Mary Balogh - The Double Wager

"He'll do," Henry decided. "I'll get him to offer for me.

A roar of unrestrained glee greeted this announcement.

"Within six weeks, Henry?" George asked.

"Of course," she answered. "What is so difficult about ensnaring a conceited town fop?"

"Town fop? Eversleigh? Oh, Lord," Giles gasped, collapsing into laughter again.

I don't have to marry him, anyway," Henry decided crossly. "The wager is only that I receive a proposal. Is it not, Douglas?"

"Oh, say," he said, "how will I know that you tell the truth if you don't marry the man to prove it?"

Both Henry and Giles stiffened. "My sister don't lie," Giles said, all laughter wiped from his face.

"It don't signify, anyway," George said practically. "She ain't going to win."

Henry clucked her tongue in impatience. "Let us get to the point," she said. "What do I win if you lose this wager, Douglas?"

He considered for a moment. "A new high-perch phaeton for a wedding present," he said.

"I Say!"- she replied, surprised. "That is splendid of you. Can you afford it, Douglas?"

He bowed stiffly. "That ain't a ladylike question, Henry."

"What must I forfeit in the unlikely event that I lose?" she asked airily.

He grinned. "Your horse will do," he said, glancing appreciatively at the gleaming black coat of the stallion she held by the reins.

"Jet?" she said uncertainly. "He was Papa's."

"Yes, but he's yours now, Henry. You won't have much use for him in London, anyway. And you would have to learn to ride him sidesaddle."

"Oh, I never would!" she exclaimed in dismay.

"Then it will be just as well to lose him to me," he said smugly.

"He will never be yours, Douglas," she declared. "But the wager is on. Come, shake hands on it. What is six weeks from today?"

They all did quick mental calculations.

"June eight," said George.

"Come. Manny will be fretting if we are late for tea," Henry said, removing her hand from Douglas' and mounting her tall horse without assistance.

"Yes, Your Grace of Eversleigh," Douglas snickered, and they all turned their horses' heads in the direction of the manor.

The Duke of Eversleigh was up quite early and riding in the park on the morning following the farewell party for Hanley. A late night was not likely to keep him in bed. He found a brisk gallop a far more effective cure for a thick head than a morning spent sleeping.

Before noon he had returned home, changed his clothes, and driven himself to Jackson's boxing saloon, where he spent an invigorating couple of hours exercising and sparring with friends. Only the very best of Jackson's clients would accept a challenge from the duke. Lord Horton was not one of that number, but the two friends did sally forth together to White's Club afterward for luncheon.

Eversleigh was back at home again by midafternoon. After changing his clothes yet again, he sauntered down to the office occupied by his secretary, James Ridley. Ridley was a youngish man, about the same age as the duke, in his early thirties. He had been at the university with his Grace when both had been youths. His father was a country gentleman who had fallen on hard times. He had struggled to be able to educate his son, as that son would have to be gainfully employed.

Ridley had been ambitious in those days. He had hoped for a career in government service, or at the very least in the Church. He had accepted temporary employment from Eversleigh, who had befriended him and insisted that he needed a competent secretary, as his title was then new to him and his duties unsure. The temporary employment was now in its thirteenth year.

Ridley sat at his desk surrounded by an ordered confusion of papers and ledgers when Eversleigh strolled in. The latter raised his quizzing glass and let his eyes roam over the desk.

"How revolting, james!-•he sighed wearily. "Do I really keep you so busy? And do I insist that you work such long hours? It is a delightful afternoon, my dear boy. You would be much better employed viewing the ladies in Hyde Park."

James Ridley looked up and smiled absently. "Do you realize how often you say that to me, your Grace?" he asked. "I would not feel that I earned my more than generous salary if I did not put in a full day's work. And you know that you already insist that I take off both Saturday and Sunday, and' force me to take a two-hour luncheon break each day."

The duke moved into the room and leaned one elbow against a bookshelf. "Do I really, James?" he asked, crossing one booted leg over the other. "And when did you manage to wrest such favorable conditions from me?"

Ridley gave a cluck of exasperation, but did not venture a reply.

"And what letters clamor for my attention today?" Eversleigh asked.

"These, your Grace," Ridley replied, indicating a neat bundle on the top corner of his desk. "And please do not forget the speech that you are scheduled to give in the Upper House next week."

"Am I really? Ah, did I know about this before, James?" asked Eversleigh languidly.

"I have reminded you twice in the last week, your Grace," Ridley replied, pained.

"Have you indeed? You must have spoken at a time when my mind was occupied with more pressing matters," his employer commented.

Ridley locked even more pained.

"The topic, James?"

"The deplorable plight of chimney boys in London, your Grace."

"Ah, yes, now I recall," said Eversleigh, still leaning indolently against the shelf. "And do you have the speech written for me, James?"

Ridley allowed his exasperation to show. "You know you never allow me to write your speeches on topics about which you feel particularly strongly, your Grace," he said.

Eversleigh raised his eyebrows above lazy eyes. "And this is one of them, James?" he asked. "Quite so. I suppose you are right. You usually are, dear boy. A quite disconcerting habit you have."

Ridley gave him a speaking glance.

"And what invitations arrived today?" Eversleigh continued.

"Invitations, your Grace?" James Ridley looked blankly at his employer. "All the invitations are in the wastebasket, where you have instructed me always to place them."

"Quite so, dear boy," the duke agreed, regarding his secretary keenly from beneath his half-closed lids. "Humor me today, James, by removing them from their resting place and reading them to me."

"Reading them, your Grace?"

Eversleigh lifted his quizzing glass unhurriedly again. "Dear me, is my speech blurred today, James?" he drawled. "I assume that all that crumpled paper in the wastebasket is my invitations. Pull them out, man, and read them to me."

