Page 7 of To Wager with Love

“Of course not,” she said, striving to calm herself, to reach for the anger that protected her. If she could stay angry with him, she’d be safe. All she had to do was prove him wrong, and she’d be free of him, for good. “And I’m not hiding from anything, or anyone.”

“Prove it,” he said, with a gleam in his eyes that boded ill.

“Fine!”

She could get her dare done and rid herself of this wretched man once and for all. Then she could get on with her life in peace, knowing she was free of him.

“You’ll do it?”

“Why not?” she retorted, draining what remained of her drink and throwing the empty glass at him. Jasper caught it, deft as ever, blast him. “This will be easy, and you’d better keep your promise.”

“Oh, I’ll keep it,” he said, a maddening smile curving over his lips.

Drat the arrogant wretch, she’d make him pay for this.

“Would thou wert clean enough to spit upon,” she threw back at him.

He frowned at that, considering. “King Lear?”

“Ha!” she said triumphantly. “Timon of Athens.”

Jasper rolled his eyes. “Time’s running out, love,” he warned.

“Argh!” Harriet replied and stomped off back to the ballroom.

Chapter 2

Dear Miss Stanhope,

Thank you kindly for the book by Watts which I greatly enjoyed. “Logic, or The Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry After Truth With a Variety of Rules to Guard Against Error in the Affairs of Religion and Human Life,” posed some interesting questions which I should be glad to discuss with you when we next meet. In anticipation of that meeting I enclose “Conversations on Chemistry,” by Mrs Jane Marcet, with whom I am acquainted. It is an introduction to the subject in which you have shown such interest and I hope you will find it a useful starting point.

―Excerpt of a letter from Mr Inigo de Beauvoir to Miss Harriet Stanhope.

Still the night of the St Clairs’ summer ball. 30th August 1814, Holbrooke House, Sussex.

Jasper stood in the dark of the garden and wondered what the hell he’d just done. He must be out of his bloody mind. Harriet was so damned stubborn she’d prove him wrong if it killed her. She’d go out there and be witty and lively and funny and everything he knew she could be, because she was all of those things, she’d just forgotten. The lurking suspicion that he’d caused that change made him feel sick.

How? How could he have done it?

For the thousandth time he remembered the year he’d truly noticed Harry for the first time. He’d been eighteen, and Harry sixteen. For all his life, Harry had adored him and he’d known it. She’d put up with being dragged through mud and playing the hapless heroine for him and both their brothers to alternately rescue or kidnap. Christ, they’d almost drowned her one year! She’d never complained, and had always stared at him with such admiration from behind those spectacles… until she’d turned sixteen, and then it had been Jasper’s turn to stare back.

It had taken him by surprise, so much so that he’d found it difficult to speak with her at all. He’d spent the entire summer getting up the nerve to kiss her, but when he had it had been perfect—more than perfect—and it had changed everything. It had changed him. With his usual hopeless timing, it had finally happened on the morning he’d left to go abroad, desperation at leaving without her having a clue as to his feelings giving him courage enough to take his chance. He’d not seen her again for over a year, when everything had changed in his absence. He still remembered the anticipation he’d felt at seeing her again, and the bewilderment when she’d cut him dead.

Yet, once again desperation had motivated him to act rashly, and no doubt the outcome would be just as awful. She’d look him in the eyes and tell him she didn’t give a damn for him, and he’d be honour bound to let her go. His heart clenched.

“Please,” he said, staring up at the cloudless sky above him. “Please, let me win her back.”

***

Harriet seethed all the way back to the ballroom. How dare he? How dare he dare her? And such a ridiculous dare it was. Well, she’d show him….

Suddenly, she was looking out over the whirling crowd of dancers again and her stomach twisted into a knot, because no one ever asked Harry to dance. She was a bespectacled wallflower who hid in dark corners and would rather die than be noticed.

How the devil was she to prove otherwise?

A wave of cold travelled over her, followed by intense heat, as she realised what forfeit she’d agreed to. Oh, good heavens.

Lurching a little, she staggered sideways to lean against the wall. Everything seemed to be spinning before her, and not just the dancers.