The Betting Season (A Regency Season Book)

by Knight-Catania, Jerrica

  He was doing this poorly, but he had virtually no practice in apologizing. He never found himself in situations where he needed to do so. “You see, that day here in the park I… Well, it was a bit of a blow to me when I realized you didn’t remember me from the night before.” How ridiculous that sounded, but it was the truth. “I like to think that women remember me.” And until her, he was fairly certain they all had.

  “Under normal circumstances I would have remembered you,” she said softly.

  Normal circumstances? Nothing was normal anymore, not since meeting her. “But the truth is more complicated in that. I didn’t even realize it until I couldn’t sleep last night.”

  “What truth?” Her frown deepened.

  “That I’ve fallen for you.” He slid closer to her on the bench. “I didn’t think such a thing was possible, I still wouldn’t believe it if Heathfield hadn’t put a series of awful thoughts in my mind.”

  She shook her head as though he made no sense at all. “Awful thoughts?”

  “He made me see a future with you married to someone else, with you loving someone else. And if that is the case, sweetheart, my future is bleak indeed.”

  She heaved a sigh. “You gave me a false name.”

  “Not exactly,” he hedged. “Colebrooke is mine too.”

  “And you had cards made up under that name to deceive me.”

  “Would you have seen me if I’d told you I was St. Austell?”

  Pippa’s looked away from him, but the answer was clear. Had she known his true identity, she’d have run the other way. He’d known that from the beginning.

  “I couldn’t take that chance, sweetheart.”

  “You made a fool of me,” she said quietly, hurt still evident in her voice.

  Which had never been his intention. He drew her hand to his lap, wishing he could make her understand, wishing he could make her hurt dissipate. “I’m the same man you knew as Colebrooke, just with a slightly more tarnished name.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t feel as though I know you at all.”

  And yet the kisses they shared spoke of a passion she must have felt as well. A passion he hadn’t experienced in all of his days. “Ask me anything you want. I’ll tell you everything you could possibly want to know.”

  A slight smile teased at her lips. “In exchange for kisses?”

  In exchange for a lifetime by his side. Jason tucked one of her wayward curls behind her ear. “I would have done anything to be near you, sweetheart. I told myself it was to assuage my pride, but the truth is, I needed to be near you, to hold you, to kiss you. Needed you like I need air. What else do you want to know of me, Pippa? Ask me and I’ll tell you.”

  She turned her head to face him. “Do you mean all of that?” Tears pooled in her green eyes and Jason’s heart clenched.

  “Every word.” He lifted a hand to her face and caressed her cheek. “I don’t know how you did it, sweetheart. I didn’t even know I could fall in love.”

  She threw her arms around his neck and he wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her close. They were most certainly causing quite a scene in the middle of Hyde Park, but he couldn’t bring himself to care, not with her clutching him to her. After the morning he’d already endured, he couldn’t relinquish her.

  Jason ran his hand up and down her back. “I love you sweetheart. The thought of losing you made that abundantly clear.”

  She pulled back from him, just enough to look into his eyes. “Did you truly tell Berks you wanted to marry me?”

  Jason nodded. “I do want to marry you, Pippa. If you’ll have me, that is.”

  “You’ll tell me the truth from here on out?”

  He grinned at her. “The whole truth, no omissions.”

  “No matter what?”

  “No matter what,” he agreed.

  Pippa leaned forwards and kissed him in front of everyone in Hyde Park, not that Jason gave anyone else a second thought the moment her lips touched his.

  Her rosewater scent washed over him and he tightened his hold on her, drawing her closer and closer to him. He would have yanked her to his lap and let his hands explore every part of her at will, but…

  “I say!” The condescending voice of an old matron broke into Jason’s consciousness.

  He lifted his head, smiled at his intended, who looked just as breathless as he was, and said, “We probably should speak with Berkswell.”

  Pippa scrunched up her face. “I had better speak with him. He won’t blacken my eye.”

  In her brother’s study, Pippa held onto Jason’s arm, afraid that if she let go he would vanish under the intense ferocity of Berks’s glare and Harry’s knuckle cracking. She cleared her throat to draw her brothers’ scowls from Jason to her. “I know you’re not happy about this,” she began, and was grateful Aunt Eunice had broken the news before she and Jason had returned from the park.

