Regency Wagers

by Diane Gaston

  He broke off. ‘I will call upon your father today.’

  She could not imagine why he would wish to do so.

  He regarded her with a serious expression. ‘Emily, I promise to do right by you. The sooner I get control of your fortune, the better. I would not have your father plunder it.’

  ‘My fortune?’

  His face stiffened. ‘The money your aunt left you.’

  ‘My aunt?’ She wrinkled her brow. ‘But that is hardly a fortune, Guy. I have it here in the drawer.’

  She hurried to the bureau and removed the leather envelope, handing it to him. He opened it and pulled out the five ten-pound banknotes.

  He gave her a questioning look, bordering on alarm. ‘What is this?’

  Emily felt a rock forming in her stomach. ‘It is my inheritance.’

  Guy fingered the banknotes, staring at them as if they were some mysterious Chinese currency. Fifty pounds? No, this could not be the sum of her inheritance. She must be mistaken. There had to be more, there had to be.

  His fingers trembled and he crushed them, the paper crackling. ‘This is all of it?’ His neck was so tense he could barely talk.

  Her brows knit in confusion. ‘Yes, all. I would not withhold it from you.’

  Only fifty pounds? Guy’s insides twisted into coils. Panic threatened to cut off his breath.

  ‘You may keep the money, of course,’ she added, her eyes wary.

  He smoothed the notes and put them back in the envelope. He handed it to her, took it back again, and finally thrust it at her. ‘Keep it,’ he snapped. ‘I must get dressed.’

  What he needed more than anything right now was to get away from her before he lost total control of his temper. She must be mistaken. There must be more money, or what would become of them all?

  Leaving her incredulous, standing with the envelope in her hands, he spun on his heel and rushed into his bedchamber, slamming the door behind him.

  Guy’s caped topcoat and beaver hat were soaked from the rain, as he paced outside the building where the Dupreys lived. He’d spent much of the morning walking the streets of Bath, heedless of the weather. The sense of foreboding was strong, as strong as before a battle when one went through the motions of eating and sleeping, knowing the next day life might be snatched away.

  It was finally past noon, though the clouds obscured any confirmation of sun high in the sky. Holding his breath, he sounded the knocker.

  The butler opened the door, took his coat and hat, and ushered him into the same parlour where he’d been the day before. He cooled his heels there a good half an hour before Baron Duprey sauntered in. The man chuckled, interrupting Guy’s anxious pacing in front of the fireplace.

  ‘Well, Keating, I always took you for a man of sense. Knew your father, who hadn’t a groat of the stuff, but word’s been you’re cut from different cloth.’

  Guy could only stare at him.

  The Baron went on. ‘Can’t imagine what maggot got in your brain to marry that daughter of mine. Thought I’d never be rid of her.’

  Guy took a step towards him. ‘Do not speak of my wife in that manner.’

  Duprey laughed. ‘Next you will persuade me you have a regard for her.’

  Guy’s right hand closed into a fist. He’d relish the opportunity to vent his disordered emotions on this poor excuse for a man.

  Still chuckling, Duprey sat on one of the chairs and fingered the sleeve of his coat. ‘Now what business must you conduct with me? What is so important you disturb my peace at this early hour?’

  A porcelain clock on the mantel chimed one o’clock.

  ‘My wife’s assets are no longer yours to control,’ Guy said bluntly. ‘I came to arrange their transfer to me.’

  The Baron pressed folded hands against his chin and gave Guy a blank stare. ‘Assets?’

  ‘Do not humbug me, sir,’ Guy persisted. ‘You have been bantering it all about town that you have control of your daughter’s fortune. I demand you turn it over to me. If we need a solicitor to draw up papers, I shall arrange it.’

  A smile slowly creased Duprey’s face. ‘Ah, the clouds clear.’ He chuckled again. ‘This is a famous one.’

  ‘Pray include me in your jest, sir,’ Guy fumed.

