The Courtesan's Wager

by Claudia Dain

  “No,” Cranleigh said, looking not even remotely put off. He barely lifted his chest from hers, and not before kissing her lightly on the cheek. “You have been ruined now, fully. The thing is done. You are mine.”

  “You appear to have expected me to fall into your lap, Cranleigh, with almost no effort at all on your part.” And she had been so busy on his behalf, too. It was positively monstrous. “It isn’t going to happen quite that way.”

  Cranleigh rose up from his prone position on the dining room table, and as it was a finely made table it didn’t even squeak in protest, though she was tempted to. Blasted sailor. Cranleigh offered her his hand, which she took, and slid off the table, her skirts hiking up even more, which she did think might be to her advantage in a thorny negotiation of this sort.

  Ruined? Of course she wasn’t ruined. Not fully, anyway. She had an entire room full of people who, because of their desire to be on her list, would never breathe a word that would get them thrown off of it. Why, being on her list had become the most important measure of … something … of the entire Season. One only had to look into Aldreth’s crowded library to see the truth of that.

  “You may believe that a man may cart off a woman and that instantly makes her his, but I don’t believe that for a moment. A man must do far more to win the woman he wants; simply escorting her from the room is hardly sufficient.”

  “You were more than simply escorted, Amy,” Cranleigh said.

  Escorted? She’d been carried. If she’d had her wits about her, it would have been kicking and screaming, but she hadn’t had her wits about her, and still didn’t, quite. Things were getting terribly complicated very quickly. She didn’t know what to think anymore, beyond the fact that she had felt wonderful thinking that things between she and Cranleigh were resolved, once and for all.

  But they were not resolved, at least not to her satisfaction.

  “I do think you could show a bit more fervor, Cranleigh,” she said, arranging her hair. It was a complete disaster.

  “Any more fervor and I shan’t be able to walk,” he said stiffly. “You are ruined, you know. There’s no way out now.”

  Yes, well, the line of his pantaloons was a bit strained, as well it should be.

  “How charmingly put,” she snapped, turning to face him. He looked quite annoyed. Quite handsome, as usual, but quite annoyed. Entirely usual for him, actually. “You know, Cranleigh, you’ve had more than two years in which to ruin me, and yet you did not. You were so very careful that no one should ever know that we had stumbled into a few scattered improprieties. And yet now you are not careful at all. You want to ruin me now? Why?”

  “You may have stumbled, Amy, but I fell,” Cranleigh said, his voice low and hoarse, his eyes shining so blue that they seemed to pierce her heart. “I was trying to protect you from scandal. Was I wrong to do so?”

  “No,” she said softly, resisting the urge to walk into his arms, resisting the lure of his kiss and his touch and his very scent. Two years. Two years of stealing kisses, haunting her dreams, and tormenting her days, and he had not once asked for her hand in marriage. There was no avoiding the sting of it. “Shall I tell you that I wanted to be ruined? I very nearly prayed for it. If only someone had seen us, all would have been taken out of our hands and we would have found ourselves married. Such a simple way to get a man, don’t you think? Look how Henry achieved Louisa. In a single night, he managed what you could not do in two years. Why? Why did you not want me in marriage? ”

  She was close to tears and it shamed her. She did not want to cry her way into his heart. She wanted to soar there on a strong and sturdy love that welcomed her in.

  “I wanted you,” he said in a throaty murmur.

  “Not enough,” she said, her voice tight.

  Cranleigh grabbed her arms and shook her lightly, his blue eyes cold bolts of anger and longing, his lips compressed in a hard line of determination. “I will ask him for your hand, Amy. This time you will accept me.”

  “But you never asked me, Cranleigh, did you? You never once asked me. You’ve said many things, but not that.”

  “I did it for you, can’t you see that?” he said, holding her in his arms, pressing her against his chest.

  “No, I can’t,” she said, pushing away from him when every bone in her body wanted to collapse against him. She had done too much of that. And what had it got her? A man who could not do the most simple of things: ask for her hand. “What was it, Lord Cranleigh? You couldn’t be seen to be a fool for love? Your brother Henry was developing a bit of that, wasn’t he, before he married Louisa. I don’t wonder that, watching him, it put you off romantic declarations. One fool for love in the family was quite enough, I suppose.”

