The Double Wager (15 page)

“Of course.” He bowed. “How could I bear to see her Grace, the freckle-nosed duchess, in distress? You know that I am all heart, Suzanne.” He proceeded to tell her all that had transpired between Henry and him in the last day.

Her smile had broadened by the time he finished. “So now you have the silly little chit in your power! What do you mean to do with her, pray?”

He flashed his teeth at her. “It is not for you to know, Suzanne,” he said, “but you can rest assured that I shall have some personal amusement while getting my revenge on Eversleigh.”

“I almost feel sorry for the girl,” Suzanne commented with a trilling laugh.

“Do not,” he said. “Believe me, Suzanne, I know how to pleasure a woman. In all likelihood, she will not even realize that she is being deliberately ruined. It would be double revenge, would it not, if the little Henrietta were to fall in love with me in earnest?” There was something cold, almost cruel in the smile with which he regarded Suzanne.

“You are the devil, Oliver!” his companion replied. “I do hope that Marius suffers—before he returns to me. Perhaps I shall reject him. That would be most satisfying.” She turned her back to examine herself in the mirror.

Cranshawe rose to his feet. “It would be in your own interest, my dear, to be seen with Marius as often as possible in the near future, especially when his wife is visible.”

She smiled. “Poison in the ear, Oliver?”

“You may depend upon it!” he assured her. “In fact, I have already begun.”

* * *

Henry ended up spending the whole afternoon with Giles. He was overjoyed when she handed him the money with which to pay off his debts, once he had ascertained to his own satisfaction that she had had no trouble raising the money and that she had not had to apply to Eversleigh for it. He swore to her that his gambling days were at an end, that he had finally learned his lesson. As a celebration, brother and sister decided on an excursion to Kew Gardens. They took the twins with them.

As a result, it was late in the day before Eversleigh held the promised meeting with his wife. She had dressed early for dinner and had come down to join him in the drawing room.

“Some ratafia, my love?” he asked, resting his own glass on the mantel and crossing to the sideboard.

“Ratafia, pooh!” she said. “That is for girls. I shall have some Madeira, please, Marius.”

“Yes,” he said dryly. “I always forget that it is the greatest insult to treat you like a girl, Henry.” He handed her a glass of Madeira.

Henry sipped it and found herself admiring her husband’s appearance. He was dressed for Lady Sefton’s ball in black satin knee breeches and coat, silver waistcoat, and sparkling white linen, lace covering his hands to the knuckles, his neckcloth arranged in an elaborate shower of folds. A diamond pin in the neckcloth and the inevitable quizzing glass on its black riband were his only adornments. His dark hair was brushed forward into waves around his face. His blue eyes regarded her steadily from beneath lowered lids. Henry started and blushed. She had caught herself out in the act of wondering how her hands and breasts would feel against the linen if she were to step forward and push aside his coat. What an extraordinary thought!

“Will I pass muster, Henry?” he asked, his eyes taking on their amused gleam.

“Oh, assuredly so,” she said. “You will be the handsomest man at the ball, as always, Marius.”

His eyebrows rose. “Splendid!” he said. “I would respond in kind, my love, if I did not know that you would call me absurd or silly or—what was it that one time?— stupid!”

“Oh!” she retorted. “It is unkind of you to remember that.”

“Come and sit down, Henry,” Eversleigh said, growing noticeably more serious and directing her to a sofa. He sat beside her. “I wish to talk to you.”

“I perceive it is about my being with Oliver in the park yesterday,” Henry said tightly, having decided to take the offensive.

He regarded her gravely. “Why have you chosen to disregard my wishes, Henry?” he asked.

“I will not be ruled,” she cried passionately. “I know that when I married you I became your property, Marius. I know that you have all the powers of a husband over me. But you cannot expect me to like it or to give in meekly to a situation of which I do not approve.”

“Strong words, my love!” he said calmly. “Have I given you cause to consider me a tyrant? Do I curtail your freedom? Do I beat you?”

