The Last Gamble

by Mary Nichols

  ‘Yes, but why do you need that?’

  ‘I mean to leave here and live independently.’

  ‘My goodness, Miss Sanghurst, you do surprise me. Have they not treated you kindly? I gained the impression from Lady Blair that you were thought of as one of the family.’

  ‘So I am, no one could have been kinder, but that is half the trouble. They are too kind and I am too dependent. I would like to live quietly on my own with Daisy for a companion. Do you think she would come?’

  ‘I am sure she would, but I do not understand why it is necessary.’

  ‘My reasons are private, Mr Benstead. Do you think you could rent a cottage in the Lakes for me? Ambleside, perhaps.’

  ‘Of course, but I must speak to the Earl first.’ He looked at her, trying to divine her reasons from the expression on her face. She had smiled at him and expressed pleasure at seeing him, but she was not happy. He could not blame her surroundings, which were nothing short of luxurious; he could only surmise it was a man who had put the bleak look in her eyes; it was even worse than when he had told her about her father’s gambling debts.

  Who had put it there? Lady Blair had told him, in the few minutes conversation they had had, that Captain Blair had met with Miss Sanghurst on the journey and escorted her to Killearn in appalling weather conditions and she had been very ill as a result, though now fully recovered. If that young man was responsible for her unhappiness, then he must be brought to book over it. He had been offered hospitality for the night and he would contrive, in that time, to speak to Captain Blair as well as the Earl.

  ‘Miss Sanghurst wishes to leave here?’ queried Duncan when Mr Benstead begged a few words in private after everyone else had retired. They were sitting in the library enjoying a glass of brandy beside the dying fire. ‘Are you sure you have not misunderstood?’

  ‘Oh, I am sure. She asked me to find her a cottage in the Lakes and send for her maid to join her. She said she meant to live quietly alone.’

  ‘Cork-brained ninny!’

  ‘Really, sir, I see no call to insult me.’

  ‘I do not insult you. I am cursing myself for a cow-handed clunch. Did she say why?’

  ‘No. She said her reasons were private. I deduced from that that there was a man in the picture…’

  ‘Yes.’ He sighed. ‘I had better tell you the whole, you may have good advice, for I have not been able to make her see reason.’

  ‘Women are not renowned for their aptitude in deduction, Captain. They think with their hearts.’

  ‘And Helen’s heart? What is that telling her?’

  ‘She feels she has to flee from a situation she cannot deal with. I am sure you understand.’

  Duncan looked up in surprise. ‘Did she tell you that?’

  ‘Naturally she did not. I surmised it. I also surmised it had something to do with you.’

  ‘I made a cake of myself, Mr Benstead.’ He smiled crookedly and went on to tell the lawyer of all the incidents on the journey to Scotland. ‘I have put myself utterly beyond her touch,’ he finished. ‘She is convinced I offered her marriage to salve my conscience and will not believe I want to marry her because I cannot contemplate life without her.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘All? Is it not enough?’

  ‘Perhaps she will come about. She cannot leave without the Earl’s consent.’

  ‘You do not know Miss Sanghurst very well if you think coercion will serve,’ Duncan said gloomily.

  ‘Captain Blair, are you a gambling man?’

  Duncan looked across at him, taken aback by the question. Was it a trick? ‘If you are alluding to Miss Sanghurst’s unhappy experience with the late Lord Sanghurst…’

  ‘Not at all. I meant are you prepared to take a gamble on Miss Sanghurst admitting what her heart is telling her? I have a plan. It might work.’

  ‘Then, for the love of God, let me hear it.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MR BENSTEAD left next day to execute Helen’s orders and she settled down to wait for his return and the arrival of Daisy. She told herself that life in a cottage by Lake Windermere was exactly what she wanted, that in the peace and solitude there her heart would mend. Duncan had accepted that she was leaving, just as his father had done, expressing his regret and saying that, of course, she must do as she pleased. It had all been too easy, which just went to show what they really thought of her. Only Andrew and Margaret continued to try and persuade her to stay, but then they did not know the reason she could not.

