The Double Wager Read Online Free Page A

keenly from beneath his half-closed lids. “Humor me today, James, by removing them from their resting place and reading them to me.”
    “Reading them, your Grace?”
    Eversleigh lifted his quizzing glass unhurriedly again.
    “Dear me, is my speech slurred today, James?” he drawled. “I assume that all that crumpled paper in the wastebasket is my invitations. Pull them out, man, and read them to me.”
    Ridley, convinced that his employer must be in the midst of some kind of seizure, complied with his orders, He pulled out one crumpled card after another and smoothed them on top of the ledger on which he had been laboring when the duke had entered his room,
    “The Countess of Raleigh invites you to a musical soiree on May fifth,” he began, glancing doubtfully at Eversleigh.
    The duke looked back, considering for a moment.
    “Music?” he asked suspiciously. “What music, James?”
    Ridley consulted the card again. “The main artiste is the Italian opera singer Signora Ratelli,” he said.
    The duke picked up his quizzing glass and began to twirl it slowly by its black riband. “My dear boy, would you show some sense?” he said. “Put that back where it came from.”
    Ridley did so, the expression on his face and the rigid set of his spine conveying his indignant disapproval.
    “Lord and Lady Manning request the pleasure of your presence at a masquerade ball to be held on May eight,” Ridley read with stiff formality.
    “Hmm.” Eversleigh pondered awhile, the quizzing glass still turning in hypnotic circles. “I would not be able to check for pimples,” he muttered quietly to himself, though his eyes still rested absently on his disapproving secretary, “and I do draw the line at spots. No, throw it away, dear boy,” he said decisively.
    “Your aunt, the Countess of Lambert, requests the pleasure of your company at a come-out ball for her daughter, the Honorable Althea Summers,” Ridley began, but with a hasty glance at his employer, he moved to throw it in pursuit of the soiree and the masquerade.
    The quizzing glass fell still at the end of its riband. “Are my ears failing me, James?” Eversleigh asked. “I missed the date of that one.”
    Ridley pulled the card toward him again and glanced at it. “May eleven, your Grace.”
    Eversleigh appeared to be doing some mental calculations. “All the new little girls of the Season will be there on display, I suppose, James?” he asked faintly.
    “Undoubtedly, your Grace,” Ridley replied. “It is a come-out and early in the Season. If you will forgive my saying so, sir, it is not at all your sort of do.” He coughed delicately.
    “Ah,” the duke said, nodding slowly and fixing his employee with a keen eye, “but there is family duty, you see, James. My aunt, you know. Althea, did you say?”
    Ridley glanced again at the card and nodded.
    “Is she the pasty one with the yellow hair? Or is she the one whose body falls in a straight line from her arm pits to her thighs?”
    Ridley squirmed in some discomfort. “I believe the Honorable Althea Summers is blond and rather tall and er, slim,” he said.
    “Hmm, she is both of those people, then?”
    Ridley did not answer.
    “Accept the invitation,” Eversleigh decided, pushing himself with apparent effort into an upright position again.
    “Your Grace?” Ridley stammered.
    “James?” The duke’s eyebrows rose; his right hand was closing around the handle of his quizzing glass again.
    “Yes, your Grace.”
    Eversleigh walked unhurriedly from the room.
    * * *
    The Tallants had arrived in London, all of them with marked reluctance. Giles was the only favored being who was allowed to ride his horse during the five-hour journey from Roedean. Miss Manford, with a rare display of firmness, had insisted that Henry behave like a lady and ride in the carriage. Her voice had become quite breathless, her hands had flapped in the air as if she were conducting a particularly rebellious orchestra, and her