Amanda Scott (42 page)

“Did you see that young man push past me?”

“The young have no manners, Vicar,” Nick said, putting out his hand.

The vicar shook it warmly, smiled at him, but did not speak. Looking at Tommy, then back at Nick, he seemed momentarily at a loss for words.

Tommy said, “Hope you’re hungry, Dory. They offer a dashed fine meal here.”

The vicar glanced back down at the hall, saying vaguely, | “That sounds quite nice. I say, do you know who that young man was, the one who pushed past me?”

Nick was watching him closely. He said, “I begin to think I do, Vicar.”

Tommy looked from one to the other in astonishment. “Well, of all the absurd things to say, Nick! You know Robert Yarborne as well as I do. By Jupiter, we were just talking about him, and now all you can say is that you begin to think you know who he is. Have you got windmills in your head?”

“Not windmills, Tommy, castles—and pawns.” When Lord Dorian looked at him, his cheeks growing pink, Nick said softly, “Your chess player, Vicar?”

Tommy exclaimed, “Now, dash it all, Nick, how can you—?”

“He’s right, Thomas.” The vicar grimaced, looked ruefully at Nick, and said, “You’re very astute. You always were, of course. I must suppose that Thomas told you about my second encounter with the fellow.”

“Tommy’s a sad rattle, “Nick said, smiling at his friend.

But Tommy was staring at the vicar. “Dory, do you really mean to tell us your unscrupulous chess player was Robert Yarborne?”

“I never knew his name, but if that fellow is Robert Yarborne—”

“He is, damn his impudence.”

Nick gently suggested that they ought to continue their conversation in the dining room. Once they were seated at a corner table, where they had some privacy—and a bottle of wine to fortify them until their meal was served—Tommy said pensively, “I’ve been thinking, you know. It makes no sense. You must be wrong.”

Nick said, “You said you could imagine Robert with three thimbles and a peppercorn, and it was you who suspected that he’s been setting Oliver up as a dupe.”

“Suspicions, Nick, that’s all—no more than hypothetical examples of what I see when I look at him. Dash it, I expected you to say straight off that I’d suspect a nun of being the devil with a good habit. Still, if he ain’t a flat-catcher, he’s an egger. That’s a chap who encourages flats and pigeons to bet more than they should,” he added in an aside to the vicar. “What I can’t figure is what’s really in it for young Robert. He can’t want to put himself in Ulcombe’s black books. Dash it, Lord Yarborne’s tried for the past year to cultivate your father, even to emulate him.”

Nick said thoughtfully, “Maybe that is the plan, Tommy. Robert Yarborne, in the little I’ve seen of him, has not shown great intelligence. He’s clever, and he’s an opportunist, but his chess scheme had to have been impulsive at best. He must have known his victim could identify him, and might charge him with robbery.”

The vicar cleared his throat. “If it’s all the same to you, Nicholas, I don’t want to do either one. No one wants to advertise being made to look foolish. Had it been the church’s money, it would be different, of course, but—”

“That’s probably what he counted on,” Nick said.

“All the same …”

Tommy had been thinking. He said, “I still can’t fathom his motive.”

“Power, perhaps,” Nick said. “Yarborne—Lord Yarborne, that is—seems to have used duping at least once before now to exert pressure on someone to submit to his will. At the very least, if Robert lent money to pay Oliver’s debts, he’s a gull-groper.”

“But what’s he get from it?” Tommy demanded. “If he’s charging interest, my source hadn’t heard of it, and he’s no Captain Sharp, for I’ve never heard of him bullying anyone. If he’s a cheat, he’s a dashed good one. He don’t palm cards or dice, and no one’s ever caught him with uphills or downhills, let alone Fulhams. Why, if they did, he’d have to resign from his clubs—at least from the Billingsgate. Don’t know that he belongs to any others. Not a member of Brooks’s, is he?”

“No,” Nick said. Seeing the vicar’s bewilderment, he added, “Your little brother is revealing his vast knowledge of the business of Greeking, Vicar. I’d be ashamed that he knows so much, if I were you, but there it is. Uphills are false dice that throw consistently high. Downhills are the reverse. Fulhams, on the other hand, are weighted dice that consistently turn up the same numbers.”

“And gull-gropers?” the vicar asked, raising his eyebrows.

