Page 4 of A Private Wager
“That isn’t true,” he countered. “We danced at the Herringtons’. And you dance quite well.”
“I dance passably well,” she denied quickly. “My point, my lord, is that there must be a reason for your sudden insistence that we communicate in a more in-depth fashion.”
It was a valid question and one that he would have to answer with, at best, a half truth. “It is time for me to take a wife, Miss Dawes…to seriously pursue marriage with a suitable prospect. I have elected to pursue you for that purpose.”
For a moment she simply blinked at him. Then she began to laugh. She laughed and laughed until he wasn’t certain she would ever stop. Then, when she could finally speak, she said, “I’ve no interest in having a husband, Viscount Harcourt. Not you. Not any man of my acquaintance. I am afraid you will have to revise your plans.”
War had expected that response. After all, Miss Dawes’s reluctance to entertain any suitor had become almost a thing of legend. “What would it hurt, Miss Dawes, to permit a certain amount of flirtation and courtship while we are here? You needn’t make any decisions about whether or not to entertain my interest seriously until we are ready to depart.”
“Why would I do that?”
He shrugged. “Because there will be a cadre of bachelors descending upon this house party over the next few days—many of them with pockets to let. If nothing else, you can be certain that I am not after you for your fortune. If we appear to be on the verge of an understanding, it will keep the others at bay until you are ready to leave.”
Lucy stared at him, taking in his slightly worse-for-wear appearance. He was still unnaturally attractive despite clearly having indulged to excess. Surely the good Lord had never seen fit to bestow such magnificence on one creature! But it was quite obvious to her, given that he had been imbibing a bit too freely, that he had little to no appreciation for the many gifts that had been bestowed upon him. Still, there was something to be said for the points he had just made.
“If I understand this correctly, you are suggesting that we engage publicly in a fake courtship to stave off would be fortune-hunters while you try to convince me that the fake courtship should become a genuine one?” she queried.
“Quite right, “ he concurred. “But I will benefit as well. Most of the young women attending this event, Miss Dawes, are silly young girls without a brain in their head for anything more than pretty dresses and gossip. I have no desire to take such a silly creature as my wife. We will be protecting one another from unwanted…entanglements, while determining if we are suited to one another.”
It was an interesting prospect. If he weren’t so distractingly handsome, if her pulse didn’t skitter wildly beneath her skin whenever she looked at him, then she’d likely agree on the spot. But, as it was, she felt a bit uncertain. “How do I know that this is not simply a ploy to claim my fortune for yourself?”
“I’m not the wealthiest peer, Miss Dawes, but I’m far from impoverished. My title is old and distinguished. If I wanted a fortune, there are countless young women amongst the Ton whose fortunes eclipse even your own. And they have been paraded before me endlessly. Not only that, but they would be far more inclined to greet my suit more enthusiastically.”
That was all true. She was well aware of all the pertinent facts he had just stated. That he was so forthcoming was a point in his favor. “Very well, my lord, I agree to your proposal—well, your proposal of a fake courtship, at any rate. But I would be very surprised if I change my mind on whether or not I would permit a real courtship.”
“Time will tell, Miss Dawes,” he said with a grin that nearly took her breath away. “Time will tell. I’ll bid you good day for now and leave you to enjoy your book. But I will look forward to paying you particular attentions in the drawing room before dinner. How the tongues will wag!”
Lucy watched him walk away, taking in his long legs and loose-limbed stride. He moved with an unaccountable grace. He’d said she was an excellent dancer, a point she had denied. Indeed, it was true. She was a passable dancer, but he was an excellent one, and dancing with him had been easy. It had been like floating on air.And he’d smelled divine.Hushing that unhelpful and quite scandalous inner voice, Lucy picked up her novel once more. But as she stared at the pages, the words simply blurred into illegible scribbles as her mind was consumed with Lord Harrison Warfield, Viscount Harcourt.
CHAPTER THREE
By the dinner hour, War was feeling somewhat better. The last bit of grogginess had fled along with the feeling that he would cast up his accounts at the slightest provocation. After a bath, a shave, and fresh clothes, he was as good as could be expected after having inadvertently consumed absinthe—a substance he had avoided previously in his life. He had no interest in playing so recklessly with his sanity.
As War opened the door to head down for dinner, Barton ambushed him in the corridor. “I saw you talking with her in the garden,” his cousin said eagerly. “Did she turn you down flat?”
“Not exactly,” War replied cagily. He wasn’t entirely certain he trusted his cousin, at present. It was clear that Barton had known he was not in full charge of his faculties when the wager had been made, yet he’d had no qualms about enforcing it. He still had no notion of how the wager had been initiated, and that bothered him far more than he wanted to admit. Therewas something terribly underhanded in all if it, and yet, as a gentleman, War had no choice but to abide by it. Still, he would not just readily offer up information to him.
“What does that mean? Either she said no or she did not,” Barton insisted.
“Miss Dawes has agreed to allow me to keep company with her while we are here at the party. What ultimately will come from that is, as yet, unknown,” War explained as vaguely as possible. “Now, as I’m not entirely pleased with you, cousin, and want nothing more than to plant my first directly in your face, I’d suggest you leave my company and avoid me for a good long while.”
“Oh, cousin! There’s no need to be such a bad sport about it. We all wager stupidly when we are drunk,” Barton replied dismissively.
“Yes, and most of us have the decency to warn a person when they are drinking something more than just brandy! You knew what was in that decanter, and you purposely allowed me to ingest it so that I would be both more gullible and more reckless. I’m on to you, Barton. And this is not a slight I will forgive any time soon.” With that, War pushed past his cousin and made for the stairs. He had a reluctant woman to woo, after all. He’d need all the time with her he could get.
Entering the drawing room, he spotted her rather quickly. With her dark hair and her refusal to bow to convention and wear the limpid pastels that most unmarried women were forced into, she certainly made an impression. It wasn’t as if he’d never noticed her before. He had always thought her quite pretty, if not exactly beautiful in the fashionable sense. Blonde, blue eyed, and doll-like: that was what all the men seemed to want and all the women aspired to. Miss Lucy Dawes seemed to be above all that somehow, as if she saw through all the ridiculous posturing that was so much a part ofthe Ton.
There were worse fates than courting a woman who had superior intelligence and was far more than simply tolerable in appearance, he reflected. The truth was, he’d never expected more than that out of a marriage and had been prepared to settle for far less. Love had never been part of the equation for him. He wasn’t even certain it existed, in all honesty. It had always seemed to him to be something made up by poets as an excuse for bad behavior.
Bad behavior…like courting a woman on the basis of a wager.
That ugly truth kept rearing its head in his mind. He could not ignore it, nor could he ignore the continued pangs of his conscience. But if he told her, there would be no hope for them. And if he didn’t, he would be no worse than the fortune hunters she disdained.
***
Lucy watched him surreptitiously. With a glass of ratafia in one hand and her fan in the other, it was easy enough to conceal her perusal. In his dark evening clothes, with his black hair swept back from his forehead, he was even more handsome. It appeared that he had recovered from whatever excesses he’d indulged the night before that had left him so peaked earlier in the day.
Only moments later, his cousin, Mr. Barton Warfield, entered the drawing room. She’d never cared for him. They’d been introduced in the past and had crossed paths numerous times over the years. He had always struck her as being rather too charming, too insincere. Like the barkers at a fair who wished to sell you something, she thought, feeling somewhat guilty for the unkind comparison.
