The Double Wager

by Mary Balogh

  "Pawned perhaps, your Grace?"

  "I think not," his employer replied. "I have visited all the most likely jewelers this morning, and none of them knows of it. No, James, I believe it must have been pledged for a large sum."

  "Not a moneylender, your Grace?"

  "I hope not, dear boy. Perhaps my heir has it. He has her in his power, I am sure."

  "You think he has lent her money?" asked Ridley.

  "I fear so," the duke replied. "She is frightened, at least, and my wife does not scare easily. I wish I knew why she needed money."

  "I-I think I might have the answer," Ridley said, shifting uneasily in his chair.

  Eversleigh looked penetratingly at him. "Well, out with it, dear fellow!" he said.

  "I discovered that her Grace's brother, Mr. Giles Tallant, had quite large gambling debts a while ago."

  "How large?" the duke asked.

  "In the region of three thousand pounds, I believe, sir.

  Eversleigh whistled. "Rash puppy!" he said. "I doubt if his brother allows him near enough to pay that. And have these debts been paid, James?"

  "Yes, your Grace," Ridley replied, "in full."

  "Ah," Eversleigh commented, straightening up and tapping his boots with his riding crop. "I believe I shall see if my brother-in-law would like to share luncheon with me at White's. Do take a break soon, James. Too much work cannot be good for the health."

  "My midday break is due to begin in a half-hour," Ridley explained to his employer's disappearing back.

  ****

  Henry spent the morning in her room, breaking with her usual routine of riding early. She felt very close to despair. It seemed that everything was going wrong around her. The new debt to the moneylender looked like an insurmountable problem now in the morning light. Henry did some calculations in her head, and then on paper to make sure that she had not made an error. If she saved most of her allowance each month, she would be able to repay little more than the interest on her loan. There was no way she would ever be free of the whole debt. That meant that she would never recover her ring. Its absence would be a great loss to her. More important, she did not know how she would answer Marius if he asked about it again, and he surely would. Soon he would demand to know the name of the jeweler to whom she had taken the ring to be checked. And then she would be forced into more lies.

  She had, in fact, got herself into a terrible mess, and all for nothing, it seemed. Oliver was still insisting that she owed him interest on his loan. He had not said, and she had not asked, how much it was. But she had the distinct impression that the amount was limitless. Even if she went out now and pawned her most precious piece of jewelry and sent the money to Cranshawe, he would claim that it was not enough. And how could she argue? There had been no written agreement.

  Henry thought about his words of the night before and clenched her fists. How dare he so openly proposition her? He had looked her right in the eye as he spoke, too, and smiled that charming smile that had so disarmed her when she first met him. Anyone looking across to their box would have assumed that he was paying her some lavish compliment. The rat! Henry considered playing along with his game. What if she agreed to meet him in some private place and set up some devious plan of revenge? She considered how satisfactory it would be to go at him with her fists, to break that handsome, aquiline nose and smash forever that flawless smile. She sighed. How provoking it was to be a w man, to know that there were limits to her strength. She, considered using a riding crop as a weapon, but that was too risky. Doubtless the scoundrel was strong enough to wrest it from her grasp. No, the whole scheme was too risky, she decided. Unless she could be sure of overpowering him, she would be in grave danger once he achieved the upper hand. He was already openly set upon ruining not only her reputation, but also her person. She shuddered to think what added indignities he would heap on her if he were also enraged.

  What was she to do, then, when she did hear next from Cranshawe? She could not pay him and she would not meet him. The only other alternative seemed to be to make a clean breast of the whole thing to Marius. She found it hard to understand now why she had not just gone to him at the start, or at least as soon as she began to have doubts about Oliver's integrity. It would have been so easy then, and surely she could have thought of some way of keeping Giles' name out of it. However, she had not gone to her husband, and now it was surely impossible to do so. At best, Marius would consider her foolish and stubborn, and he would be right. But he could never respect or love her. At worst, he would refuse to believe that she had not been more involved with Oliver than she had been. He was already suspicious. How could she ever convince him that she had never considered his cousin as more than a casual friend? No, this was a predicament that she would have to get herself out of, though there did not seem to be any way.

