The Double Wager (6 page)

“Foreign blood, you may be sure, ” one of them said.

“Or else she has been exposed to the sun,” the other suggested.

“Surely not,” said the first. “Her brother, Sir Peter Tallant, is a most gentlemanly man.”

“I hear she has only recently arrived in town,” the second continued. “I do believe she has some freckles, too.”

The other drew herself erect and regarded Henry with piercing disapproval. She looked offended that she had been invited to the come-out of a sunburned, freckled girl.

Henry was accepting a glass of lemonade from a very young, pleasant-faced young man, when Althea, who had been standing close by, grabbed her suddenly by the arm and caused her to spill some of the liquid down the front of her gown.

“Oh, I am frightfully sorry, Henrietta!” she apologized, dabbing ineffectively at the lace with her gloved hands. “He’s here, Henrietta. What am I to do?” She turned her back to the doorway of the ballroom, trying to appear inconspicuous.

Henry stared with open curiosity at the man who stood in the doorway. She was hardly encouraged by what she saw. The man was tall and gracefully slim, though there was a disturbing suggestion of strength about his shoulders and chest. He had a disconcertingly strong and handsome face. His coat and knee breeches were unrelieved black, his linen a crisp and sparkling white. He looked completely unselfconscious, though his arrival had caused a very noticeable stir among the gathered company. He was surveying the guests unhurriedly through a quizzing glass. The word
impossible
had never been part of Henry’s vocabulary, but she had a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach that winning her wager was going to be the biggest challenge of her life.

As she (and the majority of the assembled guests) watched, the Countess of Lambert swept up to the duke and took his arm in a gesture of deliberate familiarity. He lowered his glass and looked at her from beneath sleepy eyelids.

Henry’s stomach became decidedly queasy as the two figures came closer. She could almost understand why Althea was so afraid of this man. The countess was quite unconcerned with the presence of Henry and her young swain. She was intent only on presenting her cousin to her daughter and seeing them partnered for the next dance, a quadrille. For her, this was the coup of the Season. The success of her daughter was now assured.

Eversleigh danced with two more partners, each a young and flustered debutante. The boredom and cynicism of his expression did not change as his partners blushed and fluttered and giggled through the experience of dancing with the most eligible and most elusive bachelor in London.

Oliver Cranshawe, who had emerged from the card room in time to witness this extraordinary behavior of his cousin, moved gradually closer to Suzanne Broughton, who was not dancing, but who was surrounded by her usual court of admirers.

“So, my dear Suzanne,” he commented when her attention moved his way, “you are being upstaged tonight?”

“Upstaged?” she queried, viewing him with hauteur. “Whatever do you mean, Oliver?”

“I see that Marius is eyeing all the little girls,” he said, smiling charmingly, as if he had just complimented her on her gown.

She laughed airily. “Poor Marius!” she tittered. “He has been afflicted with a case of family duty, Oliver. Althea is his cousin, you know.”

“Really?” he drawled. “It is surely the first case of its kind that I have ever known. He could not be dangling after a wife, could he?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Oliver,” Suzanne said more sharply than she had intended. “Can you imagine Marius with a young girl? He would die of boredom in a fortnight.”

“That sure of yourself, are you, Suzanne?” Cranshawe asked, a glint of something unpleasant in his eyes. “I think we had better keep a close eye on his Grace, my dear. We do have a common interest in the matter after all, do we not?”

She did not pretend to misunderstand him, though she did not reply. She turned her attention back to the group of gentlemen who were still waiting in the vicinity.

Eversleigh returned his second partner to her chaperone and stood alone close to the doorway. He looked as if he would dearly love to escape, Henry thought as she too stood momentarily alone at the other side of the ballroom. In fact, she was very much afraid that he would escape soon and that she would have lost perhaps her only chance to meet him within the time period of her wager. She did not know how to attract his attention. She had considered asking the countess or Althea to introduce them, but that seemed too brazen even for her. But something had to be done fast.

As she pondered the problem, a young gentleman with whom she had already danced once asked her to partner him in the next dance, too. She gave him a brilliant smile.

“It is so kind of you to ask,” she said, “but I am afraid I have already promised the next one. Perhaps later? And excuse me, please. I must go to the ladies’ room.”

