The Courtesan's Wager

by Claudia Dain

  Iveston, a truly elegant man in all respects, directed his answer to Amelia, who looked up at him in all her virginal, blond splendor. “Why Lady Amelia, surely it must be plain to you that, having conducted an interview upon the Duke of Calbourne, I should find myself slighted egregiously to be found lacking of even the opportunity to present myself for your consideration. I am not a duke now, but I have every hope of becoming one. Can your list stretch to include me?”

  Sophia turned her gaze upon Amelia, who blinked once and then said with delicious sincerity, “How charmingly put, Lord Iveston. Put thus, how could I refuse to add you to my list?

  “Hell and blast,” Cranleigh spit out, not at all discreetly, which of course, was equally charming, but in an entirely different way.

  Men. They were so very entertaining.

  With the tuning of the orchestra, the mob, keeping a careful eye on which direction Sophia and her troop were heading, moved ponderously in the direction of the music. The Prestwick town house—on let from Molly, the Duchess of Hyde’s sister, Mrs. Sally Elliot, a fine coincidence—was on the end of Upper Brook Street with a fine view of Grosvenor Square. The light was excellent and so a study on the front of the house had been converted a few years back into a petite conservatory that was just now filled to bursting with roses in the first flush of full bloom. Delightful.

  The house was not exceptionally large, but it was supremely well appointed with fine boiserie in lustrous walnut lining the walls of the dining room, which tonight had been transformed into use as a ballroom. The dining room was not open to the conservatory, although they shared a wall, but had only one opening into it, that from the hall. Once in the dining room-cum-ballroom, it would be very difficult to get out again. Intriguing possibilities there.

  The hall, beautifully done up in Flemish tapestries of exotic locales, also led into the drawing room, where the guests were gathered in advance of the dancing. The drawing room, quite a sumptuous room, was done up in scarlet silk damask, the walls fetchingly sprinkled with family portraits and the odd landscape or two.

  That the crystal chandeliers were sparkling, the woodwork gleaming, the floors waxed all spoke to the care the Prestwicks were devoting to keeping the house in top form. That they had let the house from a close relative of the Duke of Hyde was hardly something that had come about by chance. Little Miss Prestwick, quite a stunning girl of black eyes and black shining hair, was shopping for a husband. Sophia didn’t suppose that the girl would mind it at all if she found one among the sons of Hyde. The man did have five sons; Miss Prestwick couldn’t possibly have anticipated that Lord Henry, his fourth son, would be snatched up quite so quickly by Louisa Kirkland, but that still left four.

  Sophia’s gaze drifted away from Miss Prestwick and on to Lady Amelia. She was managing Lord Iveston quite well, Cranleigh growling, the two younger sons of Hyde listening, watching, smiling.

  “You had hardly a word for Lord Dutton, Lady Dalby,” Ruan said at her side. “Has he displeased you in some way?”

  “Darling Lord Ruan,” she answered, “are you fishing? You make the most abysmal fisherman.”

  “But a fine hunter?”

  “That remains to be seen, doesn’t it?”

  He looked down at her, a smile playing around his mouth, and she felt a flutter under her heart. The last time she had fluttered was with Dalby. How peculiar and so unexpected. She hadn’t thought to flutter again and she wasn’t sure what to make of it. It wasn’t unwelcome, but it was … uncomfortable.

  “Is that a promise, Lady Dalby?” he said softly.

  “I rather thought you were the one making promises, Lord Ruan. A mighty thrust and all that,” she said, considering him. The tiniest flutter, again. Yes, definitely uncomfortable and very distracting. “But as to Lord Dutton,” she said, changing the subject completely, and permanently, “I find him as entertaining as I normally do.” Ruan lowered his black brows and studied her, encouraging her to continue by his very silence. “He is a handsome man, which never hurts, and he knows how to talk to a woman.”

  “He flatters her?” Ruan said, his mouth quirking into a smile.

  “Profusely. And then he sobs into his whiskey. It’s irresistible,” she answered, smiling.

  “He can’t have done this with you. No man would find cause to sob with you.”

