Candice Hern (3 page)

A slow, lazy grin split his face. “You give up so soon, then? How unsporting of you. I suppose that means I win.”

“You scoundrel. How hateful you are, all because of a few races I won as a child.”

He cocked a brow. “Miss Parrish, you are no longer the intrepid girl you once were. The Eddie I knew would never walk away from such a challenge. You disappoint me.”

Edwina blanched at the use of her childhood nickname. He was using every possible method to unnerve her, and damn it all, it was working.

“Set me a reasonable challenge,” she said, “and I will accept your foolish wager. To triple the subscribers in three months is an impossible goal. No one could do it.” And just to insure he did not believe she undervalued herself, she added, “Not even me.”

He grinned and nodded his head in acknowledgement that she’d won the first round. “All right. Double, then. Two thousand new subscribers in four months. If you can do it, the magazine is yours. If you fail, I keep it, and you continue to work for me, or not, as you choose.”

It was still a formidable challenge, one Edwina was not certain she could win. She had worked for years to double the original subscription number, and now she was to double it again in just four months? She would be mad to accept such terms. It was summer, after all, and many potential subscribers had left town for the country. But she knew he would not back down this time. It would be these terms, or nothing.

She supposed she could reject the offer, walk away and forget all dreams of ownership. She could continue to edit the magazine, at least until she learned how difficult it would be to work for Anthony Morehouse. She would have to curtail certain other activities while under his watchful eye, but she had been prepared for that as soon as she’d received her uncle’s note. Any new owner would have necessitated the same caution.

But what if she won? She had never expected to own the magazine outright, could never have scraped together enough money to make an offer in any case. No, the best she could have hoped for was that Uncle Victor would pass it to her upon his
death. Considering his opinion of women owning businesses, though, even that had been unlikely.

But if she won this wager, the
Cabinet
would be hers without spending tuppence. All profits would be hers, with no one to tell her what to do with them. No more hiding the account books. No more worries about being dismissed for printing articles with a republican sensibility.

It was too good an opportunity to pass up. Besides, she really did not believe she could continue working for the magazine if Anthony Morehouse was her employer. His presence was too unsettling.

She glanced briefly at Prudence, who gave a little shrug, then turned to face Anthony.

“I accept.”

“Splendid!”

He smiled, and it set off a disturbing prickling of her skin. Good Lord, she wasn’t ten years old anymore. She must get hold of herself.

“Oh, and one more thing,” he said. “If I win, I get the Minerva back.”

Edwina rolled her eyes to the ceiling. Was this all about the damned Roman head? Was it that important to him? The thing was, it had become rather important to her as well. But she would not lose it, because she had no intention of losing the
Cabinet
. “Agreed,” she said, then stood, walked around to the front of the desk and offered her hand to Anthony.

He rose and took it, but not in a businesslike
handshake. Instead, he brought it to his lips, sending a tingling sensation up her arm. The look in those disturbing gray eyes told her he knew he’d rattled her, and it amused him.

“Excellent,” he said. “Then let us record our wager properly.” He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a tiny book bound in red leather. “My betting book.”

He flipped pages until he came to a blank one more than halfway through, and then handed it to Edwina. “Will you do the honors, please?”

She thumbed the filled pages and felt a pang of disappointment. The man was obviously a gamester. She knew him to be a younger son. Is that how he’d made his way through the world, by gambling? This book, his betting book, seemed to have been used only since the beginning of the year. Pages and pages of wagers representing only six months. “My, but you are a busy fellow, are you not?”

“What? Do I detect a note of disapproval? From the very person who introduced me to the thrill of a good wager all those years ago? Tsk tsk, Eddie. I would never have expected that brazen child to have turned out so tiresomely conventional.”

“Horrid man.”

Edwina dipped a pen in the inkwell on her desk, and wrote out the particulars of the wager, after first settling on November 1 as the date when the objective must be met. She signed it and offered the pen to Anthony. He leaned very close as he signed,
and she inhaled the scent of starch, bay rum, and the faintest hint of horse. It was a heady, masculine combination.

He straightened—surely that brush against her arm was deliberate?—and said, “In the meantime, it
is
my business, so I believe I should like to have a look at the account books.”

Edwina’s heart sank. She thought this danger had been averted. She must present a reasonable alternative, one that he would keep him away from the books, but would not make him suspicious. “I’d like to suggest a rider to the wager instead.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. For the four months specified, you will not tamper with my management in any way.”

