The Wedding Wager

Heaving an exasperated sigh, Leonora glanced at the mantel clock. Once again Morse Archer was a quarter of an hour late for their prebreakfast lessons. This, in spite of her having sent Dickon to wake him half an hour early. Little wonder General Wellington’s Iberian campaign was all but lost, if he was commanding an army of surly idlers like her star pupil.

Drumming her fingers on the desktop, Leonora eyed the Latin grammar, open to a pitiful tenth page. Every day they slipped further and further behind on her meticulously constructed timetable. She had tried everything she could think of to challenge the man, but he obstinately refused to learn the most rudimentary Latin declension. His knowledge of English history was appalling. He couldn’t tell Agincourt from Hastings, and she sometimes wondered if he knew that Henry the Fifth came before Henry the Eighth. As for his ignorance of literature…

She could have forgiven the man if he’d proven an obvious dullard, incapable of learning. But that was not the case. In his dinner table conversation with Sir Hugo, she caught glimpses of the knowledge he’d gained while soldiering abroad. Morse Archer was too clever by half. If only she could curb his stubborn refusal to apply himself.

She’d tried everything short of cajolery. For some reason she could not bring herself to use a soft approach with him. Perhaps because his physical presence unnerved her so. Often when she should have been correcting his atrocious penmanship, she found herself instead staring at his hands. Blatantly staring at his powerful, shapely hands. Imagining them taking steady aim with his rifle, clamped around a bottle of Spanish wine or spanning the waist of some sultry Dulcinea.

Then he would glance up and catch her watching him. And his eyes would twinkle with mockery. Leonora willed herself to think of something else before she gave way to a shriek of vexation. Distracting her thoughts was no easy matter. A nauseating lump of panic rose in her throat as she pictured the days and weeks slipping away with so painfully little to show for them. Despite his hollow boasts to the contrary, at the rate he was going Morse Archer would not pass for a butler let alone a gentleman.

And when the petty nobility of Bath laughed him out of town, she would have to forfeit the wager. Marry a man of her uncle’s choosing. Surrender her dream of a school. Abandon the academic pursuits that were her only joy in life.

A briny mist stung her eyes.

Impatient with herself, Leonora pulled off her spectacles and roughly employed the cuff of her sleeve as a handkerchief. Not since the youngest years of her childhood had she allowed anyone or anything to drive her to tears. She was not about to yield that honor to a man like Morse Archer.

The library door burst open. Shutting it behind him with a bang that reverberated through the room, Morse lumbered over to the table and dropped heavily into his seat.

With a hiccup, somewhere between a gasp and a sob, Leonora pushed her spectacles back on again and stiffened her posture.

“If you learn nothing else from me in the next two and a half months, Morse Archer, I trust you will at least cultivate the civility of knocking before you barge into a room.”

He glared up at her, one eyebrow cocked insolently.

“Why should I waste my time knocking? Weren’t you expecting me?”

Leonora made herself glare back, hoping he would not notice the redness of her eyes. “I was expecting you a full quarter of an hour ago, as you should be well aware. That does not excuse the rudeness of your conduct. As penalty for lateness, we will work an additional half hour before taking breakfast.”

She ignored the groan with which he greeted this news. “And as penalty for your lapse in manners, I will expect you to spend an additional half hour reading history this evening before you retire.”

For some reason Morse showed no obvious dismay at this second punishment. Leonora was tempted to raise it to an hour.

“We have wasted quite enough time this morning. May I remind you that we have only ten weeks remaining until we must go to Bath. Let us begin with a review of yesterday’s Latin lesson. Translate the verb to eat, and conjugate it in the present tense if you please.”

“To eat?” Morse lounged back in his chair, not so much as glancing at the book open before him. “Last night’s dinner was so long ago, I’m not sure I recall the meaning of that word in English, let alone Latin.”

“Keep this up,” shot Leonora, her patience worn to a thread, “and it could be several hours before you get the chance to refresh your memory. Kindly apply yourself to the lesson and provide me with the translation and conjugation of the verb.”

Morse slammed his Latin grammar shut. “This is lunacy. Your wager is to pass me off as a gentleman soldier, not the Arch-bloody-bishop of Canterbury! If you’d just let me—”

“That is quite enough, sir!” Leonora’s simmering resentment threatened to boil over. “I am the teacher here. This wager is to test my skill. You understood that when you agreed to take part. I decide upon the curriculum. I choose the subjects. I set the lessons. You’d do well to master the role of pupil before you try usurping mine. Now let’s get on with it.”

