The Wolfe Wager (22 page)

The room was a near twin to the one in Aunt Carolyn’s house, but was decorated in flamboyant scarlet silk on the walls and an endless swath of gold across the ceiling. Chairs followed the walls, but no one sat. The guests turned to watch Vanessa enter the room on Ross’s arm. She was sure many of them had guessed an announcement was forthcoming. Penelope could hide nothing.

“Do not be so down-pinned,” Ross said beneath the lilting tune being played by a small orchestra.

“I shall not!” She gave him her happiest smile. “Think how excited Corey shall be for me when he returns to find me married. He used to tease me that no man would want to marry an ugly hoyden like me.”

Ross scanned the gilded room. “Your Season has proven your brother quite wrong.”

She wondered whom he sought with his intense stare. “Ross, is something bothering you?”

“I wish this night was over.” He smiled dimly.

Recalling Aunt Carolyn’s words, Vanessa did not pursue the matter. Ross would survive the hazing of his friends easily. She smiled as she imagined them—many years from now—laughing together over their nervousness tonight.

The hours passed in a blur of music and dancing with Ross and listening to her aunt’s anxious questions. Was Vanessa nervous? Did Vanessa want some wine to put roses in her cheeks? Did Vanessa think she should sit and rest? Her color was too high, wasn’t it?

Soothing her aunt, who was fretting her gizzard, Vanessa saw Eveline gesture to her, but had no chance to talk to her as Aunt Carolyn urged her to come to stand near the orchestra where Ross was waiting. Aunt Carolyn puffed Vanessa’s sleeves and fluttered about, pulling a bow here, adjusting a flounce there.

Ross watched with a smile. Taking Vanessa’s hand, he said, “You are trembling. Are you frightened?”

“I shall be happy when this night is over, too.” She was astonished when his smile wavered. It returned, but it was the cool one he had worn when they first met. As if he had shouted it, she knew something was bothering him. “Ross, what is wrong?”

Eveline pushed through the arc of the crowd and hissed, “Vanessa, I must speak with you!”

“Now?” She glanced at Ross who had not answered her. He was gazing at the opposite end of the room, his face naked of expression. Something must be wrong, but what could it be?

“Please, Vanessa,” Eveline whispered. “I must speak with you. Now!”

“What—?” She was interrupted when a glass of champagne was thrust into her hand. Offering Eveline a regretful smile, she had no time for more because her aunt was raising her glass.

Joy filled Aunt Carolyn’s voice. “Drink with me to the health of Lord Brickendon and the future Lady Brickendon, my niece Lady Vanessa Wolfe.”

Cheers drowned out the sound of crystal clinking as the toast was drunk to the soon-to-be newlyweds. Vanessa struggled to smile when Ross offered her a sip from his glass, but she gave up when she saw Eveline turn away, tears awash on her face.

Looking back at Ross, she discovered his gaze was on Eveline, too, as her friend pushed her way through the well-wishers. His smile remained steady, but Vanessa was even more certain something was wrong.

Terribly wrong.

Vanessa sighed as she climbed the last step to the second floor. From the ballroom, she heard the strains of her favorite waltz and the enthusiastic cacophony of conversation.

But Eveline Clarke and Lord Greybrooke were no longer among the Downings’ guests. After searching nearly every room of the house for her friend, Vanessa guessed they must have departed. Eveline should have known better than to leave without a chaperone, but that did not worry Vanessa as much as her bosom-bow’s tears. She had to know why Eveline had needed to speak to her so desperately. She prayed it had nothing to do with Ross’s peculiar behavior since the betrothal announcement. After a single dance, he had vanished as completely as Eveline.

Voices sounded from the other side of the hall. Hope burst forth. Could Eveline and her earl have been so close all along?

Vanessa reached for the half-opened door. Her fingers froze as she identified the speakers. Sir Wilbur Franklin! Bruce Swinton! Could
these
be the friends Ross had insisted must attend tonight?

“We are a pair of catollers,” said Mr. Swinton. “We should have known better than to try to best you at your own sport, Brickendon. You have proven to be the victor in this wager by winning Lady Vanessa Wolfe’s hand.”