  She tried to fill her days so that she did not have time to think. She read a great deal, borrowing books from the his lordship’s extensive library, walking on the lower slopes around the castle, getting her feet wet and smiling enigmatically when Margaret or Duncan scolded her. Sometimes Duncan accompanied her, striding beside her with a sporting gun under his arm which he never used, and his dog scampering about in the heather sniffing for rabbits.

  ‘Will you miss all this?’ he asked one day, using his arm to encompass the view. They were on the top of a knoll which overlooked the castle, standing in the shelter of its valley. In the distance was the gleam of a large expanse of water and further in the distance, the mountains, still snow-capped.

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘It is lovely.’ Then half-smiling, so that he would not know what she really felt, ‘But the Lakes are also beautiful.’

  ‘Yes, I collect you saying that when we passed through.’

  She wished she had not reminded him of that journey, especially that section when they had been at peace with each other, when the first faint glimmering of her love for him had made itself felt. Every time she looked at his firm profile, every time he spoke to her in that soft, sensuous voice, the voice which had kept her from dying, she felt herself crumble a little more. ‘I shall miss the people too, everyone has been very good to me, the Earl and Margaret especially. She has been like a sister to me.’

  He stifled the retort that she did not have to leave and instead commented that with her capacity for making friends, she would not long be alone. ‘But you must be careful,’ he added. ‘You have a penchant for falling into a hobble.’

  ‘Daisy will see that I don’t.’ She forced herself to laugh. ‘At any rate, she will not scold me like you do. Or tell me what I ought or ought not to do.’

  ‘How dull,’ he said wryly. ‘Do you mean to have no adventures at all?’

  ‘None. I shall spend my time in good works, reading and walking over the fells.’

  ‘But that is what you have been doing here. No one has prevented you.’

  There was no answer to that and she remained silent for a time, watching the dog chasing after a stick he had thrown for it. It came running back, its tail wagging, dropping the stick at their feet. ‘Good dog,’ he said, bending to pat its head.

  ‘I think I will buy a puppy for company,’ she said.

  ‘A puppy?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Why not indeed.’ He smiled, this time with genuine pleasure. ‘But you do not need to buy one. One of the retriever bitches has had pups; Robbie, here, is the sire. Come, I will choose one for you.’ And with that he turned and set off back to the castle, leading her down the winding track to the road and over the drawbridge to the stable block, followed by the faithful dog.

  The kennels were at the far side of the yard. He opened the door and disappeared inside. A few moments later he emerged with a soft, sandy-coloured bundle. ‘Here,’ he said, putting the puppy into her arms. ‘He’s yours.’

  She cuddled the puppy, rubbing her cold cheek along its soft fur. It responded by licking her ear, making her laugh. It was the first time he had really seen her laugh since she arrived, and it made his heart ache to hold her, to reassure her, but he held back, watching her. ‘He’s been weaned, though he hasn’t a name yet. I think the handler calls him number three because he was the third of the litter.’

  ‘Oh, how unfortunate for him to be called by a number. Are you su
re you want to give him to me? Will the Earl mind?’

  ‘Yes to the first and no to the second. Keep him. Let him remind you of me, when you are walking in the hills of Cumbria.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She turned and fled, dashing across the yard, in at one of the side doors, along the corridor and up the stairs to her room. She just managed to shut the door behind her before her tears overwhelmed her.

  She sat for a long time on the bed, nursing the puppy, with tears streaming down her face onto his head. ‘Oh, Pup,’ she whispered. ‘Why couldn’t Papa’s ship come in before he died? There would have been no suicide, no stigma, no dreadful gossip about his cowardice, and I would have had my dowry and Miss Sadler, the deceiver, need never have been invented. I would have been acceptable in Captain Blair’s eyes. And the Earl’s.’ She chose to overlook the inescapable fact that if her father had not died and left her penniless she would never have been making the trip to Scotland at all, might never have met the Honourable Captain Duncan Blair, never been compromised by him, never kissed, never seen him dancing with Lady Macgowan. Her ladyship was the real problem, though strangely she had not been visiting since the New Year. Had they quarrelled? She refused to allow herself even that small hope.

