Rake's Wager. Miranda Jarrett

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      But that was how she’d decorated all of Penny House, from the private card rooms to the bedchambers the sisters kept for themselves on the top floor. Everything was a curious jumble, from the fresh, bright paint and well-used furniture, to the latest political cartoons pinned beside an ancient carving from the East Indies. Yet somehow Cassia had put it all together to make the rooms seem more exotic and fashionable than what the most expensive London architects were creating for their wealthiest clients.

      The Fortune Teller was going to have been one of her few indulgences, a costly painting for her and one to be given a special place of honor. Cassia glanced up to the empty spot over the fireplace where the picture would have gone, and muttered furiously to herself.

      “So why didn’t you buy the painting, Cassia, if you wanted it so badly?” Amariah was watching her, arms folded over the front of her apron. “You had money from the old paintings you’d sold last week, and this morning you seemed to feel sure it could be had cheaply.”

      Cassia gave a dismissive sweep of her hand. “It should have come cheaply, yes. But there was a dreadful, selfish, rude man at Christie’s who stole it away from me, as boldly as any thieving pirate might!”

      Amariah listened, her expression not changing. “You mean he was willing to bid higher than you?”

      “I mean he drove the bidding so high that I could not compete with him.” Cassia stalked back and forth before the fireplace, unable to keep still. “Before the auction, he saw that I wanted the picture, and then from purest spite he let me bid as if I had a chance.”

      She held her hand up, palm open, over the mantelpiece. “He let me bid, Amariah, let me bid in my innocence before he finally squelched me flat as a gnat!”

      She smacked her palm down on painted wood for emphasis, showing exactly what the man had done to her hopes.

      But Amariah didn’t blink. “How high did he run the bidding?”

      Cassia let her hand slip from the mantel, not wanting her sister to realize how her fingers stung after that thoughtless, emphatic little gesture. “The reserve was five pounds, which was fair. His final bid was one hundred, which was not.”

      “So evidently he was either a very rich pirate, or a very indulgent one,” Amariah said. “I trust you offered him an invitation to our opening?”

      Cassia gasped. “I most certainly did not!”

      “Why?” Amariah pulled out one of the chairs and sat. “He is gentleman enough to be at Christie’s bidding on paintings, he is rich and he is impulsive. He sounds ideal for Penny House.”

      “But I thought we were only inviting gentlemen recommended by the membership committee!” Cassia protested. “True gentlemen, with breeding and manners, and not boorish and ill-tempered and—”

      “Was he handsome, too?”

      “Handsome?” Cassia paused, surprised that Amariah would ask such a question. The man was handsome; she couldn’t pretend she hadn’t noticed as soon as she’d bumped into him. His features were sharp and regular, his pale eyes intelligent, and he was so tall she’d had to look up to his face. His dark hair had seemed too thick and heavy to stay in place, and as they’d spoken, he’d had to toss it back impatiently from his forehead. His skin was browned by the sun, as if he were a sailor or farmer, and his hands and the breadth of his shoulders seemed to belong more to a man who worked for his living rather than a gentleman. He’d certainly stood out among the crowd at Christie’s.

      Not, of course, that any of that would matter to Cassia now.

      “He was handsome enough, in his way,” she admitted with a dismissive little shrug. “In a common way.”

      “Indeed.” Amariah sat back in her chair, watching Cassia closely. “Was he young, too?”

      “Older than we are,” Cassia said. “Thirty?”

      “Young for a gentleman.” Amariah sighed, smoothing her apron over her knee. “Thus the man was young and handsome and rich and impulsive. For all we know, he may already have one of our invitations. Yet because you imagined he’d slighted you somehow, you were every bit as ill-mannered as he was to you.”

      “I did not say that!”

      “You didn’t have to, Cassia.” Amariah pressed her palm to her forehead and sighed. “You’re saying it now, as clear as day. It’s how you’ve always been with gentlemen.”

      “Only when they behave ill toward me first!” Cassia cried. “Don’t you recall how Father said we were to stand up for ourselves with gentlemen, and never let them take advantage?”

      “There is a world of difference between taking advantage and behaving like a spoiled, petulant child,” Amariah said. “London isn’t the Havertown Assembly, and you can’t treat the gentlemen here the way you did with the ones at home. There will always be another lady who is prettier or more amusing, and London gentlemen won’t be nearly as indulgent with you if you lose your temper.”

      “I wasn’t trying to be amusing,” Cassia protested. That wasn’t what had happened with the gentleman at Christie’s, and it didn’t deserve this kind of talk from her sister. “I was trying to buy a painting.”

      “Yet I can imagine all too well what that gentleman must have thought.” Amariah reached out and took Cassia’s hand. “I know you are still our baby, Cassia, and that you’ve worked as hard as Bethany and I these last months—maybe even harder. And I know how set you can be on having your own way.”

      Cassia shook her head, even as she thought again about the dark-haired gentleman. If she hadn’t turned so—so tart with him, then maybe they’d be in this room hanging The Fortune Teller now instead of staring at that empty space. “But I didn’t—”

      “Hush, and listen to me,” Amariah said with a gentle shush. “We’ve come to London to honor Father’s memory by making Penny House a success, and his charities with it. That must always come first. Neither imagined slights, nor gentlemen who haven’t paid us as much attention as we’d wish. If you let your temper run away tonight, why, then the talk will begin about those disagreeable women at Penny House, and everything will be lost.”

      “Not the women. Me.” Cassia sighed, her agitation slipping away. “You should have been with me at Christie’s today, Amariah. It’s simple for you. You are always so calm.”

      “I hide the rest, that is all.” Her sister smiled, gently squeezing Cassia’s fingers. “You’ll have a fresh start this evening. Before you act or speak, think, then think again, and you’ll do fine.”

      “I’ll try, Amariah,” she said, and she meant it. “For all our sakes, and for Father’s, too, I’ll try.”

      A fresh start, thought Cassia. That was what they’d all needed, and why they’d come to London in the first place. Likely she would never see the dark gentleman—the thieving pirate—ever again, anyway. Likely all he’d ever be to her would be a warning, a reminder of how she must not behave.

      And she swore to push aside forever that guilty twinge of surpreme satisfaction for having gotten the last word.

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