Page 5 of A Stranger’s Gamble

Chapter Three

Sophie set aside her book and left her sitting room. She turned the corner in the hallway and stopped short at the sight of Janie and Sarah, two maids in her father’s household, each with an ear pressed against her father’s study door.

“What if he’s old and fat?” Sarah whispered.

“Or haggle-toothed?” Janie giggled.

Sophie tiptoed the few paces to the maids and whispered, “Move over.”

The girls whirled, eyes wide.

“Excuse us, miss.” Janie dropped a quick curtsey, grabbed Sarah by the ear, and pulled her down the hallway.

Sophie frowned at their disappearing backs. Odd. Usually, the three of them eavesdropped together. She faced the door and pressed her ear to the wood. She had excellent hearing and easily distinguished her father’s voice.

“She is my only daughter, my lord,” he said. “And an heiress in the bargain.”

“He is a man of honor as well as a marquess,” a cool male voice answered.

A marquess? Her mind catapulted back four months, when her father urged her to consider Lord Declan’s suit. At only twenty-eight, Viscount Declan turned the ten thousand pounds of debt he’d inherited upon his father’s death into nearly twenty thousand pounds of debt, all within a year. When her father discovered the truth, he sent the viscount packing. Her father had told her she was too young to remain a widow. Still, she hadn’t thought much of his matchmaking. Perhaps that had been a mistake?

Sophie grasped the brass doorknob and, with a slow, careful twist, eased the door open and peered through the crack. A small fire crackled in the hearth, just enough to dispel the early autumn chill from the room. Her father paced the red floral Brussels carpet. The silver clock displayed on the marble-topped mantle chimed five times.

Sophie glimpsed a polished boot before a tall, well-dressed man in his thirties with dark hair and a strong jaw stepped into view near the hearth. He strode to the fire and leaned against the mantle, a glass of sherry in hand.

Lord Nicholas Blair.

Lord Blair tapped his fingernail on the rim of his glass. “The Marquess of Monthemer.”

Her father halted and locked gazes with him. “Tell me, Lord Blair, what assurances have I that the marquess will not gamble away Sophie’s dowry as his father did his fortune?”

Anger swept through Sophie. A man whose family had fallen into ruin because of gambling? That was worse than Lord Declan. How could her father consider marrying her to a penniless nobleman?

Lord Blair tossed back the rest of his sherry and set the empty glass on the mantle. “The discovery of the old marquess’s impoverished estate shocked us all. His penchant for gambling ran far deeper than anyone suspected. Unlike most noblemen in his situation, Adam did the honorable thing and paid his father’s debts after his death. That is what has left him without any fortune. I give you my word, the man is an honorable fellow.”

Her father heaved a sigh. “Sophie is a strong-willed lass.”

He walked to the right, out of her view, and the clink of glasses told her he was filling a glass with liquor from the sideboard. He returned into sight, two glasses of sherry in hand and handed one to the earl.

Shorter and with a slight paunch, her father looked old alongside Lord Blair’s height and muscle. She’d inherited her father’s curly auburn hair but, thank heavens, not his bulbous nose. According to her father, she’d inherited her dear, departed mother’s delicate build, heart-shaped face, and brown eyes lined with sooty lashes.

“I fear Sophie may not agree to the match,” he said.

Sophie exhaled a silent breath of relief. He knew her well enough to know she wouldn’t go quietly to the gallows. One marriage had been quite enough. She flushed. She’d eloped with Matthew of her own accord, so couldn’t fault her father for that marriage. He now only wanted her to be happy, as he and her mother had been.

Like many girls of sixteen, she had mistaken an older man’s age for quiet wisdom and strength. Matthew hadn’t been a bad man, but he’d been an abominable husband. Brooding men of nearly forty years of age quickly lost their attraction. He needed to be the center of attention at all times, and he was terrible with money, which was far worse than his need for attention.

When he’d fallen ill, she had been his nursemaid the last eighteen months of their marriage and his life. He finally had enough of being ill and locked himself in his room and drank himself to death. He’d considered himself a poet in the right of Byron—many young women like herself had agreed—and, like all poets, his death was deemed a tragedy. Of course, a scandal followed, for no real poet died without scandal.

Matthew had died over a year ago, yet the gossip persisted. The idea that she poisoned her husband at all, much less because he’d had an affair—Matthew had precious little time for her, much less another woman—was laughable. But the gossip persisted, and she’d finally heeded the devil that whispered in her ear that she should give the gossipmongers what they wanted. When people had even remotely hinted that she’d had anything to do with her husband’s death, she’d just smiled and shrugged. That had fueled the gossip and earned her the nickname Belladonna, after the nightshade family. No one said the residents of Invergarry were particularly imaginative.

She started to pull the door closed, then froze when her father said, “But it is time she wed. I will send the lass straight to her Aunt Madeline in Edinburgh without delay. She will see that Sophie is ready to meet the marquess at Lady Seafield’s ball.”

Sophie blinked.

It is time she wed?

Had the decision been made? Why not? Her choice of husbands had been terrible—or so her father would reason. He wouldn’t be wrong on that account. But did that give him the right to choose a husband for her?