Worth Winning (33 page)

On one point Phyllis remained absolute: that Julia should find a chaperone to travel with. It didn’t matter to her that Julia was nearly twenty-six years of age.

“Young, unmarried women of good character do not travel sans chaperone, my dear.”

She had been firm on the fact that Julia and Claire together did not a chaperone make. She had also been uneasy about Claire joining Julia later, saying merely that she would take it into consideration and that they would probably join her at some point.

And so Julia had walked over to Mrs. Paleski’s house and had had to explain, several times, that she needed to go to London, right away, and that she would pay for the travel fare but desperately needed a companion.

Mrs. Paleski, who had never known Julia to do anything in any way impulsive and who had never seen the young woman looking quite so distressed, had finally agreed, inwardly sighing at the books she’d have to leave behind and secretly mistrustful of the city, as well as any business that would bring them to the city.

The women agreed that they’d meet the next day, in the morning, and a carriage was arranged to take them as far as the Lexington posting station, and with that Phyllis was content. Julia would write. Mrs. Paleski would stay with her until they made sure she had a London chaperone.

Her father had been much less sanguine.

“Leaving for London? But why? Do you want to have one of those seasons Claire’s always mentioning?”

Julia forbore from mentioning that the season was already mostly over and that she’d never even dreamed of things like entering the marriage mart and attending balls during a proper London season. “I wanted to visit Jack. There’s a project he and I have been working on, and I thought . . .” She found that she couldn’t quite bear to utter an outright lie, not to her father, who was so trusting and willing to believe the best of everyone. “I’ve made some recent progress on one of the side projects we’re both involved in. I thought it might be nice for me to deliver the results myself, and to . . . see something of the city while I’m there.”

“Well, then, that’s nice, I suppose. Though oughtn’t you have a chaperone of some sort? I suppose I could come along, or perhaps your stepmother?”

Julia assured him that it had all been arranged, and he nodded, patting her hand reassuringly, and then handed over an article on snapdragons he’d found just fascinating, wanting to know her opinions.

Claire, of course, had been the worst one to get by. Where Phyllis had obviously guessed more than she was willing to question or say, and where her father was content with simply knowing vaguely that things had been arranged, Claire was insistent that Julia spill all the details.

In the end, she had shared what she could: that she was certain she was in love with Charles, who wasn’t even actually named Charles, that she didn’t think she could marry a gambler (though she didn’t elaborate on why she held such strong opinions on the subject), and that she needed to get away for a little while, to think through her options.

“I don’t think I could face him again, not now.”

“Now that you’ve slept with him, you mean?”

Julia looked around nervously, trying to quell her stepsister with a look. “It does weaken my bargaining position, yes.”

“Then why did you do it?”

“Because I love him, and I wanted to have that experience at least once in my life.”

Claire shook her head, starting another barrage of questions that Julia either couldn’t answer or didn’t want to answer.

Exasperated, Julia finally said, “I don’t know, or I can’t say.”

Claire humphed a bit but finally relented. “What can I do to help?”

“I won’t bother to question how you knew to ask, but there is something I’m hoping you can do for me.”

Though Charles was disappointed to wake up alone, he saw Julia’s note almost right away.

I need some time to think. Please give me at least a day to think things through.

She hadn’t signed it, though she’d hardly needed to.

Charles sighed. Clearly his Julia had no idea how to properly talk to her soon-to-be-affianced. Her notes were dry and prosaic, completely unlike her wanton responses or irrepressible personality.

He stretched out in bed. At least this mattress wasn’t quite as lumpy as the one Robeson had given him. He remained confident that he could convince her, assuming she still needed to be convinced, which, given her note, seemed to be the case.

He had time, and a bed that was almost free of lumps. He’d make do.

Charles didn’t leave the house the next morning, trying to respect Julia’s wishes for time alone. He planned to approach her directly if she hadn’t sent for him by the following day, but, by late that afternoon, the point became entirely moot.

