The Fortune Hunter

by Jo Ann Ferguson

  She sought what dignity she had remaining. “I did not realize that I was hiding,” she returned, hoping the sharp answer would cover her heartache. Aware of the dozens of ears listening to what she said and weighing each to discover her reaction to Mrs. Howe’s arrival, she refused to be shamed.

  “You seem to be playing least in sight.” He offered his arm. “You know I am anxious to meet Rowland and Seely at the card table.”

  “You want me to play cards with you?” Swallowing roughly, she struggled to control her voice. “I thought you might have changed your plans for this evening.”

  “I do not recall suggesting such a thing.” He seemed oblivious to the witnesses to their stilted conversation. “Tonight you are my partner, Nerissa.”

  “I had thought you might want another.”

  “Why?”

  She stammered on her answer. “I thought … I saw …”

  “I asked you to join me tonight, Nerissa. You have been enjoying good fortune at the card table. I wish to share in it.”

  As he led her across the room, his steps uneven, Nerissa was certain every eye was focused on them. She saw Annis’s strained face and knew, if there was good fortune to be had that evening, it was unlikely to belong to Nerissa Dufresne.

  Hamilton threw his cards down and locked his fingers together on the table as he heard Rowland’s chortle. The skinny fool was foxed! Yet, even as he had downed another glass of the baronet’s contraband brandy, Rowland had won.

  Hamilton reaimed his glower at Nerissa, who had the decency to look properly dismayed at the sudden downturn in her luck. No matter if she was his partner or played against him, she had been costing him blunt any time they had played other than the first night they had sat down with Seely and Rowland. Nincompoop that he was, he continued to allow it!

  Between her and Elinor.… His fingers closed into a fist on his knee. Blast that woman! He should have guessed she would delight in appearing at the party tonight to see what poker-talk she could create. He had guessed correctly! If he had not sent Nerissa to get him a glass of wine when he had, Elinor was certain to have made a scene to mortify Nerissa.

  He watched in silence as Nerissa shuffled the cards. Her fingers were as delicate as the rest of her slender form. As she handed the cards to him, so that he might deal them, she brushed his arm with the heavy lace dripping from the short sleeves of her gown. A flush of heat swelled through him, suffocating and demanding release. He thought how easily he could pull her to him and taste the fire on her soft lips. When her eager breath mingled with his, to set their souls into the heart of the flame, he could forget everything else … even Elinor.

  He dropped the deck onto the table. “Enough for now!”

  “Bah, you have a few mints yet to lose, Windham. Why not lose them now?” Rowland laughed drunkenly. “Why not lose them to my best bosom bow …” He draped his arm around the baronet, who was obviously on the go himself. “… dear Delwyn? We deserve Windham’s gold, don’t we?”

  “I think you have swallowed the hare,” said Hamilton as he stood. Leaning on his walking stick, he drew out Nerissa’s chair, without asking her if she wanted to leave. Her relief was evident on her face as he bid the other men a good evening.

  Only when they walked back into the crowded ballroom did her frown return. “If you have other matters to deal with, Hamilton, I shall find Annis and—”

  “Fiddle! I want to speak with you alone.”

  “I would rather not.”

  Her soft words added to his exasperation. “Come along! As much as you have cost me tonight, the very least you can do is give me a moment of your undivided attention. You certainly were not thinking of our game tonight.”

  Without waiting for her to reply, Hamilton led her into the foyer. Her eyes grew round, but she said nothing as he opened a door and ushered her into a cozy sitting room which was hidden beneath the stairs. He gestured for her to sit on the red, leather sofa, then chose a lyre-backed chair facing her. With a sigh, he sat. When she pushed a stool toward him, he gratefully set his aching leg upon it.

  “I would appreciate an explanation,” he said with another sigh.

  “Of what?”

  “Your performance at the board of green cloth tonight.”

  Nerissa laughed to hide her dismay. Hamilton had been correct. Her thoughts had not been upon the cards. “If you recall, whist is a game of chance. Chance failed to smile upon us this evening.”

  He waved aside her words. “I did not mean that. The game tonight was not such a loss. We did win a few hands, and the company was pleasant until Seely decided to drink out of the island. You said barely two words in a row this evening.”

  “I had nothing to say.” She jutted out her chin in feeble defiance. “As you had nothing to say earlier.”

  “I think we have much to say.”

