The Bet Read online

  “Yes,” Estelle replied. “I have just moved to live with my grandma.”

  Myles opened his mouth to ask her what her name was, but she whirled around until her back was toward him, effectively stopping any further conversation.

  Estelle stopped when the possibility she had just offended him by turning her back on him dawned on her. She whirled around immediately and offered him a perfunctory smile by way of an apology, but felt her cheeks flame with embarrassment nonetheless.

  “I must go now.” She bobbed a curtsey. “Bye.”

  “Wait!” Myles struggled to find something to say that would delay the inevitable. “Don’t you want to know who I am?”

  He grinned when her cheeks flushed.

  Something warm began to unfurl inside Estelle’s chest. She smiled at him in spite of herself at the sight of the roguish twinkle in his eyes.

  “I am sure I will find out,” she remarked dryly with a nod to the villagers. “They know you, I presume.”

  Myles nodded. “I am Myles Martin-Howe,” he replied. “From Stredley Manor, over there.”

  Estelle nodded while inwardly cursing. Of course, he was going to come from the most beautiful manor house she had ever seen in her life. Of course, he was going to be titled, wealthy, and have an influential family behind him. Rather than answer, she bobbed a curtsey again.

  Myles watched her and heaved a sigh. He knew she wasn’t aware of it but each time she curtseyed she displayed a bounteous expanse of bosom which captured his imagination in a way he suspected might get him struck by lightning if he stayed on the clifftop any longer.

  “Would you stop doing that please?” he protested.

  “I thought it was something people like you expect,” she replied.

  Myles lifted an elegant brow. “People like me?” He suspected he knew already what she was going to say. Piqued, he waited.

  “Yes, you know, aristocracy.” Shut up now, Estelle, a small voice warned her. Of course, she ignored it. “You know, coming from the manor as you do,” she added, then mentally winced when she realised he didn’t need reminding where he lived.

  Myles nodded. “I don’t think social etiquette is really relevant here on the top of a cliff, do you?” he asked, his voice sharper than he intended.

  Estelle had the strange feeling she had just offended him somehow, but didn’t know him well enough to be certain.

  “I thought it was required at all times,” she responded.

  “Then permit me to ask your name,” he murmured. “Without any more bowing and curtseying. I don’t know about you but I feel foolish doing it up here, especially when nobody else is around to see us.” He tried to soften his criticism by offering her a gentle smile. “I won’t tell anybody if you won’t.”

  Estelle nodded and struggled to resist the need to curtsey and take her leave of him again. It was difficult to think of anything when he was studying her so intently with those wonderfully, rich, dark eyes of his. At a distance, they looked almost black. Now that he was several steps closer she realised they were more of a rich, creamy chocolate. Their soulless depths drew her closer until she knew that if she ventured too close she was going to fall into them.

  What in the world are you doing? A small voice warned her when she realised that she was standing, alone, at the highest point in the village for the world to see, conversing with the owner of the largest manor house in the area. Not only that but falling into his dark, sensually hypnotic gaze.

  “I-I need to leave,” she whispered, shaken by the depth of emotion coursing through her. To be attracted to any man was the last thing she needed right now, mainly because it awakened something within her she wasn’t sure she could deal with after her recent experiences. Even so, she suspected it was going to be some time yet before she forgot this morning, in many ways.

  “Am I permitted to know your name?” Myles prompted when she continued to stare at him, and then the space around him as though preparing to take flight.

  “Estelle,” she replied hesitantly, unsure if she should curtsey again. But then he told you to stop curtseying – so she didn’t. “Er, Matthews. Estelle Matthews.”

  Myles nodded. “Miss?” he asked brazenly and made no apology for it. He tried to look at her ring finger, but with her fists clenched like they were it was impossible to tell if it was unadorned.

  Estelle shook her head. “No. I-I, mean, yes. Miss. I am not married.” Mentally wincing at just how stupid she sounded, Estelle lapsed into silence again. “I must go,” she whispered. “My grandma is waiting for me. She will be worried, you see?”

