LITMIR.BIZ

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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 thought 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.”

      He met her eyes and all Jenny’s thoughts—her worries for Ned, the loneliness that clutched her gut—were laid bare in the intensity of his gaze.

      His lip quirked sardonically. “We’ll take her with us.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      GARETH CARHART, Marquess of Blakely, had allocated one hour to this endeavor. Fifteen minutes to travel to the fortune-teller’s lair, fifteen minutes to return home. Half an hour, he had supposed, would suffice to shred her lies like the insubstantial foolscap that they were.

      “I can’t go.” Madame Esmerelda’s voice was soft and uncertain.

      “Why ever not?” Ned turned to her, a look of genuine befuddlement spreading across his face. Gareth’s young cousin sat with his hands on his knees, his whole body canting toward the woman. And therein lay Gareth’s problem.

      When Gareth had left England years before, Ned had been a child, whining and hanging on at every opportunity. Now, he was barely twenty-one—but still damnably vulnerable. And Ned believed every word that this woman spoke.

      With Ned’s father dead, Gareth was the closest thing Ned had to a patriarch. Ned was his responsibility—and responsible marquesses did not let their young cousins fall into the clutches of fortune-tellers.

      “I’m sure Madame Esmerelda had a perfectly legitimate reason not to come.” Gareth raised an eyebrow at the woman and dangled his bait. “I suspect she had another appointment at the same time.”

      Let her agree. When she did, he would ask her to name the date of the ball. She wouldn’t be able to, despite her vaunted powers and he would end this foolish charade before it even began.

      But she did not take the easy way he offered. Her nostrils flared, and she pressed her lips together. “You’re attempting to trick me, my lord.”

      Gareth barely transformed his jerk of surprise into an arrogant chin-lift. “I assure you,” he said in his coldest tone, “I had no such intention.”

      She rolled her eyes. “You want this to be a scientific test? Let it be a scientific test. But don’t set little verbal traps for me. And don’t ever lie to me. You intended precisely such a thing.”

      Electricity prickled the hairs on his arms, and Gareth sat back, the silence pressing uncomfortably against his skin. Madame Esmerelda leaned toward him, her hands gripping her skirts. It had been a long while since anyone had spoken to him in that manner. He had lied to her. He had intended to trick her into playing her hand too soon. He just hadn’t expected her to notice.

      “You’re trying to change the subject,” he accused her. “Why can you not go to the ball?”

      “Because I wasn’t invited,” she snapped. And then she looked down. “And besides, I have nothing to wear.”

      Ned gave a high crack of laughter.

      And no wonder. It was such an absurdly ladylike thing to say. He glanced at her again. In that moment—a trick of the light, perhaps, or the way her lashes obscured her eyes—Gareth felt a jolt. Madame Esmerelda was not a lady, but she was most definitely a woman. A pretty one at that. She’d hidden her femininity beneath those unflattering layers of dark paint and the kerchief. Lies, those; just ones composed of fabric and powder instead of words. He wondered idly how far down her back that mass of hair would reach if it were not bound up. She lifted her chin and met his eyes.

      Gareth didn’t believe in fortune-telling. He was a scientist; he’d devoted years to a naturalist’s expedition in Brazil. He’d only returned to England when his grandfather died, and responsibility required he take on the demands of the title. He had come here because responsibility also demanded that he free his cousin from Madame Esmerelda’s grasp. But he would take it as a matter of personal pride to strike a blow against the illogical superstition that this woman represented.

      Her particular choice of lies, however, would take far longer than his allocated hour to disprove. He should have been annoyed. And yet he couldn’t intimidate Madame Esmerelda.

      In the year since he’d been back in England, he hadn’t faced anything like a real challenge. Now he did. It was going to be extremely satisfying when he exposed her as the fraud that she was.

      He relished the prospect of matching wits with her, of pulling the truth from her.

      Gareth snapped his fingers. “The invitation,” he said, “I can fix. The clothing I can fix. I’m willing to do much in the name of science.”

      “Oh, no. I couldn’t.” She looked away again. “Besides, I can’t accept—”

      Disparate details collided in Gareth’s mind. The proper curtsy she had dropped. The educated precision of her intonation. Her reluctance to accept a gift of clothing from a man. These facts all added to one overwhelming conclusion: Madame Esmerelda had been educated as a gentlewoman. What on earth could have driven her to tell fortunes?

      “Of course you can,” he insisted. “Madame Esmerelda, if this is to be a scientific test, I don’t believe you should lie to me, either.”

      Some emotion flickered in her eyes. She shook her head—not a denial, but a swift, short shake, as if she were putting everything to rights. And when she met his gaze again, her face was smooth.

      She had thought

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