk among the horses at the races. Something precious and rare. It was the face of camaraderie, of fellow feeling, even call it friendship.

  “Yes, Miss Oakes,” Lord Benjamin said, now without amusement or irritation in his tone, but only simple acceptance. “It is to be preferred. I accept your thanks, even though I was only doing as I’d promised I would.”

  Katherine looked down at the floor, then at the walls and the crowd, anywhere that she might avoid his gaze, for she felt the prickle of tears behind her eyes and she was loath to have them spill forth. All he had said was that he understood she must strive after her dream, and here she was on the verge of weeping. Peagoose, she chided herself.

  A few blinks dispelled the unshed tears and she allowed herself one deep breath to help restore her poise. “Not everyone does as they promise, you know. I think I half expected you to ... not comply.”

  “So when I told you I was a gentleman, you did not believe me.”

  “No.”

  He laughed. “I know there is much between us that annoys one another, but I have to say I rather admire your honest answers. I may not like them, but I admire them.”

  There it was again, that flash of fellowship between them. It was enough to make Katherine’s blood race from her head to her toes, warming her all over.

  Heads turned their way.

  “There, everyone is staring at us, and you are laughing as though pleased with me. I think we have corrected any other impression we may have given tonight.”

  “But you are nearly scowling. People will think I suggested something untoward.”

  “People must know you better than I thought.”

  Lord Benjamin lifted his eyebrows, not quite grinning, and offered her his arm. “Another dance? I must keep up with Mr. Cullman, after all.”

  His words reminded her of the other man, the one he’d just recently been scolding her not to dance with again. He had no right, of course, to tell her anything about how she must behave ... but, truth was, she did need to be at least a little circumspect. Cyril tended to push her, make her go beyond proper boundaries . . . and it was flattering. His almost constant attention—when he was not at Miss Mansell’s side—reminded her she was wanted. Katherine knew she let Cyril take up too much of her time, and knew she had to force herself to linger at Benjamin’s side if Cyril were in the room.

  She would have to be more firm with Cyril in the future. After all. a week had already gone by, and the next three would not take long. This week, in fact, had flown by. It had not been nearly so dreadful as she’d feared. There were worse—far worse—companions than Lord Benjamin, she had to concede.

  She agreed to dance again with her pretend fiancй, somewhat relieved to learn from the tunings of the musicians that it was not to be a waltz. The waltz was a rather shockingly intimate dance, with man facing woman and their clothes brushing together, and Katherine never quite knew whether to gaze into her partner’s eyes or not.

  Thankfully it was another country dance in which they partook, twining among a set of six other dancers. There was nothing intimate in the dance beyond the touching of hands, and Katherine and Lord Benjamin danced it in wordless accord— but all the same she felt a shadow of relief when it was over and she could give her hand to any other gentleman besides her false fiancй.

  She was not quite sure how to explain the tingling that seemed to linger in her hand long after his touch had left hers— nor why that tingling had not assaulted her after Cyril had held her hand during their minuet. But then another gentleman claimed a dance with her, and she found she was enjoying her evening, and decided enjoying herself was ever so much more pleasant than trying to comprehend the incomprehensible.

  Chapter 13

  Four evenings later, Katherine spied her supposed fiancй where he waited behind a screen, and had to bite back a smile at the sight of him. Not that he looked any more ridiculous than the other three gentlemen also in plumed helms and abbreviated aprons that had been painted to resemble Roman breastplates, worn incongruously over their waistcoats and shirts. They whispered among themselves, obviously anxious about the performance they were about to give.

  Their host was Sir Oliver Pearson, whose penchant for the theater had led him to propose an evening of tableaux vivant, with the unusual addition that they would be performed by males
only and must include song.

  “I do not know which are more entertaining,” Katherine whispered to Miss Irving, “the good performances or the poor ones.”

  “Oh, the poor ones, I think!” her chaperone replied at once. “Although I do hope Mr. Softon is aware he was on a different key than everyone else in the Neptune tableau. I should hate to think he thought he was harmonizing!”

  Katherine smothered a giggle with a gloveless hand, for after the first tableau—some odd bit about hounds and foxes in which the costumes had made it unclear which was which—Sir Oliver had pronounced the ladies’ praise not sufficient, so that Katherine and most of the other ladies had removed their gloves in order to clap more loudly.

  Mrs. Glinsbury had gone so far as to cast one of her gloves “in praise” at Sir Oliver’s feet when he sang a solo piece about King Henry VIII. Even he was not entirely sure if the gesture was meant as a compliment. “Am I to gag m’self?” he’d asked

  Mrs. Glinsbury, only to receive more, and louder, applause, to which he offered an ironic bow.

  Now Lord Benjamin and the other three suffering pseudo- Romans marched out from behind the screen. Lord Benjamin cast Katherine a quick glance, filled with tribulation, and raising a ripple of laughter from the observers. He crossed to seat himself at the pianoforte.

  Lord Benjamin played while the other three sang. The tune was an old drinking song whose tune everyone knew, but the gentlemen had rewritten the words. They sang all about going to war, and blood, and dying for the glory of Rome, with at least as much verve as tune. They were roundly applauded when they finished with a thumping of their wooden swords against their breastplates, even if the sound was a dull whump against cloth instead of a ringing clang.