A Wedding Wager (7 page)

Serena and her maid had walked the short distance to Bruton Street from Pickering Place, and as they turned onto Berkeley Square, Sebastian stepped away from the railings of the garden where he had been waiting, hoping she would be on foot. “Lady Serena.” He bowed with a flourish of his hat. “May I escort you?”

“I already have an escort, sir, as you can see.” She indicated her maid, standing several paces behind her.

His eyes narrowed. “Nevertheless, it would be my pleasure, ma’am.”

“It would not be mine, sir.” Her heart was beating ridiculously fast despite the coolness of her tone. She had to keep him at arm’s length, had to maintain the coldness that had informed her dismissal of him three years past. Nothing had changed. And yet she could see that Sebastian had changed. The youthful softness, the almost gullible idealism that had allowed her to crush him as she had done, was missing now, and she sensed that he could not be so easily dismissed now. It
should have alarmed her, but, perversely, it gave her a tiny thrill of excitement.
To be instantly banished.

His expression hardened, but he spoke softly so that only she could hear. “Come now, Serena, you know as well as I that we must have this out. We can’t live in the same four square miles and never bump into each other. It’s not realistic, and I, for one, am not prepared to live every day dreading that I might run into you and have to endure this ridiculous pantomime.”

He was right, of course. And in truth, it would be a relief to clear the ground, so that they could meet as civil acquaintances. She answered as softly. “Are you still lodging in Stratton Street?”

“Yes.”

“I will write to you. There is somewhere we can meet in private.” Then she dropped a curtsy, raising her voice. “Another time, sir. Good day to you.”

“Ma’am.” He bowed as she swept past him, her maid scurrying in her wake.

Sebastian watched her go, the long, energetic stride he remembered so well. One of the things he had loved most about her was her impatience with feminine conventions. Not for Serena the appearance of frailty, the delicately hinted weaknesses, the inability to totter more than a few yards on dainty little feet in satin slippers. Serena cared not a jot for those who considered women unappealing if they thought for themselves, had political opinions, spoke their minds. Her father, an eccentric Scottish earl, had encouraged an unconventional upbringing
for his only child, and his influence on Serena had been more lasting and important than her mother’s more orthodox beliefs. Sebastian had loved the vigorous to-and-fro of their discussions, the frequent arguments that had always ended the same way … in a passionate tangle between the sheets.

His body stirred as the memories flooded back. But it was over. There was nothing between them now but the arid wasteland of a memory turned sour. They simply had to find a way to coexist as civil but distant acquaintances in the same four square miles of the city. He walked off towards Upper Brook Street, hoping that Jasper would be at home. For some reason, he needed the bracing presence of his elder brother’s somewhat caustically humorous view of the world.

Serena walked quickly back to Pickering Place. The butler opened the door to her knock, and she entered the hall, automatically looking around to check that the salons were being prepared for that evening’s gaming. In the daytime, the house appeared like any grand gentleman’s residence. The transformation came as darkness fell.

The tables were laid in the dining salon; the small, private card room on the opposite side of the hall, which was reserved for the deadly serious games among fierce competitors, was prepared, the baize table brushed so not a hint of lint or dust could impede the fall of the
dice, new packs of card waiting to be cut, fresh candles on every surface, the decanters fully charged.

Satisfied, Serena hurried upstairs. The grand salon was still being prepared, but everything looked as it should. She gave a few instructions for the placement of candles and had turned to go to her own bedchamber in the opposite wing when the door to the library opened and her stepfather emerged. “Thought I heard your voice, Serena. Come in here. Burford is here, wants to wish you good afternoon.” He rubbed his hands together in genial fashion, but there was an edge to his voice and a hard glitter in the gaze he bent upon his stepdaughter.

Serena loathed the Earl of Burford. But she knew he held the mortgage on the house on Pickering Street; it had been the only way the general had been able to set himself up in such style. The assumption was that the house would pay for itself in no time, and the mortgage could be paid off in no more than two years. Serena had always thought such optimism misplaced, but her opinion had been neither offered nor asked for.

“I’m just going to take off my hat and pelisse, sir.” She moved towards the corridor.

“You can do that later. Burford wishes to see you.” The general put a restraining hand on her arm, and the grip was firm enough to be painful.

Serena jerked her arm free. “Very well. But I would think I could make his lordship more welcome if I was
not in my street clothes.” She stalked past her stepfather into the library.

The Earl of Burford was a widower in his late fifties. A thick mane of silver hair crowned a distinguished, leonine head. His eyes were disconcerting; so light as to be almost colorless, they were impenetrable, giving no indication of his thoughts or emotions. His complexion usually bore the roseate bloom of a man well into his burgundy, and this afternoon was no exception.

Serena curtsied from the doorway. “Good day, my lord.”

“Ah, the lovely Serena. Come close, my dear.” He beckoned her. “Let me look at you. I haven’t see you since Brussels.”

Serena, aware of her stepfather close behind her, had no choice but to move farther into the library. “When did you arrive in London, my lord?”

“A week ago, but I had matters to attend to in the country.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Tiresome business, troublesome tenants, nothing to interest your pretty little head.” He put up his quizzing glass and examined Serena with an unmistakably proprietorial leer that made her scalp crawl.

