The Marriage Wager (5 page)

Emma stiffened again. “No. Wait,” she said, struggling to sit up.

Colin wanted her more than he had ever wanted any woman. Something about the combination of sadness and passion he discovered in her answered a deep need that he hadn’t even known he had. “Darling Emma, I don’t think I can,” he replied.

A thrill of shock and apprehension crackled through Emma at these words, and she sat up straight despite his confining embrace. “How do you know my name?” she demanded.

Cursing his own clumsiness, Colin gathered his scattered wits, trying to ignore the urgent demands of his body. What story could he give her? How could he divert her enough to return to the business at hand? But seeing the fear rise again in her dark blue eyes, he could not carry on with the deception. “I guessed your identity,” he admitted. “From the resemblance to your brother.”

“Brother?” she wavered, trying to hang on to the ruins of her anonymity. “I don’t know what you mean, my lord.”

“He called on me this morning,” Colin said gently. “It took a bit of time, but then I began to notice. Your hair is quite distinctive, you know. And though he is not much like you in feature, there are mannerisms which are unmistakable. I got the story from him at last.”

Story! Emma groaned silently. The story of her disgrace. She was truly unmasked now. Her hopes of leading a quiet existence in her own country were shattered. And even worse, somehow, this man knew the full extent of her folly and humiliation. She had wagered everything for a brother who didn’t even know her, and lost.

“I will not speak of it to anyone,” Colin assured her in response to the look on her face.

She didn’t believe him. In her experience, men could never resist boasting of their triumphs. He would tell just one crony over a bottle about Robin Bellingham’s wanton sister and the way she had put herself in his power for the sake of a wager, and then the tale would begin to fly. Robin himself would hear it. Emma flushed crimson. Slipping one sleeve of her gown back onto her shoulder, she said, “Will you give me the notes?”

“Ah. I must explain about those.”

Emma’s hand clenched on her sleeve. “Will you still hold me to this dreadful wager?” she cried.

“No, but you see, I can’t give them to you. I have already—”

“What a fool I am,” Emma burst out. She clenched her hands together in front of her. “A man like you has no honor. I
knew
that. But somehow, I allowed myself to believe. I was lulled by your manner, just like the victims you fleece.” She struck her fists together, not noticing the pain. “I have created a scandal for nothing. Ruined my—”

“If you will allow me to tell you,” put in Colin, raising his voice above hers. “There is no need for this ranting. I—”

“Oh yes, I see,” said Emma bitterly. “Now you will say I have not fulfilled my part in the agreement, despite the fact that you have destroyed all my chances. And if I should meet your demands, there will be yet more after that. You are the lowest form of humanity. You care for nothing but the wager. You have no heart.”

“Like your husband?” he snapped, goaded by her tone and her refusal to listen to him.

Emma’s jaw hardened. “We will not speak of this,” she replied. “It was men like you who ruined him.”

“Oh, indeed? A truly fine specimen he must be. Does he know where you were last night?” Colin taunted. “Did he send you to see what you could get out of me?”

Emma gasped at the insult. “Edward is dead,” she cried. “He was killed a year ago by someone just like you!”

Colin had barely a moment to assimilate this news, before the footman opened the door a crack and said, “A gentleman has called, my lord. I told him it was late and you were occupied—”

“I can hear him shouting through the door, you idiot,” broke in a second voice. “Let me through, damn you!”

Colin saw Emma go still as a statue, her eyes widening into pools of darkness. Instinctively, he jumped to his feet, striding around the sofa and standing behind it so that he shielded her from the doorway. In the next instant, a tall, upright old man pushed into the library and faced him, pounding his ebony cane on the floor for emphasis. “Sir, I expect you know why I am here.”

Colin examined his visitor’s shock of white hair and hard, lined features. Only the fact that Emma was staring at him like a bird at a snake kept him from having the man thrown out. “I haven’t the faintest idea,” he answered.

