The Wedding Wager. Deborah Hale
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snickers dogged Leonora’s footsteps. Thrusting out her chin and stiffening her spine, she fiercely resisted the urge to adjust her spectacles and straighten her bonnet. They might take it as a sign of weakness. Never would she give them the satisfaction of thinking she cared for their opinion in the least.
Still, she could not quench the blistering blush that seared her face. How long had some of these men been without a woman? Yet they still found her laughably unappealing.
At least they were honest about their feelings. One could not say the same for most of their sex. That, Leonora had learned from bitter experience.
Matron veered into a small common room, heading straight for a clutch of men crouched in one corner. Leonora heard the muted click of dice tumbling along the hardwood floor. A shout went up, followed by a flurry of muttered curses.
“Knicked-it again, Archer!” cried one of the spectators in tones of grudging admiration. “Damned if you ain’t the luckiest elbow-shaker I’ve ever seen.”
At the mention of that name, Leonora perked up her ears. If this was the Sergeant Archer she’d come to see, it was encouraging to know he liked gambling.
The thrower scooped up his ivories with a practiced motion. “Luck’s got naught to do with it.” A note of teasing laughter warmed his words. “It’s skill, my boy, simple as that.”
“Ser’nt Archer!” Matron descended on the players like a terrier into a chicken coop. “How m’ny times have I told ye? Thar’s to be no gamblin’ in the hospital!”
The sergeant rose to his feet, unfolding the long, lean-muscled body of a Rifleman. For an instant he winced, as though the movement hurt him. Then his features blossomed into a smile of devastating charm, which he fixed upon Matron.
Leonora’s sensible, bluestocking heart began to flutter in a most unnerving fashion. Nothing in Cousin Wesley’s letters from the Peninsula had prepared her for the sight of his sergeant.
Stop it! she willed herself. Stop this foolishness, at once!
Her traitorous body mutinied. Her breath quickened.
Why should the sight of this man affect her so? Leonora asked herself as she watched him jolly Matron into a mood of exasperated tolerance. She hoped an intellectual consideration of the problem might bring her insurgent emotions back under control.
Why him? She’d seen far handsomer specimens—at least by the standard of the times. Smoother, blander, more uniformly proportioned.
There was nothing smooth or bland about this man’s face. Every feature was bold and definite. The nose and chin jutted out as though hewn from golden-brown stone, ready to take on the world. The wide, bowed mouth looked capable of a vast spectrum of expression, while the dark eyes wielded a provocative, penetrating gaze.
On a face less striking, the emphatic black eyebrows would have dominated. On Sergeant Morse Archer, they harmonized into an aspect of arresting appeal.
“What have we here?” He turned his piercing, hypnotic eyes upon Leonora, one full brow raised expressively.
Their color was a dynamic melding of green, brown and gold, Leonora realized as Sergeant Archer stepped toward her. For the first time in many years she yearned to be beautiful. His striking good looks made her all too aware of her own shortcomings. Though she told herself it was the height of folly, she could not help wanting him to like what he saw.
Matron answered his question. “A visitor for ye, Ser’nt Archer. Now mind yer manners.”
At a look from the sergeant, his gambling companions rapidly dispersed. Matron took up a post just outside the door. Whether she meant to guard the privacy of their conversation, or to act as some sort of chaperon, Leonora was not certain.
“What can such a lovely lady want with the likes of me?” asked Sergeant Archer once the room had cleared. His voice was as rich and mellow as well-aged brandy. Once again he unleashed his potent smile.
A shiver of icy wrath went through Leonora. Lovely lady? The liar! Did this cynical charmer expect her to lap up his spurious flattery? As she pulled off her glove, she longed to smack it against his cheek. Remembering how desperately she needed to win his cooperation, she curbed her ire and thrust out her hand for him to shake.
“Sergeant Archer, I’m Leonora Freemantle. I believe you know my uncle, Sir Hugo Peverill. I’ve come to make you a proposition.”
She could tell her words unsettled him, though he made a determined effort to hide it. Those expressive brows drew together and his mien darkened like a summer sky before a storm. His deep voice rumbled with the muted menace of distant thunder.
“Go away, Miss Freemantle. I’m not interested in your proposition.”
He tried to execute a crisp pivot on his heel. Apparently his wounded leg refused to cooperate. His stern frown crumpled into a grimace of pain as he staggered.
Before she had a chance to think better of it, Leonora reached out to steady him. The sleeves of his coarse-woven shirt were rolled up to the elbows. As she grasped his bronzed forearm, she felt the taut power of his muscle, the disconcerting warmth of his bare skin and the provocative caress of his dark body hair.
A jolt of mysterious energy surged in her. From the sensitive tips of her fingers and the palm of her hand, it radiated up her arm—to her throat and her bosom and the pit of her belly.
She hated it.
How dare this exasperating creature provoke her so? Even as he dismissed her without hearing a word she’d come to say. Long ago she had vowed never to submit to a man’s whims. She had no intention of starting now. Not with her whole future at stake.
When he tried to wrench his arm away, she tightened her hold. “I’ll let go when you agree to hear me out, Sergeant Archer.”
Animosity warred with amusement—every nuance of the battle showing on his vigorous, mobile face. Amusement won.
A row of square, even teeth flashed briefly in a fiendish grin. “This could turn out to be a very interesting day, if I choose not to listen.”
Leonora’s cheeks smarted. She knew what he would say next. Her own thoughts had raced ahead to the same conclusion.
“Not to mention an even more interesting night.” A warm, infectious chuckle bubbled up from some well of humor deep within him.
Abruptly, Leonora released his arm. Tears of impotent fury prickled in the corners of her eyes. She refused to let them fall. Why had Uncle Hugo chosen this infuriating man as the subject of their wager?
As he limped toward the door, she leveled a desperate parting shot at his back. “Strange. I didn’t take you for a fool, Sergeant.”
Her words found their mark. He hesitated in midstride, and his shoulder blades bunched, as though he had just taken a blow between them.
Leonora pressed her momentary advantage. “In my experience, only a fool shuts his ears to a proposal that might benefit him.”
Though he continued to face the door, Morse Archer lobbed his reply back at her. “When a woman like you comes with a proposition for a man like me, Miss Free-mantle, it isn’t often to his benefit. At least, not in the long run.”
A shriek of vexation rose in Leonora’s throat, but she stifled it—barely. She’d assumed Morse Archer would leap at the opportunity she offered him. Instead he had thrust her into the role of supplicant. One she abhorred.
It made her twice as determined to win Uncle Hugo’s wager and free herself from the need to go cap in hand to a man ever again.
“Pray, what do you mean by a woman like me, Sergeant Archer?”
“Don’t be thick, woman.” He rounded on her. “I mean a lady of your class.” The disdain in his voice was palpable.
At last—a scrap of leverage to use on him.
“Would