  But she knew he wouldn’t see. She knew instinctively that this man went wherever he wanted to go, did whatever he wanted to do, and undoubtedly had the staff to do whatever he told them to do. He was safe and secure in his world. She, on the other hand, wasn’t and, at the moment, didn’t like the way he was studying her far too intently, as though he was reading her thoughts. She wanted to poke at her hair but then realised it wasn’t just a loose tendril of hair that was tickling her face it was most of the wild mane she always struggled to confine in any way. It tumbled about her shoulders as carefree as she had been just a few moments ago. Embarrassment coloured her cheeks.

  That is why he is staring at you. You look like a wild banshee.

  Tipping her chin up, she bobbed a curtsey for one last time and turned to leave. This time, he made no move to stop her. She scurried down the path, her gaze locked on the stony surface of the narrow gulley cut between the flora and fauna of the clifftop, awfully aware of his gaze burning the spot between her shoulder blades. She wished she knew what he was staring at, but couldn’t bring herself to ask him.

  “It is probably because you look as wild and unkempt as these wildflowers,” she mumbled. “You look a fright. He has probably never met a creature like you before in his life.”

  “Excuse me.”

  Estelle sat akimbo over the stile at the end of the path which would take her down into the village, and closed her eyes as her cheeks flushed with crimson colour. It was bad enough that he was seeing her in such an unladylike posture, but to her undoubtedly overheard her mumbling to herself was a further humiliation she could do little to excuse. With a sigh, she looked at him.

  Myles carefully kept his gaze averted from the delicious curve of feminine ankle displayed so finely beneath her rucked-up skirts. While her modesty was covered, her posture could be considered in no way ladylike. Rather than offend him, it intrigued him. She intrigued him. Her complete lack of restriction in etiquette, behaviour, or attitude was like a breath of fresh air to him, and he wanted to witness more of it. So much so that he almost wished he didn’t have to return to London in the morning. But he knew his friends were waiting for him. They had a very special occasion to attend; that of his onetime good friend, soon to be shackled by the matrimonial chains designed to suck any man into a lifetime of provision and dubious reward.

  It was the thought of those impending nuptials that made him look upon the woman before him with suspicion. Suddenly, like the steady flow of iced water relentlessly turning into a deluge, his attraction toward her began to diminish. He suspected that if he did succumb to that siren’s call of hers, he would lose something of himself he wasn’t apt to get back anytime soon. She was a villager; someone who lived on his family’s land. She almost certainly wasn’t titled or wealthy and, while her clothing was fashionable and well-cut, it was made for endurance rather than affect. It would be folly for all concerned to enter into a dalliance with her. As wild as he suspected she might be he also believed she wasn’t the kind of woman to indulge in a brief affair. In fact, he suspected that if he touched her, he would be the one to succumb to the parson’s trap, far too soon after his friend than he could ever anticipate.

  Now that is something you must avoid, my friend. So to London, it is.

  Estelle waited as patiently as she could, aware that she couldn’t move and risk revealing yet more flesh to his curious gaze.
Instead, she was left straddling the stile, waiting for him to decide what it was he wanted to say.

  “Yes?” She asked; her voice sharp with impatience.

  Myles bowed. “It is a pleasure to meet with you,” he replied, his voice as officious as it would be had they been in a ballroom. He opened his mouth to say something more but caution, and an awareness of her that made him distinctly uncomfortable, made him snap his mouth shut again. Without uttering a word he turned on his heel and stormed back up the cliff path toward his horse.

  Estelle watched him, nonplussed for a moment.

  “Estelle?” Wynne appeared at her elbow. “Who is that?”

  “It’s the local gentry,” Estelle replied with a frown. “He is a curious fellow, isn’t he?”

  “Barnabas?” Wynne peered myopically up the path but suspected that Barnabas, in his seventies as he was, wouldn’t be able to climb the cliff path that quickly.

