The Wagered Miss Winslow (22 page)

Beau bowed in her direction, complimented her on her new headgear, then winked as he said, “Your brother is, as you have just noted, much as other men. Give him a taste of success and he becomes immediately greedy for more. We have all seen what happened to Bonaparte when his early victories spurred him on to believe that he could conquer the entire world. Niall is no different. He thinks he has found a sure way to make himself a fortune. He is so certain that he is about to become the most wealthy man in all England that he is now spending money even before he gets it—rather like eating the calf in the cow’s belly, as Bridget would say. He’s primed for a fall.”

“And all of this is a result of Woodrow’s predictions,” Rosalind said, admiring her bonnet in the pier glass, delighted that her husband found the effect as charming as the modiste had promised he would. “I’m still surprised Niall did not kidnap Woodrow, keeping his brilliance locked up tight for himself.”

Beau shook his head. “Why should he, m’darlin’? As long as he has Fursby here to listen to all that is said, there is no reason to rouse my suspicions by running off with Woodrow. Your brother has already learned that I am a worthy adversary. But his greed is another matter entirely. When Woodrow made his prediction about his belief in the viability of the MacDougal Scotch whiskey fermentation device, I declared flatly—and loudly enough for Fursby to hear it if he had suddenly been struck stone-deaf—that I planned to immediately invest one hundred thousand pounds in the initial production of the device.”

Rosalind’s fingers stilled in the act of readjusting the knot of the scarf beneath her chin. “One hundred thousand pounds! Beau—you didn’t!”

Beau held out his arm so that Rosalind could take it, then escorted her toward the foyer. “No, Rosie, I did not invest the money,” he assured her quietly. “But I’m willing to wager that Niall did. MacDougal was to quote him a similar price when they met, saying that it is needed to purchase the warehouse he is currently renting, and to complete the construction of needed machinery. I’ve further instructed MacDougal—once he has Niall’s blunt in hand, of course—to purchase the warehouse outright. And a lovely warehouse it is, too, being more than a block long and half again as wide—and then to stuff it to the rafters with vats and barrels and coils of copper tubing, and all that sort of ridiculousness.”

“You didn’t!” She winced, realizing that, yet again, she was acting the parrot, this time repeating, not what he had said, but what she herself had said. It seemed to be a trial she would, as Beau’s wife, have to learn to bear with equanimity.

“Ah, Rosie, but I did. But I may not have mentioned that the warehouse in question is in a pitiful condition, its rafters sagging and its foundation badly crumbling. And alas, next week MacDougal— after spending every last groat of Niall’s money—will announce that the proposed fermenting system holds a terrible miscalculation in its formula, and the ‘Scotch bubble’ will have burst, leaving your dear brother the sole owner of a very large but hardly structurally sound warehouse and a load of equally useless equipment. If he is successful in finding a buyer for both the warehouse and its contents—which I sincerely doubt—he should be able to salvage himself, I imagine, something in the neighborhood of twenty-five thousand pounds.”

He nodded to Riggs as that man rushed to open the front door, and he and his wife stepped outside into the sunshine. “It’s not quite entirely honest, I suppose, m’darlin’, but somehow I believe I will still manage to sleep nights with this particular crime on my conscience. Shall we be going? I find myself anxious to show off my lovely wife’s fetching new bonnet as we take a leisurely ride through the park.”

“Bobby Reilly,” Rosalind said, looking up into his laughing blue eyes, “you are a scoundrel, even more so when you are being an English gentleman than when you toss about your Irish blarney. And, shamed as I should be to admit it—I love you for it.”

“And o’ course ye do, m’darlin’,” Beau answered, pinching her cheek. “Was there ever any doubt?”

L
ady Stafford’s ball had been touted as being the highlight of the Season, and so far it was holding up to all expectations.

The ballroom itself had been transformed into a veritable fairy-tale creation of pink and green gauze, with enormous floral creations and banks or gaily-flickering candles. Dressing her footmen as woodland creatures might have been viewed by some to have taken the bucolic theme to the extreme, but for the most part Lady Stafford had spent much of the evening blushing at the effusive compliments of her guests as to her “inspired originality.”

The cream of Society was dressed to the teeth in satins and diamonds, smiling their pleasure at being jammed cheek-to-jowl from one end of the floor to the other. They made a silly sight, these elite members of the
ton
, discreetly craning their necks while they danced to the strains of the small orchestra, vying to see and be seen at one and the same time. But such was the life of those who would call themselves members of the Upper Two Thousand.

Leaving his wife safely in the arms of an elderly, hard-of-hearing baron who had requested Rosalind join him for a cup of punch at the side of the ballroom (when last seen, Rosalind was shouting into the baron’s ear trumpet, attempting to explain why their punch had been dipped by an enormous chipmunk), Beau strolled with studied nonchalance into the card room, idly adjusting his cuffs as he surveyed the area from beneath lowered lashes.

Beneath this deliberately cultivated facade of bored sophistication (perfected through studious dedication to Woodrow’s instructions), Beau’s blood was singing in his veins. For tonight was the night he had been waiting for ever since the plan to punish Niall had first formed in his head. Tonight Niall would learn in full measure how Rosalind had felt each time he’d amused himself at her expense. Tonight he would be feeling the panic, the hopelessness, the fears, that each of the fine young pigeons he had plucked at the gaming table had been forced to endure in order that Niall Winslow could line his pockets and feed his overweening need to inflict unhappiness upon anyone he believed to be weaker than himself

Not that Rosalind was a weak woman, for she was not. She had a spirit and fire and intelligence that, at times, still caused Beau to step back in awe, and thank his lucky stars that this wonderful woman had chosen to gift him with her love. But as an unmarried woman, she had been left no choice but to live as other women lived, operating within the boundaries of male rules, male strictures, male laws.