  The older man’s eyes brimmed with a malevolent mirth. ‘Quite an inventive story, do you not agree? It kept my creditors at bay, I assure you. How fortunate I no longer require the ruse, since you make further use of the tale impossible. Won a big sum off young Jasperson, fool that he is.’

  Guy’s heart beat erratically. ‘Explain yourself, if you please.’

  ‘I did explain myself,’ said the Baron pleasantly. ‘I concocted that story about Emily’s inheritance in order to extend my credit. I was in Dun territory, my lad. What else would you have me do?’

  Guy felt blood drain from his face.

  ‘The tale contained but a speck of truth,’ Duprey went on. ‘All the best tales do, you know. The girl did inherit. About one hundred pounds. I managed to get my fingers on half of it before she snatched it away. Never could find the rest and I looked for it, indeed I did. Everyone knew Lady Upford cocked up her toes, so could I help it if they believed she’d dropped a huge sum instead of that damned pittance? Left the bulk of it to some scientific society, for which I shall never forgive her.’

  A pittance, not a fortune? Nothing but a ruse? Like a simpleton, Guy had fallen for Duprey’s story. It did not console him one bit that a myriad of other fools had done the same.

  ‘And don’t be looking for a dowry,’ said Duprey, waving his finger at Guy. ‘That went last Season after she wrecked my plans to marry her off to Heronvale’s brother. What a honey pot that would have been.’ The man sighed. ‘I despaired of being rid of her, I tell you. Who could have guessed a fool like you would marry a dull piece like her? Ha!’

  Guy marched over to the man’s chair and grabbed him by the lapels of his coat. ‘Do not ever speak of my wife in that manner.’ He lifted Duprey from his seat and thrust him down again, heading for the door.

  ‘Do not tell me yours was a love match,’ the Baron called after him.

  Guy heard the man’s laughter all the way out of the building and down to the street.

  What the devil was he to do? No fortune. No damned fortune. No money at all. Just one more charge upon his finances.

  Damn his idiocy. He’d bought the tale of a fortune, lapping it up as the milk of his salvation. Not only had Duprey boasted of it, others had passed it on. There had been no rumour of it being false. Ordinarily he would have waited for some verification, but Cyprian Sloane, that notorious fortune hunter, had begun to turn his charm on Emily, and Guy had feared he’d be cut out if he did not seize his opportunity now.

  He’d gambled on the rumours being true. Did his folly know no bounds? He’d gambled. And lost.

  Guy strode back to Thomas Street and entered the house still in a towering rage. He shoved his coat and hat into Bleasby’s frail hands and headed to the library, slamming the door behind him.

  What the devil was he to do now?

  He searched the cabinet in the room for a bottle, finding some old port. He poured himself a glass and downed it in one gulp. He poured another glass.

  From the corner of his eye he saw a movement and swung around.

  There his wife sat, in a chair by the window, a book in her hand. He had the insane thought that she must have been desperate to read whatever was in this room. Three books about farming methods he’d rescued from rot at Annerley. One dusty volume of sermons that had been left on the shelf when they’d leased the place.

  Her eyes widened. Indeed, he must look like a wild man. He felt like a man who had lost his senses.

  ‘What is amiss?’ she asked, her voice coming out hoarse and nearly inaudible.

  He laughed and downed another full glass of port. He poured a third. ‘What is amiss? I have been to see your father. That is what is amiss.’

  Two spots of red appeared on her chee
ks. ‘What did he say to upset you?’

  ‘He said that you are penniless.’

  Her brows knit.

  He had no patience for her confusion. ‘Do not tell me you were not aware he was passing you off as an heiress.’

  She paled. ‘I was not aware of it.’

  He gulped down more port. ‘Well, neither was I.’

  She stood. ‘My father said I was an heiress?’

  ‘He led the world to believe you were. A big inheritance from your aunt, Lady Upford.’

  ‘It was not a big inheritance,’ she said.

  He laughed again and finished the port. ‘Yes. Now I know.’

