Rake's Wager. Miranda Jarrett

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СКАЧАТЬ of his neckcloth were sticking out on either side of his plump neck like well-starched handles.

      But Cassia noticed, and it was hard—very hard—for her not to reach out with both hands to tuck the ends back into the collar of his coat.

      “And you say you arranged everything in this house in the very latest taste, Miss Penny?” he marveled, patting the front of his waistcoat. “You’re such a dear young girl that I cannot believe it to be possible!”

      “Thank you, Lord Russell,” Cassia said, fluttering her fan as she squeezed back against the wall to let two other gentlemen pass them on the stairs. “Perhaps I did not paint every last baseboard with my own hand, but I did choose the colors, and assemble all the paintings and other little pieces to amuse the eyes of our guests.”

      Lord Russell tapped the side of his nose with one finger, narrowing his unfocussed eyes. “That’s what a good English lass is supposed to do with her house, Miss Penny, and so I tell Lady Russell. But she’d rather have an Italian do it for her, fussing with the furnishing until a fellow can’t tell where he’s supposed to sit.”

      “Then you shall simply have to return to us, my lord.” Cassia smiled, though her mouth already ached from smiling at gentlemen because she had to. She could not believe how many men had crowded into the house, more men—old and young and in between, handsome and homely, but most of them titled and all of them wealthy—than she’d ever seen together in her entire life in Woodbury. Amariah had been right: this wasn’t like the flirtatious fun at the Havertown Assembly. It was work, hard work, and the tall clock in the hall had yet to chime ten.

      Lord Russell leaned closer, swallowing as he glanced along the front of her bodice. “You know, Miss Penny, you are a fine girl, deuced fine, and a good deal easier to talk to than my wife. I’m a generous man, Miss Penny, especially to those I favor, and when you tire of this, we could make an arrangement that would benefit—”

      “Have you found our hazard table yet, my lord?” Cassia said brightly, fighting the very real urge to forget her promise to Amariah and shove His Lordship back down the stairs the way he deserved. “It’s in the drawing room at the top of these stairs, just to your right, and we’ve also tables for cribbage and whist, if those are more your pleasure.”

      “So you like a man who’s not afraid to play deep, eh?” His Lordship leered, or at least as close to a leer as his baby-round face could manage. “You like a man who’s not afraid of courting danger at the table?”

      What Cassia liked was a man who’d play deep and lose badly and make their bank fatter for Father’s charity, which was exactly why Lord Russell had been invited tonight.

      Not, of course, that Cassia could say that to him. Instead she deftly twisted away, putting more space between them as she kept smiling over her fan. “I hear the gentlemen have already predicted it will be a lucky table, my lord.”

      “Have they now?” He leered again, smoothing his plump, pink hand down the front of his waistcoat. “Up these stairs, you say?”

      “To the right of the landing, my lord,” she said with relief. “You cannot miss it.”

      “Very well, Miss Penny,” he said with a slight bow. “I shall— What in blazes is that racket down at the door?”

      “Doubtless an overeager guest, my lord.” Cassia leaned over the railing, trying to glimpse what was happening below. “I’m sure the staff will sort it out in a moment.”

      But Lord Russell was right: it was a racket. Men were shouting at each other, while the house’s servants in livery were pushing and shoving and trying to keep order. Other gentlemen were crowding the doorways, determined to see the source of the excitement. In the very center, Cassia spotted the top of Amariah’s head, her hair bright as a copper coin tossed in the middle of so much dark male evening clothes. For a moment, Cassia thought she glimpsed an arm, gesturing wildly in her direction, and then Amariah looked up and caught her eye.

      Pratt appeared magically beside her, his face so purposefully bland that she knew things must be very bad indeed. “Excuse me, Miss Cassia, but Miss Amariah has requested you come to her directly. This way, miss, if you please.”

      Cassia nodded, closing her fan with a little click. She gave one last smile to Lord Russell, with what she hoped was sufficient regret, then hurried down the curving staircase after Pratt. The opening was supposed to be genteel, elegant, meant to make gentlemen want to join their club. It was not supposed to degenerate into a brawl.

      “What has happened, Pratt?” she whispered. “Tell me! What’s wrong?”

      “Nothing that can’t be set to rights in a moment, miss,” Pratt answered discreetly, no real answer at all. “Miss Amariah will explain.”

      He cut a path for her through the sea of gentlemen, keeping her moving through the crowd still clustered in the front hall, while newcomers at the door tried to make their way inside. “Excuse me, my lord. This way, miss, if you please, this way.”

      He opened the door to the small anteroom reserved for the porter, and held it ajar just long enough for Cassia to squeeze through. Two of the largest of the house orderly men were holding a gentleman tightly by the arms, keeping him from breaking free, his broad-shouldered back to her. His dark hair was mussed, and there was a rip in one sleeve of his jacket, testimony to the scuffle in the front hall that had brought him here now.

      “Thank you for joining us, Cassia.” Her sister stood at the end of the tiny room, another orderly man on one side and Pratt on the other. With her hands clasped over the royal-blue gown, Amariah still clung to her usual serenity, though her cheeks were flushed and the fingers of her clasped hands so tightly clenched together that the knuckles were white. “I am sorry to have disturbed you, but this gentleman here has posed quite a quandary for us, and you, it seems, are part of it.”

      “Cassia.” The man being held repeated her name with relish, almost as if he could taste the word on his tongue. He tried to twist around to see her, but the two guards jerked him back to face Amariah. “So that’s the young lady’s name? Cassia? She would be called something rare like that.”

      Cassia pressed her hand over her mouth so he wouldn’t hear her gasp. She recognized that voice, even without a face to it: he was the man from Christie’s who’d stolen The Fortune Teller away from her.

      But why was he here now at Penny House? How had he known where to find her? Or had he followed her here, intent on further humiliating her?

      “What the lady is called is of no importance to you, sir,” Pratt ordered, his eyes hooded. “You would do far better to consider your own situation, and how it will be viewed by a judge. Forced entry, trespassing, threats of violence against the people of this house—such charges will not be taken lightly by a court of law.”

      “But as they are all lies of your making, they shall not be considered at all.” The man paused, and Cassia knew he must be smiling. “Now what would those selfsame courts make of your treatment of me, I wonder? A respectable gentleman of wealth and position, treated like some sort of thieving scoundrel—but you can vouch for me, can’t you, Cassia? You can tell them what kind of man I am, can’t you?”

      She flushed at the intimacy he implied, but before she could speak, Pratt answered for her.

      “Do not reply, miss,” he said. “The rascal has no right to address you, let along to ask you to speak on his behalf.”

      “Very СКАЧАТЬ