How to Dazzle a Duke (33 page)

down and their brows lowered. If there was one thing a man was

236 CLAUDIA DAIN

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 com

pletely 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.

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 Prest

wick’s gown looked slightly the worse for wear as well. That

settled it.

How to Daz zle a Duke

237

“Done,” Lord George Blakesley said, hand out.

“And done,” Lord Penrith said, clasping his hand and shaking

it fi rmly.

6

“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 por

celain 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

238 CLAUDIA DAIN

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, Dut

ton, 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 fi ction.”

“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 com

pelling. 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 per

mission. One look at the satire explained the why of that.

How to Daz zle a Duke

239

“I think you overstate it,” Dutton said.

“Do I?” Ruan said quietly, shifting his gaze to Dutton briefl y.

“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 pri

vately 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.”

6

“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 hap

pened 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

240 CLAUDIA DAIN

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, broth

erly 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

How to Daz zle a Duke

241

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 you.”

“You don’t have a sister, do you, Raithby?”

“No. Why?”

“What do you think of Iveston’s cravat?” George said, look

ing 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 foot

man 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.”

6

“I don’t suppose you know the status of the wagers, Mrs. War

ren?” Iveston asked.

242 CLAUDIA DAIN

“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 pas

sion 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 fi nd my

self 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.”

“And a wager made, such a wager as this, is never forgotten.

Where do I stand?”

“Lord Staverton, who does not approve in the slightest, has

told me that, as of a half hour ago, the odds were distinctly in the

Duke of Edenham’s favor. I am sorry, Lord Iveston. Or should I

congratulate you?”

“To be discounted by one’s peers is not a subject for con

gratulation, Mrs. Warren. I must see what can be done to raise

my esteem among them. The situation as it now stands is intoler

able.”

“And if you find yourself married to Miss Prestwick? Would

that also not be intolerable?”

How to Daz zle a Duke

243

Iveston looked down at her, at her flawlessly white skin

and her pewter green eyes, her dark red hair a coiling mass upon

her head. She was wearing white muslin and a silver cross dan

gled above her breasts, small diamonds at her ears. She looked

as pure as ice.

No one was as pure as ice.

“You will soon find yourself married to Lord Staverton. Will

you fi nd it intolerable?”