by Claudia Dain
“I am content with the children in my brother’s nursery, Sophia,” Katherine said softly. “Very well content.”
“Are you?” Sophia said, and with a smile, she added, “How wonderful for you. No one in London is ever content. You may begin a new fashion. I do hope so. There is nothing more stimulating than a new fashion taking hold.”
“I do feel hugely insulted and I shan’t stand here and listen for another moment,” Edenham said, grinning. “I was under the firm impression that I was the most stimulating man in Town, and it was you who gave me that impression, Sophia. You seem quite mercurial of a sudden. I can’t think what to do about it.”
Edenham was positively joyous. He was clearly delighted to see his sister out in Society, and well he should be. It did Katherine no good at all to hibernate. It only led to all sorts of unflattering speculation, which was the worst kind of all.
“But darling, you must stand and listen for there is so much I must tell you,” Sophia said, drawing the two of them to a spot along the back wall of the reception room, a wall simply dripping with large mirrors, to have a private chat. Private? With mirrors? Oh, she knew precisely what she was about. “You know of the wager, naturally.”
“Wager? I’m afraid I do not,” Edenham said.
“Does it concern Edenham?” Katherine asked in a worried undertone, casting a glance about the room. The occupants of the room glanced back at her. Many, if not most of them had not seen her since her husband’s very timely death.
Katherine was wearing white muslin of the most pristine lines with flawlessly cut white kid gloves. As was her practice, and which she was becoming quite famous for, which would likely annoy her completely, Katherine was wearing no jewelry whatsoever. As a consequence, and in direct conflict with every other woman in the room, she looked as classically beautiful and pure as a vestal virgin of old. Her dark chestnut hair was done up in a loose pile and her hazel brown eyes looked enormous in her delicately structured face. She was, as far as it was possible to be, the direct physical and emotional opposite of Bernadette, Lady Paignton, and it was a mystery to half the population of London, the female half, how Lord Richard could possibly have fallen from his wife’s bed into Bernadette’s. The male half understood it completely.
Sophia, because of her unique experience of the world, understood it as well, though she thought Lord Richard a complete fool and didn’t shed a tear when he’d been killed in that duel. She’d wager Katherine hadn’t cried either. She did hope not.
“But of course it does, darling, which is why the room is full to bursting,” Sophia answered. “Now Edenham, I do want you to prepare yourself, but it seems that not only has a wager been placed on White’s book that you shall marry Miss Prestwick, but someone, I leave you to guess it, has made a wager that Lord Iveston will be the man for Penelope. Darling, you have competition. And everyone in Town is here to see who shall win the delightful Miss Prestwick. Are you quite prepared for that?”
Edenham, to his immense credit, which did so much to demonstrate why she found him so attractive, did not so much as blink.
“It’s not to be lances on horseback, I presume? Then I am hardly alarmed. A wager. What is that? Wagers are made every day. I do not fear being on White’s book. Is not Miss Prestwick alarmed that this episode will tarnish her good name?”
“I can see you have not spent much time in conversation with Miss Prestwick,” Sophia said blandly.
“Is she a ribald sort?” Katherine asked.
“No, not at all,” Sophia said. “Miss Prestwick is … practical.”
“Practical. That doesn’t sound terribly amiss,” Katherine said. “Hugh, are you planning to marry again?”
“Not exactly planning,” Edenham answered.
“But if you stumbled into it, you wouldn’t cry for help?” Sophia said, chuckling.
“That’s about it,” Edenham said.
“Oh, Hugh,” Katherine said on a sigh. It was perfectly obvious she felt that her brother had enjoyed as many wives as he ought.
“As you have arrived far later than Lord Iveston,” Sophia said, ignoring Katherine for the moment, “he has far outpaced you in his courtship of Miss Prestwick. You shall have much to do to catch him up, darling. I suggest you start as soon as you are able to find her.”
“To find her? Where is she?”
