The Courtesan's Wager (2 page)

Which was, of course, the entire dreary point. What if, after having sought Sophia’s counsel and aid, Amelia forgot her goal of marrying the right man and found herself married to the wrong one? That would not do at all. If she did approach Sophia, she was going to be very firm; she was not going to find herself married to anyone other than her ideal choice, a man who she would not allow to even enter her mind at present because of Eleanor and her alarming ability to read Amelia’s every thought. No, no matter what Sophia Dalby said or did, she was going to marry the right man.

Of course, without Sophia’s aid, she might find herself married to no one at all.

“You have only to see Louisa and Blakes together to know that she’s revoltingly content and Dutton completely forgotten, Amelia. It’s almost impossible to be in the same room with them, to be honest. They’re always sliding themselves off to a closet or a cupboard and coming out again all mussed and grinning. It’s straight out of Fielding, I assure you.”

“You really mustn’t read such things, Eleanor. I’m quite certain it’s not good for your character.”

“Being in the same room with Blakes and Louisa is worse for my character. It’s perfectly plain what they’re about, after all.”

They were rather obvious about it and it was entirely inappropriate, but it did look like such fun, in a perfectly astounding sort of way. In all her life, Amelia had never seen a married couple behave as Louisa and her Blakes did. Perhaps it would pass.

Yet perhaps it would not.

“They’re leaving Town soon, are they not?” Amelia asked, flopping over onto her stomach and burying her face into a pillow. She felt unaccountably morose of a sudden.

Unaccountably? Of course it was accountable; she did not have a husband dragging her off into closets. That was the trouble with her, though the incessant rain didn’t help. It had been cold and rainy for hour upon hour. The month of April did have that reputation and it should not have affected her mood. But it did.

“Tomorrow,” Eleanor answered, “even if the rain doesn’t stop. I think Blakes wants to get Louisa away from his many brothers.”

And then she would be alone, left to find her duke without anyone to share the experience with her. Eleanor was too young and not fully
out
. Day after day spent trying to look appealing and sweet and lovely to a room full of people who all but ignored Amelia.

Well, the dukes ignored her and that was all that mattered, wasn’t it?

Amelia and Eleanor said nothing after that, the mood of the day infecting them. The light in the room softened to pewter, the maid lit the candles, the fire blazed orange, and the two women sighed into the upholstery, pretending to doze.

That was when Hawksworth strolled in and of course that meant that Amelia had to put a better face on it, as one simply did not reveal any sort of weakness to one’s younger brother.

“What are we doing?” Hawksworth asked, leaning against the doorframe of the library and studying them. Hawksworth did not stand on his own two feet if he could find anything at all to lean against.

Amelia and Eleanor sat up, Amelia ran a hand over her hair, Eleanor tugged at her sleeve, and Amelia said, “I suppose it should be obvious even to you, Hawks, that
we’re
having a private conversation.”

“I thought I heard snoring,” he said, bowing a greeting to Eleanor. Eleanor popped to her feet and curtseyed before promptly dropping back down to her chair. The four of them, Amelia and Hawks, Louisa and Eleanor, had always been far more like siblings than cousins, their family situations being what they were, which was that they were all without mothers and burdened with quite impossible fathers.

“I’m quite certain you did not,” Amelia said.

“I might have been snoring,” Eleanor said, again, as a sop. Again, it was not a very well-delivered one.

“No, it wasn’t you, Eleanor,” Hawks said, “I’m certain it was Amelia. I know the sound of her snores very well, and this snore had that particular rasping quality of Amelia’s.”

Need it be stated that Amelia and Hawksworth did not have the most cordial of relationships?

While Amelia was an entirely appropriate sort of girl in aspect and dress and deportment, and while Amelia had from an early age decided upon her life’s course and pursued it with a singularity of purpose and passion that was truly remarkable, if she did say so herself, the Marquis of Hawksworth, her younger brother by three years, was and always had been bone lazy. He had no goals whatsoever. Getting him to get out of bed each morning was a truly Herculean task for his valet. He did not stand straight or walk straight or talk straight. Hawks simply ambled and sauntered and snoozed through his days and through his life. He was the most irritatingly aimless man she had ever known, and of course, he was the heir apparent to a dukedom.

