“Ned wasn’t very interested in change, Tony. Or taking chances. He would have continued to run the estate the way your father had. And his father. You are a risk-taker, and in the long run, that may very well be what the Varden family needs in an earl!”
“Thank you, Jo. That means a great deal to me. Although I didn’t think you much appreciated the risk-taker in me!”
“Not when you were merely wasting yourself at the tables, no.”
“Or even when I was in the army.”
“I confess that your propensity to rush into adventures, forgetting those you left behind, has caused me some concern, my lord!”
Tony laughed. “You will never forget that day I forgot I was Lancelot, will you? But I did eventually come to your rescue, Jo.”
“By that time I had almost gotten myself free.”
“Yes, and I still have the scars to prove it,” said Tony, rubbing one leg against the other.
Joanna didn’t smile at his joke, but sat there quietly, suddenly experiencing what felt like her whole history with Tony. She was the young Joanna, waiting patiently, then angrily, for her supposed champion. She was the Joanna of her first two Seasons, hoping against hope that when Tony was back on one of his infrequent leaves he would notice her. She was the Joanna of the past year, living daily with the expectation that he was to wed another woman. And here she was today, the whole come full circle. Her heart was too full of grief and anger to hold it in anymore. She had been “good old Jo” all these years so that at least she would have Tony’s friendship, if nothing else. But at this moment, she didn’t care whether she lost him as a friend or not. She looked up at him and said, with suppressed passion, “If I had the courage I had as a girl, I would be kicking your shins right now.” Her voice was shaking and, to her horror, her eyes were filling up and overflowing.
“Why, Jo, what is it?” Tony was bending over her.
“Don’t call me that!”
“Don’t call you Jo? Why, Jo is my oldest and dearest friend,” said Tony tenderly, kneeling down in front of her.
“Yes, and that is all she is. She is good old Jo; she doesn’t mind waiting for me to remember that I am her knight. She’ll always be there for the times when I think to come home. When I am not risking my life in Spain or my estate on St. James Street, or my heart with Lady Fairhaven. Well, I will not be good old Jo for you another minute, Tony Varden,” said Joanna, pushing him away so hard that he landed on his rump, looking as startled and surprised as when she had attacked him years ago.
She laughed. She couldn’t help it. Tony gave her a hesitant smile, which disappeared when he realized she had gone from laughter to tears in an instant.
“Joanna, dearest, don’t cry like this.” He was beside her now, holding her against him. She tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her. “Please listen to me for a minute.”
He was smoothing her hair and gently rocking her, and her sobbing slowly subsided.
“Joanna, I have always loved to wager. My life against the French. Anything against the cards. And perhaps you are right, my life, not against Claudia so much as with Claudia against the odds. And a part of my heart was involved in that gamble, Joanna. But I would like to take one last risk. To lay one last wager on the table. All or nothing. My heart is yours, Jo, if you want it. I’m wagering that you do love me, that you do want me. I’m wagering that we could make a fine life together, Jo. And I will call you Jo, because she is who I loved first. Oh, I never knew how much a part of me she was. I took her quite for granted, I admit. But here I am at last, her knight most errant, hoping she will play this last gamble with me.”
Joanna sat very still, her soul shivering at Tony’s low-pitched voice. It was almost too much, after all these years, to be hearing what she had dreamed of hearing. She couldn’t take it in at once and so she said nothing.
Tony waited, and then releasing her gently, stood up. “It is all right, Joanna. I understand that it is too late. Or that you can’t trust that I would be worth the risk. And you will always have my friendship, whether you wish it or not.”
It took Joanna another minute to understand what Tony was saying.
“I love you, Tony Varden. I have loved you since I was ten and I will love you until I die,” she said fiercely.
Tony turned back to her, and then she was in his arms, crying and laughing again.
She pulled back after a moment and said: “Now I have put my heart on the table, and you haven’t yet said you loved me.”
He was about to protest, when she added, “Well, not in so many words.”
He grasped her hand and led her over to the old oak, where they sat down, their backs to the broad trunk. Tony lifted her chin and looked directly into her eyes. “I love you, Jo. Joanna. Lady Joanna Barrand. Lady Ashford?” Joanna nodded and he leaned down to kiss her gently on the lips. Joanna opened her mouth under his soft pressure and welcomed him in a longer, deeper kiss.
They slipped down and were lying in each other’s arms and Tony’s hand reached in back to unbutton the top of her habit. He slipped inside and caressed one soft breast. Joanna gasped with delight and she moved her own hand to Tony’s shirt. She twined her fingers in the blond curls on his chest, something she had been wanting to do since the day of the harvest. She could feel him stirring and swelling against her hips. She almost pulled away, but then lowered her hand to rest on this moving, living part of him that was fighting to get free.
Tony covered her hand with his and moved it back to his chest. “I do not want to take you on the forest floor, Jo. If you keep touching me, I will forget my resolve.”
Joanna buried her head against his shoulder, flushed with both desire and embarrassment. “I am sorry, Tony.”
“Sorry! Oh, no, Jo, don’t be sorry. I want more than anything for you to touch me, but we will wait until you are my wife.”
They had to get up, of course, or else nothing could have stopped them. They brushed the leaf mold off each other and when Joanna reached out to take a piece of oak leaf out of Tony’s curls, he pulled her to him again for another long kiss.
“Come on, my dear,” he said, finally pulling away. “This old wood has us under a spell.”
“If this is what Guinevere felt for Lancelot, then I think I understand better why she betrayed her husband,” Joanna confessed with a rueful smile.
“And I am glad that we only were playing at their story as children. Our story will have no such tragic ending, Jo.”
“Ah, but it could have had so easily, Tony.”
“Only because I was a fool. But I am no longer, Jo. I now appreciate what is valuable enough to wager my heart for.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I am deeply indebted to the anonymous author of The Fatal Effects of Gambling exemplified in the Murder of Mr. Weare and the Trial and Fate of John Thurtell published by Thos. Kelly of Paternoster Row, London, in 1824. Without his detailed descriptions, I would not have been able to paint so authentically the inside of a gaming hell.
“Rouge et Noir,” which was played nightly at most hells, bears a resemblance to our Blackjack. Court cards counted for ten, aces for one, and the rest of the cards as marked. The dealer always dealt the black first. As soon as the count went over thirty, he would call the final digit (i.e., “one” for thirty-one, “three” for thirty-three, etc.), stop, and then deal red. Whichever color was closest to thirty won. If both turned up thirty-one, the dealer called “one après” and dealt again.
The odds were, as always, against the gambler. As Fatal Effects tells us, a person playing every day and wagering only £1 per deal, was set to lose £5,616 in a year. The hells took in about £500,000 per year despite the fact that gambling was illegal.
Copyright © 1994 by Marjorie Farrell
Originally published by Signet (ISBN 0451180496)
Electronically published in 2013 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part
, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228
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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.
Lord Ashford's Wager Page 21