He’d been sitting in Robeson’s back parlor, flipping listlessly through a book on local insects. He had little interest in such matters but wanted to be able to keep up with Julia’s eccentric tastes: it would never do for people to guess that he was the less educated one in their relationship!

He was rereading an uninteresting section detailing a moth called Coxcomb Prominent, which he’d focused on as much for its interesting name as anything else, when Robeson entered with Billings and . . . Claire.

He stood quickly, a feeling of deep foreboding taking over. Claire looked nothing like her usual vapidly effervescent self. Instead, she was dressed somberly, so that Charles asked the first, most pressing question on his mind: “Is your sister—”

“She’s fine, just not here.”

Though it was not her home, and she was alone, unchaperoned, with three men, she seemed to be full of confidence. She gestured for the men to sit and then chose a sturdy, heavily patterned chair that faced them directly and sat down herself. She took her time smoothing out her skirts and picking at an invisible speck of lint before turning her bright-blue eyes toward her expectant audience.

“I’m here at Julia’s request. She has a message she wants conveyed most precisely.”

“To . . . all of us?” Charles asked slowly. Claire didn’t seem like a half-wit—at least she was no longer speaking like one—but he couldn’t, for the life of him, imagine a message Julia would have wanted to convey to all three of them.

“Yes, Julia was hoping that you would consider this to be a public-enough declaration.”

Charles closed his eyes, understanding and yet . . . not. He’d thought she’d forgiven him for the bet, hadn’t thought she would have given herself to him so completely if she hadn’t. And yet Claire’s presence in the room . . .

The young girl looked around without speaking, clearly taking her time and enjoying having three pairs of eyes trained intently upon her.
 It was Robeson who finally prompted her. “Declaration?”

“It’s my stepsister’s understanding that a public declaration of feelings is one way by which the man we know as Mr. Charles Alver can win a wager that’s been entered upon, and witnessed by, the men in this room.”

“And yet she’s not here to make a declaration,” Robeson sneered, standing up.

“Actually,” Billings interjected, “we specified that it had to be a public declaration, and one that all of us heard, but we never said that the girl herself had to make it, nor how many people had to be present, beyond the three of us.”

“That’s a technicality—Julia Morland knows of the bet, which means it’s all forfeit anyhow.”

Billings shook his head. “Unless there’s any indication that one of you told her—”

“She guessed the truth,” Claire said in her small, bell-like voice. “It was later confirmed by both Lord Robeson and Mr. Alver, but Julia independently guessed that there was a wager.”

There was a moment of silence before Robeson said, “I’m not handing over the Rembrandt.”

Charles wasn’t sure he still cared. He left it to Billings to argue the point. “I’m not sure you have a choice. I’m here as witness to everything, and I believe that—”

“What does it matter?” Charles asked harshly. “Where is Julia, and why is she so obsessed with helping me win this damned wager? I told her it doesn’t matter. I proposed, for Christ’s sake.”

There were two gasps at this, a genuine one from Billings, who was shocked at the idea that Dresford had finally proposed, and a more artfully theatrical one from Claire, who was half-smiling even as she said delicately, in a mock-reproachful voice, “Such language!”

Only Robeson looked unsurprised.

Claire smiled slightly and then shrugged her delicate shoulders. “She seemed to think that you needed the two thousand pounds.”

“But I don’t win two thousand pounds, Robeson does.”

For the first time since this strange conversation had begun, Claire looked mildly surprised. “That was not the impression Julia was given. She was told, quite explicitly I believe, that you would win the money and that you needed it.” Claire looked pointedly at Robeson, her eyebrows arching delicately, though Billings and Charles would have to have been quite daft to think anyone else would have misled Julia. “In fact, Julia was led to believe that two thousand pounds would only temporarily solve your problems.”

Charles closed his eyes and turned to Robeson. “What did you say?”

Robeson looked away, his mouth thinning rapidly. “Nothing that would have forfeited the bet. I didn’t tell her about the wager, and you’d already confirmed that there was a bet.”

