The Earl's Prize (Harlequin Historical)

by Nicola Cornick

  The light was dim in the hallway, but the stench of tallow and rot was all the worse. There were only two doors off the corridor and Lady Bainbridge now opened one of these, drawing Amy inside. The room was barely furnished, containing nothing but a frowsy bed and a couple of broken-down chairs. Lady Bainbridge’s hands still shook as they untied Amy’s bonnet and helped her with her cloak.

  ‘It is only for a little while, Amy, just a while. Papa will be back soon, you know, and then we may go…’

  Amy shivered, though the room was not cold. She took her mother’s hands in her own. Lady Bainbridge avoided her gaze.

  ‘Mama, how long have you been staying here?’

  Lady Bainbridge shrugged her thin shoulders. Amy could see that her dress was stained and torn. ‘A few days only. Soon we shall be gone again.’

  ‘But where is Papa now?’ Amy looked around, but the lodging house was silent. ‘Why do we have to stay in this dreadful place, Mama?’

  ‘It is only for a little while,’ Lady Bainbridge repeated tonelessly. Her face looked grey. She drifted over to one of the chairs and folded herself into it.

  ‘I do hope you are not hungry, my love. There is no food, you see, but it is only for a little while…’

  The suggestion of food made Amy feel very hungry. She was a growing girl and her stomach was rumbling loudly, but at the same time she felt almost sick with fear that they should come to this. The house in Mansfield Street had been small and shabbily furnished, but at least it had been at the west end of town. Amy had no very clear idea of where she was now, but she knew that Whitechapel was no place for a lady. She took the chair opposite her mother and hunched herself up, against the hunger, against the fear.

  ‘Is Richard to come with us to the country, Mama?’ She asked. Matters might not be so bad if only her brother were with them.

  Lady Bainbridge turned her faded blue eyes on her daughter. ‘Why, of course not, my love! Richard is at Eton and must remain there. We could not interrupt his education…’

  Amy sighed. She knew that Richard would have loved to have his education interrupted, whereas she—

  There was a crash as the door of the lodging house was flung open. Loud footsteps echoed on the wooden boards of the hall. Lady Bainbridge jumped up, one hand pressed to her mouth.

  ‘Oh! I wonder—’

  The door burst open. A gentleman stood in the aperture, a real gentleman, larger than life, with guinea-gold hair and a gold embroidered waistcoat and high shirt points and a higher colour. Amy leapt to her feet.

  ‘Papa! Oh, Papa!’

  His arms closed about her and swung her off the ground. ‘There’s my pet! Soon we’ll be all right and tight, eh?’

  He smelled of alcohol and familiar warmth. Amy burrowed close. ‘Oh, Papa, I was so afraid! What has happened to the house in Mansfield Street, and why must we go to the country?’

  ‘Guinea George’ Bainbridge set her on her feet again. He jingled the coins softly in his pocket. ‘No need to fret, sweetheart! What say you we rent a nice house in Curzon Street instead, and a coach and pair? And you will have a governess or go to whichever young ladies’ seminary you choose—’

  There was a sharp intake of breath from Lady Bainbridge. The pink colour had come into her thin cheeks and a sparkle into her pale blue eyes. She got to her feet and put her hand tentatively on her husband’s arm.

  ‘George?’ There was a note of entreaty in her voice and Amy, swamped as she was with excitement and relief, still heard it. She was attuned to such things by now. ‘George, you have won again? Oh, you have won again!’

  Amy saw her father scoop his wife up to him and kiss her hard. ‘I have indeed! A new dress for you, my love—twenty dresses if you will have them!’

  Lady Bainbridge was laughing, crying and scolding all at the same time. Amy watched her mother as she hung on Sir George Bainbridge’s arm, her eyes fixed on his face like a drowning woman. So it would not be today, or even tomorrow, that their ruin would finally catch up with them, but one day, perhaps…one day…Amy turned away. When I marry, she thought fiercely—if I ever marry—it will not be to a weak man, a gamester or a wastrel. I shall marry a man that I can love and respect, or I shall not marry at all. And I shall never gamble. They say that it is in the blood, but I will prove them wrong. Why, I should never even be tempted—not for a thousand pounds!

