“You should get more exercise,” Emma quipped.

Ned might have heard her, but he certainly wasn’t listening. “Nothing is seriously wrong. I mean, it’s nothing that can’t be fixed if I put my mind to it. Of course my mind isn’t worth a lot of money, you know.”

Emma raised her eyebrows. “Not in the physical sense, no.”

“It isn’t as if anyone died or anything like that.” Ned shoved his hands in his pockets and muttered, “At least not yet.”

Emma hoped she’d heard him wrong.

“The thing is, Emma, I need your advice. And maybe your help. You’re one of the smartest people I know. Belle, now, she’s smart, too. Can’t beat her when it comes to literature and how many languages does she speak? Three? I think she can read a few others, too. Not much of a head for math, but she’s sharp, my sister is. But she’s too damned practical. Just last month she—” Ned stopped, drew back his shoulders sharply and looked at Emma with a stricken expression. “Oh God, Emma. I can’t even remember my original sentence. I know I didn’t come in here to discuss my sister. What was I saying?” He collapsed into a chair.

Emma bit her lip. Ned’s head was hanging over the back of her chair. The situation looked grim, indeed. “Um, I believe it was something about wanting my advice.”

“Oh, right.” Ned grimaced. “I’ve gotten myself into a bit of a mess.”

“Really?”

“I was playing cards.”

Emma groaned and closed her eyes.

“Now, hold on a second, Emma,” Ned protested. “I don’t need a lecture on the vices of cards.”

“I wasn’t going to give you one. It’s just when the statement ‘I was playing cards’ is prefaced by ‘I’ve gotten myself into a bit of a mess, ’ it usually means that someone owes someone else a great deal of money.”

Ned didn’t say anything; he just sat there looking pained.

“How much?” Emma thought quickly, mentally adding up her savings. She hadn’t spent very much of her allowance recently. She might be able to bail out her cousin.

“Er—a certain sum.” Ned got up and looked out the window again.

“Just how certain is this sum?”

“Extremely certain,” he replied cryptically.

“Just how much are we talking about?!” Emma exploded.

“Ten thousand pounds.”

“What?” she shrieked, leaping off her bed. “Are you crazy? Are you out of your mind?” She began to pace, waving her arms wildly in the air. “What were you thinking?”

“I don’t know,” Ned moaned.

“Oh, I forgot, you’re out of your mind. How can I expect you to think?”

“You’re not exactly being supportive in my time of crisis.”

“Supportive? Supportive!” Emma shot him a withering glare. “Support is not what you need right now. At least not the emotional kind. I don’t believe this.” She sank back down on the bed. “I just don’t believe this. What on earth are we going to do?”

Ned breathed a sigh of relief at her use of the word “we.”

“What happened?”

“I was playing with a group of friends at White’s. Anthony Woodside joined us.”

Emma shivered with distaste. She hadn’t seen Viscount Benton since their strange encounter at the Lindworthy’s ball, but she certainly had no desire to do so. Their strained conversation had left her extremely uneasy and slightly insulted. She hadn’t told Alex about the incident; there hadn’t seemed to be any need to upset him over it. But still, Emma could not shake the feeling that Woodside had evil plans—plans that involved her family. Now it seemed that her premonitions had come true.

“It seemed impolite not to ask him to join us,” Ned went on. “It was supposed to be a friendly game. Very casual. We’d all had a few drinks.”

“All except Woodside, I imagine.”

Ned groaned, slapping his hand at the wall in a nervous gesture. “You’re probably right. The next thing I knew, the stakes were spiraling out of control, and I couldn’t back down.”

“And you were suddenly ten thousand pounds poorer.”

“Oh God, Emma, what am I going to do?”

“I don’t know,” she said frankly.

“The thing is, Emma, he was cheating. I saw him cheating.” Ned raked his hand through his hair, and it almost killed her to see his tortured expression.

“Why didn’t you say something? How could you just sit there and let him fleece you out of all your money?”

“Oh, Emma,” Ned sighed, sinking into a chair and letting his head fall into his hands. “I may be a gentleman of honor, but I’m not stupid. Woodside is one of the best shots in England. I’d have been insane to say something that would provoke him into calling me out.”

“Are you certain he’d call you out?”

Ned gave her a look that told her he was more than certain.

“And you’d have to accept? You couldn’t just turn your back on him and walk away?”

“Emma, it’s a matter of honor. I couldn’t show my face anywhere if I were to accuse someone of cheating and then not face the consequences.”

“I find this gentlemen’s honor business overrated, indeed. Call me practical, but I do think that one’s life is preferable to one’s honor. At least as pertains to card games.”

“I agree, but there is nothing I can do about it. The fact is I owe Woodside ten thousand pounds.”