Fortunate Wager (19 page)

A face in a loo mask pressed against a window.

‘Look out, Alex!’

And, most damning of all,
‘I, for instance, made out my will some years ago leaving my estate to Giles.’

A queer moan broke from Caroline’s throat. She felt again the sickening sensation of clinging to a rearing horse. ‘Quick, Harry. Oh, quick. I think he’s going to kill Alexander!’

This was getting them nowhere. Giles had admitted to being far deeper in debt than Alex had any idea of. He’d seen a chance to cut short negotiations for Miss Taylor’s hand and had taken it, but he still didn’t show any remorse and had as good as said he’d do the same thing again if the opportunity arose. ‘What does it matter that her father preferred you and she preferred the whelp?’ he said impatiently. ‘They would both have come around. It isn’t as if I wouldn’t have been the perfect husband and son-in-law. They would have had nothing to complain of.’

Alex could hardly contain his revulsion. ‘But to get your way you were prepared to resort to abduction and violence!’

Giles shrugged. ‘Only because they were being so cursed slow about doing the thing traditionally. You don’t understand the fix
I’m in, Alex. All you have to do is stretch out your hand to the nearest bank to be in funds. I don’t have that option, damn their sanctimonious hides. Even with the crooked betting I’m not making enough to stave off ruin. And my creditors aren’t the sort who will wait.’

‘They will have to. I am not bailing you out ever again. In truth, I should have stopped long ago.’ Alex was so eaten up with loathing of Giles – and disgust with himself that he hadn’t seen, hadn’t looked for, the change in him – that he almost missed the admission about
crooked betting
. Dear heaven, Sally Jersey had been right all along! Who would have thought it? And of course Giles had been with him on the course every time when he was looking for leads. Misdirection would have been simple. Alex felt ill at having been so easily gulled.

Giles strolled on, almost insulting in his assumption that Alex would follow. ‘But you didn’t ever stop bailing me out, did you? Face it, Alex, you need me. I’m your obverse, your other half. Lord Alexander Rothwell never puts a foot wrong because he pays the Honourable Giles d’Arblay to do it for him.’

‘That’s not true. You’re – you were – my friend. I feel … I felt….’

‘Sorry for me?’ Giles tossed the bitter words over his shoulder. ‘Twist the knife some more, why don’t you? Yes, you have always had everything, and I nothing. I used to be galled by your pity until I started using it.’

Where was he going? Did he intend making a break on foot across the fields? Out of the corner of his eye Alex saw Harry and Caroline hurrying along the path. He picked up his pace towards Giles. He felt tainted by association and didn’t want Caroline to see him until he was clean again. In the paddock, Rufus lifted his head. Solange, brushed down now and cropping peacefully, followed him.

Alex tried again. ‘There was no pity. We were friends, don’t you see? I lent you money because I had it and you didn’t. To begin with, that was enough.’

Giles hitched himself up to sit on the rail. Alex was whisked
backwards to the past without warning. How many times had they roosted like this on paddock rails when they were children? Talking the day away. Closer than brothers.
Oh, Giles
.

‘And more recently?’ murmured his boyhood friend.

Caroline was running for some reason, her hair around her face, a hand pressed to her side. The sight of her reminded Alex that things were very different now. This was no time to be seduced by nostalgia. ‘You’ve changed,’ he said to Giles. ‘That rider today – you really didn’t care that he might have died when Solange bolted, did you?’

He got a disbelieving laugh. ‘Why should I? He was a nothing. It would have been Fortune’s fault if he’d died, claiming he could train the firebrand when he obviously couldn’t.’

‘He did a damn good job, considering how wild she was when she arrived.’

‘Good God, Alex, what did they dose you with when you were here? Any half-baked trainer can produce the appearance of docility.’

‘Like the ones you employ, perhaps? Fortune deserved to win that bet and you know it. He’s worked wonders to even achieve getting Solange to the starting post without incident.’

Giles made a gesture as if he was weary of the whole discussion. ‘Oh, yes, a miracle from a greenhorn. Do you know, I just can’t see it. Are you telling me it was simply the crowd that spooked the horse? That if you went right up to her now, she wouldn’t turn a hair?’

Alex glanced at Solange, grazing peacefully. ‘I believe I probably could, yes.’