While the young man blushed at such plain speaking, Henry determinedly circled the dance floor past groups of chatting people until she was within a few feet of the duke. She took a deep breath, turned her head back over her shoulder as if someone behind her had called her name, and increased her pace. She stopped only when her body came into sharp contact with a very firm chest and when his foot was beneath her slipper, his chin cracking on her skull, and his hands clasping her upper arms.

“Oh!” she cried, blushing and flustered as she stepped back and raised large, hazel eyes to his lazy blue ones. “How clumsy of me. I am
so
sorry, sir. Did I hurt you?”

The Duke of Eversleigh found himself looking down at a mop of auburn hair that looked slightly unruly, with its ivory-colored ribbon somewhat askew, and beneath it a flushed, sunburned face with sparkling eyes and—yes, definitely—a cluster of freckles across the nose. His hand wandered to the handle of his quizzing glass, but he did not raise it.

“My fault entirely, ma’am,” he said unsmilingly. “I should not have been standing in the doorway.”

“No, really,” she insisted brightly, “Papa always did say I was a clumsy ox.”

“Indeed!” he said. “I could hardly be expected to corroborate that opinion, now, could I?”

“It is just good for you that I was not wearing boots,” she said, smiling impishly into his impassive face.

“Indeed, they would not complement your gown, ma’am,” he conceded.

Henry giggled openly. “You do not appear to be enjoying the ball immensely, sir,” she said.

He bowed stiffly. “Marius Devron, Duke of Eversleigh, at your service, ma’am,” he said. “We appear to be attracting attention. Would you do me the honor of dancing with me?” He grasped her lightly by the elbow and moved her forward to the dance floor.

“Oh, I am pleased to meet you, your Grace,” Henry said brightly. “I’m Henry.”

He paused for just a moment. “Henry?” he asked faintly, his hand straying again to his quizzing glass.

“Henrietta Wilhelmina Tallant, actually,” she said candidly. “Is it not a dreadful mouthful? And only my mortal enemies call me Henrietta. It always makes me think of a fat, big-bosomed lady with pale hair and puffy face, reclining on a sofa with a lapdog and a dish of bonbons.”

The blue eyes beneath the half-closed lids took on a distinct gleam. “I believe I had better call you Miss Tallant,” Eversleigh said.

Henry had noticed the gleam. “Oh, dear,” she said contritely, “my wretched tongue! I should not have mentioned bosoms, should I? Indeed, Giles warned me about it just a few weeks ago, when I embarrassed poor George and Douglas so. But I forgot already.”

Eversleigh was saved from the ordeal of having to answer that one when the music began and he realized that it was a waltz tune.

“I am very much afraid we shall have to sit this one out, Miss Tallant,” he told Henry. “This is your come-out as well as Althea’s, is it not? You are not allowed to waltz until one of the patronesses has granted permission, you know.”

“Yes, Marian told me,” Henry replied, “but I don’t care a fig for that, you know. I always do as I please. Papa gave up on me when I was twelve years old. He said it would take a better man than he to bend me to his will.”

“Ah,” Eversleigh said, eyes narrowed even more than usual. “But if you do not care for your reputation, Miss Tallant, I live in fear and trembling of losing mine.”

He had steered her firmly to the sidelines again. Henry was about to make a cross rejoinder when she noticed that he had his quizzing glass to his eye again and that he was scanning the room with it, rather more purposefully than he had before.

Having found the object of his search, he turned back to Henry again. “Will you take my arm, Miss Tallant?” he asked, holding it out to her.

She laid her own on top of it and was led around the perimeter of the ballroom to the other side, where a superbly proud and handsome lady, with several magnificent plumes waving above her piled hairdo, was at the center of an animated group.

The group fell silent as the Duke of Eversleigh approached, his manner one of utter boredom, Henry noted with interest, stealing a glance up at him.

“Ah, Sally,” he said on a sigh, “may I present Miss Henry, er, etta Tallant to you?”

“How are you enjoying your first ball, my dear?” Sally Jersey asked, smiling at Henry. “Yes, Marius, I met her in the receiving line. And if my guess is right, you wish to waltz with her.”

Eversleigh bowed stiffly.

Sally Jersey laughed again. “It is most irregular for a girl to be approved so soon, Marius,” she said, “but I very much fear that if I refuse, we might not see you at a ball for another five years.”

