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A melia watched Sir Frederick disappear into the crowded saloon, his broad shoulders vanishing amid the press of silk-clad figures. The feeling of witnessing her last chance at love slip away settled in her chest like a physical ache.

Three days ago, she’d have scoffed at the idea that this was love. If her heart had been in any way stimulated at the sight of the gentleman in question, surely it was merely due to the challenge of achieving her goal.

Well, her several goals, for getting to the bottom of Pernilla’s fate had assumed similar importance to seeing Sir Frederick allied to a young lady of the right stature and hair color who would secure Amelia’s future. The schemes had seemed so sensible then, so necessary.

Until they hadn’t.

Perhaps she hadn’t realized the tender feelings she’d developed for Sir Frederick until she watched him now walk away from her, his every step across the polished floor echoing her mounting regret. The murmur of conversation and tinkling of crystal seemed to mock her folly.

She should have told Sir Frederick about her concerns regarding his sister. Henry had told her just five minutes earlier that he’d learned that Mr. Greene had ordered a postchaise and four from a posting inn in the next village.

So, Miss Caroline had succumbed.

And yet Amelia had chosen to keep that information from him. If the plan went wrong, she’d be guilty of ruining his sister’s life, which would quite rightly fuel his ire far more than Amelia’s knowledge that she’d ruined her own life through stupidity.

For, if Amelia hadn’t gambled away her future in quite the overt way Edward had, she was as complicit in exploring underhand ways to lay claim to that future she’d thought she wanted above all others.

So, what now?

She had no inheritance to look forward to. And she had lost her chance at love—if she were foolish and vain enough to think she ever had it.

Blinking away the dampness that suddenly weighed down her lashes, she ran her gloved hands down the lustrous folds of her dress and gazed once more upon the throng.

Never more had she felt such an outsider. She did not belong in an environment like this. She was a country rustic at heart. Didn’t she know that?

What a foolish young woman she was for having dreams above her station.

*

With a sense of disorientation, Sir Frederick circled the populated saloon. The scent of beeswax candles and ladies’ perfume did nothing to clear his head.

Lord Pendleton waylaid him with talk on a matter Sir Frederick could barely take in—something about horse breeding or perhaps it was crop rotation—and then instantly forgot.

Miss Playford smiled at him as she passed, her golden curls bouncing with each step, before stopping to speak to young Edward Fairchild. Miss Fairchild’s brother.

Amelia. The very thought of her name caused his chest to tighten.

The woman he loved had just frozen him out by revealing something so damning about her and her situation that he still couldn’t quite comprehend. Her eyes, usually so warm and direct, had been unable to meet his, and that perhaps had hurt more than anything.

She had a secret. Well, didn’t everyone? But clearly hers was dark, and she wanted to hold it close to her. She’d tried to deceive Sir Frederick.

That’s what she’d inferred before she’d walked away.

And then Henry crossed his line of vision and without remembering quite why he needed him, he hailed the young man with a short command, which he knew sounded terse.

But he wasn’t very happy about anything much this evening.

“Sir Frederick? I beg your pardon, but I’m in rather a hurry.” The young man cast a furtive look about him and then at the door, before saying, “My apologies, Sir Frederick, but something rather urgent has come to pass that I must attend to.”

Sir Frederick didn’t feel very sympathetic towards anyone else’s so-called emergency. His own was far more important.

“I need your help with a delicate matter—”

“A delicate matter?” Henry repeated, looking—Sir Frederick thought—remarkably alarmed.

“Yes. A woman.” Sir Frederick scowled at the thought of her. Bold, brash Mrs. Perry who’d be waiting for him in the library tonight to tell him, no doubt, more of why Miss Fairchild was so patently unsuitable and what she, instead, could offer him.

“What woman?” Henry asked, shifting from foot to foot as if he was itching to get away.

Sir Henry lowered his voice. “The widow. She wants me to meet her and I fear she plans to entrap me.” He hesitated.

“I thought you might accompany me. You could ensure propriety was maintained. In fact, if you hid yourself, she could speak freely and then it would be proved what she was about. Would you do that for me?”

Sir Frederick had known Henry his whole life.

The lad had always been too happy to accede to Sir Frederick’s requests, so he was taken aback when Henry shook his head saying sorrowfully, “I must leave urgently, Sir Frederick. A… a message has just been handed to me and I’m afraid I’m required to attend a matter that really demands my attention immediately.

” Casting about with an air of desperation, young Henry’s gaze suddenly alighted upon Edward who was in earnest conversion with Miss Playford, before he called him over.

“Fairchild! Perhaps you could assist Sir Frederick with a request that I am unable to fulfill,” he said. “You’re an amenable chap.”

And then Henry was gone and Sir Frederick was in the rather embarrassing situation of having young Edward gaping up at him.

Except that before either Sir Frederick or Edward actually said anything, Miss Playford suddenly unleashed her delightfully candid smile and said, “Sir Frederick, I know this is frightfully bold of me but Edward has just been discussing a very great conundrum with me that I know could be so easily fixed with such very little trouble on your part but that would ensure the future of a very deserving young woman who is about to lose it through no fault of her own.”

