Never Gamble Your Heart (The Secret Society of Governess Spies #2)

Chapter 36

T he last person Frankie had wanted to pair with was Lady Evelyn, but the other woman had snatched her arm before anyone else, all while giving Frankie her customary glare.

“Despite what happened at Miss Cecelia’s tea, you know her best,” Evelyn explained as she swept Frankie out of the room, “and there is nothing I enjoy more than winning. I fear I have a bit of a competitive streak.”

Now that Frankie believed. Lady Evelyn seemed entirely too accustomed to getting whatever she desired.

Evelyn released Frankie’s elbow almost immediately, as if she was repulsed by Frankie’s touch, and suggested they search the second floor. The pink silk of her skirts swished against Frankie’s own, and her cloying floral scent wrapped around them like a cloud. “I suppose I must ask you to forgive my horrid temper the last time we saw each another at Mr. Jones’s house,” she said stiffly. “I was angry, and I said terrible things. My father is forever telling me that I am opening my mouth when it ought to stay closed.”

“Thank you for apologizing.” Frankie did not forgive her, but she respected that Lady Evelyn was attempting to right her wrong. Mayhap she was not the worst person Frankie had ever met.

“I have been playing parlor games in this house for years, and had I to guess, I would say she went this way.” Lady Evelyn pointed down the long corridor. “There is a grand suite around the bend that is so large it would fit all of us perfectly. The Duke of Marlboro stays there when he visits.”

Frankie thought it more likely that Cecelia would choose a spot that was terribly inconvenient for everyone to fit into, but she did not want to make Evelyn feel bad when she was trying so hard to be civil, so she mumbled an agreement and followed behind.

“In here.” Evelyn twisted the knob to the grand guest suite and pushed the door inward. She sailed into the first chamber and called out, “Cecelia, are you here?”

Frankie followed, her jaw going slack as she scanned the massive room. Evelyn had not been exaggerating when she’d called it a grand guest suite. The main bedroom could easily fit three of Frankie’s already opulent guest room inside. Its high ceiling was painted with chubby angel babies in an elaborate heaven scene. The arched windows were twice as tall as Frankie, and the wallpaper was textured and velvety. A towering gilt-framed bed with sheer white curtains was the centerpiece of the room.

“Wow,” Frankie breathed. She bent to examine the crisp designs on the molding framing the window. The chamber had been decorated for someone very important indeed. No wonder the Houndsburys always reserved it for the Duke of Marlboro. “This is beautiful.”

“Drat.” Lady Evelyn scowled. “I do not see her. There is an adjoining room. I shall take a quick look. Would you take a peek in the wardrobe?”

Frankie dutifully drew open the heavy double doors of the wardrobe, but it was empty save for a stack of clean linens. She’d just closed them when she heard Lady Evelyn’s footsteps behind her. “She’s not here,” Frankie said.

“No, but I am.”

Frankie gasped and whirled around, horrified to find Lord Devon standing between her and the partially ajar door. He smiled softly, but his eyes danced with greed and maliciousness. In an instant Frankie realized she’d been skillfully trapped. Had he been following them, waiting for the opportunity to catch her alone?

Frankie’s throat seized. She knew that at any moment someone would walk through the door and catch them—the only way the setup worked was if prying eyes found them alone together. Before that happened and her life was destroyed, she would have answers.

Frankie stood to her fullest height and shoved her spectacles up her nose. “Where is Lady Evelyn?”

“I have locked her in the adjoining room.”

On the heels of his words, Frankie heard a furious pounding from the door across the room accompanied by a string of muffled threats. Frankie’s heart was beating so hard in her chest she thought Devon might be able to see the imprint of it on her skin. “Who is behind this?”

Lord Devon’s satisfied smile slipped a fraction. “What do you mean?”

“Who saved you and the other Scott Silver investors from social humiliation? What was his price?”

The smile dissolved and his lips flattened. He took a menacing step toward her. “What do you know, you little bitch?”

“I know enough,” she said. “And I am not the only one. You will not get away with this.”

Devon’s fist flexed, his knuckles bulging white, and then his palm fell open. “I do not care who knows. I have already procured a special license, and we will be married before any scandal breaks.” He shook a lock of hair off his forehead and adjusted his cravat with an assured twist of his wrist. “You should know, Miss Turner, that this will be the last threat you ever make toward me. When you are my wife I will have your silence, or you will have nothing but misery.”

Frankie balled her own fists and was thinking about punching him in the nose when the door burst open. Her heart sank, and then exploded a split second later when the silhouette of a darkly handsome and furious man filled the doorframe.

“Did you touch her?” Jasper’s voice was silky with the promise of death.

Devon sprang away from her. “Oh heavens, we have been caught, Miss Turner. I suppose the only honorable thing to do is marry.”

