The Wedding Gamble

by Julia Justiss

  Horrified, Sarah leapt over and trapped the ring in her friend’s fist. “No, you mustn’t! You are overwrought!”

  “Stubble it, Sarah.” Clarissa brushed Sarah’s hand aside and dropped the ring on Englemere’s outstretched palm. “Dear Lord Englemere, devastated as I am to disappoint you, I’ve discovered we shall not suit. I’m not at all partial to tyrants.” With a regal nod, she swept to the door.

  “Shrew,” Englemere murmured without heat.

  Sarah lifted her skirts to run in pursuit. “No, Clarissa, you cannot—”

  Nicholas grabbed her. “Sarah, don’t fix it.”

  “But she will be so sorry, once her temper cools! And you’ve been no help at all, pushing her so hard all evening! Why, ’tis no wonder—”

  She read Nicholas’s expression and stopped dead. A niggling suspicion crystallized into certainty. “You complete hand,” she breathed. “You wanted her to cry off!”

  Looking shamefaced, he dropped his eyes. “Well, yes. But before you take me to task, remember ’twas my future at stake. Desperate measures were called for.”

  “Indeed?” Sarah choked out, still astounded.

  “Had the deuce of a time of it, too. I was beginning to fear her lust for a title would outweigh her vanity.”

  “That’s unfair, sir! Her character may need…polishing, but one cannot accuse Clarissa of coveting position. Why, the old Duke of Gresham has—”

  “You’re right, that was ungracious.” Nicholas sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Please believe, had I the smallest indication Clarissa truly cared for me, I should never have driven her to cry off. But ’twas obviously not my charming person she valued. So, seeing her reaction to that dress, I knew I had to end it.”

  Sarah’s jaw dropped. “Do you mean,” she asked slowly, “you arranged the green dress?”

  He had the grace to blush. “I hadn’t meant to admit that,” he mumbled. “You will think me beneath reproach.”

  Sarah thought him rather ingenious, but wasn’t about to let him off that easily. “You, sir, are a rogue. You conspired with Madame to fashion a totally unsuitable garment for your betrothed, just to judge her reaction.”

  “I needed to know we had at least some chance for happiness. If not—marriage would surely bring misery to us both. The deception was meant for the good.”

  “Equivocation, my lord. ’Twas a reprehensible act.”

  “Would you have worn the dress?”

  “’Tis not my behavior in question, and at any rate—”

  “Would you have?”

  “Well, I…that is—”

  “No, you would not. Nor would any modest woman of sensibility.” He gave her a coaxing smile. “So you do think me justified, ‘reprehensible’ as I was.”

  She had to smile back. “All right, I feel some sympathy for your plight. Though that doesn’t excuse you!”

  His blinding, bone-melting smile seemed lit from within. “You forgive me, then. Thank you.”

  It seemed he valued her good opinion. That incredible realization robbed her of any further protest. “I must admit I never regarded you two as well suited. Though you must not think too harshly of Clarissa! She doesn’t—”

  “Spare me a recital of her virtues,” Nicholas groaned. “She’s a woman grown, and must answer for her own actions. Or her unlucky husband must, Lord help him.”

  Sarah sighed, knowing how truly he spoke. “Shall you take yourself off to savor your freedom?”

  “I feel I’ve just wriggled out from under the Rock of Gibraltar.” He laughed, the sound giddy. “I must remain in town, though. I shall have to begin all over again, you see.”

  “Surely you are not compelled to marry this Season.”

  He stared into the distance, rubbing her hand absently. “Mama took my brother’s death very hard. It’s time and past that I do my duty by the family.” He looked back at her, his smile wry. “I can think of nothing that would cheer Mama more than dandling her first grandson on her knee.”

  “Shall I draw you up a list of eligibles? From my vast experience with the ladies of the ton,” she teased.

  “’Twould be very helpful, dear Aunt Sarah.”

  “Perhaps I shall. But not tonight. I expect you’re anxious now to escape to your friends and your club.”

  “Excellent advice. Mayhap Clarissa has drawn the fire of the curious, and we can both slip by.”

  Sarah started. “Oh, dear! Lady Beaumont will be in a state. I must go to her.”

  “You’ll not bear the blame for this fiasco?”

