The Duke's Gamble

Stanton ignored him, his heavy-lidded eyes making a swift survey. “A carriage instead of your usual nag, and a posy on your chest?” he observed. “The lady will be pleased you made the effort for her.”

“The lady will be better pleased if I arrive on time.” Guilford knocked on the chaise’s roof to signal the driver to begin, but Stanton only followed, matching his horse’s gait to that of the horse in the traces.

“True enough, Guilford,” he said. “Rumor has it that Miss Penny is the very devil for promptness.”

That made Guilford smile in spite of himself, imagining how indignant Amariah would be to hear her much-practiced goodness linked to the prince of all badness. “You shouldn’t call her the devil anything, considering her father.”

“No?” asked Stanton, a leading question if ever there was one.

“No,” Guilford said dryly. “Not that I ever said I was even seeing Miss Penny today.”

“You didn’t have to say a word.” Stanton winked, and tapped a sly finger to the brim of his hat. “If you didn’t want the whole town to know, then you shouldn’t make your assignations in the middle of the crush at Penny House. Westbrook told me.”

Now Guilford’s sigh came out as more of a groan. “What I choose to do and where I do it are not any of your affair, Stanton.”

“Where the luscious Miss Penny’s concerned, Guilford, I’m afraid they are.” He leered through the window. “As I recall, there’s a substantial wager between us resting on the well-rounded backside of the lady.”

“I haven’t forgotten, Stanton,” Guilford said, “and I still mean to win. I’ve planned every detail. After a drive through the park, a supper in a private room at Carlisle’s, a few bottles of the best of that cellar’s wines, I could be claiming your stake before dawn.”

“Carlisle’s, you say.” Stanton raised a skeptical brow at the mention of the fashionable tavern. “And here I’d heard your itinerary was a tour of almshouses and beggar’s haunts.”

Blast Westbrook for having such excellent ears. “Oh, the day’s only begun,” Guilford said with as nonchalant an air as he could muster. “Good deeds will only put her into a more agreeable humor.”

“Oh, indeed,” Stanton said, and grinned to show exactly how little credence he gave to Guilford’s theory. “But tell me, Guilford. Do you really believe the steps of some wretched almshouse would be the proper place to tumble her?”

“Stanton, Stanton.” Guilford clucked his tongue in mock dismay. “Am I truly that low in your estimation? Ah, to show so little regard for Miss Penny’s sensibilities!”

Stanton drew back, feigning great shock in return. “Are you defending the lady’s honor before you’ve even warmed her bed?”

“What if I am?” Guilford shrugged elaborately. “You know my ways, Stanton. I’d much rather play the gallant than the rake. Better to leave a woman sighing your name than cursing it.”

He’d always liked women, and they had liked him in return, a satisfying exchange for all parties. He was also quite sure he’d never been in love, at least not the way the poets described, but the liking had been quite fine for him.

And he did like Amariah Penny and her creamy pale skin.

“She won’t be as easy as your usual conquests,” Stanton insisted. “She’s her own woman. She owns that whole infernal Penny House. She doesn’t need you, or anything you can give her.”

“That’s only because she doesn’t yet know what I can give her.” Of course, that didn’t include ruby bracelets, but he’d conveniently forget that slight for now. “She’ll learn soon enough.”

“You’re smiling like a madman,” Stanton said glumly. “Next you’ll be telling me you’re too damned gallant to stomach the wager.”

“You only wish it were so, Stanton.” Even if he weren’t so intrigued by the stakes, he still wouldn’t back down. It was the principle of the thing, not the money. Any man who set aside a bet like this one would become the laughingstock of White’s, and his friends would never let him forget it. “If you wish to call it off, that’s one thing, but I’m not about to do it. How daft do you think I am?”

“You tell me.” Stanton sighed with unhappy resignation. “Let the wager stand, then, and the terms with it. You have a fortnight to bed Miss Penny, and to collect reasonable proof that the deed’s been done.”

“Oh, you’ll know,” Guilford said, looking down to adjust the flower in his buttonhole. “As you observed yourself, all London hears everything that happens at Penny House.”

“And I’ll be listening, my friend.” Stanton gathered the reins of his horse more tightly in his hand. “I’ll be listening for every word.”

