The Duchess Wager Read online

  Even the children were silent for a moment, shocked still at the desperation flooding her tone. Surprise and dismay danced across Alice’s face. Then she marshaled a sympathetic smile. “You’ve been out of sorts for so long, Margot. Perhaps we can think of something that will lift your spirits.”

  “You’ve been here a month doing nothing but that,” Margot grumbled. “I know you and Hugh would have left for Richmond Hall weeks ago if you weren’t whispering with Mother about how I’m not coping well. Yet nothing helps, does it? Not games of charades, nor wassailing, nor riding in the country. Not sleeping; not waking. I’m a useless bag of gloom.”

  Alice intercepted George as he was about to bludgeon Margot again for attention; sending him on a mission to the nursery to choose the toys he would take out in the snow, she turned back to Margot. “No one is whispering about you or calling you useless. You lost your husband suddenly. Of course you are overwhelmed.”

  They’d said as much to her before, and it didn’t help. She hadn’t loved Geoff the way her family thought she had, not for years, not since he’d relegated her to the role of country wife. He was her provider, the father of her children, a seasonal companion, an occasional thorn in her side. She missed him, but more than that, she resented his absence.

  Still, she couldn’t confess to such feelings, not to her family.

  “Hugh loved his mother just as much, and he isn’t moping,” Margot said instead, referring to Alice’s husband, whose mother had died just after the harvest.

  “That’s different.” Sighing, Alice set Valentina on the floor and took Margot’s hand instead. “You’re being stubborn.”

  This, from Alice, was the pot calling the kettle black. Though Margot could admit that Alice had learned the trait honestly from her, and she in turn had learned it from their father, Reginald Winpole, Baron of Eastley.

  Just as Margot was about to respond – with something childish, like “Am not” – Alice smiled, the cat that ate the canary. “How’s this, Countess of Contrary? I’d like to make you a wager that you will not be in better spirits by the end of the week.”

  “You would bet against your own sister’s happiness?” Margot was interested enough to raise an eyebrow. “What will you win when I am still this cesspool of despondence?”

  Alice tapped her chin in thought. “If I win – and you are still describing yourself in such morose terms at the end of this very week – you will, when addressing me, call me ‘Your Loveliness, My Superior Sister in Every Way.’ For the rest of the month.”

  “Your Loveliness, My Superior Sister.” The words tasted like bilge on her tongue.

  “In Every Way,” Alice prodded.

  Margot could see what Alice was about, and as much as she didn’t appreciate being managed like a toddler, she had to admit it was working. “And what would I win, if I am suddenly as bright as a spring morning come Sunday?”

  Alice’s hands landed on her stomach. “You may name my firstborn child.”

  An enticing prize. Margot immediately started a mental list of names that she knew her sister hated. She wouldn’t be so evil, of course – the poor child would have to live with whatever fate Margot handed it – but it would be fun to torment Alice with possibilities.

  “You have a wager, dear sister who is not my superior.” She sealed the deal with a kiss to Alice’s cheek. “In fact, I am already feeling better. Well enough to face these visitors, anyway. Who are they? Stragglers in the storm?”

  “The Duke of Harrodshire and the new Lord and Lady Gresham, seeking refuge from the snow.” Blond and pale, Alice was cursed with every emotion racing across her face the instant she felt it, and now her face flashed with anger. “On their way south from Gretna Green.”

  Margot echoed Alice’s anger immediately. Lord Gresham had been engaged to their friend, Miss Lisbeth Dawes, only to jilt her on the very day of their wedding to elope with the former Duchess of Surrey instead.

  They’d just received Miss Dawes’s letter, which tried so very hard to explain the thing away as mutually beneficial, when really it was the scandal of the decade.

  And now the terrible Lord Gresham and his equally terrible new bride were here. At Bleneccle Manor. Their guests.

  “And we received them?” Margot asked.

  Alice raised her chin, a clear expression of disagreement. “Mother said it wouldn’t be charitable to turn them away in this weather, no matter the scandal. Besides, Father didn’t want to offend the Duke of Harrodshire.”

  “What are we supposed to do, play parlor games with the man who broke Miss Dawes’s heart?”