  Sarah frowned as she pondered her sponsor’s reaction. “Even Lady Beaumont must realize I can’t work miracles.”

  “Are you sure?” He gave her another knee-weakening smile and carefully clasped her injured hand. “Well, Miss List-Maker, is there nothing I can do for you?”

  Her eyes followed his to her bandaged wrist. A wave of bleakness swamped her warm mood. Resolutely she slammed her mind shut against her worries and dredged up a light tone.

  “If you should decide to gallop off on your white charger, you might ride up and fetch Mr. Beckman back.”

  He kissed her fingertips. “Perhaps I’ll do just that.”

  With a curtsy and one last smile, Sarah left him. Euphoria swept through Nicholas as he collected his things and slipped out the entry. Free! Damn, he’d been terrified his beauty-blinded senses had lulled him into a blunder that would have blighted the rest of his life. This time, a merciful Providence had seen fit to spare him.

  Perhaps he would take a trip to the country until the gossip died. He might even go in search of Mr. Beckman.

  He recalled Sarah as she joked with him about Yorkshire, her worried face bravely light. His euphoria drained away, and he felt again the rush of fury that succeeded the shock of discovering her injury.

  Had she not been so adamant he not intervene, he would have tracked down Findlay that very instant. No, Sarah Wellingford, he vowed silently, you’ll not wed Sir James, if I have to kill him to prevent it.

  Shooting Findlay wouldn’t solve all Sarah’s problems. She still needed to marry money, and she deserved better than the callow Beckman lad. Ned and Hal were both far preferable candidates—but how to get either to the sticking point before Friday?

  He was halfway down the street when the answer came to him, so simple, so perfect and so blindingly obvious he wondered he hadn’t tumbled to it immediately. No need to harry his friends: he would marry Sarah Wellingford himself.

  Chapter Five

  He stood stock-still, examining the decision from every angle. In one stroke, he could secure the wife he required and rescue a lady he admired from a difficult, possibly dangerous future.

  A mature woman well beyond romantical illusions, Sarah Wellingford would be a skillful hostess, a capable manager, a congenial companion. Even better, they were friends. Their union could be grounded, not in some ephemeral notion of “love,” but in the solid base of mutual respect.

  Best of all, Sarah totally lacked the flirtatiousness that demands a permanent coterie of admirers, nor was her beauty the breathtaking sort that might entice men to rash or adulterous action. No, it required a discriminating man of considerable refinement to appreciate her subtle quality.

  Skillful, capable, congenial—and safe. Since he was forced to gamble once again on a woman’s honor, he felt better gambling on Sarah’s than on that of any other woman he could imagine. Yes, ’twas perfect.

  He didn’t think himself conceited to assume Sarah would prefer his suit to Findlay’s. Indeed, he couldn’t wait to see her relief when he offered such a simple, safe alternative. Small wonder she’d looked worried tonight, weighed down by the prospect of falling into Findlay’s power. He should go back right now and end her anxiety.

  He swerved around to do just that, and halted once more. At the moment, she was no doubt tending a swooning Lady Beaumont, awash in burnt feathers and vinaigrette. Any attempt to spirit her away for a private chat was about a
s likely to succeed as an attempt to reform her father’s gambling habits. He’d have to wait until morning.

  Nicholas peered at his curricle from beneath shuttered lids. He waited for the high step, dancing in the disturbingly brilliant sunlight, to steady before hoisting himself up. That movement intensified the pounding in his head to a clang that rivaled Magdalen’s carillon, and he groaned. Perhaps the last bottle of brandy had been unwise.

  He’d met Ned and Hal at White’s, broken the news of his fortuitous liberation and toasted his deliverance well into the night. Despite a gag-inducing mug of his valet’s infallible morning-after potion, his head still throbbed, his eyes felt as if someone had lit a candle behind them, and his mouth hadn’t tasted so foul since his last bowl of the noxious pap served as breakfast gruel at Eton.

  Yet here he was, properly rigged for a call—at least he trusted he was, Baines being an efficient valet—having nobly abandoned his deathbed to totter off at a positively indecent hour, all to relieve Miss Wellingford’s anxiety. Nicholas hoped she would appreciate it.

  After crashing through the third crater that saw his stomach rise in proportion to the distance the curricle fell, he pulled up the horses. Damn, he cursed silently, why were London roads in such bad repair?

