A Gentleman Undone (37 page)

He deserved, first of all, to be released from any obligation that might jeopardize such a future. “Will.” Her eyes opened. “I don’t think you ought to meet with Mr. Roanoke. I think you must call off the duel.”

He frowned, slightly, letting his paper fall as he studied her. Indeed they were odd words with which to make a morning greeting. He reached for his coffee. “Why?”

“Because it could end in your death.” Her fists clenched under the covers, where he wouldn’t see. “And it would be a very poor reason to die.”

“Don’t think much of my chances, do you?” He raised his cup, this time by its handle and this time holding the saucer beneath with his other hand. There was a formality in his manners this morning, a distance that had not been there last night. She could see him seeking the proper tone to take with her, now he knew he could not hope for her love.

“Your chances might be excellent. I don’t know enough about your marksmanship and Mr. Roanoke’s marksmanship to render a judgment. But the consequences of losing are too great to justify even a marginal risk.”

A smile flickered over his lips, as though there were something comical in evaluating risk. Then he shook his head and went grave. “He hit you, Lydia. I don’t have it in me to let that pass.”

“You didn’t let it pass. You knocked him down.” She had reason on her side, and if reason wouldn’t sway him, she had a few unscrupulous tricks up her sleeve as well. “What will become of that soldier’s widow, if you’re killed? What will become of Mr. Fuller, and the ship you meant to help him buy?”

He frowned again, at his coffee this time. He’d asked himself these same questions, obviously. And obviously come up with no good answer. He set his cup aside and rubbed an absent palm on the knee he’d hurt in fighting the highwaymen. “I don’t know what will become of them. But the only way out of the duel is to apologize. And I simply cannot do that.” His gaze, gentle but resolute, came to her. “You know the difference, I think,
between
won’t
and
cannot
. You know it’s not a matter of persuading me.”

She knew no such thing. His weak spot, clearly, was his sense of duty to the people depending on him. She would go after that weak spot without mercy.

He reached across to her side of the table and took first one, then the other of the saucers off the cups, replacing them underneath. “You ought to drink one of these before it gets cold. Did you know you slept the whole night without any nightmares? At least, none that announced themselves to me.”

Her hand stopped halfway to the coffee. Her whole body remembered the way he’d held her last night as she’d delivered up her sorrow. As though he’d known she might fly apart into irretrievable pieces if he were to let go. She felt for the cup, and finally had to turn her eyes away from him. “You must be a very light sleeper.”

“When I have cause to be.” So clearly could she picture him lying beside her, attuned to her slightest sound and movement because he had … feelings … tender feelings … for her. She’d spat as hard as she could on
feelings
and
tenderness
, and she hadn’t dissuaded him one whit.

This, too, is his weakness. Use it against him
. She pushed herself to a sitting position, took up the cup and saucer, and forced her gaze to his. “You said last night we might speak of my prospects this morning, and what is to be done.”

“Indeed.” He crossed one leg over the other, angling his whole body to face her. “What day do you expect Mr. Roanoke back in London?”

“Sunday.” This was Wednesday. In the space of four days she must find new lodgings, secure Jane’s safety, and persuade Mr. Blackshear to abandon the duel. “Will.” There could be no question as to where she must start. “I’m sixteen hundred and twenty-eight pounds
short of what I require for my annuity. How much more money do you need to buy your ship?”

“Eight hundred and some.” His eyes quickened with alertness. He knew where her thoughts were tending.

“I need to go back to the hells. I need you to come with me.”
Need, need, need
. The chisel at which she would tap, relentlessly, until his resistance lay in pieces at her feet. “Allowing me an extra hundred for expenses until the annuity begins to make its return, and let us say two hundred to keep you until you see a profit from that ship, we’ll want two thousand, five hundred, and twenty-eight, altogether.”

“We can’t possibly win that much in four nights.” But everything in his face said he was waiting, hoping, to hear his assertion refuted.