  Estelle scrunched her nose up and shook her head as she slowly swung her leg over the top of the stile and jumped down to stand beside her grandma.

  “No, Myles something or other.”

  Wynne looked suspiciously at her, for once struck by just how beautiful her granddaughter truly was. She looked up the path at Myles’ back and clucked her teeth in dismay.

  “What did he want?”

  “Just to say hello. He didn’t recognise me and believed me to be new to the area. He is an odd character, isn’t he?” Estelle murmured.

  “How odd?”

  Estelle considered whether she was being fair to him or not and thought their meeting over carefully before she answered.

  “Well, I got a distinct impression that he wanted to say something but didn’t. He was polite but rather curious.”

  Wynne looked at her granddaughter. She wondered if she should caution her against stepping out of the door with her hair down like that, but given what she had been through of late, didn’t consider it all that important.

  At least she has more colour in her cheeks now, Wynne mused as she studied the faint blush to her granddaughter’s cheeks which hadn’t been there when she had left the house they shared. She could only hope it had been the winds that had put that colour there and not meeting with the local aristocracy. Still, she couldn’t blame Myles for his curiosity. Now that Estelle had lost some of her pallor, accessorised by a rather shocking haunted look, her innate beauty had started to shine through. So much so that Estelle was clearly going to attract a lot of attention amongst the local men in the village.

  Wynne’s belief was proven moments later by the rather hawkish stare of Harrold, the Baker’s son, as he wandered past, and walked straight into Mr Tempton’s low stone wall.

  “Shouldn’t we go and rescue him?” Estelle asked once Harrold had disappeared over said wall, his feet being the last thing she saw.

  Wynne huffed and shook her head, clearly unimpressed. “Stupid boy. He got himself over there, he can get himself out.”

  Sure enough, they watched Harrold pop up seconds later, his cheeks florid and his hair ruffled. Without a word, he coughed, straightened his jacket, vaulted back over the wall, and hurried off down the road without a backward look.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Estelle was amazed he hadn’t done himself a mischief.

  “Doesn’t think with his brain,” Wynne replied knowingly.

  Estelle frowned at that. She would have followed her grandma, who began to make her way back toward the house, but was compelled to take one last look at the rapidly retreating back of the local gentry rather than the baker’s boy. To her surprise, she was more disappointed than she expected to be to find the path empty. Slowly, and thoughtfully, she turned around and followed her grandma home.

  “Are all the men in this village strange, or is it just me being new to the area not understanding country folk?” she mused aloud.

  Wynne wisely kept her mouth shut.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Myles drained the dregs of his ale and slapped his tankard onto the table with a grin. The world was an increasingly merry place, aided by the heady volume of ale he had steadily consumed throughout the evening, and the good company he sat with.

  “Thank God that’s over,” he mumbled around an earthy belch, confident that his derision was matched by his friends’ own aversion to matrimony.

  “It’s worse than a burial,” Elijah grumbled.

  Rufus tried to place his elbows on the table as he leaned forward but misjudged the distance and fell to one side. Heaving himself upright he peered suspiciously at everyone.

  “If anybody tries to make me do it; as my friends I give you full permission to slap me senseless until I am no longer attractive. Saving that, shoot me,” he announced solemnly. He eyed the buxom barmaid who dared to venture close enough to replace their jug with another full quota of ale but backed away warily.

  “After the trauma of today I am going to avoid women for the time being,” Robard declared with a theatrical shudder.

  Sam shook his head as he watched the sashaying backside of the barmaid disappear behind the bar. “I wouldn’t refuse,” he sighed. “Just don’t expect me to make an honest woman out of any of them when it is over.”

  “You are a real charmer, aren’t you?” Robard teased. “Lift your skirts but don’t ask for more.”

  Sam shrugged but didn’t deny it. He couldn’t. It was the truth.

  “Well, I am not going to get shackled. I would rather marry the bloody vicar than hand my carcass over to any shrieking harridan. Why would I want to spend my days looking after a female? She has parents, doesn’t she? That’s what they are there for.” He snorted. “They can bloody well keep them,” he muttered.

