The Courtesan's Wager (19 page)

“Pass, Amy,” he said, his voice still hoarse. “Pass and be gone. You will never marry Iveston. I shan’t allow it.”

And then he turned and left her there, stranded amidst the roses and caught up in thorns, the sound of her harsh breathing echoing against the glass.

I
T was something of a mystery as to where Cranleigh had dragged Lady Amelia, but after Cranleigh reappeared at Iveston’s side only ten minutes after leaving the ballroom, it was supposed that Lady Amelia, who had only barely escaped ruination, which was a delight to her chaperone and a disappointment to all else present, had left the Prestwick ball.

It was not until fully fifteen minutes had passed that Lady Amelia had appeared, the first set well under way, her fine muslin dress torn irreparably and, it looked, repeatedly.

Naturally, all eyes had gone immediately to Lord Cranleigh. Cranleigh, as he was a stalwart fellow, had ignored them all nearly blissfully.

Amelia, it was duly noted, gave a fine performance of ignoring Cranleigh.

Well, what to think but that Cranleigh had dragged the girl off to some dark corner and practically ripped the clothes from her very shapely body?

The most peculiar, that is to say, interesting facet of the entire thing was that Lord Iveston did not seem to be bothered by any of it in the least. Nor, it should be mentioned, was the Duke of Calbourne, who made his way to Lady Amelia’s side almost immediately and began talking her up.

Well.
If that didn’t put a fine spin on things. The room nearly exploded with speculation, not the least of which came from the younger Blakesley boys.

“Do you think
he’s
responsible for that?” Josiah asked his brother George, obviously referring to Cranleigh, who, if it were not already too late, would be referred to as
he
by the entire company for the rest of the evening. And perhaps into next week.

“I can’t think why he should be,” George Blakesley answered, looking slightly less sure of himself than usual, “but I can’t think that he didn’t.”

“Because of Iveston,” Josiah said solemnly, studying Cranleigh as he stood next to Iveston, his expression a stony mask of social boredom.

As they were all standing within six feet of each other, it should not be supposed that Cranleigh did not hear every word spoken by them. If he had a comment to make regarding his guilt or innocence, he refused to make it. Both George and Josiah—particularly Josiah, who was the youngest and did have a need for more experience where women were concerned, a fact he was grossly aware of—logically felt that, by discussing the situation in Cranleigh’s hearing, he would, by necessity, have to defend himself, his actions, and his honor. Cranleigh rarely, if ever, felt required to do anything of the sort. They ignored that fact. What else could they do?

“But what did it accomplish? Except to ruin a very nice dress,” Josiah said. Unlike his four older brothers, he did not have blue but pale aqua green eyes. Other than that, he looked much like the other Blakesleys in that he was well-formed and blond-haired. He could not, by all appearances, take his pale aqua green eyes off of Amelia Caversham and her torn gown. “I should think she’d go home, wouldn’t you?”

“Which is what it was supposed to accomplish,” Cranleigh said, not turning his ice blue eyes anywhere near the vicinity of Amelia Caversham. Which did strike one as being excessively deliberate. “Her dress, though not the lady herself, is ruined. One would suppose that she’d hie off home, glad to have escaped with only a ruined dress.”

“One would think so,” Iveston said mildly, looking at Amelia. “I find myself surprised by how well it looks on her, torn as it is. I hadn’t thought myself the sort of man to enjoy seeing a woman so disheveled and, frankly, tossed about, but . . . she is lovely, isn’t she? There’s something so pleasant about her. Even torn.”

Cranleigh swore mildly and then held his tongue. Most inconvenient. How was anyone to find out what had happened in the conservatory if he wouldn’t speak of it? Cranleigh had always been a stubborn lad, fully the most stubborn of them all.

Into Cranleigh’s stubbornness strode Sophia Dalby, looking quite relaxed and full of cheer, even though her current pet project stood across the room in an alarming state of dishabille.

“A woman of such beauty and poise looks lovely no matter her state of dress,” Sophia said, “or undress. As to that, I’ve asked Miss Prestwick to allow Lady Amelia to borrow some sort of covering as Lady Amelia seems determined not to leave the ball. Stalwart girl, isn’t she? Such a pleasure to see girls with a bit of spine to them. Ah, and there’s Miss Prestwick now, and isn’t that a very pretty shawl she’s handing her? Such a generous gesture.”

