The Offer

by Sara Portman

  Relief spread swiftly through Lucy—relief that may have been disproportionate were it solely on behalf of the comtesse. She did not want to consider other possible explanations for the sudden lightness she felt, so she said, perhaps more sharply than she intended, “You are still misleading her if the reasons for your friendship are false.”

  “I genuinely appreciate the comtesse. I’ve no desire to marry her, nor would I do her the discredit of believing she would be foolish enough to marry me. I find her an entertaining woman and I appreciate her philosophies.”

  “But you do find advantage in her friendship?” Lucy pressed, but her ire was already fading.

  “And you do not?” he asked.

  “I am not using Lady Constance for anything!” she blurted, then remembered herself. She lowered her voice to a whisper again and added, “I am helping her to reach out to her niece.”

  Bex eyed her dubiously. “Am I correct in my recollection that you are seeking a post as a governess or a music teacher?” he asked, then leaned back with a wry smile. “How fortuitous that your musical talents shall be so prominently displayed alongside Madame Castellini at the comtesse’s concert.”

  Lucy’s finger rose in protest. “I was not the one to suggest playing for the concert.”

  “But still, you benefit.”

  Lucy sighed. She lowered her chin. “I concede, Mr. Brantwood. Gaining advantage from a friendship does not necessarily prove that is the reason for said friendship.”

  He grinned at her then. “Now you, on the other hand, have no reason to doubt. I gain no advantage whatsoever from friendship with you. I simply find my day to be more interesting when it includes you.”

  Lucy warmed at the teasing compliment. “I could say the same of you, Mr. Brantwood,” she said, lifting her eyes boldly to his.

  He grinned widely. “Then we are safe from duplicitousness.”

  Unexpectedly, he winked at her. Then he coughed very loudly, rousing the sleeping comtesse, whose eyes fluttered open while she righted herself from her leaning position.

  “What were you saying?” she asked, rubbing her chin absently. “I don’t believe I heard the last bit.”

  Bex smiled conspiratorially at Lucy as he answered the question. “I was just speaking to Miss Betancourt about my father.”

  Lady Constance huffed. “Idiotic man.” She rearranged herself again in the seat and looked at Lucy. “Can you believe that doddering old fool wanted this one”—she pointed at Bex—“to trick me into a marriage to solve his financial troubles?”

  Lucy stared at her then turned to Bex in utter shock. He had told Lady Constance?

  Bex’s eyes glinted merrily in the dim light of the carriage interior as he met her surprised gaze.

  “Can you believe it?” Lady Constance asked her, shaking her head. She laughed then, her entire form quaking with it, and brought a hand to her chest as though she might calm herself. “I’ve been in France, not an asylum for the insane,” she continued, her laughter ending on a drawn-out sigh.

  “Indeed,” Lucy said, not certain there was much else to say. Of course, she should have expected Lady Constance would find the entire thing entertaining.

  “I wonder,” Lady Constance said, mischief twinkling in her eyes, “what other sort of plots have been hatched to make use of my fortune.” She pointed at Mr. Brantwood. “Your father can’t be the only fool in London. I’m sure I’ve met at least a dozen or more and I’ve been in England less than three full months.”

  “No doubt you are correct, Lady Constance.” Bex spoke to the comtesse, but his eyes were on Lucy, taking in her reaction to this development.

  This time it was Lucy’s turn to shrug.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Several hours later, Lucy realized her mistake. The revised plan as concocted by Bex and the comtesse required that their party travel to a coaching inn about an hour’s ride from the home of the comtesse’s niece. Lady Constance departed there so that Bex and Lucy could continue on the journey in their adopted identities as man and wife. Since she and Bex were to spend so much time alone together in a carriage, Lucy would have been safer believing he was a scheming fortune hunter. Since he was not, he was entirely too intriguing.

  As Lucy always did when she was uncomfortable, she talked. Since she was with Bex, she asked him questions.

  “Why were you looking for the card room the other evening, if you do not play cards?” she asked.

  “I already answered that question: I was seeking a man—a man who does play cards—thus I thought he was likely there.”

  “And was he?”

  Bex lifted a brow at her curiosity. “Yes, he was, despite the fact that I was waylaid in my effort to find him.”

  Lucy lowered her eyes. She had not meant to remind him—or herself—of that occasion. Warmth threaded through her at the memory. She coughed. “So, you are not a gambler, yourself,” she said, knowing she was repeating herself, but needing to fill the void with words.

  “I wager regularly.”

  Lucy’s eyes lifted to his. “But I thought you said…”

  The light in Bex’s eyes changed, and she wondered at it. “There are many games on which to wager. All can draw you in and cause you to throw good money after bad.”

  “Have you thrown good money after bad?” she asked quietly.

  “Since I borrowed the money to begin with, I don’t know if it could be considered good money. I was young and drawn into the fun. I was an easy mark. I started with dice and cards, but eventually abandoned them for more interesting wagers.”

