To Sin With A Stranger (6 page)

Isobel shook her head, and a nervous laugh slipped through her lips. “Surely no one would accept such a wager. I am just a plain miss, not titled, not a rich woman. I am likely fretting for naught.” She looked to Lord and Lady Triplemont, waiting for them to confirm this idea.

“Well, begging your pardon, Miss Carington, but you did request the truth from me, so I will give it to you. The betting book is already filled with gentlemen accepting the wager.”

“The book is f-filled?” Isobel stammered. “Why would anyone care if we marry or not? I do not understand.”

“Because the wager is a sure bet. You publicly spurned the marquess. It is clear to most everyone, except my wife, it seems, that you will never marry Blackburn.”

Lady Triplemont studied Isobel for several moments. “I disagree, dear. I saw the fire between them at the ball.” She turned to face her husband. “I want you to place a wager at White’s for me. I believe Miss Carington will marry Lord Blackburn.”

“Dorthea…be reasonable. I can’t,” Lord Triplemont said with no little amount of embarrassment.

“You can.” Lady Triplemont tipped her head at Isobel and Christiana. “Good day, ladies.” She began to turn around to leave when something occurred to her. “There is a lovely pale blue silk in the fourth department that would make a splendid gown for your wedding. You should take a look.” With that parting comment, Lady Triplemont took her husband’s arm and they strolled toward the front of the store.

Isobel stood, mouth fully agape, as the couple passed through the front door and out onto Pall Mall. “This is most distressing, Christiana. We should leave before we encounter another member of White’s.”

Christiana turned, and instead of making to leave, she started for the rear of the store.

Isobel jerked around and stared at her. “Where are you going?”

“I assumed you would wish to have a look at the blue silk Lady Triplemont suggested before we leave.” She started to walk again when she realized Isobel wasn’t joining her. “Aren’t you coming?” She pointed toward the fourth department. “I believe I can see the silk she meant from here, and it is lovely.”

Isobel became aware just then that several ladies were listening to everything she and Christiana were saying. So, to make her feelings perfectly plain, she replied in a tone more appropriate for an orange seller than the daughter of a minister from the House of Commons. “I have no intention of looking at silk for a wedding gown. I have no intention of marrying anyone—especially the Scottish marquess Blackburn.”

“Really?” Christiana grinned. “Hmm.”

Isobel tipped her head toward the door to the street, and Christiana turned around to follow her out of the store. “Yes. It is the truth. I have not the least bit of interest in him. Not one bit.”

“Oh, Issy, methinks thou doth protest too much,” Christiana muttered beneath her breath.

Isobel whirled around and peered warily at Christiana, who was running her hand along a case of fans and gloves as she walked. “Did you say something?”

“What?” Christiana glanced up innocently. “Oh, only that…um…” Color charged into her cheeks. She stilled her step, and her gaze flitted around the first department. Then she turned her attention back to Isobel. “I did not mean to say so aloud, but Issy, I think the fan you admired earlier costs too much.”

Isobel’s eyes momentarily narrowed with suspicion that it was not the fan Christiana had commented upon. “Yes, I agree. Too dear.” She hurried back to Christiana and grabbed her hand. “So let us not tarry any longer. I wish to return home.” She pulled Christiana close and lowered the tone of her voice. “Please, let us leave now. I do not wish to encounter any other members of White’s, and the longer we remain near St. James’s Street, the more likely we are to tempt ill fate.”

Materialism is the only form of distraction from true bliss.

Horton

Sterling’s throat tried to close in upon itself to prevent the vile soup from making its way into his body. He sat very still at the formal dining table, praying for his stomach to accept the potage.

“It was my mother’s favorite recipe.” Mrs. Wimpole stood behind Sterling with her hands on her wide hips, expectantly awaiting his reaction to her meal. “I couldn’t quite recall all the ingredients, so I made do and added a little this and that to the soup.”

Sterling nodded his head and forced back every instinct to the contrary to swallow. Though the soup looked appetizing, it reeked like a blend of rotting flounder and whore’s breath in a chamber pot.

She tugged anxiously at her blond lace fichu. “Well, my lord, what do you think? Delicious, no?”

Sterling turned his head just a bit and sealed his lips as he smiled, lest his gullet chase the swill back up again.