“Yes,” said the baronet, “and what do you do next? Do you wed her? Or is simply winning the wager the end of it for you?”

Vanessa pressed her hands to her mouth to silence her cry of heart-deep despair as she saw Mr. Swinton toss several coins on the table. Sir Wilbur grumbled, then followed suit. Ross’s satisfied smile as he scooped them up told her the heinous truth. She meant nothing to any of these men other than the chance to win a pot.

“When will the wedding bells toll the death of your bachelor life?” Sir Wilbur persisted. A sly grin was taut on his lips. “Or shall you take yourself a wife and continue your ways? The lady is clearly unhappy here in Town. Wed her, get her with an heir to your title, and send her off to the country alone.”

“You have my life all mapped out for me,” Ross answered. “It is most convenient to have friends who care so much about my well-being. Or could it be that you wish to win back these coins?”

“As Franklin boasted too soon,
you
will have no need of these few pennies now that Vanessa Wolfe and the Wolfe fortune are yours,” came Swinton’s answer. “We are stuffing a fat pig in the tail by paying off this wager.”

Hearing Ross’s triumphant laugh, Vanessa fled. She could listen to no more. How could a man she had believed loved her treat her heart in such a cavalier manner?

She avoided the ballroom. Tears scorched her face, and she would let no one learn of her shame. No one, but the three men who had considered her to be of such small value that they were willing to make a May game of her.

She closed her eyes as she dropped to a settee in an empty room at the back of the house. Eveline must have learned of the wager and had tried to warn her. It was too late, for she had swallowed Ross’s clanker. Hiding her face in her hands, she surrendered to tears at her betrayal by the one man she had dared to trust.

Chapter Fourteen

Vanessa said nothing to Ross as she loosened the ribbons to her bonnet in the foyer of her aunt’s house. The betrothal ball had, at long last, reached its ignoble end. She wished she could disavow the truth, but Ross’s laugh as he collected his winnings, which seemed more important to him than her heart, rang through her memory. It was a reminder that his love was only goat’s wool.

Once she had been able to stop the flood from her eyes, she had washed her face and returned to the ballroom. Avoiding Sir Wilbur and Mr. Swinton had been simple, for they must have left immediately after their conversation with Ross. She doubted if anyone had noted her long silences and, if they had, she was sure they would have labeled it wedding nerves. She had danced with many of the guests, but had managed to avoid suffering through a waltz with Ross. If she had been in his arms, her pretense and her poise would have been shattered.

Aware of Quigley, an ever-vigilant watchdog, waiting in the shadows, she said, “Good night, Ross.” She did not meet his gaze. The sweet fires in his eyes might lure her into forgiving him for toying with her as if she was no more important than the turn of a card.

He stroked her arm in a gentle invitation to the rapture she had believed was genuine. “Must you go so soon? I thought we might have a glass of wine for a private celebration. I had not guessed I would be prevented from saying more than a score of words to you all evening by those drearily cheerful well-wishers. Are you so tired you cannot spend a few minutes with your fiancé?” His soft laugh sent warm ripples through her.

She suppressed them. That she should be thrilled by the sound of his voice when he had betwattled her added to her shame and anguish. She had been a cabbage-head to believe him once. She must not again.

“I am quite fatigued.” It was the truth. She was tired of his deceptions.

“That is no surprise. A full evening following the distressing news I brought you this afternoon is enough to sap anyone.”

She almost asked him what he was speaking about, then realized she had forgotten Corey’s misery while she suffered her own. “I have had worse days.”

“I know, but I wish you never had to abide another.” He brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek, and she flinched at his beguiling touch. His volatile expression became a frown. “You are as skittish as a spring lamb. What is wrong?”

“I told you. I am fatigued.”

He seemed to accept her swapper. And why not?
She
had never been false with him, save hiding the truth of her hopes for Corey. Even that, she had revealed to him.

“May I come by to take you for a ride in the Park tomorrow after my meeting with Lord Liverpool?” He tipped her chin up with a single finger, so she could not avoid his eyes. His smile had not changed, but she asked herself why she would expect it to. He never had been honest with her. “I thought we might ride along the Serpentine again, but where we shall not be interrupted by troops of soldiers and children.”

