Wicked Wager (3 page)

The tautness around Raphael's lips indicated far more than his tone, that he was mightily displeased. ‘I don't believe this is a conversation for our short journey home in present company, my dear. Perhaps tomorrow evening we might discuss in greater detail the joys we can look forward to during our long and fruitful union.'

Celeste slid her eyes away from his thunderous expression. ‘Of course, you're right as always, Raphael,' she said softly.

And wondered how many times she was condemned to say those exact words in the decades that stretched ahead of her.

Chapter Two

Peregrine rubbed thoughtfully at his left knee with the sea sponge, careful not to slosh water over the side of the bathtub. Two candle sconces above the mantelpiece cast long shadows across the chamber, which was silent but for the crackle of the fire and the ebb and flow of the bathtub's contents as Peregrine reached up to place his scoring markers on the cribbage board.

‘Ha! Trump that!' he muttered softly, as his giant, broad-shouldered Negro manservant, Nelson, bent to study his own cards.

Nelson frowned. ‘I accept your challenge,
master
.' The corner of his mouth quirked at the oblique reference to the ambiguous relationship between the two men.

Nelson could not in fact be free under the current legislation, yet it was on account of this slave's heroic actions that Peregrine was still alive today.

Cursing as he conceded a loss at Nelson's next play, Perry relaxed back into the soapy water, stiffening when Nelson, remarked, glancing up from his cards, ‘I gather there's trouble a-brewing with Miss Paige, m'lord.' Nelson's English was as impeccable as his master's.

Perry considered the question. In no other servant would he have countenanced such impertinence, but Nelson was not the usual servant.

Until the dramatic incident five years before, when footpads had set upon Perry one night, Nelson had been a silent, obedient footman acquired some years previously to form a matching pair.

However, since Nelson had hurled himself into the fray and succeeded in disarming to the blackguards, and doing a great deal of damage besides, before assisting a seriously wounded Perry back to his home, an unusual bond between the men had been forged. Nelson had been promoted to valet and there had been a great many mutually enjoyable conversations since then between master and servant over the cribbage board in the bathtub.

‘Trouble, yes. And more than just a-brewing,' Perry admitted, glad of the opportunity to unburden himself. With the game concluded, Nelson held up a strip of linen to wrap about his master and Perry elaborated. ‘It's not just my sister. There's another young lady.'

‘There is usually another young lady.' Nelson nodded sagely, the candlelight highlighting his noble features. Nelson had been groomed for the chieftainship before he'd been snatched from his coastal village by slavers.

Clad in his banyan and seated in his dressing room, Peregrine picked up a nail file from his grooming box and toyed with its smooth mother-of-pearl handle. He wondered if Miss Rosington's pale skin would feel as smooth beneath his hands. The mere thought of his immoral wager made his breath quicken with desire but his conscience gave him pause. The woman had the face of an angel, but what of her morals? Xenia would have it seem they were as corrupted as his own.

‘I've just returned from visiting my sister, who has got it into her head that a certain young lady is the source of all her troubles.'

Charlotte's hysteria had been disconcerting when Peregrine had ventured to suggest she might have been mistaken in identifying Miss Rosington as Harry Carstairs' accomplice. ‘Ask her if she knows anything of this, then!' she'd screamed, hurling a gold locket at his head. ‘I tore it from Harry's neck as he ran past me.' Peregrine was aware now of the locket's oval contours against the lining of his pocket as he watched Nelson consider the matter. To be sure, the cryptic, half-torn message the locket contained was perplexing, but it was not enough to convict Miss Rosington of the charges Xenia had laid at her door.

‘Miss Paige has no husband.' Nelson looked up from folding his master's clothes and his mouth stretched wide in a slow grin. ‘If she blames another woman for the fact, I pity that woman. Perhaps you will have to protect her from Miss Paige's ire, m'lord,' he added suggestively. Charlotte was, after all, famous for her hot and cold moods.

Peregrine grunted. ‘I'm ashamed to say I'm involved in a scheme to discredit this other young woman, yet the truth is, even if she
is
guilty, I've lost the appetite.'

‘Lost the appetite?' Nelson's face contorted into an expression indicating great disgust. ‘So she is not a woman you'd care either to besmirch
or
champion?'