  Lucy was intrigued. “There are other games?” she asked. She supposed she should not be curious about the sort of games one might play while gambling. It was not very ladylike, but one of the best things about her odd relationship with this man was the fact that they seemed to have set propriety entirely aside.

  “Not games, precisely. Investments. Schemes.”

  “I don’t understand,” Lucy said.

  Bex paused as though contemplating how he might explain. “Your father is vicar in a small village, correct?” he asked, then at her nod continued. “Everyone in your village is probably doing what they have always done, farming and blacksmithing as they always have. The same is true for men like the duke. The gentry are living as they always have—managing their lands, posturing in the House of Lords, marrying off their children to everyone’s advantage. There are others, though, who are changing. There are new machines and inventions that are allowing men, men with ideas, to become tradesmen in an entirely different way than they were before.”

  “You mean the manufactories. I’ve heard of a machine that punches buttons out of tin.”

  “That is exactly what I mean. There are lots of them in the north—more every day—and there are starting to be more near London as well. The trouble is that these new trades require more than ideas. They require money. How does an inventor build a machine if he cannot buy wheels and gears and wood and metal? Where does he put his machine if he has no building?”

  “How do they get the money?” Lucy asked.

  “They find investors—men with money who are willing to fund the enterprise now and collect their portion of profits later.”

  “So the men who have ideas and no money are matched with men who have money, but no ideas?”

  Bex laughed. “I suppose yes, you could put it that way, although I don’t know of many men who would want to be accused of having no ideas whatsoever in their heads.”

  “That seems like a good pairing,” Lucy pointed out. “Where is the wager in it?”

  “Not all men are the same. Men of means and reputation form companies. They can raise funds by selling shares in those companies on the exchange.”

  Lucy recalled hearing of the exchange, but she couldn’t quite remember when. Perhaps the duke had referred to it. “So y
ou buy shares of companies?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “All right, now you have me confused.”

  Bex leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he answered her. “As I said, not all men are the same. If a man is a blacksmith, or the son of a cook and a butler, he would not have the means or the connections to form a company and be listed on the exchange. These men start smaller, more humble operations, but they are still bringing great changes to the country.”

  Bex’s eyes brightened as he spoke; his manner became earnest, almost urgent as he explained. Lucy couldn’t help but watch him and be drawn into his excitement. “Wherever there is a need, there will be enterprising individuals to fill the void.”

  “What do they do?” Lucy asked. “Go to moneylenders?”

  “These are not small amounts required to build machines and manufactories. There are men, however, who do the pairing you talked about. They put together contracts allowing men with ideas to receive money and men with money to wager on ideas.”

  “Is that really a wager?” Lucy asked. “It sounds like an investment.”

  “A highly speculative one. Not all ideas are good ideas,” he said, his eyes steady on hers. “Some are even fraudulent.”

  “I see.” She did not ask him if he had invested in fraudulent schemes. She did not have to ask. Hadn’t he said he had wagered with borrowed funds? Losses meant no ability to repay. The debts would only grow, and his expected future income was gone. Lucy allowed the significance of this revelation to settle within her. Bex could be in a very deep hole indeed.

  “I was naïve, bored with dice and cards, and intrigued by the entire process. Since I was expected to eventually inherit a dukedom, the moneylenders would give me enough credit to thoroughly ruin myself. I was drawn into the excitement in much the same way a man is unable to resist the spin of the roulette wheel. I was foolhardy.” Bex shrugged as he said it, as though he had already put the regret behind him.

  “So you don’t wager any longer?” Lucy asked. Of course, he wouldn’t, if what he had said was true. Who would take such risks, understanding the truth of them?

  He smiled as though caught. “I don’t recall saying that.”

  She looked up sharply. “You still gamble on these schemes?”

  “Some wagers are pure luck. You can lose more easily than you can win. In certain games, however, the application of skill can improve the odds of winning.”

  She watched him warily. “And you have developed this skill?”

  “That has been my aim.”

  The thought of Bex continuing to borrow and risk further debt on failed schemes made her sick to her stomach as though her own future were at stake. It all just seemed so reckless. “How have you developed this skill for identifying good ideas, precisely?”

  “Because I have lost frequently enough to be good at it.”

  Now he was making no sense at all, and she told him so.

  “Unlike some investors, who simply bore the news of the losses and went away empty handed, I took the time to make inquiries, to understand what had gone awry. I learned a great deal.”

  “So you know what an investment needs to succeed?” she asked.

  “I’ve learned what makes an investment sure to fail. No one can know what will make one sure to succeed. There will always be unpredictable outcomes.”

  “What is it, then, that makes one sure to fail?”

  Bex leaned back against the cushioned bench and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “A missing piece, generally.”

  His cryptic answers were more tease than explanation. “What sort of piece?”

  “For an entrepreneurial scheme to have any chance of success, I’ve identified three necessary components. If one of the components is missing, failure is assured.”

  Lucy moved forward in her seat. “But what are the components?”