“Hmm.” His brow furrowed and he regarded her thoughtfully.

“No interference,” she said. “No scrutinizing the accounts. No meddling in the day-to-day running of the business. If I am to win this wager, I must be allowed to continue to manage the business—every aspect of the business—on my own. Agreed?”

He gazed at her warily. “So long as I have access to the subscription numbers, I accept your condition.”

Before he could change his mind, Edwina added the rider to the wager in his betting book. They both initialed it.

He stood before her, altogether too close, and
said, “It seems you and I are destined forever to be at odds in some fool wager. But we are no longer children. Let us seal this bargain properly.”

And he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

T
ony pulled the team to a halt in front of the modest portico of White’s and passed the reins to his tiger. “Take it back home, Jamie,” he said, and leaped down from the curricle. “I’ll catch a hackney later.”

“Yes, sir.”

Tony took one more admiring look at the new team, courtesy of Lord D’Aubney, stroked the rump of the nearest gray, then headed up the steps to his club. He felt the need of a strong restorative after such a day. He’d just left Victor Croyden and now carried in his pocket papers that made him sole proprietor of
The Ladies’ Fashionable Cabinet
.

His plan to retain ownership rather than sell it
might turn out to be one of his more stupid decisions, but one look at Edwina Parrish had knocked every last niggling doubt straight out of his head. He would keep the magazine because of her. Because she had tormented his boyhood and he wanted to pay her back in kind. And because she had grown into such a beauty he didn’t think he’d be able to stay away from her.

Especially after that kiss. He would not have been surprised if she had hauled off and slapped him for it. The hovering Miss Armitage looked as though she wanted to do so. But Edwina had only looked amused. Nothing could have intrigued him more than the sardonic twinkle in those dark eyes, mocking him. Well, she would soon learn better than to mock his one true talent: seduction. Let her concentrate on the wager in his betting book. He had another more personal challenge in mind. For that, he would need to see more of her, and the
Cabinet
was the perfect excuse to clutter her doorstep.

He found Ian Fordyce sprawled in a large wing chair with his nose buried in
The Weekly Messenger
. When he looked up, Ian smiled and folded the paper.

“I must say, old chap, you are looking more the thing this afternoon. You must have taken care of that foolish bit of business from last night.” He motioned with the newspaper to an adjacent chair. “Sit down and tell me how it went with the blue
stocking editor. Was she properly agog when you offered to sell her the magazine?”

Before Tony could be seated, a waiter was on the spot to take his order. He asked for sherry, then sank into the chair and crossed his legs. “Didn’t sell it,” he said.

“What do you mean? I thought you—”

“Changed my mind.”

Ian arched a brow. “But I thought you wanted it off your hands, wanted the poor old spinster to have it.”

“She still might. I wagered her for it.”

The second brow shot up to join the first, both almost disappearing beneath the brown locks combed forward in the latest Brutus style. “The devil you did!”

Tony grinned at his friend’s wide-eyed astonishment. “I suppose some devil did make me do it, but yes, I wagered her for the magazine. I set her a challenge, to be more precise. She’s got three months—no, wait a moment.” He pulled the little betting book from his pocket and flipped to the last written page. “Four months. She’s got four months to double the number of subscribers. If she succeeds, the magazine is hers.”

Ian peered at him with narrowed eyes. “There’s something smoky here, Morehouse. I know you never can pass up a good wager. But with a spinster editor? What are you up to? And what if you win and you’re stuck with the damned magazine?”

“Oh, I intend to win.”

“But why?”

“Let’s just say I have a score to settle with Miss Edwina Parrish.”

Ian heaved an exaggerated sigh. “I think you had better tell me the whole.”

And Tony did so. He had Ian in whoops of laughter as he described one after another competition he’d lost to the young Eddie.

“I can see how you’d never wish to lay eyes on the wretched girl again,” Ian said, his voice unsteady with suppressed mirth. “What a shock it must have been to find her now in your employ.”

“Indeed.”