‘God, no!' Peregrine shook his head emphatically. ‘She is angelic. There's the rub. I should be flayed for entering into such devilry.'

‘You are an honourable man, m'lord. If you have doubts, I suggest you relinquish your involvement and leave this possibly innocent young woman be,' Nelson said with another sage nod, pausing on the threshold, having brushed and put away Peregrine's coat.

It was as if Nelson was dismissing
him
, Peregrine thought with a mixture of irritation and amusement as Nelson offered him a bow before stepping gracefully backwards.

‘I shall do nothing of the sort.' He floundered for a plausible excuse, aware that his motives for furthering his acquaintance with Miss Rosington were cloudy at best. ‘Indeed, she may, as you suggest, need my protection,' he added, feebly.

‘Then if this young lady is worthy of your protection, my lord, I wish you great joy of her.'

An ambiguous remark, Peregrine reflected as he climbed into his carriage a short while later, and took the short journey across London to Vauxhall Gardens where he was to meet Lady Busselton.

Joy of her
? Well, he was fully anticipating more pleasure than pain at the end of all this, but he'd rather he was protected by the usual indifference that ensured he never lost his heart or his head. The truth was Miss Rosington, up close, had unleashed a veritable storm of emotions that denied rational explanation. A visage of such purity surely could not belong to a woman who'd betray her cousin and the man she was to marry. Hers was not the guise of a hardened strumpet capable of destroying his sister's happiness.

Now he was in danger of becoming mawkish. He turned his head away from the gathering group of beggar children chasing his carriage, frowning deeply at the extraordinary conundrum beginning to consume him. A moral dilemma? That would be a first.

Yet if there was more to her behaviour than met the eye, Miss Rosington did need to be revealed. And if Perry went through with Xenia's wager and Miss Rosington did indeed throw herself at Perry, as Charlotte claimed she'd done to Harry Carstairs, then Miss Rosington deserved everything she got.

Suddenly filled with charity, Peregrine tossed a handful of coins out of the carriage window, the corners of his mouth lifting as he looked back to see the children throw themselves upon the spoils like starved animals, their shouts and wails fading as the carriage rounded a bend by the river.

Yes, if the spoils were worth it, he didn't mind getting a little dirty along the way. For ten long years he'd wanted Xenia.

Yet as he drew in a breath laden with anticipation, it was not Xenia's heaving bosom that speared him with excitement.

Ah, Xenia, he sighed, closing his eyes to savour the thought of what shared delights would soon be his for the taking, irritated that instead of Xenia's creamy, sculpted perfection, it was Miss Rosington's bright-eyed visage that nagged at him.

***

Xenia was with a group of friends. He heard her trilling laugh before he saw her, causing him to stop as he rounded the Serpentine Walk to admire her confident carriage and the way she threw back her head to respond to a joke made by her companion, the notorious libertine, Sir Samuel Wray.

Sir Samuel had been much in Xenia's company lately. The man fancied himself a poet and was in the habit of composing sonnets proclaiming the virtues of whoever happened to be his latest ladylove. Peregrine could hear him reciting something that suggested Xenia now filled that role. Well, Sir Samuel was to be disappointed. Xenia, for reasons that went further than merely exhorting Perry to prove his brotherly love by unmasking Miss Rosington, had turned her focus upon Peregrine.

And Xenia, he reminded himself, was his sole reason for consorting with Miss Rosington. The ship captain's beautiful daughter was the only woman he'd ever truly desired, and now that she'd offered him the key to her favours, he was not about to be diverted by a fresh-faced ingénue who either was complicit in his sister's shame or, if not, was an innocent who'd not yet cut her teeth on sophisticated society and so could hold no interest for Peregrine.

As Peregrine approached, he noted that the only disguise Xenia wore tonight was a masque. Amidst her hair, powdered and ringletted as was the fashion, nestled a replica galleon, a tribute to her papa; or more specifically, her papa's generosity. Though Xenia's lavish wardrobe was, to all intents and purposes, funded by two wealthy late husbands, Peregrine suspected money was going to be a problem if his beautiful friend continued her spendthrift ways. Fortunately, if rumours were to be believed—and the increase in her father's fleet suggested they were—Captain Alfred Higgin's trade appeared to be going from strength to strength. As long as the captain was alive there'd always be someone to indulge Xenia's rapacious appetites.

