The Wedding Wager

by Hale Deborah

  She flew to the door and wrenched it open.

  “Callers, Miss Freemantle.” The butler thrust out a silver tray, bearing several engraved calling cards.

  As her heart sluiced back deep into her toes, Leonora picked up one of the cards and pretended to read it. She willed her hand not to tremble.

  Though her battered spirit yearned for peace and solitude to recover itself, another part of her groped in vain for anything to occupy her mind. To distract her from the pain.

  “Show them up, Bramshaw, with my compliments. And bring us some refreshments, if you would be so kind.”

  “Certainly, miss. Shall I summon Mr. Blenkinsop and…er…Captain Archibald? From the way the young ladies were speaking, I gather they are keen to renew his acquaintance after last evening.”

  “By all means, call them both,” Leonora heard herself say.

  The only fit punishment for her folly would be to watch Morse in action with other women. A severe penalty, to be sure, but one guaranteed to cure her of any imprudent yearning for him that might linger in her gullible heart.

  “Captain Archibald?” The butler’s voice sounded faintly over his knock on Morse’s bedroom door.

  “Go to hell!” bellowed Morse. That’s what he had told Leonora Freemantle. Now he wanted to consign everyone else in the world to its flames—where his heart roasted on a spit.

  Bramshaw persisted. “Miss Freemantle asked me to summon you to the sitting room, sir—”

  Despite his firmest resolution to not stir a step, Morse strode to the door and threw it open before the man could finish speaking.

  The butler started at this impassioned reception, but soon regained this composure. “Some ladies have come calling and Miss Freemantle wishes you and Mr. Blenkinsop to join them.”

  Whatever Morse had been expecting to hear—and he was by no means certain, himself—this was not it. He checked a powerful impulse to bid Sir Hugo’s poor butler to perdition, once again, along with all the household and guests.

  Bramshaw raised his eyebrows in a subtle but significant look. “Unless I’m quite mistaken, the ladies have come to see you, sir.”

  “Have they, indeed?” Their fawning attention might be the perfect antidote for Leonora’s rejection.

  Besides, he had the wager to win—on his own account now. More than ever he wanted to go abroad, where a man might be valued for his accomplishments rather than the fortunate accident of his birth. He would prove to everyone, Miss Leonora Hypocrite Freemantle included, that he was the equal of any beau in Bath.

  “I mustn’t disappoint the ladies, then, must I? Tell them I will be down at once.”

  “Very good, sir.” The butler marched off, presumably to summon Algie.

  As Morse changed his coat, he strove to erase from his features any sign that might betray his recent distress. Then he manufactured a suave, flattering smile and fixed it in place. A few deep breaths and he was ready for his performance.

  He met up with Algie on the stairs.

  “Didn’t I say the ladies would swarm around you?” Algie rolled his very round eyes and waggled his brows in a droll expression that made Morse laugh in spite of himself.

  His fellow feeling for Algie increased tenfold. After all, they now both belonged to the fraternity of men Leonora Freemantle did not wish to wed. The only difference was Morse knew of his membership.

  Leonora ushered them into the sitting room with imperturbable poise. From the mirrored candle sconces on the walls to the intimate grouping of scroll-armed settee and chairs, the room looked just as it had when Morse stormed out of it. His violent exit had not so much as tipped a picture. Who would guess that scarcely half an hour ago, in this very room, Leonora had refused his offer of marriage. Instead she’d proposed an arrangement that would have scandalized their guests quite speechless, had they known of it.

  “Mr. Blenkinsop, Captain Archibald, I’m certain you remember these ladies from last night’s concert at the Assembly Rooms.” She gestured to each of their guests in turn. “Miss Osgoode, Miss Compton, Miss Hill and her sister Lady Fitzwarren, Miss Ditterage and Madame Parmier. They have not forgotten you, Captain, by all accounts.”

  “No indeed,” vowed the chitty-faced Miss Ditterage. “I cannot think when we have had such an agreeable new arrival in Bath. It is too bad of General Wellington to have dragged all the handsomest young officers away to the Peninsula.” She thrust out her lower lip in a pout that made her look more than ever like an overgrown infant.

