The Wagered Miss Winslow (19 page)

Rosalind sat up, drawing the covers around her bare breasts. “Digging in the dirt! Beau, don’t you know that I only became interested in St. Leonard’s because I so desperately needed
something
in my life? Oh, I admit to enjoying myself, and would dearly love to visit Rome, and all its lovely ruins, but I would much rather sit on a bench in the shade and watch our
children
dig in the dirt, fashioning mud pies and such as I did as a child.”

Beau pulled her back down onto the mattress, their bodies coming together intimately, stirring him to passion yet again. “I would have enjoyed seeing you as a child, although I already know what you look like with a smut of dirt on your nose, and I doubt you are that much bigger than you were at the tender age of nine or ten. Never have I seen anyone so little, yet so perfectly formed.”

‘Little? Oh, sir, I vow that you will turn my head with such sweet flattery,” she told him in mock anger, jabbing him in the ribs with her index finger.

“Rosalind—” he began, looking deeply into her eyes, still unbelieving of his luck, his good fortune in discovering this wonderful, bewitching creature. He reached out to trace his fingertips down the side of her throat, across the soft skin of her chest, then lower, as she smiled into his eyes. “Rosie, I—”

“Mr. Niall Winslow has presented his compliments and awaits his sister and her husband in the main drawing room,” Woodrow called preemptively through the solid oak door after his knock had put a halt to what had begun to look to be another enjoyable interlude.

Rosalind fell back against the mattress, smothering her giggles with one hand as Beau cursed and pushed back the covers, already reaching for his dressing gown to cover his nakedness. “Winslow? He’s the last person I want to see when I’m feeling this happy. Woodrow, send the fellow—
in the drawing room
? Woodrow,” he said, opening the door a crack and sticking his head around the edge, “there isn’t a stick of furniture in the drawing room for him to sit himself on.”

“Yes, sir, we know. Riggs may walk like a hen in stubbles, and burst into tears at the drop of a handkerchief, but he
can
think. Shall we send word that you and Mrs. Remington will be down shortly? I suggest an hour as a reasonable interval, not that we will inform Mr. Winslow of that determination. We will introduce ourselves and entertain the gentleman in your absence with talk of speculating on the Exchange.”

Rosalind’s delighted giggles could no longer be controlled, and she rolled onto her stomach, burying her face in the pillows. Life, for Rosalind Winslow Remington, had begun to hold quite a bit of fun!

“Woodrow, for a stiff-as-a-poker fellow,” Beau commended the man, chuckling, “you’ve got a heart of purest larceny. Tell Mr. Winslow that Mr. and Mrs. Remington will be delighted to join him—
shortly
.”

M
r. Niall Winslow was not a happy man, and not just because he had been standing alone in a cavernous room devoid of furnishings, his curly-brimmed beaver still in his hand, for nearly an hour.

Oh, yes, that did bother him, for he was not so great a fool as not to be aware that the servants were snickering about him in the foyer, and also because he had endured a long, unprofitable night at the gaming tables and would have liked nothing more than to sit himself down someplace and rest his head in his hands.

But what
really
bothered him, what had dragged him out of his bed after only two unsatisfying hours of sleep, what had brought him, hat
still
in hand, to this imposing mansion in Portman Square, was the circulating rumor that had just last night finally circulated in
his
direction.

Beaumont Remington, the rumor went—and yes, Dame Rumor had elaborated (just as if he, Niall, might have forgotten the fact), this was the same Beaumont Remington who had not that many weeks previously so grandly stripped Niall Winslow of a veritable fortune on the turn of a single card—had taken up residence in Portman Square with his new bride, one Rosalind Remington,
née
Winslow!

It wasn’t enough to hear of his sister’s marriage while he sat smack in the middle of Lady Hereford’s game room. Oh, no. In order not to look the complete fool, Niall also had seen no choice except to smile and nod as if he had known of the disastrous union all along.

He had then been forced to listen with that same false smile making his jaw ache as he had been regaled with the news that Remington and his bride were throwing money all over London, furnishing their new mansion from attics to cellars, ordering vast quantities of wine and foodstuffs, purchasing prime horseflesh at Tattersall’s and outfitting themselves in grand style while they were about it.

Why, only yesterday, Niall had been informed, Beaumont Remington had been seen visiting the finest jeweler’s in Bond Street, paying out a king’s ransom for an emerald-and-diamond ring without so much as a blink. ! Forty-five thousand pounds, the ring was said to cost.

Forty-five thousand pounds, to the penny piece the exact sum Winslow had lost to the man. The amount would remain ingrained in Niall’s memory forever.

Was Niall Winslow upset?

That would be a reasonable assumption.

“I say—what are you doing in here? The tradesmen’s entrance is around back. But wait—no Cit ever had such a way with a cravat. Forgive me, please, and we shall begin again. Good morning, sir. Whatever are you doing in here, where there is not so much as a stool or candlestick! Riggs stuck you here, I suppose. Servants—such an unreliable lot. We can depend on them only for their undependability.”

Woodrow abandoned his pose, and his surprised look, at the doorway and sauntered into the room, his right hand held out in front of him, to continue: “I’m Fitzclare, by the way, Woodrow Fitzclare, of the Yorkshire Fitzclares.”

Niall automatically extended his own hand, wondering just what in the devil this soberly dressed, rigidly erect gentleman was doing running tame in the Remington household. “Winslow. Niall Winslow,” he said, squinting at the valet (who, as Bridget had said upon seeing him in his new rigout, “looks mightier than His Holiness the Pope, and no mistake,” which was no small compliment, coming as it did from that devout lady). “Mrs. Remington is my sister.”