Life was so ridiculously unfair.

“How do you know Amelia snores?” Eleanor said as Hawks ambled over to a chair by the fire and slouched into it.

“Coach to Scotland,” he drawled. “She snored for six days straight. I’ll never forget the sound of it, thought at first the wheel was working itself off the hub. But it was only Amelia.”

“I was ill!” Amelia said, sitting up perfectly straight and all thoughts of dukes and marriage momentarily forgotten.

“And then there was the time—”

“Oh, shut it, Hawks!” Amelia burst out. Eleanor chuckled, her dark blue eyes shining in delight. Eleanor was such an
unusual
girl. When Amelia wasn’t busy wondering exactly which duke would propose to her, she wondered how Eleanor would ever make a proper match at all. “I’m quite certain I sleep perfectly beautifully.”

Which, she knew full well, was a completely ridiculous statement to make, but Hawks brought out the absolute worst in her. She was, truly, such a nice, normal, respectable sort of girl. It was perfectly obvious that she’d make such a lovely duchess.

“Actually, Hawks,” Eleanor said, sitting up fully and leaning forward toward him. He did not return the gesture, as it would clearly require too much effort. “Perhaps you could give us your opinion on an important matter, something Amelia and I were just discussing.”

“That would have to be which duke she hopes to marry?” he replied, checking his fingernails distractedly.

As Amelia was drawing breath to insult him, Eleanor answered, “Yes and no. I have been urging Amelia to seek out Lady Dalby for assistance. Certainly no other woman in Town would be . . . that is, could know . . .” Eleanor’s voice trailed off, because how to say it? It was one thing to discuss these things as women, but with a man present, even such a man as Hawksworth happened to be, it was somewhat off-putting.

“How to snare a man into an inescapable net of matrimony? ” Hawks offered cordially.

“Yes, something like that,” Eleanor said. “What do you think, Hawks? Do you think the idea has merit?”

“What have you got to lose, Amelia?” he said.

“My dignity? My respectability?” Amelia shot back, bolting off the sofa and beginning to pace the room.

“If you want to ensnare a duke, you’ll likely lose those anyway, Amy,” he said, using the name he had called her when they had lived out their days in the nursery. It stopped Amelia cold. “You’ve been respectable and above reproach, why not try another tack to get what you want? Within reason, assuredly.”

Perhaps there was some small morsel of truth in his observation. Forming an attachment should have been so simple, if one approached marriage logically and with clear goals. Which she did and she would. No mere man would be allowed to make a tangle of her plans.

“I had expected things to proceed along an entirely different course,” she said calmly. “A course bound by amiable civility and a manner above reproach. Yet another course might be necessary. Certainly a different course does not necessarily mean anything dire.”

“If you want things to be different, I’d trust the Countess of Dalby for that,” Eleanor said. “She appears to excel at it, and things do seem ever to fall her way.”

“That’s true enough,” Hawks said, shifting deeper into the upholstered chair, stretching his long legs toward the fire. “You have my approval, Amelia. You may speak to Lady Dalby.”

“Blast it, Hawks! I wasn’t asking your permission!” Amelia snapped.

Eleanor, that imp, giggled.

Two

B
EING a woman of composure and fortitude, not to mention some urgency, Amelia left Aldreth House as soon as she had harangued Hawks on general principle for a good five minutes, sought out Aunt Mary without much enthusiasm, changed into a lovely afternoon dress of ivory muslin sprigged in green silk thread, swallowed her annoyance to ask Hawksworth to chaperone her to Lady Dalby’s as Aunt Mary was not to be found, and then was made to wait while Hawks changed his linen before visiting as compelling a woman as Sophia Dalby.

It was late in the afternoon by the time they got to Dalby House. Amelia, showing the singleness of purpose and strength of character that she hoped she was known for, insisted that Hawksworth remain outside. She was
not
going to allow him to listen to what was certain to be a most uncomfortable and unusual conversation. She was also not going to allow the call to degenerate into a polite seduction of and by Sophia, which it was certain to do. It appeared to happen any time any man was within ten feet of Sophia. Amelia, in most instances, found it fascinating. Today, however, it would have been singularly inconvenient.

