A Wedding Wager (15 page)

General Heyward found Serena sitting at her secretaire in her parlor. “Ah, I’m glad to find you in, my dear.” He beamed at her, closing the door behind him. “How fetching you look, as always. That particular shade of dark red suits you very well. But then, you have always known how to dress, to be at the forefront of fashion … just like your poor dear mother.”

Serena made no comment, merely set aside her quill, rose to her feet with a small curtsy, then resumed her seat. “You wished to see me, sir.”

“Yes … yes, indeed.” He rubbed his hands together as if about to announce a wonderful treat. “In truth, my dear, we have some urgent business to discuss.”

“Oh?” She raised her eyebrows. “Something to do with the accounts? Is something wrong?”

“No … no, nothing like that. You have them right as always, my dear. Such a clever puss … such a head for figures.” His beam grew even brighter, if that was possible.

Serena thought it made him look like a gargoyle, it was such an unlikely expression on the pouchy cheeks and doughy features, and it came nowhere near his eyes, which remained as small, hard, and suspiciously calculating as ever. It was a beam that made her very uneasy.

He sat down on the chaise, then stood up again, pacing from fire to window, hands behind his back. “The fact is, my dear, the business is rather unpleasant.”

That came as no surprise to Serena. She remained seated, her hands clasped lightly in her lap, and waited.

“Lord Burford, you see,” he said, sounding almost apologetic, which astonished her. “He holds the mortgages on this house, as you know.”

“Yes.” She was determined to give him no encouragement for whatever was to come next.

“Yes … two of them.”

She inclined her head in silent acknowledgment.

“Well, I’ll come straight to the point. Burford is prepared to cancel them both.”

“In exchange for what?” Serena asked coldly, a little shard of ice behind her ribs. “Or is his lordship perhaps suffering from an attack of generosity?”

“Don’t be absurd, Serena.” The old Heyward broke through the congenial and conciliatory surface. “Burford wouldn’t give anyone the parings of his nails.”

“So what does he want?” she demanded bluntly, even though she knew. That little shard of ice was digging deeper.

“You, daughter. He wants you.” The general took out
his handkerchief and mopped his brow as if he found the parlor unusually warm.

Serena, on the other hand, was chilled to the bone. “No,” she said flatly. “I won’t do it.”

“Daughter, you
will.
” All pretense of amity left his expression. “You will do your filial duty.”

“You are not my father, General Heyward.” With a supreme effort, Serena remained in her chair as he strode towards her, his fists clenched, his face scarlet with choler.

“You will do as I say. You have not a penny to your name. If I throw you out on the streets, which I promise you I will not hesitate to do, how will you live? You’ll be selling yourself behind the columns of the Piazza before the year is out.”

His spittle showered her face, and with a disdainful movement, she wiped the back of her hand across her face, rising gracefully from her chair as she did so. “If I must prostitute myself, I will do it on my own terms,” she declared. “I will not be sold to Burford. And believe me, General, if you make the slightest attempt to touch me, I will kill you.” Her voice was deadly quiet, her violet eyes glacial.

She moved sideways suddenly, unlocking a drawer in the secretaire. When she turned back to him, she held a small silver-mounted pistol in her hand. He could be in no doubt about the seriousness of the threat.

Heyward stared at the weapon. “Where did you get that?”

“That is no concern of yours, sir. What is your concern is the certainty that I will use it if you ever so much as attempt to do to me again what you did in Brussels.”

His nostrils flared, and shock filled his eyes. He stared at her, then down at the pistol. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She lifted the pistol and relished the moment when he drew back involuntarily, a flicker of fear crossing his face. “You lie … but I, sir, do not. I
will
kill you.”

“You’d hang?” He almost spat the question.

“For that … willingly,” she answered. “Believe me.”

And he did. For the moment stymied, General Heyward glared at his stepdaughter, then stalked from the room, slamming the door behind with such vigor a picture fell off the wall.

Serena bent to pick it up. She returned it to its hook, straightening it, every movement consciously deliberate, almost in slow motion as if she were inhabiting a dream, except that it was a nightmare.