  Myles peered at his childhood friend across the table. His sluggish mind struggled to comprehend his friend’s sentiments. When he thought he had the gist of it, he nodded emphatically. His groan was loud when his brain protested. He held it still when he was certain his head was going to fall off and waited until the sensation passed before he tried to talk again.

  “I feel sorry for the poor fellow,” he muttered. He scowled as he remembered the ceremony they had all endured that day. His good friend, Hugo, had looked so solemn one might have been led to believe he was being led to the gallows. His put upon demeanour hadn’t improved throughout the wake – celebrations – that had followed. In fact, Hugo had been led off to, wherever, after a suitable period of celebration, as quietly as a lamb being led to slaughter. It had been all Myles and his friends could do to watch the carriage trundle off, taking their friend and his new bride off to begin their life of matrimony together.

  “He is beyond help now,” Robard sighed despondently. “Poor fellow.”

  “You want to get married, you know you do,” Myles retorted. He knew that of all of his friends, Robard was most probably the only one who would actually consider finding a wife.

  Robard didn’t deign to answer him. Instead, he shook his head and took a long sip of his ale.

  “I think Sam is going to be hitched first,” Elijah laughed. “He was the only one in the church who didn’t squirm like a five-year-old on Sunday.”

  “Go to Hell,” Sam muttered. “Myles will be the first to fall. He is the most handsome of all of us. All it is going to take is for him to be in his cups somewhere and some calculating female is going to corner him. He will be doomed. Doomed, I tell you.”

  “Hah! Not while I have breath in my body,” Myles huffed, but without heat. He took another sip of his ale while in the back of his mind he firmly pushed aside the lingering memory of the woman on the clifftop.

  Estelle.

  She had haunted his dreams every night since he had left her with her grandma in the village three days ago. For some reason he couldn’t understand the memory of her left him with an edgy, restless feeling that made him feeling vaguely discontent with his lot in life, as though there should be something more but he wasn’t sure what. He had money; a wonderful, if a little rundown estate, a healthy
family, and excellent friends to converse with. What else could there be?

  Something else, I am sure of it, he mused. It was a feeling that had appeared out of nowhere, as though summoned from the grave and, now that it was out of its box it refused to be ignored. As if to bolster his enthusiasm to ignore it, Myles looked around the table at each of his friends.

  I am in excellent company. What more should I ask of life?

  Estelle.

  The word echoed hauntingly in the back of his mind. It was something of a relief to be able to forget all about her with a few ales and an evening of fine company with his friends – or try to at least. With that, he turned his attention back to the ongoing conversation flowing freely around him.

  “I bet you that Myles is going to succumb first,” Elijah teased. “I tell you what. Let’s up the odds a bit.”

  “What odds are you putting forward, and for what?” Sam asked, leaning forward in interest.

  “I bet you that someone is going to fall beneath the parson’s trap before the year is out.”

  “What does the last man standing get?” Sam peered at him suspiciously.

  “What do we do if none of us marry? Are we all winners?” Robard asked, his smile dimming when he realised Elijah was serious.

  Myles considered Elijah’s suggestion and then mused quite knowingly: “Well, I know for a fact that Rufus’ mother has been haranguing him to marry that Smitherson chit quite continuously of late. It won’t be long before he succumbs to her determination.”

  “Balderdash!” Rufus snapped, thumping the table in outrage. “I don’t care what my mater says, I will be damned if I will ever be shackled to that witch. I heard that her father recently upped her dowry in a desperate attempt to get rid of her. It is preposterous. No amount of money could ever persuade a man to take that baggage on board.”

  “What is he offering now?” Sam asked, trying to hide his grin and failing miserably.

  “A veritable fortune and that damned colt of his that was sired by Dallantree,” Rufus replied. He nodded emphatically when a chorus of inhaled breaths and whistles rent the air.