“I wouldn’t know,” Tristan said after a moment, his voice oddly flat. “No one told me.”
Finally, Bellefeld seemed to realize that he’d said something inappropriate. Flushing, he backed away. “No one means anything by it, I’m sure,” he said. “All in good fun, you know.”
“Of course,” she said, releasing him. He stampeded away, but she stayed where she was. She couldn’t turn to face Tristan. She wanted to run screaming back home and never look at anyone again.
“Georgiana,” he said quietly, and she flinched.
“Don’t you…dare—”
“Go home with Mary, if you please,” he said in a black, angry voice she’d never heard before. “I have something to attend to.”
She forced herself to look at him. His face was gray, as hers probably was. Of course he was upset; he’d been found out, his little plan discovered. “Going to put some money on me?” she forced out. “I wouldn’t, if I were you—some inside information. And no, I don’t trust you. I never—never—will.”
“Go home,” he repeated, his voice shaking. He held her gaze a moment longer, then turned and strode away in the direction of Pall Mall. Probably to change his wager to some more amenable chit.
“My lady?” Mary said, approaching. “Is something wrong?”
A tear ran down Georgiana’s cheek, and she wiped it away before anyone could notice. It would never do if they thought she was crying because of Tristan’s departure. “No. Let’s go home.”
“But Lord Dare?”
“Forget him. I already have.”
She marched home, Mary trotting to keep up with her. Her bottom hurt, but she welcomed the pain; it gave her something else to think about. He’d done it again. He’d seduced her, bedded her, and betrayed her. And this time she had no one to blame but herself.
Thank goodness she’d found out before she completely lost her heart to him. A sob ripped from her throat as Pascoe opened the front door. No, it didn’t hurt, because she didn’t care. Anything between them had been merely lust. She could put lust out of her mind.
“My lady?”
“I’ll be in my rooms,” she said as she hurried past the butler. “I’m not to be disturbed, for anyone or anything. Is that clear?”
“Y…yes, my lady.”
The “board” at White’s was actually a misnomer. It was a ledger book, where anyone admitted to the exclusive club could write down a wager with anyone else. Most of them were private wagers between two parties. On occasion, one appeared that garnered greater interest, or was made among a number of gentlemen.
As Tristan stalked into White’s, shoving aside the doorman who tried to inform him that luncheon wouldn’t be served for another hour, he made straight for the main gaming room and the ledger book sitting on its raised dais at one side. He’d run out of curses on the way over, but repeated a few choice ones as he caught sight of the book and the half dozen men standing around it.
“Dare, you dog,” one of the younger ones said, grinning, “you can’t wager on yourself, you know. Bad—”
Tristan coiled his fist and slammed the lad in the jaw. “Move,” he said belatedly, as the fellow crumpled to the ground like a wet rag.
Footmen appeared from every direction as the rest of the spectators shuffled hurriedly out of his way. Without sparing them another glance, he flipped the heavy book to face him. “‘On the prospect of the marriage of Tristan Carroway, Lord Dare,’” he read to himself, “‘the female contestants are listed below. Please make your wager according to your choice.’”
No name claimed responsibility for the placement of the wager, but the list of females and their varied supporters already took up two full pages, and the wager had only been recorded yesterday. “Who did this?” he snarled, whipping around to face the growing mob.
“My lord, please come away and join me for a private drink,” Fitzsimmons, the club’s manager, said in a soothing tone.
“I said, ‘Who did this?’” he repeated, fury boiling up from deep in his gut. The look on Georgiana’s face when Bellefeld had spoken had nearly killed him. She had begun to trust him; he could see it in her eyes. And now she never would again. He could swear his innocence to heaven, and she would always believe he’d been responsible in some way, or at least that he’d known about it. Someone was going to pay for this—and with luck, someone would get bloody for it.
“My lord—”
“Who?” he bellowed. Grasping hold of the pages, he ripped them from the ledger.
A gasp went up from the gallery. No one removed pages from the wagering book. It simply wasn’t done. Glaring down at the offending document, he tore it in half, and then in half again, and again, until it scattered like confetti from his fingers.
“Lord Dare,” Fitzsimmons said again, his voice harder, “please come with me.”
“Like hell,” he snarled. “This wager is over. Is that clear?”