  But why did she care what Marius thought of her? He did not care about her. He had married her for some reason that she could not comprehend. But obviously all his interest was in that overblown dozy, Mrs. Broughton. Even last night they had not been able to keep their eyes off each other. Henry supposed that he spent much of his days and the evenings when he was not with her at the home of his mistress. Her fingernails dug painfully into her palms as she imagined him doing with the delectable Suzanne what he had done with her two nights before.

  Henry could not escape the truth. She loved Marius quite hopelessly. Finally, after believing that no man would ever be worthy of her entire trust and respect, she seemed to have found such a man. And, in addition, he was a man who could make her pulses race and her knees and stomach feel like jelly. Even now Henry yearned to run to him, to curl into his arms and beg him to take her burdens on his own broad and capable shoulders. And one part of her mind was convinced that he would not turn her away, that she could trust him. But how could she believe that when he had turned her away the morning before at a time when she had been glowing with love and vulnerability, and when he kept a mistress with whom he had been involved long before he had met her? Oh, it was all very confusing.

  On impulse, Henry leapt to her feet and rang for Betty. She was going to go downstairs for luncheon and then she was going to order her phaeton and grays brought around so that she could go visiting and later drive in the park. She was Henry Devron, and nobody-not Marius, not Oliver-was going to keep her cowering in her bedroom!

  ****

  Giles Tallant was sitting in the reading room at White's when his brother-in-law strolled in. Although he held a paper in his hands and had his eyes directed at it, it would have been obvious to anyone who cared to observe that he was not, in fact, reading. Truth to tell, his mind was still reeling from what his brother had told him just a few hours before.

  Philip had gone himself to Peter's house to consult with Giles. Although his oldest brother was from home already, he was unfortunate enough to run into Marian, who was emerging from the breakfast room. She had quizzed him sharply on the strangeness of his being out alone at a time when any normal and properly reared youngster would be in the schoolroom at his books. Philip had mumbled some excuse about Miss Manford's having postponed lessons until the afternoon, but was very relieved when the footman had returned to say that Mr. Giles would receive his brother in his bed chamber.

  Giles had been still in bed, nightcap pulled rakishly over one eyebrow. A cup of chocolate was cooling on the night table at his side. He woke up in a hurry, though, when he heard Philip's story. At the first part he bristled with indignation.

  "She borrowed money from Cranshawe?" he said. "The fellow's nothing but a rake. Don't trust him."

  "But why would she, Giles?" asked Philip. "What would Henry want money for? His Grace buys her all the clothes and finery she wants, and she don't gamble. She lectures Pen and me regularly on the sins of playing cards."

  "It was all my fault," Giles said gloomily. "I'm the one who gambled myself into debt. Henry wormed it out of me. Said she had enough money to pay it off for me. The little widgeon. And
I believed her." He snatched the nightcap off his auburn curls and slammed it down on the bed.

  "Oh, I say," Philip commented, "you're lucky Papa is not alive, Giles. You would have got a whipping for sure."

  "And would have deserved it, too," Giles admitted. "And you say Cranshawe has been threatening her? I'll call him out over this. Hand me my clothes, Phil."

  "You haven't heard the worst of it yet," Philip warned.

  "Eh?"

  "She went to a moneylender yesterday," Philip said. "I followed her."

  "She what?" Giles blanched. "Why would the little sapskull do a thing like that?"

  "Manny and Pen and I guess that things got too hot for her with the teeth, and she went for the money to pay him back."

  Giles groaned and clutched his head. "Oh, Henry, Henry!" was all he could say for a while.

  "What are we going to do, Giles?" Philip asked. "Pen and I thought you might have some ideas."

  Giles groaned again. "Let me think about it, Phil," he said. "I'll come up with something." Philip got up to leave. "But, Phil," he added, catching his brother by the sleeve, "keep on doing what you have been doing. Keep an eye on Henry, will you?"

