To Sin With A Stranger (11 page)

She couldn’t have that. She needed their attention. She needed their fascination with her and Lord Blackburn for as long as possible.

She needed money for the widows. A whimper slipped from her mouth. “I shall see you inside, Lord Blackburn. Mayhap the musicians will play a Scotch Reel.” She offered what she hoped was a beguiling smile, but her nerves were strung tighter than violin strings.

She bobbed a quick curtsy, then turned on the ball of her slipper and left him in the garden.

Surely he would return to the ballroom, if only to bid her good night. She had until then to come up with a way to shift any too-firm perceptions.

Mayhap there had not been enough excitement this night. Not for her purposes anyway.

No, not by a league.

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

Elliott

Sterling had not yet reached the top of the staircase when Grant trotted down to meet him. His brother hooked his arm around his shoulder and urged him hurriedly toward the ballroom. “Where the hell have you been?”

“In the garden.” Sterling clasped his brother’s middle finger like a filthy rag and pried Grant’s arm from his shoulder. “You could have guarded the French windows and given me a wee bit more time with the lass.”

Grant’s eyebrows nearly met at the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know what you are blaming me for now, but if it has to do with Miss Carington, you have to listen. You cannot be makin’ it look too easy. Especially now.”

“Make exactly what look too easy?” Sterling paused before entering the ballroom and lowered his voice. “Winning her?”

“Aye.” Grant glanced around before speaking to ensure they wouldn’t be overheard. “Killian and Lachlan have returned—with news. Wait until you hear what has transpired. The
anonymous
bettor has doubled his bet…without having to escrow his additional stake.” He waggled his eyebrows meaningfully.

Killian charged through the door to the ballroom with Lachlan at his heels. “Did you inform him, Grant?”

“I would have never believed it, but I know you must have a plan for this contingency, Sterling.” Lachlan tipped a glass to his lips and drained it of arrack punch.

Sterling looked quizzically at Grant. “There’s more you want to tell me, isn’t there?”

“Word hasn’t yet reached the ballroom, but it will, and we need to know our position before it does.” Grant urged Sterling away from the door.

“I am not sure what we ought to do now. White’s has taken an unprecedented measure and has opened this wager only, and its book, to the public as a whole.”

“The hell, you say.” Sterling scratched at the stubble beginning to breach the skin of his chin and began to pace.

This was an event he had not considered. He glanced up at each of his brothers, but he could see they all looked to him for direction. “Why do you stare at me so? The field has changed but the wager has not. It is of no consequence.”

He turned and started for the ballroom once more. None of his brothers followed. Doubt and, aye, a bit of worry too, was plain in their eyes. “Our exposure is no greater than we planned. This development, if anything at all, bolsters our chances of winning. More bettors to accept the wager.”

Through the open door of the ballroom, Sterling glimpsed Isobel standing before her father, head downcast. As if she felt his attention, she looked up at him, and a wisp of a smile appeared briefly upon her lips before she returned her gaze to her father.

Grant moved beside Sterling. “Aye, more potential bettors enhances our chances of winning—but only if you do not make your successful courtship of Miss Carington seem like a given. The irresistible lure of the wager was that she spurned you publicly.” He exhaled in disappointment. “Now look at the two of you. You are both smitten.”

Sterling stiffened at the accusation. “Nonsense.” For that was all it was, wasn’t it—utter nonsense?

Lachlan drew alongside Grant, and Killian came up shoulder to shoulder with Sterling. “Bah, he’s not smitten in the least, Grant. I believe our brother has a new strategy to encourage others to accept the wager.”

Killian leaned forward past Sterling and exchanged a concerned glance with Grant. “I hope you’ve got the right of it, Lachlan. I really do.”

Sterling started again to enter the glittering ballroom, but stopped short of the doors, thinking better of it.

He knew he could not battle the urge that pounded within him to rejoin Isobel. To take her into his arms on the dance floor…or wherever else she might consent to join him this night.

But his brothers were right. No one would take a bet he was sure to lose. He needed to separate himself from Miss Carington for a time. He couldn’t make it appear too easy to woo her.