“What did you say?” Charles was impressed by how evenly his voice came out when all he wanted to do to wave his arms around like a madman and pummel the man in front of him. He took deep breaths and clenched his hands as he stood up but did not otherwise approach Robeson. He wanted to beat the man senseless, wanted to physically shake answers out of him, but he was not a violent man by nature. More to the point, an unconscious Robeson would not be able to answer any questions or shed any light on the current situation.

“Nothing particularly foul. I can’t help it if Julia Morland has a fanciful imagination.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Claire said. “My stepsister is the soul of practicality.”

“I do think it’d be easier if you just told us what you’ve said,” Billings added. “The bet can wait until later, but if Dresford’s proposed, well, this is serious business, especially if the chit”—he threw an apologetic look at Claire—“my apologies, I’d forgotten—”

Claire’s eyebrows inched to even more astronomical heights, clearly indicating that no one ever forgot her.

Billings stuttered and then swallowed before turning toward Robeson and trying again. “If Miss Morland has run away because of some misunderstanding . . .”

After what seemed an eternity, Robeson turned back toward them and gestured with both hands in a helpless manner. “I suppose it’s a moot point now, but I suspected that
the chit
had feelings for Dresford and would try to help him win. It’s a contingency we should have thought of, by the way, and which ought, by rights to render the bet moot.”

“We’ll deal with that later; the Rembrandt is the least of my concerns. Just tell me what, exactly, you implied or explicitly told Julia.”

Robeson shrugged, “I told her that Charles Alver wasn’t your real name, that you had lands that were entailed and required quite a bit of money to keep up. I let her believe that you would be the one winning the two thousand pounds and that you needed far more than that to bring yourself about. I hinted strongly that you needed to marry an heiress and would be foolish to offer for her yourself, as she had neither the means nor connections to help support you in the lifestyle you’ve become accustomed to. I was hoping she’d simply cry off, give you the cold shoulder, think herself unworthy or . . .” he sighed again. “You can’t blame me for trying. I’m the one who needs the two thousand pounds, and if there was any way of still eking out a victory, well, I had to take that chance.”

“You bounder,” was all Billings said.

Charles and Claire remained silent.

But Charles’s mind was in turmoil. Robeson had been clever, almost too clever. He’d mixed in enough truth with his poison that everything sounded credible and would line up well with everything Charles had said and not said. He thought through all the questions Julia had asked the day before and recognized the ways in which he’d helped perpetuate her mistaken ideas by not revealing himself earlier.

The way he’d talked of bigger and better things, that he believed there’d soon be a chance in his fortunes . . . if Julia truly believed him to be a hopeless gambler, he’d probably unwittingly reinforced her worst fears.

Why, oh why, hadn’t he just told her the truth? That he didn’t care about the bet or the wager? That he wouldn’t have cared if the bet had been for four thousand pounds . . . for ten thousand pounds . . . why, he was Dresford.

Dresford, damnit.

Everyone in London knew (or liked to guess at) how deep his coffers were.

Except, of course, they weren’t in London.

And Julia was, most certainly, not everyone. She cared for him but thought him to be some unsalvageable wreck of a man. She’d given herself to him and then—what, escaped? All while still trying to help him collect the two thousand pounds she thought he needed?

When he got his hands on her . . .

He wasn’t angry at Julia of course – at least, not really. He was angry at situation, at Robeson, and even at himself (though perhaps not in that particular order). He was, at most, a little peeved that Julia would run off without giving him the chance to explain, to . . .

He sighed.

He admitted that even now, a part of him was also touched, and some deep corner of him exulted at this undeniable proof, even more so than the gift of her innocence, that she cared for him, deeply. But it was hard to remember that, hard to heed that small, rational voice when all he wanted to do was take her by the shoulders and shake her until her teeth rattled, until . . .

“Damn,” Charles said finally.

“I take it it’s not true?”

Charles turned to Claire, “It is, and it isn’t. Clearing things up with your sister will take some explaining, though . . .”

She had only been gone for a week.