  “Why, Lord Ruan,” Sophia said, almost forgetting that she had determined to put Ruan out of her thoughts not a moment ago. The man was nearly mesmerizing. “Are you aping Dutton’s technique? Flattery and then … oh, but you can’t sob now. I haven’t given you cause. Yet.”

  “And you can’t convince me that you gave Dutton cause,” Ruan said. “But Mrs. Warren, he might well throw himself off of Westminster Bridge for her.”

  “Can he swim?” Sophia asked brightly.

  Ruan chuckled. “If I knew, should I tell you? You might push him off yourself.”

  “Might I?” she said, laughing up at him. He was quite tall and she always had preferred tall men. “Why should I do that? ”

  “I wish I knew,” he said.

  His voice was serious, but not alarmed. He thought he knew something and wished to know more. But could that not be said of everyone? What they thought they knew and what they wished to know, such a chasm, nearly uncrossable.

  “Darling Lord Ruan, you assign much to me. I bear Lord Dutton no ill will. He is perfectly safe from me.”

  “But is he safe from Mrs. Warren?”

  “I’m afraid only she can answer that, Lord Ruan.”

  Twelve

  THE Marquis of Dutton, unpleasantly sober, wanted nothing so much as to grab Anne Warren by the back of the neck, drag her into a dark corner, and kiss her until she melted in his arms. Unfortunately, not only did Society frown on behavior of that sort, it was not at all the plan that he and Lord Ruan had devised. Actually, Lord Ruan had done the devising. Dutton had done the scowling and the arguing. In the end, Ruan had won his point and convinced Dutton to proceed accordingly. Dutton might have agreed, but he was still scowling.

  “Mrs. Warren,” he said, drawing near to her as the crowd continued to shift as they made their way into the ballroom. “You’re looking well.”

  She was looking bloody marvelous, but he wasn’t going to confess any such nonsense as that. Women positively fed off that sort of thing and, where Anne Warren was concerned, he meant to starve her into compliance. He’d landed wrong-footed with her, though he still could not see quite how it had happened.

  He had noticed her.

  He had approached her.

  He had kissed her.

  She had promptly got herself engaged to Lord Staverton, a viscount fully three times her age. Well, perhaps only twice her age, but he had not aged well and he had an eye that wandered erratically. Literally. Still, for the daughter of a failed courtesan, Anne Warren had done well for herself. That she had done it to spite him he knew without a doubt. Unfortunately, that knowledge had no value whatsoever. Anne Warren, perhaps because of his bold kiss or perhaps because he had only become interested in her when he discovered her mother had been a doxy, was ignoring him. He suspected that she was doing it to drive him mad; the problem was that it was, literally, driving him mad.

  “And you, Lord Dutton, are looking sober,” Anne said sweetly, her hazel green eyes as sharp as knives. “Can’t find the whiskey? ”

  “And you, Mrs. Warren, used to be sweeter. You give every evidence that the prospect of marriage to Lord Staverton does not agree with you,” he said, which was not at all the conversation he was supposed to have had with her, but dammit, she was being unreasonable. All he wanted was a tumble. Certainly she could give him that. It wasn’t as if she were a virgin and it wasn’t as if she didn’t understand what a man wanted from a woman.

  “Naturally,” Mrs. Warren said with sweet acidity, “you have got it all twisted, Lord Dutton. It is you who does not agree with me. I find myself ever out of sorts in your company. If you will excuse me?”

>   “I will not,” he said sharply. He moved to lay hold of her upper arm, but she gave him such a look that his hand dropped to his side. Someone gasped on his right. He didn’t bother to see who. It was the worst folly, to engage her this way. It was not at all to plan.

  Blast Ruan and his damnable plan.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said, swallowing his annoyance. “I am not myself. I had only wished to bid you good evening and to, if you will allow, ask a favor of you.”

  “No, I will not kiss you, Lord Dutton. Nor will I lift my skirts for you. If you have any pearl necklaces hidden upon you, I do not want them,” Anne whispered harshly, her eyes flaring bright. She had the most remarkable eyes, a greenish hazel that could look pewter soft in candlelight. She was in candlelight now, but they did not look soft. She looked as wild as a cat, her red hair gleaming like sunset.

