Page 96 of A Very Bellamy Christmas

“Lady Kathryn!Why on earth would you think this is her doing?”

He turned toward the fire, which was now blazing, and red and gold light danced over his perfect features.

“You must have a reason for thinking that,” she prodded.

“I know it is her. I made a wager with her.”

“You made a wager that she could lock us in a priest’s hole?” she shrieked.

He winced. “Of course not.”

“Then what, pray?”

“Evidently—and I only have her word for this as I do not recall any of it—she once told me she would never marry. I, er, allegedly, laughed at her and told her that she would marry before I did.” He shrugged. “To her way of thinking, we made a wager.”

“That’s—that’s…” She shook her head. “What in the world is wrong with the two of you? Are you both twelve?”

His jaws clenched. “As I’ve already said, I have no recollection of the conversation.”

“But you believe she did this?”

“Yes. Although why she has suddenly decided to take action now, I do not know.” His blue gaze flickered around the room, as if there might be reasons lurking in the dark corners. “I am joining Chatham at his house in London and she could have tormented me all Season long—which is a pastime she enjoys—so, why now? And why—” He broke off as his eyes settled on Stacia and slowly narrowed. He cocked his head, opened his mouth, and then closed it, still staring.

Stacia just knew what he’d been about to ask: why had Lady Kathryn chosen her.

Oh God. What if he guessed the truth?

***

Miss Martin was suddenly as silent as the grave. Andrew suspected she was fuming over the fact that his idiocy had led to her downfall: marriage to him. He could not blame her; he would not want to marry him, either. Even without the pall of Sarah’s ruin hanging over his head, he was no bargain. At least not to a woman who saw through his appearance to the less than impressive man beneath.

She was right. What had he been thinking about to wager about such a matter with Kathryn? He knew how suggestible and unpredictable—no, volatile—the girl could be.

To be perfectly honest, he sometimes enjoyed her wild, somewhat unhinged, behavior a great deal. He suspected she was exactly what his younger sister would have been like if his mother and the infant she’d been carrying hadn’t died in that carriage accident.

As often as Andrew complained about Kathryn, he had to admit she’d made his life more amusing since moving back to Chatham Park.

The last months had been…difficult. Not because of anything Sylvester had said or done. Not even because of Sylvester’s mother, who was certainly a brutal bitch and strove to make everyone around her suffer.

No, it was none of that.

It sounded like madness to articulate it, but without Sylvester to hate, Andrew had been forced to focus on himself for the first time in eleven years. What he had seen—a rootless, irresponsible clod with nothing but shame to show for over a decade of living—had horrified him. And depressed him.

“I daresay I was simply convenient,” Miss Martin suddenly said.

“Hmm?”

“I said that Lady Kathryn chose me because I am the only unmarried female staying at the house over the age of one-and-twenty.” She gave a stiff huff of laughter.

Andrew studied her bowed head; he knew why Kathryn had chosen Miss Martin. And it wasn’t because she was the only choice, either. The youngest Bellamy sister might be green when it came to life and love, but she had recognized Andrew’s interest in Miss Martin like a falcon spotting an unfortunate rodent that had popped its head out of a hole.

His memory might be shoddy, but it worked well enough to recall at least some of Kathryn’s mocking comments from the past few months. Every time he’d been forced to attend some function or other with Sylvester, Hyacinth, and Kathryn—and there had been far, far too many for his liking—Kathryn had taunted him about the matchmaking mamas who threw their daughters at him even though he was poor, disgraced, and an unlikely candidate for the dukedom now that Chatham had a pregnant wife.

It was lamentable but true that a great many women didn’t seem to care what Andrew had done or how poor his prospects were; they simply could not resist a handsome face.

While it was undeniable that he had used Selina Bellamy last Season to get back at Sylvester—believing his cousin was in love with her—he really had empathized with the beautiful woman, who had understood more than anyone he’d ever met how tedious it was to be so physically appealing to members of the opposite sex that people lost their wits.

It had been a bloody relief to spend time with a woman who knew exactly how tiresome, not to mention insulting, such attention felt. As if Andrew’s shell was all there was to him. Once his looks were gone—and he would grow old and wrinkly just like anyone else, provided he didn’t die first—did that mean there was nothing left of him that was of any interest?