He and Ambury took their leave together.
“Lydia was probably in the park to meet someone, of course,” Ambury said as he settled in his saddle. “If it were a budding tendre, or an inappropriate one, she would not want to be seen in this square with him, especially in early morning.”
“Then hopefully it was the former, and Southwaite will hand her off soon and be free of the worry of her.”
Ambury turned his horse away. Penthurst aimed for the streets beyond the square.
• • •
Sarah barely allowed Lydia to enter her apartment before dancing forward with excitement. “It is wonderful news, is it not, milady?”
“How did you learn of it already?”
“Cook told me while I dried out by the kitchen fire. An upstairs maid told her. I think Lady Southwaite’s lady’s maid told the upstairs maid, and—”
“And no doubt you learned of it before I did. It is wonderful news, however. Emma is so pleased. She has known for a few months, but delayed even telling my brother until it all looked very good and sure.”
“She is four months along, cook said. Why, that means there will be a baby by spring.”
Sarah helped her out of her still-damp clothes. There had not been time to change before going to Emma. When word is buzzing that there is big news, one wants to hear what it is. She had dried as best she could with a linen while she, Emma, and Cassandra enjoyed a happy time in Emma’s dressing room.
The excitement had pushed the morning out of her mind, but now it crowded back in, deflating her joy and returning her worries. A week, Trilby had said. It would take a miracle to find ten thousand in a week. Or one very good piece of luck.
“Sarah, do you tell others here about me, like cook told you about Emma?”
Sarah did not deny it immediately the way Lydia expected. Instead she set down the damp hose she had just removed and sat, looking thoughtful. “There have been a few times when things have slipped out. Not important ones. It is just that in a big, busy house like this, what is and is not private can become gray, can’t it? I have to remind myself that I may know things your family does not.”
“If I told you it was important they not know something, do you think you could make sure it never slipped out? I need to talk to someone about something, Sarah, and I cannot share this with Emma or Cassandra.”
Sarah moved to sit beside her on the divan. She embraced her with one arm. “Of course I can. I always did when we were little, didn’t I? I know that you are milady now, but in my heart you will always be Deea.”
It was the name Sarah had called her when they were small children. Hearing it now brought unexpected comfort.
“I am being blackmailed, Sarah.” She told her about Trilby and the novel, and his demands. “The situation is ridiculous, but that does not mean it is not dangerous.”
Sarah reacted the way a good friend should, with shock and concern. “He sounds too greedy to me. Such a high amount! Does he not fear you will go to your brother with this? That is your best choice now, isn’t it?”
“What will I say to him? That I wrote a novel that reads like a journal, and someone got his hands on it and noticed that parts of it might be interpreted in ways that paint me as disloyal? So hand me a fortune so I can buy him off, please?”
She had not told Sarah everything. She had left out the parts of the novel that crossed the lines of propriety regarding romantic events. Just remembering the explicit nature of that chapter made her face warm. No respectable novel contained such things, but she had never really believed her manuscript would be published.
She needed to make sure it never was.
“Perhaps we can steal it,” Sarah said. “We will learn where he lives, and sneak in, and find it and—”
“Even if we learn where he lives, there is no guarantee the manuscript is there. I fear that I must find a way to get hold of the money and buy back my stupid words.”
“Have you not accumulated some from your gambling? By now you should have a good amount, I would think.”
“You would think so, wouldn’t you? Unfortunately . . .” She shrugged.
That money did not stay in her purse. She had uses for it. Secret ones, known only to her. She made gifts, often anonymous, to worthy causes.
She would like to claim some goodness in doing it, but she received so much pleasure that the gestures almost felt selfish. Nor were her gifts only about charity. With each one she made a little declaration to herself that she had a separate life, was a separate person, and had purpose.
She wondered if the goodness of the acts was diminished by the prideful motivations, or the pleasure she took in winning that money?
Probably so.
Sarah stood and started plucking the hairpins out of Lydia’s wet, snarled hair. “Can you borrow the money from a friend?”
“A lesser amount, perhaps. Such a sum, however—I am sure that neither Emma nor Cassandra could help me without going to their husbands for it. Even women like us do not have this kind of money, Sarah. Not unless it is in trust, which means unavailable.”
“If so, what was he thinking in asking for so much?”
“I think he assumed I could win it at the tables.”
Disapproval danced tiny steps over Sarah’s face. With nary a word, she moved behind Lydia and began brushing out her hair.
“I could possibly do it that way,” Lydia mused, thinking aloud. “It would take time, however. I have never risked so much, or won so much, let alone in a week. I would never dare to try to do it all in one night—that might be really pressing my luck.” She thought back to her ride in the rain, and the idea that had come to her then. “Unless it were just one wager. Yes, that is how I should do it, if I try that path at all, I think. I am sure I would win then, and I could meet Mr. Trilby’s deadline.”
“I don’t gamble, so forgive me if my question is stupid, but—if the other person puts down ten thousand, won’t you need ten thousand too?”
