Chapter Twenty-One
Destroying Donald at brag was as delicious as Ginevra had hoped. She’d always known he was an abysmal liar, and intoxication wiped away any lingering skill he might have retained for lying at cards. Hand after hand, he made rash bets while his debt tally ballooned in Ginevra’s favor.
Professor Leland enjoyed the show most of anyone.
He had been one of the first to withdraw from the card game, but he lingered on the edges, cheering Ginevra and ribbing Donald.
From the flushed contours of Donald’s angular face, those blows landed nearly as hard as the ones upon his purse.
Usually, he brushed off teasing from his aristocratic shoulders.
But from the defensive way he had discussed Leland at the doomed book party, clearly the professor’s good opinion mattered to him more than others.
The antepenultimate player folded, leaving Gin and Donald in a standoff, and she allowed herself a tiny frown.
It was unlikely that Donald had a better hand, but she wanted to squeeze a few pounds more out of him.
She toyed with her pearls, feigning indecision, and added fifty quid to her bet with an anxious titter of laughter.
“It’s Mr. Webb’s money, after all, isn’t it? ”
To her delight, Donald’s eyes narrowed. “A hundred,” he countered. “Now show me what you have.”
Gin shrugged and lay down her run of diamonds, and Donald’s face purpled. He threw his hand at the dealer unseen and stormed away, and the room erupted in shouts and whistles behind his back.
Hughes tipped his head at Gin. “You’re an impressive liar, Miss Bishop. And good at reading people.”
“Two necessary skills for a socialite, I’m afraid.” She glanced after Donald, who was now sulking in the adjacent room. At the exit to the balcony, he turned and glared back at her expectantly.
Hughes, however, leaned closer, his voice low. “I’d like a word in private, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course.” Gin rose, but Donald stared her down, jerking his head toward the door with a presumption that refused to be ignored. “Only you’ll have to excuse me for a moment, Mr. Hughes,” she added through gritted teeth. “It seems I need to avert a strop first but then shall return.”
“I’ll be here.” Hughes tipped his head, and Gin sidled around the laughing men.
“Let the boy stew awhile,” Leland cried as she passed his chair. “The only thing you’ve damaged is his pride.”
Only Ginevra knew from their many years of acquaintance that hurting Donald’s pride might be more dangerous than emptying his pocketbook.
She forced a smile, accepting another chorus of congratulations, and followed Donald onto the balcony.
She closed the door and dropped the smile.
“Did you wish to congratulate me in private?”
She expected him to be petulant after such a loss, especially while drunk; but the look of contempt on his face stopped her cold. Perhaps both of them had been masking their true feelings toward the other that evening.
“Is this why you really came?” he demanded. “To humiliate me?”
Ginevra turned and leaned on the railing, keeping a safe distance apart lest he prove erratic in such a state. “Of course not. I’m here to protect an innocent from your clutches.”
Donald made a derisive huff. “We’re not predators, Gin. If Harold Webb wants into Damocles so badly, he’ll have to jump through the same hoops as everyone else.”
“If I hadn’t taken his seat, you would have cleaned out his pockets and made him thank you for it. Is humiliation the price of entry?”
The pale blue of Donald’s eyes crystallized with animosity.
He stalked toward her on the balcony, close enough that Gin recoiled from the cloud of whisky on his breath.
As he loomed, a lock of blond hair fell askew over his forehead.
“Why do you care so much if Harold Webb is humiliated? You don’t show me the same consideration. ”
“You’re surrounded by allies in the room. Harold has no one.”
Donald scoffed, brushing back the errant lock of hair. “I wager he has deeper pockets than the rest of us combined. He can afford to lose handsomely once in a while. Real men put something on the line that matters.”
The last word pierced Ginevra through a tender spot below her collarbones.
“Is my father a real man in your estimation, then?” she said coldly. “To lose the Park because of his own willful mishandling of finances?”
This seemed to take Donald by surprise. He straightened and smoothed his suit jacket as though she were being unreasonable while he was a model of restraint. “I’m sure the viscount tried everything else he could first. I don’t like to accept money from my father either.”
“But you will accept the Park from him.”
“That’s different. A man must also have a place to live.”
“Yes, how very mortifying to be at your father’s mercy.
” Gin crossed her arms and slid closer along the railing, forcing Donald to retreat.
