The Marriage Wager

by Ashford, Jane

  This was the least dangerous scheme he might plan, Emma thought. She frowned. She had, after all, been the reluctant means of introducing this man to Lady Mary. She had some responsibility to stop him. “A libertine is a man who will not hesitate to seduce and ruin you if he is given the chance,” said Emma bluntly. “Marriage may not be involved.”

  Lady Mary’s mouth fell open.

  “Orsino is a fortune hunter,” Emma continued. “He wants money, a lot of it, and he will do almost anything to get it. Except, I think, to tie himself for life. He would be much more likely to put you in a compromising position, and then force money from your parents. He enjoys deceiving people and robbing them through some stratagem.” Her face twisted. “It makes him feel superior.”

  Lady Mary looked impressed.

  “He will do anything,” Emma emphasized again. “And he cares for no one on earth but himself. I have seen the way he treated…” She met Lady Mary’s wide blue eyes. “Other women with whom he became acquainted,” she finished.

  “How?” inquired the girl.

  “Badly,” said Emma.

  “Umm.” Lady Mary thought this over.

  “So you see why you must have nothing to do with him.”

  “I see that I must take care,” was the reply. “You may be sure I shan’t let him make a fool of me.”

  “You will not be able to stop him,” Emma insisted, feeling a strong desire to shake her.

  “I don’t see why not, now that you have warned me.”

  “How can you like him?” Emma exclaimed. “He is so false, so insinuating.”

  “I didn’t realize it was all false,” Lady Mary admitted. “I will be on my guard.”

  Emma made an exasperated noise.

  “And I’m not certain I like him exactly,” continued the girl. “He is very interesting, though. I have never met anyone at all like him.”

  “Because your parents have seen that you don’t.” Emma’s frustration made her clench her fists.

  “Well, that’s just it, you see. They have made certain I only met suitable young men, and I have come to the conclusion that suitable young men are dead bores.”

  “Lady Mary—”

  “And now, of course, I do not even see them, because I cannot go out. They do not offer to walk with me in the park or call to see how I am getting on. They just say horrid things, like Freddy Blankenship, and laugh at me.”

  Emma tried to control her temper.

  “So I do not see why I should not enjoy myself with Count Orsino, as long as I am very careful.”

  “Because he will eat you alive!” exploded Emma.

  Lady Mary smiled, and Emma noticed a most disconcerting spark in her eyes. “That is what he will think,” she confided. “Most people expect me to be quite stupid, you know. I find it very useful at times.”

  “You do not understand what you are proposing,” said Emma.

  “But I do. Now. And I thank you very much for your kind advice.”

  Emma groaned.

  “There was something I wished to speak to you about,” Lady Mary confided, as if the previous subject had been satisfactorily disposed of. “That is why I came. I heard you have made up a party to attend the Pantheon masquerade, and I had the most wonderful idea.”

  “What?” replied Emma warily.

  Lady Mary clasped her hands before her chest as if in prayer. “You could take me with you! No one would know who I was. And so they would not know that I am in mourning and not allowed to attend large parties.” She heaved a sigh. “You have no idea what a penance it is to be missing all the balls and musical evenings and other entertainments that my friends attend.” She frowned. “Eliza takes a positive delight in describing every single detail, and exclaiming over and over what a fine time she had.”

  It must be hard for her, Emma acknowledged, but she had to shake her head. “I cannot take you to a masquerade,” she said. “It is no place for a young girl.”

  “You are going,” accused Lady Mary.

  “With my husband, and a number of friends. And we only intend to watch for a while and leave early,” responded Emma, trying to make the evening sound unappealing.

  The scheme backfired. “Well, you see, there’s nothing wrong in that,” said Lady Mary. “I would stay in the box with you. Everyone will be masked. And no one would know who I was,” she repeated. “I don’t see the harm.”

  “Your parents would never allow it,” declared Emma.

  Lady Mary waved this boring thought aside. “We needn’t tell them. My mother is quite used to my going out with you.”

  “I could not do anything against your parents’ wishes,” Emma told her.

  “You don’t know their wishes,” insisted the girl. “And if we do not ask them, then they cannot forbid—”

  “No,” said Emma, in what she hoped was a tone of finality.

  “How can you be so cruel?” the girl accused. “I did as you wanted, and told everyone that I had been mistaken about St. Mawr’s intentions. I have taken great pains to be pleasant and do as I was told. And now you will not do one tiny thing for me!”

  An interesting, and characteristic, interpretation of their situation, Emma thought. She wondered what Lady Mary was like when she was not taking pains to be pleasant.

  “You don’t care anything about me, really, do you? Now that you have got what you wanted, I daresay you will sever the acquaintance.”

  Emma gave her a sidelong glance. This was uncomfortably close to something she had thought herself. “Nonsense,” she replied bracingly.

  “No one cares about me,” Lady Mary burst out. “It is all family or society or duty. I’m heartily sick of it all!”

  Emma wondered if she was going to cry, and wondered what she could say to forestall a tantrum. “I do care about you,” she said with partial truth. “But that does not mean I will deceive your parents.”

