The Courtesan's Wager (29 page)

It was very nearly chilling.

“There is much a son cannot know about his father,” John Grey said in answer to his speculation.

“Or a son about a mother?” Dalby asked.

“In the making of a life, a history is made,” John said. “Sophia and Aldreth have a history.”

“I had no idea,” Hawksworth said. “But then, I rarely see Aldreth.”

John nodded, but it was clearly not in approval. “A man wants his sons about him.”

Which was preposterous as Aldreth didn’t want anyone about him, unless it was his French mistress. She’d been
about
him for as long as Hawks could remember.

“My mother has a history with quite a few men,” Dalby said. His tone of voice was not what one would call cordial.

“You are very young, Mark,” John said, using a very abbreviated version of Dalby’s name. “You know very little.”

It was not the most polite of remarks, but then Hawks had realized within minutes of meeting John that one should not spend time with him if one required civility.

“I know enough,” Dalby said.

“Yet nothing of importance,” John said. That remark, which could truly be termed a rebuke, ended all conversation for the moment. The sounds coming from the vestibule, male sounds, preempted whatever conversation might have been forthcoming.

“Here they come,” George Grey said, his dark eyes shining in mirth.

Mirth? There was nothing remotely amusing about the situation. Why, Amelia was being made a laughingstock, at the very least.

Before Hawks could say anything, not that he was convinced he would actually have said anything, the door to the library opened and Amelia came in, looking a bit harried, truth be told, followed by a score or more of gentlemen. A score of gentlemen could harry the best of girls, which Amelia certainly was. Or had been.

It was a tangle, wasn’t it?

I
T was a complete tangle, and she had no idea how to go about untangling it. Cranleigh was at her side, scowling, as was his practice, and surrounding her were more dukes and earls and lords of this and that than she knew what to do with.

One husband. She only required
one
husband. What was she supposed to do with the rest of them? Throw them out upon the street? Having just got them off the street, and away from Gillray, who she was almost certain she saw at the edge of the Square, scribbling, she was not eager to toss them back out upon it. It was entirely possible that another satire might erupt from this . . . this tangle.

How looking for a husband among the cream of London’s crop had turned into
this
she had no idea.

Amelia’s gaze strayed to Sophia, who stood next to Aldreth, smiling. She had
some
idea, anyway. Sophia was flirting outrageously with Aldreth. It was nearly obscene. At least it was better than watching her ogle Cranleigh.

The men made their bows, the women their curtseys, and Yates, followed by four footmen, brought in more glasses and more refreshments. It was a quite busy day for Aldreth At Home. He didn’t look too terribly displeased, which was slightly inexplicable. The fact that Sophia stuck to his side like a, well, like a thorn, might have explained part of it. The rest of it? Could it possibly be that Aldreth was that eager to get her married off?

It didn’t seem likely, unless that satire had changed everything, which of course, it had.

“If you’d just left the Prestwick ball from the conservatory, none of this would be happening now,” Cranleigh said at her side.

“With my dress torn to pieces? How was I supposed to do that?” she snapped.

“I meant the first time in the conservatory,” Cranleigh said. “When I pushed you.”

“You didn’t push me. I wasn’t pushed! I would never allow you to
push
me, Lord Cranleigh!”

“Right,” he said on a snort of air.

“Did I hear you correctly?” Lord Penrith asked politely, when it could hardly have been polite to blatantly overhear their private conversation. “You
weren’t
pushed into the roses by Lord Cranleigh?”

“I most certainly wasn’t,” Amelia said. “I merely misstepped and found myself snagged.”

“Quite a misstep,” Lord Dutton said.

One would have thought that, having been thrashed, Dutton would have slunk home, or at least into a corner of White’s. How he had the gall to come into Aldreth’s very home with the dust of the street on his pantaloons perfectly displayed the arrogance of the man. She had never liked Dutton. Now she knew why.

“Lord Dutton,” she said, feeling quite put-upon and entirely exhausted by it, “I do think that you should hie off and pull yourself together. You look entirely too . . . shopworn.”

The Duke of Edenham chuckled.

