Miranda Jarrett - The Duke's Gamble

Most of all, he wanted to learn if she could amuse him in bed as much as she did each night in the parlor at Penny House. No wonder he couldn’t think beyond such an enchanting possibility.

What was she doing now, at this very moment? Was she making herself ready for him, just as he had for her? He pictured her sitting before her looking glass while her maid dressed her hair. With the delicious torment of female indecision, she’d be choosing her gown, her stockings, her hat, all with him in mind, and he couldn’t help but smile.

The chaise was waiting at the curb, its dark sapphire paint scrubbed and shining. Gold leaf picked out his crest on the door, and more gold lined each spoke of the wheels, like spinning rays from the sun. As he’d ordered, the windows were open and the leather shades rolled up and fastened, leaving the interior open to the breezes and light. He didn’t want Amariah feeling trapped, or too confined; he wanted her comfortable and relaxed against those soft leather squabs, and wholly susceptible to his charm.

He climbed into the carriage and settled back with a happy sigh as the footman latched the door after him. This wouldn’t be like the night at Penny House. This would be his domain, not hers; he wasn’t about to grant her that advantage again. With the same tuneless whistle, he picked a white flower from the little vase bolted to the wall of the carriage and tucked it into his top buttonhole. He’d never known any woman this long before he’d seduced her—that is, excluding the cooks and relations and young daughters of old friends who were by nature unseducible—and he found the novelty of their situation at once intriguing and exciting.

The chaise had barely eased into the street when a rider on horseback came up beside them, the man reaching out to knock his fist imperiously on the side of the chaise.

Guilford pulled off his hat and thrust his head through the open window, the breeze plucking at his hair. “What, Stanton, will you raise the dead?”

“The dead are pretty well raised by this hour, Guilford,” drawled Lord Henry Stanton, “else all the knocking in the world won’t raise ’em further.”

“Very well, then, you’re raising the hair on all the living.” Guilford sighed impatiently. True, he’d been friends with Stanton since school, good friends and companions in considerable mischief over the years, but seeing him here, now, took a little of the luster from Guilford’s afternoon. Even a minute stolen from the time he wished to spend with Amariah was too much. “What are you doing here now, anyway?”

Stanton ignored him, his heavy-lidded eyes making a swift survey. “A carriage instead of your usual nag, and a posy on your chest?” he observed. “The lady will be pleased you made the effort for her.”

“The lady will be better pleased if I arrive on time.” Guilford knocked on the chaise’s roof to signal the driver to begin, but Stanton only followed, matching his horse’s gait to that of the horse in the traces.

“True enough, Guilford,” he said. “Rumor has it that Miss Penny is the very devil for promptness.”

That made Guilford smile in spite of himself, imagining how indignant Amariah would be to hear her much-practiced goodness linked to the prince of all badness. “You shouldn’t call her the devil anything, considering her father.”

“No?” asked Stanton, a leading question if ever there was one.

“No,” Guilford said dryly. “Not that I ever said I was even seeing Miss Penny today.”

“You didn’t have to say a word.” Stanton winked, and tapped a sly finger to the brim of his hat. “If you didn’t want the whole town to know, then you shouldn’t make your assignations in the middle of the crush at Penny House. Westbrook told me.”

Now Guilford’s sigh came out as more of a groan. “What I choose to do and where I do it are not any of your affair, Stanton.”

“Where the luscious Miss Penny’s concerned, Guilford, I’m afraid they are.” He leered through the window. “As I recall, there’s a substantial wager between us resting on the well-rounded backside of the lady.”

“I haven’t forgotten, Stanton,” Guilford said, “and I still mean to win. I’ve planned every detail. After a drive through the park, a supper in a private room at Carlisle’s, a few bottles of the best of that cellar’s wines, I could be claiming your stake before dawn.”

“Carlisle’s, you say.” Stanton raised a skeptical brow at the mention of the fashionable tavern. “And here I’d heard your itinerary was a tour of almshouses and beggar’s haunts.”

Blast Westbrook for having such excellent ears. “Oh, the day’s only begun,” Guilford said with as nonchalant an air as he could muster. “Good deeds will only put her into a more agreeable humor.”

“Oh, indeed,” Stanton said, and grinned to show exactly how little credence he gave to Guilford’s theory. “But tell me, Guilford. Do you really believe the steps of some wretched almshouse would be the proper place to tumble her?”

“Stanton, Stanton.” Guilford clucked his tongue in mock dismay. “Am I truly that low in your estimation? Ah, to show so little regard for Miss Penny’s sensibilities!”

Stanton drew back, feigning great shock in return. “Are you defending the lady’s honor before you’ve even warmed her bed?”

“What if I am?” Guilford shrugged elaborately. “You know my ways, Stanton. I’d much rather play the gallant than the rake. Better to leave a woman sighing your name than cursing it.”

He’d always liked women, and they had liked him in return, a satisfying exchange for all parties. He was also quite sure he’d never been in love, at least not the way the poets described, but the liking had been quite fine for him.

And he did like Amariah Penny and her creamy pale skin.

“She won’t be as easy as your usual conquests,” Stanton insisted. “She’s her own woman. She owns that whole infernal Penny House. She doesn’t need you, or anything you can give her.”

“That’s only because she doesn’t yet know what I can give her.” Of course, that didn’t include ruby bracelets, but he’d conveniently forget that slight for now. “She’ll learn soon enough.”

“You’re smiling like a madman,” Stanton said glumly. “Next you’ll be telling me you’re too damned gallant to stomach the wager.”

“You only wish it were so, Stanton.” Even if he weren’t so intrigued by the stakes, he still wouldn’t back down. It was the principle of the thing, not the money. Any man who set aside a bet like this one would become the laughingstock of White’s, and his friends would never let him forget it. “If you wish to call it off, that’s one thing, but I’m not about to do it. How daft do you think I am?”

“You tell me.” Stanton sighed with unhappy resignation. “Let the wager stand, then, and the terms with it. You have a fortnight to bed Miss Penny, and to collect reasonable proof that the deed’s been done.”

“Oh, you’ll know,” Guilford said, looking down to adjust the flower in his buttonhole. “As you observed yourself, all London hears everything that happens at Penny House.”

“And I’ll be listening, my friend.” Stanton gathered the reins of his horse more tightly in his hand. “I’ll be listening for every word.”

Amariah crouched beside the bench, her hand holding tight to the girl’s sweating fingers. “Not much longer, lass, not much more.”

The girl cried out again, her face contorted with pain. She’d already been in hard labor, her waters broken, when she’d thumped on the kitchen door, and there’d been no time to take her to a midwife. Amariah had had her brought inside, here into her sister Bethany’s little office down the hall by the pantry, and while the bench might not be the most ideal place to give birth, it would be far better and more private than the street or beneath a bridge.