by KJ Charles
“But despite the provincial bliss, you felt the urge for a change of scene?” he suggested.
“Don’t we all feel that now and again?” Loxleigh returned, dealing the next hand. “Mrs. Blaine said you divide your time between town and country.”
“I run her brewery,” Hart said bluntly. “Alice’s father left everything to my sister, and now I am in charge of the business.” Which was to hint, heavily, that Alice had no money of her own.
“Then you are an excellent brother and uncle to work for your family’s benefit,” Loxleigh returned.
“I am paid a salary.” In fact he took a cut of the profits, which could be described as dividends rather than something as lowly as a salary, but he wanted to see what bland platitude Loxleigh would come up with.
He wasn’t disappointed. “The labourer is worthy of his hire. I believe a man does well to have an occupation.”
“What’s yours?”
“We have a very little land. Nothing grand. The area is beautiful.”
“A country soul,” Hart said, spinning a card onto the table. “Do you intend to live out your life in this rustic haven?”
Loxleigh’s face showed nothing but the smile. “That was always my expectation. I have wondered recently— Well, we shall see what fate brings.”
“Such as a wife?”
“Perhaps, if I am so fortunate. Or a husband for my sister. That would change things.”
“She’s very lovely.”
“She is.”
“You seem a devoted pair.”
Loxleigh looked up from his hand. “I dare say domesticity is mocked in sophisticated company, but in truth, I don’t care. It has been the two of us for a long time. Marianne deserves everything London has to give her, and she will have it if I have anything to say to the matter.”
His hazel eyes were different when he said that. Alive, but not smiling, not smiling in the least. Hart watched him as he looked down at his cards again, and thought, So that’s what you look like when you’re telling the truth.
He nudged a bit further. “I suppose you will be very lonely if she makes a match in London.”
“I should be a poor brother if I let my selfish concerns stand in her way. But I hope we will always be close, and she will be a sister to my wife too. If that should come to pass, of course.”
“Of course.”
They played the hand out with little more talk and Hart emerged the winner by a few pounds. He couldn’t fault Loxleigh’s play, any more than he could fault the man’s words. There was barely a chink in his facade of steady humble decency.
And every instinct Hart had screamed he was a liar.
Chapter Three
Robin Loxleigh was in a mixed frame of mind.
The Beaumont ball had gone well. He’d got a good few blushes out of Alice, the kind that came with proper smiles, and when he’d enquired if she might be at home to receive a caller the next day, she’d said her stepmother would be pleased to see him. She wasn’t precisely falling into his arms, but that was for the best: if she had a habit of flinging herself at any man who showed interest, all but the most negligent parent would raise doubts about a swift marriage.
Robin had initially hoped that Alice’s family would be negligent, or that Mrs. Blaine would want to push out the cuckoo in her nest, but nothing could be further from the case. The older woman obviously adored her stepdaughter, who called her Mama. They were a happy and a loving pair. It gave Robin a feeling in his stomach that he preferred not to have.
Still, if an affectionate home made Alice less vulnerable to a lover’s blandishments, it offered Robin a different advantage: Mrs. Blaine would not want to deny her anything that made her happy. He just needed to persuade them both that that included himself as a husband.
In fairness, he had every intention of making her happy. She was not a pretty girl, but he didn’t care about that, and she was pleasant company, very amusing when she got over her shyness. They’d rub along well and he’d make her a good husband by the world’s standards. He had no intention of squandering her money: he’d live happily on the interest of twenty thousand, well invested. He’d respect her, present a face of affection and mutual kindness to the world, make her a matron to be envied by prettier misses, and plough her if she wanted, albeit while thinking about other people. That surely made him better than most husbands he’d heard of. Robin might be a fortune hunter, but he’d treat his prize well once he’d won her.
And he would win her. He had a handsome face and taking ways, plus Marianne to attest to what a good, kind brother he was, and standing ready to embrace the lonely orphan Alice as her sister. What girl could resist?
The only fly in the ointment was Hartlebury.
