Page 10 of A Gentleman's Wager
“It’s been years.”
“Lucerne! God’s blood, man.” His mouth puckered with dismay. “What happened to coming to the country to escape the drama and madness? Wasn’t the plan to recreate yourself as a staid and respectable stalwart of the peerage instead of a licentious gadabout? There’s no hope of such a thing if he’s to—”
“You’ve not seen him in forever.” Nor for that matter had Lucerne. Their last meeting had been… Well, it had… That is to say, certain things had happened that he didn’t like to dedicate too much thought to. Consequently, he’d taken his leave abruptly. “It’s pointless addressing me with your arguments. He’s arriving this evening. I pray you’ll endeavour to get along.”
Wakefield’s scowl suggested hell more likely to freeze over. “I pray his carriage hurtles into a ravine and spares me the trauma of his company.” He sighed a bone deep sigh that seemed to hail from his boots. “However, in the unfortunate event of my prayers going unanswered, and as you ask it even though you decry me as a scoundrel, I will be utterly, appallingly civil, and will not try to break his hideously perfect nose.”
“And I thank you for that generosity of spirit.”
“You can pay for it in hospitality and French brandy.” Wakefield kicked his mount into action, and they crossed the next stretch of ground at a canter, eventually returning to a trot as the gates of Lauwine came into sight.
“You know, I shall never understand why you hate one another so,” Lucerne remarked.
Wakefield pulled back his shoulders. “I shall never understand what you find so devilish enthralling about the turd. Oh, don’t fret yourself, Lucerne. You need not worry over my conduct as pertaining to your guests or Miss Stanley. You have just introduced the biggest rake in England into the midst of this unsuspecting idyll. I should focus your concern on that.”
“What has he e’er done that’s so bad?” Lucerne asked, unable to hold back a chuckle.
“What hasn’t he done?” Wakefield retorted. “I’ll be civil, Lucerne, but don’t ask me for more than that. I’d rather slice open my own belly with a bent butter knife. He’s a wretch.”
A wretch he might be, but he was also Lucerne’s oldest friend, and he’d be lying if he didn’t admit to being excited to see him.
-5-
Bella
Bella watched the gentlemen ride to where the lane curved out of sight behind the hedgerow, before looping her arm with Louisa’s and dragging her into the empty parlour. She shooed out the maid tending the fire and closed the door firmly behind her.
“It seems you left much out of the recounting of your journey,” she said, bringing an immediate scarlet wash to her friend’s cheeks. “The little dog and the reverend’s toe drove the handsome army captain clean from your thoughts I suppose.”
“Bella, it’s not what you think.” Louisa hopped out of the seat she’d taken and began pacing back and forth across the rug worrying her hands as she walked. Such agitation was not born of nothing.
Bella couldn’t help the twitch of her lips at the dramatics. “One could be peeved at being kept in the dark. There’s clearly something between you and Captain Wakefield. I shouldn’t wonder if Joshua isn’t writing to your aunt this very second—”
Louisa’s pacing stopped and her eyes widened. “You don’t really think he will do that?”
She looked so stricken that Bella couldn’t help but laugh. “Lud, Louisa, unless you took to fornicating under his nose, I can’t imagine my brother would ever notice your doings—he barely notices mine—let alone take it upon himself to tattle to your aunt. He doesn’t much care for her, you’ll recall. He’s never forgiven her the insult of suggesting he wasn’t up to the task of caring for me after our parents died.”
Louisa sank onto the pouffe by the fire and absently picked up the poker. The maid had not quite finished her job, so the blaze was rather feeble. “I don’t know that I even knew that. In any case, he has proved her wrong many times over. I should certainly prefer his guardianship to my aunt’s.” She stabbed at the coals, until Bella took the poker from her before she ruined one of her spotless white frocks.
“I expect her vitriol was targeted at Tristan’s guardianship of you, as much as Joshua’s of me. She wanted control of your fortune.”
“Well in essence she now has it,” Louisa said. “Though there’s precious little gain to be had from it. It’s all held in trust and overseen by Mr Pryce here in Yorkshire until I’m twenty-five or I marry.”
“Did you tell Captain Wakefield that?”
“Bella. Why would I even address such a thing?”
“Oh, I don’t know, it may just have come up in passing. You know how these things are. You let it be known you’re an heiress, and he latches onto that fact, then before you know it, you’re making doe-eyes at one another and pledging eternal love.”
“You read far too many novels, Bella. That’s not how it is at all.”
“Hmm. Then, I suppose my eyes must deceive me, and there is no pull between the two of you, and I shall ask, and you shall tell me that you most definitely have never kissed or granted any other sort of impropriety to the handsome Captain with whom you spent the afternoon.”
Louisa nervously twisted her finger into one of her blonde ringlets, while avoiding Bella’s eyes. “You did worse. You watched Viscount Marlinscar—”
“Keep your voice down, Joshua may hear. I merely fell from a tree and skinned my knee. I suppose I might have my knuckles rapped for it, but I shall hardly be barred from polite society. You, on the other hand…” She was not going to allow Louisa to wriggle out of this. “Has he kissed you? You’d better be honest with me, Louisa Stanley. I’m most put out already that you didn’t tell me of him when I specifically told you about Lord Marlinscar, and the fact that he was bringing along a friend today.”
“Once,” her friend blurted. She blushed furiously, then tried to disguise her embarrassment by reaching for the poker again. Bella moved it well out of reach behind the coal bucket. That was the downfall of skin as fair as Louisa’s, there was never any disguising your embarrassment. “It was outside the coaching inn, the night before last.” Louisa’s eyes briefly closed, as she touched her mouth as if she could still feel the kiss upon her lips. “But I swear that’s all, and it was really very chaste. We stood apart, not pressed together or anything.”