  “You are wrong. I have nothing to say to you now.” She rose and looked down at him. “I fear I am keeping you from your companions. If you will excuse me …”

  He pushed himself to his feet. When he wobbled, she put out her hand to him, but pulled it back before she could touch him. If she did, she was sure she would no longer be able to restrain her tears. Then she would have to own that she had been barely able to see the markings on the cards through the curtain of tears.

  “Now I understand. You are in a snit about Elinor appearing here tonight, so you decided to take your revenge on me by letting me lose at the card table.”

  “If you could think of anything other than your wounded pride, you may recall I also lost money at the table tonight. I do not consider your relationship with Mrs. Howe of such consequence that I would toss my money to the winds. If you feel uncomfortable about it, that is your own concern, which clearly you had no interest in sharing with me. I excuse you to return to your incognita. I have no wish for any more of your company.”

  “Brava!” he said, sarcasm thickening his voice. “Such a performance should be strutted upon the boards, Nerissa, but your grand exit is ruined by the fact that you are dependent upon me to see you home.”

  “Philip would—”

  “Be your dashing hero? I am sure of that. Also I am sure you could find other transport in the drawing room. I can name several men among this group who would be very happy to escort you home in the shadows of their closed carriages.”

  “You are beneath reproach!”

  “But I am speaking the truth.” He took her hand and drew her back to him. “I know you have no reason to trust me, but believe me when I say that things are not as you may believe.”

  Nerissa tugged her hand away. “They are not as I believed. I thought you would tell me the truth about something as important as Mrs. Howe.”

  “I did not ask her to move into Queen Square.”

  “With you?” She choked. This was even worse than she had feared. She had been an utter widgeon to think Hamilton cared for her. Without saying more, she went to the door.

  Hamilton was not surprised when she refrained from slamming the door. Elinor would have crashed it closed so loudly it would have been heard in the servants’ quarters on the uppermost floors.

  “Damn!” he growled and sat back on the chair. With his ankle as weak as candlewax, he could not give chase without looking like a complete chucklehead.

  But that was what he was! Damn Elinor! Damn Nerissa! The game was not worth the candle, but he must deal with both of them. For that, he needed something more fortifying than Frenchified wine. He hoped Seely had some juniper among the port and Malaga, for he would need it before this night came to an end.

  Nerissa saw Annis on the far side of the room, her head bent in conversation with Philip. If she told Annis she was not feeling good, surely that would give her the excuse to leave early. And it was the truth … her stomach was cramped, and her throat ached from the sobs scratching to escape it.

  The only thing that confused her—as it had from the moment she had seen Hamilton and Mrs. Howe—was why he had brough
t her to Sir Delwny’s party when he brazenly had installed his convenient in his house on Queen Square. He could not have hoped to keep such a fact a secret in the small world of Bath society.

  “Miss Dufresne?”

  At Sir Delwyn’s fuddled voice, she sighed and forced a smile. She must let no one know the depth of her anguish at Hamilton’s betrayal. Facing him, she said, “Sir Delwyn, I must …”

  The satisfied smile on the lips of the ravishing blonde standing behind the baronet silenced Nerissa. She did not need to hear Sir Delwyn’s stumbling introduction. Nor, she suspected, did Mrs. Howe.

  “Miss Dufresne,” cooed the older woman, “this is a meeting I have been anticipating greatly since I arrived in Bath this afternoon. Now, for good and all, we are getting to speak. You have been monopolized by my dear Hamilton all evening at the card table.”

  “Lots of evenings,” the baronet said. “Regular tie-mates, they are.”

  “Is that so?” Mrs. Howe asked. She wafted her fan languidly in front of her face as her cold smile focused on Nerissa. “I suppose you enjoy all sorts of games together, don’t you?”

  “I am sorry I must be rude, Mrs. Howe,” Nerissa said, choosing each word carefully. Even more than before, every ear in the room was aimed at this conversation. No doubt, not a person wished to miss this confrontation. “If you will excuse me, I was about to speak to a dear friend. I have been without manners to leave her this evening.”

  “Now I understand why Hamilton wished me to remain in Town instead of joining him on Queen Square. How convenient you are for him, my dear!”

  Nerissa struggled not to let the woman send her flying up the boughs with her incendiary insults. She bit back her sharp reply when Annis came to stand next to them. The dismayed expression on her friend’s face urged Nerissa to recall that stooping to trading demure hits would gain them nothing. She refused to provide entertainment for Sir Delwyn’s guests.

