Tessa Dare - The Wallflower Wager

Penny knew they did. She’d been an object of pity and ridicule ever since her disastrous debut. It didn’t bother her, except—well, except for the times that it did.

As a person who wanted to like everyone, it hurt to know that not everyone liked her in return.

Society had long given up on her. Now her family, as well.

But Penny was not giving up on herself. When her aunt moved to leave, she grasped her by the arm.

“Wait. Is there nothing I can do to change your mind? If you advocated on my behalf, I know Bradford would reconsider.”

Her aunt was silent.

“Aunt Caroline, please. I beg you.”

Penny could not return to Cumberland, back to the house where she’d passed the darkest hours of her life. The house where she’d learned to bottle shame and store it in a dark place, out of view.

You know how to keep a secret, don’t you?

Her aunt pursed her lips. “Very well. To begin, you might order a new wardrobe. Fur and feathers are all well and good—but only when they are worn on purpose, and in a fashionable way.”

“I can order a new wardrobe.” It wouldn’t include fur and feather adornments, but Penny could promise it would be new.

“And once you have a new wardrobe, you must use it. The opera. A dinner party. A ball would be preferable, but we both know that’s too much to ask.”

Ouch. Penny would never live down that humiliating scene.

“Make an appearance somewhere ,” her aunt said. “Anywhere. I want to see you in the society column for once.”

“I can do that, too.” I think.

Considering how long she’d been out of circulation, invitations to dinner and the theater would be harder to come by than a few up-to-current-fashion gowns. Nevertheless, it could be accomplished.

“Lastly, and most importantly”—Aunt Caroline paused for effect—“you must do something about all these animals.”

“What do you mean, ‘do something’ about them?”

“Be rid of them. All of them.”

“All of them?” Penny reeled. Impossible. She could find homes for the kittens. That had always been her plan. But Delilah? Bixby? Angus, Marigold, Hubert, and the rest? “I can’t. I simply can’t.”

“Then you can’t.” Her aunt tugged on her gloves. “I must be going. I have letters to write.”

“Wait.”

Surely there was a way to convince her aunt that didn’t involve abandoning her pets. Perhaps she could trick her by hiding them in the attic?

“I hope you’re not thinking you can hide them in the attic,” her aunt said dryly. “I’ll know.”

Drat.

“Aunt Caroline, I’ll . . . I’ll try my best. I just need a little time.”

“According to your brother, you have a month. Perhaps less. You know as well as I, it takes the mail the better part of a week to arrive from Cumberland.”

“That leaves only three weeks. But that’s nothing.”

“It’s what you have.”

Penny immediately began to pray, very hard, for rain. Come to think of it, considering the amount of rain England typically saw in springtime, she probably ought to pray for something more. Torrential, bridge-flooding, road-rutting downpours. A biblical deluge. A plague of frogs.

“If, by your brother’s arrival, I am convinced there’s something keeping you in London other than an abundance of animal hair . . . ? Then, and only then, I might be persuaded to intervene.”

“Very well,” Penny said. “You have a bargain.”

“A bargain? This isn’t a bargain, my girl. I’ve made you no guarantees, and I’m not convinced you’re up to the challenge at all. If anything, we have a wager—and you’re facing very long odds.”

Long odds, indeed. After her aunt had gone, Penny closed the door and slumped against it.

Three weeks.

Three weeks to save the creatures depending on her.

Three weeks to save herself.

Penny had no idea how she would accomplish it, but this was a wager she had to win.

After that miserable encounter with her aunt, Penny could not have dreamed her day could grow any worse. But here worse came, in the form of Mr. Gabriel Duke, walking across the green directly toward her, right in the middle of Marigold’s daily constitutional.

The Duke of Ruin, they said. Penny didn’t know if the man lived up to his scandal-sheet moniker, but he was certainly the Duke of Ruining Her Afternoon.

“Lady Penelope.” He inclined his head in the grudging suggestion of a bow.

Penny needed a few moments before she could look him in the eye. She took in his appearance from the ground up. His fine attire said “gentleman.” The remainder of his appearance subtracted “gentle” and simply said “man.” Though he must have shaved between last night and this afternoon, stubbly whiskers ranged up his throat and over his sharply cut jaw.

“Well?”

Drat. He must have asked her a question, and she’d been wandering so deep in the dark forest of his whiskers, she hadn’t heard it.

She resolved to ignore his effect on her. Her resolution lasted approximately nine seconds.

When he spoke again, his voice was deliciously deep and intimate. “We need to have a chat.”

She cringed. She’d been afraid he would say that. ”Can’t we agree to forget last night ever happened?”

“I’m afraid it was rather unforgettable.”

With that, she could not argue. “I’m sorry about the parrot. And the trespassing. And the breaking and entering.”

“I’m not here to talk about the parrot. Right now, my concern is the goat.”

“Why would you care about Marigold?”

“Let me begin with this: I’m different from most men of your acquaintance.”

She nearly laughed aloud. What an understatement.

Penny wasn’t unused to men, but there was a difference between friendly acquaintance and a close-range confrontation with sheer masculine physicality. It felt like someone had taken a mallet to a gong of femininity hidden deep in her belly, and now the vibrations traveled through her bones, summoning an ancient, primal force.

Penny could think of only one name for it: lust.

It made no sense. She’d always been a romantic. She cheered on her friends’ unlikely matches. She believed in destiny, soul mates, love at first sight.

Penny didn’t want any of those things from Gabriel Duke. She wanted to tear off his clothes and look at him—all of him—the way she had last night. It had been too dark in the room, and she hadn’t found the courage to stare. When would she see a man so very big, wearing so very little, again?

Never, that was when.

The thought made her irritable and sulky.

Good Lord, Penny. He’s a person. Not merely a collection of muscles with an intriguing distribution of hair.

“Unlike most gentlemen, I did not inherit a fortune,” he continued. “I built one. I did that by acquiring things that are undervalued, and then selling them for more than I paid. Hence, a profit. Do you follow me?”

“If you’re asking whether I comprehend basic mathematics, then yes. I follow you.”

“Good.” He looked in the direction of the house that so inconveniently abutted hers. “When the Wendlebys could not pay their debts, I acquired their property. Now I mean to sell it at a profit.”

“And therefore you’ve undertaken several months of improvements.”

“The improvements to the house will add to its value, but the property’s main selling point is right here.”

“You mean the square?”

“I mean you.”

His words took her by surprise. “Me?”

“Yes, you. Do you have any idea how much a social-climbing family would pay to take up residence next door to a lady?”