  He handed the reins over to his grinning tiger. Informing the lad he would walk, he lowered himself gingerly to the street. Six blocks later, feeling he’d hiked six miles, he at last mounted the steps of Beaumont House.

  The brass knocker dropped with a bang that made him wince. As the last reverberations echoed through his skull, Timms appeared. Nicholas donned his most charming smile.

  “Good morning, Timms. If I might—”

  “My lord.” Timms bowed. “The ladies are not in.”

  Before he could utter another word, Timms started to shut the heavy mahogany door. Nicholas just managed to shove in a foot before the portal closed on his soft leather boot. Eyes watering from the pain, he gritted his teeth and smiled gamely. “A moment, please, Timms.”

  The butler looked down to Nicholas’s intruding foot and back up, his expression wooden. “Forgive me, Lord Englemere, but I have express orders to deny you the house.”

  “I appreciate that, but my message is urgent, and—”

  “Your boot, my lord.” Hands on the door handle, Timms cast another pointed glance at Nicholas’s foot.

  With a sigh, Nicholas dug a gold coin out of his waistcoat. “Admit me for a moment only, if you please.”

  After a brief hesitation, Timms pocketed the coin. He stepped back, allowing Nicholas barely enough space to pass. Wondering if his boot were past repair and envisioning Baines’s swoon when he saw it, Nicholas limped through.

  “Would you summon Miss Wellingford? She’ll be quite willing to see me, I promise you.”

  “Miss Wellingford is not in.”

  Nicholas’s smile died. “Not ‘in’! Why, you thieving old rogue, I’ll—”

  The butler fell back, his hands raised as if to ward off a blow. “Indeed, my lord, ’tis true, I swear it! Miss Wellingford has gone out. To walk, she said.”

  The butler’s alarm was genuine, and Nicholas saw no reason to mistrust his word. Irritation pulsed in time with his throbbing head. “When do you expect her?”

  “She didn’t say, my lord. I’m sorry, my lord.”

  Nicholas tried to make his spongy brain function. “Where did she go?”

  “Miss Wellingford did not vouchsafe her destination.”

  “Have you any idea? Where does she usually walk?”

  Timms knit his brow. “The park, I believe, my lord.”

  “The park. Which park?”

  Timms looked aggrieved. “I’m sure I don’t know, my lord.” A faint noise emanated from above stairs, and Timms hastily reopened the front door. “Good day, my lord.”

  “Tell Miss Wellingford I called and must see her at once on a matter of the highest urgency.”

  “I’m not sure I can do that, my lord. My, ah, instructions, you know.” Timms looked carefully past him.

  Stifling a curse, Nicholas fished in his pocket for another coin. When the butler extended gloved fingers, he pulled it back. “Make sure she gets the message.”

  “Of course, my lord.” Bowing, Timms plucked the coin.

  His temper as foul as his breath, Nicholas stalked out.

  After jolting about in various hackneys, all piloted by ham-fisted drivers with ill-matched nags, to Hyde, Green, and Regent’s Parks, Nicholas concluded either Miss Wellingford didn’t walk in the park, or he had missed her.

  With ill-managed impatience, he gave up and went home for some luncheon to pacify his churning stomach.

  He presented himself back at Beaumont House in the early afternoon, to be met by the intelligence that Miss Wellingford had accompanied the Beaumont ladies on a shopping expedition, but was expected back for tea. Returning a third time, he learned the ladies had encountered friends and were taking tea with them.

  Pressed about evening engagements, Timms was induced, with the aid of a few more coins, to reveal the ladies planned to attend a musicale at the home of Lady Standish. Seething with frustration, Nicholas returned home to partake of a Spartan dinner and a stiff drink, and await his chance to finally corner the elusive Miss Wellingford.

  Having seen Lady Beaumont settled and Clarissa whisked off by her friends, Sarah stole away to a dimly lit anteroom. She’d slept badly last night, awakening time and again to a surge of panic, quickly squelched but unnerving.

  It must be done, so just do it, she repeated to herself. Almost, she wished the waiting over, so she might deal with fact rather than her hazy, awful imaginings.

  “So this is where you’re hiding.”

  Distracted out of reverie, she turned to see Lord Englemere at the doorway.