Perry stopped and smiled as Xenia pushed away from her coterie of admirers, having locked gazes with him. She'd had too much to drink and as she draped herself upon Peregrine she hiccupped, kissing his ear untidily.

‘Darling Perry, I thought you'd never come and rescue me,' she crooned. ‘I've been bored to distraction, surrounded by oafs.'

‘Very poetic oafs. I heard Sir Samuel's ode to your matchless beauty and divine purity. Have you set your sights on making him your next husband?'

‘Silly man. You and he both.' She hiccupped again and took his hand, resting it against her heaving bosom. ‘See what you do to me. Perhaps
you'll
be my next husband.'

He laughed, not imagining she could be serious. ‘I've known you too long, Xenia. Your foibles and extravagant fancies would make a poor man of me.'

‘But I would be worth it,' she murmured, her breath tickling his ear before he felt the whisper of her fan unfurling, her eyes gleaming with promise over the top.

‘I've no doubt you would, Xenia.' With a wry grin and an unsteady tattoo of his heart, Peregrine pushed her gently aside before she could deepen the display of intimacy. Curiously, he was unsettled by her words when once he'd have crossed crocodile-infested waters for it to be so.

‘I will be more than worth it once you're done with little Miss Rosington.' She wasn't ready to let the subject go. ‘She's here tonight, did you know? A water sprite and very pretty with her dark hair tumbling down her back. No doubt that's what Harry Carstairs thought too, before she burned him at her flame. Don't forget to ask her what has become of poor Mr Carstairs while you're busy with your little seduction.' She put her face close to his. ‘There has been neither sight nor sound of him since he fled like a coward into the night. Perhaps he jilted Miss Rosington too and she's had him murdered.' She drew in a ragged breath and pointed, her words slightly slurred. ‘Why, there she is, Perry. Over there by the fountain. Her cousin is taking her into the rotunda to dance. What a handsome couple they make. So in love, everyone says. But you and I know better. Let's show the world the truth, shall we? Go on, Perry, ask her for the next dance. Pretend you're new in London and have no idea who she is. I'm sure she'll not know you as Charlotte's brother. No, this is her first season out. She'll never suspect
you
.'

***

Peregrine needed no urging. He was confident Miss Rosington would not know him as Charlotte's brother.

But would she remember him after their brief meeting at the theatre? The thought intrigued him as he bowed before her when he caught her alone. Her betrothed was procuring her something to drink while the old woman he presumed was her chaperone was nodding her chin companionably with another old crone in the gloom a few feet away.

Perry surmised Miss Rosington had been about to snub him, but as he rose from his bow her startled gaze and sudden stillness revealed she clearly recognised him; and his own heart echoed what he surely saw she felt: the jolt of surprised awareness. Her rosebud mouth dropped slightly open and her eyes brightened.

He saw, also, the quick glance she sent over her shoulder and he followed her glance in the direction of her cousin, who'd been detained by a rotund and voluble gentleman in a bag wig and a gold-figured red and cream coat and black silk pantaloons. Perhaps Miss Rosington considered he would keep her betrothed occupied, for with a slight incline of her head she put her hand on Peregrine's arm to allow him to lead her several steps into the shadows.

‘Thank you for the service you rendered me last night, sir,' she murmured. ‘Naturally we must pretend to have been introduced.'

‘Call me your rescuer incognito, but let me say you were very brave, Miss …?' He ended on an enquiring note and she supplied him with her name, before Peregrine suggested, ‘But we
have
met, Miss Rosington. Do you not recall the terrible snowstorm from which I plucked you and your aunt when your carriage axle broke? Why, you'd have frozen to death had I not been able to provide you with the sanctuary of my equipage.'

Instantly she caught on. ‘It seems you are always on hand to render me assistance, sir. And indeed it was a fine tavern to which you conveyed us while the wheelwright was called. The innkeeper's daughter brought the lightest madeleines I've ever tasted, while the conversation was uncommonly diverting. I don't believed I offered you sufficient thanks for your chivalry; and for your company in general, which I might say was brought into sharp relief by having to endure that of my dreary aunt for the next four hours.'