A Gentleman's Position (Society of Gentlemen) (25 page)

The older boys had left Eton long before Ash, and without Mal’s abrasive presence, he found he rather enjoyed the place. Time and the tide of education swept him to Oxford, where he discovered wine, cards, and, furtively, the pleasures of the flesh. Then he had moved into society, a callow lout of twenty-one, and that was when he’d met Francis Webster again.

It had been in Quex’s, a club in St. James’s, and Ash had been on the mop, of course. He’d been foxed six days out of seven then. Arm round his friend Freddy’s shoulders to stay upright, hopelessly disguised, he’d stumbled into the room and come face to face with a man.

He was tall, a good four inches above Ash’s own medium height, with a narrow, assessing face and hazel-green eyes that locked onto Ash’s own with an intensity that forced Ash to look away. And as he’d dropped his eyes, he’d registered the long limbs.

Webster wasn’t spindly anymore. The ludicrous lankiness of the adolescent was all gone in the grown man, replaced by a lean, rangy build deliberately accentuated rather than concealed by his extremely well-cut coat. But his long arms had triggered Ash’s memory, and there, in the middle of one of London’s most exclusive gaming hells, face to face with the fellow, he’d blurted out, “By Jove, it’s Spinning Jenny!”

And it had gone from bad to worse. He’d drunkenly tried to reminisce—why, why?—about Mal’s various nicknames, insults, as if they were a shared joke. His friends, as foxed as he, had roared with laughter. Webster had stared him down, expression icing over, until Ash had belatedly noticed that nobody else in the room was laughing, and finally stumbled to a stop. Webster had waited for silence, let it grow to an unbearable pitch, and spoken only when every man in the place was listening with undisguised interest.

“If I wished to hear the squalling of toothless brats,” he had said with chilly calm, “I should pay a call on my sister’s nursery. I commend it to you for a visit, Lord Gabriel. You would feel quite at home.”

And then he had turned on his heel and walked away.

Webster was watching him still, and Ash was sure he was thinking of that night. He shifted uncomfortably.

Mal had made the fellow’s life hell at school, and Ash knew damned well he felt no regret, and that even if he did it would go unexpressed. If Mal had ever admitted himself at fault, Ash hadn’t heard it, any more than he’d ever heard their father offer an apology to anyone. Ash had been raised with the knowledge that the pair were infallible, that merely expressing disagreement placed him in the wrong.

He didn’t much like it, and he didn’t suppose Webster did either.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out.

Webster’s brows shot up. “I beg your pardon?”

Ash cursed himself. He hadn’t intended to say that. In this situation, and years too late, it smacked of toad-eating at best. But he had been in the wrong, there was no denying it, and it needed to be said.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “That night in Quex’s. The fact is, I was badly foxed, and I had no intention of being so cursed rude, and I wish I’d held my tongue. I should have said so long before.”

Webster’s eyes were fixed on his face, unreadable in the candlelight. His mouth looked a little tense. “I see,” he said. “Are you under the impression that I am holding a grudge, Lord Gabriel, or that I can be blandished into giving you an easier ride?”

“I’ve no idea what you think,” Ash retorted. “And I’m well aware you hold the whip hand here. I was in the wrong and I owe you an apology, and you have it. That’s all.”

Webster’s expression didn’t change. He was still a moment more, then said again, “Will you play?”

“I told you, I’ve nothing to stake.”

“Have you a shilling?”

Ash took a deep breath. But, after all, he had nothing more to lose.

“A shilling. Against which you stake what, Chamford House?”

“Hardly.” Webster seated himself with a flick of his coat’s tails and picked up the pack to deal. “But let us say ten pounds, for now.”

It was quite the new thing, écarté, a fast-moving game played with a limited pack, much simpler than piquet and more dependent on chance after the initial exchanges of cards that allowed both men to improve their hands. Ash doubted that Webster considered it a serious game, but his face was keen and intent in the candlelight.

“Spades are trumps.”

“I propose an exchange.”

“How many?”

“Four.” Ash discarded four cards, took his replacements, and was rewarded with the king of spades and two knaves. Webster exchanged three.

“I stand pat,” Ash said, declining the opportunity for another round of exchanges. If he couldn’t win with this hand, he was in trouble. “I declare king of trumps. Play.”

He did win, taking four tricks to make two points. Webster seemed indifferent.

Though he played a lot because everyone did, Ash wasn’t one of nature’s gamesters, preferring games of pure chance to those involving skill. He found the tension of piquet sickening rather than exciting, and disliked the silences. He couldn’t keep track of what had been played with any great accuracy, certainly not after the first few hands, and had no sense for what cards were likely to come up.

More than that, though, he was easily distracted. Just now, he should have been concentrating on the pasteboard rectangles, but as Webster swept them up to shuffle, he found himself looking at the man’s hands instead. Long-fingered, pale, smooth, and well-kept except for the left thumbnail. That was very short and a little jagged, as though someone had attempted an improvement by worrying it with his teeth.

Webster didn’t look as though he bit his nails. His expression was calm, even bland. He was not a handsome man by most standards, with his narrow face, thin lips, and slanted, saturnine eyebrows. Some people said he looked sly. Ash thought
shrewd
said it better. It was an intelligent face, a formidable one. Ash wondered what it would be like to be the full focus of Francis Webster’s attentions. The thought made him shift uncomfortably.

Ash dealt, which meant Webster could choose to exchange. “I propose. Two.”