She thought again about that odd encounter with Penthurst the first time she went to Mrs. Burton’s last year. He had deliberately tried to shock her, she realized later. He had succeeded, for that night at least. Yet in doing that, he had proposed a very high wager, had he not? If a gentleman does that, he is bound to see it through if the offer is accepted.
“I would not necessarily need money, Sarah. It only needs to be something of equivalent value.”
Chapter 5
Lydia held her head high as she approached the house on Grosvenor Square. Beside her, Sarah fussed with her bonnet, her skirt, her gloves.
“Stop fidgeting,” Lydia scolded. It was all she could do not to fidget herself, and Sarah’s lack of confidence did nothing for her own.
“You are sure he will give you the money? It will be very awkward to ask for it and have him refuse.”
Lydia had only said that she was going to call on the duke to see if he would aid her, as a friend of the family. Sarah had assumed that meant petitioning for a loan. Better if Sarah did not know that Lydia did not intend to ask for any money, as such. Rather she would hoist the duke on his own petard, give him some overdue comeuppance, and finally know some revenge for how he ruined a chance she once had for happiness. She would also get the money. If she were not so nervous, she would be enjoying this.
The servant took her card. After glancing at it, he erased the critical expression he had shown upon seeing a woman at the door at eight o’clock at night.
“You are to wait here, Sarah.” She pointed to a bench against the wall of the reception hall. “I must speak to him privately.”
“Won’t be proper, and you know it. I should go with you, and sit against a wall there.”
“It is enough that you came here with me. Anyone who saw me, and I doubt anyone did, saw you too. What transpires now that we are in the door will not signify.”
“He might get the wrong idea. The duke, that is.”
Lydia laughed. It went far to calming h
er nerves. “I am the annoying little sister of one of his friends, Sarah. The Duke of Penthurst would never get the wrong idea about me. If he ever insinuated he did, it would be nothing more than a cruel tease. I will be safe.”
She expected that to be true even if her plan did not work, but she entertained no thoughts of failure. Tonight she would be in her element. She would employ her one talent and distinction, and walk out this door with the money she needed. And Penthurst would indirectly pay for things he did not even know he owed her a debt on.
The servant returned for her. She followed him up the broad staircase built of white marble and cushioned by a strip of richly patterned carpet. Across a huge landing they paced, until they faced deeply paneled doors. The servant opened one of the doors and stood aside.
She entered a library the size of a ballroom. It had stairs to a mezzanine around three of its sides, and enough chairs and divans to seat dozens of people. Two expansive tables held assortments of books, as if someone currently used them. Otherwise the chamber appeared empty, luxurious, and rarely used.
She looked around, deciding where to sit while she waited. Suddenly two hounds appeared out of nowhere. They bore down on her at a run, baring their teeth. She backed up, holding out her arms to ward off an attack.
Through the fog of her panic she heard a low, calm command. “Caesar. Cleo. Sit.”
The two dogs immediately lowered onto their haunches and turned into statues. The command had been so confident of obedience that she almost sat too.
“My apologies, Lydia. I forgot that you have never been here. They will not treat you like an intruder in the future.”
His voice startled her. Penthurst stood behind a high upholstered chair with its back to her. He must have been reading when the servant brought her card.
He did not look like he planned a night of reading, however. He had dressed for a night out, and cut a fine figure in black and white. The lamp on the table shed light upward on his face, carving its angles deeply, making him look very proud and stern and—disapproving. Straight rather than arched, his eyebrows angled up above his eyes in a way that made his gaze appear critical and intense.
He was every inch a duke and a gentleman, and yet . . . She always thought he would look more at home in a dark castle than a Grosvenor Square mansion. She could picture him in the castle’s great hall with his hounds, tall and disheveled from riding, the fires of the hearth roaring behind him.
She wondered if he could see himself that way too. He had cut his queue, one of the last of his age to do so, but did not favor some Roman style for his hair. Rather it remained longer than most, its fullness skimming his back collar and the sides of his face.
He did not move toward her, which left her no choice except to walk toward him. The way he watched her approach unnerved her to the point of breathlessness.
“Did you come to apologize?”
That stopped her, a good twenty feet away. “Apologize? For what? Getting you wet today?”
“That was my choice. No, apologize to my aunt for the rudeness in the coach the other evening.”
“The rudeness started with her.”
“You provoked her, deliberately. As for her words, she is an older woman who sought to issue a warning and advice, and thus spare a younger woman much grief. She is also a duke’s daughter.”
Any misgivings she harbored about the fleecing she was about to visit on this man disappeared. “She could be the queen, and I would not tolerate such insults. So, in answer to your question, I did not come here to apologize to her.”
“Then I assume you came to see me.” His gaze took her in from head to toe, then shifted to the door. “Are you alone?”
“Sarah is with me.”
“No, she is not.”
“She is waiting in the reception hall, I meant. I did not think she should hear the conversation I need to have with you.”
Interested now, and vaguely amused too, he beckoned her to come closer and gestured to the chairs. “Be seated, and tell me what you need of me.”