She reopened the book and thrust it under his nose. If he insisted on behaving like a spoiled child, that’s how she would treat him from now on.

“Conjugation of the verb to eat, repeat after me…” She pointed out each word as she read it.

To her amazement, Morse did repeat after her. However, he did so in a flat, apathetic tone that left no doubt he’d forgotten each word the moment it left his lips.

For the next two hours Leonora persevered, bending over her pupil, straining to avoid any physical contact between them. As her outstretched finger glided beneath each line of text, she spoke the words of a dead language. Morse parroted her in a voice that sounded all but dead.

Her back and shoulder began to ache. Hunger gnawed at her innards. Worst of all, a painfully acute awareness of Morse Archer—the sight, sound and scent of him—set her senses aquiver. By half past eight, she wanted nothing more than to pick up the heavy Latin grammar and hurl it through the library window.

“Celo, celare, celavi, celatus.” Morse heard the words coming out of his mouth, as though from a distance. The page of Latin grammar was there before him and his eyes were open, but he did not see it.

“Habeo, habere, habui, habitus.” So much of army life had been numbingly boring physical routine. Morse had fallen into the habit of letting his hands or feet go through the familiar motions, while his mind fixed on some point of interest.

“Audio, audiere, audivi, auditus.” His speech organs produced the words by rote, while Morse found himself absorbed in the contemplation of Leonora’s hand.

Her fingers were slender and tapered. The nails were neatly kept, like five tiny translucent seashells. For all its daintiness, it was neither weak nor vapid. Instead it moved with an expressive, purposeful grace, which Morse found fascinating and strangely beautiful.

He scarcely realized what he was doing when his own hand reached for hers. She froze. With a stifled gasp, her recitation of Latin verbs ceased.

Once, in India, Morse had handled a priceless religious artifact, exquisitely carved in luminous pale jade. He held Leonora’s hand with the same breathless reverence, savoring its warmth and smoothness. It seemed the most natural impulse in the world to lift it to his lips in homage.

His curious trance shattered when Leonora ripped her hand from his grasp.

She found her voice again. “What is the meaning of this? How dare you take such liberties?”

Her face a livid crimson and her eyes gaping wide, she backed toward the door.

“I was just noticing what lovely hands you have.” Morse wondered that such a little thing had obviously upset her so. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

She stared at her hand as if she was seeing it for the first time, and was not pleased in the least with what she beheld. “You would do well to take more notice of your studies, Sergeant Archer, and less of my…person.” The last word came out in a strangled squeak.

Morse endeavored to suppress a smile. He had never imagined his icy, implacable martinet could appear so flustered. And over such a trifle.

“Since you are obviously not…attending to the lesson, perhaps we had better adjourn…for breakfast. Afterward, I expect you to read the next twenty pages of Mr. Butler’s Hudebras.”

Morse opened his mouth to ask where she would be while he was reading. Before he could voice the question, though, Leonora had slipped out the door and fled.

She never did come to breakfast.

For the first time since setting foot in Laurelwood, Morse was able to relax and enjoy a meal in peace. As he tucked ravenously into a plate of eggs and broiled veal kidneys, he pondered the unaccountable events of the morning. What was there in an innocent touch and a trifling compliment to throw Leonora Freemantle into such a bother? He had no success in puzzling it out.

After a leisurely breakfast he returned to the library and found it deserted. For lack of any better diversion, he did read a few pages of Hudebras. When it failed to stir his interest, he got up and walked over to the window.

The bright winter sunshine and the steady drip of water from the eaves told Morse the day must be mild. Reasoning that a bit of fresh air might revive his powers of concentration, he called for his hat, greatcoat and walking stick.

Ambling along the path between high cherry laurel hedges, Morse found himself able to bear more and more weight on his injured leg. With a bit of regular exercise, perhaps he would regain his former easy stride.

By the time he returned to the house, he was in a better humor than he’d enjoyed since coming to Laurelwood. Whatever he had done to disrupt the endless routine of lessons, it was well worth trying again. If compliments flustered Leonora so…Morse chuckled at the very thought of how she’d respond if he called her by that name. Surely she had other features he could admire the next time he needed a respite from his studies.

Her slender, graceful neck, for instance. If he nuzzled her sensitive nape, she might take to her bed for several days with a fit of the vapors.

Morse grinned to himself, anticipating her reaction.

Immensely pleased at the cleverness of his plan, he took up his book again and devoured nearly a hundred pages of it by teatime.

Chapter Four