To Wager with Love (Girls Who Dare Book 5)

by Emma V. Leech

  “Jerry,” she said, the disappointment in the sound of his name all too clear. She should get used to that, he supposed. He’d always be a disappointment to her if she looked at him like he’d hung the moon.

  “No,” he said, trying to keep the word soft, as gentle as he could make it when frustration and desire were simmering beneath his skin like he was boiling in a cauldron, the witch’s brew that Bonnie seemed to stir in his blood fighting to control him. “We can’t, Bonnie. No.”

  “We could,” she persisted, and he wanted to curse her for putting temptation in his way. “I wouldn’t…”

  “No!” He almost shouted the word, his fists clenched against the desire to fling himself to the ground beside her and take everything she was offering him.

  “No,” she repeated, and he hated the sound of it, the way it sounded so defeated, as though she’d known it would be the answer.

  Of course she’d known, he raged to himself. He’d told her so, hadn’t he, told her there was no future for her with him. He had no intention of marrying, not for a long, long, time at any rate. Why on earth would he tie himself down with a wife and children when his life was so agreeable? He need only stay out of trouble and Jasper wouldn’t nag him to settle down, not for a good few years at least.

  He dried himself off as best he could, discarding his wet drawers for now. He’d have to retrieve them another time before they scandalised some visitor or another, or his mother, heaven forbid. By the time he turned around Bonnie was dressed too. He caught her eye and let out a breath, smiling at her. If he wasn’t so dashed fond of her this wouldn’t be so hard, but he was. He did love her, but not in the way she wanted him too. He’d been too much the wide-eyed innocent in his youth, giving his heart away at the drop of a hat and making a blasted fool of himself. Never again. He’d sworn to his brother and himself, never again, and he’d meant it.

  “We’re friends, Bonnie,” he said, his voice soft. “Don’t spoil it.”

  She nodded and flashed him a grin which he didn’t believe because it didn’t reach her eyes and that unpleasant ache took up residence in his chest again.

  “Come along, you nuisance of a female,” he said, holding out a hand to her. “We’d best find a way to smuggle you into the house, again,” he added, tsking at her. “You look like a half-drowned cat.”

  “Such a way with words you have, Jerome,” she said, pressing her free hand to her heart and pretending to swoon. “I’ll faint if you keep saying such romantic things.”

  He snorted and tugged her hand into the crook of his arm. “If you faint, I’ll leave you here and you can find your own way home. I’m famished and I’ve not energy enough to haul your lifeless corpse all the way to the house I can tell you.”

  This time Bonnie slapped the back of her hand to her head. “Oh, my,” she said, as her knees buckled, and she slid elegantly to the floor. A moment later she peered up through her fingers at him and grinned. Laughing and shaking his head, he reached down and grasped her hands.

  “Addlepate,” he said, with too much affection in his voice but unable to stop it.

  “I know,” she said with a sigh, before hauling herself to her feet with rather less elegance than she’d fallen with.

  Relieved that she’d recovered her good humour, Jerome tucked her hand back in the crook of his arm and escorted her back to the house.

  Chapter 2

  Dear Alice,

  I’m so sorry you’re missing out on all the fun. We’ve all been so lucky to be asked to stay on for St Clair and Harriet’s wedding. You’d think Lady St Clair would have had enough of us by now—me anyway—but she’s always so gracious. I wish I had an ounce of her sophistication, I’m sure she thinks me an unruly hoyden and will be glad to see the back of me.

  ―Excerpt of a letter to Mrs Alice Hunt from Miss Bonnie Campbell.

  18th September 1814, Harriet and Jasper’s engagement ball. Holbrooke House, Sussex.

  Bonnie laughed, delighted as Harriet’s brother Henry spun her around. He looked a little unnerved by her unabashed enthusiasm, as well he might. Well behaved young ladies did not laugh their heads off and bounce about the floor like Bonnie did. Well behaved young ladies gave shy smiles and glided about like they floated just above the parquet on a little fluffy cloud made of innocence and rainbows and pink ribbons or something equally nauseating.

