Wagered to the Duke (BookStrand Publishing Romance) (31 page)

But if there was no chance she would be with child because of his startling precaution—and if there was otherwise no chance she would ever marry anyway, because of her age and lack of dowry—and since he was still a duke who could marry any lady he wished—why in the name of all that was holy would he
want
to marry
her
?

The fact that he hadn’t joined her in the Ellington carriage this morning only confirmed her worst fear. If only he’d joined her, she would have apologized for behaving like such a ninnyhammer last night. She would’ve told him that she didn’t want a proposal of marriage while she was still naked and sore between her legs, and—she discovered this only after she returned to her own bedchamber—bleeding, not as copiously as her monthly, but enough for her to notice. She didn’t want him to feel obligated, and not just because of his grand and splendid ducal plans to choose a more suitable bride at a London ball.

But because she loved him and couldn’t marry him unless he felt the same.

Instead he’d insisted on riding a mount and staying well out of her sight, as if he wanted nothing more to do with her.

She craned her neck to peer out the tiny back window, as if she hoped to see him galloping up behind them. She’d left him abruptly, and now she regretted it, recalling the devastation in his eyes. She’d been in so much pain from what occurred, and was in so much shock from having encountered her mother by happenstance, that she hadn’t thought to give him one last chance to say something—
anything.
She’d thanked him for everything—and by that she included the magic of last night—but she’d been too flustered to give him the opportunity to respond.

Instead she’d fled to the safety of her mother’s carriage and now rightly despised herself for doing so.

Running to her
mother.
She upbraided herself.
Oh, Kate. Did you really come this far and risk so much, only to return in abject penitence to your mother’s shackles?
That her mother had finally left Bellingham didn’t change a great deal, only the venue. After this adventure, she’d never let Kate out of her sight again. If she planned to live apart from her husband, then she would need a companion.

If Kate hadn’t been sitting, she was certain her heart would have plummeted all the way down to her feet.

“What are you looking at?” her mother queried. “Are we being followed?”

Kate turned around and faced forward again. “No, Mother.”

“So the new Duke of Loring was a guest at Ellington Hall when you were there? He’s also on his way to London, you know. The day after you left, I received a letter from Anthony in which he mentioned the duke was on his way down from Scotland, and that his aunt is planning a huge ball in his honor, in which he will ostensibly select his duchess. All the eligible young ladies in London will be invited.” She let out a little sigh. “I suppose he didn’t pay you the slightest notice. I thought of stopping there yesterday and appealing to Lord and Lady Ellington for their hospitality, since they’d told us last year that we’d always be welcome, but when I arrived in the village, I heard they were having a huge ball for everyone in the district. I thought it better not to impose, so I stayed at the local inn.”

“So you arrived in Derby about the same time I did?”

“Maybe an hour before you did, as I stopped to eat luncheon. Oh, but you didn’t get the chance to eat at all, did you?”

Or see to pressing calls of nature, but Kate could suffer till the next village. “That’s all right, Mother. I’m not really hungry.” She hadn’t even been hungry at breakfast this morning but had forced herself to eat every bite, anyway. She only wished she hadn’t drunk the tea, because of that pressing call of nature.

And it really was pressing. Literally.

“Anthony asked if perchance the duke would be staying at Bellingham Hall en route to London. Apparently not, but obviously he was at Ellington Hall for their dance.”

“He was,” Kate confirmed, “and no, I did not dance with him.”

“Well, of course not. You don’t dance. A pity, that, and the fact you’re not exactly an eligible young lady, otherwise you could go to that ball in London.”

“What are you saying, Mother?” Why was Kate torturing herself this way? She knew exactly what her mother was saying.

Her mother tittered. “Well, surely you don’t think you’d ever stand a chance of catching the duke’s eye at that ball? Not when there will be so many other ladies there.”

“Who are younger and prettier and more amply endowed and dowered, and who don’t wear spectacles or voice their own opinions,” Kate said petulantly.