“Lord Iveston dragged her out of the room a half hour ago, which did change the odds in his favor, which I’m certain you will see the logic of. Why, he may have won the wager, and the girl, already. I do, do wish you had arrived earlier, Edenham. I can’t possibly help you if you’re not here to be helped.”
“You’ve wagered on me, I take it?” Edenham said.
“Ten pounds,” Sophia said, and then added, “but I’m desperate to get fifteen on Iveston. He does look good for it, doesn’t he?”
It was at that moment that Penelope and her brother entered the reception room, Iveston and George bringing up the rear. Penelope looked utterly disheveled.
“Oh, dear,” Sophia said. “I do think I should make it twenty on Iveston. I can’t see how I could lose, do you, darling Edenham?”
He didn’t answer. She had hardly expected him to.
LORD George Blakesley, just back from placing his wager on White’s book and looking forward to a bite to eat at Lady Lanreath’s famously well-laid table, was accosted by two things almost immediately; one was the sight of Iveston looking a bit bedraggled about the cravat trailing behind a very bedraggled Penelope Prestwick, and the other was Lord Penrith grabbing him by the arm and pulling him off into a corner, far away from the food, it should be added.
“What are the odds now?” Penrith asked.
“They were in Edenham’s favor,” Lord George answered. “What’s happened?”
“No one knows. But something. Edenham’s just here. And he’s talking to Sophia. Things should perk up quite a bit now. I can’t see that Iveston has much chance, truthfully. If Sophia is aiding him in acquiring Miss Prestwick, the matter is as good as settled.”
George, as he was Iveston’s brother, did not care for that statement in the least. What to do but rally to Iveston’s standard?
“I don’t believe you know Iveston well at all, Penrith. My money is on my brother. He is more determined and more charming than is generally credited.”
“I don’t mean to insult you and yours, Lord George, but it is not so much that Edenham is the better man here but that Sophia Dalby is clearly backing him. I wonder if you understand how fully that changes things.”
They were both standing quite stiffly now, their chins tucked down and their brows lowered. If there was one thing a man was prepared to tussle over, and of course there were many, many things any man would tussle over, it was his success at making the right wager.
“What do you mean, Edenham is the better man?” George asked, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet.
“It is not about the man, George,” Penrith said impatiently, “it is about the woman, and the woman is Sophia Dalby!”
“You discount Miss Prestwick entirely? Her preferences? Her opinions?”
“Entirely,” Penrith said. “If she doesn’t realize it yet, she soon will. Sophia will pair her with whomever she thinks best. The girls in these cases give every appearance of being delighted with Sophia’s choice.”
“And why should Sophia choose Edenham over Iveston?” George bit out.
“I have no idea and I couldn’t possibly care,” Penrith snapped. “As long as I’m not the man she has slated for the altar, I’m completely indifferent. Aside from my wager, that is.”
“And what is your wager?”
“Fifteen pounds that Miss Prestwick will not marry Edenham, her brother placing fifteen pounds that she will. Now it seems I must wager that she will marry Edenham.”
“I will wager you forty pounds that she will not marry Edenham.”
“That she will marry Iveston, instead?” Penrith prompted.
&nbs
p; George took a moment to consider it. Sophia was still chatting up Edenham. Iveston’s cravat was still a disaster. Miss Prestwick was ignoring Iveston thoroughly while eyeing Edenham like a cordial.
It did not look good for Iveston. Still, a brother was a brother. And there was the matter of that crumpled cravat. Miss Prestwick’s gown looked slightly the worse for wear as well. That settled it.
“Done,” Lord George Blakesley said, hand out.
“And done,” Lord Penrith said, clasping his hand and shaking it firmly.
“SHE’S doing it again,” Lord Ruan said under his breath, staring at Sophia across the wide reception room.
She looked bloody marvelous, as was to be expected. Her black hair was piled high upon her head, her gown was white silk with some sort of clever pleating at the back, and her jewels were emeralds set in Spanish gold. She had them dripping from her ears and a matching hair ornament tucked into the soft black of her hair. She looked a goddess, a pagan goddess from the New World, which was apt, wasn’t it?