Stepping away, she said, “I am so exhausted, Ross. I think I shall stay late abed.”

“I shall not call until three.” She heard his amusement as he went on, “By exactly two, Mrs. Downing will be clattering her carriage through the Square, so sleep shall be impossible.” He grew serious again. “I hope to have something to tell you after my meeting with Lord Liverpool, but do not be disappointed if it takes a few days for even the Prime Minister to obtain the intelligence we need.”

“If you call here—”

“I would as lief that no one but you and me knew the course of my conversation with the Prime Minister.”

“Aunt Carolyn—”

“Has too many friends who delight in gobbling like brainless geese. I feared Penelope Downing would explode before our betrothal was announced.” Taking her fingers, he pressed them to his cheek. “Say you will ride with me in the Park tomorrow afternoon.”

“Yes,” she whispered, willing to accede to almost anything to have him be gone. In another moment, all on end, she might throw herself into his sturdy arms and beg him to soothe her with his bewitching kisses. He was sure to repeat her own words back to her, reminding her that eavesdropping was a deplorable habit. Yet if she had not chanced to hear the damning conversation, she would be ignorant of Ross’s true reason for winning her heart.

She should demand that he be honest with her, but she was afraid he would be. That would complete the defilement of her dreams.
Not tonight
, she told herself.
Not yet
.

“Are you sure you are suffering from just fatigue?” he asked when she drew away.

His concern nearly broke through the thick wall of her pain, but she simply said, “I need time to come to terms with all I have learned today.”

His fingers stroked her shoulder. Bending to place a kiss on the downy skin beneath her ear, he chuckled when she gasped involuntarily. She tried to submerge the delight his touch invoked, but it was impossible. He was a profligate, who knew so well how to twist a woman’s heart into believing him when he lied with a hatchet, but she loved him.

She whispered another good night and scurried up the stairs. Although she was tempted to look back, she resisted. She must find some way of ending this betrothal, which would be easier to put aside than the pain eating at her heart.

Sending Leale away, Vanessa pulled out the tear-stained letter from the bottom drawer as she had so many nights. “Corey, he lied about loving me. Was he as false about helping to find you?” She lowered the letter to her lap. “I trusted him as I dared trust no one else, but he proved that I was a noodle. But I shall not be a noodle again, nor shall I be diverted from searching for you until you are home for good and all. Never again.”

The gray light of morning had barely peeked over the houses on the eastern side of the Square when Eveline burst into Vanessa’s room. Still dressed in her nightgown and her muslin wrapper, the redhead asked, “Did I wake you?”

Vanessa almost laughed. Her one attempt to escape her anguish in sleep had left her in the midst of a nightmare nearly as horrifying as the truth. She had used the night to map out what she must do next. Although the answer had been simple, she had sought to discover a more uncomplicated way to bring her shattered dreams to fruition. She had found none, so she had the choice of doing what she must … or letting her brother die at the hands of Boney’s soldiers.

Standing with a rustle of the green crêpe gown she had put on more than an hour before, she motioned for her friend to sit by the window. “You did not wake me.”

Eveline perched on the very edge of the chair and was silent while Vanessa dropped to the window seat. She wrung her hands until her knuckles bleached. “I have been grappling with my conscience all night, and I can bear it no longer. I must speak with you as I should have last night. Oh, dear, how can I say this?”

“You find the idea of me marrying Ross repulsive.” Vanessa did not make it a question. There was no need, because she knew Eveline better than she knew herself. Certainly better than she knew her heart, which had led her so foolishly into this predicament.

“Vanessa, I was so thrilled for you until last night. I wanted you to be as happy as I am with Edward. But then I heard about …” She shivered.

“I know what you have heard. Do not berate yourself that you had no idea of it before last night. It was—to say very the least—a surprise.” She stared across the Square and saw little as fog obscured everything beyond the walkway. Nothing was clear any longer. Corey was alive, but a prisoner of this appalling war. Ross was dallying with her heart as it was rumored he had with so many others.

“I do wish you would reconsider this betrothal.”

“You know as well as I do that breaking a betrothal is not something to be done lightly.”

Eveline’s eyes lit with green fire. “Then you
are
thinking of putting an end to it?”