Fortune's Lady (8 page)

Althea raised her head and shook it ruefully. “I do beg your pardon. I do not know what came over me. I assure you that I am not usually such a watering pot. But I have been squeezed and ogled to such a degree tonight that I was frantic to get away.”

Chapter 9

Gareth stared down into the dark blue eyes swimming in the tears that continued to well up. The tears clinging to her long dark lashes glittered like diamonds in the faint light cast from the ballroom’s enormous chandeliers. He had the maddest impulse to kiss her drooping lips into a smile. His heart went out to her, yet he was utterly powerless to change the situation, to save her from the time-honored rituals of the
ton.
“I wish there were something I could do to help you,” his heart volunteered before his mind could react.

Althea tilted her head to stare gravely up at him. “Actually, there
is
something you could do for me.”

The stab of disappointment was so strong that it physically hurt him. So she was no better than the others after all, just more clever. She too was trying to trap him into doing something for her, only she was doing it with a great deal more subtlety and strategy than the others— like the master card player she was.

“You must tell me what it is.”

Althea frowned thoughtfully. “No. It is nothing, really. You are too kind. I thank you for your concern.” Brought back to her senses by the wary expression in his eyes and flatness in his voice, Althea turned away from him toward the ballroom. His words had offered help, but his conventionally polite tone told her that he was only doing so because he felt he had no choice.

He caught her hand as she moved away from him. “No. Please. I
do
wish to help you.” He was correct in thinking that she was cleverer than the others; she was also more sensitive than they were, reading his reaction in an instant. And oddly enough, he did want to help someone like that. Besides, now his curiosity was getting the better of him. “Tell me what it is you wish me to do.”

He meant it this time. There was a sincerity in his eyes and a conviction in his voice that had not been there before. For the first time in her life, Althea felt as though someone was actually paying attention to her, not Lady Althea Beauchamp, dutiful daughter and eligible heiress, but just Althea. “Well, if it would not be too much trouble, I should like very much to have you teach me to win at cards.”

“You what?”

His thunderstruck expression was so absurd and unexpected that she could not help chuckling.

“But you already play cards too well for my comfort. What could
I
possibly teach
you?”

“How to win a fortune. Reggie, I mean my cousin Reginald, says that you were able to win a fortune at cards.”

“That was because I had to.”

“So do I.”

“You? Whatever for?”

“So I can live my life the way I wish to.”

“Surely with your fortune, your expectations ...”

“They are not
my
expectations, and it is not
my
fortune. They are my parents’ expectations and my family’s fortune. I have nothing of my own until I marry a man selected by them, and then it will belong to my husband, who will have his own expectations. And believe me, any husband my parents choose for me will not have the same expectations of life that I do.”

The conversation was growing more and more amazing by turns. Gareth did not have the slightest idea what this astounding young woman was going to say next, but he was desperate to find out. Ordinarily, the more he discovered about a person, a woman especially, the more disappointed he was to learn that no matter how intriguing the exterior, the interior was inutterably banal. This young lady, however, was quite different.

“And what are these expectations that the husband your parents choose for you will not share?”

“Mine? I should like to have a small place of my own in the country where I could have a garden and enough livestock or crops to support myself. Then I would spend my day tending it, taking long walks, and reading.” Althea smiled apologetically. “Actually, when I describe it, it does sound rather dull, does it not? But to me, especially at this moment, it sounds like a veritable heaven on earth.”

“Then we shall have to see what we can do to get you this heaven of yours.”

“You will help me? Oh, thank you ever so much.”

He was no proof against her gratitude. The light that gleamed in those amazing sapphire eyes at the prospect of living a peaceful, rustic existence made him want, for the second time that evening, to pull her into his arms and kiss her. And something akin to a feeling of chivalry made him want to do everything in his power to make her dreams come true.

The very fact that she longed for such simple things-peace and solitude—made Gareth wonder what sort of life she had had to endure to this point. Outwardly she seemed blessed with all that a young woman could wish for, but something had caused the somberness at the back of her eyes, the serious expression her face habitually wore. He recognized those signs himself. They came from the feeling of being utterly alone in a world of vanity and greed, shallowness and indifference.

“But ...”

Gareth looked down at her. The sparkle had vanished from her eyes. “But what?”

“I ... Well, I have no way to repay you, at least not at the moment. Of course, I shall be able to repay you when I win my fortune—if I win my fortune.”

“My dear girl, you have no need to repay me. I shall help you for the sport of it, for the sheer pleasure of seeing you win your fortune and your heart’s desire from a pack of pleasure-seeking fools.”

“I only hope it is possible. As a woman, I shall not be able to play with the true gamblers who bet vast sums on the turn of a card, but I do think I can hold my own against females, and some of them wager almost as much as most men.”

Gareth snorted. “Believe me, you can win against anyone. After all, you beat my mother most handily. She may appear to be a very silly, frivolous woman, but, believe me, where her own interests are concerned, she is very serious indeed, and she can be as clever and as ruthless as anyone I have ever encountered. The game you played against her is a fair representation of the stiffest competition you are likely to encounter. And the more you win, the more formidable your reputation, the more people will wish to play against you, and the greater sums they will risk when they do so.”

Althea was silent for a moment, considering his words. “I suspect you are right.” She nodded thoughtfully. But at the moment, she was thinking more about the speaker than his words. What had his mother done to him to bring that bitter edge to his voice whenever he spoke of her? Behind that cynical attitude, to his mother in particular and the world in general, must lie a great deal of suffering. Odd to think that a man born to inherit a title and estates, a man born to control his fate and the fate of all those working for him, could have suffered anything. She forced these distracting speculations from her mind to concentrate on the matter at hand, “Well, I shall be grateful for anything you can teach me and any advice you can give me.”

