“I would think very carefully before you say any more, Oxford,” Ralston said through gritted teeth.
“But why would I do that?” Callie noticed the baron sway with the words, and she couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps he were foxed. “I’ve got nothing to lose, you see. I’ve already lost, haven’t I?”
At that moment, Mariana and Benedick stumbled out onto the balcony, interrupting the conversation. “Callie,” Mariana said breathlessly. “You should come with me.”
Callie’s eyes widened. “Why? What has happened?”
Mariana met Ralston’s eyes with a scathing, imperious look. “Nothing yet, thankfully.” Turning back to her sister, she repeated, “You must come with me. Now.”
Callie shook her head, backing up until she could feel Ralston’s nearness. Taking in Oxford’s smirking grin, Mariana’s pleading gaze, and Benedick’s stoic one, she turned to Ralston. “Gabriel?” she asked, confusion and uncertainty in the single word.
“Callie. Go with Mariana,” Benedick interrupted.
Callie turned on her brother. “I will not. I will not leave before someone tells me precisely what is happening.” Shifting her gaze to Mariana, she said, “Mari?”
Mariana sighed. “It is being said that Oxford and Ralston placed a wager upon you.”
The idea was so preposterous that Callie laughed. “What kind of wager?”
“They are saying inside that Ralston bet Oxford that he could not win your hand.” Benedick’s eyes did not leave Ralston—his loathing barely contained. “And, when he discovered that Oxford was close to winning you—he took you for himself.”
“They’re saying that you’ve been compromised, Callie, and that is why Ralston…” Mariana trailed off.
Callie laughed again. “How very dramatic. Can you imagine?” She turned her smiling eyes on Ralston, expecting him to share in her amusement. In the face of his hard, unmoving expression, however, truth dawned. “Oh.” She looked to smug Oxford. “Oh.”
“Poor girl. You thought he actually wanted you,” he said with a smirk.
“Stop, Oxford.” Ralston’s words were ice-cold.
Callie turned on him. “You made a wager? On me?”
“Indeed he did,” Oxford said with a boastful tone, as though he was happy to be in the thick of the moment that would forever change her life. “He bet me that you wouldn’t marry me. And when it looked like I might win, he doubled the wager and courted you to ensure that he’d win. I suspect that it didn’t hurt that aligning himself to your family would also guarantee his sister a sound place in society.”
Callie did not remove her gaze from Ralston. “Is it true? Did you wager on me?”
There was a beat as Ralston searched for the right answer. And, in that moment, Callie knew.
Ralston took a step toward her, and she backed away, Mariana placing a reassuring hand at the small of her back as he said, almost desperately, “It wasn’t like that.”
“How much?”
“Callie.” Mariana whispered, trying to avoid a scene, but Callie held up a hand to stay her words.
“How much, my lord?”
He looked away. “Two thousand pounds.”
Callie felt as though the breath had been knocked out of her.
“When?” she whispered.
“Callie—”
“When?” She repeated, louder.
“The afternoon of your sister’s betrothal ball.”
Callie’s face fell. “The day you asked me to dance.”
His eyes widened as he registered the timeline. “Callie—”
“No.” She shook her head. “And when did you double it?”
When he did not answer, she turned to Oxford. “When did he double it?”
Oxford wavered. “Tuesday.”
The morning he proposed. He’d still thought of her as nothing more than a wager only a short time ago.
“I should have known,” she whispered, the sound so sad, so raw, that Ralston thought his heart would break. “I should have known you didn’t really…you couldn’t really…” She trailed off. She took a deep breath before she looked up at him, her enormous brown eyes glistening with unshed tears, and said, “I would have helped you with Juliana anyway. I would have done anything you asked of me.”
The truth of her past unwavering devotion overwhelmed her, and a single tear tracked down her cheek before she wiped it away in irritation. She could barely hear the sounds of the ball beyond for the blood pounding in her ears as a wave of familiar insecurity crashed over her.