  It was on the tip of Morse’s tongue to inform this vacuous ninny that the general had far more urgent matters on his mind than depriving Bath debutantes of dancing partners.

  As the other guests exclaimed in sympathy with Miss Ditterage, Algie bent close to Morse and muttered, “Her aunt is a dowager marchioness. She’s expected to come into several thousand a year when the old lady breathes her last.”

  It would take every guinea melted down to gild such an odious pill, thought Morse. But he managed to rein in his tongue.

  “I fear I am a poor replacement for my brothers in arms, Miss Ditterage.” He tapped his lame leg. “The Frenchies have already had their way with me.”

  “Of course. Your…wound.”

  The other ladies broke into a flurry of twittering conversation among themselves.

  “If it isn’t too painful to recount,” piped up the most attractive of their guests, Miss Hill—at least Morse thought that was her name. “Do tell us how you came to be injured. It’s sure to be a thrilling tale.”

  In spite of himself, Morse glanced toward Leonora. There’d been nothing thrilling about the slaughter at Bucaso. Nothing heroic. She had understood that, as these frivolous creatures never would. She was the only person in whom he’d ever confided his shame and regret.

  “It was nothing,” he insisted gruffly. “A bayonet. A bullet. Cannon fire. What difference does it make? Men are wounded every day in battle. My injury is of no more consequence than any other.”

  Miss Hill would not be dissuaded. “A bayonet? How awful! Come have a seat beside me—you should not be standing.”

  Algie pushed Morse toward the settee, but not before muttering, “That one’s the richest heiress in Bath. She and her sister will split thirty thousand a year at least.”

  As Morse lurched onto the settee beside the young lady, Algie spoke up for the benefit of their guests. “My friend is too modest by half. I shan’t embarrass him by recounting the details, but I will tell you this. He’d never have been wounded if he hadn’t rushed to the aid of his men. If you ask me, he should have been awarded a medal for his heroic action.”

  Their guests murmured zealous agreement on the matter while Morse cast Algie an exasperated look. Desperate to escape the subject of the war and his injury, he asked how they all had enjoyed the concert.

  “I can’t say I paid the music much mind.” Miss Hill raised gloved fingers to her lips to button up a giggle. “It all sounds the same to me—especially the Italian. Did you have a favorite, Captain?”

  “Indeed.” One he recognized, at least, from Leonora’s short course in music appreciation. “I thought the Viotti adagio very well done.”

  “Just so,” agreed the pale, plump Miss Osgoode. “That was the slow one, wasn’t it?”

  Morse only nodded. He feared if he tried to speak, he might give himself away with a burst of wild laughter.

  The ladies hastened to endorse Morse’s opinion and to commend his cultured taste in music. He glanced at Leonora and received a curt nod of approval.

  Turning his attention to Miss Hill, Morse lavished upon her the smile that had charmed scores of less wealthy women. “I’ll admit, I was hard-pressed to keep my mind on the music with so many engaging distractions at every turn.”

  “Distractions?” Clearly, the compliment was too subtle for her.

  He wagged his finger. “You must not pretend to miss my meaning. Even if I hadn’t been so long away in the army, the beauty of the ladies of Bath w
ould still prove a powerful distraction.” He met the eyes of each one in turn, to include her in his flummery.

  They blushed and smiled and preened in reply, while Leonora looked on in stony severity. Let her play the gorgon, then! He was only doing what he’d been engaged to do. If it vexed her, so much the better. Let her see there were plenty of other women who coveted what she had spurned.

  A streak of rustic common sense within Morse protested. Bath’s vapid debutantes admired the fictitious Captain Maurice Archibald and his shallow facade of gentility. Not plain Rifleman Archer, the son of a poor tenant farmer.

  Leonora, for all she’d misused him, had come to care for the real Morse. But not enough to wed him—damn it!

  To think she had seriously entertained a notion to marry that rogue, Archer. In a relatively quiet corner of the Upper Assembly Rooms, Leonora shuddered.

  She spied Morse some distance away. Mobbed by his admirers, as usual. The viper clearly took pleasure in flaunting his social triumphs under her nose. Now and then he would glance her way, his gloating grin unmistakable.

