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“I do.”

“Then you must feel a responsibility to steer them away from harm and toward their best interests.”

“Must I? You perhaps imagine that familial ties such as yours are a universal experience. Or that sisters and brothers wish to be steered. That, however, is not my experience. I wager you that your effort to steer your sister on a course of propriety and self-restraint comes to naught in three days. Care to take my wager?”

“Three days! You are daft to propose such a thing.” Her wet swimming costume had dampened the coverlet, and she began to shiver.

“Not a gambler?”

“Never.” Her father was the gambler, the careless one, the one who craved excitement, who followed horses and prize fighters, always looking for a winner.

“But you are confident you can keep your sister from what? Shall we say … entering Delamere uninvited? Care to wager on a fortnight?”

Cordelia studied him. He had a coolness that her father lacked. What more could Graymont want from them? “There would have to be some great benefit to be won from such a wager. Isn’t that why you gamble? Because there is some tempting stake?”

“Fair point. I know what tempts me. What would tempt you?”

Making a wager was a lark to him, a joke. He had nothing to lose, really. She doubted he would wager the castle itself, but perhaps she could delay his tearing it down until the whim passed. “If my sister stays out of the castle for a fortnight, could we give our annual Midsummer ball in the courtyard?”

“A ball?”

She’d surprised him. “We have been in the habit of giving a Midsummer ball for our neighbors.”

“How hospitable of you.”

“You don’t like balls?”

“I have no use for them, but if that would suit you as a stake, then we have a wager, Miss Staveley. One more thing. You can’t tell anyone of our wager.”

“As if I would.”

“Let me be clear. You can win only by steering your sister. Not by telling her of our arrangement.”

She gave him a sharp glance. Her teeth were beginning to chatter. She had no intention of telling her siblings that she’d entered into an agreement with Graymont. The wager might test her plans to keep Violet away from the viscount, but she meant to win. It was a wager that depended not on the turn of a card, but on strength of will. “Steering, it is,” she said.

“And you did say five minutes later for my time at the beach? I’ll give you a quarter of an hour.” He stepped aside.

It set her teeth on edge for him to dictate terms, but her morning swim would be more essential than ever if she meant to keep Viola out of trouble for a fortnight. Cordelia nodded and moved past him up the path.

Chapter Four

In the breakfast room, the clink of forks meeting plates sounded excessively loud in Cordelia’s ears. She helped herself from Cook’s offerings on the sideboard and took her place at the table with a glance at her sisters. Henry was off somewhere about estate business while Roz and Miranda glared daggers at Viola, who spread a thick layer of plum jam on her toast. The red scratch stood out jaggedly on her pale forehead.

Cordelia gently lifted a poached egg onto her toast, waiting for whatever storm was about to break. She was far from easy about the wager she’d made with Graymont. It was an incomplete wager. He hadn’t named what he expected to win should she fail to keep Viola from the castle during the agreed-upon fortnight, and Cordelia had nothing to offer that he could possibly want. He had the castle. He could never have the land. He could cast them out of the lodge, but he didn’t need to win the wager to do that.

Her egg was growing cold when the storm broke.

“Cordelia,” Roz said. “You must control Viola. She will ruin all our chances.”

“Chances? What chances?” Viola’s knife hit her plate with a clang. “You aren’t having a Season, and Miranda has no dowry.”

“That doesn’t mean you can behave in your usual ramshackle way,” Miranda chimed in. “What will Mr. Hartley think of us?”

“Forget your curate, Miranda,” Roz said. “It’s Lord Graymont who can sink us in society. A word from him in London about our family, and no one will invite us anywhere.”

“Pooh,” said Viola. “He’s not thinking of us at all. Did you see him at the beach this morning, Cordelia?”

The question caught Cordelia off guard. “Only in passing as I came up the hill.”