Knave's Wager

by Loretta Chase

  “You’re tired,” he said. “Well make a longer stop next time.”

  “There will be time enough to rest when we’ve found them,” she murmured. “If you traveled alone, you would not wish any delays.”

  “Don’t be obstinate, Lilith,” he answered briskly. “You won’t be of any use to your niece if you collapse at her feet. In any case, we must endeavour to spare Sims. To enact the role of coachman is beneath his dignity, you know. In his view, coachmen are common servants. A tiger, on the other hand, is a professional—an artist, if you will.”

  This elicited a weak smile, and Julian felt a queer tugging at his heart as he recollected warmer smiles, and the rich, haunting sound of her laughter. He slumped back into his corner.

  ***

  Emma Wellwicke was at the breakfast table, perusing a letter. Her husband had written it while in Spain, four months before, but it had arrived only this morning. While the letter was old, the sentiments Colonel Wellwicke expressed were eternal, and sufficiently heartening to take the lady’s mind off present domestic anxieties.

  Emma looked up at the sound of light footsteps. Then her mouth dropped open. “Cecily!” she gasped.

  “Good morning,” said Cecily. She dropped a light kiss upon the thunderstruck Emma’s forehead. “Aunt is not down yet? How odd. Normally, she is up with the servants. Was she very late at Lady Jersey’s?”

  “Cecily!”

  Miss Glenwood, who’d immediately headed for the sideboard, paused and peered at the companion’s round face. “Good heavens, Emma, you look as though you’ve seen a ghost. I do hope you’ve not had bad news in that letter.”

  “Cecily Glenwood, where have you been?” Mrs. Wellwicke demanded.

  “In my bed, of course,” was the puzzled response. “Where else should I be?”

  “Where else? Where else? On the Great North Road, I should think. Where your poor aunt is at this moment, searching for you, and worried half to death.”

  Cecily pulled out the chair next to Emma and sat down. “Oh, dear,” she said.

  “Cecily Glenwood—”

  “Oh, dear.”

  “Where were you last night? And don’t say ‘in my bed’ because you weren’t. Your aunt and I turned the house upside down. Now the poor woman is racing off to Scotland after you.”

  “Good gracious! You don’t mean to say my aunt went alone?”

  “She left with Lord Brandon. To prevent an elopement.” In a few curt sentences, Mrs. Wellwicke described the previous nights excitement, closing with the demand, “Where were you?”

  “Oh, dear. I shall explain everything, Emma. What a dreadful muddle! But first, don’t you think we’d better send someone to bring them back?”

  Half an hour later, Harris was tearing his way out of London, and Mrs. Wellwicke and Cecily had retired to the sitting room.

  “Yes, I did promise to go away with Lord Robert,” Cecily was confessing calmly. “But when it came to the point, I couldn’t do it. I only crept out to tell him so, but he was ever so stubborn. We argued—oh, for hours, I think. I expect he’s still very cross with me. He said he was going to get drunk. I expect he’s at his cousin’s, sleeping off the aftereffects, poor man. Still, I’d rather have him on my conscience than Aunt Lilith, as I told him. I just couldn’t pay her back so cruelly, after all she’s done for me, even if she doesn’t understand—”

  “She might have understood,” Emma reproved, “if you’d done her the courtesy of telling the truth, instead of sneaking about behind her back.”

  “Yes, of course you’re right. But you see, I’m so dreadfully fond of Lord Robert, and she seemed to take him in such dislike. Well, I’m lamentably ignorant. If I weren’t, I wouldn’t have been so confused. But it’s very confusing to be in love. Everyone says so.” Cecily sighed. “Poor Aunt. Even she’s confused, and she’s so much older and more sophisticated. Still, we mustn’t be overanxious. I’m certain Lord Brandon is taking very good care of her.”

  Mrs. Wellwicke studied the innocent, blue-eyed countenance in silence for a moment. Then she rose and left the room, wondering why she felt so very certain that Cecily had not quite explained everything.

  Julian had at length persuaded his companion to take some refreshment when they stopped, but he could not persuade her to rest. So long as Sims declared himself perfectly satisfied with a quarter hour’s nap snatched here and there, Lilith refused to admit she wanted any naps at all.

