A Gentleman Undone (19 page)

He expelled a slow, weary breath, tilting his own eyes to the ceiling. No one to blame but himself. He had an excellent idea of how to account for her irritability.

He pushed off the wall and came round to the candle side of the table, where he crouched until his eyes were level with hers.

She peered at him through the flames. Her lips thinned, warily, but she didn’t turn away.

“Tell me the truth.” At this distance—two feet at most—he didn’t need to weight the words with any particular inflection. Their meaning alone would be sufficient. “Are you angry at me because of what I said to you the last time we were in this room?”

“You
would
think so.” Her gaze shifted: though she still faced him, she’d gone back to addressing the candles. “You can’t believe the cause of my frustration could truly be what I’ve stated. No, because I’m a woman, it must be some slight to my
feelings
that’s put me out of countenance.” Again, the scullery maid and the dead rat, though this time she seemed set to swing it by the tail and pitch it over a far hedge. “Or some injury I’m nursing in response to some one of the many things you said here, three nights since.”

“Lydia.” He set his hand on the table’s edge, four fingers atop and thumb underneath. “I know you’re not naïve. I know you recall the exact thing to which I refer.” He let those words stand, and waited.

She glared into the candles until he could see her eyes watering. No trembling about the lips—she wasn’t weeping—rather it was as though she were punishing herself, deliberately, for some obscure failing. She blinked
hard, one, two, three times. Water welled over and made its haphazard way down both cheeks. It glittered against her skin in the candlelight, stark as an accusation, and she made no move to wipe it away.

She looked past the candles to him. “I’m not angry at you for that. I should be a comical character indeed if I took offense at a man saying such things.”

He watched his fingers curl and straighten on the table’s edge, flesh against faded oak. That wasn’t the answer he wanted. He had rather she be angry at him, Will Blackshear, for the particular words he’d said to her than that she should absolve him with the same sardonic policy that could exculpate every man in the world. He slanted his head a degree to the right and spoke, carefully. “It’s not untrue, what I said that night. But with all my soul I will wish it untrue if it means the loss of what cordiality we’d attained. I spoke impulsively, without giving sufficient thought to how those words must be received by a lady who has your experience of men. I don’t want you to see me as just another lout looking to make use of you.”

“Why should you care at all what I think of you?” She all but squirmed in her skin at the notion, and one more fact about her came clear:
I want you
didn’t discompose her nearly so much as
I like you and I want you to think well of me
.

And it was an excellent question she’d asked. Why indeed did he care so much for her good opinion? He tightened his grip on the table. “There’s the bargain, of course. I need to learn what you can teach me and I cannot afford to jeopardize that with ill-timed candor.” He would give her a bit more. She’d told him about the loss of her parents, after all; this would bring him even with her. “Also, this is the first truly new acquaintance I’ve formed since returning from the Continent. You’re the first person to build her opinion based solely on the man
I am now.” His stomach was threatening to turn somersaults but he would forge on, even if he must fix his gaze on the unlit candle at the end of the branch. “I have more doubt than I once did about meriting a lady’s good opinion.”

The room was so quiet he could hear her breathe. Lord only knew what she was thinking. She cleared her throat. “Because you were changed by war, do you mean?” A quick glance found her busying herself with one of her gloves, a finger tracing along its seam.

“It’s difficult to explain to a woman—that is, to anyone who’s never served.” Again he looked to the end of the candle-branch. “But I suspect few men come home unaltered.”

“I can see how that might be.” The satin of her glove whispered as she rubbed it between finger and thumb. “My brother was a soldier. Though he didn’t come home, altered or otherwise.”

“I’m sorry.” He plucked the cold candle out of the branch. “Was he your only sibling?” Perhaps he would have given her a home, and spared her the descent into her present station.

She nodded. “Henry was his name.” In the pause, he could almost hear her deciding whether to tell him more. “Do you remember the Walcheren expedition, seven years since?” Her fingers stilled on the glove and she angled her head to face him.

“Of course.” A sorry mess that had been, troops stationed in swampy ground, more men dying of sickness than by bullet or cannon. He touched the candle’s wick to a flame. “Is that where you lost him?”

