Lady Allerton's Wager

‘One of us is in the wrong place, I believe,’ he said slowly.

‘It is I,’ she said simply. ‘Did you truly believe me a Cyprian, my lord?’

Marcus started to laugh. He could not help himself. ‘Assuredly. Until I kissed you.’

That gave him the advantage. He saw the colour come up into her face and she tried to free herself from his grip. He stood back, letting her go with exaggerated courtesy. No, indeed, this was no courtesan, but even so he still wanted her. He had no idea whom she was, but he intended to find out.

‘You will honour your bet?’ she asked again.

Marcus grinned, folding his arms. ‘I will not.’

He saw the fury come into her eyes and held her gaze steadfastly with his own.

‘I will make you do so!’ she said.

‘How?’ Marcus shifted slightly. ‘Are you telling me that you would have honoured yours had I won? If so, I would press you to play me for the best of three!’

She blushed even harder at that but her mouth set in a stony line. ‘What I would have done is immaterial, my lord, since you lost. You claimed never to renege!’

Marcus shrugged. ‘I lied.’

‘A liar and a cheat,’ Beth said, in a tone that dripped contempt. ‘I repeat, my man of business will call upon yours on the morrow, my lord, and will expect you to have ready the title to Fairhaven to hand over.’

The study door closed behind her with a decided snap and Marcus heard the quick, angry tap of her footsteps receding across the marble hall. He picked the dice up casually in one hand and sat down in one of the chairs. A whimsical smile touched his lips. He could not believe that his judgement had been so faulty. To mistake a lady for a Cyprian, even given the circumstances…He had been thoroughly misled by his desire, like a youth in his salad days. Led by the nose—or some other part of his anatomy, perhaps. It had never happened to him before.

He tossed the dice absent-mindedly in his hand. So he had been richly deceived and for an intriguing reason. He wanted to know more about that. He wanted to know more of the lady. Damn it, he still wanted her. Marcus shifted uncomfortably in his chair. And he needed a drink. Urgently.

Justin found him in the refreshment room after he had already downed a glass of brandy in one swallow. Justin watched him take a refill and despatch it the same way, and raised his eyebrows.

‘Unlucky in love, Marcus?’

‘Unlucky in games of chance,’ Marcus said feelingly. He took Justin’s arm and drew him into the shelter of one of the pillars, away from prying gossips. ‘Justin, you know more of West Country genealogy than I! Tell me, does Kit Mostyn have a sister?’

Justin nodded. ‘He has a widowed younger sister, Charlotte. Allegedly a blonde beauty, but she lives retired so it is difficult to say with certainty.’

Marcus frowned. Beth had never been a blonde and she could scarcely be described as retiring. Perhaps she was Mostyn’s mistress after all. Yet something in him rebelled at such a thought.

‘What is all this about, Marcus?’ Justin was asking, looking puzzled. ‘I thought you were about to make a new conquest, old fellow, not indulge in a mystery play!’

‘So did I,’ Marcus said thoughtfully. His face lightened and he held up the glass. ‘Only find me the bottle and I will tell you the whole story!’

‘I cannot believe that you just did that, Beth.’

Christopher Mostyn sounded mild, but his cousin knew full well that he was angry. She had known him well enough and long enough to tell.

Beth sighed. ‘It was your idea to escort me there, Kit—’

‘I may have escorted you to the Cyprians’ Ball, but I did not expect you to behave like one!’

Now Kit’s voice sounded clipped, forbidding further discussion. Beth sighed again. Kit was head of the family and as such she supposed he had the right to censure her behaviour. The fact that he seldom did owed more to his easygoing nature than her obedience.

Beth rested her head back against the carriage’s soft cushions and closed her eyes. Truth to tell, she could not believe that she had behaved as she had. And she had only told Kit half the story, the half relating to the wager. She knew that if she had told Kit that Marcus Trevithick had kissed her, very likely he would have stormed back and challenged the Earl to a duel and matters would be immeasurably worse.

Beth opened her eyes again and stared out of the window. They were travelling through the streets of London at a decorous pace and the light from the lamps on the pavement skipped across the inside of the carriage in bars of gold and black. It hid her blushes and a very good thing too, for whenever she thought of Marcus Trevithick, she felt the telltale colour come into her face and the heat suffuse her entire body.

