Marriage Gamble

by Oliver, Marina

  'And she made no objection? I must challenge her about that, discarding me for a mere Earl. You should have made a greater effort to arrive in good time.'

  'I was delayed. By a recalcitrant cravat,' he added, and Frank laughed out loud. 'In fact she did object, but more on the grounds of propriety than a desire to dance with you, I suspect.'

  'I must see whether I can change that. Let me give you due notice, Luke, I'm considering whether I want to fix my interest. To give you a run for your money. Why should you have it all your own way?'

  'Well, you won't do it tonight. Her card was full.'

  'I have other plans. She's looking better,' Francis said. 'Isn't it amazing what decent gowns can do for a girl?'

  'You were too harsh before.'

  'Well, you saw her yourself. Was it her you were driving in the Park yesterday?'

  The Earl sighed. Why was he defending the girl? She was no beauty, and despite her better gowns, no one could call her so. There were many debutantes in the room who were much better looking.

  'One cannot do anything in the Season without all one's friends knowing immediately.'

  'Nor one's enemies. The luscious Catherine has been asking whether you have been coerced into bear leading one of your country cousins. I detected a hint of rancour there. She has not forgiven you, despite all that poor old Stanton's lavishing on her. If you lifted a finger she'd come running back. Can't say I blame her, he's rich but he's well over fifty, and a tedious bore when he's had a couple of glasses of port.'

  The Earl ignored this.

  'I'll have you know that apart from Clarence I have only one country cousin, and at almost thirty she should be quite up to snuff. You've met Jennifer many times. Have you seen young Frayne in town yet?'

  'Clarence has been here for some time. He has taken rooms in Half Moon Street. He says Jennifer and her mother will be arriving next week.'

  'They have not bothered to inform me. Why the devil do they have to come at such a ticklish time?'

  'She will be piqued to see she has a rival. She's always been bitter towards any girl in whom you showed an interest.'

  'I have never given any encouragement to cousin Jennifer or Aunt Emily. All I have ever done in that direction is be civil when we have the misfortune to meet. Why, I've never even danced with Jennifer since her coming out ball, and then I was jockeyed into it by my aunt. I was too young to know how to escape. Lord knows why my Uncle John married such a Friday-faced antidote.'

  'Her fortune, of course. The only option for a younger son. Your father inherited most of the Frayne wealth.'

  'What was left of it after his own father's unfortunate luck at the tables. Then he did his best to gamble that away until he lost the Castle. That gave him pause. And my uncle followed in his footsteps and soon lost most of Aunt Emily's fortune.'

  They were joined at that moment by some friends who enticed them into a card room, and Luke did not emerge until it was time for him to take his place with Damaris in a cotillion. He had just reached her side when a large, red-faced man a few years older than himself pushed in front of him and began to talk urgently to her. Luke could not help overhearing.

  'You have been driving in the Park, alone with a young man!' he said. 'What would your grandfather have said to such reckless behaviour? It's not decent.'

  Damaris looked steadily at him.

  'Humphrey, don't be so silly. He'd have been delighted. It's what's expected, during the Season, and what harm can there be, in an open carriage, in a populous area where there are always people a few yards away? Hardly ravishment or abduction.'

  'You need to watch that deplorable stable yard talk if you don't wish to be ostracized.'

  'I thought that was what you wanted, so that I'd be disgraced and crawl back to Yorkshire? And what do you mean by stable yard talk?' she added, blushing but defiant, her chin well to the fore.

  'Never you mind what I mean. People talk. You have never been to London before, you don't know the snares laid for heiresses. I had reservations about your coming, but your grandfather wished it. So I've decided to stay here for the Season, and ensure you neither disgrace nor make a fool of yourself.'

  'If you care to make a fool of yourself trying to supervise my behaviour I can't prevent it, but you will not order me about, prevent me from doing exactly what I wish, or tell me what is proper. Lady Gordon is my chaperone, not you.'

  'I'm your guardian, you have to obey me. You came here without my permission.'

