The Bargain Bride

by Metzger, Barbara

  Parker came back then, surprised to see Nicky, horrified at his condition. Penny put Nicky in the butler’s competent hands, which meant Mrs. Parker’s coddling. She did issue firm orders not to let Nicky out of his room until the night of the ball, before he got into more trouble.

  When they left, she stayed on the bench, wondering just how she was going to handle this mess, now that she had sworn to do so. Then she got up and walked out to the waiting coach, dismissing the footman who would have accompanied her on her errands.

  “No, I have changed my mind. I am only going to my father’s house. I do not need an escort.”

  A gun, perhaps, but not a witness.

  West checked the pistol tucked into his waistband as he rode into one more livery stable, a far distance from Westfield. How the deuce was he going to handle this, he asked himself, if no one here had leased Fred Nesbitt a horse, or hired him, or knew of his friends? He was almost out of places to make inquiries, and almost out of time, without finding a trace of the malcontent with the matches. Nesbitt might have fled the country. Or he might be waiting nearby for an opportunity to inflict more harm.

  West could not leave his horses unprotected. They were his future, the legacy he wanted to leave to his son beyond a title, a mortgaged estate, and a leaking roof. They were proof of his own effort, not something he’d fallen into by a chance of birth and death, and they were a source of his pride, too, he admitted to himself. Without the stud farm and training fields, he was Penny’s dependent, nothing else.

  He could not hire enough guards to watch his own dependents, spread throughout his acres, to say nothing of McAlbee in the cottage where he was convalescing. On the other hand, he could not miss Penny’s ball, either. He had given his solemn word to be there, at her side, to help find husbands for her stepsisters. The future of his own marriage—and the heir he hoped to beget—hung on that vow. Pride, trust, and honor were all tied in a knot, in his head, in his heart. Penny would never forgive him for letting her down, again. He’d never forgive himself for losing her love, again.

  One more day—that was all he could spare before riding for London. He raced from posting house to public house to private stables, until he finally found out that Nesbitt had a relative in the vicinity.

  Ah, thank goodness for sisters.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Lady A.’s parents began negotiations to betroth her to the son of a wealthy widower duke. She’d be a duchess someday. She was smarter than that. Why wait? She negotiated her own marriage . . . to the duke.

  —By Arrangement, a chronicle of arranged marriages, by G. E. Felber

  “Ah, thank goodness for stepsisters,” Nigel said, coming down the stairs. “I was wondering how long before you arrived on my doorstep.”

  Penny handed her parasol to the waiting butler, then followed Nigel to the Gold Parlor, where they could be private.

  Once the door was shut behind the poker-backed butler, Penny turned on Nigel, not taking the seat he indicated, but standing across from him, her arms folded across her chest, her chin raised. “This is not your doorstep, sir. It is my father’s, and shabby gratitude you have shown for his generosity.”

  Nigel sneered, leaning against the mantel. “What, I should grovel at your father’s feet for the crumbs he throws my way? Lud knows he can afford more.”

  “I meant you should not sully his house with your shady dealings, nor drag his name through the murky paths of your underhanded iniquities and underworld associates. You will blight your sisters’ chances of finding proper suitors, and send your mother to an early grave. To say nothing of the effects your dastardly actions will have on my new relations.”

  Nigel did not pretend to misunderstand. “I pulled the boy out of a bar fight before his skull was bashed, and I kept him out of the Watch’s hands. I even found a safe place for him to sober up, instead of leaving him on a street corner where he’d be prey to every yegg and yahoo in Seven Dials.”

  Penny shuddered to think what could have happened to Nicky. Then she trembled with rage, to think how West’s brother got to that neighborhood in the first place. “You led him there, and then you cheated him out of a fortune.”

  Nigel studied his manicured fingers. “Those are harsh words, sister.”

  “That is Lady Westfield to you, sirrah.”

  He curled his lip again. “You are mighty hoity-toity for a wench who’s come to ask a favor.”