“I’ve come about my son,” roared the other. “I’ve just heard what he’s been up to. I have ways of keeping tabs on that young jackanapes. He had no business playing with you. I forbade him the tables after his last losses, and I told him I’d cover no more gambling debts.” He pounded the cane on the floor again. “Do you hear me, sir? No more. He’ll have to pay this out of his allowance. I shan’t rescue him another time. Let this be a warning to you not to play with striplings. Though I should think any gentleman would know as much already.”

“Your son and I have already settled the debt,” said Colin icily. “There is no need for you to concern yourself. Indeed, I do not understand why you have done so.” In the background, he heard Emma gasp, and he mentally consigned his infuriating visitor to perdition.

Bellingham glowered. “He hadn’t the money to pay it.”

“He has cleared the debt,” Colin repeated. “I have returned his notes of hand to him.”

A small cry escaped Emma just as her father opened his mouth to reply. Bellingham, goaded, took another step into the room so that he could see and face down this intruder. “This is none of your—” he began, then stopped. His bushy white eyebrows drew together in a terrific scowl. His pale blue eyes bulged. Blood darkened the harsh lines of his face. “You,” he said.

Colin looked from one to the other, and deeply regretted the part he had played in this affair.

“What are you doing here?” shouted Bellingham. “What in blazes have you done with your dress? I suppose you are looking for some new way to disgrace me?”

Emma took a shuddering breath and restored the other sleeve of her gown to its proper place. Though she was very white, she sat straight and faced her father full-on.

“Where’s that scapegrace husband of yours? Deserted you, has he? I expect your money’s gone, then. I hope you don’t imagine that I will support you.”

“No,” said Emma tonelessly.

“You haven’t come back to live in London?” Bellingham looked outraged. “I won’t have it, you know. I told that blackguard Tarrant if I ever saw his face in England again I’d put a bullet through him. And I’m not so old that I can’t do it, either!”

“Edward is dead,” said Emma in the same lifeless voice. She gathered her courage, reminding herself that she was no longer a child, to be intimidated by her father’s bluster. “And I had no intention of seeing you at all. I would rather die than ask you for anything.”

Bellingham glowered at her. Then he looked from her to Wareham. “What are you doing in this house?” he asked.

“I came to speak to Baron St. Mawr about Robin’s notes,” said Emma, and Colin’s betrayal raked her again.

“At this hour? Alone? And with your gown pulled down around your shoulders like a common lightskirt? Don’t try to cozen me, girl!”

Emma swallowed. She wanted to stand and face him, but she was afraid her legs wouldn’t support her.

“What have you sunk to under Tarrant’s influence?” her father jeered. “Are you this man’s mistress? Will you drag our family name still deeper into the mud?”

“I…” Words stuck in Emma’s throat.

“We are old friends,” said Colin smoothly. He couldn’t bear the hunted look on her face. “We met in Europe some time ago.”

“Friends?” Bellingham made the word sound scandalous. “And do you customarily require of your female friends such a state of undress, my lord St. Mawr?”

Emma looked near tears. Colin felt an irresistible urge to protect her.

“I believe, sir, that you have dishonored my daughter,” roared Bellingham. He banged his cane on the floor once again. “What else am I to think, eh? I find her here, half naked. What is your explanation for that?”

“I have nothing to do with you,” cried Emma. “You cast me off. You have no right to—”

“I’ve a family name to think of,” said her father. “The Bellinghams never were touched by scandal until you ran off with that damned Tarrant. I won’t have any more such goings-on.” He turned back to Colin. “What amends do you intend to make, sir?”

Colin had caught the sudden gleam in the old man’s eye and was well aware of the scheme he was hatching. “Do you expect me to marry her?” he asked, curious to see his reaction.

“What?” cried Emma.

“You’ve put her in a compromising position,” said the old man with visible satisfaction. “It would be the honorable thing to do.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Emma.

“It would, wouldn’t it?” Colin answered meditatively. It was an insane notion, he thought. Out of the question, really.

Emma whirled to stare at him. “Have you gone mad?” she said.

“Well, now.” Bellingham began to smile. His free hand rubbed the back of the one clutching his cane. “Baroness St. Mawr,” he added. “Who would have thought it?”