  Sitting in his chair now at White's, Giles was no nearer finding a solution than he had been while reclining in his bed at home. His first impulse had been to go to Eversleigh should have done at the start. He could have asked hi brother-in-law for a loan. He did not think the duke would have refused. It would have been humiliating to have to go to him when Eversleigh had already taken on so man of the family burdens with his marriage to Henry. But he deserved the shame; he had behaved with terrible irresponsibility, getting himself sent down from university and then gambling away money that he did not possess.

  But how could he go to Eversleigh now? It was Henry's secrets more than his, own that he would be revealing. And she must have been more than reluctant to turn to her husband if she had gone to a moneylender rather than appeal to him. Poor Henry! He could not betray her now-

  There seemed to be only one other solution. Giles would have to go himself to a moneylender and borrow the money with which his sister could repay both her debt and the interest that would have already accumulated. But it was a mad idea! Not only did he have no prospect of ever being able to repay the debt, but by acting in such a way, he would belittle the sacrifice that Henry had made for his sake.

  While he was still wrestling with this problem, Giles was interrupted.

  "Ah, here you are, Giles," said the Duke of Eversleigh. "This is the last room in the club I have thought of looking in. Are you acquiring studious habits in your rustication, dear boy?"

  "Y-you were looking oking for me, your Grace?" stammered Giles, lowering his paper and staring aghast into the face of his brother-in-law. This was the last person he wished to see just now.

  "I was merely looking for a luncheon companion, Eversleigh explained. "It is tedious to eat alone, you know. Nothing to think about except the food."

  "Oh, yes, much obliged to you," Giles lied, getting to his feet and wondering what Eversleigh was up to. He was a very popular figure in the club. He could attract any table companion he cared to choose.

  Fifteen minutes later, the two men were cutting into large platters of veal and vegetables.

  "So, dear boy," Eversleigh said, abandoning the small talk that had occupied them thus far, "what have you found to amuse you in town?"

  "Oh," said Giles evasively, "this and that."

  "Ah. Parties?"

  "Yes, some."

  "The races?"

  "Not often, your Grace."

  "The muslin company?"

  "Er, not too often." Giles was feeling decidedly uncomfortable.

  "Cards?"

  There was a pause. "Not any longer," Giles said finally.

  "Ah," said the duke. "Excellent veal, is it not?"

  "Eversleigh, what is the purpose of this interrogation?" Giles asked, putting down his knife and fork with hands that shook slightly and looking defiantly at his companion.

  "Interrogation, dear boy?" Eversleigh replied, his sleepy eyes widening for a moment. "But I suppose you are right. Tell me, Giles, has my wife been paying your debts?"

  "I… She…" Giles had paled again.

  "You need not be afraid to speak out," Eversleigh said gently. "I wish to protect Henry as much as I assume you do."

  "She seems uncommon afraid of you, sir," Giles said doubtfully.

  Eversleigh considered. "I think not," he said. "I believe Henry is afraid only of herself. It irks her to know that she is a woman and might at times need to depend on a man."

  Giles laughed shakily. "You do know her rather well, your Grace," he said with respect.

  Eversleigh regarded his brother-in-law steadily. "Of course," he said. I happen to love her, you see. Now, tell me what you know, dear boy. I suspect that she has got herself into quite a mess."

  Giles judged it expedient to tell Eversleigh everything Philip had told him that morning.

  "A moneylender," Eversleigh mused. "Do you happen to know which one?"

  "I suspect the one that I planned to go to," Giles guessed. "I believe I mentioned his name to her. Phil would be able to take you to the place."

  "I prefer to leave the two amateur Bow Street runners out of this," Eversleigh said dryly. "And quite soon I am going to have to reintroduce those two to the schoolroom."

  "What are you planning to do about Henry?" asked Giles.

  Eversleigh favored him with a sleepy stare. "Don't worry your head about it, dear fellow," he said. "Your sister will be safe in my care, I assure you."

  "Yes, I am sure she will be," Giles agreed. "It was the best day's work Doug Raeburn ever did when he trapped her into that wager.'