Last year in Brussels … one bitterly cold winter night …

She could still taste the food on the dinner table that night, still taste the wine on her tongue, the strangely bitter aftertaste that had puzzled her. She had said nothing, because she and the general were the guests of one of their most regular gaming clients, a Spanish grandee, with a neat spade beard and piercing black eyes that never left Serena. For three days, he had flirted with her, and she had returned the compliment automatically; it
was part of the business. It brought the gamesters back to the faro tables, as much for her violet eyes as for the cards she dealt.

His gaze that night had made her unusually uncomfortable, but she had shaken it off. Their fellow guests were congenial, if rather rowdy, as the levels in the wine bottles got lower. If they noticed the strange aftertaste, they gave no sign of it, and after a while, Serena decided she must be imagining it. She drank more than usual that night; it helped her to ignore her discomfort at the Spaniard’s hungry gaze.

She vaguely remembered being bundled into the coach to take her back to the rented house the general had taken, where the gaming hell for the moment thrived. She still vaguely remembered her maid helping her to bed, playfully chiding her for being the worse for wear, something that had never happened before. She didn’t remember falling asleep. But she did remember waking up.

It had been as terrifying as it had been strange, that feeling of living in a fog, of being unable to move or react but aware of every sensation. The memory still filled her with a bone-deep horror. At first, she had only been aware of something pulling her, stretching her, moving her legs apart, stretching her arms above her head. There had been no voices. But the Spaniard’s face hung over hers; she could smell the wine on his breath, taste it when he smothered her mouth with his own. She had wanted to fight, to move her head sideways, to kick
out, but she was immobilized, paralyzed by something. He had entered her, she had felt every movement, every short, quick stab, and then he had left her body.

It was the general who had pulled the sheet back over her, keeping his eyes averted. The bed curtains had fallen back into place, and she had been alone again, and the red mists of oblivion had taken her once more.

She had awoken late in the morning, her head splitting, nausea heavy in her belly, bile in her throat, the nightmare as vivid as if she had lived it, not dreamt it. And then the full horror swamped her as her body told her she had indeed lived every moment of it.

She had not left her room for three days. Her stepfather had sent messages, had knocked on her locked door, had pleaded, and had demanded entrance. She had ignored him. When she had emerged on the fourth day, she had said nothing about that night. He had at first been puzzled, uneasy as her silence continued, and then had become visibly relieved, as if he could believe that she had truly not been aware of the violation. The drug that had paralyzed her body had also made her insensible. And Serena was prepared to let him believe that, until the time she decided to tell him.

That time had just come. And now, as she returned to the hard, metallic reality of the present, she wondered if she had wasted the perfect card, but in her heart, she knew she had not. He would not have drugged her so easily this time, but there were other ways to render her
insensible, to give Burford what he hungered for. And that must never happen again.

And it mustn’t happen to Abigail, either. If the general made Abigail his wife, he could as easily sell her to the highest bidder as he had done his stepdaughter, and Abigail was not equipped to look after herself. Serena was fairly certain the girl was unlikely to succumb to the general’s attentions. Indeed, how should she; the man was old enough to be her grandfather. But, encouraged by her mother, she could be flattered by them and find it difficult to hold her own in his company. She needed protection, and there was only Serena to provide it. She could not walk away until she knew the young woman was safely out of the general’s clutches.

There had to be a way to do that without alerting Mr. Sutton. For a start, he’d find it almost impossible to believe in the general’s motives as described by Serena. After all, Serena had seemed openly to encourage her stepfather’s interest in Abigail. Why would she suddenly turn against him? And if she did manage to persuade him of the truth, his reaction was all too easy to foretell. Abigail’s dream of a London Season and a good marriage would be dust and ashes.

Another suitor was the answer. If Abigail fell in love with an impeccable parti who would satisfy even Mrs. Sutton’s high aspirations, then the general would be left out in the cold, and he need never know of his stepdaughter’s part in the business. But how to find the perfect suitor?

Sebastian’s image came unbidden to her mind. Abigail and her mother had already expressed an interest in him. They were having a dinner party for the express purpose of entertaining him. Was there a way to use that? If Sebastian could be persuaded at least to show some interest in the ingénue, it would give Serena some much-needed breathing space to find an alternative. But quite apart from the difficulty in finding a convincing reason for asking it, how could she possibly expect any kind of a favor from Sebastian after the farce of their last meeting? It had cleared neither ground nor air, merely accentuated the vast chasm between them.