Robin had an uncomfortable feeling about him. He’d seemed aggressive when they’d played at Lady Wintour’s hell, and Robin couldn’t quite put that down to his notorious brusqueness. He’d been pushing, Robin was sure, and he’d watched too closely.
Doubtless some of the awkwardness had sprung from Robin’s own thoughts. He’d felt extremely self-conscious at being found by the man in a hell. Gambling was a common recreation for all classes, and there was no reason he shouldn’t play, but it was undeniably a poor match for his parade of domestic virtue.
What else was he to do? They needed the money. Marianne was spending it like water on bonnets and dresses while insisting they build up a substantial reserve in case the fortunes they hunted got away. She didn’t intend to flee the city with nothing but the clothes they stood up in, not again. Robin had all the incidental expenses of a gentleman to meet, including making sure he could cover his occasional losses. Those were inevitable, no matter how good he was with the cards, and if he ever failed to pay a debt of honour they’d be sunk.
No, he had no choice but to play. And Hartlebury was a gamester too; he would be a hypocrite to hold another man’s play against him. That probably wouldn’t stop him—hypocrisy was the defining feature of the upper classes in Robin’s view—but who knew; perhaps a man who actually worked rather than simply waiting for money to be handed to him might be a little more tolerant.
Except, he had watched Robin. At the Beaumont ball, at Lady Wintour’s, and again just last night at the Laodicean Club.
Robin had joined the Laodicean at vast expense, sponsored by an unimportant but rich young man named Mowbray whose fiancée had become bosom friends with Marianne. It was an investment. Playing at informal events in the houses of the rich was safest, but he had to be restrained or the upper-class sheep would start to count up how many of them he’d shorn. Gaming hells had big unfriendly men who kept a weather eye out for sharps. A gentleman’s club was the perfect compromise. Large winnings and losses were entirely expected in the Laodicean, where the play was frighteningly high, with hundreds wagered on the turn of a card. Robin had had to learn not to count it as money, only a means of keeping score, because throwing away those sums terrified him. He’d had to excuse himself from the table his first time in a deep hell, because his stomach had rebelled, and he’d feared disgracing himself in public.
He was hardened now, or in too deep to turn back. One of the two. He was ready to play anywhere he could find a game, and take whatever money he could wring out of the wealthy. But he hadn’t been ready for Hartlebury’s looming presence in the corner of his eye.
‘Hart’, the man’s friends called him. It was bizarre he had friends at all, the intimidating bastard. Sir John Hartlebury was an imposing, heavy-set man, looking forty for all Alice claimed he was a mere thirty-two, inelegant and powerful, with a gruff voice, thick thighs, strong shoulders, and absurdly heavy eyebrows that gave him a permanent scowl. A bruiser, except for those striking, clear blue eyes set over a prominent Roman nose.
And he’d stood behind Robin, watching for some unspecified length of time without him noticing. That was not good, because last night Robin had been forced to play by Vincent’s law. The cards had run against him; a series of risks hadn’t
paid off. He’d found himself eight hundred pounds down at one point, a sum that didn’t bear thinking about when a jeweller’s bill had eaten into their cash reserves that very morning. He’d had no choice but to even the odds. Improve his chances. Cheat.
Another man might have panicked in the face of that mounting debt. Robin had stayed calm, enhanced his hands with a few judicious aces, and come out of the night only seventy pounds down. It would have been a relief except that Sir John Hartlebury had been there. Not playing. Watching.
It would be nice to think he’d been observing his niece’s suitor with a view to giving his blessing, but Robin wasn’t holding his breath for that. Hartlebury was notoriously rag-mannered, with his brusque unwillingness to trouble with social niceties, but even given that, he’d radiated hostility. Robin had done his best to charm, but everything he’d tried had bounced off the man’s armour. He just hoped that was because Hartlebury was protective of Alice, rather than what he really feared, which was that he’d spotted Robin fuzzing the cards.
