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“Comprised, among others, of pachyderms.”
Jenny ignored the byplay. “Ned, I am having difficulties forming the image of the woman you should marry in my mind. Tell me, how do you imagine your ideal woman?”
“Oh,” Ned said without the least hesitation, “she’s exactly like you. Except younger.”
Jenny swallowed uncomfortably. “Whatever do you mean? She’s clever? Witty?”
Ned scratched his chin in puzzlement. “No. I mean she’s dependable and honest.”
The mysterious smile slipped from Jenny’s lips for the barest instant, and she looked at him in appalled and flattered horror. If this was how Ned assessed character, he would end up married to a street thief in no time at all.
Lord Blakely’s hand froze above his paper. No doubt his thoughts mirrored hers.
“What?” Ned demanded. “What are you two staring at?”
“I,” said Lord Blakely, “am dependable. She is—”
“You,” retorted Ned, “are cold and calculating. I’ve known Madame Esmerelda for two full years. And in that time, she’s become more like family than anyone else. So don’t you dare talk about her in that tone of voice.”
Jenny’s vision blurred and her head swam. She had no experience with family; all she remembered was the unforgiving school where an unknown benefactor had paid her tuition. She’d known since she was a very small child that she stood alone against the world. That had brought her to this career—the sure knowledge that nobody would help her, and everyone would lie to her. Lying to them instead had only seemed fair play.
But with Ned’s words, a quiet wistfulness filled her. Family seemed the opposite of this lonely life, where even her friends had been won by falsehoods.
Ned wasn’t finished with his cousin. “You see me as some kind of tool, to be used when convenient. Well, I’m tired of it. Find your own wife. Get your own heirs. I’m not doing anything for you any longer.”
Jenny blinked back tears and looked at Ned again. His familiar, youthful features were granite. Beneath his bravado, she knew he feared his elder cousin. And yet he’d stood up to the man just now. For her.
She wasn’t Ned’s family. She wasn’t really his friend. And no matter what had transpired between them, she was still the fraud who bilked him of a few pounds in exchange for false platitudes. Now he was asking her to repay him with more lies.
Well. Jenny swallowed the lump of regret in her throat. If deceit was all she had, she would use it. But she hadn’t saved Ned’s life for his cousin’s convenience.
Lord Blakely straightened. His outraged glower—that cold and stubborn set of his lip—indicated he thought Ned was a mere utensil. That Lord Blakely was superior in intelligence and birth to everyone else in the room, and he would force their dim intellects to comprehend the fact.
He thought he was superior to his cousin? Well. She was going to make the marquess regret he’d ever asked for specifics.
“Ned, you recently received an invitation to a ball, did you not?”
He puckered his brow. “I did.”
“What sort of a ball?”
“Some damned fool crush of a coming-out, I think. No intention of going.”
The event sounded promising. There were sure to be many young women in attendance. Jenny could already taste her revenge on the tip of her tongue.
“You will go to this ball,” she pronounced. And then she swept her arms wide, encompassing the two men. “You will both go to this ball.”
Lord Blakely looked taken aback.
“I can see nothing of Ned’s wife in the orange. But at precisely ten o’clock and thirty-nine minutes, Lord Blakely, you will see the woman you will marry. And you will marry her, if you approach her in the manner I prescribe.”
The scrape of Lord Blakely’s pencil echoed loudly in the reigning silence. When he finished, he set the utensil down carefully.
“You wanted a scientific test, my lord.” Jenny placed her hands flat on the table in satisfaction. “You have one.”
And if the ball was as crowded as such things usually were, he would see dozens of women in every glance. He’d never be able to track them all. She imagined him trying to scribble all the names in his notebook, being forced by his own scientific methods to visit every lady, in order to fairly eliminate each one. He would be incredibly annoyed. And he’d never be able to prove her wrong, because who could say he had recorded every woman?
Ned’s mouth had fallen open. His hand slowly came up to hide a pleased smile. “There,” he said. “Is that specific enough for you?”
The marquess pursed his lips. “By whose clock?”
One potential excuse slipped from Jenny’s grasp. Not to worry; she had others.
“Your fob watch should do.”
“I have two that I wear from time to time.”
Jenny frowned. “But you inherited one from your father,” she guessed.
Lord Blakely nodded. “I must say, that is incredibly specific. For scientific purposes, can you explain how you got all of this from an elephant?”
Jenny widened her eyes in false innocence. “Why, Lord Blakely. The same way I got an elephant from an orange. The spirits delivered the scene as an image into my mind.”
He grimaced. She could not let her triumph show, and so she kept her expression as unchanging and mysterious as ever.
“So,” Ned said, turning to his cousin, “you agree, then?”
Lord Blakely blinked. “Agree to what?”
“When you find the girl in question and fall in love, you’ll agree Madame Esmerelda is not a charlatan.”
The marquess blinked again. “I’m not going to fall in love.” He spoke of that emotion in tones as wooden and unmoving as a dried-out horse trough.
“But if you did,” Ned insisted.
“If I did,” Lord Blakely said slowly, “I’d admit the question of her duplicity had not been scientifically proven.”
Ned cackled. “For you, that’s as good as an endorsement. That means, you’ll consult Madame Esmerelda yourself and leave me be.”
A longer pause. “Those are high stakes indeed. If this is to be a wager, what do you put up?”
“A thousand guineas,” Ned said immediately.
Jenny nearly choked. She’d thought herself unspeakably wealthy for the four hundred pounds she’d managed to scrimp and save and stash away. A thousand pounds was more money than she could imagine, and Ned tossed it about as if it were an apple core.
Lord Blakely waved an annoyed hand. “Money,” he said with a grimace. “What would either of us do with that paltry amount? No. You must risk something of real value. If you lose, you’ll not consult Madame Esmerelda or any other fortune-teller again.”
“Done,” said Ned with a grin. “She’s always right. I can’t possibly lose.”
Jenny couldn’t bring herself to look at him. Because Ned could do nothing but lose. What if he began to doubt Jenny’s long-ago assurances? What if he discovered that he owed his current happiness to the scant comfort of Jenny’s invention? And Jenny could not help but add one last, desperately selfish caveat: What if Ned learned the truth and disavowed this curious relationship between them? He would leave her, and Jenny would be alone.
Again.
She inhaled slowly, hoping the cool air would help her calm down. The two men would go to the ball. Lord Blakely would look around. For all she knew, he might even decide to marry a girl he saw. And once he rejected all the women whose names he’d recorded, she’d tell him he’d seen a different woman at the appointed time out of the corner of his eye.
The wager would become a nullity, and she wouldn’t have to see the fierce loyalty in Ned’s eyes turn to contempt. Jenny’s pulse slowed and her breath fell into an even rhythm.
Lord Blakely lounged back in his chair. “Something has just occurred to me.”
The devilish gleam in his eye froze Jenny’s blood. Whatever it was the dreadful man was about to say, she doubted he’d though
t of it at that minute.
“What will stop her from claiming it was some other chit I was meant for? That I saw two girls at the designated time, and chose the wrong one?”
He’d seen through her. A chill prickled the ends of Jenny’s fingers.
Ned frowned. “I don’t know. I suppose if that happens, we’ll have to call the bet off.”
The marquess shook his head. “I have a better idea. Since Madame Esmerelda’s seen everything in the orange, she’ll be able to verify the girl’s identity immediately.”
