Cynthia Bailey Pratt (25 page)

He was stopped at the door, politely. Some whispering went on among the lackeys, then one loped off. Carleton lounged against the doorframe and observed. Beyond the arch, the noise level was no less than at Herr Grabelein’s, with a difference. Here, the high-pitched voices of laughing ladies mingled with the rumble of occupied males and smoky air was sharpened by perfumes.

The lackey bowed before a woman in a dark red dress, ill-suited to the season of the year. The bountiful blonde turned to look at him and then advanced, her gloved hand outstretched. “It is Sir Carleton Blacklock, is it not?”

Carleton bowed over the white silk. “Madame Le Clerk?”

Her voice held not the faintest trace of Paris, or even Marseilles. “I am. It is a pleasure to meet you. As you can imagine, I’ve heard quite a lot about you, lately. Have you come to play? Or to break the house?” Her eyes were every bit as limpid a blue as even Miss Berenice Clively could boast, yet the expression in them was as hard as dirt in a drought.

“I have money to lose, Madame, and I was told this is the place to lose it.”

She smiled. “Come with me.”

He followed her into the depths of the brightly lit main salon. With the lady’s considerable attributes pressed tightly against his side, he found it easy to shed fifty pounds at the first table they paused beside. The odds were not in his favor. Madame ordered his glass refilled and gave him another chance to observe her figure.

However, as he laughingly tossed coins down, he caught sight of a girl with her back toward him. Piled on her head were masses of black hair gleaming almost blue beneath the burning chandelier. Carleton sobered and won sixty pounds.

His sobering was as nothing compared with Madame’s. ‘ “There’s a game in the back you should try,” she said without preamble. “Much more interesting than this. A game of skill, not merely of chance.”

“Whatever pleases you, Madame.”

The table was set up for four and all the chairs were filled. “Get up, Lord Anthony,” said the Duke of Lichoakes. “Get up and give Sir Carleton your place. We almost despaired of your company, Blacklock.”

Lord Anthony gave the newcomer a sharp look from restless gray eyes. Madame said cozingly, “I’m dreadfully thirsty, Lord Anthony. Won’t you buy me a drink?” She took his arm and nestled up close as she led him out.

Carleton dropped into the vacant chair. “Whist, again, Your Grace?”

“Indeed no, sir. A trifle of loo, nothing more.”

Carleton had played in every type and style of house imaginable, from the great clubs of London to those establishments where gaming was a distant second to whoring. He had seen cheating on a scale to match the environment, from the subtlest double-deal to the most blatant distractions. He himself refrained from cheating as he found it required no less mental effort than intelligent play. So, when the cards a loo player dreams of were delivered to him again and again, he simply assumed it was Danita’s influence still at work. He began to play recklessly, and still he won.

He studied his opponents. The duke he knew well, of course. One of the others was the heavy-bodied fellow who had been at the previous card party. Looking closely, Carleton saw that the other’s face was already marked by the faint red lines across his nose and cheeks left by the constant application of drink. He cracked many jests and laughed heartily at them all though his eyes, lost in fat, were mean.

The other was a complete nondescript, yet his fingers were as fast and nimble as Carleton’s own. This was the one he watched, the one he felt was dangerous.

“It seems, sir, that whenever you deal, I win,” he said as he took in another pool.

The man’s voice was as hard to keep in memory as the rest of him. “You have such phenomenal luck.” He smiled and passed the deck to the duke.

The hands dealt by the nobleman and the fat man were also winners for Carleton, as was the hand he dealt himself, but the communal ante during those periods was as nothing compared with the size of the pool when the fourth man dealt. Then the sums the two placed in the center of the table were large, almost absurdly so. All at once suspicious, Carleton glanced at the dealer’s bland face.

Recalling earlier in the evening how he’d thrown down the winning hand and left, Carleton wished to do the same now. But the others dropped theirs first.

“Yours again, Blacklock,” smiled the duke. “Indeed, sir, even I am amazed by the consistency with which you win.”

“Not so amazed as I, Your Grace.”

“Won’t you tell me the secret to such incredible good fortune? Or will you continue to pretend ignorance of the source?”