  She stared at him, her bland face showing only a glimmer of confusion. Did it make it better or worse that she’d not known of her father’s tale about her? Perhaps it would have been some meagre comfort to think she’d deceived him as much as he’d deceived her.

  Her distress convinced him. She was innocent. The villains in this sordid mess were her damnable knave of a father—and her husband. God help him, he resented her anyway, hated that blank expression on her face, despised the fact that he was saddled with her for life. If not for her, he could search for a genuine heiress. Marry his way out of this fix.

  How would he now rebuild Annerley? How would he return its fields to planting, its tenants to prosperity instead of wasting away for lack of food and decent shelter? How would he provide for his mother? Would his elderly aunts end their days in a poorhouse, cold and hungry? What harm would befall his little sister, so blissfully unaware of their troubles? How would he pay for her school? Find her a husband? The list was endless.

  Waterloo had seemed like a walk in the park compared to the devastation he’d discovered when he returned home. Annerley House was a crumbling ruin. His brother had put a bullet through his own head, leaving a bloody mess and a mountain of debts. It had taken Guy months to sort through the disorder of the family finances. His father’s man of business had long abandoned the family as a lost cause, and his brother had continued in his father’s footsteps, raiding the capital and leaving nothing more than entailed property. Crumbling, rotting, fallow entailed property.

  Emily’s fortune was supposed to settle the debts and turn Annerley around. The land would be prosperous again. All he needed was time.

  Now what would he do? What would he do? She’d let him down, and now he had one more person to worry about. Two, if he considered her maid. He supposed the maid was also his responsibility. By God, he’d pensioned off his father’s valet and done without, but now he had an extra maid to support.

  He glared at his wife, his penniless wife, aware of the injustice of his anger, but who else was there to vent his temper upon?

  Her expression changed, her eyes widening and her mouth dropping open, then closing into a thin, grim line. Her eyes narrowed, and her voice came out low and filled with suppressed emotion. ‘You married me to gain a fortune.’

  Guy’s level of anxiety was so high he snapped back at her. ‘Of course I did. I needed the funds.’

  She continued, her fingers clutching the book, her body trembling. ‘And what of your story of asking my father’s permission to court me and he refusing?’

  He was feeling perverse enough to tell the truth. Hang his vow to protect her from it. ‘I never asked your father. I wish to God I had.’

  ‘You lied to me?’ Her voice shook.

  He met her eyes. ‘Yes.’

  Then she did something he would never have anticipated. She threw the book at him, the action such a shock he barely had time to raise his arm to deflect it.

  ‘That is for lying to me!’ Her eyes flashed, and her face flushed with passion. Inexplicably, he felt a flash of carnal desire as unexpected as the book flying across the room.

  ‘Why did you need this fortune of mine?’ she cried. He’d not known her voice could have such volume, nor as much emotion.

  ‘I haven’t a feather to fly with, my dear,’ he said.

  ‘Do not call me that!’

  He blinked. Her words struck him with nearly the same violence as the missile she’d thrown.

  She paced back and forth in front of him, her arms folded across her chest. ‘Where did you meet my father?’ she demanded. ‘Where did you hear these tales of my fortune?’

  He’d once seen a mechanical doll, one that moved after a key was turned in its back. She was like such a doll coming to life, suddenly filled with genuine animation. He almost forgot to answer her question. ‘At a card game.’

  She twisted around as if to look for something else to throw at him.

  ‘I cannot believe it!’ she cried with a voice low and harsh and echoing his own rage. ‘You are like him.’

  ‘Like who?’ he couldn’t help but ask.

  ‘Like him.’ Her eyes shot daggers at him. ‘You are a liar and a gamester, and I cannot believe I have married a man like my father. I thought I had escaped him!’

  Her words stung as sharply as if she’d slapped him in the face. He stooped down and picked up the book, Modern Concepts in Agriculture, 1732, hardly modern, but a book he thought might be useful should he ever again have crops to plant.

  Words leapt to the tip of his tongue. He would tell her he was nothing like her father. He’d done it all to save his family and estate and all the people who depended upon him.

