The Betting Season (A Regency Season Book) (2 page)

Her brothers’ club? No matter what she remembered or didn’t remember, she knew she hadn’t stepped foot inside a gentleman’s club. “White’s?”

Berks face reddened. “I wasn’t going to mention that bit.”

“
Why not?” Harry asked. “She’ll find out soon enough. Better to know now than have someone else tell her.”

Why must they speak in riddles? “Tell me what?”

Berks continued as though she hadn’t spoken. “Better just to send Aunt Eugenia home and have us guard Pippa from St. Austell instead.”

“
I don’t know why you thought the old loon would make a decent chaperone in the first place.”

“
So now this is my fault?” Berks’s voice raised an octave.

Pippa had endured all the bellowing and arguing she could handle in her present state. She cleared her throat and said loudly, “Will you two please tell me what you are going on about? I think my head is about to split into two.”

Harry heaved a sigh and glanced at Berks as though to make sure their older brother wasn’t about to stop him. Then he said, “Your name is in the betting book at White’s.”

That didn’t make any sense. Pippa blinked. “My name?”

“
Alongside the Earl of St. Austell’s,” Harry continued.

“
I don’t even know Lord St. Austell.”

“
Well, you apparently caught his notice last night,” Berks complained.

“
St. Austell was overheard remarking he could bed you before the season is up. And that wastrel Cleasby wrote it up in the betting book.”

Pippa staggered backward. Bed her? What an awful thing to say. What an awful thing to write down! “Who is this man?”

“
The worst scoundrel in all of London,” Berks muttered. “What were you thinking last night, Pippa?”

She wished she knew. Pippa shook her head. “Honestly, I don’t remember a thing.” Not one blasted thing.

Jason York, the Earl of St. Austell, glanced at his empty coffee cup and frowned. Maintaining a decent staff was bloody difficult to do these days. Partly, he conceded, he was to blame. Not entirely, but partly, at least if his sister was to be believed. If Jason’s reputation wasn’t quite so tarnished, respectable servants would willingly work for him and he would currently have a full cup of coffee this morning. That was his sister’s theory, in any event.

From the corridor, someone screamed. His butler, if Jason wasn’t mistaken. And the man sounded like a frightened schoolgirl. What the devil?

He pushed away from the breakfast table and started towards the corridor when the door burst open and an enraged gentleman stalked over the threshold into the breakfast room. The Marquess of Berkswell? Jason frowned. He hadn’t cuckolded the man, had he? No, he didn’t think so. In fact, he didn’t think Berkswell was even married.

“
Looking for me?” Jason drawled as he assumed a carefree stance. Whatever madness propelled Berkswell to his door, Jason wasn’t about to let the marquess think him flustered.

Berkswell’s dark eyes flashed and he lunged for Jason, his hands outstretched like a bedlamite bent on murder.

Jason side-stepped the mad marquess and folded his arms across his chest. “I can’t imagine what has brought you to my door, but kindly remove yourself.” God knew Jason couldn’t depend on his staff to toss Berkswell out. The cowards he employed hadn’t even poked their heads in the breakfast room to see what the commotion was about.

Berkswell stumbled forwards but righted himself. “You!” he growled.

“
Yes, me,” Jason agreed. “I’m not quite sure what has you in a rage, Berkswell, but why don’t you return when you can string more than one syllable together. We’ll discuss whatever it is like gentlemen.”

“
Gentlemen?” The marquess’s nose flared like that of a pent-up bull. Then he leapt forwards again and somehow managed to catch a handful of Jason’s jacket in the process. Berkswell’s fist connected with Jason’s nose a half-second later. “A gentleman wouldn’t get my sister’s name in that book,” the marquess spat. “I’ll put your name on a gravestone.”

“
Do you mind?” Jason tore himself out of the man’s grasp and frowned when he noticed droplets of blood now stained his previously snowy cravat. Blast and damn! Who even knew if he had another clean one?

“
Oh, I mind,” Berkswell growled.

Jason lifted a handkerchief to his nose and glared at his uninvited guest. “Honestly, I have no idea what has you in such a state. So either tell me my offense or go destroy someone else’s morning.”

“
My sister!” Berkswell bellowed, which there was no reason to do. Jason could hear him just fine. The man just didn’t make any sense.

“
Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“
You got her name in the betting book at White’s.”

Jason was fairly certain he’d remember doing something like that. He shook his head, careful to keep his handkerchief in place and his loss of blood to a minimum. “I think you’ve got the wrong cad. I don’t even know your sister.” At least he didn’t think he did. He mentally went down the list of widows he’d recently entertained. Lady Teynham wasn’t Berkswell’s sister, was she?