It seemed obvious that Sebastian’s life in the last three years had followed the inevitable path of a young aristocrat. Once he’d recovered from the hurt and anger at her betrayal, he had picked up the threads of his life with barely a pause. She could see that just by looking at him. The diffidence of a green young man in his early twenties had been replaced with the poise and self-assurance of a man sure of who and what he was in his own world. As for herself, she had been barely twenty during those months of love, and now, although she was barely twenty-three, she felt as if the last three years had sucked all the promise out of life, leaving her only a barren future. She had nothing to offer Sebastian now. And why should he even consider offering
her
anything?

She put the pistol back into the drawer of the secretaire, locking it with the key she kept on a fob tucked into a hidden pocket in her skirt.

A knock at the door brought Flanagan with a sealed letter on a silver tray. “A messenger brought this, Lady Serena.” He presented the tray with a bow.

“Thank you, Flanagan.” She took it, staring down at the handwriting. It was as if her thoughts had somehow materialized in this folded sheet of vellum.

“The messenger awaits an answer, my lady.”

“Yes,” she said vaguely, still looking at the sheet. Only Sebastian enlivened his bold, plain script with little curlicues when the mood took him. It had always made her smile. But what was he doing writing to her now? Well, she wouldn’t find out by staring at a sealed paper. “Ask him to wait.”

“Very well, ma’am.” Flanagan left, and Serena slit the wafer with her paper knife. She unfolded the single sheet.

Will you come to Stratton Street at three o’clock this afternoon? Take a closed carriage and no one on the street will notice you. S.S.

Sebastian had never been reckless with her reputation, Serena reflected. Indeed, he’d been more careful of it than she herself. Nothing had changed, it seemed. Why did he want to see her? Hadn’t they said everything that could possibly be said between them?

But almost without volition, she took a sheet of vellum and wrote simply:
At three o’clock, then.
She folded and sealed it, then rang for Flanagan.

He took the note, and Serena went into her bedchamber. Regardless of why Sebastian needed to see her,
pride—and vanity, she had to admit—insisted that she show herself at her best. The dark red silk was all very well, it suited her coloring as her stepfather had pointed out, but she had a sudden loathing for the gown. If he had complimented her on it, then she would never wear it again. She rang for Bridget as she tugged impatiently at the laces.

“Lord love us, Lady Serena, whatever’s the matter with the gown. Is it stained?” Bridget in consternation hurried across to her. “You’ll break the laces going at them like that.”

“Oh, I want it off, Bridget, ’tis uncomfortable.” Serena walked to the armoire as Bridget struggled with the laces.

“Oh, hold still, my lady, do,” Bridget pleaded, following her at the end of a lace.

“I wish for something lighter, more frivolous.” Serena riffled through the rich ranks of silks, muslins, velvets, damasks. “Ah, this, I think.” She drew out a heather-colored silk, embroidered with delicate garlands of red roses, each with a tiny amethyst embedded in its center. “Is this not pretty, Bridget?”

“Very, my lady.” Bridget was smothered in the folds of dark red silk as she divested Serena of the gown. She laid it over a chair and turned her full attention to her mistress. “Are you going visiting, m’lady?”

“As it happens,” Serena said, smoothing the folds of her cambric petticoat. “Just a small hoop, Bridget.”

Bridget tied the small hoop at Serena’s waist and then helped her into the gown, arranging the silk skirt over the pannier so that it swayed elegantly but not with extravagant width around her hips.

Serena examined her reflection in the cheval glass. Sebastian had always liked simplicity. He dressed himself without frills, and while he admired fashion, he had preferred to see Serena dressed in its less extravagant extremes. Since that suited her own tastes, she had been more than happy to accede to his wishes. The soft heather of the gown was a perfect contrast with her dark hair and a wonderful complement to her eyes. The décolletage was edged with a lace ruff that, while it did nothing to conceal the swell of her breasts, kept her nipples hidden. Something she preferred in the afternoon, although she generally acceded to prevailing fashion at the tables.