  “My pearl necklace days are over, Mrs. Warren. After Lady Caroline’s rather scandalous acquisition of one, mine have been locked away in safety, a gift for my future wife.”

  She drew as still as a doe at the words and he thought for the first time that Ruan might have a plan at that.

  “In fact,” he continued, “I had wondered if you could help me with that.”

  “With what?” she said crisply, her cheeks growing slightly flushed.

  “It is being rumored,” he said softly, watching hungrily as she leaned closer to hear his words, “that Lady Amelia is on a quest for the ideal husband and that she is, oddly enough, conducting interviews.”

  “Yes? ”

  “It is also rumored that you are aiding her as a clerk of sorts, a most trusted position, to be sure,” he said, lowering his voice even more. She leaned closer, so close that he could catch her scent and see how the light glimmered off her porcelain skin. Dutton blinked a few times and grabbed hard for his purpose. He must not lose his way now, not even if she did smell of roses. “I wondered if you could help me there.”

  Anne looked up at him, her eyes wide and clear, her breath catching in her throat. He almost had her. In a second, he could be kissing her, would be, if they weren’t in the middle of a noisy throng in a well-lit room.

  She must have read the thought in his eyes, for she pulled away and swallowed audibly.

  “Help you? I can’t see how, Lord Dutton. And, I must say, these matters can’t concern you.”

  “But they might concern me, Mrs. Warren, if you would but help,” he said, turning slightly so that his arm brushed against her. She trembled slightly. He was relieved he was sober enough to notice. “If you could just arrange for me to be on that list, Lady Amelia’s marriage list, I should be so grateful. I do think she’d make a wonderful wife and, as you have pointed out, I do need a woman to settle me. I fear, Mrs. Warren, that I have fallen into debauchery. Who better than a wife to pull a man back onto the straight and narrow?”

  She looked, if he could be immodest, and he could, like she wanted to faint.

  Damned if Ruan wasn’t a genius.

  LORD Iveston was behaving beautifully, walking quietly at Amelia’s side as they entered the ballroom, listening to her exclaim over the beauty of the boiserie, the gilded plasterwork on the ceiling, the sweetness of the violins, all the things a woman said to a man when she could think of nothing to say. Amelia was entirely certain that the reason she could think of nothing to say to the elegant Lord Iveston was that Lord Cranleigh was hovering at Iveston’s side and staring at her with his icy blue eyes. The man could freeze a volcano.

  It was perfectly obvious that Cranleigh was making the point that the only way to avoid him was to avoid Iveston, which flatly was not going to happen. She wasn’t about to be manhandled into giving up Iveston now.

  “I had no idea,” Cranleigh said, practically cutting off her latest comment regarding the cellist, “that a discussion on the merits of string instruments was part of your interviewing process, Lady Amelia. One can but wonder how it pertains to the issue of marriage.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, staring around Iveston’s well-tailored shoulder at his thuggish brother, “I should have guessed that a discussion about the merits of music would effectively remove you from the conversation, Lord Cranleigh. Perhaps you might find other conversation elsewhere that interests you. Perhaps with the …” She was so very tempted to say with the footmen, but as she did not want to appear unnecessarily ungenerous and surly in front of Lord Iveston, she said, “hostess, Miss Prestwick. A charming woman, by all accounts.”

  “Yes, she appears to be,” Cranleigh shot back. “So demure. So reticent. The very blush of feminine perfection.”

  “By all appearances,” Amelia concluded snidely.

  Stupid man, to be so impressed by appearances. They could all, with very little effort, put on the appropriate appearance. Of course, she found it very difficult to do so with him, but that was surely his fault and not hers. If Cranleigh would only behave appropriately, then she would as well. His having the manner and look of a deckhand was singularly off-putting.

  “But Cranleigh makes a point, Lady Amelia,” Iveston said, and because he spoke, she gave him every attention. Cranleigh muttered something under his breath. “What did you speak of with the Duke of Calbourne? I would not have short shrift.”