Eversleigh inclined his head, his face expressionless.

“Very well, my dear,” the famous patroness said to Henry, “do not miss any more of this delightful music, please.”

“Curtsy,” a voice said very quietly, and Henry obeyed it before she realized that it was the duke and that he had no business telling her what to do.

Henry did not talk during the first minute of the dance. At first, she was intent on counting steps. Her brow creased in concentration. Then she became very much aware of the close proximity of her partner, his body heat reaching out to flush her cheeks and interfere with her breathing. She did not like the feeling at all. It made her feel little and fragile and not at all in command of the situation.

She came back to full reality when, during a turn, she got her legs tangled together and Eversleigh had to haul her hard against his chest. She trod hard on one of his feet.

“Oh, dear,” she said, thrusting herself away from him with ungainly haste, “I should have told you that I don’t waltz very well, shouldn’t I? Did I hurt your foot?”

“It was a different one from the last time,” he replied gallantly, “so it evens the score.”

“I used to hate dancing lessons,” Henry confided. “Papa had a dancing master come down to Roedean to teach us. I tried desperately hard to forget the classes and go out riding, but I couldn’t always avoid them. I learned the others tolerably well, but I never could learn the waltz. I think it was because Mr. Reese used to eat garlic and he had clammy hands. I could feel them right through my dress. Just like a fish. Although,” she added reflectively, “they were always hot, not cold.”

The gleam that Henry had noticed earlier had returned to the duke’s eyes. “You put me in fear and trembling, ma’am,” he said. “I am endeavoring to recall whether my cook served me any garlic tonight. I assure you he will be dismissed tomorrow morning if he did.”

“Oh, I can tell you that he could not have,” Henry said earnestly, staring wide-eyed into those disturbingly half-closed eyes. She was puzzled to see the gleam deepen.

“Miss Tallant,” he said, “shall we converse on safer and more genteel topics? How are you enjoying your first ball? Do you feel all the excitement of being a new debutante?”

“Stuff!” she said. “I think it all a colossal waste of time and money.”

“Indeed!” His manner seemed distant. His eyebrows rose arrogantly.

“Yes, is it not utterly foolish for so many supposedly sensible people to mince around a dance floor holding on to complete strangers and talking on topics that neither is really interested in and that do not signify anyway?”

“I am devastated to know that my company bores you so much, ma’am,” he said stiffly.

“Oh, I don’t mean you, silly. I am convinced you feel the same way I do, only you do not like to say so. I just loved the way you looked everyone over with your quizzing glass when you first came in, as if you could hardly believe the world held so much foolishness. I wish I might have the nerve to do the same.”

“I would not advise it, ma’am,” he said, a slight quaver in his voice, “not, at least, until you are an elderly dowager and can carry off the eccentricity.” Henry could feel his shoulder shaking slightly beneath her hand, but as she looked inquiringly up into his face, the music stopped.

Eversleigh released her and held out his arm for her hand. “Come, Miss Tallant,” he said, “I shall return you safely to your sister-in-law. Sir Peter Tallant is your brother, I presume?”

“Oh, yes,” she confirmed carelessly, “but really I have no wish to go near Marian. She will surely prose on about something I am doing wrong. I’ll wager she noticed me stumble during the waltz and will berate me for my clumsiness.”

“Nevertheless, ma’am, I shall return you to your chaperone,” Eversleigh said firmly, and Henry indignantly discovered that she had no choice in the matter.

Marian was all aflutter when Eversleigh returned Henry to her side, bowed, and wished her a good evening. She fell into a deep curtsy, so that Henry was fearful that her nose might brush the floor.

The duke walked unhurriedly away. He stopped to talk briefly to a man who was standing close to the doorway.

Sir Wilfred Denning was grinning. “Are you giving up already, Marius?” he asked. “Indeed, it is not much of a crop this year, is it?”

“Ah, but I still have two weeks left, do I not, Wilfred?” the duke replied softly. “It is not safe to count your winnings before they are in your pocket, dear boy.”

And the Duke of Eversleigh continued on his way through the doorway to the intense chagrin of many females who had daughters or other relatives to marry off. The younger ladies, on the whole, breathed a sigh of relief.