Miss Gabriel's Gambit

by Rita Boucher

  “I beg your pardon, Miss Gabriel,” he said, noting her look of annoyance.

  “I vow, you are just like Sylvia, ever listening with half an ear,” she said with a pout. “I wondered if your friend Mr. Petrov ever attends Almack’s?”

  “His aunt, the Countess Lieven, is a Patroness, so I suspect he does make an occasional appearance,” David replied. “However, I believe that he had an engagement for a chess game at White’s this evening.”

  “Chess,” Caroline made the word a sigh. “How I hate that game, milord. It has ruined my dear cousin’s life. Oh my!” The girl bit her lip and her brow wrinkled in worry.

  “Whatever is wrong, Miss Gabriel? Have I trod upon you, for I confess that I am not the best of dancers?” David asked.

  “Oh no, milord. It is far worse, I fear. Lord Highslip has returned once again with your friend Brummel. It is too bad that the earl chooses to make a cake of himself, like this. Poor Sylvia, if he continues in this vein it is bound to add credence to the dreadful talk that has been making the rounds,” she said, shaking her head sadly.

  Indeed, a glance confirmed that Highslip had returned to Miss Gabriel’s side and was behaving like a veritable moonling.

  “Really,” Caroline said in exasperation. “One would think that the wretch would be ashamed to approach her, after all the damage that he has done.”

  “Whatever do you mean, Miss Gabriel?” David asked, his full attention upon her now.

  “I really ought not to say,” Caroline declared, pursing her lips. She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “When Highslip found that all of Sylvia’s money was gone, he jilted her. It broke her heart and I fear that she will never recover from her unrequited love.”

  Although David was surprised that Miss Gabriel would confide her cousin’s secrets to a near-stranger, he made no attempt to stem the flow of gossip.

  “It is too bad of him to be making an exhibition of her and blowing her reputation to flinders. Especially when he made it clear last year that he had to marry to fill his purse,” Caroline whispered indignantly. “And after she had defied Uncle Miles’ wishes in the matter by continuing to entertain the earl’s suit! It was a bitter blow for Sylvia, I suppose, to find that Uncle Miles had been correct about Lord Highslip’s character all along.”

  “And they were engaged?” David asked, encouraging further revelation.

  “The banns had not been read, nor had announcements been made,” Caroline allowed. “Uncle Miles would not countenance it. He insisted that Sylvia should spend some time in London before making it all official. However, according to her Papa’s will my cousin was due to come into control of her affairs and Uncle could not have stopped her then.”

  “Rather unusual, for an heiress to be given free rein so young,” David observed.

  “Mama was mortified when she heard of it, but by then Uncle Miles was gone and so was Sylvia’s fortune.” Caroline gave Highslip a fulminating glance. “Only the family and Lord Highslip knew of the matter and so, when the earl cried off, we had thought it buried and done, but apparently, that is not the case. Lady Jersey just taxed me with it, and although I told her the truth of it, I suspect that she did not believe me. I know he is your friend, but he is the only one who could have spread this malice.”

  The measure of the music required them to exchange partners and Caroline was brooding in glum silence by the time she returned to David’s side. Still, the girl had given him ample fare to chew. There was little doubt in Lord Donhill’s mind that Caroline Gabriel’s account of the affair was more faithful to truth than the earl’s. David’s regard for the dandy dropped from minimal to nil. Highslip had sought to place Sylvia Gabriel in the role of jilt, when it was he who had done her the injury.

  After David returned Caroline to her Mama, he pondered his moves. Ambling about in a desultory manner, David caught snatches of whispers. Even seemingly favorable comments about Miss Gabriel were tinged with the green of jealousy. A hasty consultation with Brummel confirmed the worst. The story that Miss Gabriel had entertained Highslip’s suit then high-handedly spurned him was gaining wide circulation.

  “I would like to do Highslip’s neckcloth up good and tight,” David declared.

  Brummel shook his head. “Now, now, David. That would remedy nothing.”

  “What can we do?” David asked.

  “Very little, I am afraid,” Brummel admitted with a shrug. “There are far too many tabbies who are envious of Miss Gabriel’s looks. All we can attempt is to tell the true tale, but even then, I suspicion that the winds of gossip will not blow in her favor.”

