A Gentleman Undone (18 page)

“I see.” Jane had learned to say this at suitable intervals, whether she saw or not. “I don’t doubt you’ll invent something better, then.” She gathered Lydia’s hair and laid it forward of her shoulders on either side before starting on the corset-strings.

“If I do I shall certainly teach you.” Lydia let her head fall forward again. “You’ll rob your friends of all their pennies.”

She made a vaguely feral sight in the mirror, peering up from under her lashes and out between twin curtains of unbound hair. This would be a man’s view of her, if he should wish to undress her with his own hands before taking her to bed.

A whiplash of impatience cracked through her and she forced her gaze away from the reflection.
Bed
. That was quaint. As though they couldn’t make do with that faded carpet on the upstairs room’s floor. For that matter he could just bend her over the card table and toss up her skirts, or back her up against the door on tiptoe.

No. Even tiptoe wouldn’t bring her high enough. He should have to crouch in that ungainly way taller men did when they took it into their heads to couple upright. She might prevent that, though, by scaling his body as if she were climbing a tree, one leg hooked over his hip and the other wound high across his back. No niceties would be possible in that position. No lingering. They’d satisfy their curiosity with ruthless, unsentimental efficiency, and be done.

They wouldn’t, though. He had reasons against it. So he’d said.

She picked up a scent bottle and turned it, the facets catching candlelight one after the next. A lady didn’t have to puzzle long to deduce what his reasons would be. He was promised elsewhere, or at least paying attentions, and he would not dishonor that connection by indulging whatever appetite he’d worked up for her.

That was to his credit. A man who could master his impulses would be likely to keep his head in a gaming hell. That was the important part of all this. The rest was mere distraction.

She set the bottle down firmly. They had a bargain. She would teach him to play with a reckoning, and he would scout the hells for her and find her a man of business when the time came. That was all. “I think I must consider the difference in odds for a deck whose composition is known as opposed to a deck of unknown proportions,” she said, and watched Jane’s face settle into lines of patient resignation.

S
UNDAY MORNING
. He ought to have stayed in bed.

Bells rang out from the dark brick tower of the Church of St. James as Will walked past. People in their sober Sunday best were streaming the opposite way and he must fight the current, threading a path through like one of those fish who braved rapids and waterfalls to find its way home.

He hadn’t yet been inside that church since coming back to England. Nor had he darkened the doorstep of St. George’s in Hanover Square, though Andrew or one of his sisters must always be extending the invitation. Difficult to be sure of the proper protocol, when one had cast away one’s immortal soul.

He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and pulled his greatcoat closer against the chill wind. Not for him to judge, of course. Soldiers of the world would be in a sad way if taking a life meant absolute condemnation. Indeed, enough of them filled the churches on Sunday to suggest a general hopefulness of outlook on that point. His case was just different enough to prevent him joining them.

A stray end of his muffler flapped; he caught it and tucked it into his coat. Eternal damnation. Jolly subject for a long morning walk. Still, it kept him from dwelling on what he’d said to Miss Slaughter. To Lydia. He shook his head as though he might scatter the memory. What on earth had possessed him to speak so?

Yet he must have said something of the kind, sooner or later. She would surely have guessed before very much longer. He hid his sentiments poorly. This way, at least, the cards were laid out on the table between them. But he wouldn’t dwell. He’d said what he’d said, and he could not take it back now.

South and east he walked, through the Sunday-quiet
streets of the City until he reached the London Bridge with its view of the Upper Pool. More than once, lately, he’d come down here to watch the boat traffic and test his recollection of what he’d learned from Fuller or read on his own. This nearest vessel at anchor was a two-masted brig, not large enough for an open-sea voyage so probably engaged in some coastal trade. Coal, perhaps, or wool. Something produced in the hinterlands of the north and brought down to supply the needs of London. Rather miraculous how it all worked, when one paused to consider.

He folded his arms atop the stone railing and leaned into a breeze that stirred the surface of the river and tasted faintly of salt. To be part of this might be a fine thing. Of course the urgent matter was to secure a profit that would make Mrs. Talbot’s independence possible. To deliver her from such unfriendly confines, and to make his word worth something again.

Beyond that, though, and beyond assuring himself of an income sufficient for his own expenses, he would gain a certain satisfaction from knowing he had some small hand in all this industry. This honest commerce. People might one day live in houses built from timber his own ship had hauled across the sea.

Not the life he’d been brought up to, of course, and Andrew would probably blanch when he heard of a Blackshear brother having even so glancing a connection with trade. But an eldest son must always have more use for the gradations of rank than a youngest, to say nothing of a youngest who’d stood shoulder to shoulder with butchers’ sons in square combat formation on the battlefield.

