Page 20 of The Marquess' Wicked Wager
“Oh, Edna! You look positively dreamy!”
A cry of delight came from the doorway, but Edna was too busy with her strings of pearls to turn around. She lifted her head for but a moment to catch sight of her visitor in the reflection. To her surprise, it was not Violet, who had been obsessing over her toilette (and poking herself full of feathers) since luncheon. It was Janine.
“Heavens! Don’t tell me you’ve all arrived already. I’ve only just fastened my garters,” she quipped, still ogling herself in the mirror. She supposed she did look quite dreamy in her ruby-red gown, the hem of which was so wide and heavy she looked as though she was being dragged down toward the Styx, and she felt like it too.
“With the sun boiling in the sky as it is? Don’t be silly,” Janine chided. She walked around to Edna and placed her chin on her shoulder. “Are you quite nervous? You’ve been spinning those pearls around to no luck.”
Edna pulled them away with a sigh, and her heart pinched. She hated having to lie to everyone, and how was she to go about it, besides? Shewasnervous. Of course, she was—she could barely stomach the thought of carrying out their deception to its end. But was she to admit that? Or was it more believable for her to be over the moon?
“I’m not sure how I should feel,” she thought would be the surest answer, and it seemed to subdue her friend.
Janine plopped herself down on the bed, her sage green gown settling around her in a poof. “Relieved, for one,” she suggested, and Edna smiled sheepishly. “Though why you’ve settled for the Marquess when you could have had the Duke, I shall never understand. I daresay it’s all part of your act, ever selling yourself short.”
Edna started. “Perhaps it’s not a thing that requires understanding. Perhaps I simply prefer the son.” It was not a total lie.
“Perhaps? Are we not supposed to be sure of marriages and matches? You sound as though you’ve chosen the lamb over the fish, not settled on a husband.” Janine shook her head. “I am away for a few months to other isles, and I come back to this. Really,” she crooned as she smoothed down Edna’s quilt, “How will you survive without me once you’re married?”
Edna’s hands were growing slippery as she adjusted and readjusted her jewelry. Janine’s interrogation was but a prelude to what awaited her downstairs at her engagement ball, she knew. She needed to navigate this carefully.
But Janine was not done. “You know, I’d forever heard that the Marquess was quite against the whole idea of marriage,” she trilled, but there was something in her voice that Edna couldn’t place. Jealously? Doubt? She didn’t know which of the two she feared more. “That he should be so eager to wed you now, off the back of a wager no less… What is it you did to convince him, I wonder? Besides being yourdiamondself?”
Edna cast the pearls aside, and they rattled loudly against her vanity. She couldn’t bear trifling with them any more than she could Janine. “That’s a question better reserved for the Marquess himself, wouldn’t you say?” She huffed and brought her hands to her hips.
The very thought of Albert stirred worry in her belly. She had not seen him since their agreement. She had not even hadwordbeyond various second-hand reports from Violet. And then the engagement party had been announced by her father without even asking. Really, Edna didn’t know how she was not crying. But if this was what it took to get the loathsome Craster off her back…
“I shall ask him,” Janine said then, and it snapped Edna from her musing. “And then, perhaps I shall take a swing at the Duke myself.”
“Be my guest,” Edna bit out then tended her hand for Janine to come with her. “Though I suggest you come readily armed. With any luck, Violet will have another poker you can borrow.”
The girls rushed down the hallway, their slippers clicking against the parquet. With a gentle hum, Janine floated down the stairs, only catching Edna’s eye again when she was back in the entrance hall. But Edna was not looking at her for long. She was too distracted by the tolling, heavy steps sounding from the western wing.
Albert appeared suddenly, and he looked the picture of misery. Violet must have had a word or bullied his uncle into doing it for her because he had clearly commissioned a new suit. The dark, burgundy velvet of his jacket was the same shade as his vest, and it did a righteous job of bringing out the green of his eyes—and the gloom in his expression. He seemed paler than the last time she had seen him, too, a little unwell. She hoped it was not for their ruse although she could certainly sympathize with any ailment brought on by trickery.
He started when he saw her standing there, her gloved hand curled around the top banister. He even seemed to hop back, not unlike the very lamb Janine had compared him to.
“I hadn’t known you were changing here,” she said a little too loudly across the landing.
It seemed to snap him from his daze. All at once, he smoothed out his lapels and walked over to her, putting back on his mask of confidence. He came to settle before her then dragged the both of them toward the shadows. “Neither had I until Lady Rees sent word to Uncle that she’d...” he sighed and looked himself over “...outfitted me for the coming battle. I look like a jester.”
Edna could not hold back her smile. “You don’t. I only wish we weren’t quite so matching,” she added, looking down at herself. They looked like a pair of foxes. Hopefully, they were just as sly.
“So, Blue has dressed herself in my colors, has she? I see what you’ve done,” he lilted, and Edna found herself feeling quite relieved.
“If you insist on us keeping up this farce,Imust insist that you put a pin in your teasing.”
“But if we were betrothed,” he began to counter, leaning up against a sideboard and almost knocking a vase of dried roses over, “this is what you would have to contend with. Me and my teasing, and as much of it as I like.”
“So, you’re simply leaning into the act? Is that it?” she quipped, but her heart lightened for their banter. “I didn’t think you were quite so talented. Perhaps you might shirk thetonand take to the stage.”
“Only with you as my leading lady.”
All amusement dropped from Edna’s expression. She suddenly felt rather overcome, her anger whisking away, as she had when he had dared to kiss her the first time—a little frightened, a little drunk. It must have been something in his voice...his terribly honeyed voice. And that was all.
Albert looked across the landing, but the turn of his head revealed a rather unsightly bruise along his jaw. It was yellowed and had otherwise been covered up by his cravat. Shethoughthe had tied it a little high.
“What is that?” she asked, pointing to his face.
Albert ran his hand along the spot she had pointed out then drew it away as his eyes widened. “Nothing you need to concern yourself with, Diamond. Come, let’s head downstairs before we miss the first act,” he said. And then, most surprisingly, he placed a hand on the small of her back.