Not only had she overstepped the mark—by a long chalk—but she knew that she had been completely out of her depth with such a man. She had a lot of courage and, allied to her impulsive nature, she knew it could be her downfall. However, her nerve had almost deserted her in that secluded room. If he had won the bet…Beth shivered. Like as not he would have demanded his prize there and then on the card table or the floor…But he had not won. She took a deep, steadying breath.

Marcus Trevithick. Children of her family were taught to hate the Trevithicks from the moment they were born. There were tales told at the nursemaid’s knee—stories of treachery and evil. The Earls of Trevithick were jumped-up nobodies, whereas the Mostyns could trace their ancestry back to the Conquest and beyond. The Trevithicks had stolen the Mostyn estates during the Civil War and had wrested the island of Fairhaven from them only two generations back, taking the family treasure and the Sword of Saintonge into the bargain. No good had come to the Mostyns ever since—their fortunes had fallen whilst the Trevithicks had flourished like an evil weed.

Marcus Trevithick. Beth shivered again. She could not believe that he was evil, but he was certainly dangerous. He was also the most attractive man that she had ever met. Having been a child bride, her experience was necessarily small, but even so she was certain that he could stand comparison in any company.

The carriage drew up outside the house in Upper Grosvenor Street that she had rented for the little Season. Kit descended and helped her out with cold, studied politeness. He did not say a word as he escorted her up the steps and into the entrance hall. Beth bit her lip. She knew she was well and truly in disgrace.

Charlotte Cavendish, Kit’s sister, was sitting in the red drawing room, her netting resting on the cushion beside her. She was reading from Oliver Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield but cast the book aside with a smile as they came in. Like her brother, she was very fair with sparkling blue eyes, slender and tall. A scrap of lace was perched on her blonde curls as a concession to a widow’s cap.

‘There you are! I had almost given you up and gone to bed…’

Her smile faded as she looked from her brother’s stony face to Beth’s flushed one.

‘Oh, dear. What has happened?’

‘Ask your cousin,’ Kit said shortly, stripping off his white gloves. ‘I will be in the book room, enjoying a peaceful glass of brandy!’

Charlotte’s gaze moved round to Beth. ‘Oh, dear,’ she said again, but there was an irrepressible twinkle in her eyes. ‘What have you done, Beth?’

Beth wandered over to the big red wing-chair opposite and curled up in it. She was beginning to feel annoyed as well as guilty.

‘It is all very well for Kit to act the moralist, but it was his idea to go to the Cyprians’ Ball in the first place—’

Charlotte gave a little squeak and clapped her hand to her mouth. ‘Beth! You told me you were going to Lady Radley’s rout!’

‘Well, so we did, but then Kit had the idea of the Cyprians’ Ball!’ Beth wriggled uncomfortably under her cousin’s horrified stare. ‘We were masked, so I thought there would be no harm…’ She looked defiant. ‘Very well, Lottie, I admit it! I was curious!’

‘Oh, Beth,’ Charlotte said in a failing voice. ‘I know I cannot accompany you about the town, but I thought you would come to no harm with Kit!’

‘Well, you were wrong!’ Beth said mutinously. It suddenly seemed much easier to blame the whole thing on her cousin. ‘None of this would have happened if Kit had not decided to have some fun!’

‘None of what?’ Charlotte asked, in the tone of someone who was not entirely sure they wanted to know the answer.

Beth yawned. She was very tired and suddenly wanted her bed, but equally she wanted someone to confide in. Her cousin had been as close as a sister this year past, closer than they had ever been in childhood when Charlotte’s five years’ seniority had put Beth quite in awe of her.

Beth, Kit and Charlotte had grown up together, but time and differing fortunes had scattered them. Charlotte had married an officer and followed the drum, Kit had spent several years in India and Beth had been orphaned at seventeen and left penniless. Friends and relatives had murmured of schoolteaching or governessing, but two days after her bereavement, Sir Frank Allerton, a widower whose estate marched with that of the Mostyns, had called to offer her an alternative future. He had not been a friend of the late Lord Mostyn, but Beth knew that her father had esteemed him as an honest man, and so she had accepted.

She had never regretted her decision, but she did regret the lack of children of her marriage. Her home and parish affairs had given her plenty to do, but when Frank had died, leaving her a widow at nineteen, she had been lonely. Though Kit had inherited Mostyn Hall and the title he was seldom at home, and it was Beth who kept an eye on the estate. Then, a year into Beth’s widowhood, Charlotte had lost her husband during the retreat from Almeira and had come back to Mostyn. Fortunately she and Beth had found that they got on extremely well. Charlotte was cool and considered where Beth was impetuous and tempered some of her cousin’s more madcap ideas. Beth’s liveliness prevented her cousin from falling into a decline.