  The puppy was licking her face, doing a good job of mopping up her tears. ‘You don’t care who I am, do you, Pup? Names are unimportant.’ She smiled down at him, a crooked rueful smile, weakened by crying. ‘You do understand, don’t you? I have only my pride.’

  She put the puppy down on the bed, where it snuffled round and round to make itself comfortable before settling down to watch her with a baleful eye. She washed and changed for supper, taking great care with her appearance. The skin around her eyes was puffed and red, but a little discreet maquillage hid that. She dressed in a white crepe gown over a delicate lilac slip. A mauve velvet ribbon outlined the high waist and was also threaded through the hem and tied in a series of tiny bows with floating ends. The same ribbon was threaded through her dark hair.

  Flora, who had come to help her, expressed herself satisfied. ‘Beautiful, Miss Sanghurst, truly beautiful. Just wait until ye go tae London with the Viscount and Lady Blair in the summer, I ken ye will be a great success. Not that London has anything to beat Edinburgh,’ she added. ‘You should ask Mr Duncan tae take ye there.’

  ‘Thank you, Flora, that will be all,’ she said, rather more stiffly than she intended. There would be no summer in London with Margaret, no trip to the Scottish capital with Captain Blair. Nothing. She put her feet into mauve satin slippers and picked up her fan. ‘Look after Pup for me, will you? I imagine he is hungry.’ With that she took a deep breath to steady herself and went down to the drawing-room where everyone was gathering before supper.

  ‘Helen, how charming you look,’ Margaret said, ignoring the evidence of the tears. ‘Isn’t that so, Duncan?’

  ‘Yes indeed,’ he agreed. ‘She will be quite wasted in Cumbria.’

  ‘Then persuade her not to go.’

  ‘She would not listen,’ he said with a smile as he offered her his arm to take her into supper. ‘Is that not so, princess?’

  Helen laid her fingers on his arm and even that small touch nearly overset her again. Forcing her trembling limbs to obey her, she walked beside him into the dining room.

  ‘Princess?’ Margaret queried, as they took their places at the table. ‘Why do you call Helen that?’

  He laughed, a slightly mocking laugh. ‘Because when I first met her, she would not tell me who she was or where she was going and when I suggested she was a princess in disguise, she asked me how I had guessed.’

  ‘He did not really believe that, did he?’ Margaret asked Helen.

  ‘No, of course not. He was roasting me.’

  ‘And he is still doing it. Duncan, I think it is very uncivil of you.’

  ‘Oh, Miss Sadler does not mind, Miss Sadler is an altogether more agreeable person than Miss Sanghurst.’

  ‘Duncan,’ his father remonstrated with him. ‘I think you should not tease Helen. She will think you have taken a dislike to her and wish her to be gone and that is not true. It is certainly not true on my part. I am her guardian and pleased to be her guardian until she marries. This is her home and she is more than welcome to stay.’

  ‘And I second that,’ Margaret put in, looking from Duncan to Helen and wondering what had passed between them on that long journey from London. What was going on now? They were both Friday-faced, refusing to look at each other. ‘Helen is like a sister to me and I do not want to part with her. You should be persuading her to stay, not driving her away.’

  ‘Oh, I am not driving her away, she is old enough to know her own mind,’ he said. ‘She has told me so often, and I would not, for the world, hold her against her will.’

  Helen sprang to her feet, fresh tears flowing down her cheeks. ‘Stop it! Please stop it.’ Then to the Earl, ‘Please excuse me.’ She pushed back her chair and fled back to her room.

  ‘I do not know what manners they teach in the army these days,’ Andrew said. ‘But I never thought to see a brother of mine behave so abominably towards a lady.’

  ‘Yes, Duncan,’ his father said. ‘Whatever game you are playing, you have taken it too far. I suggest you try and make amends.’

  Duncan, seeing Helen run from the room in tears, knew his father was right and he had overplayed his hand. He excused himself and followed her up to her room, where he knocked on the door and called her name.

