The Wedding Wager (Scandalous Miss Brightwells Book 3)
The Wedding Wager
Scandalous Miss Brightwells (Book 3)
Beverley Oakley
Copyright © 2017 by Beverley Oakley
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
For Eivind
Contents
Author’s Note
The Wedding Wager
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Author’s Note
The Accidental Elopement - Book 4
The Scandalous Miss Brightwells Box Set
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About the Author
Author’s Note
Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoy The Wedding Wager (previously titled Devil’s Run).
It’s Book 3 in my Scandalous Miss Brightwell series about two matchmaking sisters - Fanny and Antoinette - who first burst upon the stage in Rake’s Redemption as they recklessly gamble upon fate to make rags-to-riches marriages.
In The Wedding Wager, the Brightwell sisters have a difficult task when it comes to helping my heroine, Eliza, find the love she deserves.
But, like all the stories in the series, love triumphs over all.
If you want to hear more about the exploits of the scandalous Miss Brightwells, or get the first in my Daughters of Sin series for FREE, then please sign up to my newsletter.
Enjoy!
Beverley Oakley
The Wedding Wager
Chapter 1
Strange how she felt nothing.
Not fear, not dislike. Not even resignation that she might well be making the biggest mistake of her life.
Eliza stared through her bedchamber window at the servants busying themselves by the edge of the lake and wondered how long she could, politely, remain in her room.
Beneath a clear blue sky, maids and footmen were arranging chairs and pillows for the comfort of those currently enjoying the hospitality of Lord and Lady Quamby, a couple renowned for their lavish entertainments.
A couple renowned also for their eccentricities and lack of regard for convention.
Eliza sighed and turned her gaze towards the small writing desk near the window; at the book of poetry given her by Lord Quamby’s nephew, Mr George Bramely. As his bride-to-be, she’d have particular attention paid to her over the coming days.
The reflection sent a shudder like an attack of the ague through her body so that she had to steady herself against the windowsill. She drew in a shaky breath and exhaled on a sob.
This was surprising for until now she’d felt like an automaton simply going through the motions. It was too late to change her mind. She’d accepted Mr Bramley and what did it matter, anyway?
She had few other choices open to her.
Glancing through the window once more, she saw Mr Bramley and a gentleman she didn’t know, wandering languidly down the slope towards the charmingly arranged cluster of seating.
They were with Mr Bramley’s cousins, Ladies Quamby and Fenton who’d made no secret of the fact they disliked Eliza.
But that was not why Eliza suddenly felt like crying.
She was crying, she realised, because she did so wish to feel something stir her cold, dormant heart back into life.
“There’s nothing else you’d like, my dear? No?” George Bramley found it an effort to keep the syrup in his tone as he straightened up after receiving the polite rebuff.
His bride-to-be had not even looked at him as she’d declined the piece of marchpane he’d been certain would win him at least a smile.
Hovering at her side, he weighed up the advantages of a gentle rebuke, then decided against it. Until yesterday, he’d thought her quiet demeanour suggested a charmingly pliant nature. Now, he was not so sure. In fact, suddenly, he was not sure of anything.
“A glass of lemonade perhaps, my angel? Or a gentle stroll?”
“I would prefer to be left alone.” Miss Montrose waved a languid hand, while she continued to gaze at the still lake beside which their picnic party had situated itself.
George blinked and tried to mute his anger. The languid hand wave had not even been accompanied by a demure thank you as subtle acknowledgement of her gratitude that not only had Mr Bramley, heir to a viscountcy, stepped in to rescue Miss Eliza Montrose from impoverishment, he was prepared to treat her publicly as if she were as fine a catch as he could have made.
A soft titter brought his head round sharply, but the ladies behind him, bent over the latest Ackerman’s Repository, appeared occupied with their own gossip as they lounged on cushions beneath the canopy that had been erected to protect them from the sun.
Awkwardly, he looked for occupation as he continued to eye his intended with a mixture of irritation and desire—both lustful desire, and the desire to put her in her place.
The idea of the latter made him harden. She was beautiful, this quiet, apparently retiring, young woman who said so little, but whose eyes spoke such volumes. The afternoon sun added a rich gloss to her hair and imbued her porcelain skin with a warm glow. The skin that he could see at any rate.
He pushed back his shoulders. On their wedding night in three weeks, when he’d at last take possession of her, he’d rip that modesty to shreds. The skin she was so at pains to hide would be his, not only to see, but to caress and taste. When she was his wife, the beautiful, distant Miss Eliza Montrose would no longer get away with paying George Bramley so little attention. No, he’d have her screaming and writhing at his command. He would make her like the things he did to her, or at least show him she did if she enjoyed harmony as much as she appeared to. None of this languid reclining like a half-drugged princess in his presence. He’d keep her on her toes, ready to leap to his bidding at the sound of his footstep. She’d learn to be grateful.