‘So what has happened?’ Charlotte asked again, recalling Beth’s attention to the lamp-lit room. ‘You went to the Ball…’

‘Yes. We only intended to stay for a little, although I think Kit might have lingered if he had been there alone!’ Beth said, with a sudden, mischievous grin. ‘At any rate, it was not as I had imagined, Lottie! There was the most licentious behaviour—’

Charlotte looked exasperated. ‘Well, what did you expect, Beth? You were at the Cyprians’ Ball, not a Court Reception!’

Beth sighed. ‘Yes, I know! Everyone was staring at me—no doubt because they thought me a demirep!’ she added, before her cousin could make the observation herself.

‘Yes, well, it was a reasonable assumption—’ Charlotte looked at her frankly ‘—and you do have a lovely figure, Beth! The gentlemen—’

‘Spare me,’ Beth said hastily, remembering the disturbing heat in Marcus Trevithick’s eyes. ‘I thought you wished to hear what had happened, Lottie?’

‘Yes,’ her cousin said obligingly, ‘what did?’

‘Well, Kit and I had a few dances and, as we were waltzing, the behaviour was becoming more and more uninhibited so I decided it would be wise to come home. Then a gentleman came up to us and asked me to dance.’

Beth looked away. When Marcus Trevithick had first approached her she had been amused and some dangerous imp of mischief had prompted her to play along. She had not known his identity then, but she had been tempted by the atmosphere, tempted by him…

She looked back at Charlotte, who was waiting in silence. ‘We danced a country dance together and he introduced himself as Marcus Trevithick. I had had no notion—I have never met Trevithick before, and although he knew who Kit was he did not know me, though he made strenuous attempts to find out my name…’

‘I’m sure he did,’ Charlotte said drily. ‘Did he proposition you, Beth?’

‘Lottie!’ Beth looked shocked, then smiled a little. ‘Well…’

‘Well, who could blame him?’ Charlotte seemed torn between disapproval and laughter. ‘The poor man, thinking you Haymarket-ware and no doubt getting a set-down for his trouble!’

‘It was not quite like that,’ Beth admitted slowly. ‘Yes, he did…make his interest plain, but I did not discourage him exactly…’ Suddenly, foolishly, it seemed difficult to explain. Or at least difficult to explain without giving some of her feelings away, Beth thought hopelessly. And Charlotte was no fool. She would read between the lines and see all the things that Beth had not admitted.

‘It is just that I thought of Fairhaven,’ she said, in a rush. ‘You know that I had been intending to make Trevithick a financial offer for the island! Suddenly I thought how much more fun it would be to make a wager…’ She risked a glance at her cousin from under her lashes and saw that Charlotte was frowning now, all hint of amusement forgotten.

‘So I suggested that we step apart, and then I challenged him to a game of Hazard, with Fairhaven as the stake—’

‘Beth!’ Charlotte said on a note of entreaty. ‘Tell me this is not true! What did you offer against his stake?’

Beth did not reply. Their eyes, grey and blue, met and held, before Charlotte gave a little groan and covered her face with her hands.

‘Do you wish for your smelling salts, Lottie?’ Beth asked, uncurling from her armchair and hurrying across to the armoire. ‘You will feel much more the thing in a moment!’

‘I feel very well, thank you!’ Charlotte said, although she looked a little pale. ‘I feel better, in fact, than you would have done if Trevithick had claimed his prize! I take it he did not win?’

‘No, he did not!’ Beth felt the heat come into her face. ‘I won! And if I had lost I should not have honoured the bet! It was only a game—’

‘No wonder Kit cut up rough!’ Charlotte said faintly. ‘Stepping aside with a gentleman who already thought you a Cyprian, challenging him to a game of chance, offering yourself as the stake…’ She took the smelling salts and inhaled gratefully. The pale rose colour came back into her face.

‘I have shocked you,’ Beth said remorsefully.

‘Yes, you have.’ Charlotte’s gaze searched Beth’s face before she gave a slight shake of the head. ‘Each time you do something outrageous, Beth, I tell myself that you could not possibly shock me more—and yet you do!’