“Wait a moment,” cried Emma. “Both of you. I have no intention of—”

“This is wonderful news,” said her father, growing more jovial by the moment. “Far more than I ever looked for. My dear Emma.”

“I haven’t said that I would—” began Colin.

“I am not your dear Emma,” she snapped. “And I shall certainly not marry St. Mawr. Or anyone else, for that matter.”

Her father chuckled, driving Emma to rigid fury. “Women,” he said to Colin. “Emotional creatures, eh? Part of their charm.”

Colin was not foolish enough to reply.

“So, we’ll consider it settled then,” he went on. “You will be married from Bellingham House, of course.”

“Nothing is settled,” said Emma through clenched teeth. “Didn’t you hear me? I refuse.”

“This is a matter that requires more discussion,” agreed Colin. It was impossible, of course. The antithesis of what was expected of him. Although, as the idea worked in his mind, he started to see certain advantages.

“Of course, of course. I’m sure you’ll make it all up between you,” replied Bellingham, turning toward the door. “Baroness St. Mawr,” he repeated, looking extremely pleased with himself. As if afraid someone might contradict him, he hurried out.

“What the devil do you think you’re doing?” Emma demanded before the door had even shut behind him.

The more he thought of Emma as his wife the more attractive the notion grew, Colin realized. “Offering for you?” he ventured, as if trying out the concept.

Her mouth opened, but no words came out.

He thought about the time before he had met her, when he had looked forward only to an endless round of meaningless duty until the day he died. Emma had brought first curiosity, then laughter, and finally desire back into his life. “Might we not deal very well together?” he wondered, half to himself.

“You cannot be serious.” She seemed stunned.

“From the time we met—”

“Yesterday!” exclaimed Emma.

“Yesterday,” he agreed. “From that time, I have felt a striking interest in you.”

“Interest?” she echoed in a strangled voice.

He nodded, pleased to see that she was getting his drift. “And we have the problem of your presence here.”

“My…?”

He raised his eyebrows, his gaze full of implications about the caresses they had shared.

“How dare you!” exploded Emma.

His brows snapped together. “How dare I offer for you?” He was not accustomed to this sort of reception.

“I am not some mindless object, to be tossed back and forth between you and my father,” she declared.

“That is the way these things are customarily settled,” he pointed out.

“These…!” Briefly, Emma was speechless. “Am I a blushing debutante?” she cried. “Are you a young man in need of a parent’s advice?”

“My point exactly,” agreed Colin. “We are well matched in that.”

“We are most ill matched,” contradicted Emma. “I will not be shackled to another gamester.”

“I gave your brother’s notes back to him,” Colin pointed out. “I never intended to demand payment. I wouldn’t have played with him at all, but he made it such a point of honor that—”

“And you allowed me to believe,” said Emma, nearly choking on her rage, “that you
would
demand it. You deceived me in an effort to lure me into your bed!”

“You deceived me as well,” he argued. “You never mentioned a husband.”

“What had that to do with Robin’s debt?” she cried. “There was no reason for me to tell you anything.”

“I think—”

“Think whatever you like,” she cried, her brain whirling. “I shall certainly not marry you. The idea is completely ridiculous.” For some reason, she was about to burst into tears. She could not bear for him to see that. In a flurry of ruffled skirts, she fled the room, wrenching open the great front door and careening down the steps into the street. She had to get away, to be alone and sort out her hopelessly jumbled feelings. And when the Baron St. Mawr had an opportunity to do the same, Emma thought, he would most certainly regret his rash proposal.

Colin was not far behind her, but Emma managed to catch a hansom cab just down the street and escape into the London traffic. Realizing that he still had no idea how to find her again, Colin stood in the middle of the pavement and cursed, loudly and creatively. “That’s it, guv,” said a workman passing by. “Give ’em ’ell.”

When Colin Wareham descended to breakfast two days later, he was once again in a foul humor. Oblivious to the worried looks being exchanged by his staff, he rejected the offer of sausages with revulsion. He crumbled bread on his plate as if he quite enjoyed destroying it and reduced his napkin to a crushed ball of linen on the floor, which the footman stepped around as carefully as if it contained explosives. Colin had found no clue as to where Emma might be staying in London. Barbara Rampling did not know, and discreet inquiries among habitués of her house had turned up nothing. He felt a compelling need to speak to Emma, a sense that a stroke of fortune was slipping away, and yet he had no way to find her. It was a damnable situation.

