The Wedding Wager. Deborah Hale

An unusually forthright man, he could not have enjoyed misleading her.

      “I’ll own that was part of it. I hadn’t much hope of Wes getting off the Peninsula alive. You’ll never know what it meant to me, having him here at the last. There’s scarcely enough in this world I can do to repay Archer for making that possible. Wish I could make him understand.”

      He spoke that last sentence on a sigh heaved from deep within his stout frame. Leonora could almost feel the weight of his debt on her own heart.

      “I can’t say I care to be manipulated like this, Uncle,” she chided him, but gently. More in hurt than in anger. “I thought you were in earnest about our wager.”

      “So I am, my dear. Whatever gave you the notion I wasn’t? I take our wager very seriously indeed.” His gaze rested on her with tangible fondness. “I want to see you settled and happy with a good man and a brood of lively young ones I can spoil rotten in my dotage.”

      “Uncle!” Leonora could not keep a hint of asperity from her voice. “We’ve been over this territory a hundred times at least. You know I’d never be happy in a marriage, any more than Wesley would have been happy as a civilian.”

      Too late, she clapped a hand over her mouth. Not for anything in the world would she add to her uncle’s pain.

      Sir Hugo replied with a long, level look. “How happy do you think he is now, eh?” he asked at last. “I should have done more to dissuade Wes from taking a commission. I’ll not sit by and make the same mistake with you, my dear. Just because Clarissa never met a blackguard she wouldn’t marry is no reason to condemn our whole sex…”

      “I’ll thank you to keep my mother and her men out of this,” Leonora snapped.

      Her uncle held up his hands in a parody of surrender. “No need to till that ground again. I’m only saying—since I haven’t been able to convince or cajole you—I’ve been driven to the extremity of this wager. If you fulfill its conditions, I’ll endow that school you’re hankering after.”

      “And?” prompted Leonora.

      “And,” he grumbled, “provide you with a settlement that ensures you never need to marry.”

      The very thought made a smile of contentment blossom on Leonora’s face.

      “Just be sure you don’t forget your part of the bargain.” Sir Hugo stabbed the table with his forefinger.

      Her budding smile withered, as if by a briny blast from the North Atlantic. “I’m not apt to forget, Uncle.”

      How could she with stakes as high as her future happiness? Lose the wager and she had sworn to marry a man of her uncle’s choosing. If she had not wanted her school so desperately she never would have agreed to Sir Hugo’s terms.

      “Another thing you’d better remember is that I have the sole right to choose the subject for our wager. I won’t settle for anyone but Morse Archer.”

      “But, Uncle, I told you…”

      “So you did. Now I’m telling you, Leonora—if Archer won’t agree to come, the wager’s off.”

      “You can’t mean that.” Leonora blanched. Without this one chance, however slim, she’d never have her school.

      “I assure you, I do mean it. Now, don’t look so stricken, child. I’ll go along with you, and between the two of us I’m sure we can win Sergeant Archer ’round. Why don’t you spruce yourself up a bit for our visit. Haven’t you any colored gowns?”

      She wanted to protest that her appearance was the last consideration likely to sway Sergeant Archer. A maypole tricked out in ribbons was still a stick.

      “Gray’s a color, Uncle.”

      “’Tisn’t. Not in a gel’s frock, anyhow. Neither is black, brown nor that dull green. Do something with your hair, while you’re about it. Can’t you twist it up some way to make it curl?”

      “Yes, Uncle.” Leonora sighed. There was no talking sense to him in such a mood.

      She did not look forward to her return visit to Bramleigh. Sharing the same room with two of the most exasperating men she’d ever met, Leonora wondered how she’d resist the urge to knock their heads together.

      When Lieutenant Peverill’s father and cousin tracked him down on the hospital grounds, Morse was hobbling along a mud-churned footpath with a stout tree branch for support.

      It was a cold winter for Somerset, even to people who hadn’t spent a decade baking in the heat of India and Iberia. Experiencing his first English winter in ten years, Morse felt the cold more keenly than he’d expected. Be that as it may, he could not stand being cooped up in the ward a moment longer.

      He was an outdoorsman, a man of movement, a man of action—well suited to life in the Rifle Brigade. Whether the army discharged him or not, the time had come to hang up his green jacket. He would miss it.

      In spite of the danger, the bad food, the miserable pay, the heat, the flies, the hatred of the local people, the blinkered stupidity of the officer corps and the occasional loneliness. It was all he had known for ten years. He felt rather empty and adrift to think of leaving it all behind. All the more, when he considered the bleak future that lay before him.

      “Halloo! Sergeant Archer!”

      Morse glanced up to see Sir Hugo Peverill bearing down on him, Leonora Freemantle coasting along in her uncle’s wake. Without quite realizing what he was doing, Morse found himself approving the way she walked. Chin up. Eyes firmly fixed on her target. No mincing along, fussing about the mud that might spatter the hem of her cloak and gown.

      “Wondered if we were ever going run you to ground, man.” Sir Hugo gasped for breath.

      With a start, Morse realized what they must want with him. The notion of three months at Laurelwood lured him like a beacon in an otherwise murky future. If only his cursed pride would not rear up and spoil everything.

      Morse extended his hand. “Good to see you again, sir.”

      “Indeed. I believe you’ve met my niece, Miss Free-mantle.” Sir Hugo pushed the young woman forward by the elbow, until her hand met Morse’s.

      Their previous interview flashed in Morse’s mind. He remembered the touch of her hand on his bare arm, and the crude jest he’d made when she would not let him go. Little wonder she thought he could do with some gentlemanly polish.

      Determined to show her he was not devoid of manners, he bowed over her hand. “I have had that pleasure.”

      The wind had whipped a few spirals of dark hair loose from beneath her bonnet—a less severe piece of headgear than she’d worn on her previous visit. The cold had coaxed an engaging spot of color into the ivory flesh over her high cheekbones. Her spectacles had slipped down to the tip of her nose, leaving unguarded a pair of most attractive gray-green eyes.

      Eyes that shot him a look of censure, which he could not fathom. What had he done wrong now?

      She snatched her hand back, as if she feared he might bite it. “You did not appear very pleased with our first meeting, sir.”

      Morse felt his own cheeks tingle. Perhaps it was time to come in from the cold. “I must beg your pardon for that, miss. There are days this place would try the patience of a saint. I’m sorry you had the misfortune to catch me on a bad one.”

      Sir Hugo clapped his niece around the shoulders, but he addressed his words to Morse. “Only natural, my boy. Of course, Leonora will pardon you. She’s one of those rare females who doesn’t hold a grudge.”

      “Rare, indeed.” Morse smiled again into those gray-green eyes, hoping to make peace.

      Leonora Freemantle replied by abruptly jamming her spectacles back into place. It was as though she had slammed a heavy door in his face. Morse took an involuntary step back.