  “You are right on that score,” Berks grumbled. “Him?” He pointed a finger in Jason’s direction. “How, with all the good, decent men in London, did you end up with him?”

  “The St. Austell good fortune continues to bless me,” Jason drawled.

  Honestly! Was he trying to get his other eye blackened? “Because I love him,” she said before either of her brothers could reply. “And I know our courtship has been unconventional, but—”

  “He lied to you,” Berks fumed.

  He’d omitted, which was very close to lying but there was still a line between the two. And no matter whether he was Colebrooke or St. Austell, he was Jason York and she loved him. She thought it very possible she’d loved him that first moment in the park, or perhaps even the night she couldn’t remember at the Heathfields’. Perhaps her heart had recognized him that afternoon along Rotten Row when her mind was unable to do so. No matter the reason, the end was the same. She loved Jason William Alexander York, Baron York of St. Austell, Viscount Colebrooke, Earl of St. Austell. And she would until the end of her days.

  “And if he hadn’t, I’d have never known how much I love him,” she said softly.

  Jason towed her closer to him and placed his free hand over hers on his arm. “I’ll make her happy, Berkswell, which is more than she would get from any of those good, decent men in London.”

  “Not necessarily,” Harry snapped. “I’m willing to take that chance. At least she’d be respectable with—”

  “Well, I’m not.” Pippa frowned at her most favorite brother. “As it is my happiness we’re discussing, I’d rather not take any chances. Thank you very much.” She shook her head and refocused on Berks, now slumped behind his desk like a man defeated. “I love him, Berks. There’s nothing more in this world that I want other than to be Jason’s wife.”

  “You have nothing to worry about,” Jason added. “I love her and I will care for her all of my days.”

  Berks snorted. “St. Austell,” he muttered under his breath. “St. bloody Austell.” Then he closed his eyes and asked, “You made a scene in the park this afternoon, I’m sure.”

  Pippa tipped her chin proudly in the air. “We didn’t make a scene. I kissed him, if you must know.”

  Eyes still closed, Berks shook his head. “Even if I said no, your name would be tarnished.”

  “Berks,” Harry grumbled. “You can’t be serious?”

  Berks opened his eyes and speared Harry with a look. “What would you have me do?” He heaved a sigh. “She loves him. All we’ve ever wanted, you and me, is her happiness. And she’s made certain no other course is open to her. What other choice do I have?”

  “Irish convent?” Harry suggested.

  Pippa’s mouth dropped open. What thing for her brother to say.

  “I hardly think that would make her happy,” Berks rapidly wryly. Then he rose from his chair, circled his desk, and stood before Pippa and Jason. “I’ll hold you to your word, St. Austell. You say you’ll make her happy, if you’re wrong, I’ll let Harry kill you.”

  A roguish smile lit Jason�
�s lips. “You may rest easy. There is nothing to worry about in that regard.”

  Harry blew out a frustrated breath then skulked from the study, leaving Pippa and Jason staring after him. “Off to pummel a punch-bag,” Berks said on a sigh. “Though I imagine he’ll be envisioning your face with each swing.”

  Jason nodded as though that made sense to him. Men and their penchant for hitting things. “I would like to acquire a special license and marry Pippa as soon as possible.”

  Pippa’s heart sped up at the thought. She truly was going to be Jason’s wife. For now and always. She gazed up at him, adoring the line of his jaw, the twinkle in his eye. He was going to be hers until the end of time.

  “Yes, yes,” Berks grumbled, starting towards the threshold. “A special license is in order. Let me call for Davis.”

  As soon as he stepped into the corridor, Jason slid his arms around Pippa’s waist, drawing her flush against him. His blue eyes sparkled with merriment. “Well, that went better than I’d thought.”

  Pippa couldn’t help the laugh that escaped her. “He threatened to let Harry kill you.”

  Jason dipped his head, capturing her lips. When Pippa sighed, Jason swept his tongue into her mouth and world seemed to turn on its side. She clutched his jacket in her fists and held on to keep from falling to the ground.