Amariah crouched beside the bench, her hand holding tight to the girl’s sweating fingers. “Not much longer, lass, not much more.”

The girl cried out again, her face contorted with pain. She’d already been in hard labor, her waters broken, when she’d thumped on the kitchen door, and there’d been no time to take her to a midwife. Amariah had had her brought inside, here into her sister Bethany’s little office down the hall by the pantry, and while the bench might not be the most ideal place to give birth, it would be far better and more private than the street or beneath a bridge.

“The midwife should be here any minute, Miss Penny,” said the cook, Letty Todd, as she rejoined Amariah. “Though from the looks of things, any minute may be a minute too long.”

“We’ll manage, Letty.” Amariah felt the force of the young woman’s pains as she tightened her grasp. She couldn’t be more than fifteen or sixteen, scarcely more than a child herself, and her worn, tattered dress and the thinness of her wrists and cheeks bore mute testimony to how cheerless her life must be. Though Amariah didn’t know the girl’s name or situation, she did recognize her as one of the crowd of poor folk that came to the back door each day for what might be their only meal of the day. A scullery maid ruined by the master’s son, a sailor’s widow, a milkmaid deceived by her sweetheart: Amariah didn’t care what misfortune had brought the girl to this sad state, nor had she asked. All that mattered was that Penny House offer this young woman the haven she’d so desperately sought, and that she and her baby be treated with kindness and compassion.

“Ooh, it’s coming, miss, it’s coming!” cried the girl frantically. “The baby, miss, the baby! Oh, God preserve me!”

Amariah had attended enough births in her father’s old parish to know that the girl was in fact close to delivering. But her experience had been as an observer, not as a midwife, and as she shifted between the girl’s bent, trembling knees, she prayed for the skill and knowledge that she knew she didn’t have.

“Listen to me, dear,” she said. “At the next pain, I want you to take the biggest breath you can and push.”

“I—I can’t!” the girl wailed. “Oh, help me!”

“You can,” Amariah said firmly. “Take a deep breath, and then try to—”

“Forgive me, I came as fast as I could!” Quickly the midwife tossed her shawl over the chair and draped one of the clean cloths over her forearms. She was brusque and efficient, and ready to take charge. “Don’t fear, duck, we’ll see you through. If you’ll just hold her knee for her here, miss.”

Gratefully Amariah obeyed, and at once was caught up in the drama of the birth. As she’d thought, the baby crowned and slipped into the midwife’s waiting hands within minutes of her appearance. A boy, loud and lusty, and as the kitchen staff cheered his arrival, the new mother wept with mingled joy, exhaustion and despair as the midwife put her new son, wrapped in a clean dishcloth, to her breast for the first time.

“I’d nowheres t’ go, Miss Penny,” she whispered through her tears. “But you an’ t’other Miss be so kind t’ us in th’ yard each day, I thought I could…I could—”

“You did exactly the right thing coming here,” Amariah said softly, brushing her fingertips over the baby’s downy head. “We’ll find a safe home for you and your son once you’ve recovered. Now rest, and enjoy him.”

“Sammy,” said the girl. “His name be Sammy. Sammy Patton.”

“Sammy, then.” Amariah smiled. “Welcome to this life, Sammy. And may God bless you both.”

She helped the midwife bundle the soiled linens, closing the door gently to let the new mother sleep. Yet even as she washed her hands and arms, the image of the new baby lingered, his tiny wrinkled fists ready to take on a hard life, his pink mouth as wide and demanding as a little bird’s, ready to announce his hunger and indignation to the world.

“Miss Penny?” Pratt stood before her, even more anxious than usual. “Miss Penny, his grace is here for you.”

“His grace?” Amariah stared at him, her thoughts still on the new baby.

“His Grace the Duke of Guilford, miss.” Pratt nodded, as if confirming this for himself as well as for her. “I have put his grace in the front parlor.”

“Guilford!” Oh, merciful heavens, how had she forgotten so completely about him? Swiftly she tore off her bloodstained apron and ran toward the stairs, smoothing her hair as best she could, then flung open the twin doors to the parlor.

“Good day, your grace,” she said with a sweeping curtsy. “Forgive me for keeping you waiting, but I had an unexpected emergency that needed my attention below stairs.”

She smiled warmly, but Guilford only stared, his expression oddly frozen.