  “I fear we have done her no good, George. With such talk going about, I doubt that she will be able to find a husband as we had hoped,” David said looking mournfully at Sylvia. “I ask you, was there ever such a fool as Highslip? To jilt any female simply because she has lost her funds is contemptible, but to forsake a woman like Sylvia Gabriel is an act of sheer stupidity. Any man of intelligence would take her in a trice, even if she had only a shift to her name.” The thought of Sylvia in a shift flashed through David’s brain and the room grew suddenly warm.

  Brummel smiled knowingly. “There is one way to teach the dog a lesson, David. Find her fortune and Highslip will be well-served for his perfidy.”

  David grinned in understanding. “Bad enough to lose the girl, but if the fortune was there all along ... I vow it will send him into apoplexy. I shall do it!” he declared, pulling off his spectacles to polish them excitedly.

  “Your linen,” Brummel reminded.

  David looked shamefacedly at him. “Sorry, George. Shall I attempt to retie the thing?”

  Brummel waved his hand in dismissal. “Might as well try to resurrect the dead,” he declared. “Tis too far-gone.”

  David hurried off to speak to Sylvia regarding her Uncle’s will.

  “Far-gone, indeed,” Brummel murmured softly. “I sincerely hope the lady plays chess.”

  Chapter 5

  “Perhaps I ought to go back to Crown Beeches,” Sylvia said, putting aside her tambour frame and going to the window. A curtain of rain fell, pounding in heavy drops against the pane. “The whispers have gotten worse, I fear. The chill looks that I get almost make me shiver.”

  “On the contrary, Syl,” Caroline said, leafing idly through Ackermann’s fashion plates. “You get the warmest of looks from the male contingent. ‘Tis just the females that wish you to China or someplace equally distant. There are none that hold a candle to you, cousin.”

  Sylvia looked at Caroline sharply, but could detect no trace of resentment upon her face or in her voice.

  “I am no beauty. I know that,” Caroline said with a smile. “But I am well enough to look upon past the nose.”

  “Mr. Petrov seems to think so,” Sylvia said, returning to sit beside her cousin.

  “Pooh, he thinks of nothing but his chessboard,” Caroline declared, nonetheless, she blushed thinking of the Russian and his dark mournful eyes.

  “Not when he called the other day,” Sylvia pointed out. “He was looking at you all the while.”

  “You know full well that he only accompanied Lord Donhill to discuss Uncle’s will. ‘Tis only the chess puzzle that fascinates him, I fear, not my beau yeux.” Caroline sighed. “He follows Lord Donhill like the tail to a hound.”

  “Unfortunately, we had no chance to talk of the will, the parlor was so crowded,” Sylvia said glumly.

  “With all your suitors,” Caroline said, laughingly.

  “Do not call them so, please.” Sylvia shook her head.

  In a teasing voice, Caroline ticked off the names on her fingers. “Lord Entshaw seemed quite taken with you and I thought Mr. Colber’s eyes would quite pop out of his head.”

  “Lord Entshaw, puts me in mind of a balding slug, fifty if he is a day, with hands that are forever straying. Your Mama was in alt at his condescension, for slug though he may be, he is a titled slug.” Sylvia grimaced. “As for Mr. Colber, his staring is but
a trifle compared to Hugo’s gaze. I vow, last night I could feel his eyes following me about the room. Everyone could not help but remark it. It was most discomfiting. I should leave, Caro.”

  “You cannot let Lord Highslip chase you from town, Syl,” Caroline said, putting her magazine down to take her cousin’s hand. “I vow if it were not so monstrous annoying, it would be quite romantic. It seems if Highslip cannot have you, he seeks to assure that no one else will.”

  Sylvia looked at the girl in surprise. Although Caroline was not known for the depths of her perception, Sylvia examined her cousin’s pronouncement with growing concern. During Hugo’s courtship, Sylvia had accounted his excessive jealousy as a sign of his regard, now she wondered if Caro’s conjecture had hit the mark. Certainly, it would explain the earl’s outré behavior as well as the rumors that had suddenly become rife. As much as Aunt Ruby disliked her, Sylvia could not credit that the woman would deliberately spread such information that would cast such serious aspersions upon a member of her own family.

