Knaves' Wager (2 page)

Mr. Wyndhurst had begun as a muddy, injured mass requiring a great finny of activity. Thus, beyond noting the rare colour of his eyes, she'd not had time to study him before. Now, washed and combed by her servants, he commanded attention.

His hair was black, curly, and luxuriant. The green eyes were fringed with thick black lashes. Their heavy-lidded look, the faint lines at the corners, and the sensual mouth intimated a depraved character. Mrs. Davenant was certain, moreover, that he had been looking down his long, straight nose at everyone his entire life. The strong cheekbones… the stubborn chin… everything about his hard, chiseled features bespoke arrogance. He was pale and ill, yet his entire frame exuded pure masculine power, utter self-assurance. He was devastatingly handsome. Regrettably
_s
he seemed fully aware of this circumstance. He might have been the very model of a bored, dissolute scoundrel.

Lilith set the tray down on Ms lap and stepped back, "You can feed yourself, I trust?" she asked politely.

He eyed the steaming broth with a pained expression.

"If I could," he said, "I should also have the strength to hurl this mess out of window. Chicken broth? How could you?" ha asked in aggrieved tones. "I thought Athena was wise and just, but she enters the room of a dying man only to poison him, Chicken broth," he repeated, shaking Ms head sadly, "Is it come to this? Then fall, Caesar!" He sank back against the pillows, his eyes closed.

"In your state, you will be unable to digest anything more substantial," said the widow, unmoved.

"Then bring me wine, oh wise and beautiful immortal." he murmured. He cocked one eye open and added, "Unless you've got some ambrosia about. Ambrosia will do as well."

"It will not do, Mr. Wyndhurst." Lilith drew a chair close to the bed, sat down, and took up spoon and bowl. "If you cannot feed yourself, I shall feed you — and you will swallow every last drop. You must do so sooner or later, or you will starve to death."

"A prospect too heartbreaking, I agree."

"If I had meant to let you die, I might have done so more easily by simply leaving you where you were, instead of inconveniencing myself or my servants." With the ease of long practice, she administered the first spoonful.

The submissive air Mr. Wyndhurst abruptly assumed was undermined by the gleam of amusement in his eyes.

"You see?" she said, ignoring the mockery she saw there. "It is not as nasty as you thought."

"It is every bit as nasty," he answered after swallowing another spoonful, "but I dare not combat the goddess of wisdom. If, on the other hand, you could contrive to be Aphrodite — and I'm sure you could, if you liked — "

"I do not like, sir. I did not come to flirt with you."

"Did you not?" He appeared astonished. "Are you quite certain?"

"Quite."

Mr. Wyndhurst spent some minutes mulling this over while Lilith continued feeding him.

"I understand," he said at last. "When you found me I must have been a most repellent sight. Naturally, you could not know what lay beneath the grime your servant so conscientiously — painfully so, I must add — removed."

He
was
vain, Lilith thought contemptuously. Aloud she said, "I am sorry if Harris was not gentle with you. He is more accustomed to grooming horses."

"No wonder my hide is raw. It is a miracle he did not try to brush my — "

"There are but a few spoonfuls left," Lilith hastily interjected. "You had best finish while it is still hot."

Though he accepted the remaining broth meekly enough, there was no meekness in his steady scrutiny or her face, nor in the occasional glances he dropped elsewhere, He was sizing her up, Lilith knew. Well, if he had any intelligence at all, he must realise he wasted his time. All the same, she was edgy. When at last the bowl was empty, she rose.

"Now I hope you will get some rest," she said as she took up the tray,

"I'm afraid that's not possible," He slumped back among the pillows once more. "Your company has been far too exciting for a sick man. You should not have agitated me so. I shall not sleep a wink."

"I fed you one small bowl of chicken broth," Lilith said with a touch of impatience.

"It was not what you did but how you looked when you did it. Such resolution in the face of ingratitude. Such militant charity." He smiled lazily, "And such eyes, Athena."

"Indeed, One on either side of my nose. A matching set, quite common in the human countenance."

"The Hellespont in a summer storm."

"Blue. A common colour among the English." She moved to the door.

"Really? They seem most uncommon to me. Perhaps you are light — but I cannot be certain unless you come closer."