And despite whatever grudge he might hold over her childhood triumphs, Tony hoped he might prove to be a better employer than her uncle. His meeting with Victor Croyden made it clear that the man had truly taken advantage of Edwina. Croyden had no personal interest in the
Cabinet
and was willing enough to allow Edwina to manage it for him. He even admitted that it returned a tidy profit. And yet he gave her little credit, and only a tiny salary. He clearly believed a woman wasn’t worth the salary he might pay a male editor, and only paid Edwina what he did in order to appease his familial conscience. In fact, he didn’t seem to think she deserved a salary at all, especially since his mother had taken none when she edited the
Cabinet
.

Yet, Tony suspected the magazine was not simply a hobby to Edwina, as it appears to have been for her great aunt. It was her work and she was proud of it. He also suspected she needed the money. The house she shared with her brother was not quite tumbling down, but it was a far cry from the Mayfair elegance to which he was accustomed. From the little he’d seen, it appeared to be simply furnished with good-quality pieces. But he also noticed the occasional frayed bit of upholstery, a threadbare spot here and there on the carpets, a splitting in the silk draperies. And no servant to answer the door. The Parrishes were tottering on the edges of shabby gentility.

Though he’d agreed to keep his fingers out of the business for the duration of the wager, Tony was nevertheless determined to increase Edwina’s editorial salary. If only to put Croyden’s condescending nose out of joint.

“And so, because of all those public losses as a boy,” Ian said, “you challenged her again, this time for ownership of the magazine?”

“I did. And I intend to win.”

“You always do. Though I cannot for the life of me figure out why it is so important that you win this time.”

Tony wasn’t sure himself. Maybe it was because of the great walloping he’d received from his father when he’d lost the Minerva. Maybe because all those childish wagers had given him a taste for
gambling and set him on a reckless course that had not let up for almost twenty years.

“I can’t explain it,” he said. “I just know that I’m determined to win.”

The waiter returned with two glasses of sherry, along with a small tray of biscuits. Ian took his glass and raised it to Tony. “Here’s to victory. I think.”

Tony raised his own glass. “To victory.”

Ian swallowed his sherry in one ungentlemanly gulp, burped, and leaned back in his chair with his hands resting on his belly and a contented smile on his face. He spent most of his time at one or the other of his clubs just so he could burp and belch and spit and curse to his heart’s content, without worrying about offending the ladies. It amused Tony to think of the completely different mask Ian wore when in the presence of the opposite sex—thoroughly gallant and suave and charming. He suspected that one day Ian would fall top over tail in love, court the lady in his best gentlemanly manner, marry her, then shock her to the core when, after the novelty of marriage wore off, he belched at the dinner table and wiped his mouth with the tablecloth.

Ian reached inside his waistcoat and scratched his stomach. “If she was a childhood playmate,” he said, “then she must be thirty if she’s a day. Why not leave the poor woman alone? I’d have thought you’d rather run away screaming than spend more
time than was absolutely necessary with a squint-eyed spinster.”

“She’s not exactly squint-eyed, Ian.”

“Well then, she must be fat. Or skinny. Or humpbacked. Or Friday-faced.”

“No, my friend. She is none of those things.” Tony called to mind an image of her near-black hair and eyes; of her pale, milky smooth skin with the translucent quality of alabaster; of her full lips tinted by nature to a dark pink. Even her voice was pitched to match her dramatic coloring, a notch lower than most women. The slightly scratchy voice he remembered as a child had matured into an attractive sultriness. No, nothing about her was ordinary or plain. Nor remotely Friday-faced.

“In fact,” he said, “she is quite startlingly beautiful.”

Ian snorted. “Can’t be. The words beautiful and spinster just don’t go together. It’s a what-do-you-call-it? An oxymoron.”

“Well, it’s true in her case. I tell you, Ian, she is drop-dead, heart-stopping gorgeous. That skinny little black-eyed girl grew into an extraordinary beauty.”

Ian gave a soft whistle. He would know that Tony was not prone to hyperbole in such matters. “Then why has she never married? A prize like that doesn’t remain unclaimed.”

“Good question. I have no idea.”

“It can only mean one of two things, you know.”
Ian leaned over the arm of his chair and lowered his voice. “Either she’s one of those women who are not available to men, and prefers the company of women, if you take my meaning. Or she is one of those modern, unconventional types who disdain marriage and take lovers at will, propriety be damned.” He flashed a wicked grin. “Which do you suppose she is?”

Tony was momentarily flummoxed. He hadn’t really considered either possibility. He certainly hoped the first was not true. What a glorious waste that would be. Though there was the ever-present Miss Armitage and her awkward reference to Edwina’s bedroom. Were they perhaps…?