“No,” she replied, her agitation by no means cooled. “You have been very good to me, except in this one thing. You asked something of me and gave me no reason except that it was your wish. And now you are bringing me to task because I have not obeyed. And I would guess that your next move will be to command me not to be sociable to Oliver and to threaten me with dire consequences if I continue to disobey. Well, I will not do it, Marius.” She rose to her feet and glared defiantly down at him. “Oliver has been kind to me, and I like him, and there is nothing improper in our meetings. I shall have to take the consequences of going against your commands. But turn away from his friendship I will not.”

“Will you not, my love?” he asked softly. He sat and gazed steadily up at her for a long while until she sat down again, feeling rather foolish at having allowed her temper to flare. Eversleigh continued to sit silently for a few minutes. Finally, he took her hand in one of his and with his other hand stroked along each finger.

“It was, of course, wrong of me to require anything of you without giving a good reason,” he said at last. “You must remember, my love, that I am new in the role of husband. Since I lost my parents in a carriage accident when I was sixteen years of age, I have been accustomed to giving orders and to having them unquestioningly obeyed. And then I, er, bumped into you, or was it the other way around?”

Henry said nothing. She kept her eyes on his hand, which held hers, and on his slim, well-manicured fingers playing lightly with hers.

“Will you stay away from Oliver Cranshawe if I can convince you that it is for your own safety?” Eversleigh continued. Henry glanced up into his face, startled. “Believe me, I am not being melodramatic,” he assured her.

“I cannot say until I hear what you have to say,” Henry said. “I cannot think that anything you say will convince me. Oliver has proved kind to me.”

“You are incurably honest, are you not, Henry?” Eversleigh said, turning her hand and clasping it in his. “I see that I must tell you what I swore not to tell anyone, because I have no proof for my suspicions.”

Henry looked inquiringly into his face.

“I have never told you anything of my family, have I, Henry?” he began.

“I assumed you had none,” she replied.

“And neither have I—now,” he said. “Oliver is my closest relative on my father’s side. He is the son of my father’s sister. His parents died when he was a child. He spent most of his youthful years with us at Everglades. The three of us were very close—Oliver, my brother, Stephen, and I.”

“You have a brother, Marius?”

“Had, my love. We did everything together. We frequently had friendly arguments about the succession. Oliver pretended to be angry because he was third in line to the dukedom, behind me and Stephen—although his mother had been older than my father. At least, it seemed to be a joke, though after the untimely death of Mama and Papa and I succeeded to the title, I often had the uneasy feeling that Oliver was perhaps seriously bitter.”

“But that is absurd,” Henry said. “He seems not to mind at all.”

Eversleigh took her empty glass, crossed to the sideboard, and poured them each a second drink. When he sat down again, it was in a chair a little removed from hers.

“I went to university and then spent several months of each year in London,” he continued. “Finally I joined . . . a certain club. You would consider it absurd, my love, and you would be quite right. It was youthful folly. The only condition for membership was that each candidate swear to remain single for the rest of his life.”

Henry stared. “Then how came you to marry me?” she asked.

“That is another matter entirely,” he replied. “Oliver and Stephen, as young men will, took the matter very seriously when I announced my membership to them. And I remember jokingly pointing out that only Stephen stood between Oliver and an almost-certain future claim to the dukedom. Stephen was only nineteen at the time, but he fancied himself in love with a neighbor's daughter. He seemed in hourly expectation of making a declaration.”

He paused and took a long swallow of his drink.

“And?” Henry prompted.

“And he died in a riding accident before he could make that declaration,” Eversleigh said harshly. “We were on a hunt. His saddle strap broke when he was jumping a fence. He broke his neck.”

Henry found that she was having difficulty breathing. “You suspect that Oliver had something to do with it?” she almost whispered.

“Oh, he was nowhere near when it happened,” he said. “The saddle strap was badly worn through.”

“It was an accident, then?”

“Stephen was a very keen and careful horseman. He would let no one tend his horse or his gear for him. A knife could have been used carefully enough to give the impression of fraying.”

“But you believe Oliver did it?” she asked, wide-eyed.

“I have no proof and I have never confronted him with my suspicions,” he said.