  Chapter One

  1814

  The Marquis of Tallant did not believe in improving his home—what had been good enough for his forebears needed no enhancement from him—and therefore the drawing room at Ashby Tallant was much the same as it had been twenty-five years before. Today sunlight was pouring through the diamond panes of the mullioned windows and its bright light cruelly accentuated the bald patches on the blue velvet curtains and the threadbare rugs where the pattern had almost worn away.

  Joscelyne, Earl of Tallant, came into the room with an assured step, pausing only as it seemed empty. Then he smiled a little grimly, for one of the wing chairs had its back turned deliberately to the door.

  ‘Good afternoon, sir.’ He came forward to stand in front of the fireplace, looking down at the man huddled in the chair. ‘I believe you wished to see me?’

  ‘I cannot say I wished to see you, Joss, but I certainly wanted to speak with you.’ The Marquis’s voice was harsh, a contrast to his son’s light and drawling tones. He made a slight gesture and the sunlight flashed on the diamond ring on his finger, a larger version of the one nestling in the folds of his cravat.

  ‘Sit down. You’ll take a glass of something? Pull the bell, then.’

  Joss complied, then took the chair opposite his father. The Marquis directed the footman to bring a bottle of canary.

  ‘You are well, sir?’ Joss enquired indifferently.

  The Marquis shifted uncomfortably in his chair. The diamond flashed again as he grasped his stick a little tighter between gnarled fingers. His chin was sunk on his chest, but his eyes flashed sharply. ‘I do well enough. Sorry to hear that, are you, boy? You’d be glad to see the back of me, I dare say!’

  ‘Not at all, sir,’ Joss said easily. He rose as the footman entered with the wine, and poured two glasses, handing one to the older man. He raised his own in salutation.

  ‘To your continued good health, sir.’

  A grunt was his only reply.

  ‘Juliana sends you her best wishes, sir. She is well.’

  ‘She takes after her mother,’ the old man said sourly. ‘No discretion. I’ve heard all the tales about her! I even heard that she is making a set for Clive Massingham, like her mother before her! As well that Myfleet is dead and gone and need not suffer the disgrace of his wife’s infidelity.’

  Joss shifted a little uncomfortably. ‘I beg you not to disparage Juliana, sir. If Myfleet had lived there would have been no infidelity. Juliana was happy with him, and now, of course, she is not—’

  ‘Happy, pah! You speak like a sentimental fool, Joss! Which of us is happy? Are you?’ The Marquis’s chin sank down on his chest again, then rose, jutting aggressively. ‘I hear all about you, my boy! Gambling dens, prize fights, running with Fleet, the worst rakehell in town! Once I had high hopes for you, before that disgraceful episode when you almost ruined the family with your gambling! Since then you have gone from bad to worse. Why, only last month I was obliged to pay off that blackguard Avery, who swore that you had debauched his daughter—’

  ‘That was unfortunate,’ Joss agreed smoothly.

  ‘Aye, unfortunate that I had to part with a considerable sum to keep him quiet!’

  ‘You should not have troubled.’ Joss took a sip of his wine. ‘I was scarce the first to debauch Angela Avery. Her father must be making a fortune!’

  The Marquis flushed puce. ‘Maidservants, landlords’ daughters, virgins, widows and wives, they are all the same to you!’

  ‘I beg you to be calm, sir.’ Joss’s drawl was even more pronounced. ‘You are getting yourself in a taking over nothing.
My exploits are nowhere near as dramatic as you have heard tell. Why, I am even known to attend the occasional tediously respectable ball! I fear your spies have overstated the case.’

  The Marquis waved an impatient hand. ‘Then it will not be difficult for you to fall in with my plans. I have decided I can tolerate no more of this wild behaviour. Scandal after scandal, dragging the family name into the gutter! You have brought it low—well, now you must redeem it!’

  ‘You must be desperate indeed, sir, if you see me as the saviour of the family honour,’ Joss said. ‘In what way is this miracle to be achieved?’

  ‘No need for your odious sarcasm, boy.’ The Marquis coughed a little and dabbed his handkerchief to his thin lips. He took a draught of the canary wine and sat back with a sigh.