  “I do not want to deceive them,” the girl protested. “If they do not—”

  She was interrupted by a knock at the drawing room door, followed at once by the appearance of Robin Bellingham on the heels of Clinton the butler.

  “I wanted to tell you…” Robin began, but stopped short when he saw Lady Mary. “Oh, er, hullo,” he added.

  Clinton offered Emma a note on a silver tray. “This was just delivered for you, my lady,” he said. Emma took the folded paper and opened it.

  Two more days. I believe I will call on your husband first, before offering the tale to the vulgar crowd.

  Orsino

  She stared at the words and felt sick. The room receded from her consciousness for a time, and her thoughts raced in the same futile circles that had occupied them for days. What was she going to do? How could she stop this creature from wrecking her marriage and exposing Colin to the ridicule and pity of all fashionable London? What lever could she use, what weapon? There had to be a way.

  When she finally became aware of her surroundings again, Lady Mary was saying, “Well, this is the silliest thing I have ever heard. Why should anyone wish to spend five hundred pounds on a pair of horses, when you can get perfectly good ones for half that.”

  “These are matched grays,” replied Robin, scandalized by her attitude. “Bradshaw says they’re sweet goers, too, smooth as silk.”

  “I have not noticed—” the girl began to object.

  “Be quiet!” Emma put a hand to her aching head.

  “You have been very bad-tempered lately,” observed Lady Mary.

  “I have not!”

  Both of them looked at her. Emma heard sounds of arrival in the hall below and knew that Colin was home, and that another strained, silent evening loomed before them.

  “Was it that note?” Lady Mary asked.

  Looking down, Emma realized that she was still holding the bit of paper. She crushe
d the sheet in her fist just as Colin strolled into the room and wished them all good day. A flash of panic caused her to fumble the note into her pocket, and then to flush bright red at the needless attention she had drawn to it.

  Colin’s expression hardened.

  “My lord,” said Lady Mary. “How fortunate. You can settle a dispute for us. Would you spend five hundred pounds on a team of horses?”

  He didn’t seem to hear her. He was looking at Emma, watching her try to recover her composure and pretend that the moment of acute awkwardness had not occurred.

  “Anyone would,” said Robin quickly, trying to catch Lady Mary’s eye and signal her to drop the subject. The tension in the room was almost painful.

  “Anyone?” she mocked, oblivious to his winks and grimaces. “What nonsense! I would not. And of course, most of the people in London could never afford to—”

  “Shall we go?” said Robin. “I believe you said you had an appointment.” He stared meaningfully into her eyes and made an unobtrusive gesture toward the door.

  “Me? I have no appointments.” She frowned at him as if he had said something exceedingly stupid. “What is the matter with you?”

  Emma wasn’t looking at Colin at all, Robin noticed, while he was staring at her with an intensity that was almost frightening. And there had been some odd business with that note when St. Mawr came in. Robin had thought at first that they wanted to be rid of their visitors, but now he concluded that it was something else, some trouble between them.

  “You’re getting as bad as Emma,” said Lady Mary. “Lately, she’s completely distracted, or else snapping at us like a schoolmistress.”

  Robin watched Emma flush and Colin frown. Definitely something wrong, he thought. And he was struck by a sudden impulse to do something, to help the sister who had been the first to put faith in him. He had thought, in a vague way, that her marriage was happy. That seemed to be the general opinion around the ton. If they’d hit a snag, perhaps an outsider could help cut them loose. “Er…” he said.

  The others turned to look at him.

  What was the drill here? he wondered. His mind was a blank. Lady Mary was beginning to glare impatiently. What did you do when things threatened to blow up in your face? Robin thought frantically. “Ah!” he said.

  “What is it?” snapped Colin.

  “You know, Emma, that servant of yours,” was the somewhat wild response. “The huge one. What’s his name?”

  “Ferik?” replied Emma, surprised.

  They all looked a bit flummoxed, thought Robin. But a laugh was just the thing to break the tension. “That’s it, Ferik,” he continued. “Rather an odd duck, eh? Strange notions.”

  “He comes from a very different sort of society,” allowed Emma, looking rather bewildered.

  “I should say. The fellow offered to tip me yesterday.” Robin looked around the group, waiting for them to catch the joke. They were remarkably slow on the uptake. “Instead of me tipping him,” he explained helpfully. “Wanted to give me a five-pound note.”

  “What for?” asked Colin in a harsh voice.

  “That’s the oddest thing of all,” Robin said, smiling to encourage them all to laugh along with him. “Wanted me to put in a good word for him with you. ‘Speak well of me to the lord,’ was the way he put it. As if you cared what I thought of your servants. Deuced odd, eh?”

  The other three just gazed at him.

  “Of course, I refused the money,” added Robin quickly.

  Lady Mary looked bored. Emma looked miserable. Colin looked grim.

  “It’s a joke,” Robin informed them irritably. “Funny, you see? A servant tipping. Don’t you see that?”

  “I think it’s stupid,” replied Lady Mary.

  Colin had had enough. “I think it is time you took your leave,” he said.

  The girl bridled.

  “Haven’t you anywhere else to spend your time?” he added, good manners quite defeated by the current situation in his house.