  'I do not need it, since I am obeying my grandfather's commands.'

  'I could send you back to Yorkshire at any time.'

  'Just try, Humphrey, and I'll let everyone know why Annie Wilkes and her family suddenly sold their farm and left, leaving no direction. Or why the rector of Three Ashes and his daughter left a handsome rectory and a substantial stipend to work in the slums of Liverpool. They must have cost you a good deal.'

  'You don't know what you are talking about, and you were only a child when they left the area,' Humphrey said, but Luke was amused to see his ears had turned a bright red.

  Before the exchange could get even more heated Luke stepped forward and took Damaris's hand in his.

  'My dance, Miss Hallem.'

  He could feel her trembling, but she looked up at him and smiled, and went with him onto the dance floor.

  'I'm sorry if you heard that,' she said, taking a deep breath. 'Humphrey has looked after everything since my grandfather died, but he can be overbearing. I shall be thankful when I reach my majority, in July, and he has no further control over me or my affairs. At least, that is what I believe the situation to be, but I don't know quite how grandfather left things.'

  'You need a champion to stand up to him,' he said softly, and squeezed her hand.

  She giggled. Instead of being irritated, as happened when most debutantes behaved in a gauche manner, he laughed with her.

  'You mean a husband. Thank you, but no, for then I should be in even worse state, my fortune and my behaviour controlled by him. At least I only see Humphrey occasionally, for he has his own business to run in Whitby.'

  They said no more, for the music started and there was no further opportunity for talk, but he was thinking hard. The fellow had been proprietorial, and he suspected he had designs on Damaris and her fortune. Would he try to prevent a match with anyone else? He thought, without undue conceit, that Damaris would prefer him to Humphrey, and the fellow could scarcely prevent her, once she was twenty-one, from marrying, yet from her remarks she seemed to reject marriage. Luke decided he needed to discover more of this situation and how it affected Frayne Castle.

  *

  Damaris was still furiously angry with Humphrey when she woke the following morning. How dared he chide her in public, and for such a foolish reason? It had quite destroyed her enjoyment of the ball to know that he would be in London during the Season, spying on her and trying to control her actions. She had been grateful for his presence after her grandfather's death, dealing with all the necessary business at a time when she had been too devastated to care. He had managed the estate as well as his own boat building concerns, and done it successfully. A cousin of her mother's, and her only male relative, it had seemed natural he was appointed her guardian. She had known him from childhood, but he was fifteen years her elder, and had been like an uncle rather than someone of her own generation. That did not, however, give him any right to order her actions here in London.

  She tried to forget him by recalling the rest of the ball. She had danced every dance and Mary had been delighted, predicting she would soon be receiving offers. Damaris shook her head. She was not, she told herself firmly, trying to find a husband. Soon she could go back to Frayne Castle, having done as her grandfather had wished, and after July she could dispense with Humphrey and run the estate herself. She knew she was capable of it, for she had spent a great deal of time with her grandfather while he dealt with estate business, riding round to visit his tenants, talking with them,
and explaining to her why he did certain things and not others. He had been teaching her how to go on, and Damaris wondered if he had considered she would never marry. Yet as an heiress she would receive offers. It would not be from lack of opportunity if she remained a spinster.

  When Netta brought her breakfast tray there were two posies on it, with notes attached.

  One, of violets, was from the Earl of Frayne, saying he had enjoyed dancing with her and hoped she would ride out with him that afternoon if she were not too tired. He would call at three in any event.

  The other was from Francis Willett, a single white rose, and a note regretting he had been unable to dance with her, but begging her to reserve two dances at the next ball, in two days' time.

  She wrote a note in answer, apologizing for permitting Lord Frayne to take his dances last night, and promising she would not again allow it. She wanted to say it had not been her fault, for once Luke Frayne had decided on something, very little could stop him, and she had been too astonished at the time to make an adequate protest. This, however, seemed feeble, and as the two men were friends Francis Willett would know what he was like.