When he did not find the
Morning
Post
folded beside his plate as usual, Colin rang the bell with uncharacteristic force. Very promptly, his valet Reddings appeared, laid the newspaper near his hand, and lingered to pour his master a fresh cup of coffee. This was an odd enough occurrence for Wareham to raise his eyebrows at the man.

“Very interesting news in the paper this morning, my lord,” said the valet stiffly.

“Is there?” Colin examined the front page. “Something from the congress?” In the aftermath of Napoleon’s defeat, the nations of Europe were meeting at a great congress in Vienna, and he had been following events with interest. After all his years of fighting the little Corsican, he felt he had some stake in what became of his empire.

“No, my lord,” replied Reddings in a very strange tone.

Colin examined him irritably. Their years of hard campaigning together had formed a relationship far closer than the common master-servant bond. Colin had no trouble interpreting the small man’s compressed lips and half lowered eyelids. It was plain that he had somehow offended Reddings, or at least that Reddings thought he had. And yet the valet had seemed just as usual while helping Colin dress not half an hour before. “What is the matter?” he asked.

“Nothing, I’m sure, my lord,” said Reddings. But he remained standing beside the table, far from his regular orbit at this time of day.

“Something about this news in the paper?” asked Colin, not fooled. “What the deuce is it?”

“I’m sure you have no obligation to inform me—that is, the household staff—of any of your plans, my lord,” Reddings burst out. “But when you are contemplating such a change in all our situations, I should think you might communicate it yourself.” He stood very upright, gazing at the far wall with an intensity that the bland painting hanging there clearly did not deserve.

“Change?” said Colin, mystified. He looked down at the newspaper, wondering what in blazes the man could be talking about.

Reddings stiffened further. “Indeed, my lord. Perhaps you do not realize what a large change it will be.”

“What will be? You’re making no sense, man.”

The valet looked reproachful. Without speaking, he opened the newspaper to the announcements page and pointed to one particular item. Irritated, Colin read it. “Oh, lord,” he said.

“A new mistress always makes changes,” said Reddings. “Cook has become convinced she will be replaced by a Frenchman, and the housemaids—” Seeing Wareham’s scowl, he broke off.

“Bellingham,” exploded Colin. “This is his doing.” He reread the announcement of his engagement to Lady Emma Tarrant, daughter of the honorable George Bellingham. The old devil had had the inconceivable gall to add a wedding date only two weeks away. “Lord,” he said again. Emma would be furious. Any hopes of a calm discussion of their situation were lost.

“Is the item incorrect, my lord?” wondered Reddings, scanning his face. He had been with his lordship through the rigors of battle, through the stretches of boredom and high jinks that came between the bouts of fighting, through the unsettling melancholy of recent days, and he had never seen him as exercised as this. “Is something wrong?”

But Colin had been galvanized by a sudden thought. “My God, my mother!” he exclaimed, rising from the table so abruptly that he nearly overset his chair. “Order my horse saddled at once. I’m going out.”

“Certainly, my lord.” Rampant curiosity had replaced Reddings’ stiffness. “May I inquire where?”

“Where no one will find me until I set this straight,” was the harassed reply. “Hurry, man.”

***

On the other side of London, Emma had no opportunity to go down to breakfast. Arabella Tarrant burst into her bedchamber with only the most cursory of knocks before she was even finished dressing. “Oh, my dear!” the older woman cried. “So secretive. And the way you pretended to reject any thought of marriage. You deceived me completely. But I think you might have said something when he actually made an offer. This is beyond anything!”

Emma turned from the dressing table, her hands frozen in the act of putting up her pale hair. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“So very rich!” exclaimed Arabella, clasping her hands on her meager bosom. Her dress this morning was an alarming shade of puce. “You will never want for
anything
.” She looked quite wistful. “And I understand he is quite handsome as well.”