  “Oh, how can you speak to me so? After the way you…”

  “Someone ought to speak to you sharply at least once a day,” responded Colin, his patience completely exhausted. “And they should have begun a number of years ago.”

  Robin stared at him with awed respect.

  “You’re horrid,” declared Lady Mary. Her face puckered, threatening tears. “I don’t believe I was ever really in love with you!”

  “Neither do I,” replied Colin callously. “And now, if you will excuse us?” He threw Robin a meaningful look.

  The younger man stood straighter and prepared to do his duty. But he could not suppress a muttered, “I’m always having to take her off someone’s hands. And she’s deuced likely to cry in the street, you know.”

  Colin gave him a sardonic smile, but no answer. He simply watched the two young people gather their belongings and leave the room.

  When they were gone, he waited, watching Emma, who was half turned away from him. The unhappiness in her face and stance tore at him. Moving closer, he asked, “Won’t you tell me what’s wrong?” much more gently than he had planned a moment ago. “Can’t I help?”

  She couldn’t bear it, Emma thought. She really couldn’t bear it. He was everything she wanted, and yet she was being more and more cut off from him. The pain in her heart was like a knife.

  “Won’t you trust me?” he added, hurt in his voice.

  The pressure expanded within her. Her throat was raw and tight. Her eyes burned. Her ribs ached. And then, in that dreadful moment, as she thought she would crack into a million pieces, the solution to her problem sprang full-blown into Emma’s mind. She blinked. It was so simple, so clear, that she couldn’t comprehend how she had missed it before. Granted, it was an act of desperation. But Orsino inspired desperation. And this would work. Relief flooded through her. The release of tension was another kind of pain.

  “Emma?” said Colin.

  She took a deep breath. “Everything will be all right,” she said. “Don’t worry. Everything will be all right.”

  “What will?” he demanded.

  Emma shook her head.

  He gritted his teeth, angry and frustrated. For a moment there, he had thought she would yield and tell him the whole. But then something had changed. She had changed. And he was shut out again. It was insupportable. What had stopped her from confiding in him? Colin’s determination to get to the bottom of this matter redoubled. He would find out everything, he thought with clenched jaw, and then someone would pay.

  ***

  The next morning, after Colin was gone, Emma went to her sitting room and settled herself in the armchair by the window. Summoning all her resolution, she rang the bell and sent for Ferik. When the giant appeared a few minutes later and stood expectantly before her, she began, “You have said you would do anything for me, Ferik.”

  “Yes, mistress,” was the reply. “Of course. Have you not seen how I endure this constant evil rain for you? And I bear the insults of Clinton with—”

  “I have a serious problem,” Emma cut in.

  Ferik fell silent at once. Clasping his hands before him, he became deeply attentive.

  Emma took a breath. “That man we visited in his lodgings, he was in Constantinople. Count Orsino.”

  Ferik nodded heavily. “I remember him. He plays cards with young men and takes their money.”

  “Yes. He is threatening me.”

  Ferik scowled and clenched his great fists. “He would dare?”

  “He is an evil man,” said Emma. “I… I am afraid of him.”

  Ferik growled. “I will crush him like an insect,” he said. “I will break him into a thousand pieces and feed him to the rats. I will…” He paused as if remembering something, then looked sullenly disappointed. “Must we set the law on him, mistress?” he asked.

&nb
sp; “The law?”

  “Yes. You see how I remember what you have told me. You said the English law watches over everyone. Surely it will punish that man if he is trying to harm you.”

  Emma bit her lower lip. Ferik never listened to her. Why must he choose this moment to finally recall one of her strictures? she thought. “There are a few occasions,” she said, “a very few, when the law can do nothing.”

  Ferik’s dark eyes went wide. “But mistress, you told me…”

  “I know.” Emma felt a tremor. But then she thought of Colin, and Robin, and Lady Mary, and hardened her will. “This is one of those times,” she added. “The law cannot help me, so I am turning to you.”

  Ferik stood straighter, swelling with pride and gratification. “Shall I kill him for you, mistress?” he asked hopefully.

  Emma clasped her hands together so tight they hurt. “Yes,” she whispered.

  Ferik nodded, a satisfied grin spreading over his features, as Emma shifted in her seat. “I will return to his lodgings in secret tonight and—”

  “No. I have a plan, a way for you to get to him without anyone noticing.”

  “Not noticing me?” Ferik looked skeptical. Even after months in England, he was still stared at in the street.

  “Yes,” replied Emma, and she began to explain to him the scheme that had come to her in the drawing room yesterday.

  When she finished, Ferik nodded again. “Very nice, mistress. It will surely work.”

  “You see no… problems?”

  Slowly, he shook his head.

  “And afterward? You will…”

  Ferik waved his huge hand. “I will take care of everything, mistress. No need for you to worry.”

  “Yes. But…”

  “All will be well,” Ferik assured her. “I can easily do this.”

  “Yes,” repeated Emma, feeling rather numb. “Thank you, Ferik.”

  The Turkish giant shook his head. “You do not need to thank me, mistress. My life is yours.” Putting his hand on his breast, Ferik gave her a deep bow.

  And so it was done, Emma thought.