The Gamble Read online

  We looked at each other. We all knew that Frank wanted to marry me, and we all knew that they did not want him to.

  “You should marry your cousin,” Lady Stanton said. Her fresh-colored countrywoman’s face was set sternly. “It would not take very much to bring him up to scratch, Georgiana. We all could see that clearly when he visited Weldon Hall last Christmas.”

  “I think my cousin is repulsive,” I said firmly. “He kissed me last Christmas, and I almost got sick to my stomach.”

  Lady Stanton frowned and put down her teacup with a small click. “He should not have done that.”

  “Well, he did. And it was disgusting.” I took another bite of bread and butter.

  “It takes a while for a young girl to grow accustomed to a man, Georgiana,” Lady Stanton said.

  “I didn’t at all mind Frank kissing me,” I said boldly. “In fact, I rather liked it.”

  The squire groaned, got to his feet and went to look out the window. Lady Stanton gazed at me in obvious distress.

  “Don’t worry,” I said to them. “I am not going to marry Frank.”

  “It is not that we don’t like you, Georgie,” Sir Charles said, turning to look at me. “It is just that all of my own money is tied up in Allenby Park, which as you know will be going to Edward. Frank needs a wife with some money of her own if he is to make a career in the military.”

  “I know that,” I said.

  “I am afraid that your lack of a portion might affect your chances in London as well,” Lady Stanton said worriedly.

  I knew this and I had already begun to think that perhaps I could squeeze a few thousand pounds out of Lord Winterdale for a dowry.

  How quickly one becomes accustomed to a life of crime.

  “I have some of Mother’s jewelry that was left to me,” I lied. “Perhaps I could sell that.”

  The Stantons sighed. They had been good friends to me for many years, and they didn’t like this scheme at all, but they really didn’t have any alternatives to offer.

  “If for any reason at all you find that things are not going as you think they should, write to me and I will come and fetch you home immediately,” Sir Charles told me.

  I smiled at him. “Thank you,” I said, grateful for his kind offer but at the same time bitterly aware that Weldon Hall was not home to me anymore.

  * * *

  The night before I left Weldon Hall I burned all the papers relating to my father’s blackmailing scheme—including the papers incriminating Lord Winterdale. I had always known that I would never use Papa’s evidence against any of his victims. If my threat had not succeeded with Lord Winterdale, I would have burned the evidence anyway.

  I then penned short notes to each of the four victims I had not approached personally. I thought it would be sensible to keep the notes as uncomplicated and as unrevealing as possible and so I wrote:

  Dear (here I put in the appropriate name), You will be relieved to know that a certain file of papers which I discovered in my father’s desk after his death has been disposed of. Very truly yours, Georgiana Newbury.

  I regarded this note and was pleased with my own delicacy. I had written enough to reassure the victim, but if by chance the note should fall into the wrong hands, my words were enigmatic enough to keep the victim safe from exposure.

  I went to bed and tried very hard not to think about how much I was going to miss Anna.

  The following morning found me once more on my way to London, this time comfortably ensconced in the earl’s chaise and being treated like a queen at the various posting inns we graced with our business.

  I think I was even more nervous on this trip than I had been before, when I had been riding the stage and going forth to face what I had thought was an elderly Lord Winterdale. I had too many things to think about now, and not enough distractions to occupy my mind in other directions.

  For one thing, even though I had spent the last two weeks spouting lies to my friends about how amiable a man Lord Winterdale was, the fact remained that he was not amiable at all. The truth of the matter was, he was young and irritating, and most of all, he was intimidating.

  He had no cause to love me, of course. I was blackmailing him, for God’s sake. But it had been made abundantly plain to me in the short time that I had spent in Mansfield House that it was not going to be fun pretending to be Lord Winterdale’s ward.

  Then there was Lady Winterdale, who was being blackmailed to present me by Lord Winterdale. I could already tell that she would not like me, nor did I expect to like her.