The fact that Sophia had needed to prod Miss Prestwick to make the gesture was not deemed worthy of comment.

“As Lady Amelia is staying,” Sophia continued, “and as there is some speculation as to the manner in which her dress sustained injury, well, to be perfectly frank, it is nearly destroyed, isn’t it?” She looked at Cranleigh as she said it. Cranleigh returned her look and said nothing. Damned Cranleigh, never letting loose of his tongue. It made learning anything at all nearly impossible. “The only way to silence the most aggressive of rumors is for you, Lord Cranleigh, to ask her to dance.”

“I beg your pardon?” Cranleigh said stiffly.

“Oh, I shall speak so you cannot fail to understand me,” Sophia said with deceptive civility. Deceptive surely, for the air fairly sizzled between them. Of all the Blakesley brothers, Cranleigh was the only one who had never had a pleasant word to say about Sophia Dalby. The others may not have had
any
word to say, not knowing her, but Cranleigh was one of the few men about Town who didn’t seem to care for her in the least. Which made everyone very curious indeed. “The music is rather loud. I shall repeat then, shall I? You must dance with Lady Amelia, Lord Cranleigh. There is simply no other way to salvage her reputation and you surely must want that. I can’t think why a gentleman of your reputation would want it bandied about that he’d ruined a girl merely to keep her from his brother.”

The silence that comment engendered could have been cut with a sword. And Cranleigh looked like he wanted to do just that.

“I would be delighted to dance with Lady Amelia,” the Marquis of Ruan said.

Sophia did not so much as turn to look at him. “How amiable of you,” Sophia said dismissively. “But as this does not concern you, Lord Ruan, and as you clearly don’t understand the intricacy of the situation, you should, by all means, find your entertainment elsewhere.”

“I can’t imagine being more entertained than I am at this moment,” Ruan said with a pleasant smile. His intent was not at all pleasant and that was obvious to all of them. Ruan, fulfilling his reputation to perfection, did not seem to care a whit whether anyone but himself was pleased or not.

“Such a limited imagination,” Sophia said. “I would hardly have thought it. You did imply otherwise.”

She gave Ruan a look of amused annoyance, much the look one would give to an irritating but beloved pet. Ruan bowed crisply and said, “Whatever you imagine, Lady Dalby, shall be fulfilled. That I promise you.” And then he wandered across the room in the general direction of Lord Penrith. Sophia watched him for a moment, watched as Ruan turned when he was perhaps fifteen feet from her, winked at her in bold flirtation, and continued on.

Sophia very nearly chuckled. She swallowed the sound whole.

“As I was saying,” she said when Ruan was gone, “it must be Lord Cranleigh, mustn’t it?” The Blakesleys stared at her, not quite able to make the shift in conversation as quickly as she could. “As his name is linked to hers, poor dear”—and it was not clear exactly who was the poor dear, Cranleigh or Amelia—“and as her dress is evidence of something, it must be Lord Cranleigh who silences every possibility of scandal by dancing with the girl.”

“I fail to see what that will accomplish,” Cranleigh said.

“You are not so untutored, Lord Cranleigh, that you cannot anticipate precisely what it will accomplish,” Sophia countered. “If you had ruined the poor dear”—ah, so Amelia was the poor dear—“then you would naturally avoid her now. If nothing unfortunate happened in the conservatory, then you would be as guileless as a lamb in approaching her now.”

As no one in the northern hemisphere would ever accuse Cranleigh of being guileless, no matter what the cause or what the evidence, that was pushing the point a bit too far. But no one argued the point. To what purpose? No one wanted to see Lady Amelia ruined.

Not even Cranleigh.

“I would have thought that, by approaching her,” Cranleigh said, “I would be confirming whatever suspicions might be entertained. Surely, giving the lady a refined distance is all that is required.”

“My lord Cranleigh,” Sophia said softly, “a gentlemen must do more than is required, must he not, particularly where a lady is concerned? Oh, but perhaps another solution is presenting itself even now. The Duke of Calbourne is at her side, which surely must please them both. They certainly look well pleased, and as this set is ending, it does appear that they will dance the next set. How perfectly lovely,” Sophia said cheerfully. “It looks as if you are not needed after all, Lord Cranleigh. I should think that the duke will handle things admirably, as dukes so often do.”

What to say to that?