“I’m afraid I don’t quite take Your Grace’s meanin’.” Did the man know about the strange superstitions he’d woven around Danita? It didn’t seem likely.

The duke rose slowly and took the cane from the back of his chair. “I mean, sir,” he said, still smiling, “I mean that you are a cheating scoundrel with the manners of an encroaching Captain Sharp and the morals to be expected from one of your background and breeding.”

The other two leapt to their feet, ready to hold the Irish baronet back. When Carleton continued to sit before the gold and notes on the table, they hardly knew what to do. The fat man smiled uneasily, sweat dripping from his chin. The other continued to shuffle the deck from hand to hand. He hardly seemed aware he still held it.

The duke said, “Are you going to sit there gawking at me? The insult is insupportable. Fight me or, by God, I’ll spread this day’s work about Bath and London. You’ll be broken. Not even your children will ever come to be known as anything but the bastards of a cheating dog.”

“A duel?” Carleton laughed. He stood up as slowly as Samson, lifting the temple on his shoulders. “A duel, Your Grace? At Bath? What would Mother say?”

“Damn you! Name your seconds! Or isn’t there a man who’d stand up for you?”

“And what mewling hubble-bubble puppy will you find to second you, Your Grace?”

“Here,” said the fat man, “I resent that.”

“Only one duel at a time,” Carleton sneered.

“Then you’ll meet me?”

“No.”

In a cold voice, the duke said, “Very well, if you won’t fight for your own honor, what about ...” The black eyes shifted to his companions and back to Carleton. “There is a certain young lady of interest to us both—will you fight for her good name if not for your own?”

“What do you mean? More rumors?” He needed time to think.

“Being a gentleman, I’ve said nothing publicly about the witnesses to her inequity. Witnesses we both know exist. But I could release my friends from the promise of silence I exacted from them, and then what would become of ... the young lady?”

 “I don’t imagine your interest to be chivalrous, Your Grace.”

A gleam like moonlight on ice-cold quarries came and went in the black eyes. “It isn’t. Now, you, will you fight?”

Perhaps it was the alcohol he’d drunk earlier finally working in him, but Carleton said, “Yes.”

In the morning, he was awakened by booted footsteps on the bare floor of his chamber. “God,” he groaned, and lifted his eyelids with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. The sunlight stabbed through to the back of his brain.

“You can’t mean to do it,” somebody said in a shocked voice.

“Can’t mean to do what?” Whatever the answer was, he did not hear it. There was a rushing in his ears and a sense of unbearable pressure in his head. Sitting up was not usually this difficult. He felt like groaning and did not think he should deny himself anything in his present state. A want unfulfilled could be deadly.

“Danita,” he growled. That was a want unfulfilled if ever he’d known one. It was all her fault, he thought unreasonably. Why did she have to take Framstead? Of course, the duke could be lying about what he’d seen at Stonehenge. He tried to recall what else the duke had lied about. There seemed to be something, but thinking made his head hurt worse than sitting up.

Prying open his eyes once more, he saw only an expanse of white. He’d gone to sleep in his clothes. He would wiggle his toes to discover if he still wore his boots, but he was by no means certain he still had toes. He groaned again, liked the sound of it, and increased the volume on his next effort.

“A sorry sight,” somebody said, and again boots rattled on the echoing floor. “Drink this.” A glass half-filled with an oily brown liquid floated into the line of Carleton’s limited vision.

“What’s in it?”

“Old family recipe. You don’t want to know the details.”

He drank, gagged and finished the mixture when a hand tipped the glass up. “Tastes like my granny’s shoe-black.” But when he raised his eyelids once more, he found he could focus. “Oh, it’s you.” Carleton tipped over back into bed.

Edward Stowe, Lord Framstead, looked fondly on the vanquished Goliath. Allowing half an hour for the effects of the “Old Family Recipe” to take hold, he thought his friend should be ready for conversation in about an hour, and breakfast sometime next week. There was no point in forcing the pace. He left the room and went in search of the butler.

When Edward came back, it was to find Carleton staring up at the ceiling as though the story of his future was written on the plaster. He rolled his eyes toward the door. “What are you doing here?”

“I came as soon as I heard the news. I hope you weren’t thinking of asking anyone else to second you. It ... it wouldn’t be right.”