“Good day to you, too, Miss Penny,” he said at last. “It would appear that I’ve caught you at an, ah, inopportune time. Shall I wait for you to recollect yourself?”

“I won’t make you wait at all, your grace,” she said, puzzled. “I’ll just send for my bonnet, and I’ll be ready.”

He shook his head, for once seemingly at a loss for what to say. “I shall be glad to wait, you know. Perfectly glad.”

“But there’s no reason for it, your grace,” she began, then caught him looking down at her dress. It wasn’t the usual kind of admiring gentleman’s look, but a silently appalled and beseeching look, and quickly she turned toward the glass over the fireplace to judge for herself.

She was still wearing the plain gray wool gown she’d chosen for morning prayer, now rumpled and wrinkled and stained where her apron hadn’t covered her enough. She wore no jewelry, and her hair, though mussed, was still drawn back tight in a knot at the back of her head.

It wasn’t much different than how she usually looked for day, but Guilford wouldn’t know that. Whenever he saw her, she was always dressed in one of her blue Penny House gowns, fashionably cut low and revealing, with white plumes pinned into her curled hair and paste jewels sparkling around her throat. How she looked for the evenings was as much a part of the club as the Italian paintings on the wall or the green cloth covering the hazard table upstairs, and no more a part of her, either.

She glanced back at him with that pathetically woeful expression on his face. Of course, he was wearing his same habitual coat, so dark a blue as to be nearly black, a green-flowered silk waistcoat draped with a heavy gold watch chain and cream-colored trousers, all chosen to please himself and without a thought for where they were going. Had he truly expected her to match him, and dress in the gaudy blue silk and paste necklace for calling on almshouses?

“I’m perfectly content to wait,” he said again, adding a coaxing smile. “Take as long as you wish. I understand how ladies can be, you know.”

“Oh, I’m sure you do, your grace,” she said, smiling in return. She understood him, too, and likely a good deal better than he either realized or wished. “I suppose I am a bit untidy. I’ll take those few minutes to refresh myself, and be back before you miss me. Shall I send for Pratt to bring you refreshment?”

“That excellent fellow has already tended to me.” He gathered the glass from the table beside him, raising it toward her like a toast. “Hurry back, sweetheart. And mind that I’m most partial to the color blue on a lady like you.”

“I’ll take that into consideration, your grace,” she said as she backed from the room.

But now it was outrage that sent her marching up the stairs to her private rooms to change, her heels clicking fiercely on the treads of the steps. For an intelligent man, the duke was behaving like a first-rate dunce. This was the other night after the wedding all over again. Did Guilford really believe her memory was this short? She’d asked him to join her today for educational purposes, not to amuse him, and she knew she’d made her intentions perfectly clear.

Quickly she shed the soiled gown, washed, and brushed her hair, then stood before the other gowns that hung in the cupboard. She didn’t possess the vast wardrobe that Guilford seemed to believe. Beyond the dramatic gowns for evening that she and her sisters wore for their roles at Penny House, there wasn’t much that would meet the stylish standards of a duke. The only one that might do was a soft blue wool day gown with a ruffled hem, complete with a matching redingote with more ruffles across the bust, and a velvet bonnet in a deeper blue—an ensemble designed by her fashionable sister Cassia, and the one Amariah wore when she and her sisters went driving in the park together. She touched her fingers to one of the ruffles and smiled, imagining how pleased Guilford would be to see she’d obeyed his request.

Then she resolutely turned to the gown beside it. A serviceable dove gray with dull pewter buttons, high necked and as plain as a foggy day: a dress somber enough for a poor neighborhood. Amariah’s smile widened with fresh determination as she reached for the gown and drew it over her head.

Guilford wouldn’t be partial to this color, or the sturdy plainness of her gown, either. She didn’t care, or rather she did for the opposite reasons. At least she knew how to dress unobtrusively and suitably when the situation called for it.

And as for her so-called reputation as a virago: ah, for a virago the gray gown would be entirely appropriate!

Chapter Four

“H ere I am, your grace,” Amariah said, tugging on her glove as she stood in the doorway to the hall. “You’ve been most kind to wait for me, and now, you see, I’m ready whenever you please.”

Guilford turned, the easy, welcoming smile already on his face for her, and stopped short.

What in blazes was she wearing now? A nun’s habit? A winding cloth? Sackcloth and ashes?