  Eversleigh's eyebrows rose. "Wager?" he repeated.

  Giles gave him a long look, then dropped his eyes to his plate. "Oh," he said, "she did not tell you."

  "Suppose you tell me, Giles," said Eversleigh, "so that I can know if the incident merely slipped my mind."

  "Oh, I say," said Giles, "perhaps she don't want you to know. "

  The duke continued to stare at him disconcertingly through half-closed lids.

  "It was just a piece of nonsense," Giles blurted at last, "Henry did not want to have a Season and she didn't want a husband. Then Doug Raeburn, our neighbor, you know, got her mad and wagered that she could not get an offer, by a certain date-I can't remember what-from a man he would name. We decided on you." He laughed in some embarrassment. "She won the wager."

  "Yes, indeed," Eversleigh agreed softly, "and a certain high-perch phaeton, I believe? And you were quite right, dear boy. She had not told me."

  Giles toyed with his food for several more uncomfortable, silent minutes.

  Miss Manford had her promised talk with James Ridley also during the luncheon hour. She was surprised that much of what she had to say was not news to him. She was even more surprised to find that his source of information had been the Duke of Eversleigh himself. Ridley did show concern, though, over the news that Henry had been seen to visit a moneylender in an undesirable area of London.

  "The duke feared as much," he observed. "I must tell him, Eugenia, as soon as he returns home." -

  "Oh, please do not," she pleaded, hands clasped over her bosom. I fear the dear duchess will be in grave trouble if his Grace learns that she has been that indiscreet. Indeed, James, I should never forgive myself if I were the cause of bringing her into disgrace."

  "You do not understand, my dear," her companion replied. "The duke seems genuinely concerned for her welfare. I believe he would be very relieved to know how he may rescue her from her difficulties."

  "I don't know, James," Miss Manford said. "I should feel that I had betrayed the children's trust and dear Henry's-I mean, her Grace's-if word should get back to the duke."

  "But there is little I can do on my own," Ridley protested.

  "Oh, bless my soul," said Miss Manford, "is there nothing, James? You s
eem to have such strength of character and such practical ability.".

  "And I am honored that you should turn to me, Eugenia," Ridley replied, laying a comforting hand over hers on the table for a moment. "What I shall do is have someone watch Cranshawe to make sure that he does not bother her Grace unduly. I am afraid there is little I can do to rescue her from the moneylender, since I do not have the funds with which to pay him off."

  "Oh, you are a dear," Miss Manford cried, leaping to her feet and gazing admiringly down on her hero. I must return to the schoolroom. The dear children missed their lessons this morning and I do not wish them to grow up ignoramuses.

  Chapter 12

  Some of Henry's confidence and natural ebullience of spirit had been restored by the time she turned her phaeton into Hyde Park at the fashionable hour of five. She had paid duty calls on several acquaintances and had been made much of by male and female friends alike.

  In the park she was soon surrounded by her usual court of young men, who enjoyed her company because they could talk freely in her presence without sending her into a fit of the vapors if they happened to say the wrong word. She also tolerated talk about horses and hunting and boxing. In fact, she was often treated merely as "one of the fellows." Most important, perhaps, was that Henry was a safe companion. She was safely married. They could talk and laugh and flirt with her without their intentions being misconstrued by a watchful parent. Henry was very obviously not even in the market for an affair. Either she had nerves of iron, the young men concluded among themselves, or she was incredibly innocent (they were inclined to favor the former), because even the most blatant sexual innuendo left her unflinching and unblushing. Soon no one even tried to proposition her. She was apparently either very afraid of her husband or else very much in love with him. And not many of her frequent companions could imagine Henry being afraid of any man.

  The exception to all these trends was, of course, Oliver Cranshawe. He sensed that he was close to achieving the great goal of his life, and he intended to press his advantage. He was again on foot, nodding to acquaintances, smiling at them with easy charm. He joined the small crowd of men surrounding Henry's carriage, which she had drawn to a halt.