She sat in another chair much like the one he had been using. His manner had turned tolerant and patient. She realized he assumed she wanted a favor, or a boon of some kind. As a duke, he probably had a lot of people come here to tell him what they needed of him.
He did not sit, but stood beside his chair with one arm crooked on its high back. She again noted his dress, and wondered if her visit had interfered with his departure for a dinner or some other invitation. Perhaps he intended to visit a woman. Something about him inclined her to think so. Then again, maybe he expected a woman to visit him. Not her, of course.
That would be awkward. She trusted the servants knew to keep his mistress somewhere else if she came while he had other visitors. Best to make this conversation a fast one.
“Do you remember the first time I visited Mrs. Burton’s?” she asked. “You saw me there.”
“I remember the first time I saw you at Mrs. Burton’s. Approximately a year ago, wasn’t it? If you say it was your first time there, I have no reason not to believe you.”
“I was winning at vingt-et-un. Again and again, I won. You sat down at the table beside me after I had been there an hour. Ambury wanted me to leave, and so did Cassandra. Do you remember?”
Silence. It stretched until she wondered if he would claim his memory had failed him.
“I do. You were drunk on the excitement of the risk, as I recall.”
Drunk did not describe that incredible excitement. She had felt alive, and vital, and alert to her entire person. She had spent months sleeping. That night she had awakened.
She won eight hundred pounds that night. A small fortune. Then, she had given it away to those desperately in need. In one night she had experienced resurrection and thrills, and also found a purpose.
“You proposed a wager, Penthurst. I think your goal was to shock me, and ruin my fun. It worked.”
“Not for long.”
“I gambled no more that night, or for a fortnight after.”
“Then you began again. Better if you had taken me up on that wager. It was one loss that might have ended the fascination.”
“I think I would have won, and should have been brave enough to play your game, rather than letting you interfere and ruin my evening.”
“Do you now?”
“Yes. For reasons unknown, fortune smiles on me. I think I would win now too. I am sure of it. So sure that I have come here to pick up the gauntlet you threw that night.”
He could not hide his surprise. It passed quickly, however. “Perhaps you have forgotten the details of that proposed wager.”
“Not at all. You suggested your ten thousand against my innocence, the winner to be determined by a simple draw of the cards.” She tried to sound worldly, as if she discussed such things all the time. She wanted him to know she was no longer the little fool who had been rendered speechless at that vingt-et-un table.
His goal had been to dumbfound her. It had worked too well. She could not remember if the mere proposal had stunned her to where she lost all interest in gaming, or that such a proposal had come from him. Well, she had more self-possession now. She knew a thing or two about the world.
“The wager was posed knowing you would never accept it.”
“I know. However, it was never withdrawn either. How careless of you.”
“You cannot want to do this.”
“What I want is your ten thousand. This is merely the easiest way to make you part with it.”
No response. Just a long, dark look. Her self-confidence started to fray. An excitement akin to the thrill she knew at the tables quickened in her core. He appeared a bit vexed, enough that his jaw firmed and his mouth’s line hardened. He appeared even more handsome like that, but she worried his expression reflected a growing stubbornness born of duty and friendship to Southwaite and all those other reasons he might dredge up in order to refuse. He did not know he would lose, after all. The scandalous
nature of the wager might be giving him serious pause.
If so, he should have never made it.
“Should you want to beg off, I cannot force you to follow through,” she said. “Although I doubt you want to be known as a man who proposes wagers he has no intention of completing.”
He glared at her as if she had threatened to tell the world just that. She hadn’t, although it may have sounded as though she might. Oh, dear. How careless of her.
“I can see that you are determined to court ruin, Lydia. So be it.” He walked to a small, round table, lifted it, and set it down between the two chairs. He strode to one of the bookcases and took something out of a small drawer. Returning, he set a deck of cards on the table. “One simple draw of the cards, you said. No trump or wild cards, aces high. Is that agreeable to you?”
“Very agreeable.” She pulled off her gloves, since she never wore them at the tables. On second thought, she also untied her bonnet, removed it, and set it aside, since she never wore hats or bonnets at the tables either. It might be best to mimic her appearance and state of mind as closely to what she brought to wagers as a matter of course. She was not superstitious as such, but if one has evidence of a force as irrational as luck, one tends to allow for other irrationalities.
Penthurst sat in his chair. He mixed the cards, stacked them neatly, and pushed the stack toward her. He lounged back comfortably. “You can go first, Lydia.”
She sat forward so her body almost touched the table. She tried to ignore him because she never paid attention to others at the tables. Unfortunately, she could not remove him from her mind completely. Even without looking at him she felt him there, his eyes on her, his presence pressing on her as if he gave off a measurable energy. He made her nervous, and imbued this risk with more danger than she wanted to acknowledge.
What a goose she was being. There was no danger. Not from the cards, at least. She would draw, win, collect, get rid of Mr. Trilby, and burn her manuscript once she had it back.
She spread the cards into a fan. Her fingers shook when she reached forward. Hand hovering, she made her choice. She plucked out a card and turned it over.
The Accidental Duchess Page 5