  Sophia was so right; men did find themselves nearly compelled to compete with one another. How odd, yet so convenient if one was aware of it. Small wonder that Sophia Dalby had such a reputation for success with men when she understood them so well. Knowing them did lend a rather obvious air of manipulation to the whole thing. Not that she minded. Far from it. After two years on the marriage mart, she finally felt she had been given a leg up. If only Aunt Mary had bothered to explain things to her before her come out, although it was highly likely that Aunt Mary didn’t understand a thing. There were reasons why Sophia was … Sophia.

  “Why, Lord Iveston,” Amelia said as the ballroom filled, “we simply talked, of nothing in particular. To be frank, he was not so eager to talk as you are.”

  “Truly? I’ve always heard that Calbourne is quite adept at conversation,” Iveston said.

  “But not, perhaps, adept at being interviewed,” Cranleigh said. “As to that, I should think you’d need your clerk, your chaperone, and your mentor to witness this interview. Will it be valid without them? Will you know what to ask and how to interpret my brother’s responses?”

  “I am perfectly capable of speaking to a man without aid,” Amelia snapped.

  “I’m sure,” Cranleigh said dismissively. “Practice, have you? Solitary conversation with a man something you do regularly? ”

  “That is not what I meant!”

  “If you can’t be clear about what you mean, I fail to see how you can conduct a revealing interview,” Cranleigh said.

  “I can be perfectly clear, Lord Cranleigh,” she said, stepping in front of Iveston to face his brother. “I should think that you, of all people, can have no doubt as to that.”

  “He does grate on one, doesn’t he?” Iveston inserted mildly.

  At which point Amelia took a shaky breath and remembered her purpose, a purpose that had nothing to do with the Earl of Cranleigh. He was leaving Town on the first Elliot ship, wasn’t he? Had admitted as much to her himself earlier. He had his plans and she had hers, and there was clearly no reason for their plans to tangle. None. Nothing could be more clear to her than that.

  “No, not at all, Lord Iveston,” she said sweetly, refusing to look at Cranleigh. Cranleigh, as he was solidly built, was impossible to ignore completely. “He is merely acting like a brother, a very protective one, though why he should feel you need protection from me …” She let her voice trail off and smiled sympathetically.

  Cranleigh opened his mouth to speak. Iveston made some movement of his arm, Cranleigh grunted, and kept his mouth closed. Had Lord Iveston actually elbowed his brother in the ribs? How spectacular. What an efficient way to get him to mind his own business. She would have to remember that particular move with Hawks
worth the next time he said something that annoyed her. Of course, it would be difficult to do as Hawksworth was so rarely standing up.

  “He is very protective of me,” Iveston said. “Always has been. I thought at one time that it was because I am the heir, but now I believe it is simply his nature to …” Iveston’s voice trailed off and he looked at her to fill the gap.

  “Bully?” she said brightly, looking first at Iveston and then at Cranleigh as she said it. Iveston smiled. Cranleigh scowled. She didn’t care. No, that was untrue. She was delighted.

  “Oh, yes,” Iveston said, “I suppose that’s possible, but I was going to say intervene. He does have a habit of intervening.”

  “Does he?” Amelia said, so enjoying the fact that they had fallen into discussing Cranleigh as if he were not present, and yet he was. So very, completely, and eternally present. Why, she could feel raw energy coming off of him like waves. “He certainly did not intervene in any way that I could see when my cousin Louisa was ruined by your brother Henry in the closet at Hyde House. Perhaps he wanted to see her ruined? Is that possible? ”

  Of course, it was Iveston’s brother Henry, as well, who had ruined her cousin. Not a very politic reminder, but she did so want to bludgeon Cranleigh with something and Louisa’s ruination and, to be fair, marriage into their family was such a handy bludgeon.

  “No man of sense wants to see a girl ruined,” Cranleigh said. His voice was soft, low, but not gentle. He sounded more menacing than soothing and she was quite certain it was intentional.

  “A man of sense?” she said, unable to stop herself. She should be ignoring Cranleigh and focusing all her attention on Lord Iveston. She should and she would, once she’d got this conversation behind her. There was something about him, such arrogance and surly disdain of her, which was ridiculous as she was the most likeable girl in Society. Everyone, absolutely everyone liked her. She had made it a point to be as likeable as humanly possible, which was saying quite a lot. “Not a man of decency? Not a man of honor?”