His Lordship's Last Wager

by Miranda Davis

  She did have lovely hair.

  “Better,” he said, and feeling comfortable at last, he sat.

  Jane stood up, eyes ablaze, and went to the bell cord. “I wasn’t expecting callers.” She patted into place the strands of hair snagged by his cap-snatching. “Will you stay? Or do you intend to pepper me with shot and flee?”

  A footman appeared.

  “A guest has come, I won’t have tea after all. Thank you.” Her stomach growled as if to protest. She colored and said, “Excuse me.”

  The servant withdrew to convey her message to the kitchen.

  “Come to find out your new—” he glanced at her companion and whispered, “—project is more dangerous than I thought.”

  Jane spoke up calmly, “Sutter, will you fetch me some yellow silk floss, bring all the shades you can find. It may take some hunting, I’m afraid.”

  Her lady’s maid left the room slowly, stiff-backed in mute disapproval of Seelye’s cap-snatching.

  “It’s as if I’m under house arrest,” Jane said after the maid left. “Sutter is Gert’s creature and she reports everything I say or do to your sister. Although I must say, Gert has never been the scold you are.”

  “To my mind, she hasn’t scolded you enough. There’s a bear in her garden and you put it there.”

  “A tamed, performing bear,” she replied. “And Sutter thinks it’s another of my mongrels, so please say nothing to enlighten her.”

  “I won’t, I’m here to put it down before it does any real harm.”

  “You will only irritate him with that,” Jane chortled.

  “It’s all I have. Has George any of his deer-stalking rifles here?”

  “In London?” she exclaimed. “You’re unhinged.”

  “The raven chides blackness,” he retorted. “I am not the one slapping bears to make them behave. Tell me, has it coughed or growled at you?”

  “Not it, Seelye, him. And no, only at you. But then, you can be very vexing,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

  “I am trying to judge how dangerous your—” he stopped talking when Sutter returned with a fistful of yellow floss in many shades.

  “Thank you.” Jane placed them on her tambour and set it aside. “On second thought, Lord Seelye, I’d like to take the air in the garden.”

  Jane dismissed Sutter, for a lady may walk with family in a private garden without chaperonage.

  Seelye left his hat and gloves but took the shot gun. They strolled the pebbled path to the potting shed.

  He had marshaled his arguments for shooting the bear on the way over but forgot them all when Jane let Bibendum out. She had the bear seated and patting his paws for a horehound drop in a few commands. When Jane rolled a red India rubber ball to him, he murmured with ursine delight and took it between his great paws to mouth.

  When Seelye cleared his throat, Jane glanced over, delight lingering in her expression.

  “All very well,” he said sternly, “but I must put him down.”

  It did not help that Bibendum chose that moment to lift his snout in the air and waggle his head back and forth, ball in mouth, making ridiculous humming sounds.

  Well, Mr. Ducrow, this is what a happy bear looks and sounds like.

  “You promised,” she was saying. “You gave me your word, Lord Seelye.”

  “Lovely, I’m damned if I put him down and damned if I don’t. What if, God forbid, he injured you?” he demanded, “How could I live with myself if I let that happen?”

  “I’ve worked with Bibendum for some time now. He is, indeed, a well-trained, good-natured creature. Furthermore, I understand the risks and take full responsibility for myself.”

  “You cannot, you’re a woman. Legally, your brother is responsible for you until your husband is.”

  “I am neither child nor chattel, Lord Seelye.”

  The bear let the ball fall and watched the two of them. He raised a forepaw to his mouth and sucked it.

  Seelye noticed this odd behavior first. “Jane, what’s he doing?”

  “I think he has a sore tooth. He’s been trained with sweets his whole life.”

  He felt the inklings of hope. “What else can one do for a suffering animal but put it out of its misery?”

  “We can do what we would for anyone with an abscessed tooth,” she replied.

  “No barber in London—nay, England—will draw that beast’s tooth for you. Some things money cannot buy, Jane.”

  “Someone must pull it,” she said and looked at him.

  Oh, no. I will not volunteer to draw a bear’s tooth.

  “Someone strong and famously fearless,” she added and stared more intently, her eyebrows lifted almost to her hairline.