  Having sent a footman off with the note she promptly forgot Mr Willett and turned her attention to what she would wear that afternoon.

  Her riding habits were all old apart from the black one she had ordered after her grandfather died. It had been suitable for whenever she expected to meet people on her rides round the estate or into the village, and was now showing signs of wear. But it would have to do until she acquired a new one. She would brighten it with a lacy cravat, and fortunately she had bought a new, fashionable top hat, also black, but designed to be decorated with sheer scarves, and she had bought several of those. It merely remained to select a colour. In the end, in a spirit of bravado, she chose one in scarlet, and sent Netta out to purchase some matching scarlet ribbed silk with which she could attach cuffs and reveres to the jacket. It would not look as though she was in mourning.

  *

  Luke had spent much of the night considering his tactics. After leaving the ball he had sat in front of the fire in his library, sipping brandy and reflecting on all he knew about Miss Hallem. Frank, and some other of his friends, had pronounced her dowdy and uninteresting before that evening, and she had indeed appeared so. Was it merely her more fashionable clothes which made him reject their descriptions? He shook his head. He had the advantage of seeing her when she was angry, and she was far from insipid then. He stroked the fading remnants of the mark her whip had made and grinned. Frank and some of his other friends would no doubt be astonished if they could have heard her language on that occasion. She was no milk and water miss, however she might have been dressed when she arrived in London, and however shy she had seemed in public.

  Her guardian, Humphrey Lee, was a complication. Until July he would be able to block any wedding, probably even a betrothal, and despite her spirited defiance of him at the ball, Luke thought he knew females, and did not hold any hope of her being able to withstand his arguments for long. What was best to do? Should he make a move now, and trust in her strength of character, or wait until she had actually reached her majority?

  If he moved now, she might consider it far too soon, but if he delayed, it gave other suitors an opportunity to step in and gain the prize. Her partners at the ball had appeared to enjoy her company. To permit one of them to succeed, he decided, was unthinkable. Frayne Castle, of rights, belonged to him. His only hope of recovering it was marriage to the owner. It was something he had been planning for several years, since before he had heard of the old man Hallem's death, and he had been prepared to go through with it whatever Miss Hallem was like. He was, he conceded, fortunate. She was not ill-favoured, when dressed fashionably. She was an interesting girl, and he looked forward to many stimulating battles with her. Marriage to a cypher would not suit him, he now knew, whatever he had thought when he first proposed the idea.

  When he finally went to bed at dawn he had decided to chance his fortune. At the very least he would plant the notion in her head, and even if she rejected him it would, he supposed, be because of the short time they had been acquainted. He would make it clear his offer was still open, and if anyone else made her an offer afterwards, it might prevent her from accepting them.

  *

  Humphrey had made it his business to talk to as many men as he could, asking questions about the Earl of Frayne. He had seen Damaris dancing with the fellow, and knew she had driven out in his carriage as well. They appeared to be on good terms from the little he had seen. He would warn her about not causing gossip by being in one man's company too often. He would inform her he had been told Lord Frayne paid attentions to silly girls for a very short time, raising their hopes and then discarding them abruptly, but he secretly feared he could not depend on such behaviour this time. He had heard rumours, which he was inclined to believe, that the Earl was paying attentions to Damaris in order to gain Frayne Castle. Was she aware of this? It could anger her, if she were told, and he would see to it she knew. Or was the silly chit flattered to have an Earl courting her?

  He had talked to several men who knew the Earl, and they all maintained he had never been close to marriage previously. He liked women, and was known to have kept more than one mistress during the past ten or so years, but what red-blooded man did not? He seemed to have been discreet, as Humphrey himself was, for if the men he spoke with knew the names of these mistresses, they did not reveal them to him. It did not do, as in business, to broadcast such details. Due to a couple of early indiscretions with girls of a better sort, incidents he did his best to forget, and how the devil had Damaris heard of them? He had learned his lesson and now had no such commerce with girls from families who might made a fuss when they were turned off. None of the women Humphrey had kept had ever lived in Whitby. He kept a small house in the anonymity of Scarborough along the coast. There were enough visitors to the town for the presence of his women there to go unremarked. When he tired of them he paid them off, and sent them to York or Harrogate where they could obtain positions as servants.