  If only she could take to her bed and sleep away the time until Bath residents departed back to their country estates for the summer. Barring some unforeseen disaster, the success of their wager was assured. Must she torture herself daily with the evidence that Morse had cared for her no more than he cared for any other unwed heiress?

  Indeed she must.

  As punishment for her folly in caring for him and as a painful but necessary lesson, should she ever be tempted to err in that fashion again.

  “I say, Leonora.” From out of nowhere, Algie appeared at her elbow. “What are you doing skulking over here in the corner? Come have a dance with me. I promise not to tread on your toes—much.”

  “Very well, Algie.” She tried to stifle a sigh, remembering what a jolly time they’d had in the great parlor at Laurelwood practicing for events like this ball.

  Algie nodded in Morse’s direction. “You’ve done wonders with him, Leonora. Why, at this rate we’ll have him married off by the end of the Season to a lady of income.”

  “By the looks of things, he’ll have several to choose from.” She could not keep the bitterness from her voice. It was no good even trying. Fortunately, Algie was not apt to notice. “We may have to auction him off to the highest bidder.”

  “Ha, ha! Auction him off. You have such a ready wit, my dear. Between you and Morse, the pair of you keep my poor belly in stitches.”

  Algie’s mild words hit her like a solid clout to the jaw. Memories she had worked so hard to evict came storming back into her mind, more potent than ever. Of the many times she and Morse had goaded poor Algie into helpless fits of laughter, even when the jest had been at his expense. Why, she had laughed more in the past three months than in all her life before.

  And cried more, too. Leonora could not deny it. Before Morse’s advent, her emotions had been well under control. Disciplined to avoid excess. Never too happy but never too sad, either. Calm. Seldom ruffled.

  Not fully alive.

  Leonora tried to quench that thought, but failed when she beheld Morse approaching the dance floor with an extravagantly bejeweled young lady. Was she one of those who had come calling on the morning after the concert?

  “Come join our set, Arch-ibald,” Algie hailed him. “It’ll be like old times at Laurelwood.”

  By valiant self-control, Leonora managed to refrain from striking Algie with her fan.

  After a hasty exchange with his dance partner, Morse approached them with obvious reluctance. Though his limp was not very pronounced, Leonora wondered if his injured leg might be bothering him. He appeared tense and very much out of temper.

  Well, he needn’t pretend to feel slighted over her refusal, she thought as they began to dance four hands up. Now he had his pick of a much wider and richer field of prospective brides.

  She strove to keep her attention fixed on the dance steps and to ignore the annoying flash of heat that blazed through her body every time her hand came in contact with Morse’s. While Algie kept up a lively banter and Morse’s partner offered a few prosaic remarks about the ball and the weather, Morse and Leonora remained mute and wooden.

  As the last notes of “The Indian Queen” died away, Leonora tread on Algie’s toes, not entirely by accident. Even that was not sufficient to relieve the overwrought feelings she struggled to suppress.

  She was so intent on getting as far away from Morse as possible, that she scarcely noticed the gentleman who approached his partner to request the next dance. Too late, she recognized the young man’s voice. He must be that tiresome nephew of Lord Pewsey who’d made every effort to spoil their farewell party at Laurelwood. The intervening weeks had not taught the odious creature any better manners.

  When the young woman declined his invitation, he hissed, “Fatigued yourself with a single dance, have you, Miss Hill? I’d have thought the offspring of Yorkshire peasants might have a more robust constitution.”

  Miss Hill let out a squeak of dismay and brought her fluttering fan up to hide her face.

  Before the obnoxious youth could savor his triumph, Morse stepped in front of him, toe-to-toe. “I’d have thought the nephew of a baronet might have better manners.” He did not raise his voice much above a whisper, but his words had an edge of fierce contempt. “Apologize to the lady at once, or I will teach you courtesy.”

  The young boor took a step back, but thrust out his chin in a show of belligerence as he glared up at Morse. “Captain Archibald, is it? I’ve been making inquiries about you since we met in Wiltshire, Archibald. No one of my acquaintance has ever heard of your family, your school or you.”