‘I am sorry!’ Beth said, feeling contrite and secretly vowing not to tell Charlotte any more of the encounter. ‘You know I am desperate to reclaim Fairhaven!’

‘Not so desperate, surely, that you would do anything to take it back!’ Charlotte sat back and patted the seat beside her. ‘This obsession is ridiculous, Beth! The island was lost to our family years ago—leave it in the past, where it belongs!’

Beth did not reply. She had learned long ago that Charlotte was practical by nature and did not share the deep mystical tug of their heritage. Beth could remember standing on the cliffs of Devon as a small child and staring out across the flat, pewter sea to where a faint smudge on the horizon signified the island that they had lost. The tales of her grandfather, the dashing Charles Mostyn, and his struggle with the dastardly George Trevithick, had captured her child’s imagination and never let it go. Lord Mostyn had lost the island through treachery and, fifty years later, Beth had vowed to take it back and restore the family fortunes. In her widowhood, a woman of means, she had twice offered George Trevithick, the Evil Earl, a fair price for the island. He had rejected her approach haughtily. But Beth was persistent and she had fully intended to repeat the offer to his grandson, the new Earl. It was one of the reasons that she had come up to London. Fate, however, had intervened…fate, and her own foolish impulse.

But perhaps it had not been so foolish, Beth thought. Whatever the circumstances Fairhaven was hers now, won in fair play. And she intended to claim it.

‘What sort of man is Marcus Trevithick, Beth?’ Charlotte asked casually. ‘What did you think of him?’

Beth jumped. She was glad of the lamp-lit shadows and the firelight, for in the clear daylight she did not doubt that her face would have betrayed her.

‘He is perhaps of an age with Kit, or a little older,’ she said, glad that she sounded so casual herself. ‘Tall, dark…He has something of the look of the old Earl about him.’

‘The Evil Earl,’ Charlotte said slowly. ‘Do you think that his grandson has inherited his character along with his estates?’

Beth shivered a little. ‘Who knows? I was scarce with him long enough to find out.’

‘Yet you must have gained some impression of his nature and disposition?’ Charlotte persisted. ‘Was he pleasing?’

Pleasing? Who could deny it? Beth remembered the strength of Marcus’s arms around her, the compelling demand of his lips against hers. He was a man quite outside her experience. But he was also a liar and a cheat. She saw again his mocking smile. She turned her hot face away.

‘No, indeed. He was a proud, arrogant man. I did not like him!’

Charlotte yawned and got to her feet. ‘Well, I am for my bed.’ She bent and dropped a soft kiss on Beth’s cheek, pausing as she straightened up. ‘You did not tell Lord Trevithick your name?’

‘No,’ Beth said, reflecting that that at least was true.

‘And though you were with Kit, you were masked.’ Charlotte sounded satisfied. ‘Well, at least he will not know your identity. For that we must be grateful, I suppose, for it would cause the most monstrous scandal if it were known that you had attended the Cyprians’ Ball! People would assume—’ She broke off. ‘Well, never mind. But perhaps you will think twice in future before you play such a hoyden’s trick again!’

The door closed softly behind her. Beth lay back on the cushions and let out her breath in a huge, shaky sigh. Charlotte was in the right of it, of course—it would be very damaging for it to become known that she had been at the Cyprians’ Ball. And what Charlotte did not know was that whilst she had not given Trevithick her name, he had seen her face without the mask. Beth stared into the fire. Well, it mattered little. She would send Gough to call on the Earl’s man of business in the morning, and once the title to Fairhaven was in her pocket, she would leave for Devon without delay.

Even though he had said he would not honour his bet, Beth could see no reason why Marcus Trevithick would decline to surrender the island to her, for it could not be worth much to him. He had lands and houses far more valuable and there was no sentimental reason for him to hold on to the least important part of his estate. If he persisted in his refusal, however, she was still prepared to pay him, and, Beth thought with satisfaction, one could not say fairer than that. She had heard that his pockets were to let and she was certain that he would see the sense of the matter.

She raked out the embers of the fire, doused the lamp and went upstairs to bed. It should have been easy to put the matter out of her head but for some reason the memory of the encounter—the memory of Marcus Trevithick—still lingered as she lay in her bed. She told herself that she had seen the last of him, but some unnerving instinct told her that she had not. Then she told herself that she did not wish to see him again and the same all-knowing voice in her head told her that she lied.