  What should he do now? Ought he to warn Damaris, or would this simply make her more determined to ignore him? Girls were contrary creatures, and instead of heeding his warning she might well encourage Luke Frayne. Perhaps he could see to it someone else told her, but he had no one he could trust to do it discreetly.

  He had the power to refuse permission for a marriage, but only for another couple of months. The situation had to be resolved well before then. He could insist she returned to Yorkshire, but there was nothing to prevent the Earl from following her. Might he have sufficient cunning to entice Damaris into marriage before her birthday? If it were an illegal ceremony it could be overturned, but if Frayne wished to gain control over the Castle it had to be legal. Until Damaris came of age in July there was only one viable option, flight to Gretna. Frayne could afford to take her to Gretna, using the fastest horses, and if she were infatuated she would go with him. But would she agree? She had said often enough that she looked forward to controlling her fortune herself when she came of age.

  If she had forgotten this and did wish to marry Frayne, they could of course wait the few weeks until she came of age, but then Humphrey himself would have lost her and her fortune. That was unthinkable, after all the time he had spent guarding and increasing that fortune.

  Somehow he had either to marry her or make her regard the Earl as unsuitable, but at present he had no idea how he could do either.

  *

  Damaris had been watching for Luke from the drawing room window, and ran down to meet him as he rode up to the house. One of the grooms had brought Bonny round from the stables. It was the young lad she had seen running from the stable yard, and she caught an exchange of glances between him and Lord Frayne which puzzled her.

  The lad, and he was no more, had raised his eyebrows as he looked at the Earl and received a nod in return, which seemed to please him. He was grinning as
he held Bonny's reins.

  Lord Frayne leaped down in order to lift her into the saddle, and Damaris saw a look of appreciation in his eyes. Her alterations to the old habit had made it look not only new, but startling, and she had wondered whether she had added too much of the scarlet silk. But he appeared to like it, so she stifled her doubts and gathered up the reins as he remounted his own horse. It was, she noticed, the big black he had been riding on that fateful morning.

  They spoke mainly of the ball as they rode towards the Park. Damaris, rather hesitantly, apologized for her cousin's unmannerly behaviour, and Luke waved it aside.

  'It is perhaps natural he is worried. After all, you are an heiress and will almost certainly attract some unsuitable candidates for your hand. I suspect he wishes to marry you himself.'

  Damaris looked at him in amazement.

  'Humphrey? But he is much older than I am! And he always appears to disapprove of me.'

  'That does not deter men from seeking to wed heiresses.'

  'But he is wealthy himself. Not in the same degree as grandfather was, but he has a substantial house in Whitby, and lives well. He has all he could possibly need.'

  'My dear girl, no man has that. If we can see an opportunity of adding to our wealth, we will try to take it.'

  'I suppose so, but that makes all marriage contracts appear so mercenary!'

  'Not all. But surely if a man and girl are equally wealthy it is better than if one of them has a great deal and the other nothing.'

  'That may be a sensible way of looking at it, but it turns marriage into a commercial transaction. And wives into dependants, unable to control their own fortunes.'

  'Do you think a romantic love match is preferable? Is that what you wish for yourself?'

  'I have not considered it, my lord, as I have no desire to be wed. Why, there is Mr Willett. I must apologize to him for last night. And so must you.'

  She thought she heard the Earl utter something under his breath, uncomplimentary about Mr Willett, but was too anxious to speak to him to bother wondering why. Frank received her apologies gracefully, she reassured him she would on no account replace him another time, and they rode together for a complete circuit of the Park, during which the Earl was unusually silent. Then Frank, asking if he would meet the Earl at White's that evening, and receiving a curt response, laughed and bade them farewell.