The Wallflower Wager. Tessa Dare

Her heart pounded in her chest. And then he spoke the gruff, possessive words Penny had started to doubt she’d ever hear.

      “I need you, Lady Penelope Campion. I’m not letting you go.”

       Chapter Five

      When he made this firm declaration, Gabe had not been expecting Lady Penelope’s reaction. First she looked surprised, and then she looked—

      She looked hopeful?

      “You . . .” Her cheeks flushed pink. “You need me?”

      He would need to tread carefully here. She was sheltered, naïve. And she did not want to be a spinster. So much was clear from simply staring into her china-blue eyes. She’d been saving that soft, blushing sweetness for years, waiting to lavish it on the right man.

      Gabe was not, and never would be, the right man. Not for her, not for anyone. If Her Ladyship had formed any notions otherwise, she was a fool.

      “I need you,” he clarified, “to continue residing in Bloom Square if I’m to sell the house at a handsome profit. Which I fully intend to do.”

      She blinked several times in succession. “Yes, of course. I knew that. It’s kind of you to offer your help, that’s all.”

       Kind?

      What an innocent she was. If she could glimpse the ugliness in his past, the ruthless hunger that consumed his mind, the blackness of his heart, she would learn the enormity of her mistake. But he’d never allow anyone near the yawning, empty pit of his soul. Posted warnings were the best he could offer. For her own sake, she had better heed them.

      “Listen to me,” he said sternly. “My motives are never kind. Neither are they generous or charitable or good. They’re money-driven and entirely selfish. You’d do well to remember that.”

      So would he.

      “So,” he said, “what are the terms of this miracle you’ve mentioned?”

      “My aunt has promised she’ll try to change my brother’s mind about taking me home to the country—but only if I meet her conditions.”

      “And those would be . . . ?”

      “A new, fashionable wardrobe, to begin.”

      “Well, that’s not even a challenge. Certainly nothing approaching a miracle.”

      “It’s the easy part, yes. My dear friend Emma was a seamstress before she married. I know she’d help.” She took a deep breath. “But there’s more. I also have to begin moving in society again.”

      He shook his head. “Do we have different definitions of the word ‘miracle’? Because that doesn’t sound difficult, either.”

      “You don’t understand. I haven’t socialized within the ton in almost a decade. By now, they’ve forgotten I even exist. Yet somehow I’m meant to make my grand reentrance. She wants to see me in the society column.”

      Gabe was forced to admit that sounded a touch more complicated than the first condition, and it certainly wasn’t something well-suited to his own talents. He wouldn’t be caught dead at a ball, and despite his many mentions in the papers, none was in the society column.

      Nevertheless, the task was well within the realm of possibility. There were several lords and gentlemen in his debt he could press for invitations, if it came to that.

      “You mentioned a third thing your aunt’s demanding.”

      “The same thing you’re demanding. Be rid of the animals.” She gave the goat a fond scratch behind the ear. “It will break my heart, but I have no choice. I must find them new homes.”

      “Done.”

       “Done?”

      He shrugged. “As good as done, anyway. I’ll find them homes. All of them.”

      “Just like that.”

      “Just like that. It’ll take a week, at the most.”

      “I don’t think you understand,” she said. “My pets came to me wounded, abandoned, untamed. They’re the animals no one else wanted. It won’t be an easy task finding them safe, loving homes, with people who’ll treat them as part of the family.”

      Part of the family? She lived in a fantasy land. Even if such “safe, loving” homes existed in the real world, Gabe wouldn’t know how to recognize them. Fortunately, he wasn’t above a falsehood or two.

      “Not to worry. Leave it to me. I’ll find them excellent homes.”

      She scanned him with narrowed, doubting eyes. “Forgive me, Mr. Duke, but I’m not at all convinced you’re qualified to take on this sort of—”

      Her all-too-perceptive statement was interrupted by a flurry of barking. This would not have been remarkable, had said barking not been emanating from the pavement in front of her house.

      She turned toward the noise. “Oh, no. Not again.”

      Again? Barking pavement was a regular occurrence outside her house? Of course it was.

      “Hold this.” She pressed the goat’s leash into Gabe’s hand, and then left the two of them standing there while she ran toward the noise.

      As he looked on, utterly baffled, Lady Penelope Campion—daughter of an earl—knelt on the ground and shouted into the small, round iron plate embedded in the pavement. The coal hole.

      “Bixby? Bixby, is that you?”

      From below, a dog whined in response.

      She cupped her hands around her eyes and peered through the hole in the iron plate. “Don’t worry, darling. Be brave and hold tightly. I’m coming for you straightaway.”

      Lady Penelope picked herself up from the pavement, hiked her skirts with both hands, and disappeared into her house.

      After a moment’s internal debate, Gabe followed. The scene had piqued his curiosity, to say the least. Not to mention, his alternative seemed to be milling about the square tending the goat.

      The hell he would.

      “Come along, you,” he grumbled.

      He pulled the goat up the stairs and through the door Lady Penelope had just bashed open.

      As he entered, the infernal parrot squawked at him from an adjacent room. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

      Gabe closed the front door behind him and loosed the goat to make a meal of something unfortunate. Hopefully the bird.

      “I’m coming, Bixby!” Lady Penelope called in the distance.

      Gabe followed the sound down the corridor and then down a flight of stairs. He emerged into the kitchen. There were no servants to be seen, and a kettle looked to be boiling dry on the hob. A jumble of felines curled by the fireplace.

      “I’m here, Bixby! Just hold on a little longer.”

      A heavy door at one end of the kitchen stood ajar. Gabe crossed to it and nudged it open further.

      Nothing but darkness.

      A darkness that scurried.

      After blinking a few times, he could discern that this was the coal store, and it sat directly beneath the iron plate she’d been shouting through a few moments ago. A small mountain of coal rose at a steep angle, leading from the ground to the coal chute at the top.

      And there—somewhere in the darkness at the top of the heap—was Bixby, presumably. The dog emitted a feeble whine.

      “Nearly there.” Lady Penelope attempted to scale the mountain,