  After a moment, Jason lifted his head, his roguish grin firmly in place, and said, “Someone ought to warn Potsdon he’s out five hundred pounds, because just as soon as we repeat our vows, I plan to bed my wife over and over again.”

  Pippa cheeks blazed and she was certain a blush would stain them the rest of her days. She couldn’t wait.

  To Ava, Jerrica and Jane, for helping me bring Georgie to life, and to Erin for getting her up in the air.

  ~ Catherine

  Lord Falkland bets Lord Jefferson Blount two hundred fifty pounds that Lord Haworth will ensure the ruination of Lady Georgianna Bexley-Smythe by 15 May unless the Marquess of Stalbridge returns to Town and settles his debts before that date.

  ~19 April, 1813

  Damn Bridge to hell and back.

  And then to hell again, for good measure.

  Cedric Loring, fourth Earl of Montague, called upon every blessed ounce of patience he still possessed, which admittedly was very little, as he strained to ignore the bet written just above the position of his quill in the book at White’s. The implement shuddered ever-so-slightly in his hand, so he gritted his teeth, dipped it in the ink pot once more, and then wrote: Lord Montague bets Mr. Nelson Guest fifty pounds that the first week of the 1813 Season will pass without a betrothal announcement. ~19 April, 1813.

  His bet was perfectly harmless—just a way to ease himself into the new Season. After all, visiting White’s was what a gentleman was expected to do whilst in Town, and what was one to do while visiting White’s but wager on inane and meaningless things?

  The wager involving Georgie, however, was neither inane nor meaningless.

  Cedric resituated the quill where he’d found it and then turned to Guest, slapping a hand on his back. “That settles that, then. At least until one of us can collect from the other.”

  “And so it does.” Guest gave him a droll smile. “I’ll be happy to accept my winnings from you here next Monday.”

  Cedric gave a half-hearted laugh. “We shall see, my friend. We shall see.” There were other things he needed to see to first, however, not the least of which was the protection of his longest friend’s sister. “For now, I must be off.” Without wasting any more time in the banal gentleman’s club, he gathered his hat and gloves and made his escape, lest he be drawn into something else of the fruitless and senseless variety.

  Once out on St. James Street, he pulled out his watch fob. Three o’clock. Perhaps a bit early for a call, but surely Lady Stalbridge would forgive him for such an abnormality. It was only the first day of the new Season, after all. The ladies wouldn’t have been out too late last night.

  Cedric turned up Piccadilly and made his way to Number Seven, Berkeley Square.

  Jensen led him into the drawing room without even the slightest hint of surprise at his early and unexpected arrival. “I’ll inform Lady Stalbridge of your arrival, my lord, and Eloise will be in with a tea service momentarily,” the stodgy, greying butler said. He gave a brief inclination of his head before departing.

  Cedric used the few moments he had alone to gather his wits about him. Lady Stalbridge and her daughters must not discover that Georgie’s name was in the book at White’s. The marchioness could possibly learn of it when Georgie neglected to receive a voucher for Almack’s. That said, there were more than enough other reasons for the patronesses to look down their lofty noses through their ever-present lorgnettes upon the Bexley-Smythe family, so Lady Stalbridge might not suspect the truth simply from that anomaly.

  Perhaps more pressing than keeping the ladies in the dark about Georgie’s name being in the book, Cedric knew without a doubt that he would have to protect her from the bet itself. Haworth couldn’t step one single foot near the girl. Bewilderingly intelligent she may be, but common sense had never been one of Georgie’s best attributes. She’d fall for the man’s charms and be lost in an instant.

  And then there was the small matter of her brother. Whether Bridge intended to grace London with his presence before mid-May was anyone’s guess. The man’s ability to settle his debts upon whatever occasion he arrived, however, was not a matter of conjecture for anyone who knew him. Percy Bexley-Smythe, Marquess of Stalbridge was, to be plain, strapped. Everything not carefully placed in trust by the previous marquess for Bridge’s mother and sisters was gone, and Bridge had accumulated debts up to his eyeballs in the two years since he’d inherited the marquessate.

