Wicked Wager
Authors: Beverley Eikli
Wicked Wager
Beverley Eikli
Wicked Wager
Beverley Eikli
A dissolute rake, a virtuous lady, a ruthless society beauty and a missing plantation owner with secretsâjust another day in Georgian Englandâ¦
1780
Wealthy Jamaican plantation owner Harry Carstairs has disappearedâand everyone wants to know where he isâ¦
Celeste Rosington knows her place in society, and while she may not be overjoyed at her upcoming wedding to her detached cousin Raphael, she nonetheless hopes the marriage will be successful. When Raphael asks her for her help to save Harry, she agrees. But her decision costs her more than she knowsâ¦
Celeste's clandestine visit to Harry's home is witnessed, and her connection to Harry misconstrued. Harry's secrets put Celeste into more danger than even Raphael understands, and throws her into the path of the ruthless, cunning, beautiful Lady Busselton and the dissolute, dangerous Lord Peregrine.
Raphael is invested in keeping Harry alive. Lady Busselton is invested in keeping him quiet. Lord Peregrine is invested in anything that staves off boredom. And Celeste is becoming increasingly invested in Lord Peregrine. After all, what resistance does an innocent young woman have against something so deliciously wicked?
Historical Romance Author Beverley Eikli took her passion for handsome rogues and worthy heroines to new heights as she plotted her tales of adventure while operating the computer equipment in the back of low flying survey aircraft during three-month contracts away from home.
Her imaginative forays into the ballrooms of Georgian and Regency high society were often a panacea to long and often turbulent survey lines over Greenland and French Guyana, Namibia and other remote locations.
Beverley's love of the gypsy lifestyle and appreciation of life's varied heroes was honed during years of working in the male-dominated safari and airborne survey industries. In contrast to her own life of adventure and independence, she writes stories of women whose struggle for happiness and fulfilment during a time in history when they were completely dependent on their closest male relative often came at great cost.
Now living with her family in Melbourne, Australia, twenty years after hitching her star to the Cessna Caravan (now a Boeing 777) of the handsome Norwegian bush pilot she met around a campfire in Botswana's beautiful Okavango Delta where she ran a safari lodge at the time, Beverley teaches creative writing, makes historical costumes and works as a Disaster Events Researcher.
My job as a disaster events researcher has unearthed many wonderful stories. And they're all true. Unravelling the facts behind more than five hundred historic shipwrecks, using the newspapers of the day to present a concise but detailed account of the bare facts led to my conceiving the initial idea for
Wicked Wager
.
Throw in a background of deceit and high stakes with characters who might have rubbed shoulders with those from
Dangerous Liaisons
, together with a good dose of imagination, and you have Wicked Wager.
I'd also like to acknowledge the good humour and unwavering support of my husband.
To Eivind
Contents
Bestselling Titles by Escape Publishingâ¦
Lord Peregrine liked a wager. The cards, the horses, occasionally a pair of spiders, could whip up his blood and tip him out of the lethargy and
ennui
which characterised his usual state of being.
This
wager, though, was different. He could feel it in the sudden stillness into which he'd been plunged; the colour, vibrancy and chatter that had washed about him from the moment he and Xenia had stepped into their box at the theatre, sucked into the void.
Xenia's seductive purr as she put her head close to his was as sweet as a feather skimming his heated, naked flesh.
And as dangerous as a black widow's bite.
âCome, Perry, it's not like you to have scruples.'
He blinked to clear his mind and as his gaze raked the breathtaking contours of London's most beautiful widowâand probably its most immoralâhe wasn't sure if the thrumming of blood to his extremities was due to outrage or titillation.
Slowly he exhaled, acknowledging almost sadly that it was the latter, which would of course confirm society's opinion of him as a bored and dissolute libertine who'd done nothing but wallow in his father's wealth, living a life of scandal. A man totally without redemption. Indeed, he would deserve every uncomplimentary epithet hurled at him if he accepted darling Xenia's outrageous wager.
He surprised himself with his hesitation. A sudden flowering of moral fibre? Or fear? Clearly Xenia was surprised by his lack of enthusiasm, for she glanced at him askance, before her lips curved into that devastating smile that never failed to render him no better than her unruly, slavering hounds of whom she was so fond, who rutted with anything that crossed their paths.
And there was the rub. Yes, he was immoral, he was dissolute, but at thirty-three he couldn't believe he was totally beyond redemption.
Lord Peregrine sighed, abandoning the daydream he was better than he wasâfor that's all it wasâand met Xenia's ice blue gaze while he schooled his features to betray no emotion. A lifetime's practice under the brutal tutelage of his uncle had made this easy. He could appear unmoved when it was true to say that he still was capable of
some
feeling. Whether that was a good thing or not was a matter he'd not yet decided.
And then he took another sip of his champagne. Around him the theatre once again pulsed with the energy he'd been conscious of before Xenia's carefully calculated whisper.
