Page 16 of Rules for a Wicked Wager

“You want a title.”

“No,” Mari said with a smile. This was where she thought herself very forward thinking. “I know Papa is mad for a title, but so many peers are ninnies. They want my dowry so they can gamble and wench. I want a man who wants something beyond his next meal.”

“Mr. Camden does meet all requirements.” Lady Eleanor set the list down, her expression vaguely troubled.

“He has a bright financial future.”

Eleanor shook her head. “You are looking for the rarest creature of all: a man of influence with no obvious vice. That is no one but a clergyman, and yet item four is no clergy. Why do you object so strongly to the religious?”

“Because their wives have to be even more circumspect than I’ve been. These last six years have been horrendous. A lifetime of that would destroy me.”

Eleanor gifted Mari with one of her rare true smiles. “We are of the same mind. And now that I know you don’t require a title, we shall get you to the altar by Season’s end.”

Well, that was a relief.

“Except, of course, for the obvious problem.”

Mari nodded. “Lord Whitly.”

“Your willful nature,” Eleanor corrected. “I see now that you are not nearly as restrained as I’d thought.”

“I am not willful!” Good God, she thought Eleanor understood! “It was all Whitly’s—”

“Yes, yes,” the lady interrupted with her first show of impatience. “But the name would not stick if it did not fit. One impetuous wager can be survived. But any more such nonsense, and you’ll become irredeemable.”

Mari took a deep breath. Her path was clear. She was to be circumspect in all things, no matter how much Lord Whitly provoked her.

“You may count on me.” She refolded her list. It might be a list about a man’s requirements, but in truth, it was all about her. About the woman she would have to be to attract a man like that. She returned it to her reticule, next to her folded list of possible husbands. Many of the top tier were crossed off as unattainable or unsuitable. Mr. Camden was the highest available to her now, and he was number twenty-seven.

Meanwhile, Lady Eleanor started to rise. “Do you go to Lady Barnes’s ball tonight, Mrs. Winter’s musicale, or the theater?”

“The theater tonight, and Lady Carlyle’s ball tomorrow.”

“Very well. I shall see you tomorrow then, as I’m to the musicale.”

Mari scrambled to follow. “But…but what are we to do about Lord Whitly?”

“Ignore him. You have the approval of myself and the patronesses of Almack’s. If you cannot turn that to your advantage, then you are not as clever as I thought.”

Mari gaped at her, then blurted out her thoughts. “But you are here to help me.” Papa had paid her to help.

“And I am. I am giving you my approval. The rest is up to you.” Then she gave her a beatific smile. “Don’t fret so much. I think your gowns are perfectly sound.”

Then she departed. Horace must have been listening, because he opened the parlor door with perfect timing. Mari stood silently, watching as Eleanor donned her outer wrap and walked away.

Mari never said a word. She most certainly didn’t scream that the woman had been paid to give better advice. That she’d been useless at sympathy. And most of all, that Mari absolutely, positively did not want to wear perfectly sound gowns!

There was only one thing left to do. She was going to teach that dratted bird to say “happy day,” and then she was going to stand over Lord Whitly and gloat. Yes, she was going to savor every second that man was on his knee before her, and she wouldn’t let him up until Easter!

Chapter Four

“Happy day, you dratted bird.”

Peter and Lady Illston’s butler paused outside the parlor door. It wasn’t good form to laugh with the butler, but they exchanged amused glances nonetheless. And then—good man—he bowed and withdrew.

That left Peter free to watch as Miss Powel tempted the parakeet with a piece of apple.

“Come on, Greenie, here’s some apple for you. Happy day. Happy day. Happy day.”