  It was not until late morning, when the clouds began mounding into black thunderheads, that either of these two would consent to be reasonable. Sims had no taste for driving through thunderstorms, and Lilith, at this point, could scarce sit upright.

  They reached a large inn just as the first heavy drops began to fall. As soon as the coach had rattled to a stop, Lord Brandon sprang out.

  Lilith had declined his hand every other time. This time, when he saw her stumble to the carriage door, he ignored her protests and swung her down.

  Her feet had no sooner touched the ground than her knees gave way.

  “I knew it,” he muttered as he lifted her in his arms. “Obstinate, pigheaded—”

  “Put me down.”

  “Be quiet, or I shall drop you into the trough.”

  He carried her into the inn, shouted for a room, and began trudging up the stairs, the landlord scurrying after.

  The latter had discerned no recognisable marking on the carriage, and this imperious guest had not deigned to mention his name. Nonetheless, Mine Host knew nobility when he saw it and the voice of authority when he heard it. In minutes, Mrs. Davenant was tucked into the hostelry’s most luxurious chamber, surrounded by servants whose sole aim in life, apparently, was to make the lady comfortable.

  While Lilith rested, Julian made the rounds of the inn, questioning everybody everywhere, from taproom to stables. Though he dropped coins wherever he went, he could obtain no word of the eloping couple.

  The storm exploded into a fury of fiery flashes and deafening thunder. The inn quickly filled with soaked travellers, all of whom the marquess questioned. No one had noticed the distinctive black curricle. No one had glimpsed the young pair. It was as though they’d vanished.

  Lord Brandon sat alone in a corner of the public dining room, nursing a mug of ale and thinking. More than ever, he was convinced he was on the wrong trail. The trouble was, he had no idea what the right one might be. At length, he decided to leave it to Lilith. If she wished to continue to Scotland, they would do so. If not—well, he would do as she wished. After all, the elopement promised only minor problems for Robert. It was the girl who’d most to lose. As always.

  The women always paid dearly, he reflected. He should not have allowed Lilith to come. She would pay as well, to have been gone overnight with neither maid nor companion—and with him, of all men.

  Yet how his heart had leapt when she’d insisted on accompanying him. How he’d wanted her company, even despising him as she did. Even cold and silent, shut off to him as irrevocably as if she’d been sealed in the vault beside her husband.

  Lord Brandon pushed the mug away and stood up. He might as well take advantage of the bed he’d procured for himself, since the storm offered no sign of slackening. While sleep was the furthest thing from his mind, he could at least lie down. He had not slept in days. The strain would tell eventually if he was not careful.

  His chamber was at the opposite end of the hall from Lilith’s. As he reached her door, he paused. Even as he was telling himself to keep on to his room, his hand covered the doorknob.

  It opened easily. Julian frowned. She should have locked it. He’d better wake her and tell her.

  Noiselessly, he moved to the bed. She lay, fully dressed but shoeless, on top of the bedclothes. She slept soundly, her breathing slow and even. Better to let her sleep, he thought. He would have the door locked from outside.

  Yet he stood, watching her. The thick, curling hair streamed over the pillow in fire-tinted waves. One tangled strand had
fallen over her eye. He reached out and gently brushed it away.

  She seemed so young and vulnerable, curled up on her side, one hand tucked under the pillow, the other across her breast. “My beautiful girl,” he murmured. He kissed her forehead.

  It was only a feather touch, but the long, sooty lashes swept up, and he found himself gazing into dazed, blue-grey eyes.

  “Julian,” she breathed sleepily. Then she blinked. “Oh. What is it? What time is it? Did I sleep?” She pulled herself upright, her eyes wary now.

  “It doesn’t matter what time it is,” he answered unsteadily. “We can’t leave until the storm abates.”

  A resounding boom shook the window.

  “As you can hear,” he went on, “it’s raging like all the furies of Hades.”

  “Then they must have stopped as well.”

  “No doubt. Only...” He hesitated.

  “What is it? Have you heard anything?”