Feeling ignored and superfluous, he turned to his uncle’s detestable wife, Lady Quamby, and said with a smile, “Perhaps you and Miss Montrose would like to accompany me to the turret. Since you appear to have enjoyed this new novel, Northanger Abbey, so much, you might be interested to know there is an excellent view of the ruined monastery not far from here.”
He was just priding himself on being so attuned to the feminine inclination for pleasure, when Lady Quamby half turned and sent him a desultory smile. “Oh, I think Miss Montrose looks perfectly comfortable, and Fanny and I are having such a lovely little coze.” As if imitating Miss Montrose, she now waved a languid hand in his general direction. “Why don’t you take Mr Patmore off to see it? The two of you can tell us all about it when you return.”
The fact that Miss Montrose didn’t deign to even speak for herself, much less glance in his direction, sent the blood surging to Bramley’s brain. By God, when he was married to Eliza Montrose, the limpid look of love so lacking now would be pasted onto her face every time he crossed her line of vision. She’d soon learn what was good for her.
He inclined his head, h
iding his fury, and was on the point of leaving when Lady Quamby’s sister, Fanny—for he’d be damned if he’d accord the little strumpet the title of Lady Fenton—leapt up from her chair. She’d been poring over the latest fashions, but now she smiled brightly up at him.
“I’ll come with you, Cousin George. We’ll have an excellent view from the battlements of the children learning to row. I told Nanny Brown and the nursemaid they could take them in the two boats if the children had been good.”
Bramley fixed her with a dampening look. In fact, he was about to give up the idea of going up to the battlements altogether when his other guest, Rufus Patmore, suddenly rose and joined Fanny’s side with a late and unexpected show of enthusiasm.
“Capital idea!” declared Rufus.
George flashed them both a dispassionate look. He'd chosen to invite his betrothed, Miss Montrose—whose chaperone was currently tucked up in the green bedchamber nursing a head cold—to be his guest at his uncle’s estate, Quamby House, after receiving intelligence that Ladies Quamby and Fenton would be safely in London with their husbands and children. Instead, the brazen Brightwell sisters—as they’d infamously been called when he’d first made their acquaintance—had altered their plans, and were now in dogged attendance, reminding him as they always had, of some awful tenacious climbing plant, determined to find a foothold wherever they could in order to rise in the world.
Rufus, a last minute addition and acquaintance from his club, Boodles, was here because he’d purchased a horse from Bramley the night before. Now, Rufus was gazing at Lady Fenton with the same dewy-eyed fondness George was used to seeing reflected in the eyes of his uncle, the Earl of Quamby, who called the Brightwell sisters his precious rosebuds. To George, they were common dandelions! And now they had overridden Quamby House, the rambling Queen Anne manor house and estate that would have passed to George the moment his uncle quit this mortal coil, were it not for the snotty-nosed infant Lady Quamby had borne far too early in her marriage to George's uncle.
George shook his head. He’d changed his mind. Only, there was Rufus already ten yards away, striding across the lawn with Fanny at his side, and George didn’t want to be seen as petulant for having offered the suggestion in the first place. Or have his snubbed and ignored status so much on parade, since the two remaining ladies—Miss Montrose and Lady Quamby—now had their heads bent together in deep discussion, with no apparent interest in seeking his company.
By God, he thought, clenching his fists as he set off after the other two at a brisk trot, theyʾd all rue the day they showed George Bramley so little respect.
Doing his best to hide his bubbling rage, he trailed them across the lawn, breathless when he reached the bottom of the spiral staircase that led to the battlements, while the pair in front chattered the whole way. The pert outline of Fanny’s shapely bottom, at eye level as she climbed the stairs in front of him, was a taunting reminder of what he’d failed to secure for himself so many years before, and had Rufus not been there, George might have done something to assuage the dull ache that frequently erupted into blind fury when he recalled the scathing manner with which Fanny had rejected him. George did not forgive easily.
Now, Cousin Fanny’s presence at Quamby House was a constant reminder of how poorly George had been treated. Seven years ago, he’d been prepared to rescue not only Fanny from scandal and disgrace, but also her insufferable sister and deplorable mother after the girls’ father had sucked on the barrel of a gun, leaving the remaining impecunious Brightwells flailing in the River Tick.
Stopping to catch his breath, he watched Fanny and Rufus, now at the top, put their heads together and laugh at some little joke, and the bile burned the back of his throat. He’d hoped to get his revenge through Fanny’s younger sister, Antoinette. Lord knew, the girl had been willing enough, though he was always in two minds as to whether the former Miss Antoinette Brightwell was the most featherbrained peagoose, or the most dangerous cuckold he’d ever had the misfortune to lure into his bed.
“George, you’re looking very red, and you’re panting very loudly. Why don’t you turn around and go back. Mr Patmore and I are quite happy here on our own.”