“You are ready?” he echoed. As rumpled and unappealing as her dress had been earlier, he would have taken it over this without a second’s hesitation. The gray shapeless gown and jacket were bad enough, burying all semblance of her delightfully curving body in coarse gray wool, but she’d scraped her hair back from her forehead so tightly that she’d lost every last coppery curl, and then tied a dreadful flat chip hat over a white linen cap. She looked like the sorriest serving girl fresh from the country, or worse, perhaps from some sooty mill town.

What had happened to the delicious Amariah Penny? And how could he possibly take her into Carlisle’s dressed like this?

“Have you changed your mind, your grace?” she asked sweetly. “You know I won’t think an iota less of you if you’ve decided you’d rather retreat than accompany me.”

One more look at that awful gray gown, and he very nearly did. Yet there was something in her eye—an extra sparkle of triumph—that stopped him. He couldn’t forget that Amariah Penny was no ordinary female, and she wouldn’t rely on ordinary female wiles, either. If she thought she’d shed him simply because she’d made herself as ugly as possible, why, then he was ready to prove her wrong.

“Nothing could make me abandon you, Miss Penny,” he said with as gallant a bow as he could muster—which, coming from him, was impressively gallant indeed. “Abandonment is not a word I acknowledge when it comes to a lady.”

“Of course not, your grace,” she said as he joined her in the hall. A footman was holding the front door open for them, and she sailed on through. “I must thank you again for offering your chaise today, your grace. It will make everything so much easier and more pleasant.”

“The pleasure is mine, Miss Penny,” he said, then stopped short with surprise for the second time that morning.

There stood his chaise where he’d left it, standing before the carriage block, the blue paint shining in the sun. But now Amariah’s man Pratt was there at the curb, too, directing three Penny House servants who were loading wicker hampers, covered with checked cloths, into the chaise.

His chaise.

She glanced over her shoulder at him, adjusting the flat brim of her hideous hat, and he caught that extra sparkle of a dare in her eye again. “I trust you are in a charitable humor today, your grace.”

“Charitable?” he said indignantly. “You’ve turned my chaise into a dray wagon! What in blazes is in those baskets, anyway?”

“Food,” she said as if it were perfectly obvious. “The places we are to visit are always in need of food for hungry folk, your grace, and I try to provide what I can. Come, there’s still plenty of room for us inside.”

“Well, that’s a blessing,” he said glumly as he followed her down the steps. How could he begin to seduce her when they’d be packed cheek to jowl with her wretched baskets like a farmer and his wife on market day? If he saw any of his friends with her like this, he’d never hear the end of it.

“Indeed it is a blessing for those we benefit, your grace,” she said, clearly refusing to hear the sarcasm in his voice. “We all do what we can, don’t we?”

He didn’t answer. He’d wager a handful of guineas that if it had been after dark and she’d been standing with him inside the club, wearing one of those handsome blue gowns, then she would not only have understood his other meaning, she would have laughed aloud.

“Here you are, your grace, seat yourself,” she continued as she climbed into the crowded chaise, “and I’ll tuck myself into this little place. I’ll grant you it’s snug, but we shall manage.”

“Snug, hell,” he muttered crossly as he squeezed his long legs into the small space she’d allotted to him. “Snug is what we’d be if you were beside me, not with this infernal basket wedged between us.”

She smiled, tipping her head to one side. Sunlight filtered through the woven brim of her hat, dappling her face with tiny pinpricks of light. “The basket won’t be here for so very long, your grace, and I promise you it will do such a world of good that you’ll feel infinitely better about yourself, much better than from the simple sensation of my skirts brushing against your leg.”

He smiled in return, thinking of what might have been if she weren’t being so damned perverse.

“It wouldn’t have been the brush of your skirts, Miss Penny,” he said, “but the pleasant warmth of your thigh pressed against mine. Nothing simple about that, I can assure you.”

“How wonderful it must be for you to have such confidence in your opinions, your grace!” she exclaimed wryly. “To be able to give your assurance as easy as that—why, I almost envy you!”

“Except that envy is one of the seven deadly sins, and you, as a parson’s daughter, would never, ever dream of sinning.”

“One must have goals, your grace,” she said serenely. “Likely yours has been to experience every one of those seven sins for yourself.”