  Alice shrugged, scooping up Valentina again before the girl raced straight into the fire. “Mother asks that we be gracious hostesses as always. Apparently, it’s not our battle.”

  Margot snorted. In many ways, she and her mother, Lady Sybil Eastley, were similar: it was from her that Margot inherited her dark hair, brown eyes, and hopeless love of sweets. But her mother was a gentle woman who loved long chats over hot tea, who always assumed the best of all humanity, and who avoided conflict at all costs.

  Margot far preferred the thrill of getting her way, especially these days, when the burn of anger replaced the infinite black depths that hung about her heart.

  “Besides, the Duke of Harrodshire is apparently influential in getting Father’s canal built, so we mustn’t offend him,” Alice added.

  A hot swell of anger steamed from deep within Margot’s stomach. Father with his canal was getting to be as bad as Geoff had been with his damned mill. She snickered. “Didn’t Hugh say Father’s money would be better spent on a railroad, anyway?”

  That earned a sly smile from her sister, who particularly loved it when Margot quoted Alice’s new husband back to her.

  Ringing for her maid, Margot reclaimed Valentina, stamping her with a great big mother’s kiss. Then she shooed her down the hall to the playroom, where Nurse was waiting.

  “What we need is a strategy,” she announced to Alice. “One that allows us to always remain on Miss Dawes’s side without offending Mother or risking Father’s precious canal.”

  Her sister leaned against the bed, one hand resting thoughtfully on her increasing stomach. “What exactly do you have in mind?”

  Margot flung open her wardrobe. It was full of black, of course, but still, there were options. Ever since Geoff had died – taken by an infection after slicing his hand while surveying his precious cotton mill – she’d only worn the comfortable black dresses. But the dressmaker had provided her with a full retinue of widow’s weeds, including a few for the latter stages of grief that were grayer and more daring.

  More distracting.

  Margot turned to Alice, a slow bubble of excitement expanding in her chest. “You’ll make it clear to Lord and Lady Gresham exactly whose side we’re on. Meanwhile, I will occupy the Duke of Harrodshire, so he doesn’t ever notice.”

  Alice grinned. “I had better watch out, otherwise you’ll be winning this wager before the week even ends.”

  Chapter Three

  Bleneccle Manor, Fitz decided, was warmer than it appeared. Given its stony walls and high ceilings, dark shadows tended to amass in the corners of the great hall, the corridor, even his bedroom. The tapestries were all threadbare and stained from too many years’ use, and there were so many fires and candles burning that Fitz had the sensation his white gloves would be gray before the night was over.

  Yet the whole place thrummed with some greater glow. The whistling wind outside didn’t penetrate the castle, so Fitz was quite comfortable in his regular dress coat and had no need to huddle close to a fire to warm his hands. The servants had ready smiles, even a few jokes, as they settled him in. And it helped that the guest apartment they showed him to was more than an improvement over some little town inn. Fitz had a two-room suite featuring a goose-feather mattress, a roaring fire, a private
cabinet of brandy, and a whole shelf of books ranging from agriculture to sciences to philosophy.

  He would be quite happy to spend the whole evening alone in his room. Alas, the one downside of staying with the ton: he was expected to socialize with his hosts.

  Dinner was impressively formal, given that Lady Eastley’s guests had shown up unexpectedly in the middle of a snowstorm. Fitz reported to the drawing room to find a veritable crowd. Talbot and Annabelle were already cozying up on a narrow settee near the fireplace, chatting with their host. Lord Eastley himself took up a lot of space, both physically – for he was tall and wide – and energetically, as he spoke from the diaphragm and tended to thunder with laughter after every comment.

  Lady Eastley, a much slimmer and calmer profile, stood near the corner window with another couple. Fitz recognized Lord Hugh Osborne, Earl of Windemere, from the thick set of spectacles sliding down his nose. The blonde sparkling at his side, Fitz concluded, was his new wife and daughter to the Winpoles, Lady Alice.

  “Excuse me, Your Grace.” The words came from behind. Fitz turned to discover he’d been blocking the threshold for yet another member of the party. This woman, he was sure, he’d never met before in his life.