“I don’t think he requires a dowry, for as a duke he’s already inherited great wealth. Your stepfather might have liked to see you marry him for that alone, but no! He had to offer you to Lord Waldrop, instead. Under any other circumstances I might have been delighted with such a match, and I’m sure you would have been, too, but—”

“He
wagered
me to Lord Waldrop, didn’t he?”

“Oh, nothing as bad as that—well, maybe it was just as bad. It seems that when we were last in London—this would have been right before Anthony married Georgiana—your stepfather lost five thousand pounds to the Duke of Loring—not the new one, but his predecessor—and I’m not sure about this, but I gather he borrowed the money from Lord Waldrop, naming
you
as collateral!”

Kate said nothing and felt nothing, not even the mildest surprise, especially after what Nathan had told her last night.

Her mother continued, “Well, Waldrop gave him until the first of this month to pay back the five thousand, and if he didn’t then he would call in the note and claim you, which he tried to do the day after you left to go to Mr. Throckmorton’s, or London, or wherever. And I can assure you he would not have married you at all. But that was the last straw. I was almost relieved not to find you at Mr. Throckmorton’s, for Waldrop could have easily traced you there and whisked you away like Mr. Swingle did with Miss Hathaway, and not to Gretna Green, either, and no, not even to be his stepmother’s companion.”

“Then what did he have in mind for me?” She already knew the answer from Nathan, but was curious if her mother knew.

Her mother only patted her hand. “A chaste lady like you—”

Kate snorted. She couldn’t help it.

“—shouldn’t know such things. Bless you.”

“Bless me?”

“I thought you sneezed, or were about to.”

“I had an urge but it passed,” Kate said tersely.

“Just be grateful you escaped his clutches,” her mother declared.

Kate
was
grateful. “Is that why you exhorted me to take the governess position at Mr. Throckmorton’s? Did you suspect he was going up to Northumberland to wager me?”

This time her mother took her hand and squeezed it. “He’d sometimes threatened to do something of the sort with you, Kate, but I didn’t want to believe he’d ever go that far. Still, the debts were piling up and in recent months he was becoming more desperate. When he went up to Northumberland, I sought that position for you and urged you to take it, because I had a horrible premonition of what might happen when he returned.”

“Then why didn’t you just leave Bellingham Hall while he was up in Northumberland and take me with you to London?” Of course, if she hadn’t, then Kate would never have been thrown together with Nathan.

Her mother wrung her hands. “Because despite my premonition, I might have been wrong. I certainly wanted to be wrong. But at least he wouldn’t have to see you darken his portals any longer. Perhaps I should’ve sent you straight to Anthony in London. But you couldn’t travel unchaperoned—even if you did, anyway, at least as far as Derby—and I thought what Mr. Throckmorton offered was the best possible situation for you. The important thing is you and I
are
going to London now.”

They stopped at the next village, but Kate still had no desire to eat. Once they were back on the road, she continued to steal glances out the tiny back window, but saw no sign of Nathan. He could have caught up to them quite easily, either on a fresh mount or even in the Ellington carriage, which was pulled by four horses instead of two.

It was almost as if he’d decided to remain in Derby. Or perhaps he even turned around and went back to Scotland, as if he saw no point in continuing to London.

But why, if he meant to choose his bride in London?

By the time Kate and her mother finally reached London three days later, she still had no answers…and of course, she still hadn’t seen any sign of Nathan.

Yet his aunt’s ball was on—and Kate had no invitation.

“Mr. Baxter, thank you for answering my summons,” Nathan said as he entered the drawing room of Loring House in Mayfair where Kate’s brother waited.

Anthony Baxter sketched a slight bow before taking Nathan’s proffered hand. “How do you do, Your Grace?”

“Still trying to accustom myself to hearing that. Please sit down.” Nathan motioned to two chairs set on either side of the ornate, white marble fireplace.

Baxter took one chair, Nathan took the other.