  Catherine, her daughter, was probably a haughty girl who would look down her nose at a country bumpkin like me.

  It had to be done, though, I told myself resolutely as we passed through the countryside on the outskirts of London. As I had said to Sir Charles and Lady Stanton, I needed a home, and in order to find a home, I needed a husband. Blackmail was an ugly thing, and Lord Winterdale was probably going to make my stay in London as miserable as he possibly could, but I had no choice but to take advantage of the opportunity that my father’s criminal activities had offered me.

  By the time I got to Mansfield House in Grosvenor Square I was quite miserable. I tried not to show it, however, as I marched up the steps and rapped sharply on the brass knocker.

  The door was opened by the same green-velvet-clad footman who had opened it upon my previous visit. His response to me this time was somewhat different, however.

  “Miss Newbury,” he said, “we have been expecting you.” The door was opened wider. “Come in.”

  And so, for the second time in my life, I entered the grand green marble entrance hall of Mansfield House. “Lord Winterdale is not here at the moment, nor is Lady Winterdale,” the footman informed me. “I believe Lady Catherine is at home, however. Allow me to send for her.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  This time I was escorted into the room to the left of the hall, a drawing room not an anteroom. A sign, I thought, of my elevated status in the house.

  The drawing room was decorated in shades of pink and claret and had three large, crimson-draped windows that looked out upon the street. A collection of delicate, pink-upholstered chairs circled the marble fireplace, and a crystal chandelier hung from what looked like an Angelica Kauffmann–painted ceiling. A rosewood cabinet with brass mounts, a secretaire-bookcase, and a rose-colored sofa and a pair of armchairs were the other furniture in the room.

  I perched very carefully on the edge of the silk-upholstered sofa, folded my hands in my lap, and waited.

  Five minutes later a girl of about my age came into the room. Her hair, an indeterminate shade of brown, was worn in a cluster of curls around her ears, and she wore spectacles. She was very thin and the look that she gave me was not at all haughty. In fact, it was rather shy.

  “Miss Newbury?” she said in a small, timid-sounding voice.

  “Yes,” I said, standing up.

  “I am Catherine Mansfield. I believe we are to be presented together.”

  I had not expected Catherine Mansfield to look like this. I smiled and crossed the room, holding out my hand. “I am very glad to meet you,” I said. “It is so kind of your mother to do this for me.”

  Her head was down and she lifted it briefly to give me a quick, fleeting look. Behind the spectacles I saw that her eyes were a very pretty shade of blue. She took my hand in a quick yet pleasantly firm grasp. “Yes,” she said faintly. “I am sorry that Mama is not here just now. I will be happy to show you to your room.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I would like that.”

  At that moment a tall robust woman came into the room behind Catherine. “You must be Miss Newbury,” the newcomer announced in a commanding voice. “I am Mrs. Hawkins, his lordship’s housekeeper.” She looked at Catherine dismissisively. “I will take Miss Newbury to her room, Lady Catherine.”

  “Y . . . yes, of course,” Catherine said.

  I think it was the girl’s stutter as well as her air
of helplessness that spurred me to do what I did. After years of looking out for Anna, my maternal instincts are very well developed. I stepped forward, and said imperiously, “That is very kind of you, Mrs. Hawkins, and of course I am delighted to make your acquaintance. Lady Catherine has already said that she will take me to my bedroom, however.” I glanced at Catherine and smiled. “It will give us an opportunity to get to know each other a little.”

  Mrs. Hawkins looked at me in stunned silence. Obviously she had not expected his lordship’s little ward to have the nerve to question her authority. I had had the running of my father’s house for too many years, however, to allow myself to be ruled by a tyrant of a housekeeper.

  “Come along, Lady Catherine, and you can show me where I am to go,” I said more quietly, moving toward the drawing-room door. Catherine followed along behind me rather like a duckling trailing after its mother.

  Once we were outside in the huge green-marble hall, I stopped and turned to Lady Catherine with a smile. “Now I must follow you,” I said.