“I beg your pardon?” Lord Dutton said.
“Good evening, Dutton. I was just remarking that Lady Dalby seems to be matchmaking again. I can’t think why.”
“Can’t you? I’ve heard she receives a priceless Chinese porcelain for each match she manages.”
“And she requires porcelains? I don’t think so. I think there is something else which drives her, though perhaps it is only that it entertains her, moving people about on a chessboard of sorts, playing at a game only she understands.”
Dutton was staring at him as if he’d lost his mind. Perhaps he had.
“What game could that be?” Dutton asked.
“I have no idea,” Ruan answered, chuckling softly. “I only know that she does nothing without purpose. You understand that, don’t you, Dutton? Why else has she been tormenting you by way of Anne Warren? You know of the satire, I assume?”
Dutton, who was by all appearances sober, which was somewhat remarkable of him given his general drunkenness of the past month, looked at him in surprise. “The satire of Cranleigh and Amelia Caversham? Of course I know of it. Everyone knows of it.”
“No, Dutton, not that satire. The satire that shows your father, among others, attacking Sophia in a less than cordial manner.”
Dutton gave every appearance of having been delivered of a rude shock. And so it was. Ruan, hearing of the decades-old satire, had hunted it down. It had not made pleasant viewing.
“The Lords Westlin, Melverley, Dutton, Cumberland, and Aldreth were pictured in a wood in hot pursuit of Sophia, though Aldreth was drawn to the side and not an active participant. I think that must be significant, don’t you? Can you not see, Dutton, the lines of connection? Sophia marries her daughter to Westlin’s heir, a tidy revenge if ever there was one.”
“And she aids both Melverley and Aldreth’s daughters into fine marriages? What revenge there, Ruan? No, you are seeing bears under bed frames. I believe none of it.”
“You have not seen the satire,” Ruan said softly. “It is chilling in its depiction, yet salacious for all that. Sophia is portrayed as being naked, ripe, the Indian showing very strongly in her. Yet it was twenty years ago. How old is she now? She must have been scarcely more than a child when it happened.”
“When what happened?” Dutton said sharply. “It’s a satire. A fiction.”
“How many satires do you know that are pure fiction? No, the artist requires something from which to build his art.”
Ruan could not stop staring at Sophia. She glittered in her finery, her skin flawless, her hair thick and glossy, her manner assured, and her gaze sharp. She was more than she seemed, more than she let them see, yet what he saw was completely compelling. He wanted her. She knew it. If all went well, he would have her. If she allowed it. He knew with utmost certainty that no one ever touched Sophia without her express and considered permission. One look at the satire explained the why of that.
“I think you overstate it,” Dutton said.
“Do I?” Ruan said quietly, shifting his gaze to Dutton briefly. “You think that Sophia did not arrange for both Aldreth’s and Melverley’s daughters to be ruined? Have you forgotten that so quickly? Yes, they were married well, but not before they were well ruined. And what of Anne Warren, who is under Sophia’s protection? Do you think that all that has happened to you is an accident?”
“Nothing has happened to me.”
“Certainly Anne Warren has not happened to you, no, nor upon you, nor will she. Not with Sophia guarding the gate. You are being punished, Dutton, for the crimes of your father.”
“Crimes? Against a whore?” Dutton said hotly.
“She is a whore no longer. I am not certain she ever was,” Ruan said, his gaze returning to Sophia. She was talking privately with Lady Richard now, Edenham having wandered off.
“Oh, there is no doubt that she was.”
“There is always doubt, Dutton,” Ruan said quietly, “or there should be.”
“THERE is no doubt of it,” Lord Raithby said. “It’s Edenham, all the way. I only wish I’d put more money on him while at White’s.”
“It’s my sister you’re talking about. You do realize that?” George Prestwick said.