Her huge brown eyes peered at him as he stood motionless in the doorway. His body reacted, forcing him to whirl around. He started for the staircase.

“Where are you going?” Grant called out.

Sterling maintained his course down the stairs and did not look back. “Please advise our sisters that we are leaving now.”

“But Sterling, they will not wish to go so soon,” Lachlan called back down to him.

“I don’t care in the least. Tell them.”

[_The next morning _
The Carington residence
Leicester Square

Isobel stood silently before her father’s desk, waiting for him to finish reading the morning paper. When at last he looked up, he bade her to sit down in the chair nearest his.

He removed his spectacles from his nose, and laid them atop the newspaper, before thinking better of it and sliding them to the side. “Well, Isobel, what have you to say for yourself?”

Isobel didn’t know quite what he wanted to hear. The
on dit
column detailed so many events from the night before, she wondered how they managed to have it printed so soon. Her right eye started to wink of its own accord, as it always did when her father was about to chastise her for something she had done or
might
have done. “I am sorry, Father, but I am at a loss.”

He tapped on the newspaper. “Have you read this?”

Isobel nodded. “Only partly. I did not finish because I saw no need—because it is not true.”

“Which part? That you entwined your fingers with the Scotsman after the dance had well concluded? No, no, it cannot be that, because I saw you with my own eyes.” He thrummed his fingers on his lips. “Mayhap it was the paragraph that mentioned how the daughter of Minister Carington ventured alone into the garden with Lord Blackburn.”

“That bit is only partly true.” Isobel cupped her hands on her knees and leaned forward to argue. “When we entered the garden, we were not alone. There were at least a dozen ladies there as well…for a time anyway.”

“But you did remain with Lord Blackburn, alone, even after the others departed, did you not?”

Lud, he was arguing the merits of the column as though he were in the House of Commons!

“I did remain with him after they left”—Isobel shot to her feet—“but only because they closed the French windows and locked us out of Partridge House!”

He stared down his nose at her, until she quieted and reseated herself. “And why would ladies of Society lock you in the garden with Lord Blackburn, hmm?”

Isobel felt her eyes begin to narrow. She was not to blame for this! “Because
you
forced me to attend the ball.”

“I admit, I did request you attend because I can no longer tolerate your antics in public, and if Lord Blackburn is willing to have you, I shall happily grant him your hand and pack you off to Scotland myself.”

Isobel gasped at that.

“Oh, do not pretend to be stunned at the thought.”

“I do not pretend to be surprised that you
had
the thought, Father.” She rose from her chair and made to leave the room. “I am only distressed that you said such a cold thing to your own daughter. When Mother and Clive were alive—”

“Sit down, Isobel.”

“I will not!” She folded her arms over her chest. “You practically ordered me to seduce Lord Blackburn, against my wishes, and then you admonish
me
when others join in your quest to see me married to him. I tell you, Father, I danced with Lord Blackburn because it would have been most rude of me not to accept his invitation. I left to take air with him because the ballroom was sweltering from the heat of so many gazes upon us. But
I
did nothing wrong.”

“Evidently you did.” He flicked the newspaper from its folds and began to read aloud. ‘“What had seemed to guests at the Partridge ball to be the budding of a true romance between the Scottish marquess and Miss C. ended abruptly with His Lordship turning his back on the commoner.’” He folded the paper neatly and returned it to his desk.

Isobel shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly. “Did he? I do not recall seeing him after Christiana freed us from the garden.” But she did remember. A pang of hurt had pricked at her when, after looking at her across the ballroom with such passion in his eyes, he turned away and departed only minutes later.

“Well, the column claims he did.” He picked up the newspaper and tossed it to her, sending it skittering across his desk to the carpet.

She did not move from the sunburst medallion where she stood on the carpet. If she bent, she worried that in her state of anger and humiliation, a tear might form and slip from her lashes unbidden.