  In looks, she bore a passing resemblance to Lady Eastley. Dark, demure hair framed a wide forehead, slender eyebrows, and soft, supple lips. Her charcoal mourning gown scooped around her neckline to set off creamy skin and suggest a generous hourglass shape. A diamond pendant sparkled deliciously near to her bosom.

  Fitz stepped aside, bowing his head as he did so. She responded with a curtsy, then rustled by, exuding the soft smell of rose water as she passed.

  Fitz took a slow, steady breath. Perhaps Annabelle had been right about one part of the wager: he would meet his next sweetheart soon.

  “Papa, I don’t believe I’ve been introduced to all our guests,” the widow said. Fitz was delighted to discover she spoke in low, throaty tones.

  Lord Eastley rose to do his duty. “I believe you know Lord Gresham, and may I present the new Lady Gresham.”

  The widow curtsied again. “We were prepared to offer our felicitations to our dear friend Miss Dawes, but I see the plan changed.”

  If Fitz had been sipping a drink, he would have spurted it out. Talbot looked as if he’d seen a ghost, and even Annabelle had the good sense to blush.

  “May you have a long and happy marriage,” the widow said, turning away.

  Turning towards him.

  Lord Eastley cleared his throat. “And this is His Grace Lord Haight, Duke of Harrodshire. My daughter, Countess of Wickham.”

  That made her Geoff Wharton’s widow. Fitz had known the man only nominally, since Wharton had, for the most part, ignored his duties as a member of the House of Lords. Fitz had heard of Wharton’s sudden death over the summer, but he hadn’t felt the need to travel to the funeral.

  “Friends call me Fitz,” he said, bowing at the introduction.

  Lady Wickham’s eyes teased him. “I shall remember that should I meet one of your friends.”

  They observed a half hour of socializing before the butler announced that dinner was served. To Fitz’s chagrin, Lady Wickham’s playful eyes remained firmly away from him. While her mother seized his arm and begged for news of London, Lady Wickham joked with Osborne, smiled indulgently at her sister, and even slipped in a few more speared words toward Talbot and Annabelle. Once, as he bemoaned with Lady Eastley just how hard the roads were between Carlisle and London, Fitz thought he felt Lady Wickham’s thoughtful gaze, but when he turned – pretending to reach for his sherry – he saw only her back.

  A beautiful, graceful back, from the slender neck down to the soft, shapely waist.

  “It’s lucky that you should join us, Your Grace,” Lady Eastley said once dinner was announced. “With you, we’re an even number of couples.”

  On a normal day, Fitz would flinch at the suggestion of being part of a twosome. But the suggestion of being Lady Wickham’s other half – just for the evening – inspired him to grin.

  He couldn’t have planned to win the wager any more easily. All he had to do was flirt with Lady Wickham – no terrible task – to satisfy Annabelle and Talbot that she was his sweetheart, and then not marry her. To not marry a recent widow was perhaps the easiest thing Fitz had ever done.

  The dining room was more suited to Edward II’s tastes than to modern décor. The stone walls boasted only ancient tapestries and fiery torches, and a bare-bones wooden chandelier illuminated the table. A suit of armor stood at attention next to the sideboard; in the shadows, Fitz mistook it for a footman until the real servant moved.

  Yet rather than depress him, Fitz found the medieval setting only boosted his mood. After all, the first duke of Harrodshire had earned the title by defending the crown at home while Richard the Lionheart crusaded in Jerusalem. Fitz had spent many stolen hours of his childhood pretending to be the first duke. How many imaginary maidens had he saved from unsavory rogues, how great had been the mud castles that he defended from French invaders, and how often had his young knees bent in ceremony to receive his knightly title.

  Indeed, Bleneccle Manor’s dining room inspired the little boy in him to excitement, hoping a ceremony might be right around the corner.

  Then again, his excitement might be better traced to Lady Wickham, seated to his right.

  “How long have you been visiting Bleneccle Manor?” he asked as the footmen placed plates of roasted quail before them.