When he was sure he could open his mouth, he grabbed a goblet of watered ale and drained it before setting it to the table again.

Mrs. Wimpole was wringing her hands and chewing on her lower lip. “Is the soup too…hot?”

Sterling seized on her suggestion. “Aye, but just a wee bit.” He warily eyed the yeasty-smelling roll on his plate. “And…you made the bread as well?”

Mrs. Wimpole laughed. “Oh, goodness no. Those are from the baker. Baked yesterday, but right tasty when you warm them up.”

Safe enough, Sterling supposed. He grabbed it up and pulled off a large bite. “Where are the others? I am only a few minutes late for our noonday meal.”

“Oh, they came down, but not a one took more than a sip of soup before your brother Killian remembered that they all had an engagement at the tea garden…The Garden of Eden, that was the one.”

Sterling felt his eyes widen, and he immediately came to his feet. “Aye, the Garden of Eden! How could I have forgotten? Well, I must away at once.”

Mrs. Wimpole’s fluffy little white eyebrows inched toward her nose. “Oh dear, please do not say you must leave as well. Please. My lord, I cannot waste the soup. Poplin charged me with the responsibility to stretch our market coins as far as I am able.”

Reaching down, Sterling grabbed up the roll and took it with him as he hurried toward the passage. “Do not fret, Mrs. Wimpole. I am sure you and Poplin will see that the potage isna wasted. Please, enjoy it yourselves. Good day, Mrs. Wimpole.”

His long legs took the stairs three at a time until he reached his garret. Three measured strides took him into the center of his bedchamber, where he bent to pry up a short floorboard and withdrew a leather coin pouch. He plucked out two shillings from it, then tied it off and tossed it into the breach in the flooring. He started to rise, but paused momentarily. “Damn it all.”

Why didn’t they choose a cheaper dodge? ’Tisna like we have money to give away.

He exhaled a hard breath of resignation, then reached back between the boards to the pouch, and his fingers closed around a single gleaming guinea.
Damn, damn, damn
. Wasting money on tea and cakes when he could be using it to rebuild their fortune.

The Garden of Eden
Marylebone

Priscilla hoisted the falsest of smiles the moment her eyes met the sight of Sterling entering the tea garden. “Look there, our greedy brother approaches. Stayed for Mrs. Wimpole’s soup, did you, Sterling?”

Sterling sighed inwardly. Grant must have confessed everything. He cast a disapproving glance at his closest brother. “Which of you paid her to poison me, eh?” His gaze circled the small tea table his brothers and sisters had gathered around.

Priscilla grinned.

The sweet scent of the yellow-centered climbing roses skirting a hawthorn fence around the tea garden was as cloying as his sister’s smile. “So you’ve heard.” He pinned Grant with his gaze. “My thanks, brother, for sparing me the difficult task of confessing my use of our allowance.” He focused on each of them for the briefest of moments, gauging as best he could their individual judgments of him.

“Sterling—” Grant raised his finger and fluttered it before his lips, but his meaning was taken too late.

Siusan came to her feet. “Our allowance?” She slapped her palm upon the table, making the dishes of tea rattle on their saucers. “Y-you wagered our allowance?”

The color from Ivy’s rosy cheeks drained away. “Sterling, do tell us it isna true!”

He turned his gaze to Grant, who winced sympathetically. “Sterling, I did not tell them anything. But you’re in it now.”

Sterling clamped his mouth closed.
Bluidy hell
.

Killian shot to his feet, but Priscilla caught his sleeve and drew him back into his chair. Killian leaned forward over his tea and ground out his words. “Did you think we would not hear of this wager? All of bleeding London is chattering about it. Everyone of breeding wants a piece of your wager. Everyone.”

Hearing that, Sterling felt oddly proud. It was a good bet. It would seem a sure thing. Only he knew better. “The bet was placed—” He quieted for a moment and glanced around them to remind them all that they were not in a place to discuss the secret wager. “I
heard
the bet was placed anonymously.” He dropped his voice to the slightest of whispers. “That a
percentage
of the stake was required for White’s to allow such a large wager by an unknown bettor.”