“So, Isobel, what did you do to douse his interest in you? Certainly you did something. A mannered gentleman does not focus his attention so wholly on a young woman and then leave without so much as a good evening.”

“He is not a mannered gentleman,” she sniped. “He is a Scotsman.”

“And one day that Scotsman will become a duke. So I urge you to dissect your actions last night and identify where you erred.”

“I am telling you the truth, Father, when I say to you that I did not err.”

He flicked his fingers toward the passage, dismissing her. “I will make some inquiries and determine when the next opportunity will be to right your wrong with Lord Blackburn. Now, go on. Away with you.”

Isobel spun around and stalked into the passage.

“Might you be wanting some tea, Miss Isobel?” the maid-of-all work, Bluebell, asked. “If you don’t mind my saying, you look a bit pale in the face. I could fetch you some if you like.”

“No, Bluebell, but I do thank you for offering the tea.” Isobel slowly started up the staircase for her chamber. The maid followed her.

“Maybe I can help you figure where you got it wrong, with His Lordship, I mean,” Bluebell told her. “After all, how could a miss like yourself
know
?”

Isobel had just reached the landing above. She grasped the rail and turned. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t mean nothing, really, only that you haven’t had any suitors, none that truly count anyway. So how could your father expect you to know what you got wrong?”

Isobel stepped down a tread and grabbed Bluebell’s arm and marched the maid up the stairs and into her bedchamber. “You listened to my conversation with my father?” Isobel crossed the room to her dressing table.

“I didn’t mean to. I was replacing a taper in the passage and I sort of…overheard.” Bluebell rushed toward Isobel. “But I can help you with His Lordship. I have…
experience
.” She bounced her eyebrows up and down. “You know what I mean.”

“Oh, good Lord!” Isobel did know what the maid meant.

“Miss Isobel, I don’t expect nothing in return.” Bluebell looked sheepishly up at her. “Except maybe a little whisper if you would marry him…if he asked you.”

Isobel raised her brow. “Why would that information be of any possible interest to you, Bluebell?”

“Well, because I have a few shillings put away, and since the wager is open to everyone now—”

“What?” Isobel grasped the maid’s upper arms. “What do you mean by the wager being ‘open to everyone’ now?”

Bluebell scrunched up her nose. “You didn’t hear? Why, it has been the talk of the houses and the streets since last night.”

“Bluebell,
please
, tell me what you mean!” Isobel felt like shaking her.

“White’s opened the betting book to the whole of London. Anyone can place a bet. You don’t got to be a member of the gentlemen’s club either, but it’s only for one wager and you can’t go inside the club. You have to place your bet with White’s master of the house at the corner of Piccadilly and St. James’s at noon and six in the eve.”

Isobel’s head began to spin. She released her hold on Bluebell and then walked to her bed and plopped down upon it. “And that one wager is—”

“The only one anybody who is something in this world cares about. Whether you and Lord Blackburn will marry by the end of the Season.”

Isobel clapped a hand over her eyes and dropped back against the coverlet. “Well, certainly. What other wager would it possibly be?”

Purposeless activity may be a phase of death.

Pearl Buck

Only minutes after Isobel and Christiana stepped down from the hackney cab, the low, dark clouds, which had threatened rain all morning, finally burst, sending sweeping curtains of gray down upon Piccadilly Street.

Huddling together beneath a wide umbrella, Isobel hooked her arm in Christiana’s and hastened her down the pavers toward the corner where Piccadilly met St. James’s Street. Rain splashed up from the puddles collecting in the gaps between the pavers, but Isobel was not about to slow her pace. It was nearly noon.

“We have passed three shops I would have dearly liked to have entered—at least until the rain stops,” Christiana complained, glancing back over her shoulder at Fortnum and Mason growing more distant as they headed toward St. James’s Street. “Your invitation was for shopping and tea—not skipping through muddy puddles!”

Isobel slowed and tilted the brim of their dripping umbrella back just far enough that she could see the crowd collecting on the corner before them.

“Do you think there has been an accident of some sort, Issy?” Christiana asked, cupping her hand to her brow to see through the rain.