“Dearest Rosalind is your sister?” Woodrow took hold of Niall’s elbow and steered him toward one of the tall windows that faced the square. “Yes, yes, now that we’re standing in the sunlight, I do believe I detect a faint resemblance. But you’re the
elder
by a number of years, aren’t you? Many things, you understand, are revealed in sunlight that we might not see so readily in shadow. Lovely child, Rosalind, in every light.”

“Who in blazes
are
you?” Niall angrily yanked his elbow free of Woodrow’s grasp. He had never been so insulted. No one had ever
dared
to insult him—except for Beaumont Remington, that uncouth card-sharper to whom he had believed he had done a suitably bad turn in setting him against his own little-loved sister in a battle over possession of that wretched backwater estate, Winslow Manor. But it was early days yet. He’d get his money back—doubled—and make both Remington and his sister suffer in the process!

“Who am I?” Woodrow pressed a hand to his chest, knowing that this was the precise question—and put forth by Niall in precisely the correct accents of mingled anger, suspicion, and inquisitiveness—that they had all hoped he would ask.

“That’s right, you priggish bastard,” Niall exploded, his late night, a quantity of drink, and his naturally vile temper robbing him of any pretense of caring whether or not he insulted the maddening man standing in front of him. “Who
are
you?”

Woodrow put a knuckle to the base of his nose and sniffed delicately, hiding an unexpected smile. Readily led, was Mr. Winslow, just as Mr. Remington had predicted. This all might prove ridiculously easy. Niall Winslow gave gentlemen such as those Woodrow prided himself on serving this past quarter century a bad name, and the fellow’s lack of true mental profundity would even shame the lowest of the social order.

After all, as Woodrow had long professed, it took more than fine clothes, fine words, and unexceptional birth to make a gentleman. Mr. Beaumont Remington possessed the raw material to be an exemplary gentleman—honesty, honor, and an innate decency being the traits that came most readily to Woodrow’s mind.

Mr. Niall Winslow, in Woodrow’s educated opinion, would have been better served not to have aspired to any calling more elevated than that of elegantly dressed rat catcher, even if he had chanced to nave been born of royalty.

So thinking, Woodrow decided to have himself what, he would say later to Bridget, he considered to be “a touch of frolic with the repulsive fellow.” He furrowed his brow, appearing puzzled by Winslow’s question, and declared, “Why, I have already told you who I am. I am Fitzclare. Woodrow Fitzclare, of the—”

“Of the Yorkshire Fitzclares,” Niall finished for him, disgusted. “I already know that, Fitzclare. What I
don’t
know is why you’re here, under my sister’s roof. She’s always got some odd creatures about—like that twinkle-toed man milliner, Riggs— but you’re a bit much, even for her. No, you have to be Remington’s cohort. Now, out with it. Who are you?”

Woodrow found himself longing to slap the younger man’s face, a terrible breach of his normally placid emotional makeup, but he restrained himself—for the sake of the “common good,” as he liked to think of it.

Besides, if his keen ears were correct, Mr. Remington and his dear wife were standing just at the doorway, Mr. Remington doubtless prepared to perform precisely as rehearsed. “Very well, Mr. Winslow, as you insist. I have been sworn to secrecy, you understand, but you are, after all, Mrs. Remington’s brother, are you not?”

Niall’s hearing might not have been as acute as Woodrow’s, but his sense of smell suffered no impairment whatsoever. And he smelled a secret and, possibly, an opportunity. Any secret carried with it an opportunity, if one only knew how to twist it to one’s own advantage. “Go on, Fitzclare,” he urged, smiling invitingly. “My sister and I have never had secrets from each other.”

Woodrow walked five paces away from Niall, then turned in a full circle, his hands slightly raised from his sides, and bowed as he had once seen Edmund Kean do in Drury Lane as he accepted praise from his audience after a stirring portrayal of Shylock. “I am Merlin, sir,” he said, his smile (his carefully regulated smile) half gleeful smirk, half demonic grin. “I am the Enchanter, the Sorcerer, the Fountain of all Wisdom—I am the Marvel of my age!”

“
Woodrow
!”

Both Woodrow and Niall tinned quickly at the outraged tone in Beau’s voice as that man entered the drawing room quickly, his long strides rapidly closing the distance between them, Rosalind lagging slightly behind, all but skipping to keep up with her husband.

“What have I told you about blabbering to all the world and his wife about
our
business?” Beau’s voice was low, nearly a hiss, as he put his head just beside Woodrow’s, but he did not speak so quietly that Niall did not overhear. Woodrow’s chin came up proudly, defiantly, but then his mouth closed shut, like a sprung trap, and he said not another word, turning on his heel and exiting the room in dramatic high dudgeon.

Rosalind was hard-pressed not to applaud; she was seeing Woodrow in an entirely new light and was much impressed.

Beau, fighting an imp of mischief that nearly caused him to laugh out loud at his brother-in-law’s dumfounded expression, turned to Niall, extending his hand in greeting. “We’ll forget him now, won’t we? So sorry to have been detained, my good man, but I am temporarily without the services of a valet, and I am all thumbs when it comes to my cravat. Yours looks splendid, I must say. Perhaps I should attempt to lure your man away from you.”

That made two compliments about Niall’s cravat, and he was vain enough to be flattered. But that did not mean that he was about to brush away the memory of Fitzclare’s outrageous outburst—or Remington’s obvious anxiety to silence him. He would, however, keep his own counsel for the moment, awaiting developments, for he was not the sort to put all his cards on the table before he had gauged the merits of his opponent.

“Thank you, brother,” Niall said now, having decided to give his blessing to the union just as if the word
brother
didn’t stick in his craw, making him long to clear his throat. Turning away from Beau, he held out his arms to Rosalind, taking hold of her shoulders and pressing a kiss on her cheek. “Dearest sister. How happy I am for you. For you both,” he said, turning back to Beau.