by Edith Layton
“Father,” she asked slowly, helplessly, “don’t you think you ought to invest in something more tangible? Roxie tells me you’re on a winning streak. Shouldn’t you at least put aside half and wager only the rest?”
“Such a puritan,” the baron said, smiling at her fondly. “Child, how did you come to be a daughter of mine? How will you get on in the ton when we return to England, for that matter? Everybody gambles, Fancy. Everyone. From the Regent to his barber. Open your eyes. The country’s mad for gaming. Why, I daresay your schoolmistresses placed wagers on your grades, and the vicar put his shillings down on how many of you would show up for Sunday lessons. Yes, I’ve come into enough to change our direction, but the only way to do so permanently is to increase that bit. If a chap is winning, he has to ride with his luck. You’ll see,” he promised, and then made fast work of his soup and fowl and fish and passed on the sweet, so he could get to a table even more to his taste and tempting to his appetites.
He invited his dinner companions to join him when he took his leave of the table. But Julian demurred graciously, and Roxanne, with mock anger, reminded him she’d been given the evening off, and Francesca, closer to tears than she’d been in a long while, begged off with a letter to write, something she had to tell Cee-cee, a trip to her room to change her slippers. When Julian, seeing some truth that her father had not, asked her to stay on with them, she smiled at his concern, and then more genuinely at Roxanne’s relief as she refused.
She went to pace the corridors, in her agitation preferring to drift alone downstairs than to return to her room to weep in disappointment as she feared she would. For her father was going off to likely lose the money she’d just heard he’d gained, before she could even dream on how to use it to better herself. And her post was rapidly becoming obsolete, she was back where she’d been weeks before, only with a few lies to her credit, and no one, she thought wretchedly, to speak with. And no one, she thought, nodding as she passed the disconsolate Deems family still sitting frustrated with the absent Mr. Lyons dominating their somber table, to even fight with.
“The baron’s a fool,” Julian sighed as he watched her leave. “A charming one, but a fool.”
“So am I,” Roxanne said quietly, leaving off all her banter and light chat. And when he looked at her curiously, she said, “I’ve done everything but say it straight out, haven’t I? And there’s no answer for me, is there? So I think I’ll leave now, as well,” she said, and began to rise.
“Wait,” he said, putting one well-shaped hand over hers. That light touch caused her to sink back into her seat.
He looked at her, and his steady regard held her immobile. Ah, she thought, he was a handsome creature. He’d been unfailingly polite and eternally charming, and she’d all but thrown herself in his face these past weeks, and tonight had done just that, deliberately setting out to find out once and for all if he was interested in what she so plainly offered. If he wasn’t, there were a great many others who were. She wasn’t killingly beautiful as he was, but she’d do; from experience, she knew she’d do. She’d had five other men, and it was a mark of virtue with her that she could count them so easily. When she no longer could, she supposed, it would be a warning to her.
It would be a pity if he preferred other gents, or was pining for another lady, or couldn’t accommodate her for some other reason. But, she thought, staring back at him with the impassive face of a practiced gamester, her cards finally out on the table for him to pick up or discard, in any case she’d survive. It would only be a great pity. She fancied him. She wanted to know what those sweetly shaped lips felt like on hers, what that amazingly beautiful body could do. She was not mad for the games that went forth between a man and a woman, but they amused her, and she lived for amusement. More, she knew how important they were to the gentleman, and knew how to play well enough to hold a man fast. And she’d have liked to hold this man. She waited for him to speak.
Pretty little creature, he thought, gazing at her. Pert and chipper and tough, and yet curiously tender, withal. He liked her white skin and her neat figure. He liked her honesty in this. It amused him. He could do no less than she’d done.
“I can’t promise you anything more than tonight,” he said softly, as gently as if he were saying love words.
“Neither can I.” She shrugged.
“But I can promise you an interesting night,” he said, smiling, and she noted that all of a sudden he seemed to have shaken off his negligent attitude and become more alert, more awake, and this sharpened interest he showed for the first time made it seem as if he’d been sleepwalking all these past weeks.
