Lady Allerton's Wager Read Free Page B

absent-mindedly in his hand. So he had been richly deceived and for an intriguing reason. He wanted to know more about that. He wanted to know more of the lady. Damn it, he still wanted her . Marcus shifted uncomfortably in his chair. And he needed a drink. Urgently.
     
    Justin found him in the refreshment room after he had already downed a glass of brandy in one swallow. Justin watched him take a refill and despatch it the same way, and raised his eyebrows.
    ‘Unlucky in love, Marcus?’
    ‘Unlucky in games of chance,’ Marcus said feelingly. He took Justin’s arm and drew him into the shelter of one of the pillars, away from prying gossips. ‘Justin, you know more of West Country genealogy than I! Tell me, does Kit Mostyn have a sister?’
    Justin nodded. ‘He has a widowed younger sister, Charlotte. Allegedly a blonde beauty, but she lives retired so it is difficult to say with certainty.’
    Marcus frowned. Beth had never been a blonde and she could scarcely be described as retiring. Perhaps she was Mostyn’s mistress after all. Yet something in him rebelled at such a thought.
    ‘What is all this about, Marcus?’ Justin was asking, looking puzzled. ‘I thought you were about to make a new conquest, old fellow, not indulge in a mystery play!’
    ‘So did I,’ Marcus said thoughtfully. His face lightened and he held up the glass. ‘Only find me the bottle and I will tell you the whole story!’
     
    ‘I cannot believe that you just did that, Beth.’
    Christopher Mostyn sounded mild, but his cousin knew full well that he was angry. She had known him well enough and long enough to tell.
    Beth sighed. ‘It was your idea to escort me there, Kit—’
    ‘I may have escorted you to the Cyprians’ Ball, but I did not expect you to behave like one!’
    Now Kit’s voice sounded clipped, forbidding further discussion. Beth sighed again. Kit was head of the family and as such she supposed he had the right to censure her behaviour. The fact that he seldom did owed more to his easygoing nature than her obedience.
    Beth rested her head back against the carriage’s soft cushions and closed her eyes. Truth to tell, she could not believe that she had behaved as she had. And she had only told Kit half the story, the half relating to the wager. She knew that if she had told Kit that Marcus Trevithick had kissed her, very likely he would have stormed back and challenged the Earl to a duel and matters would be immeasurably worse.
    Beth opened her eyes again and stared out of the window. They were travelling through the streets of London at a decorous pace and the light from the lamps on the pavement skipped across the inside of the carriage in bars of gold and black. It hid her blushes and a very good thing too, for whenever she thought of Marcus Trevithick, she felt the telltale colour come into her face and the heat suffuse her entire body.
    Not only had she overstepped the mark—by a long chalk—but she knew that she had been completely out of her depth with such a man. She had a lot of courage and, allied to her impulsive nature, she knew it could be her downfall. However, her nerve had almost deserted her in that secluded room. If he had won the bet…Beth shivered. Like as not he would have demanded his prize there and then on the card table or the floor…But he had not won. She took a deep, steadying breath.
    Marcus Trevithick. Children of her family were taught to hate the Trevithicks from the moment they were born. There were tales told at the nursemaid’s knee—stories of treachery and evil. The Earls of Trevithick were jumped-up nobodies, whereas the Mostyns could trace their ancestry back to the Conquest and beyond. The Trevithicks had stolen the Mostyn estates during the Civil War and had wrested the island of Fairhaven from them only two generations back, taking the family treasure and the Sword of Saintonge into the bargain. No good had come to the Mostyns ever since—their fortunes had fallen whilst the