Chapter Two

‘A gambler, a wastrel, a rake and a vagabond!’ the Dowager Viscountess of Trevithick said triumphantly, ticking the words off on her fingers.

There was a short silence around the Trevithick breakfast table. The autumn sun shone through the long windows and sparkled on the silver. There were only three places set; one of Marcus’s married sisters was coming up from the country for the little Season but had not yet arrived, and the other had gone to stay with friends for a few weeks. Only Marcus, his youngest sister Eleanor and the Dowager Viscountess were therefore in residence at Trevithick House.

‘A vagabond, Mama?’ Marcus enquired politely. ‘What is the justification for that?’

He thought he heard a smothered giggle and looked round to see Eleanor hastily applying herself to her toast. Although she appeared to be the demurest of debutantes on the surface, Marcus knew that his sister had a strong sense of humour. It was a relief to know that the Viscountess had not crushed it all out of her during Marcus’s years abroad.

‘Traipsing around the courts of Europe!’ the Viscountess said, giving her son a baleful glare from her cold grey eyes. ‘Drifting from one country to another like a refugee…’

Marcus folded up his newspaper with an irritable rustle. He had a headache that morning, no doubt from the brandy that he and Justin had consumed the night before, and Lady Trevithick’s animadversions on his character were not helping. In fact, he was surprised that she had not added drunkard to the list.

‘I scarce think that a diplomatic mission accompanying Lord Easterhouse to Austria constitutes vagabondage, Mama,’ he observed coolly. ‘Your other charges, however, may be justified—’

‘Oh, Marcus, you are scarcely a wastrel!’ Eleanor protested sweetly. Her brown eyes sparkled. ‘Why, since your return from abroad I have heard Mr Gower say that the estates are already better managed—’

‘Enough from you, miss!’ the Dowager Viscountess snapped, chewing heavily on her bread roll. ‘You are altogether too quick with your opinions! We shall never find a husband for you! As well try to find a wife for your brother! Why, Lady Hutton was saying only the other day that her Maria would be the perfect bride for Trevithick were it not that Hutton would worry to give her into the care of someone with so sadly unsteady a character! So there is no prospect of that fifty thousand pounds coming into the family!’

Marcus sighed. It was difficult enough having a parent who was so frank in her criticism without her holding the view that he was still in short coats. How Eleanor tolerated it, he could not imagine. He knew that if he had been in her shoes he would have taken the first man who offered, just to escape Lady Trevithick. Marcus was also aware that his friendship with Justin did not help either. The Dowager Viscountess had never got over her disapproval of her nephew and barely acknowledged him in public, a sign of displeasure that Justin cheerfully ignored. Families, Marcus thought, could be damnably difficult.

As if in response to that very thought, Penn, the butler, strode into the room.

‘Mr Justin Trevithick is without, my lord, and enquiring for you. Shall I show him in?’

Marcus grinned. ‘By all means, Penn! And pray send someone to set another cover—my cousin may not yet have partaken of breakfast!’

The Dowager grunted and hauled her massive bulk from the chair. ‘I have some letters to write and will be in the library. There is the possibility that Dexter’s daughter may be a suitable wife for you, Marcus, but I have some further enquiries to make!’

‘Well, pray do not hurry on my account, Mama!’ Marcus said cheerfully, gaining himself another glare from his parent and a covert smile from his sister. ‘Miss Dexter would need to be very rich indeed to tempt me!’

‘Marcus, you make her much worse!’ Eleanor whispered, as the Dowager Viscountess left the room. ‘If you could only ignore her!’

‘That would be difficult!’ Marcus said drily. ‘I curse the day she appointed herself my matchmaker!’ His expression softened as it rested on his sister. ‘How you tolerate it, infant, I shall never know!’

Eleanor shook her head but did not speak and, a second later, Justin Trevithick came into the room. He shook Marcus’s hand and gave Eleanor a kiss.

‘Eleanor! I’m glad that Lady Trevithick did not whisk you away—’

The door opened. ‘Her ladyship requests that you join her in the library, Miss Eleanor,’ Penn said, in sonorous tones. ‘Lord Prideaux has called and is with her.’

Eleanor gave her cousin and brother a speaking glance, then dutifully followed Penn out of the room. Marcus gestured towards the coffee pot. ‘Can I offer you breakfast, Justin? And my apologies for my mother’s transparently bad manners at the same time?’