The Wagered Miss Winslow (6 page)

“Miss Winslow?” Beau repeated, confused and angered at the same time. Clearly here was something he hadn’t counted on. Niall, damn the man, must have forgotten he had a maiden aunt or poor relation in residence, he concluded swiftly, if inaccurately. And an eccentric, too, by the sound of it, he thought, cudgeling his brain for what to do next. Under siege, was it? Who did the old lady think was coming? Another wave of Frenchmen? Boney was safely locked up on his island all these years, and if rumors could be relied upon, would soon be dead.

“A siege, lad?” he questioned gently, alighting from the curricle and approaching the

gates. He peered through them and up the curving carriage drive, but a turn in the drive and the tall trees obscured all but a marginal look at his new home.

The view had been better from the hill, but it would be even better from the other end of the drive, which was where Beau fully intended to be within the next five minutes. “And when did this siege begin, my good man? Have you been a prisoner within these walls for months on end?”

The groom shook his head again, scuffing the toe of his unpolished boots in the gravel. “Nope. Only since this mornin’, sir. Miss Winslow lined all of us up and told us we wasn’t ta let no one in ‘cause some dirty rotter was goin’ ta try ta throw the lot of us out on our ears. Mollie says he’s not a rotter a’tall, but a real fine gentry mort. Tall as a tree, Mollie says, and dark as the devil himself, with his arm all—” The lad slapped a hand to his mouth, his eyes all but bugging out of his head as he looked to Beau, his eyes raking the man from head to toe, measuring to see if he was indeed as tall as a tree.

A slow smile stole over Beau’s mouth and he banished all thoughts of an unconventional maiden aunt to perdition. But he had been at least half right, he ruminated—the woman who had ordered the gates barred was indeed an eccentric. She just wasn’t an old biddy, that’s all. She was a dirt-digging, smart-talking, cunning biddy—with a smut on her nose. “Mollie, you say? How interesting.”

It did not take a mental giant to arrive at the conclusion Beau had arrived at in less than five seconds. Miss Winters, indeed! Beau shook his head ruefully at his own unbelievable stupidity, quietly calling himself seven kinds of fool for not realizing that Miss Winslow had been lying to him. He had kept his quest a secret for so many years, only to spill all of it out to a strange young woman not twenty-four hours ago—and that woman lived in his house!

Beau’s smile disappeared as he belatedly realized that, although he might have been unaware of the woman, Niall Winslow had to have known of her existence. How could the rotter have done such a bad turn to one of his own relatives? How could he have left her here, unprotected, unaware, to await the new owner of the estate? Left her here for Beau to deal with her—as if he could bloody well do anything less! He certainly couldn’t throw the odd young woman out into the lane to fend for herself, most probably to end by sleeping in the ruined church, catching a chill, and dying. Oh, no. By the saints, he wasn’t about to have
that
on his conscience!

He lifted his unencumbered hand to his forehead, trying to regroup, marshal his thoughts, and decide how to proceed. He could return to Winchelsea, he supposed, and wait for Bridget to arrive. He would seem less dangerous, he reasoned, with the friendly Irishwoman by his side, less the monster he must have sounded yesterday, claiming his ownership and condemning the elder Niall Winslow as little more than a common thief and the younger as a reckless gambler. He had been insulting her relatives, and she hadn’t done more than agree with him. There couldn’t be any love lost there, even if Niall had provided her with a home.

But she was a cool one, Miss Rosalind Winslow was, for she had not reacted to the surely shocking portions of his information by so much as a blink, but only summoned up a lie as quickly as she could and escaped the scene. She must have rushed straight home and made her plans to defend the place against his “siege,” as if a locked gate would serve to send Beaumont Remington scurrying back to London with his tail between his legs!

So it was a fight she wanted, was it? Beau wouldn’t wait for Bridget. He wasn’t the sort to hide behind petticoats. He would settle this now, this morning, and be done with it.

Beau peered through the gates once more, visually measuring the groom’s worth as a soldier. It was a sorry sight that met his eyes. The groom, a third of Beau’s weight and less than half his age, had begun kicking the stone once more, his plain face blank of emotion, as if unaware he still had an audience.

It wasn’t even going to be a fair fight.

“Hello there again, ‘ Beau prompted once more, removing his hat. “What’s your name?”

“Kyle,” the groom said, tilting his head to one side, wondering why the man wanted to know. Hardly anyone ever asked his name. When Winslow Manor had visitors, which it hardly ever did unless Mr. Niall and a bunch of his rowdy friends stopped for a night on their way somewhere or other, they all just said, “You, boy—fetch my horse,” or “You with your mouth hanging open—rub this mare down good or it will be the worse for you!” Nobody ever asked his name. Either people knew it, like the people here or those in Winchelsea, or they didn’t care to know it. Maybe he should listen to this man; he seemed harmless enough.

“I say, Kyle—nice name that, very upstanding—are you quite sure it wouldn’t be possible for me to meet with Miss Winslow this morning?” Beau’s smile was magnificent, just as wide and full of straight white teeth as Mollie had seen it last night in her maidenly dreams. “You see, I have ridden all the way from London with news from Mr. Winslow.”

“Mr. Niall?” Kyle questioned, abandoning the stone once more as he approached the stoutly locked gates. Now why hadn’t he thought of that? Just because Mollie had said a tall, dark man was coming it didn’t mean that he was the only tall, dark man in all of East Sussex. Stood to reason there had to be at least two. “Miss Winslow said as how she’d give a year’s growth ta hear what her brother was up ta this time. Ye be sure he sent yer then?”

