The Courtesan's Wager (28 page)

Blast. Men were such prudes.

“Would you all please leave?” she said, rather shrilly she was afraid. “The duke is in residence and he does not care for such displays on or near his property.”

There. Throwing Aldreth’s name about ought to run them off. It was not terribly enjoyable to have a stern father, but it was somewhat convenient to have a stern duke about when things got out of hand. Things were rather completely out of hand at present.

“Amelia, go back inside,” Cranleigh barked at her, as if he had the right. Prudes and
bullies
.

“I would love to, Lord Cranleigh,” she said, watching as Iveston rubbed his belly and Dutton chuckled not at all discreetly. She had never liked Lord Dutton much; she liked him less nearly by the hour. “It is only that, as you are instigating a brawl in front of Aldreth House, and the duke has indicated that I should put a stop to it, I find myself in the position of being out in the street and trying to do just that!”

She was shouting by the end of it. She couldn’t seem to help herself. Cranleigh, as was so very typical of him, did whatever he pleased and expected her to comply. Had he not kissed her at every opportunity for the past two years, making opportunities arise when none presented themselves quickly enough for him? Had he not pushed her into thorns? Had he not ripped her dress for no other reason than he thought to drive her from the Prestwick ball?

The man was the worst sort of bully, the sort who targeted his urges upon innocent, unmarried women of good family. If she had any sort of useful brother at all, Hawks would call Cranleigh out and shoot him through the heart.

Looking at Cranleigh glowering at her, his eyes frosty, the muscles in his neck bulging, she thought that, perhaps, Cranleigh might only require being shot through the foot. He couldn’t dance well anyway, so it would be a small loss to the community.

“Lady Amelia, do not go back inside, not unless you will allow me to escort you in,” Calbourne said, coming forward from the edges of the crowd, Edenham walking at his side, smiling. At what she couldn’t imagine.

Amelia sighed heavily, clutching her very pretty and very ill-conceived blue shawl about her shoulders. It was starting to rain.

“She will allow no such thing,” Cranleigh said. “I believe I must have made clear to you by now that Lady Amelia is to be my wife. This absurd jest, this,” he said stiffly, “uncivilized contest for Lady Amelia is
over
. Done. I must insist that you leave, that you
all
leave.”

“Does he speak the truth, Lady Amelia?” Iveston asked, still trying to catch his breath and truly looking the worse for having tangled physically with Cranleigh, but still so civil, still so pleasantly polite. Why couldn’t Cranleigh have half of his brother’s mildness of temperament? “Have you agreed to his suit? ”

“His suit?” she said, a bit sharply, true, but she was being so horribly pressed from all sides, particularly the side Cranleigh was on. Her left side, actually. She was always acutely aware of Cranleigh’s presence, and it was supremely annoying to be so aware, but she had given up trying to ignore him years ago. “
His suit?
Lord Cranleigh has made no suit. Lord Cranleigh has made declarations of intent. Lord Cranleigh has made proclamations. Lord Cranleigh has made an ass of himself!”

She was shouting again. It was beyond inexcusable. She simply had to get control of herself, but being anywhere near Cranleigh always made that so difficult.

“He has, hasn’t he?” Penrith said, coming nearer to the steps, Dutton and Raithby at his side.

Dutton was a rake, confirmed, and a sensual assault upon the senses of ignorant girls. As Cranleigh attacking her with kisses upon every opportunity had left her less ignorant than most, Dutton had never made a favorable impression upon her. Raithby was not quite a rake. Raithby was soft seduction in a well-tailored coat of blue superfine. His hair was brown, his eyes were blue, and his expression was invariably sultry. He was reputed to be a horseman of superb ability, which was likely why Hawksworth disliked him so. Hawksworth was best known for riding a sofa.

“I do wonder,” Penrith said with that famous voice of his, “if he has not had some motive in his behavior that is not entirely . . .” He clearly wanted to say
honorable
, but no man, no man of any sense, would dare to insult Cranleigh in that fashion, not unless he was eager to face Cranleigh on the dueling field.

“Entirely . . . ?” Cranleigh prompted, his jaw muscle working.

“Clear,” Penrith said.

“What is unclear to you, Lord Penrith?” Cranleigh asked. “Lady Amelia seeks a husband. She has found one. I am that man.”