“Never mind about that nonsensical duel.” His grievance demanded expression. “I mean, why aren’t you across the street? With your lady love?”

The younger man turned red and his fingers fiddled nervously with his cravat “Here, do you know about that? Have I been that obvious?”

“The duke told me.”

“The duke? How the devil did he know anything about it? It’s nothing to do with him.”

“He wants her himself, the dirty dish.”

“What! By God, he’ll answer for that! Why, if he lives after meeting you, I’ll challenge him myself!”

A fleeting smile touched Carleton’s lips. “It’s hardly etiquette to remind me that if my opponent lives to meet you, then I must have failed to survive.” He struggled upright, hesitated and, when it seemed his head was prepared to remain above his shoulders, swung his feet over the edge of the bed. He was not wearing his boots.

“But that he should even think that she ... he disgusts me.”

“Don’t take on so. You’re safe enough. She’s not the kind of woman who’ll chop and change. What woman would give up the chance to be your countess for the position he’s prepared to offer?” Under his breath, he muttered, “She’ll never be Lady Blacklock, that’s certain enough.”

But the ear of a lover is impossibly acute. “Do you mean to say...why, I had no notion that
your
affections were engaged. I know she talks of you often, but I thought that was girlish infatuation. You’ve been a good friend to me, Blacklock. If you want her, why, I’ll bow out. Fortunately, I have not yet made a formal proposal to her.” Edward’s face turned hard as he strove to master the pain he felt at relinquishing his love, but Sir Carleton had seen her first and a gentleman had his code.

Carleton was a trifle slow that morning, and therefore a moment or two passed before he caught up again with the conversation. “Not formally proposed? But the duke said you announced your engagement to him. Damn it, he said Danita was right there when you said it!”

“Danita? What has she got to do with it? I haven’t even asked her yet, and when I do her cousin won’t be in the room. I hope!” Edward Stowe’s eyes widened. “Listen, I know you have a head fit to burst, but would you mind stating simply and clearly what girl we’ve been talking about?”

“Danita Wingrove, you sapskull. Your affianced bride?”

“Oh,” Edward said in the tone of one enlightened. “Then I can relinquish her to your affection with a clear conscience. I’m in love with Berenice Clively, you see. That other business was just a...a chivalrous gesture on my part. The duke was not behaving as a gentleman as it seems is his habit.” A blush rose again into the young man’s cheeks as he remembered the scene he’d chanced upon at Stonehenge.

Carleton put his elbows on his knees and surveyed his young friend with an air of wonder. “Now, look. Are you sure you’re not the one who had too much to drink last night? The duke told me that you and Danita are engaged to be married. Are you saying now that you were merely protecting her from his advances?”

Framstead nodded. “Absolutely.” There was no mistaking the contentment that came into Carleton’s face when thus reassured. “I am confused about one thing. There’s no love lost between you and the duke. Why did you take his word for it? For anything?”

“You’re in love, you fool. Imagine how you’d feel if someone came to tell you Berenice Clively was going to marry me. Would you bother then to reason out whether he was speaking the truth or telling tales for his own ends? Aye, and now I know what those ends were, right enough.”

“You feel like that about Miss Wingrove? When did you find this out? I mean, she’s a pretty sort of girl and all that...”

“When did you discover it about Miss Clively?”

Edward began to rhapsodize about the minute, the moment, the instant he first knew he’d met his destiny. Carleton, not listening, went back in his memory to the day before yesterday. He’d been sitting alone in a taproom, thinking cheerful thoughts about his regenerated funds when the duke had entered. Carleton, not wishing to be snubbed in broad daylight, had ignored his entrance until the nobleman came directly up to him.

There had been some desultory conversation, on a milder note than usual, and then, as the man stood up to leave, he had dropped the announcement casually. The visions Carleton saw thereafter in the depths of his glass were not so pleasant. He tried to remind himself that it was only a foolish gambler’s fancy, that she had nought to do with the success of his play. Yet, he knew he lied to himself. Danita was completely necessary to him, and completely another’s. Or so he had thought. Now she was free, and so was he.

His headache gone, Carleton strode to the door and bellowed for hot water. “Lots of it! I want a bath!”