He turned to lean his back against the railing and look to his right, where the buildings of London rose. The City. St. James’s. Clarendon Square, somewhere beyond what he could see. What hopes he held for the future
were coming to depend in large part on his association with Miss Slaughter. He must be mindful, henceforward, of all he stood to lose by being careless with her. More than ever, he would practice circumspection. Now he’d confessed his attraction, they could surely set that matter aside and devote all their energy to the intricacies of vingt-et-un.

Chapter Ten

B
UT THERE
was more than one way to scuttle their bargain, and two nights later she had him on the brink of doing just that.

“How do you not see that three-eighths is greater than five-fourteenths? How do you not see?” She stood dumbfounded, hands on her hips, her vexed pacing of the past five minutes temporarily arrested that she might aim her wrath at him with optimum accuracy.

“For God’s sake, Lydia, my brain doesn’t work that way. Most people’s don’t.” He sat with his elbows on the table, his hands at his temples, his weary fingers pushed through his hair.

She walked three steps away and came back. “Surely if you make a picture—”

“I can’t make a picture.”

“A simple one, I mean. Two rectangles, side by side, equal in height. Divide one with seven horizontal lines and the other with thirteen. Then surely you can see—”

He had to laugh. He could not forbear. “Good Lord. It really is that simple for you, isn’t it? And you really have no idea of its not being like that for the rest of us.”

She took one step closer, arms dropping straight at her
sides and hands curling into fists. “This isn’t a
jest
, you know. This isn’t meant to
amuse
you.” Everything in her demeanor suggested a young girl furious at some elder who would not take her seriously. Did she have elder siblings? Any siblings at all? That wasn’t where his thoughts ought to be. “I have spent hours and hours, and used up a whole pencil and countless sheets of paper, attempting to devise a system by which you can consult the degree of your advantage in order to determine the proper amount to wager. I can only think my time and effort will have been wasted if you haven’t the necessary understanding to even keep track of your advantage.”

“Perhaps your time and effort were wasted indeed.” He let one hand fall to the table where his fingers drummed lightly, to let out by increments the irritation that simmered in him. “Let me posit, though, that the fault may not be with my common understanding, but rather with the decision to concoct a wagering system that depends upon a common brain’s recognizing that three-eighths is greater than five-fourteenths.”

She stared at him, baleful as a hawk come face-to-face with a rival in her hunting grounds. Her eyes skipped back and forth, considering him. “You shall have to learn everything in hundredths,” she said with new and sudden resolution. “Three-eighths is thirty-eight hundredths and five-fourteenths is thirty-six hundredths.”

Oh, good God. He seized the edge of the table and levered himself up. “Lydia, I
cannot do that
.”

“You can with practice.” The suggestion of violence in his movement seemed only to spur her on. Briskly she came back to her place opposite, pulling out her chair. “Surely you learned division in school. Just round everything to two places beyond the period.” She sat. “Likely you’ll need to practice with a pencil and paper, to begin,
but if you spend a little time on it each day then I should think—”

“No.” He put everything he knew of calm and reason into the one syllable. “I’m sorry, but I should consider that a waste of my time.” More calm and more reason, to smooth away the piqued creases in her forehead, to soften the tight line of her mouth. “The chances of my ever attaining such proficiency as would allow me to execute those calculations while keeping up with a game of vingt-et-un are simply too slight to justify the investment of hours.” He released his hold on the table and straightened. He’d been sitting for some while and his legs were in no hurry to take the chair again.

She swiveled her chin to the left, as though she believed the candles more worthy of her wisdom than he. “I see.” One flame swayed and buckled before her breath. “You are unwilling even to try. That, in case you wondered, reduces your chance of success from slight to nonexistent.”

Three backward steps brought him to the wall, where he leaned, arms folded across his chest. He sifted words, though really, why should he take any care at all in answering her petulance? “I am trying very hard to remain civil, Miss Slaughter, and to make allowance for what must be your feelings, on hearing one of your favorite pursuits dismissed as a waste of somebody’s time.”

“I do not want you to make allowance for my
feelings
.”
Impulse
and
luck
had nothing on
feelings
when it came to arousing her distaste. “I’ve never asked you to give the least consideration to my
feelings
.” He could picture her holding the word with fingertips at arm’s length, like a scullery maid disposing of a dead rat she’d found in the larder. “All I’ve asked of you is that you take this game seriously, and apply some small fraction of the effort I myself have applied toward giving you every possible advantage when the time comes to wager.
I’m very sorry you find yourself unable to do so.” Everything in her aspect—the rigid posture, the averted face, the arms converging to suggest hands tightly clasped beneath the table’s edge—made a silent rebuff to any sympathy or cordiality he might dare attempt.