  “What favor? That you forgive Nicky’s debts? I know you better than that. I would not demean myself by asking.”

  “That cloak of aristocratic disdain does not become you, our new viscountess. But you always were a proud one, weren’t you?”

  Penny did not answer; she merely raised one eyebrow.

  “Very well, let us not waste one another’s time now that we have come to an understanding. Did you bring the cash?”

  “Oh no, you mistake my presence, Nigel. I will not pay a farthing. I came to remind you that Nicky is not of age, so his debts are invalid. Contracts with a minor will not hold up in a court of law.”

  He smiled, but the good humor did not reach his watery blue eyes. They reminded Penny of a puddle reflecting a sunny sky. Pretty, but mud for all that, and without the sun’s warmth. His words reinforced her opinion: “Ah, but what of the court of public opinion? I doubt Master Nicholas would like to be known as a man who reneged on his gaming obligations. Play and pay, that is the gentleman’s credo, you know. They cherish their honor and all that rot.”

  “You cannot know anything of honor. Or a gentleman’s code, no matter from which elevated family tree you fell. Or got pushed.”

  His smile wavered at the insult. “But I have studied what the swells think makes a gentleman . . . one like your husband, for instance. I could always go to Westfield for the brass.”

  Penny nodded in acknowledgment of this expected ploy. She’d known she would not get off that easily, not once she realized Nicky’s ruin was a carefully orchestrated plot. Nigel had indeed studied his victims well, knowing she would do anything to avoid involving West. Nigel had even been waiting for her, the wily cur.

  “As you surmised, I would be embarrassed to have my husband discover that I was related to such a bloodsuck ing leech,” she said, “no matter how tenuous the connection. He warned me you were bad ton, but I doubt he knew quite how low you could stoop.”

  “Ah, but we lowly leeches need sustenance, too.”

  “Let me see the chits.”

  He had them ready. “I paid off Ma Johnstone, too. Much tidier to have one debtor, don’t you know.”

  “I know the charges have to be fraudulent, and I know that you and the female are in collusion.”

  “In that case I suppose I should give Ma’s bills back to her and let her send the Butcher to collect from your brother-in-law.”

  “The Butcher?”

  “That’s what they call her bodyguard, Boyd. He used to be called Two-Fist Finnegal when he made his living prizefighting, before he pulled a knife on a better boxer. Few people argue about Ma’s prices when Boyd comes calling.”

  Penny put that bill on the bottom of the pile.

  Nigel was going on, trying to frighten her, Penny knew. “If you do not believe the reckoning from the tavern, I could deliver the complaints and charges stemming from the brawl to the Watch. They might decide to make an example of your tender sprig, to keep the rowdy boys out of the stews. I could give them the names of your precious Nicky’s friends, too. Of course, they would think that Westmoreland peached on them, which is yet another breach in that tedious wall of rectitude your gentlemen cherish.”

  Another bill went to the bottom of the stack in Penny’s hands. The next were so-called gaming vowels, IOUs made out to Nigel, with Nicky’s initials scrawled across them. His handwriting was as poor as his judgment, but that was an issue for another day. “No doubt you got him to sign while he was too drunk or drugged to know better. Unless you’ve turned to forgery in addition to your other cri
mes.”

  “Why should I? Westmoreland is a gambler, and not a very good one. Everyone knows that.”

  Nigel was a gambler, too, only now he was gambling she could not prove the signatures on the vouchers were false. For that matter, he was betting that she would not go to West, her father, or the authorities. And he’d win the wager, the blackguard.

  He’d won before she left home. Penny took her checkbook from her reticule. “I will pay you five hundred pounds for the lot, merely to be rid of you. In return, you will leave Nicky and his friends alone. You’ll find some other gullible lambs to fleece.”

  “Tsk. I wish I could, out of family feeling if nothing else. Unfortunately I have debts of my own, you know. The chaps I owe are a lot less easy to deal with than I am. They make the Butcher look like a nursemaid.”