  Probably higher than his eyeballs, truth be told, and he was quite a tall man.

  Bridge’s mother and sisters had already suffered more than enough from his folly, but Cedric was damned if he knew what he could do to alter their fortunes…aside from trying to ease their way in society a bit.

  His ruminations came to a sharp halt when little Lady Edwina Bexley-Smythe breezed into the room and squealed in delight at the sight of him. “Oh, Monty, isn’t it wonderful?” Edie asked dreamily as she flopped down onto a settee, sending her blonde curls flying about behind her. Then she all of a sudden remembered herself, apparently, and straightened to a proper posture with her hands folded decorously in her lap. The elation never left her eyes, however.

  Cedric bit back a laugh, not wanting her to think him overly amused by her antics, despite the fact that she already knew full well that he was wrapped around her proverbial little finger. “Isn’t what wonderful?”

  She gave him a withering you-can’t-possibly-be-serious look and threw up her hands. “This! All of it. Town, the Season, all of the balls and soirees and musicales...”

  “All of those events you can’t take part in because you’re still not out?” Cedric shook his head, more than just a little perplexed. He was certain Edie would be devastated that she was the last of the Bexley-Smythe sisters left in the schoolroom at a mere fifteen years of age, the only one to be left out of the festivities and gaiety entirely. “What on earth could you, of all people, find so perfectly wonderful about it?”

  Her jaw dropped, in that manner she’d had since she was a small girl, the one which made it clear she thought him no more than an average dolt. “Really, Monty. It’s all just so…so…exciting. So invigorating!”

  “So smelly,” he added, just to goad her temper.

  Edie let out a thoroughly unladylike harrumph just as the door pushed open. Eloise came in and set down her tea tray. Before the maid could make her departure, Lady Stalbridge and her three older daughters all joined them in the drawing room.

  Cedric rose and smiled in greeting at the Bexley-Smythe family—the family which, for all intents and purposes, was the only family he’d ever known.

  “I do hope that was a sneeze, Edwina,” the matron said
to her youngest daughter with a frown. “Ladies do not snort or make other such distasteful sounds.”

  Edie merely rolled her eyes in her mother’s direction.

  Lady Stalbridge took a seat on the sofa directly across from Cedric. Frederica and Matilda, the eldest two sisters better known as Freddie and Mattie, took up their seats on either side of their mother, and Georgianna—the sweet Georgie in question—scurried with aplomb into the leather armchair her father had always occupied while he was alive. The five Bexley-Smythe ladies sat there, with their varying shades of blonde hair and the same chocolate-brown eyes, like five versions of the same woman, all in different sizes. It brought him a sense of comfort…the idea that, while so much with the world could be so wrong, at least he knew that some things would never change.

  Once they were all situated, the marchioness returned her attention to Cedric as she poured and distributed the tea. “And to what do we owe this honor, Lord Montague? I’d not expected to see you before the Sutherland ball this evening.”

  “Nor did I,” he replied pensively. For a bit more time, he selected a biscuit off the tea tray and chewed on it. “But I found myself with nothing to do and no one to see on this lovely afternoon, and so I thought I’d drop in on my favorite ladies in all of London.”

  Flattery had always served him well. Surely today would be no different.

  Lady Stalbridge tittered graciously while Freddie, Mattie, and Edie all gave him small smiles behind their becoming blushes.

  Georgie was not so easily satisfied, though. She narrowed her eyes and lifted a brow in his direction, and the soft rose muslin of her afternoon gown rustled as she shifted in her seat. “Nothing to do and no one to see? Really, Monty, you’re a peer. And one of the most eligible bachelors in Town. I don’t believe you for a second.” Her frown was deep enough to cut him to the core.

  Instead, he laughed. “The most eligible bachelor in Town? Hardly.”

  “Of course you are,” she shot back. “You’re an earl, and one of only nine who are also unmarried and under the age of fifty. There are a handful of peers of other ranks who would fit that description as well, but how many of you also have all of your teeth and haven’t squandered your fortunes?” Georgie leveled him with a stare, but didn’t pause long enough for anyone to answer her question save herself. “A very few, if one should ask me.”