As Amelia was opening her mouth to tell Cranleigh he was being overbearing in his manner with her,
again
, Dutton said, “Yet there is the matter of the wager.”

“I can’t think what you mean,” Cranleigh said.

“Can’t you?” Dutton asked. “Is it possible that you are not aware of the wager on White’s book that Lady Amelia would—”

Amelia was most assuredly interested in what the wager had her doing, but just at that moment Cranleigh struck Dutton a hard blow to the face. Dutton went down, crumpled actually, into the dirt and stayed there. Neither Penrith nor Raithby helped him to stand. He probably couldn’t have stood anyway.

“So you have heard of the wager?” Penrith asked mildly, one brow cocking in sardonic amusement.

“There are many wagers on White’s book,” Cranleigh said. “Certainly it is not a topic for Lady Amelia’s ears.”

Cranleigh, aside from kissing her all over Town, was never one to want her to have any amusement at all.

“Yes,” Penrith said, “I suppose that, now that she is to marry, it should be her husband’s decision as to what to tell her. Or not to tell her, as he determines.”

How perfectly dreadful. She was certainly not going to endure a husband like
that
.

“I am not going to,” she said, “that is, I have not agreed to marry Lord Cranleigh. Indeed, I have not agreed to marry anyone. As yet.”

“As yet?” Edenham said, walking most elegantly toward the Aldreth House stairs. “That does sound encouraging. May we not come in out of the rain, Lady Amelia? As Aldreth is At Home, it would be convenient to call upon him. And his daughter.”

Oh, dear.

Amelia had never stood quite so close to the Duke of Edenham before now. In fact, most women kept a healthy distance from him, the rumors of his lethal quality being what they were. Amelia now perhaps wondered if Edenham was lethal in an entirely different manner.

He was devastatingly handsome. Truly and remarkably handsome. Tall and lithe, dark brown hair and eyes, a brow worthy of a sonnet, and the most elegant nose she’d ever seen. Lethal, yes, most assuredly.

“You’re not going to let them in,” Cranleigh snarled softly in her direction. “Not when I’ve thrashed half of London to keep them out.”

“It is my father’s house, Lord Cranleigh,” she said, sounding more brittle than was attractive. Edenham smiled fractionally. Amelia felt something skitter along the backs of her knees. She might have giggled; she did hope not. “I wouldn’t think of turning away Aldreth’s guests.”

“Hell and blast, Amy!” he said in a rumble of annoyance. “You’re doing this to torment me.”

“Am I?” she said sweetly. “How convenient.” Cranleigh looked at her in such a fashion then that she turned quickly away from him. When he got that look in his eyes, well, dragging her off into a closet to kiss her senseless was his usual next move. She did hope he could find a closet quickly. “Gentlemen? I do believe the Duke of Aldreth is At Home.”

And, before Cranleigh could reach her, Amelia scooted past the footmen and into the house.

“
I
T looks like she’s admitting them,” Sophia said from her post at the front window. “How clever of her.”

Aldreth, who was standing at Sophia’s side, looked askance at her.

“You intend her no harm, Sophia?” he asked softly, his blue eyes both cynical and vulnerable.

“Is that what Westlin told you? That I wanted to hurt you by hurting your daughter?” Sophia asked.

The rest of the men in the room, Sophia’s family and Aldreth’s, kept themselves apart, talking quietly amongst themselves in the far corner of the room. Hawksworth was even on his feet, a rare sight.

Aldreth nodded fractionally, his gaze not leaving Sophia’s face. He had aged well in the twenty years they had known each other, but then, so had she.

“Aldreth, I forgave you long ago,” Sophia answered, looking at his profile, seeing the muted trace of the angled jaw of his youth. “That night at the theater, that night when you rescued Zoe from the streets, was enough to settle any differences between us.”

“Rescued her by making her my whore?” Aldreth said softly.

Sophia smiled. “Don’t think you can lie to me, darling Aldreth. The uninformed rabble may think she is your whore, but you and I both know she is your salvation. And you love her for it.”

Aldreth grunted in answer, his eyes smiling, though his mouth did not. “Westlin was very certain that you wanted me away on the Continent so that you could work some mischief against me, my house, my heir.”