  ‘Go away.’ The voice was muffled.

  ‘No. Helen, I am sorry.’ He rattled the door but she had locked it. ‘Please let me in. I must speak to you.’

  ‘To deal out more of the same, I suppose. I have had enough of your mockery. Keep away from me.’

  ‘I was not mocking you, rather myself for making such a mull of things. I am sorry if you thought I was. Please let me in.’

  ‘No.’

  In desperation he put his muscular shoulder to the door and burst it open. She was pulling clothes from the wardrobe and throwing them into her trunk.

  ‘How dare you!’ She turned to face him, though she could hardly see him for tears. ‘Captain Blair, I insist you leave me.’

  ‘No.’ He forced himself to smile, though the sight of her nearly undid him. ‘You are evidently going on a journey.’

  ‘So, what if I am? You knew that anyway. I am simply bringing it forward.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I have my reasons.’

  ‘Which you will not tell me.’ His voice softened. ‘Why can’t you talk to me? Why can’t you tell me what is wrong? Surely we are not still strangers?’

  ‘Strangers?’

  ‘Miss Helen Sanghurst and the son of the Earl of Strathrowan are strangers, that’s what you said. It was your reason for refusing my offer of marriage, wasn’t it? And if you insist on leaving, we shall never have the opportunity to remedy that.’

  ‘Not strangers,’ she said, so distressed she did not take in the significance of what he was saying. ‘Brother and sister.’

  He was astounded. ‘Wherever did you get that idea?’

  ‘That is how your father said I should think of you. He said you and Andrew considered me the sister you never had.’

  ‘When did he say that?’

  ‘When I first met him. You did not tell him you had asked me to marry you, did you? He would not have said that if you had. You knew he would not approve.’

  ‘Why should he disapprove?’

  ‘Because even second sons are expected to marry someone of consequence. They never know when they might inherit and if they never do, they need a good dowry.’

  ‘I never heard anything so cork-brained. I am sure my father did not tell you that.’

  ‘No, Margaret did, but it makes no difference because she also told me the Earl has set his heart on putting right the wrong he did you when he sent you away and…’

  ‘He did me no wrong. On the contrary, he did me a favour and I have told him so.
It gave me time…’

  ‘What difference does that make? I am persuaded you are not one to change your mind with the wind.’

  ‘Indeed, I am not.’

  ‘Then I will not embarrass you by staying. I shall do very well in Cumbria.’

  He sighed heavily. ‘Very well, if you insist, but you will need an escort.’

  ‘No, I am perfectly able…’

  ‘You said that before and look what happened. Do you think I could let you go alone, knowing you would fall into a scrape before you had covered half a mile?’

  ‘That is no longer your concern.’

  ‘No? I think it is. I think it is very much my concern. If you do not allow me to accompany you, then I must follow on behind like the puppy I gave you.’

  ‘Follow?’

  ‘I cannot let you go. I shall continue to follow you and look after you until you recognise the fact that your life and mine are indivisible.’

  She stopped with a petticoat in her hand and stared at him. ‘But you can’t…’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘Lady Macgowan…’

  ‘What has she to do with it?’

  ‘Everything. Isn’t that what we have been talking about? Goodness, you fought a duel with your best friend over her and it is obvious…’

  ‘Not to me it is not. What has she been telling you?’

  ‘It was not only her, Margaret did too. Now that Lord Macgowan is dead…’

  ‘You thought we were going to take up where we left off?’ He laughed suddenly and joyfully. ‘Oh, my darling Helen, Arabella cannot hold a candle to you. She is a selfish, scheming woman who wants to keep her cake and eat it too. I am glad my father sent me away, very glad indeed. I am afraid I told her so, when she was here for Hogmanay.’

  ‘You did?’ She could hardly believe it.

  ‘Yes.’ He stepped forward and took her shoulders in his hands. ‘Now I am asking you again. Will you marry me?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? For no reason, for every reason, because my life is empty without you, because I love you. How many more reasons do you want? The only way you will be rid of me, is if you tell me you do not care for me and never will.’