“What are you talking about?” demanded Emma, but she had a sinking feeling that she knew.

“Why, the announcement of your engagement. In the
Morning
Post
. Didn’t they tell you it would be in today?”

“Where is it?” said Emma through clenched teeth.

Arabella happily fetched the newspaper. As Emma read the brief lines, the older woman kept up a stream of chatter about bride clothes and furnishings and the latest fashion in barouches, as gleeful as if it were her own marriage she was anticipating. Emma let the paper drop. She could not believe Wareham would have inserted this notice after the things she had said to him. It was insufferable, an unforgivable trampling on all her rights and wishes. The action said, quite plainly, that her opinions meant nothing. “Father,” she concluded. “Damn him!”

“Emma!”

“He cares
nothing
about me,” she said vehemently. “I don’t believe he ever did. It is all appearances and what people will say and his position as the second son of an earl. I’m sick to death of it!” She threw the newspaper onto the floor and then kicked at it. When the result was unsatisfying, she kicked a stray shoe across the room. It bounced off the opposite wall with a loud thump. “Men think they can do as they please with us,” she added. “But I’ll give them all a surprise. I’ll leave today.” She turned back to the mirror to finish dressing her hair.

“Leave?” The other woman gaped at her.

“We will catch the boat to France tonight,” Emma declared.

She had been up most of the night worrying over how to remedy the wretched tangle she had made of things here. Her means of support was gone. Gaming was bad enough, but to do it in a cloud of whispers about her past and present indiscretions was an unbearable prospect. And the renewed contact with her family, which she had never wanted, could only bring discord and pain. She had made up her mind that she must leave England again. She and Ferik would return to the Continent, to living in small, shabby hotels, subsisting on the money she won in grubby gaming houses. She felt a wave of reluctance—how she had hated it!—and ruthlessly suppressed it. It was the only choice. She did not understand what Colin Wareham was playing at, what quixotic mixture of obligation and perversity was driving him. But this newspaper notice was the last straw—she would not be forced on any man. “I was going anyway. I will simply leave a bit sooner.”

Arabella had regained the use of her voice. “But… but what about St. Mawr?” she said incredulously. “You’re
deserting
him? One of the greatest catches in England?”

Against her will, Emma remembered his hands on her skin, the look in his eyes when he touched her. Tightening her jaw, she pushed the memories away. “Baron St. Mawr may pity me,” she said. “Or he may be a victim of unsteady humors. I do not know. But I
am
certain that he was as surprised to see that notice as I was.” And extremely sorry for his impetuous words, Emma added to herself. That would teach him to give in to passing impulses.

“But, my dear.” Arabella tugged at her sleeve to emphasize her point. “The announcement has appeared. Everyone will have seen it. He can’t cry off if you hold him to it.”

“I would never do such a thing,” said Emma, revolted.

“You would not have to
do
anything. You could simply go ahead with the arrangements as if—”

“No.” She lifted her chin. Her life in recent years had deprived her of many things, but not of her self-respect. “I do not wish to be married, in any case, Aunt. As I have said, I have no great opinion of the state.”

“But this would be totally different,” cried Arabella. “You would be a baroness, and rich. You would be a figure of influence in the
haut
ton
. You would be invited everywhere and…”

Emma imagined the storm of gossip that must even now be sweeping the
ton
. “Impossible,” she murmured. She turned to go. “I must tell Ferik to begin packing up our things,” she said. “My mind is made up.”

Arabella stood staring at the door long after Emma had disappeared through it. She simply could not comprehend Emma’s position. Given any chance to reenter society, Arabella would have snatched it without a thought of consequences. To throw away the opportunity to marry into a fortune and a title seemed to her an act of madness. And not only for Emma. For if her young relative did marry St. Mawr, Arabella would have a connection to him as well, and who knew what chances for an escape from her current dreary existence?

