Worth Winning Read Online Free PDF Page A

if any information was leaked beyond the original pool, investigations would ensue, and the guilty party would be held liable to pay out both sides of the betting parties.
    Though he normally considered himself a man of honor, Charles couldn’t help hoping that maybe someone would slip up, maybe he’d be recognized or . . . something . . . anything, to get him out of what was sure to be the most miserable summer of his life.
    Of all the times for society’s wagging tongues to be silenced.

Chapter 3
    Julia knocked on Claire’s door and entered without waiting for a reply.
    Claire was lounging on the bed, a stack of sketches strewn about her, a handful of pencils tossed haphazardly on top of a shawl. She glanced up in an absent-minded manner while Julia settled herself directly in front of her stepsister’s vanity. She’d hoped that perhaps the sun had added a glow to her cheeks or that she’d find she looked particularly becoming today, but no, the mirror confirmed her worst fears: she looked slightly worse for wear; her eyes were the same dull shade of brown—none of that romantic sparkle novelists always wrote about; her mouth was as wide as ever, which was to say, too wide to be fashionable and not lush enough to be remarkable; her freckles were in full force; and the tip of her nose was slightly red. Julia touched it briefly, wondering whether it would peel. She rolled her eyes and realized that she could stop wondering: of course it would peel. Because the only thing that could make the next few weeks more miserable, the detail that would make her embarrassment complete would, of course, be a peeling, sunburned nose.
    With a sigh, she straightened and said simply, “He’s back.”
    Claire’s china-doll features arranged themselves into a picture of shock, her dainty mouth curving into an O, her blue eyes widening ingenuously. Julia sighed inwardly. Even when she wasn’t trying, Claire was one of the most attractive women in the village. Even now, in a plain day dress that didn’t have any particular embellishments, she looked ravishing. Sunlight glinted off her hair, her unblemished skin was as smooth as alabaster, and there was just enough color in her cheeks to be called a healthy, attractive bloom. Claire put her pencil down and carefully slid whatever she’d been working on underneath a large stack of drawings, swinging her legs and body around so that she was sitting upright. Her movements were careful, fluid, and decidedly ladylike. No wonder Julia had always felt like a graceless lump in comparison.
    Claire gave Julia’s clothes, which she hadn’t bothered to change or clean, and which were as dusty and wrinkled as ever, a once-over before raising her eyebrows in an unspoken question.
    “Exactly. After eight years, this,” Julia said, gesturing broadly at herself and picking off a leaf that had lodged in the folds of her skirts, as if for emphasis, “ this is how I looked.”
    It was to her credit that Claire didn’t waste time with needless platitudes or condolences. Though she’d been too young to understand what Julia had been going through at the time, they’d grown close over the years. Besides Jack LeMay, with whom Julia had grown up and whom she considered her best friend and confidant, despite their disparate dispositions, genders, and, more recently, financial positions, Claire was the only one who knew of her past relationship.
    She sighed.
    She appreciated Claire’s support and understanding, but she missed the way Jack listened and supported her, without judgment, often without even offering advice, just listening and allowing her to vent as much as she needed to. But it had been years since Jack had been home for longer than he strictly needed to be; these days he was always too immersed in traveling and business, in setting up new homes, to respond to her letters, promising he’d visit soon, they’d talk soon.
    “It’s not irredeemable. You can recover, if you want