George was damned if he’d meekly acquiesce to Fanny’s barbish attempt to rid herself of his company. He could match her stamina, breath for breath, and one day he intended doing just that—on a featherbed like the one he’d taken her sister just nine months before Antoinette had given birth to the squalling infant, whom his uncle—who had never intended marrying, for he had no interest in women—happily claimed as his own. The so-called heir that had ousted the rightful heir, George.
To add insult to injury, Miss Antoinette Brightwell—who’d been saved from carrying the lifelong shame of becoming a fallen woman and an unwed mother had, after she’d giggled her way down the aisle to assume her title as the new Duchess Quamby, insisted the child was named George. Young George.
“I’m enjoying the exercise,” rasped George, forcing his mouth to turn up at the corners, though his vision clouded with rage and his eyes watered as he stared past her into the orange, limned sunset once he’d collapsed onto the parapet beside them.
What could he do? Hope Young George disappeared down a well, and Antoinette had produced no further heir to replace the dweedlenap, meaning George was again set to inherit? George would be happy if Antoinette and the bastard were erased from the face of the earth, though doing anything about it, himself, was a step too far.
“What a lovely girl your betrothed, Miss Montrose, is,” Fanny gushed as she leaned over the battlements, flanked now by the two gentlemen. George wished the battlements were just a little lower, and that Fanny would lean just a little too far. It would be preferable to see her lose her footing and hurtle through space, breaking her head on the cobblestones below, than knowing she’d never be his.
Fanny turned and slanted him a knowing look from beneath her lashes. “She looked positively in transports at the prospect of becoming your bride, Cousin George.”
The fact that Miss Montrose had barely addressed anyone all weekend, and had gone so far as to publicly avoid George, would not have gone unnoticed.
When he didn’t answer, she went on sweetly, “I think it very noble of you, Cousin George, to want to rescue Miss Montrose from her penniless state, but I can’t help but wonder if there’s another reason you would wish to wed her, for all that she’s very lovely to look at.”
Now Rufus was looking at him expectantly, but there was no way on God’s earth George would admit to anything beyond the fact that Miss Eliza Montrose was a beauty, and that if she inherited her aunt’s estate, not only would George’s comfort be assured, he’d be married to a diamond of the first water. He’d been prepared to take a wife of great beauty and no fortune when he’d offered for the social climbing Miss Fanny Brightwell, now laughing gaily beside him at some inane remark Rufus had just made, but she had destroyed his illusions about women. George intended having a wife of great beauty and fortune, and Miss Montrose would soon have George to thank for her aunt choosing to favour her with her worldly goods.
Yes, Miss Montrose would have a lot for which she would learn she must be grateful.
“Indeed, Miss Montrose is very lovely,” agreed Rufus, adding thoughtfully, “though perhaps a trifle retiring, if you don’t mind my saying so. I’ve not heard her murmur more than two words together.”
Somehow, it pleased George to hear Rufus put a dampener on Fanny’s endorsement of the young woman, who’d publicly snubbed him not minutes before.
He bowed in acknowledgement of this observation. “It’s true that her conversation is limited, though after we are married, her ability to make conversation will be even more inconsequential, I daresay. I’ve chosen her to be my wife, regardless of her shortcomings.”
He grinned, challenging them to share the humour of his double entendre. Instead, Rufus appeared to consider the matter. “I must say, I like the idea of a wife who can entertain me with liv
ely conversation. Yes, a woman of beauty, kindness, and virtue is what I’m after. I want to grow old with a helpmate who displays intelligence and spirit, not a porcelain doll.”
“Indeed?” For some reason, George didn’t like the fact that his friend Rufus sounded so…modern, though what did it matter? Rufus wasn’t really a friend. He’d simply evinced an interest in buying a horse at their club one evening, and George had been keen to boast the merits of those in his uncle’s fine stable, which George managed.
Certainly, the ladies seemed to admire the pleasantly agreeable Rufus Patmore, and George had been more than happy with the sum Rufus had handed over for a feisty stallion named Carnaby; a sum very different from the amount George intended to declare to his Uncle Quamby.
But while George had done well out of the transaction, he resented the attention Rufus garnered, which the fellow just took for granted. Just as Rufus took for granted the rest of his good fortune. Rufus Patmore knew nothing of hardship, unlike George who had been unfairly treated his whole life.
George glanced up from contemplation of his Hessians and the reflection that Rufus also enjoyed a more conscientious valet than he, judging by the shine on their respective footwear. Perhaps the time had come to dispense with the services of Timkins, he thought idly, before noticing that Fanny’s sharp-eyed gaze remained unwaveringly upon him.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that Miss Montrose’s aunt is weighing up which of her two nieces should inherit her considerable fortune?” she asked. “I’m talking about your nuptials, George, in case you’ve lost the thread of the conversation.”