“
Lady Philippa Casemore,” the marquess ground out. “I have it on the highest authority you waltzed with her last night at the Heathfields’.”

Philippa Casemore? The foxed schoolgirl? The one Potsdon had liberally supplied with brandy until she could barely stand, let alone waltz? Jason hadn’t even asked her to stand up with him. She’d pulled
him
into the middle of the dance floor and insisted he call her…

“
Pippa?” he said softly, which was the wrong thing to do if the growl emanating from Berkswell was any indication. Jason took a step backwards and lifted up one hand to halt Berkswell mid-step. “I only danced with her.”

“
And ruined her name with that bloody bet.”

Again with this bet? The man made less sense the more he talked. “I honestly have no idea what you’re going on about. And virginal schoolgirls are hardly my sort. So if that’s all you came to say, you can take your leave.”

“
Stay away from my sister.”

Jason had no intention of going near the chit. “You might want to visit Albert Potsdon on your way back home. The man gave her his flask sometime during the night. Got the poor girl so deep in her cups, I’d be surprised if she even remembers her own name this morning.”

“
Consider yourself warned. If you so much as approach my sister, I’ll call you out and put a bullet in the middle of that miserable heart of yours.”

“
Berkswell?” Viscount Heathfield chuckled as he and Jason entered the throng along Rotten Row. “Mild mannered Berkswell?”

Jason touched a hand to his nose and winced as he jiggled it back and forth. “I think he might have broken it.”

Heath chuckled again. “I’m certain you didn’t deserve it in the least.”

Jason glared at his friend. “You know very well I didn’t. The chit was more than foxed and I didn’t even touch her.”

“
You waltzed with her.”

If one could call it that. She nearly fell into him at every turn. “Yes, well, last night will be the last time I attend some function hosted at your house, you can bloody well depend on that.”

“
You’re simply not accustomed to socializing with polite society,” Heath replied. “Even so, Emma was quite delighted to make your acquaintance last night. She wanted me to pass on her appreciation to you for making her ball the most talked about affair of the season.”

“
The season just began.”

“
And now everyone else will be trying to reach the bar Emma’s ball set.”

“
My broken nose and I are pleased to have helped,” Jason grumbled. Heath wasn’t the same fellow he’d once been, not since he’d taken a wife over Christmas. The last thing Heath would have discussed this time last year was which societal event was the talk of the season. Jason sent a sidelong glance at his old friend. “Do pass on my congratulations to Lady Heathfield. She seems to have reformed you rather well in a very short period of time.”

Heath only grinned, which proved Jason’s point perfectly.

“
And they say rakes can’t be reformed.”

Heath laughed. “No. I think they say
you
can’t be reformed.”

Finally Jason smiled in return. “Touché. I do believe that
is
what they say.”

“
What is with Cleasby, anyway? Why would he put that bet in the book?”

Jason’s smile vanished. “Damned drunkard. Someone must have overheard me last night and put him up to it.”

“
Overheard something about your ability to bed the lady in question?”

Jason heaved a sigh. “Do you know how many times I’ve said something similar over the years?”

“
Roughly.”

“
I’ve never imagined I’d see it in print for all the world to discuss, however.”

“
Well.” Heath gestured towards the other side of the lane with a cock of his head. “There’s your Lady Philippa now. Do watch yourself. I understand Harrison Casemore’s left is far more fearsome than Berkswell’s.”

Jason’s gaze shot across Rotten Row, landing on the chit in question. Pippa Casemore’s light brown curls swayed gently in the breeze, her head tilted towards some other girl in obvious deep discussion. She barely resembled the inebriated chit from the night before. Still pretty, of course, and the sun made her hair reflect a bit of gold; but she seemed more innocent in the light of day, more… respectable. What a pity.

“
I’d bet money they’re talking about you.” Heath said, humor lacing his words.

Bet? Jason stopped in his tracks, folded his arms across his chest, and glared at his friend. “You didn’t have Cleasby put that bet in the book, did you?”

Heath snorted. “Me?”

No, Jason supposed not. A friend would never do such a thing to him. “Somebody did. And whoever he is, he’s got a punch to the nose waiting for him.”

“
Tit for tat?”

“
An eye for an eye.” Jason touched his tender nose again. “…Or nose, as the case may be.”

“
Ah, and the lady disappears,” Heath said.

Jason looked back to where Lady Philippa had just been only to find her dark-haired friend all alone on the path. “Did you see where she went?”

Heath gestured to a copse of trees not far off. “Planned assignation, perhaps?”