‘Go on then,’ jeered Giles. ‘If you are so confident of your new friends. Prove it to me. And then I will go quietly away and never bother any of you again. I’ll go to America. I’ve heard there are heiresses a-plenty for smart young aristocrats there.’

Alex could hear Caroline and Harry running past the stables now, but he needed to concentrate on Giles. Would he really go away? It was a mesmerizing thought. Alex would have to pay
his debts, of course, and his passage too, belike, but it would be worth it just to cut this canker out of his life. ‘You mean it?’ he said, wanting to believe him.

A small smile played over Giles’s mouth. He slid off the rail as if prepared to leave that minute. ‘Oh yes. You go and stand right in front of the mare, and I promise you’ll never hear from me again.’

‘Very well.’ Alex swung himself over the wooden barrier. He patted Rufus absently and walked over to Solange.

‘Alexander, no!’ screamed Caroline with the last of her breath. Her slippers were in shreds and her arms ached with the effort of keeping her skirts hoisted up enough to run, but she continued to pound forward, ignoring the pain in her feet. ‘It was him,’ she gasped, though what emerged was little more than a squeak. How could she have not told Alexander that she had seen Giles this afternoon raising his whip with hatred in his eyes? Those same eyes spared her a contemptuous look as she pelted up to the paddock now, but he dismissed her as finished. All his attention was on the brave, foolish, loyally-blind man walking towards Solange. He was four yards away from her, three yards away, two….

Caroline scrambled under the rail, stumbled across the field and, putting out a supreme effort, launched herself into Alexander’s side just as Giles snapped his whip up and yelled, ‘Look ou—’

‘Not this time,’ growled Harry, laying into him with a punishing right.

The world flicked out of kilter for a moment. When it came back Caroline was tumbled across Alexander where they had both fallen with the impetus of her last desperate push. Her breath was tearing her chest apart. Her lungs felt as if they were on fire.

He moved under her, more dumbfounded than winded. ‘What the devil…?’

‘He was going to kill you,’ she whispered, her throat raw.

‘Giles? Nonsense.’ But there was an edge of uncertainty to his voice.

‘Alexander, he was. He is jealous of you. He hates you. And you made that stupid, stupid will. I realized it all just now. Down there by the house. It was him who coshed you. He pulled off your greatcoat hoping the rain would soak you and finish you off. It was him at the window that night, thinking there would be no one else in the room. Don’t you see? He’s been trying to kill you all your life!’

Her body shrieked in protest as Alexander raised himself to a sitting position, pulling her up with him. She was so weak and trembling that she simply folded into his chest. He had to put his arms around her to stop her falling. ‘I knew something in Solange’s past had caused her to hate men and fear shouting,’ she went on, still taking great tearing breaths. ‘Twice when I’ve been on her she’s been anxious at the sound of Mr d’Arblay’s voice, but I didn’t make the connection. Today as we were coming towards you at the end of the race I saw him crack his whip and shout “Look out, Alex”, right before Solange lost control. He was about to do the same just now. You wouldn’t have stood a chance against her hoofs at that range. You must see it. Why would he have trained her to rear at those exact words if he meant you no harm? His face … Oh, Alexander, his face was terrible.’

Alexander’s eyes, profoundly shocked, locked on hers. ‘He gave Solange to me in payment of a debt,’ he said, uttering the words as if he barely believed them. ‘He’d been baiting me about my horsemanship so I got up on her right there and then to show him. He was quite a way behind me.’ He swallowed, still looking at her with haunted eyes. ‘Dear God. Oh, dear God, Caroline, I heard him shout just that,
“Look out, Alex!”
And then she bolted.’

Caroline’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Alexander, I’m so sorry.’ She put her arms around him and wept for his betrayed trust.

She felt him hold her, felt him draw her close to his body. ‘Don’t cry. Dearest Caroline, don’t cry.’

‘I can’t stop,’ she sobbed.

She felt him give a shaky laugh. ‘Try this then.’ And then he was kissing her and the tears were drying on her cheeks and the fear when she thought she’d lose him was receding. ‘My life,’ he murmured. ‘My salvation. Marry me, Caroline?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Oh yes.’ Then after another head-spinning embrace, ‘Unless you change your mind when you’ve had time to think about it.’

‘Never,’ he said. ‘We’ll tell your brother now. Then if I renege, he can call me out and beat me to a pulp as well as any other stray victims. Talking of which….’