  Why else hadn’t he ever made known whatever feelings of regard he had for her, and he must have more than a few feelings to have been so singular in his attempts at kissing her for more than two years, and his care in protecting her reputation. Or had he merely been protecting himself?

  “You wanted a duke and I am not one!” he said gruffly.

  He sounded nearly ashamed. He should be. It was a ridiculous excuse. Did he love her or did he not? Did he only want her because it was convenient? Did he only want her because of that blasted list? Did he want her at all?

  “No, you are not,” Amelia said. “That has not changed. Nothing has changed, has it? Now, if you will excuse me, Lord Cranleigh, my reputation grows more fragile by the half hour.”

  Cranleigh stood rooted to the spot, staring at her, his tongue trapped behind his teeth. Fat lot of good it did there.

  “You won’t marry me?” he asked in a whisper. She could hear the pain in his voice, bleeding through his heart and into hers. She did not care. She would not care, that was all.

  “No, Lord Cranleigh, as you have not asked for my hand, as you have not declared yourself lost in love for me, as you have not abased yourself to Aldreth in your determination to have me in marriage, I will not, as it seems perfectly logical to me, marry you.”

  LADY Dalby was waiting for her in the vestibule. Amelia was not in any frame of mind to face her; she was afraid that showed on her face most completely. Lady Dalby did not seem to care, which was entirely typical.

  “It seems I am ruined, Lady Dalby,” Amelia said wearily. “Cranleigh assures me of it.”

  “Only as ruined as you’d like to be, Lady Amelia,” Sophia said placidly. “And is that why you sought me out? So that you could be ruined by Cranleigh and lay the responsibility upon me?” Sophia asked.

  Amelia felt the weight of guilt of her intentions sweep up and bury her.

  “I can’t think what you mean,” she said on a thin breath of air.

  “Can’t you? Why else agree to a most obviously ruinous plan to interview dukes? How else could it end but in ruin, for in ruin it began? Darling, did you think I would not notice that you were determined to ruin yourself? I can assure you that I know very well what is acceptable behavior and what is not. And I am equally assured that you know it as well as I.”

  Blast!

  If there was one thing that was reliably aggravating about Sophia Dalby, and there were many more traits than one, it was that she had the most appalling way of stating what should never be put into words.

  “If what you say is true,” Amelia said stiffly, “then I certainly can’t see how Aldreth has allowed things to progress to this state. I rather suspect that you have talked to my father about our little arrangement and that you persuaded him to allow you a free hand. How I can’t possibly imagine. Aldreth may be a cold-hearted beast, but even he would not hie off to Paris, turning a blind eye to his daughter’s ruination.”

  “But of course he wouldn’t,” Sophia said, drawing close to her and laying a hand upon her arm. Amelia found it strangely comforting, nearly maternal, and she felt the urge to weep again. She ignored it most thoroughly. “What was arranged was for me to make certain you did not end up truly ruined, a course which you were following at
a gallop. Without aid, you would certainly have been ruined in a month, wed to Cranleigh by force of public opinion and to save your family name, and what then, darling? Would you have been delighted, do you think? Cranleigh forced to wed you. You, forced to give up your dreams of being a duchess, which is certainly a worthy dream and I, for one, never thought otherwise. How else is a woman to get on in the world without her goals and plans to see her through?”

  “You saw us,” Amelia said in shock. “When did you see us?”

  “At Sandworth, darling, and a more well-suited couple it would be difficult to imagine.”

  “I don’t understand any of this,” Amelia said on a moan. Surely an understatement. She sat down upon a small chair and put a hand to her temple. It was pounding.

  “That’s quite obvious,” Sophia said, sitting in a chair next to her and leaning back, looking very nearly relaxed. The noise in the adjoining rooms was growing louder, both from the library and the drawing room. Aldreth’s At Home was turning into quite a brawl, from the sound of it. “You will not marry Cranleigh because he ruined you. You will marry Cranleigh because you want him, and he will marry you because he insists upon it.”