The dealer had to accept the first exchange, which was tiresome, because he had an excellent hand. “One.”

“I propose two.”

“I refuse.”

The game went on. Ash won a few points, lost more. Webster’s hands moved with a slightly unnerving smoothness on the shuffle. He poured brandy, and Ash drank it and wagered recklessly, without thought. There was no prospect that he could win against a gamester of Webster’s skill. He was lost and this was merely delaying the inevitable.

It was all his own fault, of course, like so much else. He’d deserved Webster’s enmity, and last night he’d paid the price.

There had been a number of sequels to the incident at Quex’s. Ash had discovered that Webster was generally admired, if not liked, for his wealth, his cool reserve, and his skill at the card tables. More than that, he was an intimate of the set headed by Lord Richard Vane, known as the Ricardians. This was an odd assortment of men of varied birth, wealth, and brain, including some rather queer fish, but they shared qualities of self-possession and a strong mutual loyalty that made them bad men to cross. And with Lord Richard, Mr. Julius Norreys, and Sir Absalom Lockwood among their number, few felt able to set themselves up in opposition. The Ricardians set their own fashions and chose their friends with little care for the world’s opinion, and the world made way for them. Mal remarked on them occasionally with disapproval, even resentment, and now Ash learned why. Francis Webster was a Ricardian, but Lord Maltravers, heir to the Duke of Warminster, his name passport to any other society, was not. Nor, of course, was Ash.

He had been advised that he was no longer welcome at Quex’s. Other hells were also closed to him, and some men sheered off, avoiding him when the news spread that he had set himself up in enmity to the Ricardians. Ash couldn’t blame them. It was the last thing he’d have chosen to do if he wasn’t such a blasted fool. Gallingly, Webster’s words at Quex’s had stuck. Ash had been known as the Toothless Brat for years, a soubriquet that was only just beginning to wear off.

And he hadn’t made his apology. He’d wanted to, desperately; he had been bitterly ashamed of himself by the time he woke the next morning—insulting a man to his face for no reason, good God. But the next few times he’d encountered Webster, he’d received only a blank look that left him tongue-tied and squirming inside. So he’d told himself that the miserable fellow had doubtless deserved it, accepted Mal’s clap on the back, and set himself to confront the man when he could. A challenging stare, a few encounters at the gaming tables in which Webster would invariably take his money and excuse himself early. Ash hadn’t wanted to fight—he wasn’t a fighting man—but there was something in the way Webster looked at him or, worse, the way he ignored him that made him grit his teeth. He resented being ignored by Francis Webster.

It had come to a head last night.

It had been at Quex’s, again, to which Ash had been readmitted at last. He had stood chatting with a friend—perhaps a little distracting to the players, but curse it, it was a social club as well—and Webster had lifted his dark head and given Ash a long look that had made him flush from hair to toes. A hard, assessing,
invasive
sort of a look—insolent, that was what it was, Ash had told himself, and for all his faults, for all his shames and peccadilloes and his secret sins, he was the third son of the Duke of Warminster. He would not allow a weaver’s spawn to bring him to the blush. No longer able to tolerate the man, he’d drawn himself up to his full, though not magnificent height, marched over to the table, demanded to play—

And lost, and lost, and lost.

“Five points,” Webster said, sitting back. He swept the cards off the table, glanced at the litter of notes to one side, and raised a brow.

“I’m out,” Ash said. It scarcely mattered. He’d come with nothing, he’d leave with nothing. That had doubtless been Webster’s intention; he couldn’t imagine what else it might be. “I’ve nothing to wager.”

“I’ll accept your note of hand.”

Ash had no intention of adding to the mountain of his debt. “I couldn’t pay. I told you. You’ve had everything but the coat off my back.”

“True.” Webster contemplated him. “A hundred pounds against your coat.”

“What?”

“It’s so often said, ‘the coat off a man’s back,’ yet I’ve never played for such a thing. One should be open to new experience.” Webster’s thin lips curved. “On the first trick.”

Apparently, he meant it. Ash swallowed. “Very well.”

He dealt, giving himself a worthless hand. Webster proposed an exchange. Ash accepted, exchanged four cards, and found himself with nothing more than knaves. If only Webster would exchange again….

“I stand.”

Ash held back a curse. He couldn’t exchange if Webster didn’t, and this was not a promising hand.

And he did not win. Webster took the trick, contemplated the cards, and looked up at Ash. One of them, Ash wasn’t sure who, breathed out hard enough to send the candle flame jumping, making shadows flicker over Webster’s eyes, darkening their hazel-green.

“Your coat,” Webster said softly.

Ash stood, movements a little jerky, feeling the cloth tight around his shoulders. “You’ll have to help me.”

Webster moved round behind him. Ash felt breath whisper over his neck, raising hairs. Webster’s hands came onto his shoulders, very softly, closing over the cloth, gently tugging it away from Ash’s body, sliding the tight material down his arms. Ash stood, not moving, as he would with his valet, feeling a touch of chill as the warm cloth was removed so that he stood in his shirt, with Webster behind him.

Webster’s finger brushed Ash’s, and he jolted, but the man was merely bringing the sleeves over his hands. Ash calmed his breathing. His heart seemed to be pounding a little too fast.

“Another hand,” Webster said softly, dropping the coat over the back of a chair.

“What do you propose to play for now? My shirt?”

“If you choose.”

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