“We’ll have five nights, at least.” She bolted a quick swallow of coffee. “If Mr. Roanoke returns on Sunday, then Monday at dawn would be the soonest you’d meet. Tuesday is more likely. I scarcely imagine he’d rush straight out upon coming home to enlist a second and send him off to arrange things with the viscount. Let’s presume six nights.” She sat straighter. “We need only win an average of four hundred twenty-one pounds, six shillings, eight pence per night. You’ll recall we won eleven hundred sixty-two in a single evening, our first time out.”

“You presume we’ll win every night.” A sound, sensible objection, but hope was blazing through him now like a wildfire over parched cropland. He wanted, so badly, to make his word good with Mr. Fuller, to keep his promise to that dying soldier, and to be of service to her, even though she would not love him.

“Not at all. I spoke of an average. Some nights we may lose, and some nights we’ll surely win more.” Another bracing swallow of coffee, and one last well-aimed thrust. “In any event, there’s no question I must go. All
my hope of a decent life, for my maid as well as myself, depends upon my winning more money.”

“We’ll play, then. Beginning tonight. You know perfectly well I cannot stand by and let you go into those places alone.”

She drank more coffee and said nothing. The silence would give him time to reflect, to note that if he lost his life in the duel she certainly
would
be going into the hells without his protection. And once they were at the table tonight, and winning, he would be reminded of all the good he could do with those winnings. By the time he’d amassed what he needed to be a partner in Mr. Fuller’s business, and to see to the security of that widow, he would surely feel such an attachment to life, to his own bright prospects, as would render the very idea of the duel preposterous.

T
HAT NIGHT
they lost twelve hundred. He, of course, lost most of it. She called him in at a presumably advantageous moment, and he played every hand and wagered just as she cued him to do, and still the cards fell out wrong and he watched his pile of counters shrink to almost nothing.

“Do you think the banker may be cheating?” Will said when she’d finally signaled for a conference. The establishment, which used no name beyond its address, was grimmer altogether than Oldfield’s. It offered no convenient corridors or anterooms for a private meeting: the door to the gaming parlor led straight to the stairs and the further doors that shut out the world beyond. They had to speak in a corner of the very room, in full view, pantomiming a drunken flirtation in contrast to their hushed, sober words.

“I don’t think so. If he is, they’re better tricks than any I know.” She let a hand fall on his sleeve and curved her
lips into a smile that promised such tricks as no gaming-hell banker ever dreamed of. “The wrong cards come up sometimes, in spite of the odds. Just like when I showed you three cards and you found the ace of spades on your first try. Over time the odds will prevail.”

But they didn’t
have
time. After tonight they had five, maybe four nights remaining, and an even greater mountain to climb than when they’d walked in here, some hours since. He grazed a knuckle along her jaw, but he could not come close to matching her show of
sangfroid
. “Do you want to play on? I’ll trust your judgment.” He sounded every bit as ill as he felt.

“I confess I’m distracted by our losses, and consequently duller than I’d like to be.” She caught his hand and brought the knuckle to her lips. Her lashes fluttered down. “Let’s leave.”

His body couldn’t even muster a proper animal response to the tickle of her breath on his skin. That she would admit to being concerned by their losses only confirmed him in his kindling alarm. With effort he contorted his mouth into what might pass for a leer, and coasted his hand from her lips to her shoulder and on down her arm. “Very well.” He took hold of her fingers. “We’ll go.”

Her flirtatious warmth vanished the instant they passed through the last door to the street. She went silent, remote, worry hanging over her like a small private cloud, and he didn’t have the least idea of how to drive it away.

Ought he perhaps to take her to bed? He might at least distract them both from their worries for an hour or two. She’d be in his bed in any case. With the hells all in nearby St. James’s, and no maid to help her dress at home, they’d agreed she’d stay with him until—well, they hadn’t exactly filled in the
until. Until she has her two thousand pounds and can take a house
was the
most hopeful way to end that sentence, but other possible endings loomed as well.
Until Cathcart sends her word of my loss in the duel
, for example.

