Free The Wager by Raven McAllan

THE
WAGER
     
    Raven McAllan
     
    Copyright
© 2013
     
     
     
    Chapter One
     
    London
1818
     
    "You did what?" Catherine's voice was
so shrill, it was lucky there were no fishwives around or they would have
thought there was a new member in their midst. She realized and tried to
continue in a more ladylike manner. Whether she succeeded would be up for
debate.
    Jermyn looked at her, shame in his eyes.
    For one moment, her heart melted before she
thought over his words and with a strength she had not known she possessed she
hardened it. He may be her younger brother, albeit by ten minutes, but he was
no longer a child. He was five and twenty, and the head of the family.
    "I lost a wager," he said again.
    Catherine tapped her foot. Her bosom swelled,
and it seemed a thousand ants marched over her skin, making it prickle in
something akin to horror.   Her heart
raced, and she thought her pulse might jump out of her wrist with its irregular
beat. "I heard and understood that part. Though knowing our father and the
repercussions his predilection for gaming had on our family, I wonder how you
have the temerity." She shook her head. To her, his stupidity defied all
description. "No, it was the next part of the sentence I have difficulty
with."
    Jermyn flung her a sulky look and paced across
the snug sitting room where until his entrance she had been sitting and
reading. Outside it was raining and the autumn afternoon was chilly. Inside it
was, or had been, until her brother's pronouncement, warm and cozy.
    He stood by the hearth and stared at her,
defiance in his eyes.
    "I lost a wager, the prize was you."
    With a silent and unladylike oath, Catherine dug
her nails into the palms of her hands to stop herself screaming…or hitting him. How could he? Did she not have enough of
a dark and murky past, without him adding to it?
    "That is what I thought you said. I had
prayed my hearing was at fault. How could you do such a thing? It can not of course be legal. Tell me, with
whom did you make this asinine bet?" She was proud how level her voice
was.
    "Brook Fredericks."
    "I might have guessed. Lord
Fredericks." Her nemesis. Images of him; sitting
beside her, kissing her neck, parting her legs and sliding inside her bombarded
Catherine. His voice murmuring "My own, for ever," filled her mind,
and made her shiver.
    "He made me." Jermyn's petulant voice
broke into her reverie. She shook herself and brought her thoughts back to the
unpleasant present. Typical Jermyn. Anything
unpleasant, or that presented him in a bad light, was, according to him, never
his fault.
    "Why and where?"
    "For heaven's sake Caty ,
one might think you were my mother, don't nag," Jermyn burst out. "It
was at White's, it's legal, and it's in the book. We bet on a game of dice, he
won. That is the be all and end all of it. Do not go on."
    That was the last straw. Almost without
conscious thought, Catherine dropped the romance she had been reading and flung
it at him. It hit his jaw with a loud, satisfying, and hard thump before
dropping to the floor, its pages bent. Catherine spared a swift thought of
remorse—the book deserved better, Jermyn in her opinion did not—before
returning her gaze to her brother. He rocked back on his feet, before he put
his hand to his face, and groaned.
    "My jaw, ’ tis broken."
      Catherine
stood up and walked close to him. "Be thankful it is not your neck. I
doubt it is broken; you are too brass-faced for that. How dare you tell me not to go on, when you have told me you have, to
all intents and purposes sold me? Sold me to a man who has every reason to hate me. I can only assume this is some stupid jape of
yours, hatched up to try and show me the so-called folly of my ways? Single at five and twenty," she
said in a voice alien to her own. " You'll
be an old maid. Listen well dear brother, I care not if I am an old maid, I
will survive. Better than I ever would with an uncaring husband. Therefore, it
will not work, I will not do