Not anymore. Tucked in the top drawer of Beau’s dressing table was a document he had believed he would never commission; yet it was a document he felt more pleasure in having ordered drawn up than he could ever have supposed. He could barely wait until this evening was over, this business of Niall behind him, so that he could take his dear wife home and show her that he loved her enough to entrust all his dreams of a lifetime to her.

But, he reminded himself, squaring his shoulders, now it was time to get down to business. He looked around the room once more and smiled as he recognized the young gentleman whom he had prevailed upon to cut the cards the night of his initial victory over Niall Winslow. Perhaps feeling a trifle nostalgic, he delayed his search for Niall and walked over to the faro table where Richard Symons was standing alone, watching the play, and said quietly, “Mr. Symons, my old friend. How good it is to see you again. Been gaming much lately?”

“Mr. Remington!” Richard Symons exclaimed happily as he turned, to see Beau standing beside him. “Me? Gaming? At these stakes? I should say not, sir. I’m not such a greenhorn as that. But did you see Mr. Winslow tonight, sir? Now
there
is a man mad for gambling. And losing, too. I watched for a while, but it got to be too painful.”

“Really? Playing deep, is he, Symons?” It has already begun, Beau thought to himself as he looked to where the young man was pointing and saw Niall sitting at another faro table, an intense, almost feverish look on his face.

“Deep? I should say so, sir!” Symons agreed. “And he has this cast to his eyes, sir—a look that is almost frightening. My papa took me to see a hanging once, and the fellow looked just like Winslow—all wide, bulging eyes and sunken cheeks as they lopped the noose around his neck. Not a pretty sight, I vow. Never been to another one since, no matter how Papa told me such things are edifying.”

“Oh, dear, oh, dear,” Beau said, clucking his tongue in commiseration, while inwardly he was doing cartwheels in delight. It would appear his plan was succeeding in admirable proportions. “Things do not appear to be going well for Winslow, do they? Poor man. It’s a terrible thing to witness, when Dame Luck deserts a fellow.”

Symons frowned for a moment, then pointed his finger once more, this time in Beau’s direction. “You’re bracketed to his sister, aren’t you? I’m sure I heard that somewhere or other. Struck me as deuced odd at the time, now that I remember it. I mean, it’s passing strange how you could be married to a Winslow. You didn’t seem to like Niall Winslow above half. Couldn’t have, and still so obviously enjoyed fleecing him the way you did.”

“Never fleecing, my dear Mr. Symons,” Beau pointed out, his smile robbing the correction of any censure. “As the man who, for the most part, handled the turning of the cards, you know the game was aboveboard.”

Symons tugged at his suddenly too-tight collar. “Good God, yes—of course it was all very much the luck of the draw that served to allow you to rise from the table a winner. Dined out on the story for nearly a month, you know, not to mention the fine hunter I bought with my own winnings on the night. I did thank you for that, sir, didn’t I? If not, and even if I did, I wish to thank you again now, for you well and truly taught me a lesson.”

Beau’s eyes drifted toward the table where Niall had just lost another stack of chips. “A lesson, my boy? And what would that be?”

Symons grinned, showing both his youth and his fine white teeth. “Why sir, I learned to never bet more than I can afford to lose—that,
and
to always take care to stand close by the winner!”

Beau threw back his head and laughed out loud, causing more than a few heads to turn in his direction for, to the majority of the men in the room, gaming might be considered an avocation or a form of sport, but it most definitely was not a laughing matter.

Niall Winslow was one of the gentlemen whose attention had been directed toward Beau and he immediately excused himself from the table where he had been sitting, and losing steadily, to approach Beau, his hand held out in greeting (although his smile was pained in the extreme).

“Brother-in-law!” Niall said jovially, a facade of hearty good cheer easily discounted when his damp palm pressed against Beau’s. “How good it is to see you looking in such fine fettle. I heard just today that you took quite a crushing blow with that MacDougal shambles.”

“You did?” Beau allowed one eyebrow to rise questioningly. “It was a private investment. How on earth could you have heard? And so quickly, too. MacDougal only came to me this morning to say that he had miscalculated and my money was lost.”

Niall’s smile re-formed into a grimace. But he rallied quickly. “Yes, yes, of course it only happened this morning. But you know how all our friends exist only to spread gossip, and nothing spreads over this town as quickly as bad news. You poor man. Messy business, speculating on inventions. Many an inheritance has been lost chasing the hope of a quick fortune. I do pray you had not pledged your new estate in the matter. M’sister might love you, Remington, but she’d make your life a living hell if ever you lost her precious Winslow Manor.”

“Remington Manor,” Beau corrected, motioning for a passing servant dressed as a hedgehog to bring him a drink. Listening to the man’s insincere condolences was thirsty work. It was time to let Niall know that, if he was looking for company in his misery, he was to be very much disappointed.

“Of course, of course,” Beau said, nodding. “Yet it never ceases to amaze me how Society thrives on the misfortunes of others. But not to worry, brother-in-law. The MacDougal affair was unfortunate, but not deadly. After all, only a fool speculates with funds he cannot afford to lose. Not that fools are not thick on the ground. Why, I have heard of several who actually used their
capital
to back their investments. You needn’t worry that I could ever be so chuckleheaded and might beggar your sister, for
I
, like
you
, would never be such a nodcock as to risk my capital.”