Things had gone from a mere muddle to a full-blown disaster. His sister was the subject of two wagers, something had happened in the Lanreath back garden and he would have wagered one hundred pounds it had nothing to do with a rat, and he could think of no way to stop the momentum. The thing was, Pen didn’t seem to think anything was wrong. Not a muddle and not a disaster. No, she seemed quite as on point as she ever was. Of course, Pen on point was normally very off point, but even that wasn’t the problem. No, the problem, one of many, was that Iveston and Edenham seemed to find nothing at all wrong with Pen and the situation as it now stood.
And, of course, that was a problem of huge proportion. It indicated something very nearly sinister, for it was impossible for anyone of any sense to think that the situation, by which he meant the wagers, was at all normal, right, and good.
Pen was not a normal sort of girl. He liked her that way, but he was not so dull as to not realize that he was alone in that. He’d had a lifetime with her, understood her, loved her in an appropriately brotherly fashion. The same could not be said of Iveston. There was nothing appropriate or brotherly about the look in Iveston’s eyes or the sluggard appearance of his cravat.
A rat, indeed.
The problem, again, one of many, was that Pen seemed very happy about the situation. He wanted her happiness, brotherly love and all that, and so if things were progressing in any sort of direction she found favorable, he was hesitant to put the brakes on.
But he would not see her ruined. There had been quite enough of that this Season and he was not at all willing to add his sister to the pile of ruined girls, no matter how happily they were hitched now.
“Sorry,” Raithby said. “I do seem to have forgotten that. All these marriage wagers over the past month, it’s quite stunning, isn’t it? I do wonder why now, and why not ever before? What’s changed, Prestwick?”
“I can’t think what. It all started with Lady Dalby’s daughter, though why anyone should have wagered on her is a mystery still unsolved. The point is, though I can make no sense of it, is that since then, there have been nothing but wagers about who will snare whom, and when, and how. I’ve lost sixty pounds since it started. I have no knack for these seduction wagers, I can tell you. Less so when they involve Penelope.”
“But here, Prestwick, there’s your answer. There’s no need to take it so hard about Penelope. She can’t possibly be damaged by it as it’s being done to all the girls this Season. A fashion, if you will, that will likely die out when the Season ends.”
“And until the Season ends?” George said, turning his dark eyes upon Raithby’s face. “I’m to do nothing?”
Raithby shrugged. “They all end up married, don’t they? And well married. I shouldn’t let it bother yo
u.”
“You don’t have a sister, do you, Raithby?”
“No. Why?”
“What do you think of Iveston’s cravat?” George said, looking across the room to where Iveston stood talking pleasantly with Mrs. Warren.
“It’s a disaster. I can’t think why he left Hyde House in such a state.”
“He didn’t,” George answered. “My sister did that to him, and to his cravat.”
“Oh.”
A stilted silence followed that remark. It was only after a footman brought them each a glass of port wine that George said, “You’re going to wager on Iveston now, aren’t you?”
Raithby, a quite accomplished gambler, said, “I am. You wouldn’t care to take me up, would you? Ten pounds that Iveston becomes your brother-in-law?”
“No, Raithby,” George said evenly, “I wouldn’t care to make that wager.”
“I don’t suppose you know the status of the wagers, Mrs. Warren?” Iveston asked.
“Lord Iveston, I can assure you that I have made no wagers of any kind whatsoever.”
“Which is not actually what I asked, Mrs. Warren,” he said with a half smile.
They stood in the drawing room, beside a beautifully carved chest in walnut with some minor gilding on its face. Whoever had designed Lanreath House had indulged in an obvious passion for gilding. There was hardly a surface free of it.
“Lord Iveston,” Mrs. Warren said, her fan moving languidly about her face, “I begin to wonder if you actually do want to marry Miss Prestwick. You certainly are behaving like a man determined.”
“Determined to win a wager, Mrs. Warren,” he said. “I can hardly think I am unusual in that.”
“But the wager itself, and the method, Lord Iveston, are quite unusual, are they not?”
“Perhaps a year ago they would have been, but now I find myself in the thick of fashion. It is most comfortable, I assure you.”
Mrs. Warren laughed. She appeared to do it reluctantly, yet she did laugh.
“Fashions change, my lord, yet wives do not.”