  “Do not look at me in that sick-making manner, brat,” he said. “I vote to end his agony with a bullet.”

  “But I have witnessed your courage under duress, my lord,” she said. “You are strong. And very brave.”

  “Am not,” he grumbled, flattered all the same.

  “See? Poor Bibendum is giving you such a speaking look,” she coaxed. “He’s in pain.”

  “Or diabolically clever. He wants to gull one of us into peering in his mouth to save him the trouble of chasing down dinner.” Seelye turned to address himself to the bear. “And you may stop looking pathetic. If this female cannot move me to self-sacrifice, a far hairier, muskier supplicant will have no better luck.”

  The bear slumped down to lie on his side and moaned low as he gnawed his forepaw.

  “If you’re the man I think you are,” she said quietly, “you won’t harm him or let him suffer.”

  She wasn’t speaking to him as if he were a wastrel lordling any more, which left him feeling inclined to an act of foolhardy heroism.

  “Bibendum, look at me,” he said.

  The bear turned his head and moaned low in his throat. There was nothing growl-ish in his tone. It was plaintive.

  “Oh, for God’s sake. Now whenever he makes that noise, I’ll think he’s uncomfortable,” he said in exasperation. “Jane, you’re going to be the death of me.”

  “No, Bibendum’s grown fond of you.”

  Seelye crossed his arms over his chest.

  “If you will pull his tooth, Seelye, I will be nicer to men—even you.”

  “A tigress cannot change her stripes,” he said, noting how sweetly she used his given name.

  “Please, Seelye.”

  He inhaled long and slow to think it through: Can’t give the bear away. Can’t kill him. Must take him to Connemara. But a bear in pain can be unpredictable, making transport more dangerous. The conclusion was inescapable.

  “Don’t expect me to pull anything until I’ve put my affairs in order,” he said in a glum drone.

  “It won’t come to that. The tooth drawing will be safe if the bear is insensible. I will ask the duchess for a laudanum receipt for the chemist to compound.”

  “But Gert hasn’t any idea—oh.”

  To his amazement, she referred to the former apothecary and new Duchess of Ainsworth, a woman who disliked her with ample justification.

  “Are you so very anxious to be mauled, Jane?”

  “I dread the interview but to help Bibendum, I’ll make amends for my past mistakes. I’ll beg her if I must. We’ll need a strong, safe draught to put a bear to sleep.”

  “If you can face that, I can draw his tooth,” he said, “so long as you guarantee he’ll be utterly insensible. Oof!”

  Jane had him in an impetuous hug.

  “Thank you, Seelye, you are the best of men.”

  “Let that be my epitaph,’” Seelye said and struggled to tamp down the pleasure, fear, and anticipation roiling him.

  How did this happen?

  He came determined to put a bear down only to end up agreeing to extract his tooth. Even so, he wasn’t angry. Stunned, confused, afraid? Yes, yes, and absolutely. Saving Jane’s bear was sheer madness. And dangerous. And a challenge unlike any he’d faced in years.

>   Be-damned if he didn’t look forward to it.

  After his call on Jane, Seelye sought out George Percy, he of Byzantine connections to lords, laymen, and layabouts of all pedigrees and persuasions. He buttonholed him at the club the following afternoon and dragged him off for a private conversation.

  As soon as they were alone, Seelye began, “I need your help with Jane’s bear.”

  Percy sat and sighed, “Why not Ainsworth or Clun?”

  “Married and useless. They can’t afford to lose a limb.”

  Percy turned his golden eyes fully on Seelye. “And I can?”

  “I exaggerate,” Seelye said. “It’ll be a lark.”

  “A married man can spare a limb more than I,” Percy reasoned. “Their wives swore to take them for better or worse in front of witnesses. Whereas I ought to present myself to a prospective bride with a complete set of extremities.”

  “Considering marriage, are you?” Seelye asked anxiously. He dreaded ending up the sole bachelor among married friends wallowing in wedded bliss.

  “Not yet,” Percy replied, “but I feel certain a whole man would fare better in the Marriage Mart than, say, three-quarters or two-thirds of one.”