“I would not put my duty to Aldreth’s daughter upon some other man’s shoulders,” Cranleigh said abruptly, leaving their party to make his way across the crowded floor, everyone in the room watching his progress. Everyone, that is, with the exception of Lady Amelia, who kept her back aimed precisely at the spot where Lord Cranleigh had been. Miss Prestwick, still somewhat bound by hospitality and feminine concern over something so horrendous as a torn gown, and nearly rooted to the spot by the fact that the Duke of Calbourne had joined their small party, was at Amelia’s side when Cranleigh reached them.

“I do think you should prepare yourself, Lady Amelia,” Penelope said, staring at Cranleigh in something very nearly a trance.

Amelia knew precisely what could induce a fine, healthy girl to get that approximate look: Cranleigh. He was good at freezing innocent girls with a mere gaze. She did not find it a relaxing experience in her own case and found it even less enjoyable when watching it happen to another female.

“Prepare myself for what?” Amelia said in abundant unconcern. “I have been through the worst, Miss Prestwick, a torn gown at the most fashionable ball of the Season. I shall fear no mere man.”

“Even if he steps upon your toes, Lady Amelia?” Calbourne asked with a smile.

“Even then,” she said. “I can and will defend myself. You have been forewarned,” she said with a teasing smile as Cranleigh joined their circle. The smile was directed at Calbourne, but it was meant for Cranleigh.

“ ’Tis a woman’s right,” Calbourne said.

“ ’Tis a woman’s duty,” Cranleigh interjected, refusing to look at her, directing his gaze to Miss Prestwick instead. “Is it not so, Miss Prestwick? A woman’s first concern is to protect her honor? ”

“I believe the word you mean is
chastity
, Lord Cranleigh, which seems to become a man’s first concern upon leaving the nursery,” Amelia said as Penelope was forming her answer. “He seems equally determined to either want to rob her of it or cast her high upon some distant shelf where she will die of dusty chastity.” Calbourne’s mouth hung agape. Miss Prestwick seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. Cranleigh bore his usual expression of grim annoyance. “I see I haven’t shocked you, Lord Cranleigh, which certainly proves my point. But excuse me, Miss Prestwick, I spoke hurriedly, yet would you not agree? ”

Miss Prestwick, to her credit, rallied quickly. “I suppose it must depend upon the man,” Miss Prestwick said. “Certainly a brother is a man and yet he does not seek to steal his sister’s . . . honor, does he? A certain logic must be applied, don’t you agree? ”

“A logical woman,” Calbourne said wearily, a fact he didn’t bother to hide. “I suppose you have been educated, Miss Prestwick? ”

“I know my alphabet, your grace,” Penelope answered, looking extremely uncomfortable.

“And your numbers, too, I should hope,” Amelia said. “It is to a man’s advantage to keep a woman uninformed, uneducated, and untutored. How else to keep her from besting him?”

“She could always fight him in a duel,” Cranleigh said sarcastically.

“Pistols or swords, Lord Cranleigh?” Amelia swiftly replied, staring at him sharply.

“Are you adept at either, Lady Amelia, or would you cajole a man into taking action on your behalf?” Cranleigh snapped. “I do think that is the way a woman gets what she wants.”

“As long as she gets what she wants, Lord Cranleigh, and the man gets a good fight in the bargain, then both shall find themselves well content. It is no secret that men of a certain vigorous disposition do enjoy a small battle or two; even you should be aware of that, by hearsay at least. Though I don’t recall asking you what you think about the matter, Lord Cranleigh,” Amelia said. “But I do care what you think, Calbourne,” she said, turning her gaze from Cranleigh and his icy rage to Calbourne’s startled expression. “Do you think a woman should be kept ignorant? ”

“Of certain things, yes,” Calbourne said.

“Of maps and mathematics, of art and philosophy?” Amelia said earnestly.

“Of pistols and swords?” Cranleigh sniped.

“Or merely of men who use pistols and swords?” Penelope said, falling into the rhythm if not the tone of the game.

Into the stilted silence that followed, Amelia found it almost impossible not to glare at Cranleigh, and really, why shouldn’t she? He had tried by the most unchivalrous and calculated way possible to drive her from the ball. What a horrid shock it clearly was for him that she refused to be driven. She was not to be distracted by something as ordinary as a tear in her gown, though it was rather more than a single tear and there had been something more to distract her than ripped fabric.