"You are short-sighted, Mr. Wyndhurst?" she asked as she opened the door. "Then it is no wonder you drove your curricle into a ditch, Perhaps in future you will remember to don your spectacles."

She heard a low crack of laughter as the door closed behind her.

To Cecily's eager enquiries during dinner, her aunt offered depressingly unsatisfactory answers. Yes, Mr, Wyndhurst was well-looking enough, she noted without enthusiasm. He was also shockingly ill-behaved.

"Oh, Aunt, did he try to flirt with you? I was sure he would. He had that look about him."

"A look?" Emma asked with a smile. "You discerned a look under his impenetrable coating of mud?"

"He had the devil in his eyes," Cecily said. "I saw him open them when he thought no one was looking. He reminded me of Papa's prize stallion. The naughtiest, most deceitful, ill-mannered beast you ever saw. But when he moves, he is so graceful that one is persuaded he must have wings. Like a bad, beautiful angel."

Lilith put down her fork. "Whatever Mr. Wyndhurst may be, tending to him has been altogether wearing. I am not decided what to do tomorrow. We cannot leave him here, yet I cannot subject my servants to another night of sleeping in the tap-room — or wherever it is the poor creatures will lay their heads. I should have asked his destination. If it were near enough, we might have sent word."

"You've done all you can for one day," said Emma. "The decision can wait until tomorrow, when you're rested." She smiled ruefully. "At least I hope you'll be rested. I do think you should let me share a bed with Cecily. Having done by far the most work, you have earned the most comfort." She turned to Cecily. "I promise not to snore."

"Pray snore all you like, ma'am," Cecily answered with a grin. "I am a prodigious sound sleeper."

Though she was eventually persuaded — thanks to Cecily's threats to sleep on the floor — to accept Mrs. Wellwicke's offer, Lilith was wakeful long after her companions had fallen asleep.

She had no sooner thrust the obnoxious Mr. Wyndhurst from her mind than another gentleman pushed his way in: Sir Thomas Bexley, her erstwhile friend and, of late, patient suitor. His recent letters indicated he meant to repeat his offer of marriage in the very near future. Though her feelings had not changed since the last time, it seemed her answer must.

Poverty did not frighten Mrs. Davenant. She was disciplined enough to live frugally. She need not and would not in any case accept the charity of Charles's family. Unfortunately, poverty touched not only herself. Without funds, she could be of no help to her nieces.

She lay staring at the ceiling. The prospect of marriage was repugnant to her. There were reasons, but perhaps these were paltry. She would not be miserable with Thomas. He admired and respected her, and would exert himself to make her happy. Their tastes and personalities suited.

No, she could not be so self-centred as to reject marriage to a perfectly worthy gentleman — not when the consequence was a lifetime of wretchedness for those beautiful, fresh, innocent girls. Cecily, for instance, to be married to that repellent sot, Lord Evershot — or to that obese young lecher, Mr. Crawbred.

It was always the same: whatever wealthy and sufficiently well-born mate was handiest would do. Her in-laws took greater care in mating their precious horses. The children — whom they produced in such shocking abundance — they only wanted off their hands.

Well, it would not be, she told herself. Aunt Lilith would look after them: Cecily now, Diana next year… Emily next… and Barbara after… then it would not be long before Charlotte's girls came of age… and the eldest nephew, Edward, could do with some guidance — if he'd stand for it.

Thus, counting her beloved nieces and nephews instead of sheep, Mrs. Davenant finally fell asleep.

2

Despite inadequate rest, Mrs. Davenant was up and about early the following morning. She'd scarcely quit her room when Cecily's groom, Harris, who'd dutifully looked in on Mr. Wyndhurst, informed her the man had vanished.

The innkeeper expanded upon the news, "They came for him early," he told the widow. "Seems his lordship's relations were expecting him and sent someone to look when he didn't appear. Must have found the smashed rig and alerted the family because — "

"His lordship?" Lilith interrupted.

"His lordship the Marquess of Brandon, ma'am. On his way to Ms cousin's. Lord Belbridge. that is."

His patron's countenance grew stony.