  If such a thing had existed Bonnie would have stomped her little cloud into the dirt and gladly a long time ago. She didn’t want to simper and be a good girl and do as she was told. She’d had done, once, a long time ago, so long ago that she could only just remember it, only just remember the cold stone beneath her bony knees as she prayed to a God who’d refused to listen to her pleas, her promises to be a good girl. Being good hadn’t gotten her what she’d wanted then, and it never would, so she was done trying. She’d get what she wanted through her own efforts or she’d fail but it would be her doing and no one else’s, certainly not some capricious deity who’d ignored a desperate child.

  She didn’t dare look at Jerome, too certain he’d be glowering at her. He’d promised to help her with her dare before troubling himself to discover what she had in mind, poor fool, and now he was stuck. He’d tried everything he could think of to change her mind but once Bonnie had focused her brain on something that was an end to it. She’d made her plans and he had promised, it was a fait accompli and so she’d told him.

  She waited until almost eleven o’clock before she slipped away. For what she had in mind that would hardly be considered late in the evening and yet it was long enough. She hadn’t wanted to miss Harriet and Jasper’s engagement ball, but it was likely her last chance for such a scheme. This way she could plead fatigue after having danced herself into exhaustion without anyone thinking it suspicious. Smiling to herself and with anticipation simmering in her veins she hurried up the stairs to her room.

  ***

  “There you are, old man, been looking everywhere for you!”

  Bonnie had to stamp on the urge to crow with laughter as Jerome jolted in response to her hearty slap on the back. He glowered at her, affronted by the temerity of the young man who’d taken such a liberty when they’d not been introduced.

  “Who the devil are you?” he began and then stopped, his handsome face leaching of colour as his gaze travelled over her to her feet and back again. “B-Bonnie?” he stammered, quite obviously horrified.

  “You didn’t recognise me, did you!” Bonnie barely restrained herself from doing a little dance of triumph. She couldn’t afford to draw attention to them.

  “Hell and the devil, you’ll be the death of me, Bonnie Campbell,” he cursed, before his mouth fell open. She’d thought he’d seemed quite horrified enough before but now he looked like he might swoon. “Oh, Lord.” His voice was rough, almost breathless. “Your hair! Bonnie what have you done to your hair?”

  Bonnie felt a tremor of regret as she lifted a hand to her shorn locks. She’d almost changed her mind when her maid had burst into tears, begging her not to make her cut off her thick dark tresses. The sight of it piled on her bedroom floor had almost made Bonnie weep too, but what was the point. Jerome didn’t think it her crowning glory, he didn’t think of her at all, not in such a way. She was just one of his chums, not a woman whose appearance he admired, so what difference did it make if she cut it off or not. Except now, looking at his appalled expression she wanted to cry. Stop it, she scolded herself. You couldn’t seduce him when you were all but naked and flat on your back, cutting off your hair won’t make him want you any less, you ninny.

  “It’s fashionable to wear it short,” she said, defiantly. “And I can hardly pass as a man with long hair, can I?”

  Jerome took her by the arm and hauled her into a quiet corner where he proceeded to scold her and do his best to wriggle out of his promise. Bonnie held firm and refused to budge. He’d promised her and she was holding him too it. She didn’t care if she was ruined. It wouldn’t change anything. Morven
had told her she’d marry Anderson no matter what she did to try and get out of it. She believed him. All she could hope was that good old Gordy would be so disgusted with her he’d refuse, dowry be damned.

  Jerome muttered and cursed some more as Bonnie reminded him he’d not recognised her. This did not seem to appease him one little bit.

  “Ah, don’t be like that,” she coaxed, reaching for his hand and giving it a squeeze. “We’ll have fun, I promise.”

  Jerome stared back at her. “Oh, I don’t doubt it, you little devil. I just wonder how long I’ll be paying for it afterwards, that’s all.”

  “It will be worth it, I promise.”

  Something in his eyes softened a little and she knew she had him. “I know,” he said, before giving a short bark of laughter. “Well, then, if we’re going to the devil, we may as well do it in style. What am I to call you, sir?”

  “Bartholomew Camden, a distant cousin on your mother’s side, Jerry, old man.”