  Even in his youth, Highslip had always been uncommonly possessive, issuing dire warnings about trespassing upon Highslip land to the local children, often enforcing his rules with his fists, Sylvia remembered. From the recesses of memory, she dredged up an incident, recollected, in the main, because of the great agitation that it had caused Uncle Miles. It had occurred soon before she and Will had come to Crown Beeches. Even then, Hugo’s family had been floating down the River Tick. In an effort at economy, Hugo’s father had sold a hunter, one that his son had greatly prized, to Sylvia’s uncle. However, before the horse could be sent to its new owner, Hugo rode off upon it, neck or nothing, bringing the animal back utterly ruined. The hunter had to be put down.

  Back then, she had dismissed the tale as an overblown rumor, but now, Sylvia felt a cold finger of fear running up her spine. Unfortunately, if Hugo had deliberately set out to ruin her chances, there was little she could do. “What rubbish,” Sylvia declared, as much to herself as to her cousin. “It sounds like the plot to one of those Minerva Press novels that you devour, Caro.”

  The girl grinned sheepishly. “Actually, it is from The Viscount’s Vengeance. Edward - he’s the hero - attempts to thwart the heroine’s marriage to an Italian nobleman who is really a loathsome fiend. Would you care to read it?”

  “I doubt that it would be instructive in my case,” Sylvia said wistfully as she took up her needlework again. “Since it is unlikely that anyone shall wish to wed me, especially with Hugo behaving so untowardly.”

  “A posy arrived from Lord Donhill,” Caroline said, attempting to cheer her cousin. “It arrived before Mama went up to rest.”

  “I saw it, and one was sent for you as well,” Sylvia said. “Lord Donhill is merely being kind.”

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Enter,” Caroline called, picking up her fashion plates once more with a sigh as Boniface opened the door. “I suppose that you are right about Lord Donhill. After all, neither of us are likely to attempt to check him and wed him.”

  “Then we may both enter in complete safety, Petrov,” Lord Donhill said, as the butler ushered the two of them into the drawing room. “I vow everywhere I turn these days, I face importunate ladies with chess board at the ready. Why only yesterday, I was challenged by a widow who was near twice my age and certainly twice my girth.”

  “And what did you do, milord?” Caroline asked with a coquettish smile.

  “Quaked in my boots and prayed to the spirit of Philador, Miss Gabriel,” David said, the twinkle in his eyes belying his somber demeanor. “But I need not have worried, the woman was the rankest pawn-pushing amateur, as most females are. Your sex has more important matters to occupy your pretty heads, fashions and other such folderol.”

  Sylvia busied herself with her embroidery, taking in deep breaths and keeping her tongue between her teeth. Still, it was difficult to resist the temptation to call the chessmaster to account for his denigrating braggadocio.

  Petrov seated himself and began a quiet conversation with Caroline while David took a chair beside Sylvia.

  “I have come to fulfill my promise, Miss Gabriel. My apologies for calling so early, but there seemed no other way to have private speech with you,” Lord Donhill explained. “If you will but set your Uncle’s puzzle before me, I shall attempt to solve it.”

  It was difficult for Sylvia to maintain her annoyance in the face of his enthusiasm. Lord Donhill’s wet Hessians were dripping on the Aubusson carpet. His dark curls hung damply across his forehead. His glasses had fogged with the effect of rain and he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe them clear. Sylvia noted this visible restraint as testament to Brummel’s influence with amusement, but the unshuttered effect of those deep brown eyes was most unsettling and she found herself caught in their depths, unable to look away.

  “Do you have the will?” David asked, setting the spectacles on his nose once more.

  Sylvia blinked and shook her head. “No, I am afraid. I have requested a copy from the solicitor. However,” she hastened to add, seeing his disappointment. “I do know the clue by heart.” She set the frame aside and closing her eyes in concentration, she began to recite.

  “Yea, dance with a fool, I shall not allow,

  you to wed him anyhow.