  “You realize I’ve slunk through every antechamber in the house looking for you? Interrupted two sets of clandestine lovers and one dozing housemaid.”

  She shook herself, trying to clear her groggy mind. “I—I beg your pardon?”

  “Blast it, woman, I’ve spent the entire day trying to run you to ground. Will you marry me?”

  A shock jolted through Sarah and she came fully alert. Involuntarily, she looked over her shoulder. No, the room was empty but for herself and Lord Englemere. Incredulous, she turned back to Nicholas. “Wh-what did you say?”

  Lord Englemere groaned and ran a hand through his hair. “What a clutch. No—no, I meant myself!” He closed the door and crossed the room to her side. “Miss Wellingford, pray forgive me. Trailing you about town today, and missing you at every opportunity, seems to have addled my wits. I collect Timms did not give you my urgent message.”

  “I’ve not seen Timms since this morning. I left—”

  “No matter. Let me see if I can do this properly.” He swept up her hand and dropped to one knee. “My dear, as I have come to know you, my respect and admiration have grown and deepened. Would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

  Sarah stared at him. Like nonsense syllables babbled by a babe, his words didn’t make sense. She must be hallucinating—lack of sleep and endless worry had affected her brain. That had to be the reason she thought she heard the Marquess of Englemere proposing to her.

  “No, ’tis ridiculous. You can’t be asking me to marry you.”

  “Nonetheless, I believe I just have. Twice, in fact. Though I admit, I made a botch of the first attempt.”

  “But why?”

  “Why not? You need to marry, do you not? As do I. You are lovely, witty, well-bred, capable, and it would delight and honor me to make you my marchioness. Whereas I am sufficiently wealthy, reasonably personable, and I hope less ‘ridiculous’ a choice than Findlay.”

  “’Tis no comparison.” Sarah tore her hands free and took an agitated turn about the room. “But it makes no sense! You could marry anybody. I would wager my lost inheritance there’s not an unmarried lady in London who wouldn’t leap at the chance to become you
r bride.”

  “I can think of one,” Nicholas said dryly.

  “A sensible one, then. Wealth, charm, beauty—there are dozens who would bring you far more than I.”

  “Name one.”

  “Well—Miss Rollins, for instance. Impeccable breeding, beautiful, good dowry—”

  “A lovely witch who manages, in a sweetly confiding voice, to never say a good word about anyone.”

  “Lady Elizabeth Barnwell. Pretty, wealthy, biddable—”

  “And whose entire conversation consists of ‘Yes, my lord’ and ‘No, my lord,’ and ‘Oh, la, my lord.’”

  Sarah smothered a chuckle. “’Tis true, I suppose, but what about—”

  “What about Sarah Wellingford? Fine family. A kind and compassionate nature. Also honest, loyal, as brave as any man I know, and possessing one characteristic no other woman in London can boast.”

  She couldn’t, wouldn’t believe him serious, but amid the jumble of despair, shock and dawning hope, a strain of simple female curiosity won through. “What that might be, I can’t imagine.”

  “I count her my friend.”

  “Oh.” Inane and superfluous, it was the only comment she could manage.

  Nicholas grinned. “Unusual in a marriage, I admit—friendship. Far as I know, though, there’s no law forbidding it.”

  “No, of course not! I am honored, but a true friend must wish the best for you, and I cannot believe that is I.” She frowned, troubled by a new insight. “You are concerned about my…situation, I know. Truly, you cannot consider it yours to rectify.” She looked away, thinking of Clarissa and Chloe Ingram. “Especially not, to be frank, when you might later regret such chivalry. I’m…I’m hardly the sort of spirited, passionate lady you seem to prefer.”

  Nicholas shuddered. “Lord save me from ‘spirited, passionate’ women! You, Sarah—your calm, dignified loveliness—are exactly what I want in a wife.”

  Nicholas took her chin, lifting it so she met his eyes. “This isn’t a spur-of-the-moment whim. I’ve considered carefully, and think this would be a perfect solution for both of us. True, we can’t claim to be top-over-tails ‘in love.’ But are not mutual respect, admiration and friendship equally good bases for a marriage—perhaps better ones?” He gave her a deprecating smile. “Besides, consider the crushing blow to my self-esteem were you to prefer Findlay’s suit to mine. I should go into a decline.”