The Marriage Wager

by Ashford, Jane

  Emma looked, then shivered. If she could not find a way out of the current tangle, she might well find herself inside walls like those again, alone, trying to win enough money to survive for the next few weeks—and terribly unhappy for the rest of her life. She shivered again.

  They drove past the front door, where a bright lantern hung to illuminate the step and encourage visitors. Two men were about to enter. Emma watched the smaller one knock as the other waited a little behind. The door opened, throwing a shaft of golden light in their faces, and, with horror, Emma recognized them both. Faster than thought, she started up in her seat, and then struck a sharp blow on the roof of the carriage. “Stop!” she cried to the coachman above them. “Stop at once.”

  The vehicle lurched as the man began to pull up the horses. “What the devil?” said Colin.

  Though the coach was still moving, Emma pushed open the door on her side and started to leap out. Colin caught her arm and held her until the vehicle came to a full stop. “Have you gone mad?” he exclaimed. “Do you want to hurt yourself?”

  “I must go in,” replied Emma, struggling in his grasp.

  “Why?”

  “Because I must!” she cried. She broke Colin’s grip and jumped down to the cobbled street. Robin had just entered the gaming house in the company of Count Orsino. It was as if Emma’s worst nightmares had come to life before her eyes. In an instant, she saw Robin degenerating in just a few years from a bright youth to desperate, grasping insanity, into a creature who thought of nothing but the next wager. The vision—the memory—clouded her reason, and she could think of nothing but dragging Robin away from this place.

  “Emma!” Colin was right behind her as she crossed the pavement and mounted the step to Barbara Rampling’s door. “Wait a moment,” he said as she knocked.

  The door opened and she strode through, heading immediately for the stairs.

  “Emma.” Colin caught her arm again and forced her to stop near the top of the stairs. Catching hold of her shoulders, he brought her around to face him. “What is the matter?”

  “It was Robin. I saw him,” replied Emma a bit wildly. “He will be ruined. And it is all my fault. I must tell him. I must stop him.” She twisted between his hands.

  “How can it be your fault?” he said, cursing young Robin silently. He had thought the boy’s word good.

  Orsino was here because of her, Emma thought. It was as if she had loosed a terrible plague on people she cared about and must now watch them be destroyed by it. Once again, it would not be her, but someone she loved who was ruined and disgraced. The idea drove her beyond rational thought. “You let me believe you had helped him,” she accused Colin. “You lied to me!” She tore free of his hands. “You care nothing about Robin,” she cried. “He is just an annoyance to you. It would be different if Caroline was in trouble. Then you would stop it.”

  Her words rang in the air for a moment. They faced each other like adversaries.

  “It is true I care more for my sister than for Robin,” he acknowledged evenly. “That seems to me only natural. But it does not mean that—”

  “Go home!” cried Emma. “Leave me alone. I will take care of my brother myself.” Her stomach had knotted and she was on the verge of tears.

  But he caught hold of her again. “There is more involved here than your brother,” he accused. “Why won’t you tell me what?”

  “I thought he was occupied,” said Emma to herself. “I thought he was not gambling as much as before.”

  “He is not,” replied Colin, hoping it was true.

  “Things are worse than ever!” exclaimed Emma. “Tonight he is gambling with…” She bit off the last of this sentence and struggled to pull away from him again.

  “With whom?” demanded Colin.

  “Let go. Leave me alone,” she said, overcome with guilt.

  “He was with someone. That is what has upset you so. Who?”

  “You’re hurting my arm,” she protested. “Let me go.”

  “Not until you tell me what has frightened you so.”

  “I am not frightened!” With a violent jerk that bruised her arm, Emma broke free. At once, she leapt up the remaining stairs. “Go home,” she insisted, her voice uneven. “I will see to this.”

  Colin let her go, watching her disappear into the main card room in a flurry of silk. Naturally, he was not going to leave her alone in this place, but he was too angry to follow just now. She was acting as she had when they first met, treating him as someone who could not be trusted. He had shown her that this wasn’t true. She had no right to doubt it.

  Looking grim, Colin slowly followed Emma into the large card room. Surveying the occupants, he spotted Robin first, sitting at a table in the corner facing a dark gentleman in dandyish dress. After a moment, Colin recognized him. It was Orsino. Somewhat enlightened, he searched for Emma. It took a few moments, but he finally found her sitting in a window seat, half concealed by the curtains. Her eyes were fixed on her brother, and her body was rigid with tension.

  Colin paused, then walked farther into the room. He made sure Barbara Rampling saw him, and one or two of the habitués of her house, so that no one would imagine Emma was here alone. Then he retreated into one of the side rooms, where a game of whist was in progress, and settled himself as if interested in observing. Actually, he chose a place from which he could see much of the outer room.

  Emma realized that her hands hurt. She had been clenching her fists for a long time, watching Robin lose money to Orsino. With a great effort, she eased them open. Her shoulders were cramping with tension, and her head was pounding. She saw nothing in the crowded room but Robin and the count, and she followed every move of their fingers, every expression that passed across their faces. Several times, she had to restrain herself from running across the room and dragging Robin away from the table. Only the certainty that he would never forgive her for such a public scene stopped her. And so she waited, painfully alert to any opening that would allow her to get her brother away from that devil.