  “No—and that’s the trouble.” He turned away from her worried gaze. “Lilith, I think that note of Robert’s was meant to put me on the wrong track. Not a hint of them, after all these hours. It doesn’t make sense. Robert wouldn’t have taken detours and back roads. He doesn’t know the countryside well enough, and he’s too impatient. I can only conclude your suspicions were correct, and Gretna wasn’t their destination. The problem is—”

  “I know,” she said. “The problem is, we have no idea where they have gone.” She glanced up at him. “Do you wish to return to London?”

  “Only if that’s your wish. Your niece is the main concern. My cousin may go to the devil who spawned him. Confounded, rattle-brained moron that he is,” he went on heatedly. “Damn him! Oh, damn me as well. It was my fault his path crossed your niece’s in the first place. If I’d left him to his tart—if I’d never met the scheming – Well, it scarcely matters, does it? What’s done is done.”

  “Yes.”

  He saw her face close against him then, and scarcely thinking what he did, he clasped her hands in his. “Lilith, please believe me, I never meant what you think. No, that isn’t right. I meant it at the start, perhaps—and to my shame—but not at the last.”

  She snatched her hands away. “Always you,” she said. “What do I care what you meant, at first or at last? Whatever your game—your wager—whatever you intended—it was I let you play it. You have only behaved according to your nature, while I—I,” she repeated, pressing her fist to her breast, “have behaved in every way contrary to mine. That you cannot explain. That you cannot excuse. I am not your— your damned puppet or pet, you conceited, selfish man! How dare you apologise to me!”

  A moment passed, while he took in the furious beauty of her countenance and all the imperious passion blazing in her eyes, and in that moment he was lost.

  “Because I want you,” he said helplessly. “I want you still. I miss you. I’ve thought of nothing but you all these days and nights, all the while I willed myself to think of anything else. I’ve never wanted anyone, anything, so much in my whole life as I want you, Lilith Davenant. How I wish I’d never met you.”

  “And how I wish,” she retorted fiercely, “I’d left you in the ditch that day.”

  “Lilith—”

  “Don’t. Not another word. I made up my mind I would not stoop to question you. There is nothing you can say I wish to hear. It’s all lies—always lies, and easy speeches.” She scrambled to the other side of the high bed and pushed herself off.

  He watched her ransack the contents of the small bag Emma had packed for her, and disentangle a hairbrush from a chemise. He ought to leave, but he could not. He’d never felt so lonely, so utterly shut out, yet somehow it seemed worse, far worse, to leave the room.

  The brush tore into her scalp, and Julian winced.

  He crossed the room to her. “Let me,” he said as he tried to pry the brush from her rigid fingers. “There’s no need to rip your hair out just because I’m a conceited, selfish beast.”

  She pushed him away. “Leave me alone.”

  “Lilith.”

  She hurled the brush across the room. It flew past him, narrowly missing his shoulder, and struck the bedpost.

  “I hate you! I hate you!” she cried. “How could you say those things to me? How could you be so unfair, so unkind, Julian? What had I ever done to be used so? How could you talk of love to me, and then laugh with that woman—at me, at the fool I was? How could you?”

  He caught her in his arms and pressed her tense, stiff body close, “Not a fool, my love,” he said. “Never that. Ah, if you only knew how that woman has laughed at me. But never you, my beautiful girl. She knew you’d break my heart.”

  “You haven’t got a heart,” she returned in a watery voice. “Or a conscience... or morals—”

  “Then it was only indigestion,” he said gently. “That’s why I can’t sleep or eat. That’s why I can’t bear to speak to anyone. That’s why my staff is half terrified to death.”

  “It was only your pride was hurt. Because you lost your wager.”

  “That was all? My pride?”

  “Yes.” She stirred a bit. “And indigestion.”

  He glanced down at her bent head. A tumble of copper-tinted curls hid her face. She didn’t try to break free, but her body remained taut, unyielding.

  His fingers moved to her hair, to stroke it tenderly, as one would soothe a troubled child. He’d never meant to hurt her, but how could he have helped it? She was not like his other women.