Nathan was struck by the other man’s reticence. Based on his own experience with the inquisitive, garrulous Kate, he’d been half expecting Baxter to immediately bombard him with questions about why he’d been summoned, interspersed with all manner of assumptions about Nathan’s motives. Instead Baxter seemed calm and patient, willing to wait for Nathan to speak his piece. He supposed it was mainly out of deference to Nathan’s superior rank, but then he remembered Kate once mentioning to him that her brother tended to be very reserved and a stickler for propriety—though he seemed to have softened a bit since marrying the notorious hoyden formerly known as Georgiana Hayward.

Nathan sat just as rigidly as his guest. He still wasn’t certain how the stickler for propriety would take what he was about to say.

“Well, you’re probably wondering why I summoned you here, since we’ve never met and I don’t believe you even knew my late half brother.”

“Yes, I am, and while I didn’t know the late Duke of Loring all that well, since we didn’t move in the same circles, I’d met him on several occasions.”

Nathan nodded. “It recently came to my attention that your stepfather, the Earl of Bellingham, owed some money to my half brother. Five thousand pounds, to be exact.”

The change that came over Baxter was practically instantaneous. He visibly stiffened in his chair, a remarkable feat considering he hadn’t looked too relaxed to begin with. At the same time his eyes flicked around the drawing room, taking in all the elegant furnishings. The message Nathan gleaned from this was that Baxter seemed to take a dim view of the present duke wanting to quibble over what to him should have been a paltry amount of blunt.

And, as a matter of fact, it was.

When Baxter responded, his voice was unmistakably icy. “That seems to me a matter you might wish to take up with Lord Bellingham himself.”

Nathan smiled. “Oh, I’m not here to demand you make good on your stepfather’s debts. I just thought you should have a little background before I state my true intention in summoning you here.”

“As long as I don’t have to answer for Bellingham’s debts or other foibles, pray continue.”

“The debt arose as the result of a gambling loss in the late fall of 1815. I understand Bellingham meant to procure the necessary funds from his brother-in-law, Mr. Percival Gifford, a wealthy merchant who’d been keeping the earl afloat for many years.”

Baxter nodded as if to affirm this, his lips pressed into a hard, grim line.

“Unfortunately, Bellingham’s sister, Mrs. Gifford—or pardon me, Lady Louisa Gifford—was killed by highwaymen shortly thereafter, and at that point Mr. Gifford no longer felt obliged to support Bellingham’s habit.”

Baxter nodded again. “To be fair, Bellingham himself informed Gifford that he was no longer obliged to give him money—as if Gifford didn’t already know that, and not that he was ever obliged in the first place, except from the goodness of his exceedingly soft heart. I daresay Bellingham took the initiative to avoid the mortification of being rightfully told to go to the devil by Gifford himself.” He chuckled mirthlessly. “Not that I believe Gifford would have done it. He’s rather a timid man, and I’ve often thought my stepfather could’ve continued appealing to him for funds if only he hadn’t fallen out of character for a few moments that New Year’s Eve and suffered a seizure of integrity. My wife thinks the shock of his sister’s death must have temporarily addled his wits.”

“More than usual,” Nathan couldn’t resist saying, and Baxter smiled. “But that didn’t change the fact he still owed that five thousand pounds to my half brother, so before going to Yorkshire, he made an arrangement with him in which he offered collateral in the event he did not pay the five thousand within a certain time.” He paused to take a deep breath before firing the cannonade. “That collateral happened to be your sister, Miss Katherine Baxter.”

Baxter sprang to his feet. “That stinking, vile, good-for-nothing—”

“
Bastard
!”
both men chorused.

“Sorry,” Baxter muttered. “I’m not usually prone to outbursts, but—”

“Well, if you hadn’t reacted any other way, then I might have wondered what the hell is wrong with you, man.”

Baxter sat back down, though he was still fuming. “As outraged as I am, I still wonder why I should be so appalled. I should’ve known he’d do something like this, sooner or later. I never should have let her go to Yorkshire with him and my mother, but my mother insisted, and I had to agree that Katherine’s place at that time was with our mother. And, if only because my mother was married to him, Bellingham.”

“In the meantime, my brother was shot dead by one of his lightskirts last June.”