  For though I may be buried and dead,

  No fool’s mate shall ye take to your bed.

  When you seek to tread the matrimonial measure,

  you shall recall these words with pleasure

  King’s pawn black, king’s pawn white,

  Bishop’s move black and black’s move knight.

  Knight to rook’s forth move again

  Queen to rook’s fifth, bishop’s mate at end.

  Seek the board and step at leisure

  And you shall uncover the Rajah’s treasure.”

  She opened her eyes to find Donhill staring raptly at her. “My uncle was a better chess-player than he was a poet, I fear.”

  “I would say so,” David said, recovering himself and scrambled to recall the words of the poem, having been utterly distracted by the woman who recited it. “‘The Rajah’s treasure,’ I suppose, is the fortune your father amassed in India?”

  Sylvia nodded.

  “And the ‘fool’s mate,’ is Lord Highslip?” David guessed. Sylvia’s blush was a confirmation.

  “Uncle objected strongly to the match. He told me that I ought to give other men a chance. In fact, his will stipulated that the family travel to London immediately for a Season and that no mourning should be observed. Aunt Ruby deemed it so outré a demand that she gave up a substantial financial incentive to repair to London right after the burial. Perhaps she was right and Uncle was out of his head when he made the will, for he had always been something of a stickler for proper behavior,” Sylvia speculated. Which was why he never wished it known that I play chess, she added silently. Chess is no proper woman’s game.

  “A Season would certainly have been out of the question,” David agreed. “And the chess puzzle seems somewhat out of kilter.”

  “Certainly, it is one of the eight classic ‘fool’s mates,’” Sylvia mused. “Except that black takes precedence and white has only one move.” Sylvia flushed as she realized that David was looking at her. “Coming from a family such as mine, milord, one cannot help but absorb something of the game. I was my uncle’s secretary for several years and he taught me a bit,” Sylvia said, hoping that her hedging had satisfied him.

  “I would have expected as much, both your father and uncle being premier chess-players,” David said.

  “They were indeed,” Sylvia said, seizing the opportunity to turn his attention from herself. “Papa devoted his life to the game, travelling all over Europe, the East, even the Americas, searching for worthy opponents. He would win and lose fortunes.”

  “Mostly win, I would suspect.”

  Sylvia nodded. “He rarely lost a game, even when it would have been more politic to
do so, for one Pasha nearly had him beheaded for daring to trounce him, but we escaped. Mama disguised him as her maid, hiding him in a chador and veil.” She giggled at the recollection of her dignified Papa in skirts.

  “Truly?” David asked in surprise.

  “The costume is in the attic somewhere, I believe, among my parents’ things if you do not credit me. We travelled everywhere with them. The family was rarely in the same place for more than a month,” Sylvia said. “There were so few players that could match Papa, you see. He always had to move on to fresh competition.”

  David heard the traces of wistfulness in her voice. “It must have been a strange life for a child.”

  “It was certainly unusual” Sylvia agreed. “There were times that I wished for a proper home, but I do not think that either of us, my brother Will or myself, would have really wanted it any other way.”

  Her eyes were far away as if focused on those distant lands and her lips curved upward dreamily, as she recalled those days, but the smile disappeared as she continued.

  “However, Mama ... it was extremely difficult for her. We lived like nomads, constantly packing and unpacking. I think that she almost hated chess. When I was very small, I recall playing with the pieces and Mama knocked them out of my hand and began to cry.”

  “And why did your Mama tolerate it then?” David asked.

  “She adored Papa,” Sylvia said. “And despite his devotion to chess, I think that he loved her. It is just that she wanted to come first. Every woman wants to be above all else in a man’s life.”

  Her eyes glistened with unshed tears and David wondered if she were thinking of Highslip, who had put money before love. Was Caroline correct? Was her cousin still nursing a broken heart despite the fact that the man had been proven an utter blackguard? How typical of females, to waste their regard on men who were unworthy of them. It was easy to understand why Sir Miles had gone to such extreme lengths to protect his niece from Highslip and David’s resolve was firmed. Brummel was correct; locating her fortune would be the best revenge for the suffering that Highslip had inflicted upon her.