Ridley, convinced that his employer must be in the midst of some kind of seizure, complied with his orders. He pulled out one crumpled card after another and smoothed them on top of the ledger on which he had been laboring when the duke had entered his room.

"The Countess of Raleigh invites you to a musical soiree on May fifth," he began, glancing doubtfully at Eversleigh.

The duke looked back, considering for a moment. "Music?" he asked suspiciously. "What music, James?"

Ridley consulted the card again. "The main artiste is the Italian opera singer Signora Ratelli," he said.

The duke picked up his quizzing glass and began to twirl it slowly by its black riband. "My dear boy, would you show some sense?" he said. "Put that back where it came from."

Ridley did so, the expression on his face and the rigid set of his spine conveying his indignant disapproval.

"Lord and Lady Manning request the pleasure of your presence at a masquerade ball to be held on May eight," Ridley read with stiff formality.

"Hmm." Eversleigh pondered awhile, the quizzing glass still turning in hypnotic circles. "I would not be able to check for pimples," he muttered quietly to himself, though his eyes still rested absently on his disapproving secretary, "and I do draw the line at spots. No, throw it away, dear boy," he said decisively.

"Your aunt, the Countess of Lambert, requests the pleasure of your company at a come-out ball for her daughter, the Honorable Althea Summers," Ridley began, but with a hasty glance at his employer, he moved to throw it in pursuit of the soiree and the masquerade.

The quizzing glass fell still at the end of its riband. "Are my ears failing me, James?" Eversleigh asked. I missed the date of that one."

Ridley pulled the card toward him again and glanced at it. "May eleven, your Grace."

Eversleigh appeared to be doing some mental calculations. "All the new little girls of the Season will be there on display, I suppose, James?" he asked faintly.

"Undoubtedly, your Grace," Ridley replied. "It is a come-out and early in the Season. If you will forgive my saying so, sir, it is not at all your sort of do." He coughed delicately.

"Ah," the duke said, nodding slowly and fixing his employee with a keen eye, "but there is family duty, you see, James. My aunt, you know. Althea, did you say?"

Ridley glanced again at the card and nodded.

"Is she the pasty one with the yellow hair? Or is she the one whose body falls in a straight line from her armpits to her thighs?"

Ridley squirmed in some discomfort. "I believe the Honorable Althea Summers is blond and rather tall and, er, slim," he said.

"Hmm, she is both of those people, then?"

Ridley did not answer.

"Accept the invitation," Eversleigh decided, pushing himself with apparent effort into an upright position again.

"Your Grace?" Ridley stammered.

"James?" The duke's eyebrows rose; his right hand was closing around the handle of his quizzing glass again.

"Yes, your Grace."

Eversleigh walked unhurriedly from the room.

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The Tallants had arrived in London, all of them with marked reluctance. Giles was the only favored being who was allowed to ride his horse during the five-hour journey from Roedean. Miss Manford, with a rare display of firmness, had insisted that Henry behave like a lady and ride in the carriage. Her voice. had become quite breathless, her hands had flapped in the air as if she were conducting A particularly rebellious orchestra, and her head had nodded until a veritable shower of hairpins had released wayward strands of mouse-colored hair, but she had won her point.

Henry, dressed in an unfashionable muslin dress of laded green, a rather wrinkled gray cloak, and a brown bonnet that looked as if the parrot had been in the habit of rising it for a perch, sat sullenly in the carriage for the first few miles until a natural ebullience of spirits restored her to cheerfulness.

In fact, it would have been difficult for anyone to remain sullen and dignified for long in that coach. Miss Manford sat demurely except when, every few minutes, she panicked and imagined that some vital possession had been left behind.

"Oh, children," she cried, slapping her gloved palms against her cheeks, "my workbox. I stood it on my bedside table and forgot to instruct the footman to bring it down. How ever will I mend Philip's stockings when he puts his heels through them?"

"Calm down, Manny," that young gentleman replied. I think I have a hole in my breeches from where the infernal thing has been rubbing against my hip for the past hour."

"Oh, bless you, dearest boy," she sighed in relief. "And Jo please watch your language in front of Sir Peter and Lady Marian."

"Damn your impudence!" said a high, cross voice.

"Oh, dear me," wailed Miss Manford. "What are we to do about Oscar?"

Philip and Penelope were rolling around in unholy glee.

Miss Manford's hand suddenly flew to her mouth and her eyes grew round with horror. "Oscar's pink blanket!" she exclaimed. "It was in the schoolroom. You know, children, that he will never fall asleep with any other cover over his cage."

"Oh, Manny darling, will you relax and enjoy the scenery?" Henry chided, laughing lightly. "Brutus has it under him on the floor. And really he is being remarkably quiet when one considers that he has not been exercised today. Brutus!" she yelled suddenly, throwing herself forward to wrestle determinedly with the happy canine who was cheerfully chewing away a large corner of the blanket.

For the next few minutes pandemonium broke loose in the narrow confines of the ponderous old carriage. Penelope pounced on the hind quarters of the dog and tried, in vain, to drag him backward. Philip threw himself astride the dog's forepart and attempted, equally in vain, to lift him off the blanket. Henry tugged at the offending article and scolded the dog. Brutus, delirious with happiness over this new game, wagged his tail vigorously, wriggled ecstatically under the combined weight of the twins, and managed to bark loudly in Henry's face while keeping a firm hold on the frayed pink blanket. Miss Manford's hands flapped ineffectually while she chanted, "Bless my soul!" to a God who would have been deafened had he been foolish enough to listen. Oscar stumped up and down the floor of his cage, shrieking "Gosh-a-gorry!" to anyone who cared to take note.