“Good Lord, Miss Playford! There’s no need to spill everything!” young Fairchild protested before Sir Frederick had a chance to respond. Which was just as well, because the truth was that Sir Frederick was considerably taken aback by her pronouncement.

“What is this? I’m the answer to safeguarding a young woman’s future?

One she is about to lose? A little cryptic, don’t you think?

” He knew he sounded ill tempered. But the truth was, what was more important than the fact Mrs. Perry had set alarm bells ringing—compounded by Amelia’s own cagey behavior—and that the widow planned to use all her wiles to entrap him?

If not tonight, then at some stage. Why, he was concerned enough that he might find her insinuated in his bed this evening, such was her tenacity.

And then Miss Fairchild really would have reason to have nothing more to do with him. She’d already tried to insert a wedge between them with her strange talk of having a gambling habit she’d not mentioned before.

That certainly did not make sense.

And now young Edward Fairchild and Miss Playford were speaking in riddles; and just looking at Edward with his eyes so like his sister’s was painful because Sir Frederick had got a double dose of disappointment.

Was it really not going to work out with Miss Amelia Fairchild?

For whatever reason, there were obstacles of which he had a horrible inkling but which now appeared frighteningly insurmountable. Why else would she have greeted him with such reserve before revealing the extent of her wrongdoing?

And how did Sir Frederick feel? Confused? Conflicted? Yes, all of these things.

Now her brother was wanting something from him and he felt highly disinclined.

Frowning, Miss Playford sent him a more piercing look, then repeated, more slowly, as if Sir Frederick were an imbecile, “Edward very foolishly wagered his sister’s inheritance upon something that you can easily fix.”

“Really, Miss Playford—” Edward demurred, but she turned to him with a frown, asking, “And how else would you phrase it, Edward? Oh, I know you were only trying to help. I know you said you were so fond of your sister and were sure you’d be able to double her income by wagering it on a sure bet so that she could retire to the country in much greater comfort, but the truth is that you made a very foolish wager, thinking that Sir Frederick’s sister was Sir Frederick’s potential bride, and really dropping Miss Fairchild right in the middle of it. ”

“What?” Now she had Sir Frederick’s full attention. “What was this wager? And what has Miss Fairchild to do with it all?”

“Go on, Edward, you tell him if you think I’m not telling it properly. It’s time to come clean, as I’ve heard the expression.” Miss Playford suddenly looked a little more combative.

Edward hung his head, shuffled his shoes, then, with a big sigh, looked up at Sir Frederick.

“Truth is, that I always thought my sister was more suited to high jinks than moldering in the country. That is, before she met that curmudgeon, Thomas Blackheath. And then he went and died, making himself a hero and a martyr in her eyes, so finally she persuaded me she’d turned recluse and her only path to happiness was a cottage in the country to which she’d retire when she gained control of her inheritance at the age of twenty-five which is in a few weeks.

Well, not so long ago, I overheard you mention the word marriage while talking to a very lovely blonde young lady and, being a little in my cups, I accepted a wager when needled into it.

As you can imagine, my sister was not happy—”

“You heard me speak of marriage? And what was this wager?” Sir Frederick asked, growing increasingly impatient. “So you say your sister had nothing to do with the wager? She didn’t gamble away her own inheritance?”

“Amelia? Gamble?” Edward laughed. “My sister has a very dim view of wagers and gambling, which is why she was understandably furious when I told her what I’d done.

” With a sigh, he went on, “Having heard you mention the word marriage while speaking to an attractive young blonde, the wager was dependent upon you walking a vivacious young blonde down the aisle within six weeks. I stood to double my sister’s inheritance, and it seemed a sure thing at the time. ”

“Except that what you observed was Sir Frederick talking to his sister,” Miss Playford interjected, “and no doubt the word ‘marriage’ you heard was not said meaning at all what you thought he meant.”

“Indeed, not!” Sir Frederick said with some ire. “Good lord, lad, what were you thinking? And what right had you to do that to your sister?”

“I was trying to help her,” Edward defended himself, his face flaming.

“And quite rightly, she was incensed. And then, when we were invited here, we thought that if we could encourage your acquaintance with some suitably blonde and vivacious contenders, that I would, in fact, win my wager, and all would be well.”

Sir Frederick suspected he looked as thunderous as he felt. “You…and Miss Fairchild…tried to ally me with—” He stopped, his mind suddenly going over all the blonde and vivacious young ladies who had crossed his path these past few days.

His gaze rested on Miss Playford, and she glanced away before looking up, embarrassed.

“I had no idea about this wager when we went on the treasure hunt, Sir Frederick. I certainly wasn’t trying to help Edward win his wager.

” She hesitated. “But I can help him—and so you can—without anything more than simply walking together down the aisle of a church. You see, the wager was written into White’s Betting book by two young men in their cups who apparently used language that didn’t at all stipulate that a wedding had to have occurred.

A simple wander with some witnesses should ensure that Edward wins his wager, and his sister can in fact substantially increase her inheritance so she can enjoy much greater comfort when she retires to the country in a few weeks’ time. ”