The Duke's Gamble

“Where the luscious Miss Penny’s concerned, Guilford, I’m afraid they are.” He leered through the window. “As I recall, there’s a substantial wager between us resting on the well-rounded backside of the lady.”

“I haven’t forgotten, Stanton,” Guilford said, “and I still mean to win. I’ve planned every detail. After a drive through the park, a supper in a private room at Carlisle’s, a few bottles of the best of that cellar’s wines, I could be claiming your stake before dawn.”

“Carlisle’s, you say.” Stanton raised a skeptical brow at the mention of the fashionable tavern. “And here I’d heard your itinerary was a tour of almshouses and beggar’s haunts.”

Blast Westbrook for having such excellent ears. “Oh, the day’s only begun,” Guilford said with as nonchalant an air as he could muster. “Good deeds will only put her into a more agreeable humor.”

“Oh, indeed,” Stanton said, and grinned to show exactly how little credence he gave to Guilford’s theory. “But tell me, Guilford. Do you really believe the steps of some wretched almshouse would be the proper place to tumble her?”

“Stanton, Stanton.” Guilford clucked his tongue in mock dismay. “Am I truly that low in your estimation? Ah, to show so little regard for Miss Penny’s sensibilities!”

Stanton drew back, feigning great shock in return. “Are you defending the lady’s honor before you’ve even warmed her bed?”

“What if I am?” Guilford shrugged elaborately. “You know my ways, Stanton. I’d much rather play the gallant than the rake. Better to leave a woman sighing your name than cursing it.”

He’d always liked women, and they had liked him in return, a satisfying exchange for all parties. He was also quite sure he’d never been in love, at least not the way the poets described, but the liking had been quite fine for him.

And he did like Amariah Penny and her creamy pale skin.

“She won’t be as easy as your usual conquests,” Stanton insisted. “She’s her own woman. She owns that whole infernal Penny House. She doesn’t need you, or anything you can give her.”

“That’s only because she doesn’t yet know what I can give her.” Of course, that didn’t include ruby bracelets, but he’d conveniently forget that slight for now. “She’ll learn soon enough.”

“You’re smiling like a madman,” Stanton said glumly. “Next you’ll be telling me you’re too damned gallant to stomach the wager.”

“You only wish it were so, Stanton.” Even if he weren’t so intrigued by the stakes, he still wouldn’t back down. It was the principle of the thing, not the money. Any man who set aside a bet like this one would become the laughingstock of White’s, and his friends would never let him forget it. “If you wish to call it off, that’s one thing, but I’m not about to do it. How daft do you think I am?”

“You tell me.” Stanton sighed with unhappy resignation. “Let the wager stand, then, and the terms with it. You have a fortnight to bed Miss Penny, and to collect reasonable proof that the deed’s been done.”

“Oh, you’ll know,” Guilford said, looking down to adjust the flower in his buttonhole. “As you observed yourself, all London hears everything that happens at Penny House.”

“And I’ll be listening, my friend.” Stanton gathered the reins of his horse more tightly in his hand. “I’ll be listening for every word.”

Amariah crouched beside the bench, her hand holding tight to the girl’s sweating fingers. “Not much longer, lass, not much more.”

The girl cried out again, her face contorted with pain. She’d already been in hard labor, her waters broken, when she’d thumped on the kitchen door, and there’d been no time to take her to a midwife. Amariah had had her brought inside, here into her sister Bethany’s little office down the hall by the pantry, and while the bench might not be the most ideal place to give birth, it would be far better and more private than the street or beneath a bridge.

“The midwife should be here any minute, Miss Penny,” said the cook, Letty Todd, as she rejoined Amariah. “Though from the looks of things, any minute may be a minute too long.”

“We’ll manage, Letty.” Amariah felt the force of the young woman’s pains as she tightened her grasp. She couldn’t be more than fifteen or sixteen, scarcely more than a child herself, and her worn, tattered dress and the thinness of her wrists and cheeks bore mute testimony to how cheerless her life must be. Though Amariah didn’t know the girl’s name or situation, she did recognize her as one of the crowd of poor folk that came to the back door each day for what might be their only meal of the day. A scullery maid ruined by the master’s son, a sailor’s widow, a milkmaid deceived by her sweetheart: Amariah didn’t care what misfortune had brought the girl to this sad state, nor had she asked. All that mattered was that Penny House offer this young woman the haven she’d so desperately sought, and that she and her baby be treated with kindness and compassion.

“Ooh, it’s coming, miss, it’s coming!” cried the girl frantically. “The baby, miss, the baby! Oh, God preserve me!”

Amariah had attended enough births in her father’s old parish to know that the girl was in fact close to delivering. But her experience had been as an observer, not as a midwife, and as she shifted between the girl’s bent, trembling knees, she prayed for the skill and knowledge that she knew she didn’t have.