“How tedious for you, my lord,” she responded blandly as she stepped aside, out of his immediate line of vision, and moved to the sideboard. “May I refill your glass?”

“Indeed, you may.” He watched her closely as she
returned with the decanter. She filled his glass carefully, aware of those strange, lightless eyes fixed upon her.

“Now, if you will excuse me, I must take off my hat and pelisse.” Adroitly, she stepped past her stepfather, curtsied briefly to the earl, and slipped from the room, closing the door firmly behind her.

Outside in the hall, she couldn’t help a reflexive shudder. Burford disturbed her, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Her stepfather fawned on him, behaved as if they were the best of friends, and yet Serena knew that the general was more than a little afraid of the earl. Of course, the latter held the power of the creditor over him.

She hurried down the corridor to her own apartments. Once there, she closed the door and turned the key in the lock. It was an automatic gesture. She had learned the hard way about leaving her door unlocked under her stepfather’s roof.

A fire burned a cheerful welcome in the grate in her boudoir, and, having cast aside her outer garments, she sat down in a low chair beside the fireplace, stretching her feet in their elegant half-boots to the andirons, and contemplated the events of the afternoon.

It was an extraordinary coincidence that Sebastian should have come to Abigail’s rescue in such fashion and at such a moment, but she supposed that their own reunion would have happened somewhere at some point, when her stepfather was not around to deflect it. Sebastian was right; they couldn’t live in the same few
square miles and not run into each other, even if she was generally barred from the drawing rooms that Sebastian would frequent. It struck her now as unutterably stupid of her to have imagined that such a meeting would not occur. She had somehow believed she could live in London, run her faro bank, make her own plans, and cast into outer darkness all memory of that passionate idyll three years earlier.

But of course, she couldn’t. The memories lived deep within her, an essential part of her. They framed her every thought for the future, her every expectation of how life should be. And she couldn’t endure dwelling on them when compared with the hopeless misery of her present existence.

Restless now, she got up from her chair and paced from window to door and back. Her existence was miserable, but it was
not
hopeless. Soon she would have enough funds of her own to make her escape. Every morning, she did the previous night’s accounts, cleverly diverting a little here, a little there. It all mounted up, and General Sir George Heyward, greedy though he was, was more than happy to leave such tedious work to his stepdaughter. He would not acknowledge that she was infinitely better at such intellectual intricacies than he, instead maintaining the useful fiction that women were trained to manage household accounts. Serena did not disabuse him.

He had robbed her of her mother’s jointure, a healthy sum that should have come to her when she attained
her majority. Instead, it had mysteriously disappeared. At first, she had blamed her mother’s gullibility, her inability to see the bad in anyone, but in her heart, she knew that Lady Elinor had lived in terror of her second husband. She would not have confronted him about anything, even if it meant leaving her daughter destitute and at the general’s mercy.

Serena ceased her pacing. Dwelling upon such bitter memories achieved nothing. Action was the only way to banish them. She put on her pelisse and hat again and hurried from her room, using the back stairs to avoid coming across her stepfather. The long case clock in the hall struck four as she crossed to the front door. The house would not open for business for another four hours.

Flanagan, the butler whom the general had inherited from Serena’s mother, appeared from the kitchen regions or, rather, materialized as he always did whenever Serena was in the vicinity. “Are you going out again, Lady Serena?” Disapproval was apparent in his voice.

“Just to St. James’s Place, Flanagan. A mere step.”

“Unescorted, my lady?”

“Yes, Flanagan. I will barely be out of sight of the house.” She offered him a cajoling smile. “You’re a veritable mother hen, Flanagan. I love you for it, but believe me, ’tis not in the least necessary.”

“If you say so, my lady.” He held the door for her. “And if the general should inquire…?”

“Tell him I am resting in my chamber. I have the
headache.” She stepped out onto the top step. “I’ll be less than half an hour.” The door closed behind her, and she walked quickly in the direction of St. James’s Street.

Sebastian arrived at the Blackwater mansion in Upper Brook Street just as his brother was coming down the street from the opposite direction. Sebastian paused at the foot of the steps to the front door, waiting for Jasper.

“Seb, this is a surprise. Was I expecting you?” Jasper greeted his brother with a wave as he approached.

“Not unless you have second sight,” Sebastian declared, grinning. “If ’tis a bad time, I’ll come back later.”

Jasper’s quick scrutiny told him more about his brother’s frame of mind than Sebastian realized. Jasper had been looking out for his younger siblings since they were toddlers, and very little escaped his notice. They probably would have been surprised at how much of the ins and outs of their lives was known to their brother. Now he clapped his younger brother on the shoulder in companionable greeting, saying, “Not a bit of it. Come in. I’m always delighted to see you, as you well know.” He ushered him up the steps to the door. “Where’s Perry?”

“We’re not joined at the hip, you know, Jasper.” Sebastian waited as his brother fitted his key in the lock.

“You were as children,” Jasper responded, pushing
the door wide. “One only ever had to look for one of you, the other was sure to be close by.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Sebastian conceded. It was certainly a fact that he and his twin had been inseparable as children. He glanced around the hall. “Is the fair Clarissa at home?”