“So can I,” she answered, grinning, for he’d come to life completely now and was even more exciting with that glow in his marvelous light eyes, that consuming interest radiating from him.
“Well, then,” he said, taking her hand to his lips before he arose with her.
There was only a second’s awkwardness between them when they were alone in her room. It was not when she uncovered herself to him, for he’d stood and watched her undress and she’d known she made a treat of it, and knew she’d a trim figure to show him. Nor was it when he discarded his clothes and came to her, for no sane person could doubt the impact the sight of that perfect, sculptural body would have on an experienced female. Nor was it when they came into each other’s arms, or when he touched her where she’d dreamed he would, or even when she put her lips to him where it pleased him so. It wasn’t even when they finally achieved that most complete embrace they were capable of. It was a moment later, when he kissed her for the first time. And thought as he so often did these days, before he felt too much to think, that it was a curiously intimate thing, this kissing a stranger as though he knew her, as though he loved her.
*
Francesca was still entirely alone when she could bear no more of it, when the hour had grown so late and her father had still not returned from the small salon. She arose from the table where she’d been sitting pretending to play at patience, although it had defeated her from the outset, as all card games did. When she’d gone to see how he was faring hours before, when impatience had won again, he’d been febrile in his excitement, and flushed, and his opponent, a thick-set gentleman, had scowled up at her when she’d looked to their game of vingt et un. She’d left hardly daring to hope, yet had passed the next hours dreaming on what might be if he’d been right about his luck running on and not out. But now it was past three hours into a new morning and he hadn’t returned to gloat over his triumph with her, and she began to entertain more familiar fears.
She knew how he was faring from the moment she entered the almost deserted salon again. He was still excited, but now his forehead was pale and damp, his hands shook slightly when he picked up his cards, and she knew, without seeing his cards, that he’d lost nearly all she’d seen him win earlier.
So when Arden Lyons came into the room with a weary tread, only for a moment to see if his friend Julian might be there before he took himself off to his own hard-won bed, the first thing he saw was Francesca as she swung her head around and looked to him. And her look was as clear as a cry, and so he was caught in his tracks.
Nothing about him changed dramatically, except he no longer so much as glanced at her. He continued to shamble into the room, looking burnt to the socket and only mildly interested in the game going forth. But even though he said nothing, only watched with great interest from a vantage point near the thick-set gentleman’s shoulder, it was impossible to ignore a man his size, and his silence was as enormous as he was. Eventually the heavyset fellow looked up. And seemed to pause for one startled second before he regained his composure and stared a pointed, annoyed question at the intruder casting a shadow over his game.
Arden wore a look of almost bovine innocence.
“Oh, excuse me,” he said with great contrition, moving a step aside, amiable stupidity positively shining forth from him, “I couldn’t help watching. And then I noticed…oh, am
I interrupting the game? Anyway,” he said, while both players paused and stared at him, so blockheaded as to rumble on while they clearly wanted only to get on with their game, “I couldn’t help but notice your ring, sir. Very like the one the Earl of Darnley wears. Could you be any relation? South of Chichester, Darnley Hall. Went to school with my father,” he added helpfully.
When he’d got no answer, he went on chattily, “I thought you’d rather speak with me about him than play now, anyway. The ring, you see, so distinctive, you do understand…” he concluded, letting his voice trail off.
The heavy gentleman grew red-faced and looked furtively at the few interested spectators still watching the game.
“Very well,” he said, and to Francesca’s amazement and her father’s complete confusion, he laid down his cards and looked hard at Arden.
“Very wise,” Arden said approvingly. “Let’s have a little game ourselves, sir. But as the hour is late,” he said thoughtfully, “let’s make it a brief one. I tell you what… Have you a coin? I’ll call it for the pot. For the entire pot,” he said more briskly and a little impatiently, “that you’ve won from my friend Baron Wyndham this night. I’ll not ask for a cent more, nor,” he said with a hint of steel in his low voice, “a cent less.”
