The Gamble by Joan Wolf Page B

mother’s job. My job was to speak to all my guests and to dance with all the dowagers. Which I did with scrupulous politeness, Miss Newbury, and I can assure you that it was not fun.”
    I said stubbornly. “Still, it wouldn’t have taken a great deal of time for you to have introduced a few of your friends to Catherine.”
    “I didn’t have to introduce young men to you,” he said.
    “Catherine is quieter than I am. She doesn’t put herself forward. She needs help .” My glare increased. “You deserted her just because you wanted to infuriate Lady Winterdale, didn’t you? That is why you forced her to present me along with Catherine, so that Lady Winterdale would be humiliated by seeing her daughter outshone by a nobody from the country.” I jumped to my feet. It was impossible to glare any harder, but I tried. “It’s true, isn’t it. Isn’t it? ”
    He looked back at me, his eyes clear as a summer sky, his face impeturbable. He said softly, “Would you prefer that I sent you back to the country? I am perfectly prepared to do that if that is what you want.”
    What I wanted was to slap his too-good-looking face, but I wasn’t stupid enough to try that. Instead I said, “I think you are despicable,” and stalked out of the room.
    I think you are despicable.
    Strange words coming from a blackmailer to the man she was blackmailing, perhaps, but I thought that they were true. He had used me for his own purposes, which was to infuriate and possibly humiliate Lady Winterdale. To be honest, I didn’t care about Lady Winterdale, but I did care about Catherine.
    I went upstairs and knocked on Catherine’s door and when her voice told me to come in, I entered a little tentatively.
    “Good morning,” I said. “Have you recuperated from our late-evening revels?”
    She was sitting up in bed drinking a cup of chocolate. Her brown hair was loosely pulled back into a single braid and she wasn’t wearing her spectacles. I thought she looked almost pretty.
    Those horrible ringlets that Lady Winterdale insisted on, I thought. We had to get rid of them.
    “Sit down, Georgie,” she said, gesturing to the bottom of her bed. I sat on the edge of it and looked at her with concern, searching her face for unhappiness.
    She seemed much the same as always.
    “Did you have a good time last night?” I asked carefully. “I looked for you when I went in to supper but you were nowhere to be been.”
    “I went in earlier than you, I believe,” Catherine said. “Mama forced the son of one of her bosom friends to escort me. We were not in the supper room for long.”
    She sounded resigned not resentful.
    “Did you have a good time?” she asked me.
    “I had a marvelous time,” I answered honestly. “But then I like parties, and you don’t.”
    “I don’t, really,” Catherine admitted. “Even if I were as popular as you, I still wouldn’t like them. I don’t like talking to people I don’t know. It’s too much trouble.”
    I grinned at her. “I know. You would rather be playing the pianoforte.”
    She sighed. “Yes. I would.”
    My grin disappeared. “Still, Lord Winterdale should have made sure you danced all the dances. It was your come-out ball more than mine.”
    “Philip doesn’t like me because of Mama,” Catherine said simply.
    I leaned forward. “I can understand why there might be little sympathy between Lord Winterdale and your mother,” I said. “They are both very strong personalities. But there is more between them than simply lack of sympathy. There seems to be active dislike—I might almost go so far as to say animosity. Is there any particular reason for that?”
    “Yes,” Catherine replied sadly, “I am afraid that there is, Georgie. You see, Philip’s mother died when he was only eight years old, and directly after the funeral his father asked his older brother, who was my own father, if he would take Philip and raise him with his own children at Winterdale.”
    Catherine reached