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  SIGNET REGENCY ROMANCE

  The Wagered Heart

  Rhonda Woodward

  INTERMIX BOOKS, NEW YORK

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have control over and does not have any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  THE WAGERED HEART

  An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Signet Books edition / December 2003

  InterMix eBook edition / October 2012

  Copyright © 2003 by Rhonda Woodward.

  Excerpt from Moonlight and Mischief copyright © 2004 by Rhonda Woodward.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-57289-4

  INTERMIX

  InterMix Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  INTERMIX and the “IM” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  ALWAYS LEARNING PEARSON

  To Mom and Dad

  for everything

  And to Susannah Carleton

  for her wise words, late-night calls,

  and warm friendship

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Epilogue

  Special Excerpt from Moonlight and Mischief

  About the Author

  Prologue

  1815

  O n the corner of a very fashionable street in London stood five of the highest flying Corinthians the ton could boast. To a man, their attention was fixed on a simply dressed, yet exceedingly beautiful, young lady standing on the sidewalk across the street. They watched her with the same intensity she was giving a coach and four lumbering by.

  “Damn, Kel, you cannot mean to fulfill the bet with that chit? It is only three of the clock! What if you see a prettier wench at four?” questioned a dashing buck in the steadiest of voices. The others knew this very precise enunciation meant that their friend was quite foxed.

  “Dash it, Alton, put a shtopper in it! If Kelbourne shez sheesh the prettyisht gel he has sheen today, then let be. It is between Kel and Dame Fortune anyway,” stated the fair-haired Viscount Mattonly, who was not as adroit at hiding his condition as the previous speaker.

  The other blades murmured in agreement and vigorously encouraged the tall gentleman standing in their midst to go to it and fulfill his vow.

  His Grace, the Duke of Kelbourne, known to his intimates as Kel, ignored his bickering friends, and continued to study the young lady.

  A cool sun shone down upon her as she gazed at her surroundings with large, curious gray eyes.

  With a decisive movement, he doffed his beaver hat and strode across the street. Dodging stylish high-perch phaetons and closed carriages, he moved quickly lest his quarry disappear.

  Miss Julia Allard was enjoying her first visit to London with the real but detached interest of a tourist. As she looked around, she thought again that her childhood home of Chippenham had not prepared her for the cosmopolitan splendor of London.

  Presently, she was supposed to be helping her cousin Caroline and Aunt Hyacinth choose bonnet trimmings, but the view from the milliner’s s
hopwindow had proved too much of an enticement. Julia found the bustle exhilarating after living so quietly in the country. At first, the noise, the closeness of the buildings, even the gas lampposts had seemed almost foreign to her.

  But now, standing on the sidewalk, she observed all the beautifully dressed people enjoying the fine spring day with pleasure evident on her features. The fascinating scene before her was so captivating, she took no notice of the attention she herself was receiving.

  A shiny black coach with a groom riding postilion rolled by. Julia wished Caro had come out; her cousin could identify the owners of the conveyances with only a glance at the heraldic device painted on the doors.

  Sighing with satisfaction, Julia reluctantly turned to reenter the shop. She stopped short as a very tall gentleman stepped directly into her path.

  Pausing for a moment, she looked up in surprise, before taking a step to the side to pass him.

  He stepped to the side also.

  Beneath her bonnet, one finely arched brow rose over stormy gray eyes. Julia surveyed the man who was obviously blocking her progress on purpose.

  Though he was dressed in perfectly tailored clothing of exquisite fabric, she noted that there was nothing of the fop about him. His deep blue coat fit his broad shoulders as if painted on, and his doeskin breeches and polished Hessian boots accented his powerfully muscled legs.

  Her critical gaze traveled up again. He was not classically handsome, but his angled features combined to form a compelling and attractive face. His dark brown hair was styled a little shorter than what was currently fashionable among the beau monde. A straight, rather long nose and bluntly square chin gave him a rakish, formidable air.

  A frisson of something that was not quite fear, not quite anger, raced up Julia’s spine as she lifted her chin to address the stranger.

  “Kindly move, sir. As you can see, you are blocking my path.” Her tone was firm, despite her nervousness.

  His only response was a slight smile. His assessing gaze continued to sweep her features.

  For his part, Kel was greatly pleased to see, upon closer inspection, that her charms exceeded his expectations. It also pleased him that she was so tall—the top of her head came to his chin. A profusion of thick, pale golden ringlets framed a classically sculpted face beneath an attractive bonnet. Her complexion was flawless, smooth ivory tinted with a drop of honey.

  He saw large gray eyes, slightly tilted up at the corners and fringed with thick brown lashes. They were staring angrily back at him.

  His gaze settled on her mouth—the goal of his vow. It was full, yet finely defined, competing with her eyes as her loveliest feature.

  Once more, he swept her figure with experienced regard. She was slim, but with an understated voluptuousness that would cause men to stare.

  Disturbed by this unwanted attention, Julia once more tried to pass him.

  Again, he blocked her way.

  Panic touched her and she looked around in desperation, noticing that passersby were beginning to stop and stare.

  Her uncle had warned her of the debauchery that the beauty of London often hid. Though surely, ladies were not customarily accosted the moment they stepped from a milliner’s shop, she thought as her heart began to hammer rapidly.

  She took another quick sidestep, and he moved with her. Julia’s temper flared. It was time to put a stop to this nonsense.

  “Why won’t you move?” she demanded.

  The man said nothing, only stood there gazing at her with a slightly crooked, raffish smile.