  “Very well. It is worth a thousand pounds to be rid of you once and for all. I expect you to stay away from me or my family in the future. In fact, I insist upon it, or else I shall go to the authorities. No, if I hear of you playing off your tricks with Nicky, I shall hire a bigger, meaner brute than any you know. Three of them. You won’t be able to walk near an alley without looking over your shoulder.” She wished she’d thought of that before.

  Nigel clucked his tongue and shook his head. “So bloodthirsty, my dear. You see me quaking in my boots. Imagine the scandal if your ruffians lost and named you as their employer. You see, I am very good with a knife myself.” He might not take her threats seriously, but he did take her check.

  Penny tucked the gaming chits and the bills into her reticule, along with the checkbook. “Then our business is complete.”

  “I wish I could say it is, my dear. I do wish I could.”

  Penny looked up from the drawstrings she was tying. “What do you mean? If you find other markers with Nicky’s name, I shall not pay them.”

  “What I mean is that I can afford the style of life I wish, thanks to you and your buffle-headed brother-in-law, but only for a short while, a very short while after I pay my most immediate and dangerous creditors. I would have been set for life if you’d married me, the way I wished.”

  “I never would have agreed to that.”

  He shrugged. “Which is why you will have to make me an allowance.”

  Penny laughed, striding toward the door. “My father won’t. Why should I do such a preposterous thing?”

  “Because you have the blunt I need, and I will ruin you, else.”

  “Do not be stupid. I am no maiden to be threatened with the loss of my virtue or my good name. I am already wed, so there is nothing you can do.”

  “Really? And you thought your brother-in-law was gullible. You would be surprised. After all, you did come to my home.”

  “My father’s home,” she insisted.

  “Your father is at his bank, counting his coins, as everyone knows. And my dear mother and the brats are out with your own Lady Bainbridge, as you had to have planned. You came here, alone, to visit with a gentleman not quite related, as you are so quick to point out. You did not even bother with a maid, lest anyone carry tales of our . . . shall we call it a tryst? No? A liaison?”

  “A business meeting, you swine.”

  “My, my. Most ladies conduct their business in their own homes, or at their solicitors’ offices. But I am sure the ton will be agog to hear your denials. As will your husband, when he gets back. Or perhaps Westfield won’t care at all. You must have been a big disappointment to him, that he flew off so quickly after the wedding. Perhaps I am well out of it, not that your lack of expertise in bed could affect your bank balance. Warm women are easy to come by, a fortune less so.”

  Her reticule’s strings were in knots. “How . . . how dare you?”

  “Oh, quite easily. You see, if you are disgraced, left without that social entry your sire and my mother desire so dearly, then Goldwaite will be ready to leave his fortune elsewhere. Where better than to his beloved wife and her devoted children?”

  “Never. My father will never believe your lies, and he will never leave you tuppence. You are despicable.” She was out of the parlor and through the front door. Nigel was right behind her.

  Her carriage driver had been walking the horses, circling the street. When he saw Lady Westfield at the door, he started to turn the coach around, to fetch her. Nigel waited until the driver’s back was turned, but two other coaches were approaching, one from either direction.

  “You forgot your parasol, my dear,” he called out, taking the frilly thing from his butler’s hands.

  When Penny turned to take it, Nigel pulled her into his arms and ground his lips into hers, in full view of the butler, two women walking a poodle between them, and the red-haired occupant of a green-painted carriage across the street.

  Penny pushed him away, but the carriage had passed and the butler had gone inside and the two women scurried back the way they had come, dragging the reluctant dog. Her own coach was still some distance away.

  Nigel sneered. “We’ll see what your husband thinks of that. And your new friends. And your father.”

  Penny wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, then kept drawing that hand back, formed a fist, and punched Nigel in the face with the same force that had stunned West, the day he proposed marriage. Nigel was shorter and weaker than West, so her fist hit him in the eye, not on the chin. He fell back to the paving stones. Unfortunately, no carriages were going by to see that. On the other hand, or foot, no carriages were going by, so Penny kicked him, right where it would do the most damage. Then she broke her parasol over his head.