“I should think, Lady Amelia, that you would be the last person,” Dutton said, the bruise Cranleigh gave him coming up nicely purple, “to use that particular phrase.”

The Duke of Calbourne coughed.

Amelia felt Cranleigh at her side, felt the solid mass of him, the waves of his anger rolling against her, and found herself caught up in it. Caught out of her shame and annoyance, lifted into something stronger and harder, something hot and urgent. Cranleigh always did that. Cranleigh always freed something within her, something she was certain was slightly sordid and not at all pleasant, but something most assuredly free, even fearless.

Before she could answer Dutton, and did she want to, Cranleigh said, “And I should think, Lord Dutton, that you would understand that you have no place here. I can demonstate that for you, again, if necessary. Will it be necessary?”

Dutton’s gaze flickered, his blue eyes shadowed for a moment, and then he bowed to her and left without another word. Amelia let out a sigh of both relief and disappointment. She could have got off at least one insult if Cranleigh hadn’t bullied Dutton out of the room.

“I can’t think what’s got into Dutton these past few days,” Penrith said. “He used to have a reputation.”

“He still does,” Cranleigh said, “though perhaps not the one he wants.”

Amelia very nearly sniggered.

“I, for one, don’t care a fig about Dutton or his reputation,” Calbourne said. “I do care about redeeming myself in regard to Lady Amelia’s list.”

“You’re off, Cal,” the Duke of Edenham said. “Learn to live with it. I, however, have yet to be interviewed. I am on your list, am I not, Lady Amelia? Please don’t tell me that I have been discarded without being fully considered.”

He
was
very handsome and his title was very, very old. But he did have that nasty habit of killing off his wives, who by all reports had been exceedingly agreeable and quite proper. And Cranleigh
still
hadn’t properly asked for her hand. He’d done nearly everything but, and as Edenham was so very eager to be considered and it would enrage Cranleigh so . . .

“Why should you want to be considered?” Calbourne asked tartly, distracting her from her thoughts. “You have two children. Your line is secured.”

“And you have your heir as well, Cal,” Edenham answered. Turning his rich brown eyes upon Amelia, he said, “A man should have a wife for more than the heirs she provides him.”

“Oh?” Cranleigh said. “And what is that?”

“The civility she brings to his home, for one, and for another, her sweet companionship,” Edenham said.

“Which will lead most swiftly to more heirs,” Calbourne said. “Toss him out, Lady Amelia. Turn your attention upon me.”

“Her attention is now and forevermore turned upon me,” Cranleigh said, sounding not at all pleasant. The sound of his voice, however, and the sentiment he expressed sent a shiver of awareness down her spine to settle in her hips, where no proper woman wanted to experience sensations of awareness.

“If Lady Amelia’s attention is truly turned upon you, Cranleigh,” Lord Raithby said, “then her list parameters have clearly widened. That being so, I should like to be interviewed. Would you be so kind as to consider adding me to your list, Lady Amelia? I am most respectable, have a quite lovely estate in Lincolnshire, and am in the pink of health.”

“I’ve seen his estate,” Penrith said. “It’s a bit small for you, I should think, Lady Amelia. And does anyone truly want to live in Lincolnshire?”

“Why are you involved, Penrith?” Calbourne asked a bit rudely. As he was a duke, no one thought it particularly offensive. “Do you seek placement on this famous list of gentlemen?”

Famous list of gentlemen? Is that what it had become? Amelia cast a glance at Sophia, who was now in polite discussion with her brother, the Indian. They were not looking in her direction, which ought to have relieved her, but didn’t.

“Not at all,” Penrith replied. “My mother has declared that I am entirely too young to marry, and I quite agree with her. I am involved only as an interested third party, a moderator of sorts. I hope that does not offend you, Lady Amelia?” he asked, turning his remarkable green-eyed gaze upon her.

“No, I—” she began to say, not at all certain what she would say that would sound respectable, not at all certain there
was
anything that would sound respectable. Cranleigh, as was to be expected, cut her off completely.

“It offends
me
,” Cranleigh said, his arm just barely touching her shoulder. She ought to move away. She didn’t. “There is no list. There is no competition that involves her.”