“To the ague.” Her eyes glittered like ice before the sudden flare of the candle. “He hadn’t even the honor of dying in battle.”

“There’s very little honor involved. You may trust my word on that.” He put the candle back, finding the place
by feel so he need not take his gaze from her. “Was he clever with numbers too?”

Surprise flashed over her face—she hadn’t expected this question—before giving way to a very sunrise of a smile that seemed to warm and loosen every knotted-up thing inside him. “
Clever
doesn’t begin to tell it, Will. Where I have a sort of dumb genius for calculation, he had depth of understanding, and an interest in abstract concepts that I don’t share. By his side I always felt a bit like one of those trick horses at the fair, pounding out answers with one hoof.”

“He must have been proud to have such a sister, I imagine.” Seven or eight thoughts and feelings were running riot all through him. Chief among them:
this is what she looks like, sounds like, when she loves someone
.

“I suppose he was.” Her smile subsided. He’d said something wrong, or perhaps she’d simply moved from remembering her brother to remembering his loss.

The compulsion to cheer her was primal, of a sudden, the same sort of drive that could keep a man staggering through a desert for days toward a rumor of water. Numbers. Cards. That was the way. “I wish I could claim either a depth of understanding
or
a dumb genius, but I think we must face the fact that I’ll never be as proficient as you’d like at keeping the tally.” He let go the table and came upright again. “Might there be some way you can keep that reckoning, and pass the information secretly to me?”

Her eyes widened a fraction, and he could see—he could nearly see past them to the furor of fireworks whizzing and spitting about her brain. Good Lord. He’d said absolutely the right thing this time. In fact he might have stunned her with a clever idea.

“Yes.” She’d completely forgot about war and ague and trick horses at the fair. “Yes, that’s exactly what we’ll do. I’ll manage everything. I’ll tell you how much
to wager, and whether to buy or stick. We’ll devise a system of codes.” Her brow furrowed fiercely as she sent her gaze to the table. Four seconds later she looked up. “Mr. Blackshear, do you know French?”

L
YDIA LEFT
first this time, pulling the door shut behind her with a clean, immensely satisfying click of hardware. The prospects that had looked so grim but an hour before were looking crystal-chandelier-brilliant now, and if Mr. Blackshear truly cared to earn a lady’s good opinion he need only keep coming up with ideas like the one he’d voiced tonight.

For Heaven’s sake, why hadn’t she thought of it herself? She would manage the reckoning, and he would supply the larger stake that could weather the inevitable fluctuations in outcome. He would have to trust her, of course, and she would have to prove herself worthy of his trust. But with their interests lying on a common path, that part should see to itself.

Down the staircase she went, light on her toes and in charity with all the world, until she turned at the landing to find Maria waiting at the foot of the steps, arms folded, posture rigid with disapproval, eyes fixed on the flight that led down to the next floor.

Apprehension seized at her with cold fingers. She caught up her skirts and hurried down the remaining stairs. “What is it?”
Don’t act guilty. You’ve done nothing wrong
.

“Mr. Roanoke came to the retiring room some half hour since, looking for you.” Maria kept her gaze averted. “Eliza talked him into dancing a set with her in the ballroom. They must be on their second set now, and if he hasn’t grown suspicious you’re greatly in her debt.”

“How did you know where to find me?” She took a
tight grip on the balustrade, because it felt as if the floor were dropping out from beneath her feet.

“Do you suppose us entirely hen-witted?” With one sharp turn of her head Maria subjected her to the full force of reproof. “Eliza noticed when you went missing two Saturdays since, and you know what sort of conjectures she likes to make. When it happened again this past Friday she looked about and made sure of which gentleman was absent at the same time. Guessing where you’d gone wasn’t so difficult—there aren’t many places here where two people may effectively closet themselves.”

“We were only playing cards.” Why did the truth sound like such a feeble trumped-up tale? “You know how fond I am of cards.” But Maria didn’t know. She had no reason to believe cards meant anything more to Lydia than they did to the other ladies. Only Mr. Blackshear knew that part of her.