“Cross my heart,” Beau replied, smelling a quick victory even as the groom’s words caused his jaw to tighten. This was getting worse and worse. Miss Rosalind Winslow, the shabbily dressed creature he had met yesterday, was the rich Niall’s
sister
, and not a poor relation at all.

As this pertinent bit of news comes as no great surprise to the previously informed, it is perhaps unnecessary to recount in any great detail the effect the groom’s guileless admission had on Beaumont Remington. It is most certainly unnecessary to recount the pithy, totally unlovely, and remarkably graphic string of expletives that crossed his fine full lips as he thought of Niall Winslow’s obvious good humor the night he’d agreed to wager the deed to Winslow Manor on the turn of a card. Clearly there was no love lost between either of the Winslows.

That conclusion should not have come as a shock to Beau. Niall Winslow was
not
a nice man.  Walk along Bond Street in London, inquire about the man, and a good eight out of ten of those so applied to would doubtless deliver this information without much prompting.

But to sell an estate out from under his own sister’s feet without so much as dropping her a brotherly note as to his plans, and to use his deed to the land to fatten the pot in a game of chance, knowing that he might be helping to evict one of his blood kin, was totally beneath contempt.

So thought Beaumont Remington, who was beginning to feel less the conquering hero and more the encroaching cad with each passing moment. It was damned unsettling, that’s what it was, and he didn’t appreciate being cast in the role of heartless evictor.

However, even the distressing image of an abruptly dispossessed Miss Winslow could not deter him for long. He had the deed to his birthplace neatly tucked up in his jacket and, by damn, he was not going to be stymied now. The young woman in question was a Winslow, and the Winslows were deeper in the pocket than nearly everyone but God. She would have her choice of places to run to, and, if Beau’s slight acquaintance with the woman went for anything, she would make her brother’s life a living hell in the process, which he could not consider to be a bad thing.

Kyle (whether or not he would have agreed with Beau’s sentiments concerning Niall Winslow no one will know or probably much care), believing himself to be inspired, thought Miss Winslow would be that glad to hear from her good-for-nothing brother. After all, this tall man just might be here to tell them that Mr. Niall was riding pell-mell right now for Winslow Manor to save them all, which would be a good thing, because Kyle really wanted to go into Winchelsea this afternoon to visit his ma, like he did every Thursday. She made bread pudding on Thursday, and Kyle dearly loved his ma’s bread pudding.

The groom, making perhaps the second important decision of his lifetime—the first had been to marry Mollie when he grew up, not that he had yet made a third decision, that being whether or not it would be prudent to inform her of his determination—reached into the pocket of his smock, pulled out a gigantic key, and opened the gates to the invader.

Elated with the success of this bloodless coup, Beau slammed his hat back on his head, vaulted most gracefully onto the seat of the curricle (most gracefully, that is, for a man with only one sound arm), gave his horses the office to start, and drove between the gateposts, Kyle running along ahead, which told Beau that if the lad did not have the wits of a hummingbird he at least knew his job.

A minute later the curricle came to a halt, Kyle ran to the horses’ heads, and Beau stood on the gravel drive, grinning up at the home of his birth. It was just as Bridget had told him all those years ago— the most beautiful place this side of heaven.

Less than one hundred years old, Winslow Manor—no, he corrected mentally,
Remington Manor
—was no drafty old pile of random architectural styles, no monument to the vagaries of aristocratic taste and too much money, no overblown eyesore to scar the beautiful countryside. No, it was perfect. Four stories of mellow pink brick, pristine white wood surrounding the windows and the two-story-high portico that sat squarely in the middle bar of the H configuration, its well-proportioned, graceful lines evoked admiration for both the craftsmen who had done the work and the genius who had been his great-grandfather, the foresighted gentleman who had ordered the building constructed in the first place.

Beau turned slowly, taking in the good-sized wings that extended toward the circular gravel drive on both sides of the wide portico, then marveled at the sight of the gaily bubbling fountain that stood in the center of a neatly scythed grass circle, with its immense yet graceful stone statue of a nearly upright fish spewing water from its mouth into a small pool whose low sides were decorated with colorful spring flowers.

Beau tipped his curly-brimmed beaver back on his head and his dark curls spilled onto his forehead. Jamming his good hand on his hip, he grinned boyishly and proclaimed, “I’ve died and gone to heaven!”

“Not yet, Mr. Remington.”

Beau immediately recognized the voice of Miss Rosalind Winslow from somewhere behind him, and he turned to see her standing just outside the now-opened double doors, a wicked-looking fowling piece in her hands—its long barrel aimed straight at nis heart.

“But unless you are off my property in the next ten seconds,” she continued once she was sure she had his attention, “I would be happy to oblige at least the first part of your declaration. The second part I leave to our heavenly Father, who would doubtless view you with more compassion than do I.”

 And that was precisely the moment that Beaumont Remington, without a thought to Bridget’s warnings about his immortal soul, was inspired to believe he had stumbled upon the perfect solution to their mutual dilemma. He would marry Miss Rosalind Winslow.

Now all he had to do was keep her from shooting him long enough for him to propose.

B
eau’s head filled with the many ways he might attempt to divest Miss Winslow of her menacing weapon, and he quickly discarded any that had to do with force or direct confrontation. As a matter of fact, within the space of five seconds he had considered and rejected at least a half dozen possible ploys, opting to place his trust in the notion—indeed, the earnest hope—that the young woman was just as frightened as he over the prospect that the fowling piece could accidentally discharge.

After all, as only the good Lord knew, she just might get lucky, and hit something!