A mulish expression settled over Arabella’s pale features. She was not going to sit by and see her chances ruined once again. She had been helpless when her wretched husband had run off—taken by surprise and thrown into confusion. But matters were quite different now. She would not let this man—and all he might do for her—slip through her fingers. Going to her own chamber, Arabella sat at the writing desk and spent twenty minutes chewing on a quill pen and composing a note to Baron St. Mawr. When she was finished, she folded and sealed it, then sent it off with strict orders that it be delivered at once, no matter where the baron might be. Finally, she gave her maid certain instructions, and then retired to await events.

***

An unearthly shriek rang out in the opulent bedchamber of Catherine, present Baroness St. Mawr. The shattering sound brought her dresser, her butler, two housemaids, and a footman at a dead run and left them jostling one another in her bedroom doorway in a most undignified manner. The dresser, a superior female with extraordinarily sharp elbows, won through first. “My lady?” she said, straightening her cap and trying not to pant from exertion.

“My salts!” cried the baroness, clutching her throat. “Brandy. Send for the doctor. Send for my daughter.”

As the large group of servants dispersed to fulfill these requests, their mistress continued to recline on her bed in a welter of pink silk pillows. A discarded breakfast tray, a hand mirror, and a scattering of morning mail lay around her. The
Morning
Post
was a crumpled mass on the carpet, as if she had wadded it up and thrown it there.

Though past fifty, Colin Wareham’s mother was still very attractive. Her son had inherited his dark hair and violet eyes from her. His size, and the stern lines of his features, had come from his father, however. Her face was much softer. Indeed, her entire figure was gently rounded without being in the least fat. She had small, plump hands and cheeks like a squirrel. The delightful cupid’s bow of her mouth had excited many young gentlemen to raptures thirty years ago. Everything about her appearance encouraged observers to conclude that she was a placid, pleasant little person whose deepest thoughts would be devoted to gossip, shopping, and dress. In short, she was a total and utter deception. For the baroness was a sharp, determined, and decisive woman who managed her own investments, took a keen interest in politics, and terrorized much of her family with her acerbic opinions and interference in their lives.

Her servants were well aware of her true nature, and did her bidding speedily and efficiently. In a very few minutes, the respected physician entrusted with the baroness’s health was knocking at the front door, and her daughter, Caroline, Countess Wrotham, was stepping into her fashionable barouche to go and call upon her mother.

“Have you seen it?” the baroness cried as soon as her daughter appeared.

“What, Mother? Are you ill? The footman said you had taken a fit.”

“The
Morning
Post
,” was the reply, emphasized by a dramatic gesture toward the crumpled newspaper on the carpet.

“I haven’t yet had time to read it. The nursery was in an uproar this morning, and I have had to—”

“Well, do so,” snapped her mother, abandoning her languishing pose and brushing the doctor aside.

Sighing, Caroline went to retrieve the paper. “Was there something in particular that you…?” she began as she smoothed it out.

“Indeed! Look at the engagements.”

Obediently, Caroline leafed through the pages until she came to the announcements. Her expression impatient, she started to read. “The Merton chit caught Harriman,” she commented. “I didn’t think she would. Oh, Amelia Franklin is engaged. I am so glad. She…” Caroline’s jaw dropped.

“Now you see,” said her mother triumphantly.

“Colin?”

Having gotten the effect she wanted, the baroness waved her servants and the doctor away. “Go, go. I am perfectly all right.”

With a sigh, but no surprise, the doctor packed up his bag and departed. The housemaids scattered. Only my lady’s dresser, experienced in the ways of her mistress, waited behind. Her prescience was rewarded when the baroness said, “Bring the blue merino. I’m going out in a little while.” With a small, tight smile, the dresser went to prepare her ensemble.

“What can this mean?” asked Caroline when they were alone.

Her mother looked at her. Even more than Colin, her daughter resembled the late baron. She had the same high slanting cheekbones and cleft chin, along with her father’s auburn hair and pale blue eyes. Even the spray of freckles, which she was continually trying to eradicate with exotic lotions, was exactly like his. She ought to have been a formidable woman. But for some reason, she had not inherited any of her parents’ keen intellect or incisive manner. She looked impressive, but she was simply a nice young woman wrapped up in her growing family, with an annoying tendency to dither under pressure.