Highest Stakes (31 page)

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on to be five hundred pounds richer, and with Sir Garfield's consent guaranteed, Robert's long-sought goal was finally within grasp. With the sale of his commission, Charlotte's dowry, and Mars and Amoret as their foundation stock, he and Charlotte would be well set to start their own racing stud. Perhaps they could leave Yorkshire behind and settle in Newmarket. Lost in his musings, Robert proceeded to Heathstead Hall, intending to press for a spring wedding.

  Letty intercepted Robert upon his arrival and handed him a hastily scribed note from Charlotte. "She can't see ye, Captain. He's locked her in her rooms," the maid said apologetically.

  His face flushed upon reading her words:

  
I had falsely hoped that upon your return, he would finally see you
as a man worthy of his respect, and moreover, as the man I love. But
alas, my dearest, he cares for no one's happiness but his own. I despair
for our future unless we act soon. We must find a way.

  
Pray send me word as soon as you are able, and know that only you
have my heart.

  
Your Most Devoted,

  
Charlotte

  Struggling to maintain his equanimity, Robert sought out Sir Garfield, striding with grim determination past the protesting footman to Sir Garfield's sanctum. Seated behind his great mahogany desk in the library, the baronet glowered. "What is the meaning of this intrusion? I gave strict orders that I should not be disturbed!" Sir Garfield reprimanded the harried footman who had followed in Devington's wake.

  Robert posed his response with forced civility. "As you might expect, sir, I have come to see our wager settled and to speak with Charlotte."

  "Charlotte is indisposed," the baronet replied contemptuously.

  "I request only a brief word, sir."

  "As I stated, she is indisposed!" he repeated sternly as he sharpened a quill.

  "I respectfully remind you of our agreement, sir."

  Sir Garfield paused with his penknife before meeting Devington's eyes. "Our agreement, you say? I have no obligation to you. Our wager is null and void."

  "What did you say?"

  "A wager is an agreement of
honor
between two gentlemen," he said condescendingly, "but it is revealed to me that our race was run under most
dishonorable
pretences, Captain."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You know bloody well what I mean. My wayward niece rode disguised as a boy in the first race. I never should have believed it but for Charles. He recognized something familiar in the rider, as did Jeffries, and the stable hands confirmed it. I know all about Charlotte's surreptitious rides."

  Robert's face was ashen. "The race was run fairly under the rules we established at the outset. The rider's gender was never specified."

  "As you well know, Newmarket rules prohibit females from riding."

  "I don't dispute this; however, the same rules specify only gentlemen to ride. When you hired a jockey, Newmarket rules no longer applied." He knew it a lame argument and should have saved his breath.

  "At my behest, the Doncaster officials conferred and agree that women are exclusively banned from
all
racing. Moreover, this act of fraud is not your first offense. Under the circumstances, I was compelled to reveal your prior duplicity at the Lichfield races, and they unanimously agreed the race is forfeit. I have no obligation to honor the wager of a cheat, and this embarrassment will never blight the racing record of a clearly superior running blood. Moreover, you are officially banned from the turf," he finished with a selfsatisfied gleam.

  Banned from the turf? The man was bent to destroy him. Robert was at a loss to understand the reason behind such loathing. "I ask you, Sir Garfield," he said, enunciating his words with care, "is it that you can't stomach losing or can't stomach losing
to me
?"

  The truth was that Sir Garfield saw in Devington's triumph not only his defeat on the turf but the ruination of all his long-laid plans. He was infuriated by his loss but even more by the threat Devington represented to
all
his ambitions.

  Sir Garfield's success in racing was his means of achieving upward social mobility. Rascallion had represented his best prospect since the mare he had sold to the king of France.

  Sir Garfield's second means of attaining his ambitions was through a marital alliance with a peer of the realm. With numerous noble estates teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, many aristocrats would deign to marry below their class, given sufficient pecuniary persuasion. Such was Sir Garfield's design for both his daughter and his niece, who were now of marriageable age. He would be damned to hell before allowing this presumptuous upstart to lay waste to everything!

  "I won our wager, Sir Garfield, and will claim what is
mine
," Robert declared. "I will have Charlotte."

  "Hear me once more, Devington; I will not ever sanction the union of my niece with a stable hand."

  "I am no longer your infernal stable hand! You may think to keep me in my place, as you did my father, but I am
not my father, nor wil
l I ever allow another man to dictate my future and my happiness."

  "Then seek your damned future and happiness elsewhere. Get out of my house before I throw you out!" Sir Garfield directed an unspoken command to the footman to conduct the captain to the door.

  Robert hesitated but recognized he had no choice. His appeal had failed; the same scene had replayed. Again. What right had the man to snub him so? Robert had left Yorkshire with virtually nothing and returned a captain. He had gained the respect of his men as well as his superiors, yet Sir Garfield regarded him with nothing less than seething contempt. "Damn the man!" Robert cursed.

  Finding no one about to carry word to Charlotte, he conceded defeat and headed for the stables, where he reluctantly saddled Mars and departed for Sheffield. He arrived at the tavern well after dark. After settling his horse, he headed straight to the near-deserted taproom, fully intent on drowning his sorrows. His customary small beer wouldn't dull
this pain. Glancing above th
e bar, he read the placard: Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for tuppence
,
clean straw for nothing.