Nick chuckled. “Men who lend money to gamesters at exorbitant interest, or in order to entwine them in activities they might otherwise avoid. You’ll be interested to know, Tommy, that Oliver was kind enough to give my wife a pack of fuzzed cards as a gift, and to teach her how to use them. Fuzzed cards, Vicar, are cards marked or shaved in such a manner that one player knows where the court cards and aces are located.”

The vicar seemed distressed. “You say Oliver gave such a pack to Lady Vexford? Good gracious, Nicholas—”

“He said he did so—indeed, that he had them himself—because it is to one’s benefit to understand Greeking in order to avoid falling victim to it,” Nick said blandly.

“Poppycock.” Tommy snorted.

“Precisely,” Nick agreed. “There is one more little bit of information I might give you. I’m fairly certain that Melissa encountered Fulhams at that ladies’ supper Yarborne gave to benefit his charities.”

“Then, by Jupiter, the fellow’s a crook,” Tommy said.

“In fairness,” Nick said, “I’ve no evidence that Yarborne was to blame. I merely suspect him, because if the twig is tainted, most likely the tree is, too.”

“We’ll keep our eyes open,” Tommy said. Then, grinning at his brother, he said, “How’s your predatory widow, Dory?”

The vicar blushed rosily and said self-consciously, “As a matter of fact, I’m rather hopeful that she has begun to look elsewhere. A new gentleman in the parish has begun paying court to her, you see.”

“She’s jilted you,” Tommy declared dramatically, clapping a hand to his chest in the general vicinity of his heart. “Poor Dory!” Then, looking beyond Nick, he added in quite a different tone, “But enough chat for now, gentlemen. Our dinner arrives.”

Conscious of hovering footmen, they talked of other matters while they dined, but when the dishes had been cleared and replaced by two bottles of excellent port, a board of cheddar, and a dish of nuts, they returned to the subject of Greeking.

Cracking a walnut, Tommy said, “I still say that if Robert Yarborne is hunting bubbles and pigeons, his methods don’t fit Vincent’s Law, Nick. To acquire termage—that’s velvet to you, Dory—one requires both a booty and gripe to do the Vincent.”

“That’s
all
Greek to me,” Lord Dorian said, smiling again.

“Exactly,” Tommy said, carefully picking the nut meats from the cracked shell.

Catching Lord Dorian’s eye, Nick said, “I think the vicar was making a joke.”

Tommy looked up from his task. “A joke? Dory? Don’t be daft.”

Pausing with his wineglass at his lips, Lord Dorian said, “Well, I did mean to be humorous, but the fact is that I don’t know velvet from—What were the others?”

Seeing Tommy about to explain, Nick said, “Put simply, Vincent’s Law is that cheating at cards or dice requires a banker, a gamester associated with the banker, and a victim. In this case, there is certainly no evidence that Robert Yarborne is the banker, even if he did lend Ollie money to pay his debts.”

“Then none of it makes sense,” Tommy said flatly, “unless someone else is paying Robert to shepherd lambs to some hell where they can be fleeced. As far as I know, he generally plays here at the Billingsgate, so that’s out.”

“He’s clearly up to no good,” Nick said. “Vicar, you really ought to challenge him over that chess-player business.”

Lord Dorian flushed and looked away, then collecting himself, he looked back, straight into Nick’s eyes. “I ought to do so, I know.”

Nick shrugged. “Of course, he’s bound to deny it.”

Tommy said hotly, “No one would believe him over Dory!”

The vicar grimaced. “Such tawdry stuff. I should cut a pretty figure when all is said and done.”

Nick smiled at him. “Learned a lesson, Vicar?”

“I certainly have.”

“Then forget what I said. Chalk it up to experience, and be done.”

“Dash it, Nick, he can’t do that. That damned scoundrel—begging your pardon, Dory—He threatened him with a pistol, Nick!”

“Without witnesses,” Nick explained patiently, “it is Dorian’s word against his.”

“But still—”

“No, Thomas,” Lord Dorian said firmly, “As I said before, had it been the church’s money, I would feel differently about it, but it was doubtless meant to be a lesson to me, and I’ve no wish to pursue it further. I’m very much afraid,” he added with a self-conscious look, “that the main reason I returned to the Devil’s Dyke—how aptly named it is, to be sure—The main reason—indeed, perhaps the sole reason—is that I’d hoped to meet that chess player again and perhaps obtain more money for the poor box. Greed, even on behalf of the church, is not a sin to which one wants to admit.”

Tommy said, “But that fellow ought to be clapped up.”