  ‘Needs must that you should marry, Joss. You are nine and twenty, after all, and we need an heir for Ashby Tallant. If you were to wed a charming, accomplished girl, settle here in the country and raise your brood, much of the past might be forgotten. What do you say, eh?’

  ‘A conformable wife and a house in the country…’ A mocking smile touched Joss Tallant’s firm mouth. ‘How deadly dull! No, I thank you, sir. The idea holds little appeal to me.’

  ‘It was not a suggestion,’ his father said, an echo of the Tallant arrogance in his tone, ‘it was a command! You will marry creditably!’

  Lines of amusement crinkled briefly at the corner of Joss’s eyes. He rose languidly to his feet. ‘As a gambling man, I would have to advise you that that is not a safe bet, sir.’

  ‘Be damned to you, boy!’ The Marquis grasped his stick and hauled himself to his feet, glaring at his son, his words spitting from his lips. ‘You will do as I say! I shall disinherit you else—’

  ‘I do not believe you able to do that, sir,’ Joss said mildly.

  ‘Be damned to the entail! I’ll leave every last unsecured penny to your cousin Roger! You may have the estate but you’ll not be able to keep it! I’ll cut your allowance and see how you manage to gamble without that! Then you will need to marry—aye, and an heiress into the bargain!’

  ‘Pray do not make yourself ill on my account, sir,’ Joss murmured, putting a hand out to help his father. ‘You know I shall go my own way.’

  The Marquis subsided into his chair like a collapsing sack of grain. ‘Be damned to you,’ he said again, but the venom had gone out of his words. ‘You may marry the first female you see for all I care!’

  ‘A whimsical idea, sir,’ his son murmured. A gleam came into his amber eyes. ‘Perhaps I may do precisely that. Your servant, sir.’ He made an elegant bow, which received no acknowledgment, and went out into the hall. A manservant passed him his cloak, hat and gloves. There were no housemaids polishing the banisters, which was perhaps fortunate for Joss’s matrimonial plans. He noted the absence and allowed himself a smile.

  His curricle was brought around. It was a fresh May morning and before he ascended, Joss stood looking down the double avenue of elms and away across the parkland. The country. What a damnable place. He would return to town at once.

  The journey back was uneventful. The first female he saw was the landlady of the hostelry where he stopped to change horses and partake of a pint of ale, but she was already spoken for and the landlord was built like the proverbial brick privy. On the whole, Joss was grateful. It had been an odd, quixotic notion, but he was prone to act on such ideas sometimes. It made life a little less tedious.

  ‘Amy, dear,’ Lady Bainbridge said gently, ‘do extinguish the second candle. Two candles are quite unnecessary where one will do! Why, I am able to see to read by the light of a single candle so I am sure that you can see to sew just as well.’

  Amy put down her knotting and leaned over to extinguish the candle that was on the chest beside her chair. A thick smell of wax and smoke filled the air, making her head ache a little. Her eyes ached also; two candles in the parlour had been barely adequate to light her work and one would certainly not do, particularly as it was on the mantelpiece directly behind Lady Bainbridge’s head. Her mother was holding her book up to the light and squinting at the page in a manner that Amy knew could not be good for her eyes, regardless of what she said. She was not entirely sure when Lady Bainbridge had become a miser but the habit was now deeply engrained.

  Amy folded her work up neatly and stowed it away in the wooden chest with the shuttle and thread. She had been adding a knotted fringe to an old shawl in the hope that it would make the garment look a little less worn. The thread was a deep ruby colour and her knots were rather pretty, like a string of red beads. Even so, Amy did not delude herself that she had done any more than make a tired old shawl look slightly less frumpish. She had not had any new clothes for several years and had been obliged to titivate her existing ones with lace and ribbon in an attempt to look presentable. The results were not always a success and in more modish company Amy knew she looked a fright. On the other hand, there were very few occasions on which she was required to look presentable, for she seldom went into society.