A streetlamp up ahead shed its halfhearted illumination into the fog and shadows of the quiet street. He couldn’t help a fleeting vision of her walking these same streets alone, going unprotected into the gaming hells or even soliciting gentlemen because he was no longer here to look out for her. The prospect would spur white-hot panic through all his veins if he dwelt on it.

He touched her elbow. “Are you hungry? Shall I order something to be sent up when we reach my rooms?” Laughable, really, this compulsion to see to her bodily needs when he found himself powerless in regard to the larger questions of her future.

“No, thank you.” Her opposite hand touched his, almost absently, where he still clasped her elbow. “I think I’ll just go straight to bed, if you don’t mind. But feel free to order something and dine without me.”

Well, that certainly didn’t sound like a carnal invitation. “Is there nothing at all I can do for you?” In the heavy night air his words hung and twisted, gathering weight. If all his utterances could be tossed in a pot and boiled down to their purest essence, these ten words would surely be what remained.

“I wish I could be sure of your being here in a week’s time.” She made her answer without turning to look at him. “I wish you would give up the duel.”

He sighed. “I told you this morning why that’s not possible. Nothing has changed since then.”

She only nodded, and they finished the walk to Lewes Buildings in silence. He helped her out of her gown and corset when they reached his rooms, and they sidled round one another in the small space, carving out what privacy they could for washing and teeth-cleaning and the last layers of undressing.

In bed, she lay on her back and felt for his hand. He closed his fingers over hers.

“I don’t know what to do about my maid,” she said.

“In regard to what Mr. Roanoke threatened, you mean?” He’d walked into the study just in time to hear the man’s coarse taunt. “Surely she wouldn’t agree to such an arrangement.”

“I would hope not. But sometimes, for want of other options … if he refused to give her a character, for example, she’d have a difficult time finding another situation. She’ll face that same predicament if he doesn’t survive the duel. And a young lady in want of money can fall prey to so many different …” She trailed off, slipping into thoughts where perhaps no gentleman could follow. “I hoped to have enough money to employ her myself.”

“You must be good friends, I think. You and your maid.”

“Not really. Not at all, in fact.” Her hair brushed over the pillow as she turned. In the dim light, her face was all vague contours; no glimmer from her eyes. “We haven’t much in common and I suspect I bore her with talking of cards and calculations. It’s foolish, I suppose, that I should feel so responsible for her as I do.”

“I shouldn’t say foolish. I’d call it admirable.” He stroked his thumb in circles on her palm.

“You would, wouldn’t you?” He could hear her smile even if he couldn’t see it. And he could feel, through the air between them, the sudden shift in her thoughts. “Will you take me to call on that widow?”

“I beg your pardon?” Foreboding slipped uninvited into the room. “Why would you want me to do that?”

“She’s your obligation, as my maid is mine. I suppose … I’d like a clear picture of her. It will help me know you. I think you said she has a child?”

The back of his neck prickled, as any soldier’s did
when some unspecified thing was not as it ought to be. Given that she could not love him, and given that she seemed to think it likely he’d be breathing his last on some greensward early next week while Prince Square-jaw put up his pistol and walked away, why should she hope to know him any more than she already did?

Might she suspect there was more to the story of his obligation than he’d so far divulged? A stronger current of unease came, washing over him in the silence. He’d said more than one thing at which any half-clever woman must wonder. That the war had changed him, that he wasn’t fit for church, that he had reasons against offering himself to a lady. Perhaps she’d begun to piece those clues together. Perhaps he’d wanted her to, all along.

“Do you wish to know me, truly, Lydia?” His thumb went still against her palm. “There are things I can tell you that you might rather not have heard.”

“I know.” Her fingers curled round his thumb to trap it. “I’ve known for a while that you have secrets.” She faced him, still, though surely she couldn’t make out his features any more than he could make out hers. “I know I might not be the most suitable confidante. But I’m not afraid of anything you can tell.”

“You’re a more suitable confidante than you can imagine.” Indeed who in the wide world was likelier to understand than a woman with deaths on her own conscience? And yet … if she
didn’t
understand, then he must surely give up hope that anyone ever would.