“Of course there is, Cranleigh,” Iveston said, coming up from behind them both. Iveston had brushed off the worst of the dust and looked none the worse for his altercation with Cranleigh. As to that, Cranleigh no longer looked annoyed with Iveston. Did brothers often do that? Hit each other by way of sport? Most peculiar, though there were times when she wanted to hit Hawksworth. Being male might have slight advantages, but only of the violent sort. “Everyone knows there is a list. There’s no denying it. There’s also no denying that every man in Town wants his name upon it.”

“That’s absurd,” Cranleigh barked.

Iveston shrugged. “It might be absurd if any other woman but Lady Amelia had compiled a list of potential husbands, as most women on the marriage mart are not nearly so discriminating. As she so clearly is, being on her list is something of a major coup. I, for one, am delighted to have been included.”

And, lovely man, he bowed to her at the end of his very detailed explanation of things as they presently stood.

“There is no list!” Cranleigh said, a bit loudly as more than a few people in the library turned from their conversations to look at them. One of them her father. “There is no honor in being upon it! If there even was one. Which there isn’t.”

Raithby turned to Calbourne and said, “I take it he’s not on the list.”

Cal shook his head and shrugged dismissively.

“Oh, is he not?” Iveston asked her politely. “I should hate to see my brother so maligned. Could you not see a way to put him on it, Lady Amelia?”

Cranleigh looked almost close to bursting a blood vessel. It was rather funny to see him so abused. Certainly, after the entire shawl experience, he deserved some slight abuse.

“I do not believe Lord Cranleigh wants to be on my list, Lord Iveston,” she said with as much charm as she could manage. She could manage quite a bit for such a worthy cause.

“Whyever not?” Calbourne said.

“That can’t be correct,” Edenham said. “All men of quality and distinction want to be acknowledged, publicly if possible, for their quality and distinction.”

“But not by a woman who has complied a list of men she might consider for marriage,” Cranleigh said hotly.

“How else should I have proceeded, Lord Cranleigh?” she replied, just as hotly, not that she should have shown these lovely gentlemen that sordid side of her nature, but Cranleigh deserved a hot rebuke and she was going to give him one. “Should I have, oh, perhaps, succumbed to the first man who got me alone in a corner and kissed me?”

By the look on his face, perhaps her rebuke needn’t have been quite so hot.

“Would it even require a corner, Lady Amelia?” he shot back.

Iveston cleared his throat into the stunned silence that followed that insult. Amelia, quite able to ignore Iveston and his throat, Calbourne, and Edenham to focus all her attention on Cranleigh, answered, “Better to ask if such a man would even require getting a woman of good family and careful upbringing alone, Lord Cranleigh. Such a man would grab his chance where he could, wouldn’t he? Grab as grab can.”

“Catch as catch can, Amelia,” he snarled. “And what can be said for a woman, no matter what she says of her family and breeding, who allows herself to be caught? Does not the catching declare all?”

“Even the innocent may be caught, Cranleigh. In fact, it is the innocent who are most easily snared. As I am quite certain you know.”

“When the lure is tempting enough, anyone may be snared,” he answered, his eyes like chips of ice in blue glass. “Even a man of good family and careful upbringing.”

“Hence the marriage dance, Cranleigh. A lure, a snare, and a marriage,” she said sharply. “Not my invention, I assure you, but finding myself upon the hunter’s field, what can I do?”

“What can you do?” he said, his voice dropping, though all in the room listened regardless. “Amy, you can retreat. You can go home.”

“Cranleigh, I am home. Look about you. I am encompassed.”

“And not at all unhappy about it,” he said.

“No, not at all,” she said softly, gazing up into his eyes, captured once again by the look in them. It was this approximate look that had snared her that first time. Every time. “Cranleigh, I
will
marry.”

“Someone on your list,” Iveston said quietly into the web of unspoken words that surrounded Amelia and Cranleigh. Amelia jerked slightly. Cranleigh did not, but he did allow his gaze to shift to his brother.

“But not you, Iveston,” Cranleigh said. It sounded nearly like a threat.