Frankie was so angry she wanted to scream.

Jasper closed the door behind him, locked it with the key that had been left in the knob, and pocketed it. His voice was deadly calm when he said, “No one is leaving until this situation is resolved.”

Devon was a fool if he was not quivering in his boots.

“There is nothing to resolve, Jones. You do not need to call a duel. I will respect Miss Turner’s honor and marry her.”

Jasper ignored him, instead looking her over from crown to foot. “Are you all right, love?”

She nodded, but she was so enraged that she was trembling. She had been foolish to think she was different from the other compromised women simply because she’d been expecting the trap. She had been prepared, and still she had been caught off guard. What chance had they ever had?

Jasper walked languidly to the desk by the window and took a seat as if he had all the time in the world. “I have a proposition for you, Devon.”

Devon folded his arms across his chest and said with such false earnestness that Frankie wanted to choke him, “There is no proposition that could sway me from following through with my gentlemanly duty. I am no cad, Mr. Jones.”

Jasper propped his elbow on the desk and lazily twirled his finger. “Rockford’s.”

Frankie gasped, and despite himself, Devon cocked his head with interest. “I am listening.”

“When the party of onlookers you arranged to walk into this room arrive, they will find the door locked. It will take them time to chase down the master key. No one is compromised until that happens.”

Devon shifted uneasily. “If you think you will intimidate me into walking out of this room without a fiancée, then you are sorely mistaken. Even if you throw me out, I will spread gossip far and wide that Miss Turner and I were kissing.”

Jasper’s face was so cold and expressionless that Devon might have just told him his favorite food was duck. Frankie, on the other hand, was so livid that she was fisting her hands over and over again.

“One game of piquet,” Jasper said. “If I win, Miss Turner is mine. When those people walk through the door you will say you caught me kissing her.”

Frankie’s blood thundered at the possession in his voice.

“And if I win?”

“If you win, I will transfer ownership of Rockford’s to you.”

“No!” Frankie cried.

Devon considered and then said dismissively, “Rockford’s would be too much effort.”

Jasper shrugged. “That is why I have a manager. I barely do anything but drink and socialize. And believe me, the annual profits from Rockford’s make Miss Turner’s dowry look like street change.”

Now he really had Devon’s interest. The lord studied Frankie speculatively. “What happens with her if I win?”

“If you win Rockford’s, I take Miss Turner. No negotiation on that point.”

“So either way you get the woman. If I win the game, I take Rockford’s, but if I lose, I am left with nothing. That is quite the gamble, Jones.”

Jasper nodded and Frankie’s throat squeezed. She could not let this happen. “I wish to marry Lord Devon!”

Devon scowled at her. “Quiet, woman. You have no say in the matter. I need to think. There are others who may be affected by my choice. But if Rockford’s is as profitable as you say it is…”

Jasper pulled a pack of cards from his pocket just as the knob turned forcefully on the door. They heard voices outside and someone knocked. The three of them stood silently as the knob twisted a few more times and then stopped.

“You have thirty seconds to make your choice.”

Devon paced back and forth in front of the bed as he raked his hand through his hair. Finally, he said more to himself than to Jasper, “The dowry is a sure thing, but winning Rockford’s is not.”

Jasper smiled, and there was something a bit feral in it. “I can promise you that when Miss Turner is making your life miserable, and I guarantee she will, because no one silences her, you will rue the day you tossed aside the opportunity to be the richest man in London.”

Whoever the Dowry Thieves ringleader was, Devon did not want to make him angry, but his greed was mightier than his fear because his eyes glistened with undisguised avarice. “If she is so wretched, why are you willing to gamble your club for her?”

“Because she is dear to my niece, and I find I will do anything for Miss Cecelia.”

Frankie would cry herself to sleep for the next five decades if she had to marry Lord Devon, but she could not allow Jasper to gamble away his life’s work because she had thought herself too clever to be caught by the Dowry Thieves. She had dragged him into this, and it was not fair that he had to pay the price. He had scraped and saved and sacrificed for Rockford’s. He loved it as dearly as one might love a family member, and she would not let him gamble it away on her.

She batted her eyelashes at Devon. “I am an angel. I would never make your life difficult.”

“She broke Mr. Farthins’s nose,” Jasper said.

“He deserved it!”

“She stole the key to my study and went through all of my personal papers.”

“That was one time, Mr. Jones. I sincerely hope I do not have to hear about it for the rest of my life.”

“She taught my young and impressionable niece how to gamble.”

“That was a misunderstanding.”

Devon was eyeing her with something akin to horror. “I have heard that these types of women are difficult, but this is beyond the pale! I accept the wager.”

Jasper broke open the package of cards and gave him such a cutthroat smile that it sent chills down Frankie’s back. “Let us begin.”