  Jerome snorted. “Well, Coz, I’m very pleased to know you. Why don’t we leave this place and find a bit of life?”

  Bonnie grinned at him, wanting to hug him for forgetting his concerns and getting into the spirit of it. “I thought you’d never ask,” she said.

  ***

  Jerome’s heart had been lodged firmly in his throat for the past hour or more but as he looked around the card table at the disreputable faces of some of his friends, it cautiously returned to the vicinity of his chest. Bonnie grinned at him, a cheroot clamped between her teeth, and Jerome had to stamp on the urge to snicker.

  Cholly or more correctly, Lord Chalfont, Mr Gideon Newman and The Honourable Algernon Fortescue—known affectionately as Algae to his intimates, had all accepted Bonnie as his cousin Bart without so much as a blink. Admittedly by the time he’d tracked them down through a variety of dubious drinking places they were all drunk as wheelbarrows but nonetheless—were the brainless idiots blind? How could they possibly not see she was a woman?

  Her skin was too soft, too perfect and her heart shaped face far too pretty. There were pretty lads about, he knew, but surely not with the lavish curves of the dreadful girl across the table. Bonnie had bound her breasts, and so severely her shape had morphed into something that gave her the silhouette of a plump pigeon. It made him want to laugh every time he looked her. It also made his hands itch with desire to unwind her like a spinning top, unravelling whatever it was restraining her charms as his palm burned with the memory of having those generous mounds in his grasp. He rubbed a hand over his face, increasingly heated and agitated now. Hell and the devil, he didn’t even want Bonnie, not like that. He’d not given her a second glance when she’d turned up with her friends and would have continued to not glance her way if not for her outrageous sense of humour and devilish tongue. Here he was though, lusting over her breasts. He wanted to kiss and lick and soothe that tortured bounty once he’d freed them from the ridiculous cage she’d trapped them in and then he’d…

  Jerome cleared his throat and returned his attention to his cards. Behave, Cadogan. Grimacing at the inadequate hand he held the threw it down to the table in disgust.

  “I’m out,” he said with a sigh.

  “Bad luck, Jerry,” Bonnie murmured as he glowered at the tidy stack of counters before her. Why he should be surprised she was wiping the floor with them he had no idea. She was utterly diabolical. He watched as she took a draw on the cheroot and blew a perfect smoke ring across the table to him with a wink. He glowered back and snatched the brandy decanter from her grasp before she could reach for it. She’d already had a generous measure and he dared not think what might happen if he allowed her to get foxed. There were limits to his depravity. Allowing a virginal young woman to cut off her hair, dress as a man and gamble in a low dive like the one they were inhabiting at present would put quite enough paving slabs on his personal road to hell for one night, thank you very much.

  Bonnie returned an impatient glare but said nothing, instead going on to relieve his friends of what remained of their coin. Algae groaned and put his head in his hands.

  “Someone will have to pay my shot,” he said, shaking his head mournfully. “I’m cleaned out.”

  “I say, Jerry,” Cholly said, throwing down his cards with a grimace. “If you’ve any more cousins do us a favour and leave ’em where ye find ’em.”

  “You need have no fear on that score,” Jerome muttered. “Come on Bart, my lad. That’s enough excitement for one night. I’d best get you back or we’ll both be in the basket.”

  “Oh, but, Jerry…”

  Jerome ignored Bonnie’s complaints, knowing well enough what the rest of the evening would likely hold as Gideon crooked his finger at a comely serving wench. He watched, amused despite himself while Bonnie’s eyes grew wide and the young woman sashayed over, settling herself in Gideon’s lap.

  “Now, Bart,” he said, smirking a little.

  Bonnie got to her feet and followed him out the door.

  It was gone three in the morning by the time they got back to Holbrooke House. By some miracle he managed to put the curricle away and bed down the horse without waking any of the stable lads.

  “Well, then, you dreadful girl, I hope you’re satisfied?” he said, sliding the bolt across on the stall door and turning to her.

  “Oh, yes, Jerome, thank you so much. It was fun, wasn’t it?”

