The Rakehell Regency(27)

Clifford nodded. "I do not know if Vanessa is heart-whole. I give you my word, I will speak to her reasonably when she is feeling better. If she tells me she's in love with another, I shall do my utmost to help secure her happiness.



"On the other hand, if she has no suitor in mind, I shall wed her at once rather than permit her to remain in Gerald's clutches. If he is willing to gamble her hand, what else is he willing to do with her for his own benefit?"



"But think, Clifford. Marriage. To a virtual stranger," Malcolm urged now.



Clifford sighed and put his hand on his heart. "I give you my word, both of you, that I shall do my best to make her happy. I have always admired and esteemed her. I can't think she has changed so much in the past few years that she would disgust me, or have become a woman I could not respect. Quite the contrary. I find her even more comely and appealing than she was as a younger woman," he confessed, lifting one auburn curl from the table pensively. "Many good marriages have been founded on far more shaky ground."



"That's true," Dr. Gold said, his eyes shadowed with the painful recollections of his difficult past. "But a far more solid ground that a card game could perhaps be found?"



Clifford gave a tight smile. "Indeed. But we're running out of time if we wish to protect her. If I could see a way out of this, I would try to delay. But I fear any attempt to postpone the nuptials will only place her in more danger."



Malcolm moved over to the window and gazed out uneasily. "She could stay with us, or the Jeromes."



"And we would all say what, exactly? That we really don't think it's safe for her at either her aunt's or her own home? What would people think of that?" Clifford asked impatiently.



Malcolm gave a reluctant shrug. "I don't know. I just don't like the thought of any woman being bundled into wedlock involuntarily. It's bad enough when it happens to man," he added, with a sympathetic look at the doctor.



"How true," John concurred in a vehement tone.



"Yes, but it's all a matter of expectations. And, dare I say it, civilized behavior. Vanessa can come into my house, and eventually into my bed, of her own free will, in her own time.



"I am not a rutting stag, nor a high-handed man intent upon asserting conjugal rights upon an unwilling young woman. In any event, I'm not quite ready to set up my nursery yet. Giving each other time to become attracted to each other, for respect and love to grow, is all I have in mind at this stage. Ours will not be a grand passion, but I hope it shall be a marriage of friends and equals."



Even as he said the words, he gazed at her lovely face and told himself what a liar he was. He had always been fascinated by her beauty. She had been so breathtaking as a girl. She was spectacular as a woman.



Dr. Gold nodded at length, satisfied with Clifford's candid reply. "Very well, I can see you are acting in the girl's best interests. You are welcome to help nurse her back to health. If you give me your word as a gentleman that you will let her go if she demands it, then I will allow you and Henry and the Jerome girls to come and go as you please in order to help Vanessa get well again. I also swear on my honor that I shall say nothing to anyone about this whole dreadful business."



Clifford stated, "I give you my word. If she wishes to be free of me, I shall let her go."





CHAPTER TEN



Dr. Gold looked satisfied at Clifford's reassurance that he would not insist upon marriage with Vanessa if she found the idea truly objectionable even given the fact that she had been gambled away by her own half-brother and had thus been exposed to all manner of gossip.



"Very well then. I can see she's in good hands, in every respect. Keep bathing her temples and throat, and I shall just go get some hot water to make a tisane."



"I can go," Malcolm offered, and disappeared out of the room and down the hall.



Dr. Gold began to examine Vanessa thoroughly.



"Well," Clifford asked impatiently after a time. "It is what I think it is? Cyanide?"



"Goodness me, what manner of man would try to poison his own sister?" Dr. Gold tisked as he listened to her heart and lungs.



"A man so lost to all reason that he would gamble his sister to pay all his debts. He must have realized that what he received for her last night was nothing compared to what she was actually worth. No doubt he plans to take advantage of the confusion over her Aunt Agatha's will to press a claim of his own, though since the connection was on her mother's side, it has naught to do with Gerald."



"Except if he asserted himself as Vanessa's heir."