  What was the use? He had lied to her. Manipulated her. Tried to take her money from her. He was too painfully like her father.

  She brushed past him with a swish of skirts, leaving the room like a Fury of ancient Greek mythology. It felt like she sucked the air from the room as she left.

  Guy sank into a chair and put his head in his hands. He could not spare a thought about what he had done to her. He needed to think his way out of this morass.

  What else could he do to save them? He had to try to reverse his ill luck in some manner.

  Nothing came immediately to mind. If one could no longer marry for money, where was one to win a fortune?

  The answer reluctantly dawned, but he could only feel like a condemned man awakening to the day of execution.

  He would become a gamester, haunting gentlemen’s clubs and gaming hells for the next big game. Just as she accused him, he would wager all their futures on a turn of the cards, exactly like his father and brother before him.

  Exactly like her father as well.

  Chapter Four

  A week later, Emily walked into the Upper Assembly room on the arm of her husband, her first public appearance as his wife. She would have gladly forsaken the opportunity, but his mother pined for entertainment, and he had relented. Emily could hardly refuse her husband’s request she accompany them.

  Only two tiers of seating had been set up on the sides of the large room, and perhaps a hundred guests filled it. Not a bad showing for early October, but not even approaching the numbers at the height of the Bath Season. She glanced nervously around.

  Her mother sat on the opposite side of the room next to the ageing Lord Cranton, whom Emily knew to be her latest flirtation. She leaned over the gentleman, giving him an ample view of her generous bosom. He laughed and whispered something in her ear. Emily touched her cheek, hot with embarrassment. Even more mortifying, her mother-in-law and husband were also gazing in Lady Duprey’s direction. Her mother-in-law gave a disapproving huff.

  Emily supposed she would have to greet her mother for propriety’s sake. She dearly hoped her mother would be civil and return her greeting. Much depended upon how many glasses of wine her mother had consumed at dinner. On the other hand, if her father was present this evening, she hoped to avoid him altogether. He was bound to be in the card room, where her husband would certainly be headed.

  Like a true gamester, her husband had been out every night since their arrival in Bath, coming home with the first glow of dawn. She knew because she was often still tossing and turning when he came in and could hear him moving about. Sometimes his step was light. A winning night, no doubt. Sometimes
he moved like his feet were bound with irons. A losing streak. Only when the sounds from his room ceased could she sleep.

  A dozen or so people looked towards the new Lord and Lady Keating, the ladies whispering behind their fans. Emily knew her marriage to Guy had been announced in the papers, because she’d read it there, but she and her husband had seen little of each other. They had conversed less, although he seemed inclined to put up a good front in the presence of his mother and the aunts.

  ‘You have made us the latest on dit, Guy,’ Lady Keating said in a petulant voice. ‘I confess, I thought it might be worse. I don’t suppose anyone will cut us, not that it would be of any consequence. Half of them are from the navy or the army, for goodness’ sake. I declare, Bath has been overrun by military men.’

  ‘You forget I was once a military man. Retired soldiers have to live somewhere,’ Guy said.

  She sniffed. ‘Well, they are fair to ruining Bath. In any event, we ought to be at Annerley this time of year.’

  ‘You know we cannot be at Annerley,’ he said.

  Emily wondered at the reason they could not go to the family property for the winter months. Was it rented like Malvern? She would not be surprised, but she would not ask. She had decided to converse as little as possible with the man she married. Otherwise, she feared losing her temper again.

  ‘Let me find you some seats,’ he said.

  Emily noted that he spoke more to his mother than he did to her, so perhaps he felt the same as she. He was angry with her for having no money, even though her father had been the real villain in this perfidy. Not Emily. She had not deceived Guy Keating. He had deceived her.

  Was there ever a man who could be trusted? Even Lord Devlin had deceived her, making her think he would offer for her when he was living with her sister and in love with her. At least he’d done right by Madeleine. Their marriage had been announced months ago.