  No one heard his moans or his curses.

  “You’ll pay for that, you bitch.”

  She wiped her mouth again. “I already have, you bastard.”

  But she did not, in the end. As soon as her nerves calmed and her knuckles stopped throbbing, Penny directed her driver to her father’s bank. There she closed her accounts, every last one of them, and transferred her considerable funds to the delighted bank where West kept his money.

  Nigel would not be getting anything from her—nothing but a black eye.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Miss F.-J. married the elderly man her parents be

  trothed her to. He politely died shortly thereafter.

  A wealthy widow, she politely refused every subse

  quent offer. She raised cats.

  —By Arrangement, a chronicle of arranged marriages, by G. E. Felber

  The widow Beck believed that blood was thicker than water. “I heard you was looking for him,” she told West when he finally found the rough cottage where she lived. “Well, Fred’s my brother, for good or for ill. You can keep looking.” She shut the door in West’s face.

  On the other side of the thin door, West let a trickle of coins sift through his fingers. “Did you hear there was a reward?”

  Silver being thicker than blood, it seemed, Mrs. Beck opened the door and stood aside for him to enter.

  The thatch-roofed dwelling was small, a square front room and one tiny bedroom in the back that West could see. The floors were dirt, the furnishings crudely hewed out of logs. The widow herself was gaunt and bent, in a faded gown and a soiled apron. A scrawny cat slept in a patch of sun from a single tiny window, hung with dingy curtains.

  Mrs. Beck eyed the flashing coins in West’s hands. “My brother is a good man, he is. He works hard and sends me what he can spare so’s I can stay out of the workhouse.”

  West did not see how the workhouse could be much worse than this. He laid one of the coins on the uneven tabletop. “Yours for speaking to me.”

  The widow bobbed her head, strands of gray hair falling across her cheeks as she tucked the coin down the front of her gown. “It’s the drink, you know, riding him hard. The devil owns him.”

  “No, I own him now. He could have killed someone, and the horses.”

  “Fred felt real bad about the horses. But none died, we heard. And the headman having a dicey heart, that’s not Fred’s fau
lt. It was the devil what made him do it, I tell you. Demon rum.”

  West disagreed. “Men drink. Decent men stop when they have had enough.”

  “Not all men. My late husband was one what drank till he fell over. Got trampled by a herd of cattle. Never woke up, they told me.”

  West did not comment.

  “Will he hang?”

  “I will see that he doesn’t if I find him before the sheriff or the magistrate’s men. They are all hungry for the reward,” he reminded her, trying to hurry her decision.

  “He’ll be transported, then?”

  “That’s better than living out his life in jail or on the prison hulks. I cannot leave him loose.”

  “S’pose not. And that way he has a chance, don’t he?”

  West did not mention how many convicts died on the journey to Botany Bay, but men frequently died in jail, too, and always at the hangman’s noose. “Yes, he has a chance to make a new life.”

  “And no spirits on the ships out, I’d guess.”

  “I wouldn’t know.” He put another coin on the table. “I am in something of a hurry.”

  “How much did you say that reward was?”

  “You do not get it until Nesbitt is apprehended.”

  “You don’t trust me, but I am s’posed to trust you with Fred’s life?”

  “No, you are supposed to do the right thing, like a good citizen.”

  She spit on the floor.

  West handed over another coin and got what he wanted, the direction to a burned-out herdsman’s shack in the woods. Before heading there, he sent a messenger to the local constable, wanting everything to be legal and aboveboard. He decided not to wait, lest the widow have second thoughts and find a way to warn her brother. Besides, the daylight was fading, and he could be on the road for London. He checked the pistol in his waistband. Bad enough that he might be late for Penny’s ball; she’d be madder if he was killed . . . before she had that pleasure.