“Listen to me, dear,” she said. “At the next pain, I want you to take the biggest breath you can and push.”

“I—I can’t!” the girl wailed. “Oh, help me!”

“You can,” Amariah said firmly. “Take a deep breath, and then try to—”

“Forgive me, I came as fast as I could!” Quickly the midwife tossed her shawl over the chair and draped one of the clean cloths over her forearms. She was brusque and efficient, and ready to take charge. “Don’t fear, duck, we’ll see you through. If you’ll just hold her knee for her here, miss.”

Gratefully Amariah obeyed, and at once was caught up in the drama of the birth. As she’d thought, the baby crowned and slipped into the midwife’s waiting hands within minutes of her appearance. A boy, loud and lusty, and as the kitchen staff cheered his arrival, the new mother wept with mingled joy, exhaustion and despair as the midwife put her new son, wrapped in a clean dishcloth, to her breast for the first time.

“I’d nowheres t’ go, Miss Penny,” she whispered through her tears. “But you an’ t’other Miss be so kind t’ us in th’ yard each day, I thought I could…I could—”

“You did exactly the right thing coming here,” Amariah said softly, brushing her fingertips over the baby’s downy head. “We’ll find a safe home for you and your son once you’ve recovered. Now rest, and enjoy him.”

“Sammy,” said the girl. “His name be Sammy. Sammy Patton.”

“Sammy, then.” Amariah smiled. “Welcome to this life, Sammy. And may God bless you both.”

She helped the midwife bundle the soiled linens, closing the door gently to let the new mother sleep. Yet even as she washed her hands and arms, the image of the new baby lingered, his tiny wrinkled fists ready to take on a hard life, his pink mouth as wide and demanding as a little bird’s, ready to announce his hunger and indignation to the world.

“Miss Penny?” Pratt stood before her, even more anxious than usual. “Miss Penny, his grace is here for you.”

“His grace?” Amariah stared at him, her thoughts still on the new baby.

“His Grace the Duke of Guilford, miss.” Pratt nodded, as if confirming this for himself as well as for her. “I have put his grace in the front parlor.”

“Guilford!” Oh, merciful heavens, how had she forgotten so completely about him? Swiftly she tore off her bloodstained apron and ran toward the stairs, smoothing her hair as best she could, then flung open the twin doors to the parlor.

“Good day, your grace,” she said with a sweeping curtsy. “Forgive me for keeping you waiting, but I had an unexpected emergency that needed my attention below stairs.”

She smiled warmly, but Guilford only stared, his expression oddly frozen.

“Good day to you, too, Miss Penny,” he said at last. “It would appear that I’ve caught you at an, ah, inopportune time. Shall I wait for you to recollect yourself?”

“I won’t make you wait at all, your grace,” she said, puzzled. “I’ll just send for my bonnet, and I’ll be ready.”

He shook his head, for once seemingly at a loss for what to say. “I shall be glad to wait, you know. Perfectly glad.”

“But there’s no reason for it, your grace,” she began, then caught him looking down at her dress. It wasn’t the usual kind of admiring gentleman’s look, but a silently appalled and beseeching look, and quickly she turned toward the glass over the fireplace to judge for herself.

She was still wearing the plain gray wool gown she’d chosen for morning prayer, now rumpled and wrinkled and stained where her apron hadn’t covered her enough. She wore no jewelry, and her hair, though mussed, was still drawn back tight in a knot at the back of her head.

It wasn’t much different than how she usually looked for day, but Guilford wouldn’t know that. Whenever he saw her, she was always dressed in one of her blue Penny House gowns, fashionably cut low and revealing, with white plumes pinned into her curled hair and paste jewels sparkling around her throat. How she looked for the evenings was as much a part of the club as the Italian paintings on the wall or the green cloth covering the hazard table upstairs, and no more a part of her, either.

She glanced back at him with that pathetically woeful expression on his face. Of course, he was wearing his same habitual coat, so dark a blue as to be nearly black, a green-flowered silk waistcoat draped with a heavy gold watch chain and cream-colored trousers, all chosen to please himself and without a thought for where they were going. Had he truly expected her to match him, and dress in the gaudy blue silk and paste necklace for calling on almshouses?

“I’m perfectly content to wait,” he said again, adding a coaxing smile. “Take as long as you wish. I understand how ladies can be, you know.”

“Oh, I’m sure you do, your grace,” she said, smiling in return. She understood him, too, and likely a good deal better than he either realized or wished. “I suppose I am a bit untidy. I’ll take those few minutes to refresh myself, and be back before you miss me. Shall I send for Pratt to bring you refreshment?”

“That excellent fellow has already tended to me.” He gathered the glass from the table beside him, raising it toward her like a toast. “Hurry back, sweetheart. And mind that I’m most partial to the color blue on a lady like you.”

“I’ll take that into consideration, your grace,” she said as she backed from the room.