Free Fortune's Lady by Evelyn Richardson Page B

sparkle had vanished from her eyes. “But what?”
    “I ... Well, I have no way to repay you, at least not at the moment. Of course, I shall be able to repay you when I win my fortune—if I win my fortune.”
    “My dear girl, you have no need to repay me. I shall help you for the sport of it, for the sheer pleasure of seeing you win your fortune and your heart’s desire from a pack of pleasure-seeking fools.”
    “I only hope it is possible. As a woman, I shall not be able to play with the true gamblers who bet vast sums on the turn of a card, but I do think I can hold my own against females, and some of them wager almost as much as most men.”
    Gareth snorted. “Believe me, you can win against anyone. After all, you beat my mother most handily. She may appear to be a very silly, frivolous woman, but, believe me, where her own interests are concerned, she is very serious indeed, and she can be as clever and as ruthless as anyone I have ever encountered. The game you played against her is a fair representation of the stiffest competition you are likely to encounter. And the more you win, the more formidable your reputation, the more people will wish to play against you, and the greater sums they will risk when they do so.”
    Althea was silent for a moment, considering his words. “I suspect you are right.” She nodded thoughtfully. But at the moment, she was thinking more about the speaker than his words. What had his mother done to him to bring that bitter edge to his voice whenever he spoke of her? Behind that cynical attitude, to his mother in particular and the world in general, must lie a great deal of suffering. Odd to think that a man born to inherit a title and estates, a man born to control his fate and the fate of all those working for him, could have suffered anything. She forced these distracting speculations from her mind to concentrate on the matter at hand, “Well, I shall be grateful for anything you can teach me and any advice you can give me.”
    “As I told you before, I am not sure that there is much I can teach you about card playing that you have not already learned. You are very good, you know.”
    “Thank you. Coming from you, that is praise indeed.”
    Gareth watched in fascination as a blush rose in her cheeks and her lips curved into a shy smile. The genuine pleasure she seemed to derive from such a mild compliment was astonishing. For a moment she was transformed from a serious, self-contained lady into a charming young woman. The change made him wonder about the parents whose expectations she was supposed to fulfill. Had it been these expectations concerning who and what Lady Althea Beauchamp was supposed to be that had turned her into the coldly perfect incomparable who had caught his attention the first night he saw her. “I may not be able to teach you anything more about card playing, but I can teach you the most effective way to win a fortune.”
    “That is very kind of you, for there is no earthly reason you should help someone you are barely acquainted with simply because she asks it of you. But I am exceedingly grateful that you will.”
    “I do, however, have to tell you in all honesty that the quickest way to acquire a fortune is to marry it.”
    She grimaced in a way that was so natural, so unlike the behavior of a rigidly proper young lady of fashion that he found it enchanting. “The quickest, perhaps, but not the easiest, for it requires one to give over one’s life to another person.”
    “You are entirely correct on that count. Yet most young ladies are hell-bent on doing just that, finding someone who will manage their lives for them. And the richer the manager, the better. To many of them it is a way to gain freedom—freedom from their families, freedom from the constraints that society puts on the behavior of its unmarried young ladies. There are a number of advantages to be gained. Are you sure you do not wish to marry?”
    ‘‘Quite sure.”
    Terse as the