“As I told you before, I am not sure that there is much I can teach you about card playing that you have not already learned. You are very good, you know.”

“Thank you. Coming from you, that is praise indeed.”

Gareth watched in fascination as a blush rose in her cheeks and her lips curved into a shy smile. The genuine pleasure she seemed to derive from such a mild compliment was astonishing. For a moment she was transformed from a serious, self-contained lady into a charming young woman. The change made him wonder about the parents whose expectations she was supposed to fulfill. Had it been these expectations concerning who and what Lady Althea Beauchamp was supposed to be that had turned her into the coldly perfect incomparable who had caught his attention the first night he saw her. “I may not be able to teach you anything more about card playing, but I can teach you the most effective way to win a fortune.”

“That is very kind of you, for there is no earthly reason you should help someone you are barely acquainted with simply because she asks it of you. But I am exceedingly grateful that you will.”

“I do, however, have to tell you in all honesty that the quickest way to acquire a fortune is to marry it.”

She grimaced in a way that was so natural, so unlike the behavior of a rigidly proper young lady of fashion that he found it enchanting. “The quickest, perhaps, but not the easiest, for it requires one to give over one’s life to another person.”

“You are entirely correct on that count. Yet most young ladies are hell-bent on doing just that, finding someone who will manage their lives for them. And the richer the manager, the better. To many of them it is a way to gain freedom—freedom from their families, freedom from the constraints that society puts on the behavior of its unmarried young ladies. There are a number of advantages to be gained. Are you sure you do not wish to marry?”

‘‘Quite sure.”

Terse as the answer was, it was delivered with such a wealth of conviction that Gareth was struck by the purposeful tone in her voice and the sparkle of determination in her eyes. Everything about her—the proud lift of the chin, the firm set of her shoulders—spoke of an intense resolve to manage her own life. He could not help admiring her for it and wanting to help her achieve it. “Very well, then, I shall be happy to teach you all that I know. But how are we to accomplish this?” Even as he asked, he felt reasonably certain that such a determined young woman had already thought of a way to eliminate the difficulties involved in pursuing such a project.

She had. “I shall be extremely agreeable this week and allow Mama to drag me to all the establishments on Bond Street so that on the day you and I agree to meet it will be only natural for me to develop a headache and be unable to accompany her on her calls. Papa is always at his club in the afternoon so I shall be able to slip out with my maid undetected. If you will but give me your direction, I can then call on you.”

“Call on me? Are you not concerned for your reputation? Why, if even a hint of such a thing were to reach anyone’s ears you would be ruined.”

Althea cocked her head to one side as she considered this. “I realize that, but I see no way for me to meet you that would not cause comment. And besides,”—a mischievous smile tugged at the corners of her mouth— “if my reputation were ruined, then no one would want me as a wife and I should be packed off to the country where I wished to be left in the first place. So no matter what happens, I am likely to be better off than I am now.”

An answering smile twisted his own lips as Gareth shook his head. “Almost, I feel sorry for your parents. Dutiful you may appear to be, but I can see that your strategist’s mind is not confined to the card room.”

“Believe me, it is the only way. For years I have begged them to leave me at Clarendon. I can manage the household quite as well as Mama, and the estate as well as Papa’s own agent, but they would have none of it. ‘A Beauchamp’s duty is to bring glory to the name.’ “

Listening to her, Gareth had no doubt that this maxim had been drummed into her head since the cradle, and he could not decide which was worse—to be ignored by parents who were intent on pursuing their own wasteful and destructive pleasures, or to be continually prodded and shaped into becoming the living, breathing expression of centuries of familial ambitions. Either way, one was not given much credit for being a person in one’s own right, and either way, one’s own hopes and dreams were utterly ignored.

“Very well. I shall arrange to be at home in my rooms in Curzon Street every afternoon this week.” Ruthlessly Gareth stifled the little voice inside telling him that he must be completely mad to commit himself to such a course of action. After years of successfully avoiding the most rapacious of matchmaking mamas and eluding even the cleverest schemes designed to deprive him of his cherished bachelor status, was he now falling victim to the cleverest scheme of all? He gazed down into the eyes looking up at him and saw nothing but profound gratitude in their sapphire depths.

“Again, I must say that I do not know why you are being so kind to me, other than that I asked it of you, but thank you. I promise you, I shall not disappoint you.”

A brief, shy smile, and then she was gone, slipping back into the golden light of the ballroom, leaving him to a wealth of confusing thoughts and emotions. Why did he want to help this one particular young woman, a woman whom he had detested at first sight as being the epitome of all he disliked—a cold, calculating beauty? And even now, he was not entirely certain that he had not been made a victim of it.

But then Gareth recalled the expression in her eyes and the firmness in her voice as she had promised not to disappoint him. It had been more than a promise; it had been a pledge. No one in his entire life had promised him anything. And, with the exception of the men in his cavalry regiment who shared an unspoken responsibility for one another’s lives, no one in his entire life had ever felt they owed him anything—not even friendship. Yet somehow he believed that this inexperienced young woman, a girl really, was someone he could trust. His mind told him that this was a wildly irrational conviction inspired by his unwanted physical attraction to an exquisite face and figure, but his heart told him that it was something more than that.

Chapter 10

Several days later, as she followed her mother into yet another fashionable Bond Street establishment, Althea was beginning to wonder if anything the Marquess of Harwood could teach her was worth such penance. Her head truly did ache after being forced to examine and select from a dizzying array of gloves, bonnets, ribbons, shawls, and all the other accoutrements of a young lady of fashion.

“Do try for a more pleasing expression, Althea. Anyone who looked at you would think you were suffering from the megrims.”

“But I do have a dreadful headache, Mama.”

“Ridiculous. No properly brought up young woman contracts a headache from a simple shopping expedition. And she would certainly not let on if she did.”