  He laughed despite himself, shaking his head. “I suppose so, once I’d convinced myself that my friends really are blind and even more thick headed than I’d supposed. I thought I was going to have a heart attack in the first half an hour, I can tell you.”

  “You worry too much,” she said, shaking her head at him.

  “You don’t worry enough,” he muttered.

  She rolled her eyes and then winced, her mouth tightening.

  “What is it?” he asked, frowning at her obvious discomfort.

  “It’s the binding,” she said, her voice tight. “It’s really hurting now, and Mary will be a bed. I’ll have to sleep in the blasted thing for I can’t risk going to wake her. Not that I’ll sleep, I can barely breath.”

  “You fool girl,” he said, impatient now. “You’ll do yourself an injury.”

  “Oh, Jerry, please help me get it off,” she pleaded, shrugging out of her coat and letting it fall to the floor.

  Jerome stared at her, his mouth growing dry as the visions he’d been lingering on earlier bloomed behind his eyes. No. No. No, no, no. Behave Cadogan.

  “I don’t think…” he began, his voice creaking like a rusty gate, but her slender hands had already undone the buttons on her waistcoat.

  “Oh, don’t be so missish about it,” she said, huffing with impatience as the waistcoat joined the coat in a heap on the floor. “It’s not like you’ve not seen everything before, and you’ve made it plain enough you’re not interested.”

  Not interested?

  He blinked but said nothing, not that he could have. How the devil had she gotten the idea he wasn’t interested? He was a man and she was suggesting he unwrap her breasts like the best Christmas present a fellow had ever received. Also he wasn’t dead. Not interested? She was unhinged if she thought that likely.

  Before he could find any way of stopping her, which with Bonnie would be as futile as trying to put out a fire with a decanter of brandy, she’d tugged the shirt off over her head.

  Jerome stared.

  She was bound, mummy like, from her waist to beneath her armpits, so tightly he could see her skin was red and abraded where the edge of the wrappings had rubbed against her delicate flesh. He swallowed, heat climbing up his neck as she turned her back.

  “The fastenings are in the back there somewhere. I can’t do it by myself, so you’ll have to undo them for me.”

  Just undo the bindings and walk away, he counselled himself as his heart began to thud in double time. You can do that. It’s not difficult.

  Jerome licked his lips and reached out to where the bi
ndings had been tightly knotted, the ends tucked back under and out of sight. His hands trembled a little as he tugged the ends free and fumbled with the knot.

  “Oh, do hurry,” she pleaded.

  “I’m going as fast as I can, curse you,” he muttered. “And it’s your own dashed fault so don’t go chastising me.”

  “I wasn’t chastising,” she retorted. “I was only asking you to hurry.”

  “Well don’t. I’ll do it in my own good time.” Except at that moment the knot came apart in his hands and he wasn’t ready, hadn’t steeled himself to say, there you go, you’re free. I’ll leave you to it now. He couldn’t leave her half dressed and alone in the stables in any case, he reasoned. Anyone might come across her and think her fair game for a tumble. No. No, he’d have to stay. Just to … be on the safe side.

  He tugged, just as he’d imagined earlier, and just as he’d imagined she turned round and round before him as he unravelled her bindings along with his own sanity. His breathing grew ragged as she turned and turned, and the tight wrappings tumbled to the ground as his pulse beat in his ears and his body grew taut with interest.

  She was faced away from him as the last length of fabric fell and she let out a heartfelt sigh that he felt somewhere in the pit of his belly.

  “Oh, thank heavens,” she murmured. “That’s better.”

  As though he was watching someone in a dream—some poor fool bent on destruction no doubt—he reached out and traced one of the red lines across her back where the bindings had left imprints in her soft skin.

  “Look what you’ve done to yourself,” he whispered, hearing the breathless quality of his own words. His finger trailed to her waist and he put his hand on her at the point where the curve of her hips began.

  She stilled beneath his touch and then looked back, over her shoulder at him. Her eyes were wide and dark and she licked her lips.

  “It’s worse this side,” she said, her voice low. “I wish you’d kiss it better.”

  Oh God, he was doomed.