Wagered to the Duke (BookStrand Publishing Romance) (12 page)

Nathan unfolded his arms and held up an index finger. “Let me guess. You don’t really want to marry him, so you see me as the means to escape from an unwanted marriage.”

Kate darted her eyes all around the lobby, as if she might find a better explanation hanging on the wall or even in midair, but as plausible explanations didn’t hang conveniently on public walls or from ceilings, or even grow on trees, Nathan’s conjecture would simply have to do. In fact, it would do quite nicely.

“I think I have every reason to harbor second thoughts about it,” she finally said.

“So you are betrothed to him?”

His persistent skepticism nettled her. “He told you himself, did he not? Do you doubt the gentleman’s word?”

“No, just his sanity,” Nathan retorted. “Still, I think you should go and talk to him—he’s just across the way in the parlor there—and listen to what he has to say. You may find your jitters are all for naught, and that you do want to marry him, after all.”

Kate didn’t doubt that Nathan was hoping for just that and that he saw this as a heaven-sent opportunity to be rid of her once and for all.

He leaned toward her, lowering his voice. “And you needn’t worry. I haven’t told him a thing. In fact, I didn’t even let on that I know you. You can tell him that you were traveling with a friend who suddenly eloped with another guest at the inn last night, and—well, you seem bright enough to come up with a good Banbury tale.”

“Why, thank you for the compliment. I’m pleased you found I’m not without at least one redeeming quality.” And with that she swept past him to the parlor.

She could scarcely believe this incredible stroke of luck, even if her lugubrious alter ego was the only one who would benefit. She could tell Mr. Swingle where to find Meg, and they could be reunited and live happily ever after.

For it was only right that
someone
around here should live happily ever after.

She crept into the parlor. It was nearly empty, which wasn’t so surprising since it seemed as if the rest of the world was crammed into that dining room. A young man with fine, reddish-gold hair sat near the fireplace.

“Mr. Swingle?” she inquired, her voice soft and tentative, so as not to startle him, because she did have a way of startling and sometimes even frightening people, to include herself.

Indeed, he looked at her as if he feared she might bear evil tidings, or even his by-blow. He stood up. “Yes? I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced.”

“We haven’t. I only wish to give you a very important message about your betrothed, Miss Margaret Hathaway.”

“Are you a friend of Meg’s?”

After what she’d witnessed day before yesterday, Kate thought that even with a few minutes’ acquaintance, she might well be the only friend Margaret Hathaway had. “You might say I am
the
friend of hers. My name is Katherine Baxter.”

He gave a polite nod. “How do you do, Miss Baxter?”

“I do just fine, Mr. Swingle.” Sensing another presence nearby, she stole a glance at the parlor doorway, but no one lurked there. She thought she’d glimpsed a shadow flitting from behind her, but maybe it was just a cloud sliding across the sun that streamed through the mullioned window.

“What important message do you have for me, Miss Baxter? Is Miss Hathaway all right? Never tell me she’s ill!”

“Oh, she’s perfectly fine, though she does pine for you. But I was wondering if you were aware she’s no longer residing in Leeds?”

His pale-orange brows knit together in dismay. “Where is she?”

Kate opened her reticule. “She’s in York.”

“Whatever is she doing there? Didn’t she get my letter? I wrote to her that I was on my way to Leeds to marry her!”

“And she still means to marry you, Mr. Swingle. Rest assured she’s only working as a governess until you arrive to make her your wife.”

“Working!” Mr. Swingle exclaimed, and Kate immediately rued her choice of verb.

She drew a folded piece of paper from her reticule and handed it to him. “Here is the direction in York. She’s in the employ of a Mr. Throckmorton.”

“Employ!” he burst out, as if being in someone’s employ was somehow even worse than working.

“I’m afraid she was compelled to take the position because of her brother’s gambling debts.”

“Freddy!” Mr. Swingle scowled and jerked one fist down as if pounding it on an invisible head. Freddy’s head. Kate fully empathized, feeling as if she’d just found a kindred spirit.