“Not at all,” he declared. “I’m not even sure I could name the seven, let alone describe them on a comfortable, given-name basis.”

Her smile widened as she held up her hands, ticking off each sin on a finger. “Envy, pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony and sloth. Those are the seven deadly ones.”

He frowned. He wished he hadn’t asked; he didn’t like realizing that, at one time or another, he had in fact been guilty of most of the seven. Come to think of it, he was practicing at least two of them at this very moment, sitting with her in his luxurious chaise with the crest on the door.

“There are more than seven sins?” he asked warily.

“Oh, yes,” she said, too cheerfully for comfort. “There are the sins that cry out to heaven for vengeance, as well as the sins of the angels. I don’t have fingers enough for them all.”

“At least there’s no sin in that,” he said with a heartiness that he didn’t quite feel. He was on shaky ground here, and they both knew it. “I suppose I should know better than to banter about sins with the vicar’s daughter.”

“At least bickering isn’t a mortal sin, your grace,” she said. “Not even on the Sabbath.”

“I suppose not.” He turned toward her, or at least as far as he could in the crowded seat. “Look here, why don’t we speak of something more agreeable than all this hellfire and damnation?”

Amused, she leaned back against the seat, an almost languid pose that was much at odds with her prim dress.

“Sins alone don’t earn damnation, your grace,” she said. “It’s only if you don’t show repentance that you’ll run into trouble when you die. But if you’d rather not speak of the state of your soul, I’ve no objection to finding a new subject.”

“Very well,” he said, more relieved than he’d want to admit. “What shall it be? The weather? The crowds in the street around us? Where we shall dine this evening? What member is cheating the club at hazard?”

Surprise flickered across her face, only for an instant—she was very good at hiding her emotions—but enough for him to know what he’d overheard between two servants last night was true.

“Wherever did you learn such a thing, your grace?” she asked with forced lightness. “A cheat at the Penny House table?”

He smiled, the advantage back in his court. “You’re not denying it.”

“Because it’s too preposterous to deny,” she declared. “Our membership consists of only the first gentlemen in the land. How could I suspect one of them of cheating?”

“Because gentlemen hate to lose, perhaps more than other men,” he said. “Because gentlemen can be desperate, too. Because if you are as pathetically trusting as you wish me to believe, then I must report you to the membership committee at once, before you let some villain steal away everything from under your nose.”

Bright pink flooded her cheeks—an angry, indignant pink, not a blush at all. “That will not happen, your grace. You have my word.”

He smiled indulgently. “You can’t simply wish away a scandal, my dear.”

“I’m not,” she said tartly, “and I’ve taken action to stop it. You should know me well enough by now, your grace, to realize that I am not too proud to ask for assistance if I need it.”

“And you in turn should know me well enough to come to me if the troubles rise around your ankles.” He reached his hand out across the back of the seat so it almost—almost—brushed hers. “It’s far better to reach out for a lifeline than to let yourself drown.”

She shifted away from his hand. “How fascinating that you regard yourself in that way, your grace.”

“Oh, I regard myself in a great many ways, Miss Penny,” he said, “and you should feel free to do the same.”

“You can play at being my Father Confessor all you want, but I still won’t invent a scandal simply for the sake of telling it to you.”

“Even if it’s no invention?” he asked softly. “Even if it’s true?”

“No,” she said, raising her chin a fraction in a way he recognized as a challenge. “Especially because it’s not.”

He sighed, willing to concede for now. She’d confide in him eventually, anyway. Ladies always confided in him, and they’d have the entire rest of the day together. “You’re a stubborn creature, Miss Penny.”

“You’re back to that virago nonsense again, aren’t you?” She narrowed her eyes a fraction. “Why is it that when a man holds firm, he is steadfast, but when a woman does it, she’s stubborn?”

He laughed. Oh, she was good, virago or not, and his admiration for her rose another notch. “I’ll stand corrected. You, Miss Penny are steadfast, not stubborn.”

“I suppose I should thank you for that,” she said. “Or didn’t you intend it as a compliment?”

“I did,” he said. “And well deserved it is, too. I can offer more if you’d like.”

“I’m sure you could.” Her mouth curved wryly to one side. “But I’ve a better suggestion for conversation, your grace. Let us speak of you.”