To the absolute wonder of the spectators, the thick-set man, frowning fiercely all the while, fumbled a coin from out of a waistcoat pocket. And then, as the implacable Mr. Lyons watched silently, he put it in his palm and thrust one thick thumb beneath it, sending it spinning into the air. It landed on the table. Before he could call the coin, before anyone could see which side it had landed on, Arden’s hand shot out. He placed his large palm entirely over the coin. He smiled.
“Heads,” he said.
The thick-set gentleman grew redder, and as he reached for the coin, Arden fingered it thoughtfully. Then he smiled again. “Neat work,” he complimented the other. “Only a hairbreadth. But I’ve decided I lied. All the baron’s coin…and this. As a memento. So I may remember you, should you be unlucky enough to encounter me in a gaming hell again. Anywhere upon this earth.”
After the losing gamester had restored the baron’s funds and stormed out of the salon, the baron and his daughter looked the same question to Arden Lyons.
“Simple stuff, really,” he said with a shrug, “if one was watching, not playing,” he added, for Francesca’s benefit and the baron’s pride. “The ring,” he explained. “It was truly distinctive, only a disk with a faint coat of arms in gold, the rest polished, shining, bright and smooth as a looking glass. Ah, yes,” he agreed with the baron’s dawning comprehension, “and so loose it frequently slipped round on his finger. He knew every card he dealt, every card you held. He knew of the Earl of Darnley too—the fool was thrown out of every club in London as a Captain Sharp. A hundred years ago, it’s true, but such legends are current as yesterday to those of the criminal fraternity.”
“And the coin toss?” Francesca asked as fearfully as if she expected Arden to retreat into a bottle if she spoke too loudly.
“Shaved,” the baron said confidently.
“Just so,” Arden answered, examining it again. “The rim, so it would always land heads. Very nicely done, too.”
The baron thanked him fulsomely, and only resisted offering him a share in the funds when a look in Arden’s eyes warned him off.
“Shall I escort you to your room, my lord,” Arden asked, “and help you protect your gold? Or may I escort your grander jewel to hers?”
The baron checked, and then remembering Francesca, he beamed. “If there’s no one dicing on the stairway, I’ll do well enough,” he said with something of apology. “Please do watch over my greater treasure instead, sir.”
There were a great many clever things Francesca wished to say when her father left and Arden began walking her to the staircase, but it was late, and her thoughts were disordered in any case. The only things she could think as they mounted the stair and he gazed down at her quizzically had to do with the miracle she’d just beheld, when her future had been put back into her father’s hands by this knowing stranger.
“How could you tell it was heads-side-up?” she asked.
“Oh,” he said, grinning at her wonderment, “smooth hands. Not just dandies have sensitive fingers. I can read a coin blindfolded. Yes,” he went on conversationally as they went up the stairs and he watched her raise her skirts a jot too high from her slender ankles in carelessness brought on by weariness, “it takes all the senses to game well. I don’t take snuff or a cigarillo into a gambling establishment, because then I couldn’t scent the tallow used to wax the cards so they can be dealt or sleeved more easily. I don’t drink more than a bottle or two neither, so that I can watch every subtle movement. And so I can listen closely to hear how the dice are weighted, how the cards are dealt, and how a coin rings when it hits a tabletop. In short, I don’t have much fun in a gambling establishment.”
“You only make a fortune,” Francesca said, unthinking, as she realized that despite his kindness tonight, this man was a gambler, very like her father, only cleverer.
“At least, I don’t lose one,” he said. “Nor,” he added with a touch of temper when he saw her face as she stopped at the top of the stairs to look at him, “do I let friends lose theirs either.”
They walked down the corridor to her room in silence. When they reached her door, she bit her lip, turned around, and looked up at him. “I’m sorry,” she said simply, her husky voice a shade lower. “That was badly done of me. You deserve my thanks, not my disapproval. It’s only that, given my circumstances,” she said, avoiding his eyes as she spoke the essential truth she owed him, “you understand I would find it difficult to approve of a gambler.”
