The Wedding Wager. Deborah Hale

girls, of which I shall be headmistress.”

      “And I’m the common, ignorant soldier you plan to work your magic on?” The question sounded innocent enough, but the subtle curl of his lip conveyed scorn.

      “If by magic you mean something easy or illusionary, you’re mistaken, Sergeant. It will be three months of very hard work for both of us. In the end, I believe you’ll find the result worthwhile. Will you do it?”

      He smiled now—with his lips at least. “No, Miss Free-mantle. I will not.” His tone and posture were a parody of high courtesy. “Now please be so kind as to go away. You’ve taken up quite enough of my time for one afternoon.”

      Didn’t he recognize the chance she was offering him? Couldn’t he see the noble cause it would serve?

      “Are you devoid of ambition, man? Not the least bit interested in improving yourself?”

      The insincere smile disappeared. Nostrils flared, he bore down on her like a charging bull. Against her will, Leonora retreated a step before his menacing advance. He stopped within a whisker of her, so close she could feel the heat of his breath on her face. He spoke with muted intensity, his whisper more intimidating than most men’s thunderous bluster.

      “I have plenty of ambition, Miss Freemantle. On my terms. I happen to like who and what I am. So you can keep your improvements. I don’t need you or anyone else turning me into some mincing, mutton-headed gentleman.”

      Leonora held her ground. Somewhere deep within her, she fought to quench a flicker of admiration for Morse Archer’s pride and independence. Remembering all she stood to gain…and lose, she forced herself to try one last time.

      “Please, Sergeant. If not for yourself, think of my school.”

      “Where you can turn wholesome farm girls into useless debutantes? An admirable cause, to be sure.”

      With all the dignity she could muster, Leonora replied, “I don’t expect you to understand my motives. No one else does.”

      “The trouble is, I understand all too well, Miss Free-mantle. I know all about having the charity of my betters crammed down my throat and having to tug a forelock and say ‘Thankee, ma’am’, even while I choke on it.”

      His words smote her. Her school would be nothing like what he described…or would it? “We are not talking about charity, Sergeant.”

      “Aren’t we, Miss Freemantle?” His burst of rage seemed to collapse on itself. Slowly he turned away from her and hobbled toward the door.

      For a moment Leonora just stood, watching him go. Limp and spent, she felt as though she’d been buffeted by a violent storm. As she gathered up her courage to once again run the gauntlet of stares and whispers in the ward, she wondered how her uncle would react to this turn of events. He’d been so adamant on engaging this particular man.

      Well, she had tried her best to recruit Morse Archer. He had refused. Uncle Hugo would simply have to pick someone else.

      In some ways it was a pity. The sergeant seemed to possess a degree of intelligence, and his speech was not too rustic. Taken together with his arresting physical presence, it would not have been difficult to pass him off as a gentleman.

      All the same, Leonora found herself breathing a sigh of relief. The last thing she needed was to spend three months in the close company of a man like Morse Archer. So stubborn. So intractable.

      So compelling.

      Morse watched Leonora Freemantle stalk off the ward, clearly oblivious to the winks and elbow digs with which the men greeted her departure. Turning to the window, he continued to stare after her as she climbed into her barouche and drove away. He wanted to make certain she was gone.

      Or so he told himself.

      “Give the ivories another rattle, Sergeant?” A young corporal from Morse’s regiment flashed a hopeful grin. The lad’s right arm had been severed below the elbow, but he’d learned to throw the dice pretty well with his left hand.

      Morse shook his head in the manner of an elder brother who had better occupations than entertaining the little ones in the family. “You heard Matron, Corporal Boyer. No gambling on hospital property. I’m in hot water enough with the army. No need to go courting more.”

      Boyer flashed him an awkward grin, then ambled off. This was the first time Morse had referred to the Board of Inquiry, though the matter must have been common knowledge among the convalescing soldiers at Bramleigh.

      There was a good chance he would end up cashiered. Dismissed from the army in disgrace. Thinking of the Board made Morse think of the miserable retreat from Bucaso. His leg throbbed, just above the knee, where a French bayonet had pierced it.

      During the British retreat from Bucaso.

      Limping over to his cot, he sank down on it, stretching out his long frame. His heels projected two inches past the end of the thin mattress. To distract himself from the pain in his leg and the equally painful memories of that last rearguard skirmish, Morse turned his thoughts to Leonora Freemantle.

      The gall of the woman! To stroll in like Lady Bountiful with her Christmas basket and offer to turn him into a gentleman. In the instant before she’d opened her mouth, something about her had attracted him. Now Morse was damned if he could decide what it might have been.

      She had little in common with the type of woman he usually favored. In the first place, her figure was too lean and angular for his taste. He seldom paid much heed to women’s clothes, but in her case they were too ugly to ignore. He often noticed women’s hair, but Miss Freemantle had kept hers pulled back so severely and covered by her bonnet that he could not have sworn as to its color. There might have been something to her eyes—color or clarity, but tight little spectacles detracted from their modest charms.

      Altogether a prim, bluestocking spinster.

      None of these had roused Morse’s antagonism, though. Her voice had done that.

      Since joining the army, during his service in India and Spain, he’d seldom had occasion to hear an English lady speak. There was only one female at the Bramleigh hospital—if you could call her that. Matron, the old gargoyle, spoke in Cornish dialect so broad Morse often had trouble understanding her. Nothing in her gravelly voice evoked painful memories. Morse could not say the same for Leonora Freemantle.

      To make matters worse, her first words to him had concerned a proposition. True, it was not the kind of proposition Lady Pamela Granville had made him on the day before he enlisted. The emotional echo stung just the same. It had made him resist Miss Freemantle’s offer even before he heard it. Now, as his leg throbbed and he tried to block out the persistent din of the ward, Morse wondered if he’d been a fool to reject her proposal out-of-hand.

      His other options were depressingly limited. He couldn’t stay on at Bramleigh much longer, since he was past danger of amputation and he could use the leg, however haltingly. Even if the Board of Inquiry didn’t drum him out of the service, he could not go back to soldiering. The doctors were optimistic that his mobility would return with time. Until then, his lameness would make it all but impossible to find the sort of job his limited education had equipped him for.

      The dinner bell rang. With a weary sigh, Morse hauled himself up from his cot and joined the tail end of the queue headed for the refectory. There, he spooned the tepid, watery stew into his mouth with little interest or enjoyment. Boyer and a few of the other lads from his regiment took their places with Morse at their accustomed table. In one way or another, they were all casualties of the retreat from Bucaso.

      They were the lucky ones.

      “Yer comp’ny didn’t stay long, Sergeant.” There was an implied question in Boyer’s innocent remark. “Not exactly your kinda woman, were she?”

      The men exchanged grins all around the table. Their sergeant’s way with women was a point of pride among his men. They knew he had a taste for pretty, plump, saucy barmaids. They also knew he seldom