He didn’t want to consider that possibility. He hadn’t even mentioned it to Marianne, in the hope that if he didn’t voice it, it wouldn’t be true. Not talking about things was almost the same as them not having happened, a principle that had served Robin well for years. And surely if Hartlebury had seen he’d have spoken up at the time, exposed Robin in the act. Surely.
It couldn’t be that, Robin assured himself, but he felt a pulse of nerves at what awaited them at Mrs. Blaine’s house, where he and Marianne were heading for tea.
“You look like you’re off to your own execution,” Marianne remarked. “Cheer up. You need to approach this in the right spirit. Are you going to make a declaration?”
“Too soon, but I’ll make sure she’s amenable, get her hopes up. You could drop a hint I’ve spoken to you about it.”
“Of course, my best of brothers.”
Marianne’s presence on visits to Alice was window dressing: making sure his interest wasn’t too blatant, and showing himself a loving brother who could be trusted with a woman’s well-being. It helped Marianne too, since she made a point of treating other women as friends rather than rivals. Her behaviour proclaimed that she was not one of those beauties focused on the hunt for a husband, but rather a delightful woman who would make a very amiable daughter-in-law. That ought to undermine the competition nicely.
They arrived at Mrs. Blaine’s house a little chilly but refreshed by the walk. Robin gave his hat, coat, and stick to a fatherly and smiling butler—that was a good sign, since the staff seemed fond of Alice—and they were admitted to the drawing room, where Robin got an unwelcome shock because Hartlebury was there.
He stood in the corner of the room, a looming figure of disapproval. His clothing was almost aggressively drab, and though well-enough cut showed no great care in the dressing. If Robin had had thighs like that, he’d have made sure his pantaloons showed them to full advantage, but this was a man who dressed for functionality alone. The dun-coloured coat emphasised his breadth of shoulder in an intimidating sort of way, not helped by that beaky nose and of course the eyebrows. They were thick, dark, and set in a perpetual scowl over enviably blue eyes. Robin would have liked blue eyes himself. He’d also have liked Hartlebury not to be here.
“Ah, Mr. Loxleigh, Miss Loxleigh. My brother, Sir John Hartlebury,” Mrs. Blaine said. “Have you met?”
Robin said they had, and produced a sincere and charming smile as he bowed. Hartlebury simply nodded in response.
Tea proceeded rather awkwardly, given his grim and silent presence. Robin tried asking about the man’s business, hoping to draw him out, and received monosyllabic replies. He switched his attentions to Mrs. Blaine, who seemed rather conscious of her ungracious brother. Marianne did her best, always smiling, speaking to Hartlebury without a hint of flirtation, and suggesting various ideas for excursions to Alice.
“And would your brother accompany you as escort?” Hartlebury asked, finally breaking his silence when Marianne proposed a shopping trip to Clark and Debenham on Wigmore Street.
“If Alice wishes it,” Marianne replied calmly. “Robin is the best of brothers, always ready to give up his own pleasures to squire me around.”
“I thought you had plenty of squires.”
That could have been a poorly phrased compliment. Robin was pretty sure it wasn’t. Marianne inclined her head as modestly as if it were blatant flattery. “We’ve been fortunate to make a wide acquaintance in our short time here, but I prefer my brother’s company to any other. We were orphaned quite young and it has always been the two of us. That is very important to me.”
“Aren’t you looking to change your state?” Hartlebury’s blue eyes flicked to Robin. “Either of you?”
Marianne smiled. “To marry? I don’t feel any great urgency.”
“Not at your age?”
“Hart!” Mrs. Blaine almost shrieked. “Good heavens!”
“I’m twenty-one,” Marianne lied, smile pinned on her face. “Perhaps that is on the shelf by London standards, but not, I assure you, as a countrywoman. Marry in haste, repent at leisure, we say back home. Well, I believe you are a bachelor, Sir John, so I assume you agree.”
Hartlebury’s cold eyes flicked to Robin. “Do you always let your sister do the talking?”