  After what seemed like days, Robin finally rose from his chair and walked toward the back of the room, where he went through a curtain that led to the retiring rooms. At once, Emma was on her feet and hurrying through the crowd. No doubt Orsino would see her, she thought, if he had not already. He didn’t miss such things. But she didn’t care. It wouldn’t matter what he thought if she could just get Robin away from him.

  Emma positioned herself just inside the curtain that hung across the corridor leading to the back premises. A gentleman who had clearly drunk far too much reeled by just as she arrived. She thought he might accost her, but he seemed lost in his own world and merely stumbled by, tangling himself briefly in the folds of the curtain before erupting into the room beyond. Emma heard male voices greet him in laughing mockery as she turned to watch for Robin again.

  He soon came, walking purposefully along the hall, a frown on his handsome young face. It deepened when she spoke his name and he realized that the shadowy figure silhouetted by the light streaming between the curtains was his sister.

  “Emma, what the deuce are you doing here?” he said.

  “I must speak to you!”

  “Now? Is something wrong?” He looked alarmed. “Is it Father?”

  “No! It is you, you… idiot.” In that instant, Emma’s welter of emotion focused into a beam of anger directed at her young brother. “How can you be such a fool?” she demanded.

  Robin stiffened and looked haughty.

  “Can’t you see that Orsino is a sharper?” cried Emma. “How can you let him lead you into—”

  “Of course I can,” interrupted Robin curtly.

  “Then why are you here with him?” said Emma, feeling ready to shriek.

  Robin gave her a look. “I should think that might be obvious to you,” he answered. “You are the one who introduce
d that court card to Lady Mary.”

  Surprised, Emma just looked at him.

  “He’s been hanging about her, you know, filling her head with ridiculous notions and encouraging her to believe she is persecuted because she is in mourning.”

  Emma blinked.

  “She has no experience of the world,” Robin continued. “She does not see that he is a danger to her.”

  “But…” Emma faltered. This conversation was not going as she had planned.

  “So someone has to keep this Orsino away from her,” Robin concluded.

  “Yes, I know, but…”

  “Can’t be you,” Robin added, “because the man’s not proper company for any female, in my opinion. So…” He shrugged.

  Emma gazed at him in bemused wonderment. This was not what she had expected from him at all.

  “I said I’d help you with her,” he said in response to her expression. “And I am. Trying to help her as well. Orsino really prefers the tables, you know, to just about anything else. If I keep him busy gaming, he can’t be making mischief for anyone else.”

  “He will take every penny you have,” wailed Emma.

  Robin made a wry face. “Seems likely,” he admitted. “The man’s got the devil’s own luck.”

  “He cheats!”

  Comprehension dawned on Robin’s handsome face. “Does he? That explains it, then.”

  “You mustn’t play with him,” Emma insisted.

  Her brother shrugged. “Have to keep him busy, Emma. He doesn’t have a broad acquaintance in London, you see, and if he is not with me, he’ll likely be after Lady Mary.”

  Emma heard echoes of Orsino in that. It was just the sort of subtle threat he made in order to get what he wanted. Her relief at the knowledge that Robin was not addicted to gaming was lost in the fear of Orsino’s association with him. Orsino would find a way to subvert him. Her jaw hardened. “You must not have any contact with Orsino,” she urged Robin. “I will see that he does not harm Lady Mary.”

  Her brother looked skeptical. “How?” he asked. When Emma hesitated, he nodded as if she had confirmed some thought of his. “The man’s a rum customer, Emma. You’d best stay away from him.”

  Emma gazed at him with a mixture of affection and despair. It was unbelievable that he should be saying this to her, trying to protect her. He had been a child in England while she faced scoundrels of every sort. “I can deal with Orsino,” she told him. “All of Edward’s friends were like him. I am used to the type.”

  Robin looked shocked. “All of them?” he said. “I thought perhaps… I mean, I assumed you didn’t realize what a blackguard the fellow is.”

  “I am all too aware,” replied Emma. “Please, Robin, stay away from him. It is not just gambling. He is the worst sort of man.”

  Her young brother straightened and looked stubborn. “I promised to help you, and I shall,” he declared. “I don’t slope off as soon as things get difficult, you know. You can count on me.”

  “But it won’t help if I am worrying about you all the time,” Emma said.

  “Don’t need to. I can handle myself.”

  Emma’s eyes filled with tears. She really could count on him, she realized. He was rapidly growing up into an admirable man. The trouble was, she didn’t want to count on him in this. He didn’t really understand what Count Orsino was capable of, and she wanted him as far from the man as possible. “Robin—” she began.

  “You won’t get rid of me,” he interrupted. “So you may as well not try.”

  If she had not asked him to help with Lady Mary, he would not even know Orsino, Emma thought despairingly. “It is not a matter of—”

  The curtain twitched back, and Colin stood there, a frown on his face. He had seen Emma slip behind this drape some minutes ago, and had become concerned when she did not reappear. Now, he faced two startled pairs of eyes and received the distinct feeling that he was intruding on a private conversation.

