Rake's Wager. Miranda Jarrett
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hat to her as he smiled. It was easy to smile at her: she was a pretty little creature, with bright blue eyes and golden-red hair that her plain dark mourning bonnet seemed to highlight rather than mask. Whom did she grieve for, he wondered idly: a husband, parent, sibling? “Though to be honest, I hadn’t noticed that you’d bumped me at all.”
“Well, sir, I did,” she said, “so of course I had to apologize, to make things right. It would be rude of me not to.”
She stated it as simple fact, a fact that he wasn’t sure how to answer, but because she was such a pretty little creature, he wanted to. She wasn’t being forward, the way a demirep might be to attract his notice; in fact, if Richard was honest, she didn’t really seem interested in him at all. Instead her whole attention seemed focused on the painting before him, and to his dismay she was marking a circle around the same number in her catalog as he had in his.
“You are bidding on this picture, miss?” he asked. “You like it that much?”
“That is the reason one usually comes here to Christie’s Auction Rooms, isn’t it? To bid on the pictures one likes?” She darkened the circle around the listing for emphasis. “Last week I sold three dreary paintings of peasants with cows, and now I plan to reward myself by buying this one.”
“For yourself?” he asked, surprised. It didn’t seem like the kind of painting a young lady—she couldn’t be more than twenty—would choose for herself.
“It’s my choice, yes, though I’m sure my sisters will find it amusing as well.” She leaned closer, studying the surface just as Richard himself had done. “I don’t believe it’s as old as they’re claiming—it’s likely a copy, and not even an Italian one—but the fortune teller in particular is very nicely done, I think.”
“They got that wrong in the catalog, too,” he said. “If that old crone’s a fortune teller, why, then I’ll—then I’ll—”
His words trailed off as he realized his mistake, the kind of mistake that true English gentlemen weren’t supposed to make when addressing English ladies.
“Then what else could she be?” The young woman’s eyes were as blue as the Caribbean itself, and just as ready to swallow him up. “The smiling soldier had just given her his payment, and now she’s holding his hand as she reads his palm, while the other woman watches. His future must be improving, for him to look so jolly. Good fortune overcoming bad. That, sir, is why I wish to buy this particular picture.”
She turned away from him and toward the next picture, and he joined her, unwilling to lose her yet.
“You speak as if from experience,” he said, happy to let her think what she wished about the old procuress in the painting. “About good luck and bad, that is.”
“There’s not a person on earth that’s not had experience with luck of both kinds.” She glanced at him sideways, up through her lashes, and without turning her head. “Unless, sir, you are among those who don’t believe in it?”
“If you mean sitting idle beside a stream and waiting for my luck to change, then, no, I do not,” he said. “But I do believe in seizing the opportunities that fate offers, and making them my own.”
She raised one arched brow, and laughed, a merry, bubbling sound that he instantly wished to hear again.
“That’s bold talk, sir,” she said, “quite worthy of Bonaparte himself.”
“It’s not empty talk,” he insisted, “nor was it meant to show sympathy to the French. It’s how I live my life.”
“I didn’t say your words were empty. I said they were bold, which is a very different thing altogether.” She moved to stand before the next painting, and Richard followed. Clever women like this one hadn’t existed on Barbados, or at least none in the society that had allowed him, too. “You must enjoy gambling.”
He frowned a little, not following her logic.
“I’ve become good at spotting gentleman gamesters, you see,” she explained with an inexplicable triumph in her voice, as if spotting gamesters were a required skill for young ladies, like singing and fine needlework. “If you’re as bold as you say, then you must be the sort of sporting gentleman who enjoys his games of chance.”
He shook his head, sorry to see her face fall. “Not dice, not pasteboard cards, and I’ve no wish to empty my pockets on account of some overrated nag, either.”
“Truly?” she said, disappointed. “You are not pretending otherwise?”
“I did when I was younger,” he said, to make her feel better, “but not for years. Now I’d rather find pleasure in playing for higher stakes than a handful of coins.”
“Indeed, sir.” Her voice turned frosty, her cheeks flushing. “How fine for you.”
He barely bit back an oath, realizing too late that she’d misunderstood him again. He’d meant the dangerous investments and other merchant ventures with high-risk profits that had become his specialty, while she’d thought the stakes were her and her charming little person—her virtue, as ladies liked to call it.
“Oh, blast, I didn’t intend it that way,” he said, taking her by the arm so she’d have to look at him, so she’d understand he meant her no harm “Here now, miss, listen to me. I’ve never had to rely on a wager for a woman’s company, and I’m not about to begin now.”
“No,” she said curtly, staring down at his fingers around her upper arm as if his touch had scalded her. “But then I don’t imagine any woman willingly shares your company, not for the sake of love or money.”
He sighed with impatience, wondering why in blazes she’d suddenly turned so priggish and prim. “Now that’s not what I—”
“Isn’t it, sir?” she said, the curving brim of her bonnet quivering with indignation. “I may be from the country, but I am not completely ignorant of the wickedness to be found in this city!”
Other people around them were beginning to turn with curiosity, and Richard lowered his voice to give them less to hear. “Listen to me, sweetheart, and stop speaking of things you know nothing of. You wouldn’t recognize wickedness if it tripped you in the street.”
“I am not your sweetheart, and I will thank you not to fancy I am.” She jerked her arm free of his hand. “Now leave me, sir, before I demonstrate exactly how much I know of your wickedness, and summon one of Mr. Christie’s guards to have you removed. Good day, sir.”
She gave an angry final twitch of her black skirts as she cut her way through the crowd, as fast and as far from him as she could get herself.
And that was fine with Richard. If ever he’d needed another reminder that London ladies would be difficult, then this red-haired chit had given it to him. He’d thought at first she’d be different, and speak plain, but without warning she’d become just as self-righteous and sharp-tongued as all the rest in this city. Finding one who wasn’t would be his greatest challenge so far.
But he was willing to take his time. He’d decided that, even before his ship had rounded Needham Point and left the last of Barbados behind him. He had made his fortune, and he had bought his fine bespoke clothes and his carriage and horses and an ancient, grand country house awaited him. Now all he needed was a high-bred lady-bride to complete the transformation, and make the world see that Dick Blackley, collier’s boy, had become Richard Blackley, gentleman.
He glanced one last time toward where the young woman in mourning had disappeared. He was sorry she hadn’t turned out to be his match; he’d liked her looks and her spirit, before she’d gone and turned so sour over nothing.
And he’d be damned before he’d let her steal his painting away from him.
The auctioneer had made his way to the podium and stood testing his gavel against the palm of his hand, while his assistant was ringing the bell to signal the beginning