Page 76 of War of the Wedding Wagers
“I say, I can’t imagine why you are looking like that. What is it to you whether Sir Frederick admires me? I’m sure he admires a great many other young ladies in this room.”
“Any blonde ones?’ Edward asked quickly.
“Blonde ones? What an odd question. I daresay he admires plenty of blonde ones. And dark-haired young ladies, too.”
“But I only want to know if you’ve noticed him admiring any blonde ladies.”
“Well, there’s Mrs. Perry. Does she count?” Miss Playford tapped him playfully on the arm with her fan. “What is goingon here, Edward? Why are you asking all these questions? You almost look as if your life depends upon it.”
“Well, not my life, but my sister’s future.” Edward sighed.
“Tell me more.”
“I can’t else everything will be exposed and the game will be up and my sister will have nothing and it’ll all be my fault.”
“Goodness! What will be your fault?”
“The fact that I made a wager about Sir Frederick walking down the aisle with a vivacious blonde before six weeks was up. And I bet my sister’s inheritance upon it, I was so sure he was already about to get leg-shackled. There! I shouldn’t have told you. The game is up. Truth is, I don’t know what to do. Poor Amelia doesn’t deserve this. And it’s all my fault.”
After a short silence, Edward realized Miss Playford was looking at him with great sympathy rather than the derision he’d expected. “Well, you obviously were only trying to help her.”
“Yes, but her inheritance should have been sacrosanct. I don’t know what I was thinking except that, yes, I wanted to double it for her. Now Sir Edward is going to eschew ladies—blonde or otherwise—beyond the next six weeks. Or at least, he’s not going to marry any of them.”
Edward was by now feeling so wretched, and was about to make his excuses when Miss Playford said, “What, exactly, was the wager? That he marry a vivacious blonde? Or that he just walk down the aisle with one within the next six weeks.” She giggled suddenly. “Because if it’s the latter, I’m sure he’d walk down the aisle with me if I asked him nicely. As long as he knew I wasn’t about to leg-shackle him.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Amelia watched SirFrederick disappear into the crowded saloon, his broad shoulders vanishing amid the press of silk-clad figures. The feeling of witnessing her last chance at love slip away settled in her chest like a physical ache.
Three days ago, she’d have scoffed at the idea that this was love. If her heart had been in any way stimulated at the sight of the gentleman in question, surely it was merely due to the challenge of achieving her goal.
Well, her several goals, for getting to the bottom of Pernilla’s fate had assumed similar importance to seeing Sir Frederick allied to a young lady of the right stature and hair color who would secure Amelia’s future. The schemes had seemed so sensible then, so necessary.
Until they hadn’t.
Perhaps she hadn’t realized the tender feelings she’d developed for Sir Frederick until she watched him now walk away from her, his every step across the polished floor echoing her mounting regret. The murmur of conversation and tinkling of crystal seemed to mock her folly.
She should have told Sir Frederick about her concerns regarding his sister. Henry had told her just five minutes earlier that he’d learned that Mr. Greene had ordered a postchaise and four from a posting inn in the next village.
So, Miss Caroline had succumbed.
And yet Amelia had chosen to keep that information from him. If the plan went wrong, she’d be guilty of ruining his sister’s life, which would quite rightly fuel his ire far more than Amelia’s knowledge that she’d ruined her own life through stupidity.
For, if Amelia hadn’t gambled away her future in quite the overt way Edward had, she was as complicit in exploring underhand ways to lay claim to that future she’d thought she wanted above all others.
So, what now?
She had no inheritance to look forward to. And she had lost her chance at love—if she were foolish and vain enough to think she ever had it.
Blinking away the dampness that suddenly weighed down her lashes, she ran her gloved hands down the lustrous folds of her dress and gazed once more upon the throng.
Never more had she felt such an outsider. She did not belong in an environment like this. She was a country rustic at heart. Didn’t she know that?
What a foolish young woman she was for having dreams above her station.
*
With a senseof disorientation, Sir Frederick circled the populated saloon. The scent of beeswax candles and ladies’ perfume did nothing to clear his head.