  “He has insisted upon it! Nearly.”

  “Nearly, and only because you were ruined, first by the list and then by the conservatory and then by the satire,” Sophia said. “Amelia, darling, Lord Dalby pursued me to the altar, quite desperate for me to agree to marry him, as I nearly blush to admit, with far more vigor and determination that Cranleigh has yet to show you. You are the daughter of a duke. I was, as you certainly know, a courtesan. If a courtesan can be pursued, darling, certainly you can be. In fact, I am quite determined that you insist upon it. And so is Aldreth. And so, as long as I’m explaining how the world spins, does Zoe Auvray, whom I am certain you are aware of. Do you think she doesn’t require Aldreth to pursue her every day, in one fashion or another? Men simply live for this sort of thing. What to do but provide them with their chief form of amusement?”

  “I don’t find it amusing,” Amelia said, tucking her forehead against her palms and trying to breathe slowly and evenly. “I don’t know what to do or even what to want anymore. It was all very clear to me once. I can’t think how it got so confused.”

  “Can’t you?” Sophia said with a rueful smile. “I think Lord Cranleigh must take the credit for that.”

  “All he did was kiss me.”

  “If all he did was kiss you once or twice, and all you did was allow his kiss, and if nothing of it made anything more than a slight impression upon you, then he did nothing worth comment,” Sophia said. “But he did far more than that, did he not? And I don’t mean merely kissing you. I trust you will believe me when I say that one man’s kiss is not very much like another’s.”

  Iveston. Her thoughts flew to that recent memory. Iveston’s kiss had been nothing like Cranleigh’s, even though the action had been the same.

  “But if Cranleigh asks Aldreth for my hand,” Amelia said, half hoping that he would, despite her angry and entirely justified words, “Aldreth will give it. I am ruined, Lady Dalby. That is the end of it.”

  “Aldreth will not give his consent, not until Cranleigh makes the proper effort to attain you,” Sophia replied. “The thing that must be done is to arrange things so that Cranleigh makes the proper effort.”

  “I have tried, you know,” Amelia said a bit sharply.

  Sophia smiled, patted her knee, and said, “But I have so much more experience at it, darling. Rely upon me. You shall get your man, in exactly the fashion you want him.”

  Twenty-five

  ALDRETH’S At Home had turned into the crush of the Season. During an At Home, people came, were admitted, made their greetings, took a turn about the room, and departed; it was as predictable and as innocuous as the ebbing tide. Until today.

  No one was leaving. They came, and they stayed. Why, people came who had not spoken to Aldreth in ten years for one reason or another.

  Westlin, for instance, had arrived and everyone knew that Aldreth and Westlin had had a falling out approximately twenty years previous, about the time that Sophia Dalby had thrown Westlin, her first and most infamous protector, out of her bed and onto his lily-white arse. The details of that break were murky and lurid, on those two points everyone agreed. How Aldreth fitted into it was complete speculation, which only made his involvement more interesting, obviously.

  Then there was the Duke and Duchess of Hyde. That was a bit awkward. It wasn’t that Hyde and Aldreth had any bad dealings between them, but there had just been that sordid satire done up featuring their second son and Aldreth’s only daughter. Satires were just a bit of fun, everyone knew that, but they were also quite a good bit of scandal and, while one might laugh outright in the privacy of one’s home, it was not considered in good form to admit to knowledge of one in public. How they would get on face-to-face, their children having been made mock of only that morning, was arousing considerable curiosity. And interest. Another reason why no one was anxious to leave Aldreth House.

  And then there was Lord Cranleigh, who, after having carted Lady Amelia out of the room bodily, came back in alone looking entirely disgruntled and dissatisfied. Which pointed clearly to the conclusion that he had not got any satisfaction off of Lady Amelia, as was only proper, but which put a damper on the salacious qualities of his lugging her off. When Aldreth made it a point to thank and commend Cranleigh for his quick thinking and prompt action in removing Amelia, who’d been on the verge of either a faint or a cramp, no one could agree on which, that ruined any possibility of scandal about the event.