Hawks, because he was too lazy to even fight with vigor, passed her over to the Dalby House butler, and then promised to walk up and down Upper Brook Street until she should come back out.

It was raining, but lightly now. Amelia didn’t feel one bit sorry for him. Perhaps the rain would wake him up.

Amelia was shown into Sophia’s famous white salon, famous because it was rumored to contain a piece of rare porcelain that had been a gift from either King George of England or King Louis of France, the rumors being rather more lurid than substantial. In fact, there
was
an exquisite vase of green Chinese porcelain prominently displayed in the white room, which added to the confusion more than cleared it as Amelia was almost completely certain that the porcelain was supposed to have been white, hence the name of the salon.

Where Sophia was concerned, rumor ruled the day more than Amelia found convenient. If she had not seen with her own eyes what Sophia had managed for Louisa in attaining a completely proper husband in a matter of days, she would discount everything, the vase included.

But there was the vase, and Louisa was most definitely married.

Amelia and Sophia made their curtseys to each other, took seats facing each other on matching sofas upholstered in milk blue damask, and Amelia was left with trying to determine how to communicate politely what she wanted of Sophia. It was not going to be simple.

“How lovely of you to come and see me today, Lady Amelia. You have brightened my day considerably. But, where is your chaperone, Lady Jordan?” Sophia said.

The first lapse in what she was certain was a perfect record of proper behavior. She was here, out, without her chaperone. Of all the places to be without a chaperone, Sophia’s white salon was almost certainly the worst.

“I,” she said slowly, “I am not quite certain, Lady Dalby. She was out and I suppose, in my eagerness, I left before she returned.”

“Eagerness? How flattering,” Sophia said. “I was the source of your eagerness?”

“Lady Dalby,” Amelia said, determined to say what she had come to say without dithering about, “please excuse me for being forward, but I . . . I was most impressed, that is to say, actually I found myself astonished by the chain of events surrounding Louisa’s marriage to Lord Henry Blakesley. She is, even more astonishing, quite completely content in the marriage, and I . . . I, well, you may not know it, but we had our come out together and attended most functions together, with Lady Jordan, of course.”

“Of course,” Sophia said politely, her lips poised over her cup.

She was dithering. She could hear herself dithering and she couldn’t determine how best to stop it while still appearing as innocent and virtuous as possible. Because she must appear so. She absolutely must. It was, she had determined, the best way of attaining Sophia’s aid. If she were innocent, hopelessly so, Sophia might take some sort of interest in her situation and find it amusing to arrange a duke for her. Surely, Sophia Dalby was capable of procuring a duke. She had to be. It was almost certainly true that Amelia was not. After two years, certainly some duke or other should have stumbled into her arms by
now
.

“And now, now,” Amelia continued, not at all reassured by the speculative gleam in Sophia’s dark eyes, “I suppose that I don’t know what’s to become of me now. I am at a loss, Lady Dalby, and I could not but wonder if you would be so kind as to . . . help me.”

There. She had said it. What more was there to say? Now, certainly, all that was left was for Sophia, if she agreed, to work her seductive will upon the currently available dukes of the ton and deliver a proper husband into Amelia’s arms.

“Help you do what, Lady Amelia?” Sophia asked. “I am afraid I do not quite comprehend you.”

Of course, Amelia did not believe that for a moment, but she had gone this far and there was little point in getting squeamish about it now. She was here for a purpose and she was determined to achieve her purpose. Surely, of all women, Sophia would appreciate that.

“Lady Dalby,” Amelia said, feeling her cheeks flush with mortification at what she was about to say and ruthlessly ignoring it. “Lady Dalby,” she repeated with slightly more force, “I would very much like to marry . . . to marry . . .”

Oh, this was most,
most
disagreeable. What a woman had to endure to snare a man. It was quite uncomfortable.

“Yes, darling, you would very much like to marry. Of course you would. Perfectly natural,” Sophia said politely.