“I don’t concern myself with what you do. Mr. Roanoke has merited only the poorest claim to your loyalty. But surely you recognize the value of discretion. And the longer we stand here discussing it, the more time you give people to notice your absence.”

“It was only cards.” She lurched from her standstill, catching up her skirts and starting down the next flight as Maria trailed behind. She would not panic. Edward wasn’t as observant as the ladies—likely he’d formed no suspicions.

But she must not risk giving him anything to suspect. With quick decision she spoke over her shoulder. “Nevertheless I shall tell the gentleman we must give up meeting. You were very good to warn me and I promise you won’t be put to such trouble on my account again.” She and Mr. Blackshear would have to make other arrangements. She had no idea what those could be.

She reached the ballroom to find Edward altogether
engrossed by Eliza, who was always happy to engross a man in service to a worthy cause. By the time the set broke up Lydia had concocted a tale of a passing headache and the interlude outdoors that had cured it, and this, combined with her protector’s residual enjoyment of the dance and followed by the half hour in the library for which he’d originally been seeking her, proved sufficient to satisfy him on all points.

“I hope it was a first-rate game of cards,” said Eliza some while later as she and Lydia stood side by side along the ballroom wall. Her gaze rested innocently on the dancers in the middle of the floor; her voice crept and twisted with merry insinuation.

“I swear on my soul it was nothing more. Did Maria tell you otherwise?” She felt for a lock of hair that had come loose in the library, and busied herself with pinning it back in place.

Sidelong she could see Eliza shaking her head. “You know she has a disdain for gossip. And I think she believes you. Indeed I suppose I may end by believing you myself.” Her near shoulder rose and fell in either a shrug or a sigh. “You’re not likely to lie, are you, when you know such a scandal would only garner you more of my good opinion?”

“I hope I’m sensible of your goodness in crediting me. Yours and Maria’s both.” Lydia pressed her lips together. She wouldn’t answer the unvoiced questions.
Why Mr. Blackshear? Why in secret? When did you arrange it, and what makes it worth risking your position?
She wasn’t in the habit of confiding. How to account, then, for her speaking of Henry the way she had?

“Mind you I say nothing of
his
motives. I wouldn’t be surprised if this business of cards were but the first step in an elaborate campaign.”

“Then he’s been a deal too slow about moving to the second step, hasn’t he?” Enough of this conversation.
She pushed off the wall. “I shan’t be withdrawing upstairs with him anymore after tonight. So I told Maria, and so I shall tell the gentleman himself.”

And so she did, in a moment when he happened to be at the end of the ballroom where a cluster of potted palms offered partial screening for such a conversation. He nodded, his face tight with concern. Clearly he was blaming himself for the lapse in prudence, though he would not do so aloud because it would unnecessarily prolong what must be a brief, inconspicuous exchange.

“We’re nearly ready to go into the hells as it is,” she said before he could suggest they abandon the scheme altogether. “Only we’ll at least need to consult after you’ve scouted the establishments.”

“I might be able to arrange a meeting place.” He furrowed his brow at the nearest of the potted palms. “I have a friend who …” He checked his thoughts, angling his face back to her. “Can I write to you?” His efficiency sent a pleasant tingle down her spine. So quickly he absorbed these new terms and took the necessary tasks upon himself. Habit from his years as a soldier, no doubt.

“I’ll write down my direction. I’ll leave the arrangements in your hands.” Ordinarily she’d at least want to know what sort of meeting place he had in mind. But she was going to have to depend on him in the gaming hells. She might as well practice depending on him now.

H
IS FIRST
impression, on setting foot in his first high-stakes gaming club, was that the men who’d told him tales of these establishments had neglected to give sufficient due to the décor. Clearly Beecham’s was aiming for this, and clearly Beecham’s was falling far short of the mark.

“Try not to gape,” Cathcart murmured at his left. “They’ll mark you for a pigeon straightaway.”

And Will made a mental note:
gape
. When he came to a hell to gamble in earnest, he would do well to look like a man who didn’t know his way around a pack of cards.