  He tossed down thruppence, and the barkeep assured him of achieving his inebriated stupor with contraband gin. Devington lifted the bottle in salute. "Like father, like son," he mumbled. Forgoing the dirty glass, he took a great choking draught of the rotgut disguised as drink. Having eaten nothing since breaking his fast, several more swigs had him well on his way to his yearned-for oblivion.

  Perceiving a familiar low rumble from the back corner of the dim taproom, Robert spun around. His bleary-eyed squint revealed Philip Drake fondling a woman who sat on his lap, giggling in obviously feigned protest. With a grimace at the bawdy display, Robert advanced a bit unsteadily toward the preoccupied couple. He thumped his bottle loudly on the table to announce himself, and then slumped heavily and unceremoniously into the opposing chair.

  "Devington, what an unanticipated surprise," Philip drawled in apparent displeasure. Devington failed to respond but knocked back draughts of gin at a rate that impressed even the jaded major.

  Now that he perceived his miserable friend was come to seek his counsel, Philip heaved a reluctant sigh and gently settled Maggie back on her feet with a not-so-gentle pat on her shapely derriere.

  Nodding her understanding, Maggie gathered up their empty glasses, and with sultry look of promise cast over her shoulder, she sashayed away. Philip's gaze riveted on her departing bottom for several seconds before transferring back to Robert. He helped himself to a drink from the rapidly diminishing supply and then addressed his companion. "I scarce thought to see you so soon, but I surmise from your untimely appearance that matters failed to transpire to your expectations."

  "No, it bloody well didn't turn out."

  "What now, then? How shall you go on?"

  "B'damned if I know."

  "Well, old chap, let's take stock of the situation. Charlotte still agrees to have you?"

  "I've no doubt of her devotion. Charlotte's constant as the sun."

  "Although poetic, I question your metaphor. The sun disappears every night. What would this imply of her nocturnal fidelity?" He smirked, and Robert glowered.

  "My apologies, Devington. A man in his cups is scarce expected to reason clearly or appreciate irony. So I shall endeavor to aid you. Now, where were we? Oh yes, her devotion. There is still some hope, then. I suppose you're now contemplating elopement?"

  "I can't do it! Though I know she'd have me, I can't go to her penniless. The five hundred from the race, combined with her dowry, would have been more'n enough to keep her in comfort, but the old rotter reneged on the wager, and without his blessing, there's no dowry. I've naught to my name but a captain's wages and fifty guineas from the first race. If we elope, she'd be condemned to a life following the drum in a soldier's camp. She deserves better, much better." His voice fell, and he downed another draught.

  "Indeed. The truest love and devotion are known to diminish with privation and penury. But we're soldiers, Devington. 'Tis the life we've chosen, or perhaps it chose us. On either score, a soldier lives by his fortune, and fortune is exceedingly fickle. My point is that it can change on a whim. The corpulent old bugger could pop off tomorrow; then what?"

  "Charles'd inherit and assume guardianship of Charlotte."

  "And would Charles follow his father's lead? Seemed an amiable enough chap to me."

  Robert raised the bottle, pausing midair to consider this thought. "Really can't say what Charles's disposition would be. S'pose he might be amenable."

  "Then, it appears you have some choices: either abscond with the chit to Scotland for a clandestine marriage and live thenceforth in your blissful poverty, or wait until Charlotte comes of age or her uncle expires, whichever comes first.

  "In either case, Hope, Devington, may displace your present courtship of Despair. She's a distant cousin to Lady Fortune, whom I personally hold dearest, but I believe Hope much more constant in her attachments; thus I trust she will serve you well."

  Clapping his friend on the shoulder, Philip continued. "Speaking of ladies has put me in mind of some unfinished business." He grinned broadly, taking up the near-empty bottle. "Think I'll do you a favor, old chap, and save you some morning agony." Philip rose and swaggered, bottle in hand, in search of Maggie.

  Robert sighed deeply and passed out flat on the table.

Robert awoke cotton-mouthed, bleary-eyed, and aching, sprawled in a chair by the hearth in an unfamiliar room. Attempting to focus and make sense of the night before, he rubbed his bloodshot eyes. He then unwisely shook his cobweb-filled head, which answered with the strike of a thousand anvils, awakening the most violent nausea he had ever known.

  Moaning in abject agony, he stumbled to his feet, knocking over a side table as he frantically sought the chamber pot. Finding it, he wretched relentlessly.

  "Oh my, luv!" Maggie spoke in sympathetically dulcet tones. "Ye'd best be still," she advised, rising quickly from Philip's bed. Holding the chamber pot, she guided Robert back to his chair. "Now Maggie'll jes' run and get ye a little sommat to help cure yer ills."

  She threw her gown over her shift and sought the major's assistance to do up her laces. Then Maggie stuffed her hair under her cap and slipped from the room.

  "She has a warm heart, that Maggie," Philip mused. "If it weren't for her, your arse would still be passed out in the taproom." Only her pity for the lovesick captain, coupled with concerns of thieves and cutthroats, had cajoled Philip into carrying his comatose companion to his chamber.

  "You're a saint among men," Robert groaned. "Pray remind me
later
how much I'm indebted by your tender mercies."

  Maggie returned armed with a tankard of weak ale and a pot of hot tea, just about the time the captain's retching ceased.

  "Hair of the dog?" Philip inquired skeptically.