Oh, she was good. She knew exactly how to stir his blood.
Xenia gave a soft, throaty laugh. âShe's over there, if you want to look.'
He followed the direction indicated by her elegant finger, towards the stalls where two society beauties, with painted faces and elaborate pomaded coiffures two-feet high, were making eyes at the gentlemen over the top of ivory pointed fans.
âNo, not there!'
Peregrine smiled. He enjoyed teasing her. Xenia was quick to irritation. Quick to anger, and quick to passion, too.
The high-pitched inducements of the girls selling oranges in the pits almost drowned out the wavering top notes that concluded the opera singer's aria; and as Peregrine searched for the object under discussion, his thoughts revolved around the usual litany of: âDiversion, diversion; anything for diversion'.
No, certainly these were not the thoughts of a gentleman; more like a wolf wearing the trappings of one.
âShe's a beauty, isn't she?'
He was aware Xenia was watching him carefully, but again Peregrine schooled his features into a mask of indifference, even before he'd assimilated the scene before him.
And then the blurred images coalesced into one and as he regarded the handsome couple seated across the gallery, something in the graceful movements of the young woman stirred his senses, triggering an emotion not dissimilar to the energy that surged through him as he followed the hunt, charging with the rest of them after the wily fox.
By God, it was good to feel
something
that wasn't boredom.
Xenia, or rather Lady Busselton, as she'd become, lowered her opera glasses, her arched eyebrows and pursed lips showing how much she was enjoying Peregrine's reaction to her suggestion.
Her
wicked
wager.
He hooked one elegantly shod foot over his black satin pantaloons, regarding her over steepled fingers as he considered his response. The heat and smell from hundreds of bodies pressed close to enjoy tonight's production was making his head pound.
Or was it excitement? Revenge wasn't usually a game he played. Well, not with a woman as the spoils.
âYou, of all people, Perry, know that the incomparable Miss Celeste Rosington is as far removed as is possible from the celestial virgin she is painted.'
Xenia raised her shoulder slightly in the direction of the couple across from them who, heads bent together, hands almost touching, represented the epitome of lovebirds on the eve of their nuptials.
âYour poor sister knows it, to her eternal cost.' She gave a husky laugh; the same laugh that for ten years had never failed to make Peregrine harden with instant desire. âCome, my dearest Perry, it's not like you to allow your scruples to get in the way. After all,
she
has none.'
She was prodding, and would continue, until she got her reaction. Xenia, the tearaway cosseted only daughter of a ruthless and successful sea captain who had gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure she got her heart's desire, including two husbands with fortune and title, had changed little since Perry had become acquainted with her in her first season out. Back then she'd put financial and social considerations above their mutual attraction, accepting an earl that trumped a lowly viscount. He suspectedâhopedâshe'd rued the day.
âScruples? I hope I have
some
at least, Xenia. And no, it's not scruples that give me pause. It's whether I have the stomach to further an acquaintance with a jezebel like Miss Rosington, even if I have every reason to see her revealed for what she is.' There. He'd just proved himself a gentleman before any unflattering epithet could be added. âFor a start, what do you suppose my sister would say if she heard I was sniffing after the woman who ⦠well, destroyed her life, to use Charlotte's own words?'
Xenia pursed her mouth and raised one thin, charcoaled eyebrow. Though no longer in her first flush of youth, she continued to exude the most potent sexual allure of any woman Peregrine had met. With or without powder and rouge she was still a beauty, with the delicate bone structure of her long-dead mother, an impoverished aristocrat who'd married the coarse, bluff ship's captain after he'd amassed a fortune with his growing fleet plying a lucrative trade with the Far East in spices, slaves and silks.
Not that her heritage was something Xenia discussed. Though she eschewed her links with trade, she was quick to utilise the benefits of a seemingly endless supply of funds, even when husbands were not so forthcoming; and to prod the captain's more ruthless streak when it might be of any benefit.
She continued to fix Peregrine with her calculating blue stare. âYour sister is no fool. Why, Charlotte would understand perfectly well that the only reason you could possibly show an interest in Miss Rosington was because you were avenging her; doing what any loyal brother would for his unjustly treated dear sister.'
For some reason Xenia's little wager seemed to have fired her blood. She patted Perry's shoulder, her expression a mask of false sympathy. âPoor Charlotte has been made to look a fool. Surely
you
, Perry, wish to know why Miss Rosington was discovered, half undressed, by your sister in Mr Carstairs' saloon before the two of them rushed guiltily into the night? Surely
you
, Perry, know that the only way you're going to help Charlotte is to get close to that designing Miss Rosington,' she jabbed a finger at the unaware couple, âwho's looking moon-eyes at her betrothedâand find out for yourself.
Why
did she do it? Boredom? A wager? The fact is, your sister is heartbroken, her reputation tarnished ⦠while Miss Celeste remains society's darling, soon to wed her cousin in the match of the season.'