Page 65 of The Fortune Hunter’s Gamble

That was certainly true. “And your father agrees, Giles?” Sophronia asked.

The boy looked so pleased with himself. “He does. Told me the other day he wanted me married, so he’s chuffed with how fast I went about the business. No objections to Miss Westall, none.” He bestowed a smile upon his bride-to-be. “My Lily.”

“What happy news indeed.” Sophronia moved to the sideboard where Rowden stood. She would never understand, then or later, what imp compelled her to turn on him. “This means I win our wager.”

He glared down on her, his thick brows drawing together, his face achingly handsome. She battled the mad urge to pull his face down to kiss him, then slap his cheek and demand to know why he had abandoned their ride this morning, and then shake him for coming back into her life not as an insect burrowing into an apple but as a bull stampeding her heart beneath his hooves.

“You won by cheating,” he answered.

“I never did.” She took the tongs from his hand and selected a slice of toast for her plate, then gave him the tongs back.

“What wager?” Aunt Dobbs asked curiously.

Oh, bollocks. She’d spoken to Rowden as if he were the only one in the room, because that was how it felt to her lately. He dominated her thoughts completely.

“That Giles would fall in love with Lily,” she said swiftly. “I knew they were a match as surely as you did, Aunt.”

“Our wager,” Rowden said, turning from the sideboard, “was that Giles would like Ms. Westall better than Mary Kemp. Proving that he preferred Sophronia’s choice of bride for him to my own.”

“Mary was a nice gel.” Giles nodded and looked around the dining table, momentarily confused. “Haven’t seen much of her lately. Where’s she gone?”

“She has accepted an offer for the hand of your friend Mr. Gibbs,” Lily said, a new shard of ice in her voice as she regarded Sophronia and Rowden standing together. “So the two of you were deciding among you whom Giles should marry?”

“No, dear,” Sophronia hurried to say. “We were only engaged in a friendly debate over where Giles would bestow his affections.” She took an egg in its cup and sat near Aunt Dobbs, across the table from the wooing pair.

Rowden sat at the head of the table as naturally as if he belonged there, as if the head of the household were not the Baron, who was either still abed in his chambers or out for the morning at the horse auctions or the coffeehouse, a tradition of his youth that he cherished.

“With stakes,” Rowden added. “Sophronia made me agree that if Giles chose the girl she preferred for him, she would likewise be given the power to suggest a wife for me. I insisted on having the same honor, were the tables turned. But since you were her choice for Giles, Miss Westall, I can only hope Mrs. Hinton will put forward as happy a match for me.”

“Put forward is such a disagreeable way to phrase it.” Sophronia concentrated on cutting her toast into tiny, precise squares. She kept her head bent in hopes that the heat of her cheeks did not betray a blush of mortification. That infernal wager now required her to encourage Rowden to court other women.

“As if choosing a wife were like selecting a fish at market.” She shoved a bit of toast into her mouth.

“Perhaps not all that different,” Giles speculated, nibbling at his own slice of toast. “You want something nice-looking, firm and plump and healthy, and that smells good.”

“Oh, indeed?” Lily turned her cool stare on her newly betrothed. “Were those your considerations in deciding on me?”

Giles blinked, clearly baffled by her tone and trying to discern where he had set his foot wrong. “Er, no? But also yes, a bit.”

“I would not phrase my requirements in the same manner,” Rowden said, trying to avert their first lover’s spat, “but I am in search of many of the same qualities. I wonder whom Mrs. Hinton will propose for me?”

Sophronia put down her egg spoon beside her cup, feeling her appetite squeezed away. That blasted wager. She had been found standing in his bedroom and could not let him think she meant to throw herself at his head, or dangle, or do anything fond or foolish. And so she had suggested she would find him someone to marry.

When the thought of Rowden with another woman made her feel physically ill.

Aunt Dobbs laid down her egg spoon as well, but because she had finished scooping out her egg and was prepared to give Rowden her full attention. “You intend to marry, Rowden?”

“Indeed I had not harbored the thought until Mrs. Hinton suggested it, and I admit I retained the hope that circumstances would make it unlikely I would need to look to her to select my spouse. Not that I do not wish you both very happy,” he said to Giles and Lily in the most cordial tone. Giles nodded, too content to trouble himself over other people’s business.

Lily acknowledged his good wishes with a stiff nod, but she wasn’t done raking Sophronia over the coals. “If she were so kind as to interest herself in playing matchmaker to me and Giles, then I can only hope Mrs. Hinton’s success will continue in her selection for you, Mr. Rowden.”

So she was Mrs. Hinton again, and not Sophronia. Sophronia winced, hating that she had clouded the girl’s happiness with her blunder.

“I do not intend to toss hearts about,” she said. “I am not at Rowden’s gaming parlor. I only hope that if I encounter someone who seems as suited to him as you are to Giles, I shall take the liberty of making her known to him.”

Or not. Perhaps she would find the ideal mate for Rowden and simply let him go on as he was, unaware of this perfect woman’s existence.

Lily did not soften, but she conceded to take a bit of breakfast, marshaling her resources for the next attack.