Clutching the piece of paper, he paced back and forth in front of the hearth. “I love Meg, but if there is one thing that would stop me from marrying her, it’s her wastrel brother. I fear he would always be coming to me for help with his
debts
!”
Mr. Swingle also said that last word as if it were a curse. “That my dear angel should be forced to work for a living because of that—that—oh, you must forgive me, Miss Baxter, but I fear I cannot think of a single word I can say in front of a lady.”

“I can well imagine, sir. But the sooner you can reach York and Mr. Throckmorton’s house, the better. In fact, you should leave now.” Before Nathan returned and learned a truth even uglier than the one Mr. Swingle had just heard.

“I would, but I’m traveling by stage and must abide by its schedule.” He raked long, bony fingers through his hair in agitation then suddenly halted his pacing and held up an index finger, as if he had a sudden epiphany. “But I could hire a mount.”

“Then hire one!” Before Nathan came back!

“I suppose I could.” He stroked his chin. “To think my beloved has been reduced to working for wages!”

“Dreadful, isn’t it? But I’m afraid she had no choice. Well, she did, but the alternative was even worse.”

He impaled her with a sharp look. “What was the alternative?”

Kate balked. If he was shocked by the very notion of his beloved working as a governess, then heaven only knew how violently he might react upon being informed of the alternative.

“Is it unspeakable, Miss Baxter?” Dread weighted his voice and creased his brow. “Would she have been—oh, I fear I cannot say the word in front of a lady, for a lady should never know such a thing, let alone experience it.”

Kate lowered her voice to a whisper. “I’m afraid her brother wagered her in a game of cards, Mr. Swingle, and lost.”

She stepped back as he clutched a hand to his chest. His eyes rolled, and not in the way Kate’s did when she’d been told something utterly absurd. No, Mr. Swingle looked as if he might faint. She’d never thought men could do that.

“Rest assured her honor remains above reproach,” she hastily added, in hopes that would prevent him from keeling over to the floor.

“How?” His voice cracked with disbelief as now he clutched the back of the armchair. “Is that how she acquired the governess position? Freddy wagered her to this Mr.—Mr.”—he glanced down at the scrap of paper she’d given him—“Throckmorton? And I’m to believe she’s now his governess?”

“Oh no, Mr. Swingle, it’s not like that at all!”

“I should say it’s not like that at all! Don’t you see, Miss Baxter?
She
may think she’s going with Mr. Throckmorton to be a governess to his children, and
you
may think she’s going with him to be a governess to his children, but
I
think she’s going with him to be something else entirely, and that there are no children and certainly no Mrs. Throckmorton.”

“’Tis true there’s no Mrs. Throckmorton, but—”

“Aha! And why do you think there’s no Mrs. Throckmorton, Miss Baxter?”

Puzzled by his failure to grasp the obvious, she said, “Well, because she passed away.”

He shook his head. “Don’t you see? No, you cannot see, for if you are a friend of my beloved Meg—”

“
The
friend,” Kate pointlessly corrected him.

“—then you cannot possibly begin to fathom what I must know for certain now! She
is
ruined! My beloved Meg is ruined!” Mr. Swingle collapsed into the armchair and leaned his elbows on his knees as he hid his face in his hands.

Kate hoped to God he wouldn’t start crying. She would almost rather he fainted. “Mr. Swingle, it’s not like that at all. Please allow me to explain. I’m the one who was supposed to go to Mr. Throckmorton’s. My mother was friends with his late wife, and when she heard he was seeking a governess for his poor motherless children, she recommended me as I’m a spinster who’s high on the shelf now and even looks like a governess by most accounts. She even mentioned that maybe Mr. Throckmorton would in time promote me from governess to wife, but I did not wish such a fate for myself. So I traded places with Meg.”

He lifted his head from his hands. Kate didn’t want to look at his face for fear she might see some moisture seeping out from somewhere, but she forced herself to look anyway. Thank heavens he wasn’t leaking anywhere!

“
You
traded places with Meg?” he asked, his voice low and—and—this was the only word Kate could think of—
ominous.
At least it wasn’t choked with sobs.