Killian’s teeth were clenched. “London Society may not have an inkling who would have placed such an audacious wager, but you are our brother. Though this is leagues beyond what we would have believed you capable of, Sterling, the moment we learned of the wager we knew its source.”

“Only we didn’t know you posted what little portion our father provided us to live.” Priscilla patted Killian’s arm, the way she always did to calm him when ire was about to consume him.

Sterling scanned those at the table. Lachlan alone was smiling. “Och,” his brother said. “Why are you all pretending to be surprised? Leave a shilling on the table and Sterling will have it in his pocket just long enough for it rub another the right way and multiply.” He clasped his hands behind his head, his elbows jutting outward as he rocked backward until he balanced his entire weight on his chair’s two rear legs. “But he always makes a coin, one way or another. Have faith in our greedy brother here. He will make us all rich—from the fight at Fives Court, or through his wager to convince Miss Carington to marry him.”

Killian’s flame-blue eyes lit into Sterling once again. “I don’t doubt you will double our allowance, brother. But I take you to task over wagering what little coin we have without discussing it with us first.”

A steward bustled between several other crowded tables, carrying a dainty gilt chair. He gestured politely for Sterling to be seated while he hurried off to collect another porcelain tea setting.

This momentary distraction garnered Sterling the time he needed to align his thoughts. He’d hoped he’d have at least one full day before the others learned of his wager. It was anonymous, after all. “It is a solid bet. But had I asked each of you to support it, you would have denied me the opportunity.” He waved his hand at his sisters. “Just as the three of you grimaced over the wager on my battle with the Irishman.”

Siusan crossed her arms over her chest and raised her chin as she exchanged pointed glances with her sisters. Behind her was a most puzzling sight. A lamb walked across the green with a rainbow-hued parrot perched upon its woolly back. Sterling rubbed his eyes and focused over his sister’s shoulder again—but what he comprehended grew stranger still. In the center of the garden was an apple tree draped with a huge yellow snake. Sterling surveyed the tea garden more closely, and realized that the Garden of Eden was populated not only by London’s finest citizens taking tea, pipes, and glasses, but by an amazing menagerie of God’s creatures.

Londoners were completely mad. That was all there was to it.

He had no choice at all. He had to win Miss Carington’s hand and be allowed to return to Scotland. There was no way in hell he could spend his life in such a frothy town.

“Sterling, you might have lost the battle and with it our money,” Siusan admonished.

Sterling focused again on Siusan. “You hated that I wagered our money, you chided me for my greed, and yet none of you had any difficulty spending the wages of my sin.”

Priscilla cleared her throat in a thinly veiled attempt to calm Sterling by drawing his attention to her. “Sterling, we appreciate what you have done to help us. I believe our foremost concern is…do we have any money
left
? Though you may not be aware of this, your upcoming battle and the interest the anonymous wager has produced is drawing the favorable attention of the
ton
, something we need as greatly as coin to redeem ourselves.”

“Aye, we have a bit,” Sterling admitted. “Enough to house and feed us for the Season.”

A strangled whimper slipped through Ivy’s lips, and for an instant, Sterling was not sure she even breathed. “But what about clothing and baubles?”

Siusan glanced at the tables of matrons on either side of their own. She leaned nearer to Ivy and spoke without moving her mouth at all. “Dear, calm yourself. We are in public.” She lifted Ivy’s cup and moved it to her mouth. “Aye, the cake is a mite dry. Wash it down with some tea. Here you go.” She tipped the dish and forced Ivy to drink to stifle her panic.

Ivy gulped loudly then, glaring at Siusan as she pushed the dish of tea away. This time her voice remained in the realm of a whisper. “How can we move through Society, making the connections we need to earn the respectability our father requires of us, without the necessary accoutrements? I tell you, it is impossible. It cannot be done!”

Lachlan shook his head. “Lassie, it can. We just need to be as cunning as our brother here.”

Sterling’s fist clenched at the backhanded jibe, but he carefully straightened his fingers. Reaching out, he took a cake from a plate on the table, then spread sweet cream atop the confection. This too was a diversion, for had they not been surrounded by London’s fine set, he might have kicked Lachlan’s chair just enough to send him tipping backward into the pea gravel. Instead he simply munched on the cake, aware that his brothers and sisters all most patiently waited for his reply.