An Unusual Wager (The Mismatched Lovers #4)

Chapter One

Anything to avoid the dreams.

He closed his eyes again because that single glance had only served to worsen his pounding headache.

And this, in turn, heralded the nasty sensation that he might be about to cast up his accounts, something which his valet, Arnold, would strongly disapprove of.

He must have imbibed considerably more than usual last night, and, unsurprisingly, he could remember nothing about it, nor, mercifully, if his sleep had been bothered by the bad dreams that so frequently haunted him.

He had a vague memory, the dredging up of which only served to worsen his headache, of leaving White’s in the early hours of the morning arm in arm with his great friend Walter Farrington.

Hadn’t they been heading in the direction of some gambling den or another?

Whatever had occurred after that, however, receded into blank oblivion.

He couldn’t even recall arriving at the den, nor which one it had been.

He tried swallowing, but his mouth felt as though he’d been licking up the sawdust at the Exeter ’Change.

Possibly in the monkey’s cages. Before they’d been cleaned out.

His tongue was thick and appeared to be glued to the roof of his mouth, and his eyes hurt so much they might at any minute fall right out of his head.

Which was why he was refraining from opening them again.

Too much light meant too much pain. The not unfamiliar thought that it might be preferable to be dead arose.

Best to lie still and hope for a miracle that might end his suffering, unlikely as that probably was.

So far, his life had been singularly devoid of miracles and more a series of disastrously bad judgments.

He pushed the dark thoughts out of his head with an effort that only redoubled the throbbing.

At least the bed was comfortable, and his own.

He reached out a wary hand to grope the other side of it.

And at least he was alone. The few nights he’d made the mistake of bringing home a woman after a night’s heavy drinking had led to mornings of deep regret and vows never to do such a thing again.

He was an exponent of keeping his amorous encounters to the property of the lady of the moment, not inviting them home with him.

Jonathan, who at thirty-two had been Earl of Dunster for just over half his life, had, as he himself freely acknowledged, a bit of a reputation.

From time to time, although he didn’t like to admit it even to himself, it became a reputation that hung around his neck like a lumpen lead weight as he sought to live up to it.

Not for nothing was he known to his friends and enemies alike as the Black Earl, a nickname he’d acquired shortly after he’d inherited his father’s title.

This was not, as one might have expected, due to his jet-black hair, strong black brows, and eyes that could also have been taken for black, but rather to what all who knew him well liked to refer to as his black heart.

Being known as the possessor of this black heart was something Jonathan had himself gone out of the way to cultivate.

To the extent that he’d started a few rumors that he’d sold his soul to the devil.

People loved to believe rubbish like that.

For Jonathan had been a boy, then later a man, who did everything hard.

He drank hard, even at school, he played sports hard, he gambled hard, he drove his horses hard, and he womanized hard—this last being something he’d begun even before he inherited the title from his late and not-lamented father.

The ladies he’d benefitted with his presence could indeed all vouch for his hardness.

So, in truth, last night had been no different to most other nights spent in Town with his like-minded and admiring friends, some of whom he could have disparaged as sycophants.

In order to maintain his reputation, he often woke, as he had this morning, with no recollection of what he’d been up to the night before, and this almost never bothered him.

Although there had been the occasion when he discovered he’d climbed the tower of St Bride’s Church in Fleet Street while in a state of deep intoxication.

Possibly that very intoxication had been the reason why he hadn’t fallen to his death.

Drunks always seemed to have a sense of self preservation, and he was no different.

Not that he would have ever referred to himself as a drunk. Nothing so base as that.

His mother would probably have been horrified by his lifestyle, not that he cared. And besides which, hadn’t his father been exactly the same, and yet she’d still loved him above all else. Including her only child.

However, as she hadn’t left the Dower House at Luxborough since his father’s unexpected and never-mentioned demise, she wasn’t about to find out.

And his aged grandmother, bless her confused soul, would not have understood unless in one of her rare moments of clarity.

Kitty, on the other hand… No. Best little Kitty didn’t hear rumors of any of his excesses.

Kitty had to be protected at all costs from everything.

The door opened and someone entered the room on not-quite-silent feet. Recognizing his valet, Arnold, by his cautious step, Jonathan kept his eyes closed and cleared his throat. “Don’t draw the curtains.” His voice emerged as little more than a rasping croak.

“My lord,” Arnold said, from somewhere near the window, definite reproof in his voice and definitely ignoring his master’s instruction not to draw the curtains.

“I feel I must inform you that it is gone eleven o’clock in the morning and you have a visitor awaiting you downstairs.

Mr. Trubshawe has put her in the blue parlor. ”

Jonathan kept his eyes firmly shut against the painful daylight.

Why was Arnold shouting? And he should know by now that eleven o’clock in the morning was not the time to be waking his master.

He tried licking his lips. “A visitor?” That was better—a bit less of a croak this time.

Sometimes he wondered if his man took perverse pleasure in discomfiting him.

Only his unparalleled valeting skills had prevented Jonathan from giving him his marching orders on more than one occasion.

He had an uneasy feeling Arnold was fully aware of this and played on it shamelessly.

“Yes, my lord. Mr. Trubshawe said she is most insistent on seeing you this morning and has been waiting for some time already. And that she implied she had an important appointment with you.” Arnold possessed the uncanny skill of imbuing most of what he said with disapproval, even when it was anything but.

“She?” Jonathan opened one eye with caution and regretted it as daylight battered at his aching eyeball.

“A lady?” He cast his mind back, such as it was at this time of the day and with so terrible a hangover, over the ladies he’d most recently been associated with.

There was quite a long list. “Did she give her name?”

“No, my lord. Mr. Trubshawe said she did not. Apparently, she claimed you would know who she was.”

It could be Lady Delamere, his most recent conquest and with whom he’d been carrying on a most enjoyable relationship while her elderly husband resided at their country estate nursing his gout.

And his piles, if his wife was to be believed.

His interest was piqued, despite the crashing headache, as it always was by mention of a woman.

“Did you see her? What did she look like?”

Arnold, who was next best thing to a Puritan, cleared his throat and harumphed, a clear signal that he felt more than his usual disapproval.

“I did see her, as it happens, as I was in the front hallway when she arrived. As to her looks, I would say she is young, my lord, and not well-dressed. A little shabby in appearance, if I might be so bold as to say. But a lady. Nothing common about her whatsoever.”

Arnold was well aware that his master’s tastes didn’t always run to members of the ton.

Jonathan frowned, which hurt his head some more.

Couldn’t be Lady Delamere then. She was always attired in the height of fashion and no one could have called her shabby.

She also wouldn’t go out calling this early in the morning.

She’d still be asleep, just as he should be.

Plus, no one could have called her young for the last twenty years.

“Young?” He forced his other eye open and regarded Arnold myopically, the feeling that his eyes were about to pop out of his head returning with a vengeance.

Could that happen with a headache? The sort of headache you got when you’d imbibed several bottles of fine claret, half a bottle of port, and more than a few brandies, which was his normal fare and which he now concluded he must have exceeded.

“Yes, my lord.” Arnold was picking up Jonathan’s discarded coat and cravat from where he’d thrown them in a crumpled heap on the floor not so very long ago. “Would you like me to ask her to leave, my lord?”

“Is she pretty?” Jonathan asked. He was not a man to turn away a pretty girl, nor the opportunity to become much better acquainted with one. Not even when he was feeling as crapulous as he was this morning.

“Passably so, my lord. Does your lordship wish me to have the maids fill you a bath before you go down?”

“Then I’ll see her,” Jonathan pronounced. “No bath. Not yet, anyway. I might have one later. Help me up. I find myself a little under the weather.”