No. He refused to accept that possibility. The second, however, was infinitely more interesting. Edwina had certainly shown no appreciation for propriety as a child. And she was most definitely too beautiful to have been ignored by men all these years. Despite their own past history, or perhaps because of it, a volatile, almost instant chemistry had flared between them. They’d both been aware of it, though she had likely welcomed it less than he did. It was why he’d been drawn to kiss her. And she had not objected.

Was she, then, a brazen Modern Woman who did just as she pleased?

He looked across to find Ian chuckling softly. Tony smiled and said, “I shall make it my business to find out, my friend.”

Edwina stared at the page, crossed out what she’d written, and began again. After a few moments, she groaned in frustration, crumpled the paper into a ball and flung it into the basket at her feet, where it joined a dozen other failed attempts to put her thoughts clearly upon the page. It was no good. She simply could not concentrate on the review of
Memoirs Relative to Egypt
she was supposed to be writing for the next issue of the
Cabinet
. Something else entirely was on her mind.

At nine and twenty, she was much too old to be so affected by a simple kiss. She was no innocent, for heaven’s sake. And she was accustomed to the admiration of men. She knew they often found her attractive, but it was of no consequence to her. She usually dismissed such attentions without a thought.

So why had this man, of all men, finally caught her interest? What was so different about Anthony Morehouse? Yes, he was handsome and charming and had an aura of seduction about him. But he was also the new owner of the
Cabinet
and poised to make her life a misery. He should be the last man, the very last man, who should draw her eye.

Perhaps it was simply a matter of who he’d once been—a good-looking golden-haired boy with a smile to steal a young girl’s heart. He’d certainly stolen hers. But that was long ago when her head had been full of romantic dreams spun by her mother. Edwina had chased those dreams for years
and handed out bits of her heart freely along the way.

Until eight years ago when all the dreams had crumbled and her heart had shriveled and died in her breast.

Was it pure sentiment, then, that made her susceptible to Anthony Morehouse? Her first love?

What foolishness. Thank heaven he had promised to keep his nose out of her business for the next four months. She would not be forced to see him, to remember those innocent days of youthful infatuation and romantic dreams.

She dipped her pen in the inkwell and began once again to compose the review of
Memoirs Relative to Egpyt
.

A scratching at the door was followed by the entrance of Lucy, the part-time maid who worked three mornings and two afternoons each week.

“Mr. Morehouse, miss.”

Oh, no.

Lucy bobbed a curtsey and stepped aside as Anthony Morehouse strode into the room. She gazed dreamily after him for a moment, then uttered a quiet sigh before turning to leave. Edwina was not the only female, then, to fall under the spell of those silvery gray eyes. He’d no doubt been flirting with poor Lucy.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“And good morning to you, too.” He actually grinned at her. “Do you mind if I sit down?”

“I do, actually. You promised to stay away.”

“I promised no such thing.” Without waiting for an invitation, he sat down in the chair opposite, scooted it closer, and leaned his elbows on the edge of the desk. “I can refer to the betting book if you like, but I can assure you it says that I will not interfere with the day-to-day business of the magazine for the next four months. It does not say that I must stay away.”

“It was implied.”

“No, it was inferred. By you. Not by me.”

“Details. What are you doing here?”

“I thought to learn a bit more about the magazine, in a general sort of way. Not from a business perspective, of course, since that would mean examining the account books.”

His eyes twinkled. A tiny tingle of apprehension skittered down Edwina’s spine. Did he suspect something?

“But from an editorial perspective,” he continued. “I’d like to understand how you decide what to print, who writes the articles, who designs the engravings, that sort of thing.”

Edwina glared at him across the desk. “I can’t see what possible interest any of that is to you, since for the next four months you have agreed to remain uninvolved. And after that, the magazine will no longer be yours to worry about.”

He smiled, a sort of lopsided, quirky smile that reminded her of the freckle-faced boy she’d once
known. “Ah, now that’s the Eddie I remember. Confident to a fault. It makes the challenge that much more delicious.”

“You, sir, are a scoundrel.”

“So I have been told. Now, tell me about
The Ladies’ Fashionable Cabinet
. I’ve read the current issue, and I can’t help but wonder if some of the essays are not a touch too serious-minded for the average female reader.”