  Her head dropped a little lower to lay wearily against his chest. His heart ricocheted against his ribs. He bent to kiss the top of her head. “I’ve missed you,” he whispered. “God, how I’ve missed you.”

  His hands slid to her back and tightened about her. He felt the slight shudder that ran through her. “Lilith.”

  She raised her head at last. The anger and hurt was gone from her eyes, and something sadder and gentler there called to him, making his thrashing, heart ache.

  He breathed her name once more. Then his mouth closed over hers, and the storm without was nothing to the tempest unleashed within.

  Lightning seared the room in blinding white. The heavens roared and rattled the windowpanes, but it was a mere zephyr to what raged between them as they clung to each other.

  In minutes, he’d swept her to the bed and torn off his coat, neckcloth, waistcoat. Frantic, hurried, desperate, wild to press her close again, to taste and touch... and above all, to possess. His. His at last, he thought, as she pulled him down to her and her lips sought his again.

  He felt her hands upon his chest, and the touch scorched and chilled at the same time. He heard his own voice, murmuring urgently, but it was unintelligible, lost in the crash of thunder and the blood pounding in his ears.

  His shaking fingers finally found the row of tiny buttons at her back. He nearly screamed with frustration.

  Merely buttons, he pacified himself. There was no need for haste. Brandon was never hasty. Yet his fingers seemed to thicken to thrice their normal size, while the buttons simultaneously shrank to tiny, obstinate nails imbedded in armour.

  I’ll rip the damned thing open, he raged silently. I’ll buy her a hundred frocks—what does one matter?

  He raised his head from her neck and looked at her.

  “What is it?” she whispered. Her eyes slowly widened, searching his. That was when he saw it.

  Or perhaps he’d seen it before, but refused to recognise it. He recognised it now.

  He caught his breath and looked away... and was ashamed.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “We’ll be back before midnight,” Julian said as he turned away from the carriage window, “even if we stop for dinner.”

  They were returning to London.

  Lilith was not hungry, but she agreed to the dinner. It would give Sims time for rest and nourishment. He ought to be considered, regardless how desperate she was to be home again. These last few hours had been torture.

  Oh, Julia
n had apologised. He could not have been kinder, and, as usual, he must take all the blame. He had cursed himself a hundred times for his thoughtlessness and selfishness. He’d injured her enough, he said. He would never forgive himself for so abusing her trust. Angry and hurt, anxious for her niece, she’d been worried to death, utterly distracted. He’d behaved abominably, to take advantage of her confusion, her need for comforting. He’d very nearly ravished her. Thank heaven she’d brought him to his senses.

  Indeed, it would have been a sweet apology, if Lilith hadn’t known better. It was he who’d stopped it. He’d come to his senses all on his own.

  He’d only wanted what he couldn’t have. Once it was offered—She stifled a shudder of embarrassment. Still, there was no hiding from the truth. She’d heard the tenderness and sorrow in his voice, seen the regret in his eyes, and believed, because she could not do otherwise. She’d offered herself shamelessly. Yet for all his coaxing words, he’d found her wanting, just as Charles had. She’d bored him—or disgusted him, perhaps.

  Very well. She’d made a fool of herself. Contemplating her stupidity served nothing. She had far graver matters to consider her niece, first and foremost. Scandal was unavoidable. Good society would be closed to Cecily for years, if not forever. Nonetheless, the families could and must be appeased.

  Julian had promised to help. Lord Brandon, Lilith amended. He would deal with his aunt, uncle, and cousins, while she dealt with her in-laws. The young couple must at least be accepted by their families.

  Thomas would have to be dealt with as well, but that would be simple enough. Naturally, given the scandal, he’d wish to cry off. That scarcely mattered now, since her nieces would never be trusted to her again.

  In a short while, the vehicle slowed and turned into the courtyard of yet another in the endless succession of inns.

  Lilith allowed Lord Brandon to assist her from the carriage, though she wished he wouldn’t press her hand so tightly, or hold it so long after she’d alighted. The warm, firm clasp made her want to weep. She was trying to swallow the lump in her throat when she heard the shout.