“But, my dear lady,” he replied, looking down at her fondly, for really, it was late and he was tired, and it took more control than he knew he had to keep from reaching out for more than the hand which he drew to his lips, “I am not a gambler.”
And then, as she gazed at him, puzzled again, he regretfully relinquished the slender hand he’d swallowed up in his and added that old, familiar truism so that she might understand him, in this, at least. “Gamblers,” he explained, “don’t gamble, not ever, you see.”
He went to sleep that night with the sound of her throaty laughter still ringing in his ears. He was delighted with the way an unsuccessful night had turned out so well. For he’d lied to Mrs. Devlin. He didn’t take tobacco, but he’d still the smoky taste of it in his mouth. Marie-Anne had it on her tongue and he’d tasted it when he’d come into her flat and taken her in his arms and then possessed her mouth in a long, deep kiss. And then he’d put her aside ruefully, for her curved body had felt very good against his.
“I came too late,” he’d said, touching her cheek gently, “and that I would have understood. For I never asked for fidelity any more than you have asked it of me. But please,” he’d continued as he turned and picked up his hat and went to the door again, “let the poor fellow out of the wardrobe before he suffocates from his cigarillo, will you?”
But the loss of a wayward mistress was easily forgotten as he lay back and thought of what he might have gained tonight.
And Francesca, in her own bed, thanked several patron saints, but fell asleep thinking of a very wicked mortal, and smiled as she thought of him.
So for all Julian and Roxanne continued to wrap themselves into new and complex configurations in their search for gratification, it well might have been that Arden Lyons, alone in his bed, and Francesca, isolated in hers, were closer, even so, at heart, to each other tonight.
6
It wasn’t at all a lovely day, Francesca thought when she arose early to look out on a spare, cool gray morning. Yet, whatever it looked like, it was a magnificent day for her. It was so early in the spring that the trees hadn’t got word of it yet, and neither had the sun or wind. But even if the calendar hadn’t insisted, she’d have known. She didn’t need flowers or songbirds in or
der to celebrate the season; it was a time of rebirth for herself as well. Because suddenly, after a drear winter of hopelessness, it seemed there was enough sun in her own heart to light all of France.
For not only had her father gotten his ill-gotten gains back last night, but this morning he’d also sent her a note, with some more legal ones from France accompanying it, along with instructions to order up some new frocks for herself. It wasn’t love of the latest fashions that then made her waltz barefoot and alone the length of her room and back again. It was the thought that her fortunes were changing again that caused the impromptu dance, and the sudden joy of it that also made her whirl to a halt and impulsively hug her dancing-partner pillow. But she didn’t see its bland white featureless face as she gazed at it, and its blameless blank surface was never the reason she suddenly sobered and placed it on her bed again, pensive at last, wondering how an enemy so quickly could have become so important an ally, even an ideal, when nothing had changed but her fortunes because of him.
He certainly had not. Arden Lyons was still Cecily’s suitor. Still a shadowy fellow with talents a genuine gentleman ought not to have. And the look he’d left her with last night was no less an admixture of sensual appraisal and approval than it had been when her father had not the penny to ask for her thoughts on fashion or any other matter. And yet, against all reason, when things had been at their lowest ebb and she’d seen him, she’d wanted to run into his arms for comfort. There’d been no logic to it, or help for it; there it was. Perhaps Mrs. Deems’ odd theory of the protectiveness of large men had truth to it, for he had helped her. But, both wiser and having to be wiser than Mrs. Deems was, she knew that if she’d entered those arms later that night, as she’d been more than half-inclined to do, he wouldn’t have helped her to anything but her own well-deserved disgrace. Oh, it was a good thing, she thought resolutely as she dressed, that with only a little more luck she’d soon have her own funds again to help her seek her own fortune again.