  ‘I think I shall retire, Mama.’ Amy stifled a yawn. The evening had been much like any other. She had taken dinner with Lady Bainbridge, picking over a meal of mutton stew that would have been barely adequate for one and certainly could not stretch to two. After that they had retired to the parlour, the house in Curzon Street being too small to boast a true drawing room, and Lady Bainbridge had read and Amy had sewed, like any other evening during the past two years since Sir George Bainbridge had died. They had not gone out and no one had called on them. Lady Bainbridge discouraged visitors, as she always felt obliged to offer them refreshment.

  ‘Just as you wish, my love.’ Lady Bainbridge frowned. ‘There is a candle in the hall, is there not? Pray do not take it upstairs. You should be able to find your way up to your room perfectly well.’

  Amy reflected that this was true, but only because she had become accustomed to navigating herself around the house in the dark.

  ‘I shall wait up,’ Lady Bainbridge said, with a little self-pitying sigh. ‘It may be that your brother will be too tired to remember to lock the door securely when he retires and it would not do for someone to walk in off the street and steal anything.’

  Amy thought it more likely that Richard’s drinking rather than his tiredness would affect his memory. As for a thief randomly selecting the Bainbridge household, it seemed rather unlikely. She suspected that Lady Bainbridge’s parsimony must be a by-word amongst the underworld, who knew they would find no pickings in the house in Curzon Street. Before his death, her father had pawned or sold every item of value that he possessed and it was common knowledge that they had no money. The house, let to them at a minimal rate by an old family friend and furnished in the style of thirty years before, was little more than a roof over their heads. At times during the past ten years they had not even been able to afford to maintain it. These days they had two female servants, a cook housekeeper and maid, and one male servant, Richard’s valet, the inestimable Marten. They kept no carriage for they could no longer afford to do so. Lady Bainbridge had argued strenuously against the sale of the carriage the previous year, but Amy had pointed out that the horses were so thin from lack of food that they were likely to fall down in the street and make them a laughing-stock. This line of reasoning had so frightened Lady Bainbridge, who could not bear the censure of others, that she had finally acquiesced.

  ‘I wish you would not stay up until Richard retires, Mama,’ Amy said now, in her usual mild tone. ‘You know that Marten will take care of him and make sure that all is secure. Besides, the gentlemen are likely to be at their play into the early hours. You will fall asleep in your chair, like as not, and wake up with a crick in your neck and your hair in disarray!’

  Lady Bainbridge looked most alarmed. She still possessed the remnant of the beauty that had first captured George Bainbridge and she guarded it zealously. Yet everything about Lady Bainbridge was a little droopy, for she had wilted from the moment tha
t she was widowed, and had never quite recovered. Faded brown ringlets fell about her shoulders from a lace cap that sagged a little. Her gown hung off her sparse figure and her mouth, once a perfect bow, turned down at the corners.

  ‘Oh, I had not thought…If you put in that way, my love…Yet I cannot go up to bed, for I require my other book to help me sleep. This…’ she waved the book in her hand ‘…is Mrs Kitty Cuthbertson’s book and I use it to keep me awake. It is Mrs Edgeworth’s book that I require for night time.’

  Amy had long ago become accustomed to her mother’s personal superstitions. Lady Bainbridge had her own set of beliefs to supplement the more generally accepted maxims of avoiding walking under ladders and refusing to let the maid turn the mattresses on a Friday. One of Lady Bainbridge’s most steadfast convictions was that she had to approach her sleep with a particular routine: no looking over her shoulder as she ascended the stair, her slippers to be laid out pointing away from the bed, a certain book to read before bedtime…In these beliefs she was as unshakeable as a mountain.

  Amy sighed. ‘Where is Mrs Edgeworth’s book now, Mama?’

  ‘Oh I do believe…’ Lady Bainbridge patted her pockets and the chair cushions ineffectually, ‘I do believe I have left it in the dining room. Quite unaccountable, I know, since it should never leave my bedroom. Of all the unfortunate things, that your brother should choose to entertain his cronies at home tonight!’

  It was indeed unfortunate and it was also unusual. Sir Richard Bainbridge was seldom at home, preferring to do his gambling at White’s or Boodle’s. Amy could not remember the last time that her brother had invited his cronies to the house in Curzon Street. It was neither large enough nor grand enough to use for entertaining, but for a small gambling party it was suitably discreet.