“She didn’t want to go to this other man with whom Freddy played cards. She loves you and wants to marry you, Mr. Swingle. Therefore, since I wasn’t too keen on becoming a governess or even the wife of a much older widower with a passel of children, I offered to trade places with her. Be assured her honor remains intact.”

“Then that makes you—” He sat back in the chair as a disturbing light flickered in his pale-blue eyes. “That makes you—oh, but you’re not really a lady now, are you, so I can say it. That makes you a lightskirt!”

Kate might have thought she’d heard him wrong, but why did that last word send her reeling back as if it were a palpable force? “Did you just call me a—a—”

“A lightskirt, Miss Baxter.”

Heavens. Was it only yesterday she’d wished that, just once for a change, someone would compare her to a lightskirt instead of a governess? Well, someone just had. So why didn’t it feel as refreshing as she’d thought it would?

Mr. Swingle bolted from the chair and backed away from her as if she harbored a contagious plague. “You willingly chose to go along with whoever this blackguard was who won my Meg in a card game, did you not?”

“Yes, but—”

“And that’s why you’re here now, miles from your family? You came here with that man, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

“Well, yes. But—”

“And now that you’ve learned just what he has in mind for you, you’ve decided you wish to return home? And I suppose you were hoping to use your friendship with my dear Meg to persuade me to escort you back to Leeds, and thence to your parents?”

“No, not at all!” Kate exclaimed. “Upon my word, Mr. Swingle, that is the
last
thing I want you to do!”

He ventured closer to her, apparently having forgotten she was infected with fallen-woman disease. “What else could you want with me, then? Were you scheming to put yourself into a compromising position with a respectable gentleman like myself in hopes I might make an honorable woman out of you, all to save a reputation you willfully ruined? What kind of friend are you to my dear Meg that you would do such a thing as attempt to steal her beloved?”

“Good God!” Kate burst out, not caring if she blasphemed. Besides, her sister-in-law Georgiana did it all the time. “You don’t seem to realize that I did your beloved Meg and yea, even you, a favor. If not for me, you wouldn’t even know where to find her. At the very least you could thank me, instead of condemning me for a crime I haven’t committed. I have utterly no desire to go back to my mother and stepfather, nor do I wish for you to escort me to Leeds or York, or anywhere else. Not even London, and I wish to go to London more than anywhere else, and that’s where I mean to go!”

“With that man?”

“Yes, with ‘that man.’ I’m amazed at how you make those two words sound as if he has horns and cloven hoofs. If you only met him—oh wait, yes, you have.” For it was Nathan who’d told her that Mr. Swingle was here.

His lip curled in deep contempt, and he looked very much as if he might spit on her. “Then I shall leave you in his clutches, Miss Baxter, which I don’t doubt have been all over you already.”

Kate might have slapped him for that, except he turned and stormed out of the parlor, nearly colliding with Nathan, who suddenly appeared in the doorway.

Her heart tumbled at his thunderous expression. How much had he heard?

“Well,” he said, “I daresay this explains quite a bit…
Miss Baxter
!”

* * * *

Nathan struggled to tamp down his fury at being duped. “Who are you really?”

She didn’t even flinch in the face of his wrath. “I’m Katherine Baxter. And I
am
Katherine Baxter, but I prefer to be called Kate, as no one calls me Katherine unless I’m in trouble.”

“I’m glad you told me that much. Now—
Katherine—
would you kindly start explaining.”

“Since you just said this explains quite a bit, I fail to see what’s left to explain.” She turned toward the doorway as if she considered the matter closed.

He fought the urge to grab her by the arm and yank her back till she was flush against him. “It explains quite a bit, but not everything. It doesn’t explain who or where your family is. And don’t tell me they’re in London, because they can’t be.”

She turned back to him, her normally pallid face pink with indignation. “It just so happens that is where they are. At least the family members I’d prefer to live with.”

He could barely keep from shouting. “Why didn’t you tell me who you were from the start?”

“Because you wouldn’t have taken me with you. I had to let you think I was Margaret Hathaway, and that Freddy meant to honor the debt. Which, it seems, he meant to do anyway since he did leave her at the Blue Rooster without lingering to confirm what became of her.”