“Westlin is very certain of very many things. It is quite remarkable that any one man can be so often wrong on such a wide variety of topics,” Sophia said.

“You hate him,” Aldreth said, studying her face.

“But of course, darling. However, that Caro is married to Westlin’s heir is quite satifying.”

“And you did not serve your daughter ill by seeing her mated with Ashdon?”

“They are well mated. She loves him. He loves her in equal measure.”

Aldreth nodded again, almost serenely. “You are certain that Amelia will be well mated by the end of this?”

“Well mated, well loved, Aldreth,” Sophia said. “Trust me to see it done.”

“There are many who would call me a fool for trusting you, Sophia,” he said, his blue eyes twinkling.

“And all go by the name of Lord Westlin,” she said lightly. “What does Zoe think?”

“Zoe trusts you nearly as much as she trusts me.”

“Oh, more, I should think,” Sophia answered with a smile. “We have no contracts between us, legalizing neither trust nor payment.”

Aldreth lost his pleasant look. “That is for Jamie. I would not leave either of them without . . . without . . .”

“Without,” Sophia said, laying a hand upon his forearm briefly in pacification. “Which is precisely as it should be, for a man of honor, your grace.”

“Your brother, he is a man of honor as well, I think. If Mr. Grey had been with you twenty years ago when you first saw London, I think none would have touched you, Sophia. He is not a man to provoke, is he?”

“No, he is not,” she said, using her fan to hide her mild agitation at the memories his question aroused in her. Memories she kept carefully bound. “If John had been with me . . . but he was not. He was in the forests of Canada and I was here. It took years for us to find each other, years and continents. The world is wide, Aldreth. The world is very wide.”

“That it is,” he said simply. “They look at us, Sophia, and they wonder what binds us.”

“John can guess,” she answered, “but the others, these young men of ours, they likely believe I am trying to seduce you.”

Aldreth ducked his head and smiled. “Zoe would have my head on a platter.”

“And I would hand her the carving knife,” Sophia said with an answering smile.

 

 

 

“I wonder what they’re discussing?” Dalby said, looking at his mother and Aldreth across the room from them.

“They have known each other for many years,” John Grey answered quietly. “They share many memories.”

“That sounds pleasant,” Dalby said.

“Does it?” John asked.

“Shouldn’t it?” Hawks said, looking at his father, noting how Aldreth looked very nearly relaxed. Odd. Aldreth never relaxed, and certainly not in his own home.

“What do you know about it, John?” Dalby asked his uncle.

John looked at Lord Dalby with all the emotion of a piece of flint. Matthew Grey, John’s youngest son, chuckled. Dalby fidgeted with his cuff and dropped the subject.

“I didn’t think Aldreth knew Lady Dalby,” Hawksworth said. Having spent many confusing hours with Dalby’s Indian relatives had taught him that most topics of conversation that would be considered innocuous by anyone were not considered proper by these particular Iroquois. As he did not know any other Iroquois to make a comparison, he was not willing to do so. After all, Sophia’s relatives might be peculiar.

He was inclined to think so.

John Grey, Sophia’s brother, looked precisely how one would expect an American Indian to look. He was hard-featured, dark-skinned, laconic of speech. He was, to be precise, a most dangerous-looking man. His behavior did not dispel the impression.

George Grey, John’s eldest son, was on his way to becoming famous for his blatant pursuit of Hawksworth’s cousin, Louisa. It was even being whispered by some that, if not for his blatant pursuit, Louisa might not have found herself wed so quickly. Hawks did not agree with that assessment in the slightest. Louisa had got herself well and truly ruined and George Grey had had nothing to do with it. George was, however, the most talkative of John’s three sons. He thought British customs were unusual and sometimes comical, and he was not shy about saying so.

John, the middle son, was called Young, as he was the younger John. He rarely had anything to say, but was a very watchful sort. He resembled Dalby quite strongly, except that Dalby was far more conversationally inclined.

Matthew, the youngest, had startlingly blue eyes in a very dark-skinned face. That was the first impression. The second impression, albeit likely due to the fact that Matthew was barely out of boyhood, was that Matthew was very often bored—unless he was hunting. In the very brief time that Hawks had spent in the fields with the Greys, he had been astounded by their skill at the hunt.