The innkeeper went on quickly, "They came for him — the Earl of Belbridge himself and a pack of servants. As I said, it was early — maybe an hour or more before cock-crow — and Lord Brandon was very particular that we wasn't to disturb you about it. He said to thank you for your kindness and apologise for his hasty leave-taking. I think that was how he put: it," the landlord said with a frown. "Anyhow, he paid your shot, ma'am. Said it was the least he could do in return for all the — What was it he said? He laid such a stress on it, the word — ah, the
inconvenience
."

After uttering a few cold words of acknowledgement, Mrs. Davenant turned away, her heart pounding with indignation. The Marquess of Brandon, of all people. Her servants had braved the cold, filthy storm and the muck of the ditch, risking pneumonia. They had spent the night on floors — when they might have slept comfortably, warm and dry in their proper beds in her London town house. All this they had endured for the most foul libertine who had ever trod his polluted step upon the earth.

With her own hands she'd fed the man who had half killed her husband — for was it not Brandon who had mercilessly led Charles on an insatiable pursuit of the lowest sort of pleasure? Finally, when her husband was too ill for pleasure any more, this so-called friend had released what was left of him. Then Charles was hers at last — hers to watch nearly two years, while he crept slowly and painfully to his grave. Not once in all that long, weary time had this bosom bow deigned to visit him. A letter or two from abroad was all. Then, one curt, condescending note of condolence, two months after the funeral.

Now Brandon patronisingly threw a few pieces of gold her way — when she owed him thousands. She would pay him, Lilith vowed. She would sell the very clothes from her back if necessary. She would not be in his debt, not for so much as a farthing.

Mrs. Davenant stood staring at a small, poorly executed hunting print until she had collected herself. Then she returned to her travelling companions to break the news regarding their patient and urge them to a speedy departure.

She fumed inwardly the entire distance to London. Outwardly, she was as coolly poised and unapproachable as ever.

Even Cecily was eventually daunted in her efforts to penetrate her aunt's reserve. Questions about the Marquess of Brandon elicited only warnings: he was precisely the sort of man young ladies must scrupulously avoid; he had not been so near death as he pretended; if he could deceive an experienced physician, what hope was there for an innocent young girl — and so on. Cecily would have preferred to be told what she didn't already know.

As Mrs. Davenant's carriage was entering London, the subject of her disapprobation was reclining upon a richly upholstered sofa in the cavernous drawing room of a massive country house many miles away. He was being wearied half to death listening — or trying not to listen — to his cousin's litany of woes.

Julian Vincent Wyndhurst St. Maur, Baron St. Maur, Viscount Benthame, Earl of Stryte, Marquess of Brandon, was a trifle tetchy this afternoon. He was affronted by the behaviour of the chill he'd contracted en route to Ostend. He had given it the cut direct. The ailment, instead of humbly taking itself off, had only fastened itself more firmly — and had apparently gathered equally boorish associates.

Though Lord Brandon was not so weak and ill as he had feigned for Mrs. Davenant's benefit, he was scarcely well. At the moment, he wished he had remained in bed. His inconsiderate cousin might have respected his peace then, instead of pacing agitatedly upon the thick Axminster carpet in a manner viciously calculated to bring on
mal de mer
.

"Do me the kindness, George, to sit down," Lord Brandon said at last. "That constant to and fro raises the very devil with my innards."

Lord Belbridge promptly flopped down upon the sofa by his cousin's feet. George was a rather stout fellow. The jolt of his heavy frame on the sofa cushions set off a wave of nausea.

"Damn," said Lord Brandon with a grimace.

"Sorry, Julian. Keep forgettin' you're ailin'. But I'm half out of my wits, what with Mother at me the livelong day — or goin' off in hysterics when she ain't. Even Ellen's overset — though it's the children she worries for, and how they're to hold up their heads- — "

"Being attached in the customary way to their necks, I expect their heads will contrive to keep from tumbling off. Really. George, one would think no man had ever kept a mistress before."

"If he were only keepin' her, what should any of us cars?

But he's been
livin'
with her — near two years now."

"Of course Robert is living with her. You keep him on a short allowance. He cannot afford two sets of lodgings, now, can he?"

George's jaw set obstinately. "Well, I ain't goin' to give him any more. He spends every farthin' on
her
."

"I see. You would prefer your brother spent his vast sums upon drink or hazard, I suppose. Come, George, you are a man of the world. As I recollect, there was a ballet dancer or two enlivening your salad days while she lightened your purse."