They made to stand up, but – ‘My feet,’ she gasped, and collapsed again.

Alexander squatted to inspect one unbearably painful sole. ‘Sweetheart,’ he said huskily, ‘you’ve run yourself ragged for me.’

‘I had to. I couldn’t not.’

‘Put your arms around my neck, I’ll carry you.’

He swept her up. Caroline’s heart thumped. In spite of the pain in her feet she grinned shyly at him. ‘I must run myself ragged again. This is nice.’

‘Dear heart, it can be done
without
the lacerated flesh.’

He carried her across to where Harry was leaning on the rail, looking as white and nauseous as she’d felt earlier. Caroline’s new-found joy wavered. ‘What is it?’ she said. ‘Please don’t tell me you disapprove.’

But Harry didn’t even seem to have noticed them. ‘It’s d’Arblay.’ His voice cracked on the words. ‘I’ve killed him.’

Caroline’s arms tightened around Alexander’s neck. She heard his indrawn breath and looked down. Giles d’Arblay lay where he had fallen. She only now noticed that his head was at an odd angle.

‘I hit him to stop him shouting the words,’ said Harry, trembling violently. ‘He fell back against the post and I told him to get up and finish the fight like a man. I … I kicked him even. But he didn’t.’ Without warning he was suddenly and violently sick.

Alexander held Caroline close to his body. She felt his heart beating into her side. He looked down at his one-time friend, his eyes unbearably sad. ‘I saw you hit him in the road outside,’ he said slowly. ‘Everyone did. You both landed a number of punches. It was a fair fight. But after we came up here, all I saw was you and your sister running up with the news that Miss Taylor had accepted your suit. Giles and I were talking. He started backwards in shock, stumbled, and hit his head on that fence post.’

Caroline gazed into his tortured, honourable face. She didn’t know how they would make this marriage work, how they would balance his preference for town and politics with her fondness for horses and the country, but she loved him with all her heart and she saw that he loved her equally deeply. Her heart swelled. She was quite, quite sure that together they could do anything they set their minds to. ‘I saw the same,’ she said. ‘Harry shouted “Congratulate me, Rothwell”. Mr d’Arblay stumbled backwards and simply didn’t get up again. Such … such a tragic end to a happy day.’

Alexander looked down again. Tears glimmered in his eyes. ‘All that bright promise,’ he said softly. ‘All tarnished. All gone to waste. It’s better this way, Fortune, believe me. I am much in your debt. Is Rutland the local JP? We’ll get word to him straight away.’ He beckoned to Flood, waiting on the path, then turned resolutely aside. ‘Come back to the house now and find us all a drink. Not that I am saying my bride-to-be is starting to get heavy, you understand….’

That startled Harry out of his stupor. ‘Bride-to-be? Really? Why, that’s splendid! Oh but Caro, Mama will be insufferable!’

There was a horrified silence.

‘Unless we don’t tell her,’ said Alexander thoughtfully. ‘I suppose the two of you – and Miss Taylor and the alderman – wouldn’t care to make a visit to Abervale? To rid today’s events from our minds, perhaps. We have a very fine chapel there, and I am particularly well acquainted with the local bishop. I can always ask for your father’s consent by letter and send my
attorney to sort out the marriage articles.’

‘Splendid idea,’ said Harry. ‘I’ll go and tell Louisa to pack.’

Flood trod stolidly up with a length of sacking. Alexander gave him the right story for when the magistrate’s man should arrive.

‘Aye,’ said the head groom. ‘I thought that was the way of things from what I could see from the yard. You take Miss Caro back to the house and leave it to me, milord.’

As he carried her down the path, Caroline looked at her
not-very-far-in-the-future
husband. ‘I don’t think I’ve said this yet. I love you, Alexander.’

He kissed her gently. ‘And I love you.’

He laughed. It was a wonderful sound. Caroline smiled, her heart lightening to hear him. ‘What is it?’

‘I was thinking what a
fortunate
wager I made last month.’

The tragedy would come back and haunt his dreams, Caroline knew. But she would be lying by his side to soothe him to sleep, then and always. Now she looked at his joyous face, so different from the impatient, arrogant noble who strode into her life just four weeks ago, and felt profound thanks and a great burgeoning love. ‘That is a dreadful play on words. Take me home at once,’ she said severely.

He tightened his hold and kissed her. ‘Oh, yes.’