“What has all this to do with me, Marius?” she whispered.

“You are my wife,” he said. “My sons will be born from your body.”

“Oh, no!” she cried, leaping to her feet. “You are wrong, Marius. I know Oliver. He is not like that. He is kind and caring and he is hurt by your coldness to him. You have allowed grief for your brother to poison your mind. It is not true. You must see that.”

He looked at her, a twisted smile on his face. “Keep him at a distance, Henry,” he said. “Your safety matters to me.”

“But you are wrong,” she insisted. “Oh, somehow I shall prove it and bring you two together again.”

“Then nothing I have said has made any difference?” he asked, his eyelids masking the expression in his eyes.

Henry hesitated. She was suddenly plagued by a thoroughly novel desire to rush across to where he still sat in his chair, and cradle his head against her breast. She had never seen him vulnerable, had never even dreamed that he had any weakness. At the same time, she could not agree to humor him by rejecting Oliver, especially after the transaction of that morning.

“You are wrong,” she said, “I know you are. I have promised a dance to your cousin tonight and it would be ill-mannered to refuse him now. I cannot turn aside his friendship, Marius, but I will promise to speak with him only in public places, where there are plenty of onlookers. Will that relieve your mind?”

“You will do what you will, Henry,” he said, shrugging, “and I will do what I must. Come, let us go in to dinner. The chef will be resigning in good earnest if we keep him waiting any longer.”

He rose from his chair and extended his arm to lead her out.

CHAPTER 8

P
enelope was in hiding and seething with a feeling of ill-usage. Philip was out with the duke. He had been taken to see Jackson’s boxing saloon and even to watch a sparring bout between Eversleigh and the great man himself. Penelope had not been permitted to go, though she had begged and pleaded and threatened. All that the threats had accomplished was to win her a long, cool stare through her brother-in-law’s quizzing glass and a very disdainful comment.

“Really, Penny,” Eversleigh had said, “if you must use the language of the stable, I shall have to send you to the stable and have you pitch some manure. However, I fear that you might corrupt my grooms, my dear girl.”

So Penelope had been left at home. And to add insult to injury, Miss Manford had come up with the idea that this was the ideal time to continue her charge’s embroidery lessons, which had been progressing in a very desultory manner for several weeks.

When Miss Manford left the drawing room to fetch the cloth, needles, and silken thread, Penelope came to a desperate decision. She would not be there when Manny came back! She decided on a ground-floor room as a hiding place because the children rarely had occasion to go down there. She darted out of the room, shutting the door firmly in the face of an indignant Brutus, raced along to the staircase, and peered cautiously down. Luck was with her—there were no footmen in the hallway below.

She tiptoed down the stairs and across to the green salon and quickly let herself inside. She settled herself comfortably on a window seat behind the heavy velvet draperies, clasped her arms around her drawn-up legs, rested her chin on her knees, and began to indulge in her favorite indoor activity, daydreaming.

Poor Miss Manford was left to search the house for her charge. Fortunately for Penelope, she did not think of taking Brutus with her. She did look into the salon but did not search it because it seemed an unlikely place for the girl to have gone. She did knock timidly on James Ridley's office door and ask if he had seen the missing child.

“Don’t distress yourself, Eugenia,” he said soothingly, “she has probably gone to the kitchen for some food or has played a prank on you and has gone outside for some air.”

“Oh, dear, but she is not in the kitchen,” wailed Miss Manford, “and she can’t have gone outside—she was wearing only slippers and has no bonnet or gloves. Where can the dear child be?”

“Dear child!” scoffed Ridley. “The girl needs a good spanking for upsetting you so. What is she supposed to be doing?”

“We were to embroider,” Miss Manford said, “but she does not take to it. I fear very much that I shall never be able to teach her a lady’s accomplishments.”

“Maybe not,” he said, “but I certainly feel that her disappearance has been explained. Depend upon it, she is hiding and will come out when she feels that there is no longer any danger of having to do her lesson.” 

“Oh, do you really think so, James?” Miss Manford asked, clasping her hands to her bosom. “How comforting you always are! So calm and sensible!”