Mrs. Blaine interjected forcefully at this point, with an account of the respective lengths of her two courtships that carried them through the rest of the teapot. Hartlebury sat silently, his eyes on Robin’s face.
It was staggeringly uncomfortable. The hostility was a palpable thing, and Robin could feel his cheeks heating. He set himself to ignore it and speak pleasantly to Alice, trying to ease her evident discomfort. It was almost a relief when Hartlebury said, “A word in private with you, Loxleigh.”
They went into a study, the desk littered with papers. Hartlebury took the chair without offering Robin one, leaving him standing in front of the desk like a boy in the headmaster’s presence. The devil with that. He spotted a chair against a wall and carried it over, putting it at the side of the desk rather than in front of it. “May I sit?”
Hartlebury looked like he wanted to say no, but waved his hand irritably. Robin seated himself, crossing his legs. “You seem concerned, Sir John. Perhaps you’d tell me what your concern is.”
“What are your intentions toward my niece?”
That was to the point. Robin put on a little frown. “Miss Fenwick is a delightful young lady. I enjoy her company, and she and my sister have struck up a close friendship—”
“I didn’t ask for an assessment. I asked your intentions.”
“My intentions are to pursue the acquaintance of one of the pleasantest women I have ever been privileged to know. Let me be quite honest—”
“If you would.”
Prick. “I have wondered if my suit would be acceptable to her, and of course Mrs. Blaine, but I am well aware she hasn’t known me long, and I have to consider my and my sister’s situation, and my responsibilities. If I were a wealthy man, able to indulge my wishes—”
“You would sweep Alice away on a white charger?” Hartlebury said drily. “I suppose you received a leveller at the sight of her? Bowled off your feet?”
Robin clenched his fist, in full view, and let a little of his annoyance leak into his voice. “I suppose I understand your implication. It is an unworthy one from a man who ought to be her protector.”
Hartlebury’s heavy eyebrows went up. It was more sarcasm than surprise, but it still made those vivid blue eyes stand out. “Are you telling me how I should speak of my niece?”
“You should speak of her as she deserves. Miss Fenwick has good sense, a good heart, and a good wit,” Robin said swiftly and angrily, the picture of an outraged defender. “Those are the qualities for which I love Marianne and which I want in my own wife.”
“Good heart, good sense, good wit, and twenty thousand pounds.”
Robin widened his eyes and went still with sh
ock. He had a knack for that. “I beg your pardon?”
“You were not aware of the extent of her fortune?”
“I knew she had an inheritance from her father. She didn’t say— I had no idea.”
“Did you not.” Hartlebury spoke with clear contempt.
“That explains your concern. I understand.” Robin frowned, to show he was thinking it through. “As I told you, I’m not a wealthy man. I can’t offer anything to match such a portion—”
“Except a loving heart and a gentle hand to guide her in life, and so forth? Spare me.”
That was exactly what Robin had been working up to. How absolutely typical that the best pair of thighs he’d seen in years should be parcelled up with such a damned inflexible, unaccommodating, sceptical personality. “Sir, I resent your tone. I may not be rich, but I have done nothing to deserve your implications.”
“You have arrived from nowhere—”
“Nottinghamshire!”
“—nowhere, and wheedled yourselves into the ton very successfully. Your sister is encouraging the attentions of Lord Tachbrook, a pompous fool whose only recommendation is his title. You have set yourself at my niece, whose qualities I know a great deal better than you. You cheat at cards.”
Robin stood explosively, shoving the chair away. “What? How dare you!”
“Very easily. I saw you do it.”
“You did not, because I did not. You will take those words back. You may insult me if you wish, but you may not make implications about my sister, and you will not accuse me of dishonouring my name. Take it back!”
“Or what?”
That was a good question. He was substantially the bigger and looked like a boxer, and Robin had no intention of starting a fight that he was bound to lose. Hartlebury was also rich, well born, and well connected: he’d doubtless be believed if he chose to spread the story that Robin was a leg, especially since it was true. Robin had absolutely no weapons against him, except that the bastard was a gentleman.
