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Fanny jerked her head around. “She can’t make such a decision. Not yet, anyway! Of course there are other options! Bertram, tell me Thea has other options than to marry Dr Horne,” she appealed to her brother, who’d just stepped out of the first-floor drawing room and onto the balcony.
Bertram ran his hands through his hair and adjusted his stock. He looked extremely agitated and Fanny wondered if he was about to confess to another loss at the gaming tables. She hoped not. Her lovely husband Fenton was the most patient and darling of men but even he was beginning to show more than the usual irritation at having to bail out her brother so frequently.
Finally Bertram managed to find the words that had eluded him as he grew increasingly red-faced and—which was even more concerning—elusive and cryp
tic. “Cousin Thea is not going to marry Dr Horne if George Bramley has anything to do with it.” He ran his hands down his loud red and gold striped waistcoat.
“What are you saying?” his two sisters cried; and as he took a step back towards the double doors, Fanny had the very real fear that the mention of George Bramley’s name meant that Bertram was about to furnish them with something even worse than his gaming losses.
Bertram swallowed. He truly looked like a man facing the gallows as she continued to address them with lowered eyes. “I thought I could fix everything and make it right.” He began to pace, now running his hands up and down his pantaloons. “But truth is, I don’t know what to do.”
“What are you talking about, Bertram? Make what right? And what has this to do with George Bramley?” Antoinette sounded panicked as she gripped the balcony railing.
Bertram stopped and looked at her despairingly. “I tried to make Cousin Thea appear an enticing proposition to Mr Grayling—”
“Yes, by telling him she was dying. Well, that didn’t work out, did it?” Fanny’s tone was disparaging.
Bertram shook his head. “I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about afterwards, the other night when I tried to suggest a wager whereby Grayling would propose to Cousin Thea in a hot-air balloon. Well, before I knew it, someone had suggested that as they’d seen Cousin Thea slap George Bramley’s face, then that ought to be the wager, as under such adverse circumstances it’d be so unlikely that a union between Thea and George Bramley would come to pass.”
“Thea slapped Bramley’s face?” Antoinette clapped her hands. “How perfectly marvellous,” she crowed, but Fanny frowned. “So the wager is for George Bramley to entice Thea into the hot-air balloon tonight and propose marriage? That’s ridiculous.”
Bertram looked a touch confused. He opened his mouth to speak then shut it again as he clearly reconsidered. Fanny pounced, her tone suspicious. “Tell us exactly the terms of this wager. The more we know, the more we can protect Thea.”
Bertram scratched his cheek and screwed up his face, apparently trying to recall. Dear Lord, could her brother not be trusted to get the simplest details right? “George Bramley has wagered Lord Darington seven hundred pounds that he—George, that is—will somehow manage to encourage Miss Brightwell to step into a hot air balloon and fly away with her. And another seven hundred if—”
He shut his mouth quickly and raised his eyes to the sky, unable—or refusing—to continue with what he was about to say until Fanny threatened she’d tell their mother about his interest in the opera dancer he’d declared he intended to marry one night while in his cups.
Bertram’s shoulders slumped. Gloomily he went on, “And George Bramley has made another wager that Miss Brightwell will...”
When he trailed off, both his sisters began to heckle him until he threw his hands in the air and cried, “Propose marriage but not only that, George Bramley has also bet Lord Darington that nine months later Miss Brightwell will joyfully give birth to a…child.”
“Well, she’s unlikely to give birth to anything else,” Fanny muttered before shaking her head and adding, “Good lord, Bertram, do you mean to tell me you really began all this wager nonsense?”
“I didn’t initiate any of those wagers!” Bertram defended himself. “The idea was completely taken out of my hands. You know I only wanted to help cousin Thea.”
“Well, I think cousin Thea needs Antoinette’s and my help right now. Clearly George Bramley has an evil plan, though I cannot imagine how he intends to carry it off.”
“You don’t think he can?” Bertram asked, hopefully.
Fanny tried to look more confident than she felt. “How can he possibly when there are so many people milling around the estate, getting things organised for the grand event, which is even now beginning?” The wager was preposterous. Thea would never willingly step into a hot-air balloon with George Bramley. Besides, Fanny would make sure she was by her side every minute of the festivities.
Antoinette nodded. “Even if he kidnaps her I don’t know how he’d manage it. Thea is quick. She’d scream and struggle. There’d be too many witnesses. Goodness, but George Bramley is a very stupid man.” She frowned, then added, “Besides, why would George want to marry Thea if he only had seven hundred pounds to gain? Or fourteen, even.”
Fanny was about to blithely agree to this when a look of horror crossed her face. “Oh, I think George would consider he’d gained a great deal more than just seven hundred pounds. Just think! If he compromised Thea so she in fact did feel she had to marry him, then he’d have secured the most wonderful revenge on us, wouldn’t he? Imagine how he could play us—blackmail us—to ensure Thea’s continued happiness. Well, she’d never be happy but I mean…he’d make a sport of making her even more unhappy, just to spite us.” She raised her eyes heavenward then said on a more pragmatic note, “Well, at least we know what George is up to. Now we just have to keep Thea close by to know she’ll be safe from his sinister designs.”
She was about to pass George to go inside when she hesitated on the threshold, turning to her siblings to ask with sudden dread, “By the way, where is Thea?”
As the three siblings went in search of Thea, seemingly hundreds of guests were strolling about the beautifully landscaped gardens, standing in clusters to watch preparations for the ascent of the balloon from afar, or gossiping in groups.
“She’s not here!” Fanny tried not to show her concern as she passed through knots of people, Antoinette having been held up by a garrulous admirer along the way.
“You don’t really think George Bramley could succeed in something so outrageous, do you?” Panic cut through the insouciance Bertram was going to such pains to cultivate as he stumbled along in Fanny’s wake.
“I wouldn’t put anything past Mr Bramley,” Fanny muttered, doggedly parting the crowd before adding on a sigh of relief, “Thank goodness, there she is!” as she rushed forward. “Thea, I’ve been so worried about you. Are you all right, dearest? You look so sad.”
“I am so sad,” Thea sniffed, pointing across a stretch of lawn to where a couple was walking at a sedate pace along the gravel path. Immediately Fanny recognized the tall, handsome figure of Mr Grayling and, at his side, Thea’s slight, pretty but infinitely less appealing rival.
“I know he loves me and I certainly love him but he’s going to ask Miss Huntingdon to marry him,” Thea told her cousin in a small voice. “During the carriage ride he said he’d have to speak to his man of business to see if it were at all possible that matters might be arranged whereby a union between us might not be ruinous to his family. But here he is tonight and he’s not even spoken to me. So I can only assume that he’s received confirmation that it is as he feared all along. He needs a wife with a dowry and now he’s about to propose to Miss Huntingdon. Do you think that’s what he’s doing right now?”
