He swallowed the comments without protest as he tried to make his way to the foyer to reclaim his cloak and order around his carriage. For indeed, what would be the point. Everyone seemed determined to think the worst of him and more than happy to air his or her opinions as to his low character. He learned first-hand that night the veracity of the commonly held belief that the higher one was, the further one fell. Would they had dragged Gerald over the coals in the same manner.
The men's responses were bad enough. There were also more than a few piqued young ladies in the County as well, he noted as some of them went storming past him in the corridor with an outraged snap of their fans. Clifford watched with only mild twinges of regret as Charlotte Castlemaine, Pamela Ashton, and Claire Branson went past him looking grim.
They were all lovely women in their own ways, dark, fair and brunette, but he could not get the color of fallen maple leaves out of his mind. He had never lost his heart to any woman, and doubted at times that it would ever happen.
He was also the last person to care what people thought of him. So long as he stuck to his own stalwart principles, the Devil take what anyone's opinion. He would not behave wrongly just to curry favor with others.
Gerald came out of the card room now after having settled with his cousin and gathered up every penny. With one hostile look at Clifford he slithered off into the night with his pockets bulging.
"Good riddance. May he never have a day's luck with that money," Malcolm muttered under his breath.
"With the way Gerald gambles, he probably never will," Clifford predicted grimly.
He waited until everyone was out of earshot before whispering to his companion, "Thank you for helping me, and above all Vanessa. I owe you a great deal."
"Don't thank me yet. In fact, I think this night's business has opened up whole Pandora's box of troubles."
"But at least there is hope at the bottom of the casket. A faint glimmer, but hope nonetheless."
Malcolm shook his head and sighed. "Aye, Clifford, but it's small consolation compared to what's been unleashed. Gerald and you are like oil and water. Having him as a brother-in-law? It would be any reasonable man's worst nightmare."
Clifford shrugged one shoulder. "It may not come to that. I need time to think, come up with some sort of plan to get her out of Hawkesworth House and to a more safe and respectable situation. If he would gamble her, he is not fit to be her guardian and protector."
Malcolm nodded in agreement.
"With your father's help, and our friend Alistair Grant the barrister's, I should like to make appropriate inquiries as to the best way to look after her interests without having to marry her. She will need a proper chaperone, and will have to be convinced of all our good intentions. She has been cast amongst virtual strangers to fend for herself since her aunt's death last month, and this turn of event could prove overwhelming for the poor child."
"I'll do all I can, you know that. My whole family will."
"Thank you. I only wish I knew where to start."
He ruffled his golden hair nervously and looked around the corridor as if hoping for a clue as to how to proceed. It was a damned bad business, and liable to get a great deal worse before it ever got better.
Clifford wondered for the hundredth time what Vanessa would say when she found she had been gambled away by her own brother, and would be expected by the entire district to wed Clifford by the end of the month.
CHAPTER THREE
Vanessa sat across from her brother in their shabby, old-fashioned red silk and walnut drawing room and stared at her brother in horror. "What are you saying? Gerald, surely you jest! How could you possibly have done such a thing!"
"What's wrong with the idea? Plenty of people bring out their daughters for the express purpose of finding them a good husband. I've saved us all the time, expense and boredom."
Vanessa laughed for a moment, until she saw the look on his face and realized he was perfectly in earnest. "You aren't joking, are you?" she said, shaking her head. "I'm shocked beyond words. You really mean to make me marry the man you lost to at cards? Even leaving aside your disgraceful conduct, who on earth would be such a barbarian as to even agree to such a thing? To sit down and gamble for a lady? In this day and age? The very idea!"
"It was Clifford Stone."
Her long-lashed eyes flew wide. "Clifford Stone!" she gasped. "Oh no, impossible. After all you tell me he's done to you and to your estate, breaking fences, ruining our serving girls, poaching our deer and fish from the adjoining lake, insulting you, Gerald, you want me to marry that beast?"