Instead, she felt suffocated again. In that instant, she wished her seams would rip. Her lungs needed to fill with air, to be unrestrained. But Mother had ordered her dresses made with double stitching and stomachers for additional confinement. Like a cage.
“I understand,” Jane said solemnly. “We will always support you in whatever you choose.”
Ellie wiped a tear from the corner of her own eye and forced a smile. “Well then, we’ll simply focus on our primer.”
Tucking the plan into the depths of her reticule, Jane then withdrew a palm-sized ledger. “We’ll start off by listing the names of all the men we know and what we know of them. That will give us a splendid foundation from which to begin. Each of us will take on specific tasks and write chapters on the information gathered.”
“I volunteer to ferret out whoever this wholly contemptible Lord F— could be. In addition to whatever else is needed.” Ellie sniffed.
“Winnie, I should think you’ll be able to offer insight into what awaits a young woman on her wedding night,” Jane said with a scholar’s interest and not the barest blush.
But Ellie’s cheeks flamed bright pink. “Jane! You cannot ask her about . . . that.”
As far as complexions went, Winnifred sensed hers had turned decidedly chartreuse.
“I’m sure it will be nothing but awkwardness,” she said. “Mother told me that the first night in the marriage bed is much like that time our carriage wheel broke and we were forced to crowd ourselves into a passing mail coach until we reached the country house—rather jostling, sweaty, and with someone breathing directly into your face.”
Ellie cringed.
Jane wrote furiously.
And Winnifred . . . well, she didn’t want to think about it until she had to.
“For my share of research, I shall ask the married set what drove them to the altar,” she offered.
Yet she already knew what she’d find—an abundance of gentlemen willing to do anything for money.
Chapter 2
Asher Holt would sell his soul for money . . . if he still had one. But that ethereal core of hope and morality had abandoned him years ago. Right around the time he’d started donning his signature black cravats.
He wore the length of black silk tied around his neck to mourn the eventual death of his father. Regrettably, the Marquess of Shettlemane was still quite hale and doubtless infused with a fresh surge of vitality each time he practiced beggaring his only son.
At this rate, he would be immortal.
Yet Asher’s days of agonizing over a future in Fleet Prison for his father’s debts and schemes would soon be at an end.
The chimes on the clock tolled the eleventh hour. He expelled a breath of relief when the man in the burgundy coat appeared at the threshold of the billiards room at White’s. The horse-toothed Lord Berryhill cast a skittish glance past the men calculating their angles with cue sticks in hand, and the ones hunched over chess and backgammon boards, until alighting on Asher near the fireplace.
Berryhill bobbled his head in a nod and trotted over. Sinking with stiff trepidation onto the opposite chair, he nudged a newspaper across the polished table and whispered, “It’s all there.”
Like any worthy Captain Sharp, Asher surreptitiously slipped two fingers into the folds and tucked the money up his sleeve.
“Aren’t you going to count it?” Berryhill gulped and tugged at his snowy cravat, his knee bouncing like a piston in a Watt condensing engine at full boil. The man was a veritable cornucopia of twitches.
Asher could have won a fortune from him if they’d played cards.
He offered a half shrug in his usual aloof manner, smoothing the newspaper to read it. “I trust it’s there.”
Though, in truth, Asher had counted the money. While some lads were taught philosophy and religion at their father’s knee, he had learned gambling and greed. A lifetime of training had taught him how to discern one note from the next with a mere flick of his thumb. Even with a folded stack.
And by the jaded age of six, he knew never to trust another soul when money was on the line. Especially not his father.
Berryhill joggled to the edge of his chair and mopped his brow, looking more eager to bolt than the horses on the paddock earlier. “You’re a good man, Holt. Better than I thought, at any rate. I’d never wagered before and when my rider lost, I’d worried that you’d try to extort more money by threatening to tell my mother, or something of that sort. Indeed, everyone knows that your father’s a cheat and a charlatan and never honors his . . . um . . . well . . .”
As he spoke, Asher coolly appraised the chinless lord over the top of the paper until his words sputtered to a halt. Berryhill’s cheeks suddenly infused with the eponymous colors of purple and green. Then he stood, anxiously wiping his palms down his coat.
His comments were accurate, if not understated. Nothing compared to having firsthand experience with the Marquess of Shettlemane at his most greedy and depraved.
Even so, it was bad form to go around insulting another man’s father.
“If I could offer a bit of advice,” Holt said before this pompous little pony could dash away.
Berryhill’s eyes widened with alarm. “I meant no slight.”
“Then perhaps, when you hear a nervous ramble spewing from your own lips, simply excuse yourself from the table. It will save you any future regrets.”
Berryhill swallowed, making a slurping sound through his overbite. With a shaky hand, he tipped his hat. Then he set off at a trot toward the nearest exit.
Asher expelled a hard breath of irritation and self-loathing. He didn’t like to dole out threats—that was too much like something his father would do.
Yet if everything went to plan, he’d never need to wager or demean himself for money again.
If everything went to plan, he and his two associates were going to be as rich as Croesus. But only if he fulfilled his part of the bargain. And he was cutting it close because the ship sailed tomorrow.
Winning the wager against Berryhill had finally given him the money he required. Asher had made other wagers as well, keeping his gaming even more secret than usual. He couldn’t risk word spreading.
His father had a knack for sniffing out every last farthing in his vicinity, then spending it on any passing fancy. Shettlemane would lie, cheat and steal to satisfy his insatiable greed. Concoct elaborate stories to excuse his behavior. Destroy lives without a backward glance. And whenever he found himself facing the consequences of his maniacal spending, he’d throw Asher into the fire, forcing him to make things right again.
Not any longer, Asher thought, a kindling of hope sparking for the first time since he was a child.
Tomorrow, he was sailing away from his father and toward the grandest opportunity he’d ever encountered. This venture would gain Asher a fortune enough for ten lifetimes, and ensure that he’d never again concede to his father’s unrelenting demands.
Of course, when he’d first learned of the scheme, Asher had laughed at his friends. The Hollander twins—or One and Two, as they were known—were immature dunderpolls of the first order. Therefore, it couldn’t have been possible that they’d stumbled upon a bona fide treasure map, hidden in the walls of the hunting lodge they’d purchased.