  “Don’t you want one last adventure before settling down?”

  “No,” Percy said, “not having met the adventure. Clun’s still in the dewy honeymoon phase. Perhaps Ainsworth’s your man.”

  “You forget the duchess is with child. He won’t leave her side and I wouldn’t ask.”

  “But a duke has staff to dandle babies on knees, should he lose an arm or a leg. Drink?”

  Seelye shook his head.

  Percy rose gracefully and sauntered to the room’s bell cord. When the porter came, he requested port and a glass.

  “There will be difficulties,” Seelye said with an exaggerated sigh. “And complications.”

  “You cannot tempt me.”

  As Jane would say, ‘Pooh.’

  “Well then, never mind.” Seelye shook his head sadly. “I’ll have all the fun myself. Disregard everything I’ve said.”

  “Done.”

  When the porter reappeared, he set a glass on the table between the men, uncorked the bottle, and left it. Percy poured himself some wine and held the glass to his lips, studying Seelye, who remained silent.

  The Horsemen often indulged in this game with Percy. If, for instance, one knew a secret, one held back in hopes that Percy’s curiosity would overrule his good sense and he would bargain something away to learn it. Or, for another instance, if one contemplated a feat of epic recklessness and needed a partner, one tantalized him with the sheer lunacy of the escapade and waited him out. He was much like a cat in this regard: tease him and, like as not, he’d pounce. So Seelye waited.

  Percy, for his part, recognized his weakness and fought to master it, which proved vastly entertaining for all four.

  Seelye turned the screw: “It’ll be a tale for the ages. The logistics alone make my head spin. How can it possibly be done?”

  Minutes elapsed.

  Incredulous, he burst out, “You’re not curious to know what I’m about to do? With a bear? It’s unprecedented, I tell you. Foolhardy. Perilous.” He plied his friend with adjectives calculated to entice.

  Percy’s pupils dilated, but his expression remained inscrutable.

  “Not the least bit curious?”

  “No, not,” Percy replied stiffly, his jaw clamped tight. He sipped his port, tawny eyes hooded. But a telltale muscle in his chiseled cheek flexed.

  Seelye spied it and prayed it meant what he suspected. But rather than rush his fences, he reined in and turned his attention to a loose thread holding a brass button to his dark blue wool coat. He let his friend ruminate while he reminded himself to borrow needle and thread from Mrs. Carmody.

  When the club porter returned to see to their needs, Seelye spoke up, “I’ll have a glass, too, please.”

  Percy sat mute, coiled like a watch spring wound tight.

  The porter returned with a second glass. Seelye helped himself to the bottle and downed it in one go. Warmed, he settled back to endure the deadlock.

  Time crawled. The two sat in tense but companionable silence.

  “Right. I’ll get Jane’s bear to Ireland without you.”

  “Ireland, you say?” Percy repeated, his interest snagged at last.

  Chapter 20

  In which our heroine beards a lioness in her den.

  Having sent Sutter on an errand to the draper’s, Jane walked with an upstairs maid to Ainsworth House at the far corner of the same block as the Babcock residence. Jane preferred that the servant about to witness her humiliation be someone more easily cowed into silence than Sutter. Well, it wouldn’t go that far, but the snub she anticipated would feel as awful.

  She might have enjoyed a walk to the gallows more. And if she hadn’t put her gloves on early, she’d have gnawed the rest of her nails to the quick. Yet, despite her trepidation and the heavy package she insisted on carrying herself, she walked at her usual quick pace to her destination.

  She reached the front door at 3 o’clock, the proper time to call on a complete stranger.

  The package was a gift Jane purchased for her grace: a recent encyclopedia on the new, German theory of healing called homeopathy entitled Organon der Rationellen Heilkunde nach Homöopathischen Gesetzen by Samuel Hahnemann. She found it at Hatchard’s while browsing there with Lady Clun. Though written in German, Elizabeth assured her the former apothecary would find the peace offering irresistible. Jane was not so optimistic. She assumed the duchess would never be ‘at home’ to her.

  She cringed to recollect past arrogance toward Prudence Haversham in Bath. More shameful, she never found the courage to admit her offense or beg her grace’s pardon.