  “A month or so. We came up for the holidays.” As Lady Wickham reached for her crystal goblet of wine, Fitz’s eyes were caught by her long, slender fingers, set off nicely with a ruby ring.

  He almost didn’t notice the plural pronoun she’d used. “We?”

  She cut him an amused smile. “My children are with me, of course. I have two. George, the new Earl of Wickham, and my daughter, Valentina.”

  Fitz should have guessed, of course, that a young widow would have children. It wasn’t as if Wharton had died off in the first year of marriage. Yet he had been so enthralled by Lady Wickham’s aura that he hadn’t paused to think about the woman living inside it.

  He evaluated her now in the hazy light of the chandeliers. Was she in deep grief over the loss of her husband? Was she struggling in the new role of dowager countess, and all the responsibility that came with it? Did she enjoy being a mother?

  With the shadows flickering across her eyes, softening her sharp smiles, he couldn’t even tell anything as simple as her age. She could have been anywhere from twenty to thirty-five.

  Fitz’s best route to information was the roundabout one. “How is the new Earl taking to his duties?”

  Winpole, seated across the table, let out the delighted, boisterous laugh of a grandfather. “He is four, Your Grace.”

  Lady Wickham smiled too, though it looked uncomfortable. In a voice almost too low for him to hear, she murmured, “He misses his father, and yet he is barely old enough to understand his father has passed.”

  Fitz did not consider himself to have much of a heart, so when it constricted in sympathy, he merely thought he was uncomfortable with the sentiment. He didn’t remember his own father’s death. It had been a mere six months after his birth. Fitz had been the seventh duke for his entire life, and he’d missed his father almost every second.

  Lady Wickham watched him with steady, mysterious eyes. Now she shifted in her chair, angling to view him more clearly, as if to redirect the conversation. “How long do you plan to stay with us, Your Grace?”

  He appreciated the return to safe territory. “Only as long as it takes for the storm to end and the roads to be safe for carriages again.”

  Lady Eastley, seated to his left at the head of the table, cut in. “Oh, the roads here are terrible in the winter. If it’s not ice, it’s snow. If it’s not snow, it’s mud.”

  This
was not the sort of news Fitz liked to hear. “Talbot’s carriage is above average, I’m sure, and can handle ice or mud.”

  “Ah, but haven’t you heard of the northern road toll?”

  This from Lady Wickham, her eyes suddenly twinkling in the torch light. Fitz humored her with an amused, “I’m sure my purse can afford it.”

  She leaned towards him, her voice dropping to let him in on a secret. “The northern road toll is no regular toll, Your Grace. You can’t pay in money, nor in fine clothes, nor good horses.”

  Lady Eastley, on his other side, tittered nervously. “Margot, you do like to poke fun.”

  Margot. A perfect Christian name if Fitz ever did hear one. He leaned in conspiratorially. “What, must I lay out a glass of wine and a fine roast chicken every night to pay off the spirits?”

  Margot – yes, he decided, he could call her by whatever he liked in his thoughts – drew her face into a still, sober mask. “The north doesn’t like trespassers, you see. And the roads can tell whether you’re a good Northerner or an itinerant Southerner. For us, the mountain passes are wide, smooth, always clear of the snow and mud. But for a Southerner…well, you saw for yourself. Sharp curves no more than a carriage-width deep. Crumbling cliff edges. Snowstorms.”

  “Lucky for us we have northern friends to take us in.”

  Margot’s eyes gleamed. “For now. But the minute you are back on the road, Your Grace, it will judge you. That’s how it decides the toll. If you’re a person of good standing, good manners, and goodwill, it may let you go with no more than a broken horseshoe. But if it finds you lacking…you pay a blood price.”

  “Oh Margot, really!”

  But Lady Eastley’s shrill exasperation couldn’t cut through the spell Margot had cast. Fitz found he couldn’t look away from her dark, sparkling eyes, waiting with bated breath for her next words. His heart hammered as fast as if she had put her bare hand on his.

  With no more than a ghost tale, she had seduced him.

  “And how will I measure up, do you think?” he asked, subconsciously licking his lips, hoping her answer would invite him into the deeper shadows of the castle. She was not the only one who could seduce.