“Don’t fret, Tommy,” Nick said gently, “if I find that Oliver is meant to be the next dupe, being clapped up is the least that will happen to Robert Yarborne.”

“If you’re taking a hand in the game, that’s all right then,” Tommy said.

“I am rapidly ceasing to look upon these matters as moves in a game,” Nick told him. “If you have both finished your wine, I suggest we adjourn to Brooks’s. I prefer the atmosphere there, I think.”

They left soon afterward, and when Lord Dorian expressed an interest in finding someone who would indulge him in a little whist, Nick surprised both of his companions by saying that he was in the mood for a game of whist himself.

“Now, dash it, Nick,” Tommy demanded, “when’s the last time you sat down in a foursome? I was sure you’d want to play hazard.”

“You were wrong. I’m sure my luck would be out tonight. Moreover, I’m enjoying the vicar’s company. Shall we find a fourth?”

The game broke up shortly before midnight, and Nick went home only to be told that his wife had retired early with a headache. He remembered then that he had promised to continue their conversation after he had found Penthorpe. He had certainly hoped to have a word with her before he left London. However, when he looked in on her, she was sleeping soundly, and he decided not to wake her. Instead, he left one hundred pounds on her dressing table so she could repay Lady Ophelia when next they met, and went in search of his brother.

Here again his intent was denied. One of Oliver’s servants glibly informed him that Master Oliver was spending the night with friends on the road to Epsom, in order to arrive before the first heats on the following day.

Deciding he would do well to get to bed, since the road would be jammed long before nine o’clock with vehicles traveling the fifteen-mile distance just for the day, Nick rang for Lisset, and gave orders to be wakened before dawn.

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING, OLIVER
strolled into the breakfast parlor as Melissa was finishing her meal, and bade her a cheerful good-morning.

She regarded him with surprise. “Why, I thought you had gone to Epsom! I’m quite sure Lucy told me you spent last night with friends on the road.”

He grinned at her. “Dashed clever, don’t you think? Told my people to put it about that I’d gone already, because when I saw Nick last night, he was looking like he’d like to murder someone. Oh, sorry,” he added. “Forgot about your father. I suppose I ought to offer my condolences, but I never thought you cared a button for him. Don’t look at me as if you’re seeing a ghost, Silas,” he added when the footman entered. “Since you’ve cleared everything away, you’ll have to stir your stumps to get me breakfast, but some beef and bread will do, and coffee. My head wants clearing.”

Melissa waited until the footman had gone to do Oliver’s bidding before she said, “The whole business about Sir Geoffrey is distressing, of course. One never wants another person to die, let alone to die violently, but I’d scarcely set eyes on him in nine years before he brought me to England, and I own that I’d come to care much more deeply for my stepfather than for him. But, Oliver, you should not have lied to Nicholas. Not only will he be displeased but one ought never to tell lies.”

“I didn’t lie to him,” Oliver said in a virtuous tone as he took a seat opposite her. “I never said a single word to him. Took dashed good care not to, for that matter.”

“Well, it is much the same thing, I think.”

He shot a look at her from under his brows. “You look pale. Has Nick been riding roughshod over you again? The minute I learned you had run into him at Vauxhall, I knew I’d best stay out of his way for a spell, but it occurs to me now that he must have cut up pretty rough over that business.”

Remembering Vauxhall brought a smile to her lips. She said softly, “He was not angry, only a little vexed to find me wandering around the gardens by myself.”

“Then you didn’t catch up with Lady Caroline and her mama?”

“I didn’t try to find them,” Melissa admitted, “but now that I come to think of it, not having seen you since Tuesday night, Oliver, I never thought to warn you that I’d met him. How did you know?”

He shrugged. “People talk. I think it was Rigger who told me. Yes, that’s right. He said his father had met the pair of you there, but I daresay you’re wrong about Nick not being angry, and in any event, if he’s learned that I’m in debt again—”

“Oh, Oliver, not again!”

“Don’t say
not again
as if it were some dreadful fate. One hundred pounds don’t last a fellow a single night if his luck’s out, so my father ought to have known better than to think it would serve me till Quarter Day. I’ve tradesmen’s bills, as well, which I didn’t even think to tell him about at the time. Dash it, everyone is in debt to some extent or another, but I’ll come about shortly. You just see if I don’t.”

“But how?”

“I put my money on Nick’s horses for the Epsom races, that’s how. And if that don’t work—But never you mind about that,” he added, flushing.