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wager.
    “No.”
    “Don’t lie to me, Molly Robbins. He gave you money to start your business and not marry. Oh, Molly! Don’t you see? Carver insisted you would never marry Rafe Hartley. Now he’s made certain of it, because he cannot stand to be wrong!”
    “Well, he wasn’t wrong, was he? I won’t marry. I can’t. Rafe thinks I’ll stay here, in Sydney Dovedale”—her cheeks colored—“and have a baby every year. If I do that, I can forget all about my dreams.”
    The words she spouted were painfully similar to Carver’s remarks. Obviously he’d put these ideas into her head for his own motives, although what they could be puzzled his sister. He’d never liked Rafe Hartley, but he would never be so cruel.
    He could, however, be thoughtless. Knowing Carver, he might even assume he’d done a good deed. With no experience in helping others and having never shown the slightest inclination to begin, Carver now used his power, but not at all in the way he should. Of course, the fool would not confer with her first, even though Molly was her friend. Oh no, he just had to step blithely in and make this enormous, arrogant blunder. Mercy’s irritation with her brother almost overflowed, but when she considered how upset Rafe was about to be, her heart ached for him, and sadness tempered her mood.
    “Rafe would never force you to do something that makes you unhappy. Have you told him your dream?” She knew the young man had his faults, but surely if he was aware of his sweetheart’s plans, he would support her.
    Molly’s mind, however, was set against sharing her dreams with the man she was supposed to marry. Apparently she thought he would never understand her ambition, and she wouldn’t give him the chance to try. “I always thought we would live in London once we married, but now he declares he must be a farmer and never leave Sydney Dovedale again. That fine education was wasted on him. I wish I’d had that opportunity, but no—I had to go into service.” This last was said with a shot of bitterness that surprised Mercy. Molly had never looked down on Rafe before this. Neither had she suggested she was unhappy as a lady’s maid or that she longed for permanent escape from that little country village where she grew up.
    Mercy was greatly vexed to witness her tidy plan falling apart. It seemed that by trying to help Rafe find happiness, she had actually made him a less appealing prospect to her friend. “There is nothing wrong with a man who chooses to work the land, Molly.”
    “He refuses to take another penny from his father. And I know how he earned his coin while he was in London. The coin he’s using to rent the farm. The coin he’s invested in shares at the bank. Coin of which he’s so proud.” She raised her fist, fingers crumpled around the borrowed handkerchief. “His knuckles, Lady Mercy. That’s how. Bare-knuckle fights. Boxing.” Her expression was one of disgust. “Gentlemen wagered on the fights, and that’s how he made his money—beating six bells out of other men and getting it beat out of himself too on occasion, I daresay. What sort of a dignified life is that?” Molly shuddered, handkerchief pressed to her damp cheek. “He must have parted from his proper mind to refuse his father’s help, and resorted to brawling for money. He could have been killed! Just like you always said, my lady, he’s got too much misplaced pride. He never thinks anything through, but changes his mind in an instant. He thinks he’s ready to settle now, but how can he know that? How can I? He takes nothing seriously. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if his brain’s been knocked loose in his skull. Not that it will matter much, since his grand university education will all go to waste anyhow.”
    “Molly! What has come over you to speak of him with such a sharp, unfeeling tone in your voice?”
    “If you like him so much, you marry him!” Having shouted this at the top of her lungs, Molly