  The Duke of Kelbourne was not as disguised as his friends were. He had only imbibed enough spirits at his club earlier that day to destroy his gentlemanly inhibitions, and heighten his already overactive sense of daring.

  Nevertheless, the lovely lady’s anger was lost upon his dulled senses as he inclined his head in a slight bow.

  “I cannot leave you, fair maiden, because of a vow I have made.”

  “A vow?” This was passing strange. Julia suddenly wondered if this man had escaped his keeper.

  “Yes, a vow,” he said, and Julia could not help noting how deep and well-modulated his voice was.

  “A vow I made last eve to Dame Fortune. I must salute with a kiss the prettiest lady I see today.” Turning to the four men who had followed him across the street, he continued, “And this is not only the prettiest lady I have seen today, but the most lovely I have seen in many a Season.”

  Julia had listened as far as “salute with a kiss” when she decided to turn the other way and quit this ridiculous scene.

  She took two full steps before his strong hand caught her arm and pulled her around against his solid body.

  “You are mad!” she cried, staring up at him with alarmed gray eyes, shocked as she had never been in the whole of her life.

  “Oh no, fair maid, you cannot leave me yet. A gentleman must never break a vow.”

  Frantic, she struggled, pushing against his chest. She heard one of the other men chortle and say, “I believe Kelbourne is confusing the word vow with wager.”

  To Julia’s growing horror, a crowd was beginning to gather on the busy street. Besides the men who seemed to be with her assailant, there was a smartly dressed young couple, a few people who appeared to be servants carrying large boxes, and a landau carrying two ladies had just pulled up.

  Redoubling her efforts to get away, Julia demanded in a breathless voice to be released.

  She also tried to kick his shins, but her skirts and his well-muscled arms clasped around her proved too great a hindrance.

  With ease of strength, he dipped her to the side, offsetting her balance so that she had to abandon her struggle.

  Julia squeezed her eyes shut, held her body rigid with her hands curled into fists at her sides. His head descended toward hers.

  As his lips touched hers she tried to struggle again, but her efforts were fruitless. His arms felt like bands of steel around her straining body. The part of her brain that could think past her mortification wished fervently that she were strong enough to break her attacker’s arms.

  With his lips on her tightly compressed mouth, Kelbourne was beginning to wonder why the young beauty he held was behaving like a broomstick.

  His fogged brain told him something was not right. No woman had ever been anything but eager to be in his arms. In fact, if he could be forgiven for being so immodest, he was usually the pursued, instead of the pursuer.

  With masculine determination, he marshaled his considerable personal forces against her defenses.

  Julia immediately felt the change in his demeanor.

  Suddenly, the kiss became infinitely gentle, the hand on the back of her neck caressed instead of held.

  Julia was a mass of jumbled emotions. Rage, fear, humiliation, and something she could not identify, swirled through her senses as she remained rigid in his embrace.

  The Duke of Kelbourne raised his head slightly to look at the beauty in his arms. The rage blazing in her gray eyes startled him.

  After a sleepless night of revelry and lingering inebriation, he could only wonder at her fury. He hazily considered the possibility that he had trod upon her toes. Confused, he set her upright and released her.

  Shaking with outrage and humiliation, Julia rasped in a voice only those closest could hear, “If I were a man, I’d knock you flat.”

  She then drew her arm back and slapped him so hard across his face, her palm stung with the force of the blow.

  Turning, she cut through the gawking little crowd with a breathless “excuse me” and marched back into the milliner’s shop, where Aunt Hyacinth and Caroline were still discussing ribbons.

  Chapter One

  1816

  “M r. Fredericks, I insist that you give me back my hand,” Julia said, trying to tug her hand free from his determined grasp.

  “But Miss Allard, I do not believe you understand the advantages of marrying me.” Mr. Fredericks’ tone was earnest as he tightened his
grip on her fingers.

  Julia tugged again, bracing her slippered foot against the base of a nearby stone bench for leverage. Looking up at the house, she prayed that Uncle John or Aunt Beryl would happen by the window, see her struggling with their neighbor, and come out and rescue her from this ridiculous scene.

  “Mr. Fredericks, you may see some advantage to marrying you, but I certainly do not. Now, let go before you embarrass yourself further.”

  The avid expression on his face turned to shocked hurt at the harshness of her words. Julia felt an instant stab of guilt upon seeing the mounting redness in his cheeks as he reluctantly released her hand.

  Well, dash it. What do you expect me to do? she thought defensively as she took a step back from him on the lawn.

  She put a hand to her pale golden hair for a moment, and took a deep breath to regain her composure.

  “I am sorry to be so blunt, but you have left me little choice,” she said, softening her tone.

  This was not the first time she had declined Mr. Fredericks’ offer of marriage. But never had he been so persistent. It was her suspicion that when he came upon her sitting alone in the garden, he had renewed his courage to propose to her despite her previous refusals.

  Allen Fredericks stood in front of Julia, shifting from one foot to the other. The hurt on his florid face rapidly changed to anger.

  “What is it, Miss Allard? Do you think you are too good for me because some distant relative of yours is a baron? What does that matter when everyone in Chippenham knows that you were sent home from London last year before the Season began? Such a mystery,” he said, sneering.

  Julia made no attempt to interrupt him. Inwardly, she marveled that a man, regarded by all in the village as a fine gentleman, could show such ugliness at being thwarted in his desire.

  He continued in the same deriding tone. “Some say that you played fast and loose until you were caught. Well, you are no better than you should be, and you aren’t likely to find a better man than I willing to take you.”

  Julia did not attempt to hide her disgust as she looked him square in his white-lashed blue eyes.