  “This way,” she replied, in a voice that was a trifle stronger than the one she had used in the drawing room. She led the way to the grand circular staircase that I had passed once before on my way to the library to meet the earl. The staircase was painted white, with a polished wood railing, and in the roof above the third story was a large window which allowed for natural illumination during the day.

  “This house seems to be very large for a London town house,” I commented chattily as we began to climb the wide staircase. “Most of the houses I have seen look to be much narrower.”

  “Yes, it is actually double the width of most houses. That is why my grandfather was able to fit in a ballroom on the second floor,” Lady Catherine said. We had finished climbing the first flight of stairs now and were stopped on the second landing, and she gestured to a set of wide double doors across the way. They were closed. “That is the ballroom there, and back behind the staircase there are two other drawing rooms as well as an anteroom that looks over the back garden.”

  She spoke of the house with great familiarity, I thought, and then I remembered that she had probably grown up here.

  “The bedrooms are on the third floor,” Catherine said in a toneless voice, and she turned back to the staircase again. The third floor when we reached it was far less grand than the floors below, consisting as it did of a simple passageway with doors opening off either side.

  We began to walk down the passageway. “This is my bedroom here,” Lady Catherine said, pausing outside a door about halfway down the hall. She hesitated, then bit her lip. “Do you know, I am afraid I did not ask Mrs. Hawkins what room she planned to put you in, Miss Newbury.”

  “Do you think it would it be all right if I had the room next to yours?” I asked.

  “Well . . .” She was tentative, unsure. “I suppose that would be acceptable. If Mother approves, of course.”

  “I don’t know anyone in London, you see, and it would be such a comfort to be close to a friend,” I said, and boldly pushed open the door and went into the aforementioned bedroom.

  It was a perfectly delightful room, with blue-painted walls, a white stucco fireplace, and an old blue Turkish rug on the floor. There was a door in the right wall that presumably led into a dressing room. The bed was large and hung with blue silk draperies, and a comfortable-looking print-upholstered chair was pulled up before the fireplace. Two small windows were set high in the wall, presumably to place them above the house next door. One of the problems with London town houses was that they were set so close together that it was difficult to get light in the long sides of the buildings.

  “This room is lovely,” I said.

  The rattle of keys announced the approach of the housekeeper from the end of the passageway.

  “Oh oh,” I murmured, “here comes the dragon.”

  Lady Catherine stared at me in fascination.

  Mrs. Hawkins appeared in the bedroom door and remained there, blocking our view of the passage with her height and heft.

  “This is not the room Lady Winterdale had planned to give to Miss Newbury,” she announced to Lady Catherine.

  Catherine swallowed. “Er . . . what room had my mother chosen, Mrs. Hawkins?”

  “The yellow room.”

  Catherine looked distressed, and I guessed that the yellow room was probably the least desirable bedroom in the house.

  Let me explain here that already I did not like Lady Winterdale. I had not liked her from what I had learned of her from her conversation with her nephew, and I liked her even less as I saw how pitifully she appeared to have intimidated her daughter. I also did not like this Mrs. Hawkins. I am not someone who sets a great deal of store by my own consequence, so the yellow room would not have bothered me at all, but it didn’t take a genius to see that poor Catherine needed a champion.

  “I do not at all care for yellow,” I announced. “I believe I would rather remain here.”

  The housekeeper looked at me grimly. “May I remind you that this is not your house, Miss Newbury? I believe that Lady Winterdale’s wishes must take precedence over yours.”

  “This is not Lady Winterdale’s house either, Mrs. Hawkins,” I replied sweetly. “The house belongs to Lord Winterdale, and I am certain that his lordship will not want his ward relegated to a room whose color is unattractive to her. Particularly if there is another, more desirable, room available.”

  Mrs. Hawkins and I stared at each other for a long moment. Then a faint flush stained her forehead and she looked away.