  Bex laughed. “Does this actually interest you?”

  “Of course,” she said. “I am on pins and needles waiting to hear.”

  “Well, there must be sufficient expertise, whether that be a skilled engineer or craftsman. Little manufactories are popping up all over the countryside, but if you cannot build a machine that is reliable and effective, you cannot make a go of it.”

  “That seems to be common sense.”

  “It is, but my first investment was based on a machine that never actually worked. The idea was intriguing, but in the end, it never produced a single damned button.”

  “Well, someone’s button machine worked. It’s the one our blacksmith told my father about.”

  He gave her a scathing look. “How kind of you to let me know.”

  Lucy squelched a giggle. “What is the second piece?”

  “Capital. There must be funds.”

  “But isn’t that what you provide, when you invest?”

  “I am not a wealthy man and I no longer have the credit of a future duke. The investments that I make are small. I am typically just one of many investors, but if the total investment needed is underestimated, and all of the money is spent before the enterprise produces a profit, everything can be lost.”

  Lucy nodded slowly, her brow furrowed in concentration as she considered this bit of insight. “I see. And what of the third piece?”

  “The third piece is a sound plan—more specifically, a complete plan. There are many men with clever machines who never succeed. They haven’t determined how to sell what they produce, or how to sell enough of it to repay their investors. In the most recent case…”

  Bex stopped. He looked across at her and gave a sheepish smile. “But I must be boring you.”

  What he was doing was slowly killing her with suspense. “On the contrary,” she declared vehemently. “I love nothing so much as a well-designed plan. There is something so sensibly reassuring in it.”

  Bex eyed her dubiously. “I don’t know that our interactions have done much to convince me of your claimed predilection for all things practical and sensible.”

  “But you know I came to London to take a post as a governess; what could be more sensible than that?”

  “Are you or are or you not currently unchaperoned with a man who is not your relation on your way to fake a carriage accident and enter the home of people whom you do not know under false pretenses?”

  Lucy laughed. She smiled in exaggerated innocence. “Surely even a well-designed plan can go awry.”

  He laughed at her response. It was unguarded and pleasant—almost boyish. He had looked at her in many ways before—wolfish, hungry grins or wry, sophisticated smirks—but this version of Bex was the most threatening, because this was when she liked him the best. She could almost feel herself being drawn into him She took a steadying breath. “Please go on,” she pressed. “What was the recent case you were going to reference?”

  Bex smiled at her then, in surprise and she thought perhaps approval. It pleased her more than it should when they were alone in the carriage and only halfway to their destination.

  “You really are interested, aren’t you?” he asked. “I think you may be the most inquisitive person I’ve ever met.”

  “Perhaps others were just as inquisitive, but more well mannered than I.”

  “Not well mannered? Far be it from me to accuse Saint Lucy of poor manners,” he said, the teasing light returning to his eyes and his smile.

  “I am perfectly well mannered with others, but we have already established that you and I abandoned propriety some time ago. I can be as impertinent with you as I would like.” She grinned across the small space at him.

  He grinned back. What was more, he held her gaze, his eyes shining into hers as he whispered. “I hope that you will always be as impertinent as you would like where I am concerned.”

  Lucy swallowed. He was simply encouraging her questions. Nothing more
. She should not infer anything more in the words. “The example.”

  “Oh…yes,” he said, and Lucy wondered, with an irresponsible jolt of pleasure, if he had been as flustered as she. “The case. Well, there was one man, a hatmaker, and he invented a cutting tool that made the process easier—shaping the hats or some sort—but he never succeeded, because what he failed to take into account was that hatmakers, as a group, are not interested in new tools. They are interested in carrying forward the tradition and craft of the generations of hatmakers before them. They felt if making the hats became easier and faster, it would only cheapen the hat. No one wanted his perfectly good tool.”

  Lucy shook her head. “Even though it was a better tool?”

  “Even though it was a better tool. There is no sense in inventing something no one wants.”

  Lucy sat back in her seat and considered this point. “But how can people know they want it, if it’s not been invented yet?”

  “They don’t have to want the thing, specifically, so long as they recognize the need that the invention addresses.”

  Lucy looked at Bex—just looked. She would never have guessed that underneath all of his teasing and irreverence there was such a man of thought. And to think he considered himself a man with no purpose. How surprising and wonderful to discover that he had all of these theories and experiences with ideas and invention. More so, she was quite certain most men would not have bothered to elucidate on such with a woman simply because she happened to be curious. Yet Bex had explained everything with patience and pleasure.

  She rather liked that about him.

  She rather liked him. Perhaps that was not such a dangerous thing. After all, why shouldn’t she be friends with the duke’s cousin? He was practically family, in a way.

  Bex turned in his seat to peer out the window of the carriage. When he turned back, she was still watching him. Caught, she looked away quickly.

  “I think we must not be too far from the Maris farm now,” he said. “Are we clear on our story, or should we have more practice?”