“Let’s see if I’ve got the full picture: Your father takes possession of the Park, you marry me, and he gives it to us as a wedding present.
My father lives with us as a token of your benevolence, and we reside in my childhood home as though all this had been arranged by some normal, happy coincidence and not usury and blackmail. Is that it?”
“You prefer a fairy tale, I suppose. Childhood sweethearts or star-crossed lovers?” Donald sneered. “Grow up, Ginevra. There are no saccharine endings for either of us in this world. Surely the last decade disabused you of such fancies.”
“On the contrary,” Ginevra said lightly.
“It’s made me cling to fancies even harder.
Life is far too precious to waste it married to someone I don’t love, even if it does cost me the Park.
” She picked at a nick in the stone balustrade.
“You should know I’m hiring a solicitor.
I won’t let Father get away with this so easily. ”
Donald scrubbed a hand down his face. “Oh God, you would be difficult. I don’t even want the bloody place.”
The grumbled words were barely audible, but they hit Ginevra like a slap across her cheek. She stared at him in disbelief. “What do you mean, you don’t want it?”
Donald’s long limbs went still, and his expression froze. It was a look Ginevra recognized from chess opponents who had made errors and were desperately recalculating a way to rectify their blunder. Only she would not let Donald Craddock regain the upper hand on her now.
“Surely you’ve thought about selling it too,” he said, stiff and wary, “It takes heaps of money to keep it afloat but would fetch a good price even in its present condition—or the land will, if nothing else.”
A sharp pain stabbed Ginevra’s heart. She would sooner cut off her right hand then sell the Park, but Donald was one of the least sentimental people she knew and would never understand the agony of losing a place tied to her mother’s memory.
“But—why? Only moments ago, you said a man must have a place to live.”
“And you think I want the responsibility of that Gothic monstrosity?” Donald sniffed with scorn.
“No, thank you. I spent a dreary childhood in its counterpart, and I want no more of it. I could settle my debts, buy a flat in London, and live like a king.” He turned, gazing out over the extensive grounds of Foxley Hall, and the angry lines around his mouth softened.
“If Father gives me the Park, I’ll finally be free to do as I please. ”
Gin had noted Donald’s transformation from carousing undergraduate to meticulous postgraduate and wondered at the change, and this pecuniary motivation made far more sense than personal growth.
There was a reason her father and Donald’s were good friends: They were cut from the same cloth, both domineering and exacting fathers.
As a second son, Donald’s extravagance and sloth might have been accepted with a sigh in other wealthy families, but the duke was far too parsimonious for that.
An ultimatum to toe the line or lose funding would explain Donald’s air of an angry dog on a taut lead all year.
His transformation was only to ensure he wasn’t cut off from the family pocketbook and given the bonus of Chiseldon Park.
Only the linchpin of the scheme must lie within Ginevra’s hands.
“Am I right in guessing your father won’t give you the house if I don’t agree to marry you?” Gin said icily. “Is that why you keep proposing: Your freedom hinges on my acceptance?”
Donald’s eyelids immediately drooped with nonchalance. “Father’s always liked you.”
“He has not. He thinks I’m strong-willed.”
“Yes, well, he’s decided your strong will would be good for me.” Donald’s lips curled with an ugly sneer. “So yes, Ginevra, here we are. Can’t you make this simple for everyone and accept?”
That he should ask again, after admitting he intended to sell the very bait intended to lure her into this trap, was audacious and infuriating.
The whole arrangement had been odious after her father’s confession on the telephone, but the peeled back layers of each man’s greed now made Ginevra’s blood boil.
The duke saw her as manacles to keep Donald on the straight and narrow, Donald saw her as pounds sterling to fund his prolificacy, and her father saw her as chattel to exchange for his pride.
Not one of them cared for her choice or happiness in the question of marriage.
She was merely a pawn to further their respective endgames.
“You’re a fool to think I would accept,” Ginevra said.
“You might be free, but I would be chained to a snake—no, you are lower than a snake. You are a worm. I would crush you under my heel if I could and hope you’d feel agony the rest of your days.
” She jabbed a finger into Donald’s chest, and he jerked backward.
“I once thought we were friends of a sort, but I see now how mistaken I was. I’m only too glad your true colors were revealed before I could do anything stupid. ”