A Strange Likeness by Paula Marshall Page B

Queer Street might beckon. Question really is, do we want them? Think it over, George, and let me know in the morning. Home now. Dilhorne’s is on the up and up at last and we’ve earned the right to play a little.’
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    Eleanor had spent two sleepless nights worrying about Ned and his monstrous offer. She acknowledged thatwhen she had first met Victor she might have agreed to marry him, but the more she knew of him, the less she liked him. He was rude and unkind to everyone, family, servants and even his horses. How, then, once he was married, would he treat his wife?
    She could not help comparing him with Alan Dilhorne. She was well aware from the gossip which ran round society that he was a hard man in the City, but he treated everyone he met, including scapegrace Ned, with unfailing civility. Almeria’s head groom had commented in her hearing on his considerate treatment of the horse which Ned had lent him until he had acquired one of his own.
    To refuse Ned’s wishes meant condemning him to social ruin and a debtor’s prison, since, for the life of her, she could think of no way of saving him. She thought of asking Alan for help, but this was family trouble—and how could she reveal to him that Ned was, in effect, trying to sell her?
    The other question was, how would Sir Hart take this latest piece of folly? He had already let Ned off so many times. He seemed doomed to die disappointed in all his descendants, and, looking at the trail of ruin which had begun with his faithless wife—of whom her great-aunt never spoke—and which had been continued by her father, her uncle and Emily the Bolter, to say nothing of Beastly Beverley, who looked set to follow the same dreadful path as the rest, she could not repress a shudder.
    Was all that was left to her to try to live a good life herself, so that Sir Hart might have something to hold on to? Yes, she must disappoint Ned, and so she told him when he dragged her into the study again.
    â€˜No, you can’t do this to me, Nell. He’s ready to offer for you tonight and he’s promised to tear up all my IOUswhen you accept him,’ shouted Ned angrily in the middle of their first real quarrel. ‘You know that you like him—or you will when you marry him.’
    â€˜I can’t like, or want to marry, a man who would stoop to blackmailing my brother to compel me to marry him. You should have thought of what you were doing before you wagered so much.’
    â€˜Dammit, Nell, I only did so because I lost so much to him that I believed that my luck must change and I could win it all back—only it didn’t. I was hoping to clear all my other debts, too.’
    â€˜How do you propose to pay these other debts, Ned? Marrying me to Victor will only settle his.’
    â€˜Oh, good God, Nell, don’t be such a flat. You know perfectly well that Sir Hart will settle a fortune on you when you make a good match. Victor comes from a good family, even if he is poor. You can help to bail me out when you’re married.’
    Worse and worse! Eleanor felt that she could sink through the floor at this revelation of how far Ned had sunk into moral idiocy.
    â€˜No, Ned. You must take this as final. If you and Victor have concocted this scheme between you then you are both even viler than I thought. That is my last word.’
    Ned suddenly fell on his knees before her and, taking her hands in his, began to beseech her desperately.
    â€˜Oh, God, Nell, for old times’ sake, do what I ask. You know that marriage is a lottery. As well marry Victor as another—and I shall be saved…’
    As cold as ice, shivering between disillusion and shock, Nell gazed down at him while he shrieked almost frantically at her to save him from the ruin which was about to destroy him.
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    Alan, his business with Simpson safely concluded, drove home to his rooms in the Albany to ready himself to visit the Hattons. At the