The Rogue's Wager (Sinful Brides #1)(47)

“Her mother was lovely,” the duke murmured. He captured his chin between his thumb and forefinger, and rubbed. “I believe her name was Dahlia or Delia. I expect her daughter is a like beauty.”

Robert made a noncommittal sound. Since his first meeting with the young woman at the Hell and Sin Club, he’d not seen any stretch of beauty that fit within his and Society’s constraints. Taller than most men, and so slender it looked as though a strong wind might knock her over, she’d proven herself . . . interesting in other ways that defied expectations of beauty.

“She is not lovely, then?” his father prodded. The creases on his forehead hinted at his befuddlement.

“She is . . . interesting,” he settled for.

“Yes, well there is something to be said for interesting, too.”

The duke rightfully assumed Robert’s questions came from a gentleman who’d found himself captivated by a lady. Never would Robert make that same fatal mistake. Not again. His father could not know as much given his failure to know about the late duke’s actions in this very room. Neither refuting nor accepting his father’s supposition, Robert shifted in his chair. “You know nothing else about the lady?” he pressed. Surely a man who’d been friends with Wilkinson since their university days had some information about the lady beyond those small scraps?

His father shrugged. “I do not.” A twinkle lit his eye. “I’m afraid you will have to find out the answers to your questions about the lady.”

The duke no doubt believed he saw much with Robert’s questioning. What he could not know was the scheme Robert had agreed to help the lady with, all in the hopes of keeping at bay dishonorable suitors.

. . . I’d sooner dig Boney’s dead body from the grave and drag him down the aisle than tie myself to one such as you . . .

He chuckled. It would seem there existed one lady in the whole of the kingdom, wholly uninterested in him and the title attached to his name.

Footsteps sounded in the hall, and then the door opened. Beatrice stood at the front. “Robert,” she said with a surprise to rival their father’s earlier reaction. At the faintly accusatory glimmer in her eyes, a sliver of guilt stabbed at him.

At three and twenty, she should have a husband and a passel of babes at her feet. The fact that she couldn’t find a single gentleman to properly court her spoke volumes of the lack of worthy nobles in the kingdom. “Bea,” he said, climbing to his feet.

Beatrice pointed her eyes to the ceiling, and strolled forward. “Bah, do not waste your attempts at gentlemanly bows on me. You’ve not come round.” She fell into the seat next to him and motioned to the chair he’d just vacated. “Well?” she prodded.

From the corner of his eye, he detected the smile on their father’s lips. “Well?” Robert repeated. With her worrying and questioning, she’d become more like a concerned mama than the younger sister who’d dogged his shadows when he’d been visiting from college.

“Is this about your morning visit to a certain duke’s daughter?”

Ah, so gossips had begun the furious whispers, and by his sister’s knowledge they’d already found their way here. Which would mean the papers, by tomorrow, would be well documenting his sudden fascination with the duke’s illegitimate daughter. “Paying attention to the gossips now, are you, Bea?” He made a tsking sound.

“Do not try and change the subject,” she scolded. “She’s too young and innocent for you, Robert. Do you not agree, Papa?”

Brother and sister looked to the surviving patriarch and he held his hands up. “It is not my place to interfere in matters of the heart.”

With the exception of cleverly thrown-together summer parties. Robert smiled wryly and his father had the decency to flush.

“I thank you for your concern, Bea,” Robert said, shoving to his feet. “I assure you I know what I am doing where the lady is concerned.” And as she opened her mouth to either protest or press him for further details, he dropped a bow.

The meeting to obtain information about Helena Banbury had proven less successful than he’d hoped.

Though, it hardly mattered. Given the fool plan he’d agreed to last evening, he would assuredly find out all there was to know of Helena Banbury.

And somehow, as he took his leave of his father’s office, the ennui to dog him last evening, remarkably, was absent.





Chapter 12


Rule 12


Never show weakness.

Helena really should have stipulated that Lord Robert be in attendance at any of the balls she’d the ill fortune of having to accept an invitation to.

That realization came entirely too late and she now found herself sandwiched between the Duke and Duchess of Wilkinson. She’d taken refuge between them after she’d noticed some such gentlemen eying her the same way a starving child coveted a slice of bread. She sank back in a bid to make herself as small as possible. A rather impossible feat for a woman nearly six feet in height.

While the duke and duchess conversed, Helena searched her gaze quickly about Lord and Lady Drake’s ballroom, peering around the crush of guests for a certain gentleman, a gentleman who represented her only hope of escape from the grasping attentions of men determined to corner her, ruin her, and be off with her ten thousand pounds.

Though, it wasn’t truly her ten thousand pounds. When she left in three months (two months, twenty-eight days if one wished to be truly precise), then those funds would remain in the duke’s care. Her gaze landed on the neck of a lady across the room. Draped about her neck were enough diamonds and sapphires to have fed Helena’s family for years. During those darkest days, as she’d come to think of them, when she’d suffered at Diggory’s hands, she would have easily sold her soul for a single pound, let alone a thousand of them. Now she’d gleefully burn the thousands of pounds settled on her . . .