The Double Wager

"Not a moneylender, your Grace?"

"I hope not, dear boy. Perhaps my heir has it. He has her in his power, I am sure."

"You think he has lent her money?" asked Ridley.

"I fear so," the duke replied. "She is frightened, at least, and my wife does not scare easily. I wish I knew why she needed money."

"I-I think I might have the answer," Ridley said, shifting uneasily in his chair.

Eversleigh looked penetratingly at him. "Well, out with it, dear fellow!" he said.

"I discovered that her Grace's brother, Mr. Giles Tallant, had quite large gambling debts a while ago."

"How large?" the duke asked.

"In the region of three thousand pounds, I believe, sir.

Eversleigh whistled. "Rash puppy!" he said. "I doubt if his brother allows him near enough to pay that. And have these debts been paid, James?"

"Yes, your Grace," Ridley replied, "in full."

"Ah," Eversleigh commented, straightening up and tapping his boots with his riding crop. "I believe I shall see if my brother-in-law would like to share luncheon with me at White's. Do take a break soon, James. Too much work ca

"My midday break is due to begin in a half-hour," Ridley explained to his employer's disappearing back.

****

Henry spent the morning in her room, breaking with her usual routine of riding early. She felt very close to despair. It seemed that everything was going wrong around her. The new debt to the moneylender looked like an insurmountable problem now in the morning light. Henry did some calculations in her head, and then on paper to make sure that she had not made an error. If she saved most of her allowance each month, she would be able to repay little more than the interest on her loan. There was no way she would ever be free of the whole debt. That meant that she would never recover her ring. Its absence would be a great loss to her. More important, she did not know how she would answer Marius if he asked about it again, and he surely would. Soon he would demand to know the name of the jeweler to whom she had taken the ring to be checked. And then she would be forced into more lies.

She had, in fact, got herself into a terrible mess, and all for nothing, it seemed. Oliver was still insisting that she owed him interest on his loan. He had not said, and she had not asked, how much it was. But she had the distinct impression that the amount was limitless. Even if she went out now and pawned her most precious piece of jewelry and sent the money to Cranshawe, he would claim that it was not enough. And how could she argue? There had been no written agreement.

Henry thought about his words of the night before and clenched her fists. How dare he so openly proposition her? He had looked her right in the eye as he spoke, too, and smiled that charming smile that had so disarmed her when she first met him. Anyone looking across to their box would have assumed that he was paying her some lavish compliment. The rat! Henry considered playing along with his game. What if she agreed to meet him in some private place and set up some devious plan of revenge? She considered how satisfactory it would be to go at him with her fists, to break that handsome, aquiline nose and smash forever that flawless smile. She sighed. How provoking it was to be a w man, to know that there were limits to her strength. She, considered using a riding crop as a weapon, but that was too risky. Doubtless the scoundrel was strong enough to wrest it from her grasp. No, the whole scheme was too risky, she decided. Unless she could be sure of overpowering him, she would be in grave danger once he achieved the upper hand. He was already openly set upon ruining not only her reputation, but also her person. She shuddered to think what added indignities he would heap on her if he were also enraged.

What was she to do, then, when she did hear next from Cranshawe? She could not pay him and she would not meet him. The only other alternative seemed to be to make a clean breast of the whole thing to Marius. She found it hard to understand now why she had not just gone to him at the start, or at least as soon as she began to have doubts about Oliver's integrity. It would have been so easy then, and surely she could have thought of some way of keeping Giles' name out of it. However, she had not gone to her husband, and now it was surely impossible to do so. At best, Marius would consider her foolish and stubborn, and he would be right. But he could never respect or love her. At worst, he would refuse to believe that she had not been more involved with Oliver than she had been. He was already suspicious. How could she ever convince him that she had never considered his cousin as more than a casual friend? No, this was a predicament that she would have to get herself out of, though there did not seem to be any way.

But why did she care what Marius thought of her? He did not care about her. He had married her for some reason that she could not comprehend. But obviously all his interest was in that overblown dozy, Mrs. Broughton. Even last night they had not been able to keep their eyes off each other. Henry supposed that he spent much of his days and the evenings when he was not with her at the home of his mistress. Her fingernails dug painfully into her palms as she imagined him doing with the delectable Suza

Henry could not escape the truth. She loved Marius quite hopelessly. Finally, after believing that no man would ever be worthy of her entire trust and respect, she seemed to have found such a man. And, in addition, he was a man who could make her pulses race and her knees and stomach feel like jelly. Even now Henry yearned to run to him, to curl into his arms and beg him to take her burdens on his own broad and capable shoulders. And one part of her mind was convinced that he would not turn her away, that she could trust him. But how could she believe that when he had turned her away the morning before at a time when she had been glowing with love and vulnerability, and when he kept a mistress with whom he had been involved long before he had met her? Oh, it was all very confusing.

On impulse, Henry leapt to her feet and rang for Betty. She was going to go downstairs for luncheon and then she was going to order her phaeton and grays brought around so that she could go visiting and later drive in the park. She was Henry Devron, and nobody-not Marius, not Oliver-was going to keep her cowering in her bedroom!

****

Giles Tallant was sitting in the reading room at White's when his brother-in-law strolled in. Although he held a paper in his hands and had his eyes directed at it, it would have been obvious to anyone who cared to observe that he was not, in fact, reading. Truth to tell, his mind was still reeling from what his brother had told him just a few hours before.

Philip had gone himself to Peter's house to consult with Giles. Although his oldest brother was from home already, he was unfortunate enough to run into Marian, who was emerging from the breakfast room. She had quizzed him sharply on the strangeness of his being out alone at a time when any normal and properly reared youngster would be in the schoolroom at his books. Philip had mumbled some excuse about Miss Manford's having postponed lessons until the afternoon, but was very relieved when the footman had returned to say that Mr. Giles would receive his brother in his bed chamber.

Giles had been still in bed, nightcap pulled rakishly over one eyebrow. A cup of chocolate was cooling on the night table at his side. He woke up in a hurry, though, when he heard Philip's story. At the first part he bristled with indignation.

"She borrowed money from Cranshawe?" he said. "The fellow's nothing but a rake. Don't trust him."

"But why would she, Giles?" asked Philip. "What would Henry want money for? His Grace buys her all the clothes and finery she wants, and she don't gamble. She lectures Pen and me regularly on the sins of playing cards."