Page 30 of A Gentleman's Wager

She crawled from the bushes, near to her destination. The old stone arbour was near lost beneath a swaddling of ivy, but once she battled her way through, she discovered Captain Wakefield on the stone bench. He looked up at her with unfocused eyes.

Dammit, what was he doing here?

“Miss Rushdale,” he didn’t rise. “Were you… were you looking for me? How is Louisa?”

Did he think she had nothing better to do at a ball than run about the gardens passing on love notes? “No,” she snarled, barely keeping a grip on her rage.

“Oh!” His chin jerked upward. “I just thought…” He shook his head. “Well, I thought, after the bloody fright Pennerley gave her, that she might…” He left the rest of that thought unsaid. “I don’t blame her. It was entirely him, arrogant turd that he is, and it was all entirely directed at me. He should not have involved her like that. Even for him, that was low.”

Louisa had hardly said a thing, so Bella didn’t feel able to offer an opinion either way, although she could get behind the arrogant turd epitaph. Pennerley had been nothing but rude to her.

“Why does Lucerne tolerate him?”

“One does wonder.” Wakefield sighed. “You’d think he’d be ejected for his behaviour, but no, instead he has Lucerne’s ear.”

“That hardly seems right.”

Wakefield gave a humourless snort. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, Miss Rushdale, it’s that Pennerley bloody well always gets what he wants. Always. Unfailingly. And he doesn’t give a fig about collateral damage.”

He made no apology for his language, which warmed her to him considerably. She did so hate it when men felt a constant need to censor themselves, as if her ears might fall off if she heard anything remotely crude or blasphemous. Whereas, in fact, she could probably teach him a few words, not that she used them in polite society, of course, but one of the many pleasures of her past spent walking Lauwine’s overgrown gardens was that she could curse to her heart’s content with not a soul to hear her do it.

“How is it you’re enemies?”

Bella shook her head when he seemed about to launch into a recounting of this evening’s dramatics. “I meant, what started it?”

Curiously, the captain curled in defensively. “If you are imagining a big event then you won’t find one. There’s simply nothing we agree upon. We are associates only through friendship with Lucerne. If it were not for that connection, for my part, I would have nothing at all to do with the man. I pray you heed my advice and steer clear of him for your own peace of mind, Miss Rushdale.”

“Yes, yes… But there must be something that—”

“Perhaps you have been fortunate enough never to have had to associate with someone whom you disliked intensely from the outset.”

“I don’t believe—”

Wakefield rose. “I’ll bid you goodnight, Miss Rushdale. I don’t think it would benefit either of us to be stumbled upon alone together in such a secluded part of the garden.”

Indeed, it would not.

“And that is just the sort of nonsense it would amuse Pennerley to arrange, having already discerned my admiration for Louisa.”

“Oh, but I’m much too lowly to attract his notice.”

Wakefield gave a dry bark of a laugh. “Oh, he’s noticed you, or rather he’s noticed you have Lucerne’s favour. I imagine he’s seething over that.” The idea crinkled the corners of his eyes.

“Why is that—”

“Allow me to share a piece of wisdom with you, Miss Rushdale. Pennerley is a product of immense privilege. He expects all to be as he wishes it, and what he enjoys most is Lucerne’s undivided attention.”

“Are you suggesting he was rude because Lucerne—”

“I’m saying keep your damned wits about you, and stay out of his orbit, else your stay here might not prove so pleasant as you’d like.”

“I see. Thank you for the insight.”

It was interesting, Bella mused tucked up warm in bed later that night, how Wakefield’s warning had made her curious about Pennerley, whereas earlier she’d simply been annoyed by him. The captain would likely have been very sorry to learn that, but Bella had never been one to walk a sensible path.

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Bella