  “St. Mawr,” said Robin heartily. “Glad you’re here. I thought Emma was alone.”

  “No,” said Colin.

  “Good.” Robin gave him a comradely nod. “Have to get back to the table. Orsino will be wondering what became of me.”

  “Robin,” protested Emma.

  “Not until you tell me what is going on,” commanded Colin.

  Robin glanced at Emma for direction.

  Anger drew Colin’s face tight. Emma bit her lower lip, uncertain.

  “Don’t worry,” Robin said, in an attempt at conciliation. “I have things well in hand.” And before anyone could argue with that statement, he slipped out into the card room.

  The corridor was quiet and empty. Emma looked at the polished floor.

  “He has things in hand?” said Colin in a tightly controlled voice. “Something has occurred to upset you, and you have turned to that… boy to help you?”

  It was too complicated to explain, Emma thought.

  “What has passed between you and Orsino?” he asked crisply.

  “Between us?” Emma cast about for some innocuous fiction, and did not find it. “He’s… someone Edward knew,” she said finally. “I was afraid… when I saw Robin with him… But it was all a mistake,” she added hurriedly, before he could inquire.

  Rage and hurt burned in Colin at the thought that she had told her brother things he was not to know.

  “I’m tired,” said Emma, not meeting his eyes. “Let us go.”

  “Not until you tell me what is going on,” he insisted.

  “I have told you. Nothing is going on.”

  “You expect me to believe that?” asked Colin.

  “Are you suggesting I’m lying?” she snapped.

  “You are evading the issue!”

  “Nothing that concerns you has—”

  “Everything about you concerns me!” he shouted. “And I will have the truth of this matter, Emma. Now.”

  She raised her chin. “You will get nothing by shouting my name in gaming houses.”

  Realizing that he had lost control in an unforgivable way, Colin struggled to regain his equilibrium.

  “I wish to go home now,” repeated Emma. She pulled back the drape and walked across the large room to the door opposite. Colin had no choice but to follow. As he did so, he was conscious of interested eyes watching them, particularly a dark, shrewd pair from a table in the corner.

  Twelve

  The footman opened the door of Emma’s fashionable barouche and offered a hand to help her climb down. She descended gracefully to the pavement and prepared to enter her town house. She was coming from a call on Colin’s mother, who had been filled with the greatest cordiality and even approval of all Emma’s plans for refurbishing Trevallan, even though the dowager baroness had said, “I always found the place drafty and prodigiously depressing to the spirits.”

  How much longer could she go through the motions of her fashionable life in London? Emma wondered. She thought only of her dilemma. Her small efforts to discover why Orsino had left the Continent for England had failed. All the schemes she formulated had fatal flaws. And time was rapidly running out.

  Emma’s nights had filled with troubled dreams in which Colin was looking at her, smiling warmly. Then, gradually, his expression would change to chagrin, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, and then to distaste, and finally to cold contempt. In the end, he would be staring directly at her with ice in his violet eyes and revulsion in the line of his mouth, and she would know for certain that they would never be close again. She would wake sitting bolt upright and sheened with sweat, and be grateful at first to find herself alone in her bed. The tears came later.

  A sound made her raise her head. Clinton was standing in the open doorway of the house, like a stern sentinel in black, waiting for her to enter. He had cleared his throat to let her know this
, and to attract her attention to the fact that she was daydreaming in the public street. “Good afternoon, my lady,” he said now. “Lady Mary Dacre has called. She insisted on waiting.”

  Swiftly, Emma mounted the two steps to the threshold and went in, stripping off her gloves as she walked. She was very tired of Lady Mary’s chatter about how much longer she was required to be in mourning and the new ball gown her mother had promised her for the first dance she would be allowed to attend. But she had a duty to attend to, Emma thought. And it could not be put off any longer.

  When Lady Mary greeted her, Emma responded by shutting the door of the drawing room with a snap. “I must speak to you about Count Orsino,” she said without preamble.

  Lady Mary looked surprised. “Count Orsino?”

  “You must not allow yourself to be charmed by him,” Emma replied.

  “Why not?”

  “He is not a proper person for you to know.”

  “But he seems quite pleasant,” the girl objected. “I think he’s amusing. He makes me laugh.”

  “He is a scoundrel—a cheating gamester, a liar, a libertine. He is completely unprincipled.”

  “I thought he was a friend of yours,” said Lady Mary.

  “I became acquainted with him in Europe, because he hung about my husband in order to win money from him. But I have never been his friend,” replied Emma vehemently.

  Lady Mary looked more intrigued than shocked. “I have always wondered,” she said. “What exactly is a libertine?”

  “Someone you should not know,” repeated Emma curtly.

  “Yes, but why? What does it mean?”

  Emma hesitated. She did not believe in the approach that left young girls completely ignorant of the coarser side of life. She thought it often put them at the mercy of those who wished them ill. But she was not in charge of Lady Mary’s education. She had no right to make such decisions for her.

  “Does it mean he will try to persuade me to run away and marry him, so that he can have my fortune?” Lady Mary appeared to contemplate this possibility with an alarming lack of concern.