  It was most disappointing. Strangely enough, Cranleigh looked equally disappointed, which invited more speculation. In short, no one was leaving Aldreth House any time soon, even if the servants had run out of food a quarter hour ago.

  Of course, unspoken and unacknowledged was the determination to await the return of Lady Amelia to the gathering. That Lady Dalby was with her was assumed, though certainly Cranleigh had indicated nothing of the sort. As Lady Dalby was momentarily absent, her relatives drew the majority of gazes in that assembly; that Cranleigh was in their midst was a convenient miracle of proximity.

  “I thought you meant to have her,” Mr. George Grey said.

  “Leave it alone, George,” the Earl of Dalby said softly. “Just carrying a woman off does not equal a proposal of marriage.”

  Cranleigh looked at Dalby askance, hardly a friendly gesture, but said nothing.

  “You could always just ask her,” Matthew Grey said, the youngest of Sophia’s nephews.

  “Ask who what?” Lady Eleanor Kirkland said. Eleanor, now that her sister Louisa was married to Henry, was family. Cranleigh, for that reason alone, indulged her.

  “Ask Lady Amelia to marry me,” Cranleigh said.

  “Oh, but why would you do that?” Eleanor said. “Amelia is only interested in dukes. I thought everybody knew that.”

  “People can change,” Mary, Lady Jordan, said primly. Lady Jordan looked surprisingly sober. Aldreth must have run out of Madeira. “Time, and distance, can change much.”

  As Lady Jordan was looking at Mr. John Grey while she spoke, Cranleigh was fairly certain she was not speaking to his situation but rather to hers. But in regards to John Grey? That made little sense.

  “Oh, but not Amelia,” Eleanor insisted, “and never about that. She’s quite firm about it.”

  “Of course, there is the satire,” Lady Jordan said. “A thing like that can change the most firm of intentions.”

  As Lady Jordan was still staring at John Grey, Cranleigh became even more determined to disregard her opinions. And though she appeared nearly sober, there was no guaranteeing that she was. In the two years that Cranleigh had pursued Amelia, her chaperone had never proved a hindrance. Though pursued might not have been the precise word for it.

  “I’ve yet to see it,” Eleanor said to Matthew Grey. “Have you? ”

  “I have,” Matthew answered.


  “And? ” Eleanor prompted, standing closer to Matthew. Matthew Grey was not precisely smiling, but he was not exactly frowning either. As Eleanor was now family by marriage, Cranleigh didn’t think it quite proper to allow her to form any but the most tenuous of attachments to an Iroquois, even if he were a relative of Sophia Dalby’s. In fact, more so.

  As was to be expected, Lady Jordan was ignoring the entire episode.

  “And it is not proper for a young girl’s gaze,” Cranleigh said.

  “He’s in it,” Matthew said, almost smiling.

  “Doing what?” Eleanor said, her impish face aglow with curiosity.

  Cranleigh sighed. Eleanor, like Louisa, was fair-skinned and ginger-haired. Still, they looked almost nothing alike. Eleanor’s skin was heavily dotted with freckles, her red hair quite dark and nearly straight. Louisa’s skin was flawlessly white, her hair brilliantly red and excessively curly. The only feature the two girls shared was a certain boldness of character and freedom in their speech, but that was likely due to the fact that the Marquis of Melverley was their father. A girl might well need to develop some special skills if forced to deal with Melverley on a regular basis.

  “It’s a satire,” Cranleigh said. “It’s not a portrait.”

  “Lord Cranleigh,” Eleanor said with the most devilishly amused look on her pretty little face, “I do understand the difference. I have seen my share of satires. My father has quite a folio of them, and as he keeps the folio in the library and as he is never in the library, I have seen quite as many satires as I like. I should have seen Amelia’s satire as well, but the shop was sold out. I shall be first in line when they run off a second printing, I promise you.”

  He was amused in spite of himself. She was clearly a spirited girl, and it was quite possible that this little sprite was the reason Lady Jordan drank. He found himself in some sympathy with Lady Jordan for the first time.

  “Nevertheless, you will not see it here, and not now,” Cranleigh said.