  “Very well, Miss Newbury,” she said stiffly. “I will have your portmanteau sent up to the blue bedroom.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Hawkins,” I said, smiling graciously.

  I always believe in being a good winner.

  CHAPTER

  four

  AFTER MRS. HAWKINS HAD MADE HER DEPARTURE, I looked away from the door to find Catherine staring at me with a mixture of wonder and fear.

  “That . . . that was very brave of you, Miss Newbury,” she said.

  “It was very ill-mannered of me, I’m afraid,” I replied ruefully. “I am a guest in the house and I really should not have overruled your mother’s choice of a bedroom for me. It is just that Mrs. Hawkins’s attitude rather put my back up. I do not deal well with people who condescend to me.”

  Catherine sighed profoundly and pushed her spectacles back up on her nose. “She frightens me to death,” she confessed. “But I am very glad you stood up to her, Miss Newbury.”

  I said impulsively, “I would like it exceedingly if you would call me Georgie. I do so hope that we are going to be friends. After all, we will be spending a great deal of time together this Season, will we not?”

  Lady Catherine replied, “I would like to be your friend, Georgie, and of course you must call me Catherine. But I fear that I won’t be much of a companion for you. I would so much prefer not to be making this come out, you see, that I’m afraid I don’t have much enthusiasm for it.”

  “But why don’t you want to come out?” I asked in profound surprise. Most girls would give their eyeteeth to have a London Season.

  Catherine looked extremely dejected. “Well, for one thing, Mama is determined to puff me off with all sorts of pomp and circumstance, and I know that I shall be a failure. No one will want to marry me, and Mama will be angry, and . . .” She drew in a deep, unsteady breath and added in a hurry, “and to tell the truth, I’m not at all sure that I want to get married anyway.”

  Once more I stared at Catherine with surprise. Every girl’s ambition was to get married.

  “And if I absolutely must make my come out, I don’t want to stay in this house,” Catherine finished miserably. “I’m afraid of Philip.”

  Silence fell as Catherine stared at the blue Turkish rug. I traced the carving on the mahogany bedpost with my finger and thought of Sir Charles’s warnings.

  “Is there any particular reason why you are afraid of your cousin?” I ask
ed carefully.

  “He is always so cynical,” Catherine said. “I never know if he means what he says or if he is being sarcastic.”

  “Oh.” Sarcasm I could deal with, I thought; attempted rape I could not.

  I leaned my shoulder against the bedpost and said quietly, “Catherine, why should you think your come out will be such a failure?”

  “Because I’m ugly and stupid and I wear spectacles,” came the immediately reply.

  I stared at her in dismay. “Catherine! What a terrible thing to say of yourself!”

  “It’s true,” she said stubbornly. She lifted her eyes from the rug and looked at me. “You’ll find a husband, Georgie. You have soft shiny hair and big brown eyes and a nice smile and you don’t wear spectacles.” She pushed her own spectacles back up on her nose. “I don’t think Mama will be very happy about presenting you alongside of me, but I don’t mind. It will be nice to have a friend.”

  “I will be happy to have a friend as well,” I said. And I meant it.

  * * *

  I met the Countess of Winterdale for the first time in the downstairs drawing room as we were waiting to be summoned for dinner. She was seated on the rose-colored sofa upon which I had sat earlier that afternoon, addressing herself to her nephew, who was leaning against the wall next to the alabaster fireplace. Lord Winterdale listened in silence, regarding her with an ironic expression on his face.

  Catherine was seated next to her mother, looking as if she were trying to become invisible.

  “Good evening,” I said as I walked into the room.

  “Ah,” said Lord Winterdale in the cool, faintly sarcastic voice that I remembered and that Catherine feared, “here is Miss Newbury now. Allow me to present my ward to you, Aunt Agatha. Miss Newbury, Lady Winterdale.”

  “My lady,” I said and went up to her and curtsied. “It is very kind of you to bring me out with Catherine, and I wish to thank you,” I continued politely.