  Leonora’s pulse pounded in her ears. Her dreams for the future shattered around her like fine crystal beneath a stampede of livestock.

  Holding her gorge, she stepped between the two men, lofting a glare at Morse that warned him to keep his mouth shut and his temper in check. “Mr. Nettlecombe, isn’t it? What a pleasant surprise to see you again so soon. Can I prevail upon you to fetch me a cup of punch? Dancing is thirsty—”

  A pair of familiar hands grasped her upper arms and moved her out of the way. Before she could utter a peep of protest, Morse struck the drawling dandy a token blow with his glove.

  “You have insulted my honor, sir, and the honor of a lady. I demand satisfaction.”

  A gasp went up from those within earshot.

  Turning his back on the fellow he had just challenged to a duel, Morse held out his arm to the young lady. “May I have the privilege of escorting you home, Miss Hill?”

  With a dumb nod, she latched on to him and they marched off with heads held high.

  “Drat and blast!” muttered Algie as the company broke into a storm of feverish tattle. “This won’t do at all. Dueling’s been outlawed in Bath since the days of Old Nash. If Morse doesn’t wind up dead, it’ll still bring him all the wrong sort of attention.”

  A hundred conflicting emotions erupted within Leonora at once. Shades of rage and despair. Even a foolish flicker of admiration, which she quashed the instant it reared its head.

  “Algie, will you be a good fellow and call for our carriage? I can’t stay here another minute.”

  By the time she got through with Morse Archer, he would be in no condition to duel with that contemptible lump of a Nettlecombe. Or anyone else, for that matter.

  Morse stole into Sir Hugo’s house at Laura Place as late as he dared. After seeing Miss Hill home, he had sought out a drinking establishment of rather unsavory reputation near the Cross Bath. Might as well spend some time where he belonged, Morse decided. Thanks to his touchy temper and preposterous pride, he’d be back among his own kind soon enough, never to rise again.

  Prying off his shoes, he held them in one hand and began to pad up the stairs in his stockinged feet, his gait weaving ever so slightly. Behind him, he heard the sitting room door open on squealing hinges.

  “Not so fast, Morse Archer.” Though
spoken softly, Leonora’s words thundered in the stillness of the sleeping house. “I’d like a word with you.”

  Squaring his shoulders, he turned and descended the stairs, again. He’d sooner have stormed a nest of French artillery in full fire than walk into that quiet, dimly lit room.

  He had barely closed the door behind him when Leonora vented her fury. “How could you, Morse? By calling out that young ass Nettlecombe, you’ve as good as thrown the wager. The vicar of St. Michael’s might as well publish wedding banns for Algie and me on Sunday next.”

  “What do you want me to say?” Morse flared. “That I’m sorry? Well, I’m not. Nettlecombe had it coming after the way he insulted Miss Hill. What else could I have done?”

  “You could have kept your mouth shut and let someone else deal with him. Besides, he didn’t say anything untrue. Miss Hill would be no one of consequence if her father didn’t have a vulgar amount of money. Admit it, you did this on purpose to spite me for refusing your proposal. How could I have been such a fool as to trust a blackguard like you?”

  Morse had stood for all the abuse he was prepared to tolerate. That he’d been reckless and stupid in challenging young Nettlecombe, he was prepared to own and take his lumps for. As for the other…

  “That’s a load of rubbish, and you know it, Leonora Freemantle.” He took a step toward her. Whether to menace or simply out of a foolish yearning to be close to her, Morse was not certain. “I worked hard to put on the trappings of a gentleman and win your wager. But if that means standing by while some highborn lout insults a respectable young lady on account of her grandfolks were honest working people, I’ll tell you now—I haven’t the stomach for it.”

  He looked into her eyes, red-rimmed with dusky hollows beneath, and he saw the hurt. A raw, corrupted wound, whose cause he could only guess and whose remedy he had forfeited. Deeply as he resented her accusation, he could not deny his responsibility for wrecking her future.

  Casting his pride aside, he took her hand. “I didn’t do this to hurt you. You must believe that, Leonora. In spite of…everything, I don’t want to see you lose your school.”