  Long before she arrived at the doorstep of Ainsworth House, she regretted venting spleen. Iphigenia had counseled against speaking up at all. But Jane, being Jane, felt obliged to dampen Miss Haversham’s social pretensions. Soon after her outburst, the Ainsworth mésalliance was sanctified in Bath Abbey.

  Ever since, the duchess employed every means short of the cut direct to avoid acknowledging her. The duke also remained aloof. But unlike Earl Rostand, his grace was not one to broadcast his poor opinion of her. Jane appreciated his restraint but never had an opportunity to thank him for it.

  In London, she steered clear of the far corner mentally, physically, and socially. Although impolite, she earned no additional epithets for remaining at arm’s length. Her reticence reflected prevailing opinion.

  Society might kowtow to the new duchess face to face, but its female members objected to the duke’s unorthodox choice behind silk fans. Ladies of the ton dismissed Ainsworth’s bride as an upstart, a thrusting mushroom, a shop-keeper, and quack, just as Jane herself had.

  Catty matrons and their resentful daughters were too outraged by an eccentric female apothecary elbowing her way into the highest echelons to criticize Jane’s stand-offishness. Instead, they emulated it. Thus, her grace silenced ballrooms she entered with her husband and left a wake of sibilant, malicious whispers when she departed.

  Seeing the duchess’ regal indifference at these moments, Jane respected her grace’s poise.

  Jane mentioned this once to Lady Abingdon, who observed, ‘Prudence is too intelligent and well bred to be overset by the hissing of ton tabbies.’ But her ladyship did confide that it troubled the new duchess to think she was a social liability to her beloved husband.

  Without a word of reproach, Lady Abingdon made Jane regret her own feline behavior. And Jane, being Jane, was not content to stand by and do nothing.

  In short order, she astonished her acquaintances by expressing “sincere admiration” for the duchess and by repeating Lady Abingdon’s pointed praise to shame them in turn.

  Once she’d made her opinion known, others refrained from denigrating the duchess for fear Jane might hear of it, for Jane was someone no one wished to offend. Or as Lord Se
elye once summarized, ‘Hell hath no fury like Lady Jane.’

  The duchess herself knew none of this.

  So with trepidation, Jane plied the brass knocker. One of the duke’s liveried footmen allowed her and her maid into the checkerboard marble foyer where the duke’s one-armed butler greeted her. She withdrew a calling card from her reticule and placed it on the proffered silver salver, which he took upstairs.

  When he returned, he said, “Her grace will see you.”

  Jane’s stomach dropped to her knees.

  “If you will follow me.”

  She had only rehearsed how to accept the butler’s ‘Her Grace is not at home, my lady,’ with dignity. She hadn’t planned for being shown upstairs.

  It was too sudden. And much too late to turn tail and run. Her spirits sank lower with each stair she climbed. At the top of the first flight, she chided herself to pluck up and prepare for the worst.

  “Lady Jane Babcock, Your Grace,” the butler said and bowed out of the drawing room. A woman too slight to disguise her advanced pregnancy sat on one settee of a pair in the saloon.

  Jane curtseyed deeply.

  “Lady Jane, welcome,” the duchess said with propriety, if not warmth. “To what do I owe this unexpected courtesy?”

  The sunny room grew chilly.

  She chose her words carefully, “It must be a shock, Duchess. As I have not left a card or called on you and my only excuse is absurd.”

  “How absurd exactly?” her grace asked.

  “I have stayed away out of embarrassment,” she confessed with starchy formality. “I was awful to you in the past and a coward ever since, but I pray you are fair to those in desperate need of your expertise, however loathsome they may be to you.”

  The duchess’ eyes grew round and her expression altered remarkably.

  “Loathsome?” she repeated in amusement, “I knew you were plain spoken, but this—” and gestured for Jane to sit on the facing settee. “This surprises even me.”

  The duchess sank back against its comfortable cushions, a hand on her belly.

  In the back of Jane’s mind, a stern voice complained that a lady however great with child sat without so much as a vertebra touching a sofa’s back cushion. And she wore a pregnancy corset to keep her condition inconspicuous if she permitted callers.