  When she did not answer, Miss Howe continued, “Such a sweet, silent thing you are! No doubt, he finds you a change from my prattle-box ways. Not that Hamilton would shackle his heart to a bluestocking, you must understand, for he prefers to be entertained by a lady of some imagination.” Her smile grew broader. “I am sure you understand quite well what I mean.”

  “Nerissa, do not listen to her wicked words,” urged Annis, firing a furious glower toward Philip.

  Philip said nervously, “Elinor, you should not—”

  “Oh, Philip,” the blonde said, “you are so straitlaced. Always telling me that I should not do anything fun. Why aren’t you more like Hamilton?” Her eyelashes fluttered enticingly. “He was always telling me to do things that were ever so much fun.”

  Nerissa put her hand on his arm to halt his reply. She would not be drawn into pulling caps in front of Sir Delwyn’s guests. “Good evening, Mrs. Howe. It has been an indescribable experience to have this opportunity to meet you. I trust you will have an enjoyable sojourn in Bath.”

  Her serene exit was ruined when Nerissa turned to discover Hamilton behind her. Hating the heat which climbed her cheeks, she hoped no blush betrayed her to those who were listening candidly. She found her gaze held by the steely eyes that seemed to tell her so much and so little at the same time. Again her fingers itched to reach out to him, but she clenched her hands by her side. That did not slow the fires within her as she imagined his arms around her while his lips—which were softening into a secretive smile—caressed hers. Such thoughts were madness when she stood between him and his mistress.

  Elinor pushed past her. “Do tell Miss Dufresne good night before we go home.” She slipped her arm around Hamilton’s.

  He lifted her hand off his arm. “We bid you good evening, Elinor. If you recall, I escorted Nerissa here this evening. You cannot think that I would abandon her.”

  “Let Philip take her home while you take me home.”

  Rage tightened Hamilton’s lips. Nerissa was sure Mrs. Howe must be oblivious to everything but her own desires. Otherwise, she would see how she was infuriating him. Mrs. Howe should know that he would not be embarrassed publicly.

  When he turned his back on the blonde and bowed his head toward Nerissa, Mrs. Howe’s face twisted with a fury that matched Hamilton’s fiery emotions.

  “Nerissa?” asked Hamilton while he offered his arm to her.

  She replied, “You need not—”

  “But I wish to see you home,” he said in a voice that suggested he would brook no argument.

  She put her fingers on his arm. Nerissa knew she had now made an enemy, one as determined to wreak vengeance on her as Hamilton was on the man who had taken his father’s money. Nerissa did not look back as she left the room at Hamilton’s side. Silence, broken only by whispers as they passed, followed.

  No one spoke as they drove with Philip and Annis the short distance to Laura Place. Nerissa stared at her hands which were clasped in her lap, but wished her bonnet would allow her to sneak a glance at Hamilton. The steady rhythm of the street lamps pierced the darkness, but he clung to the shadows, his face hidden from her.

  Even when he handed her out, Hamilton remained silent. Philip walked with Annis to the door. Nerissa was about to follow, but she turned to face Hamilton.

  “Are you sending her away?” she asked in a whisper.

  He did not pretend not to understand. “She has no other place to go.”

  “Do you still love her?”

  “I hope not.”

  She swallowed roughly, but the lump in her throat refused to be budged. “That is no answer, Hamilton.”

  “It is the only answer I can give you.” His voice grew sharp. “I can tell you, Nerissa, that she matters less to me than nabbing that thief.”

  “Nothing matters more to you than that, does it?”

  “Why are you wasting your breath saying things you know to be true?”

  She fought to keep the tears in her eyes as she whispered, “Then I shall say no more to you tonight.”

  “Nerissa!” he called after her as she climbed the stairs.

  For a moment, she considered not turning, but she paused on the top step. Beyond the open door, she could hear Philip murmuring a good night to Annis. Her heart splintered into a dozen painful pieces. How desperately she longed to share that sweetness with Hamilton! He cared only for revenge.

  He limped to the railing. Putting his hand on it, he looked up at her. “Nerissa, you know what I must do, and you know I cannot change that.”

  “Cannot or will not?” When he did not fire back a glib reply, she said, “Until you know the answer to that, you are right. There is no sense in me wasting my breath speaking to you.”

  “Nerissa!”

  This time, she did not turn as she walked into the house and closed the door, shutting him out of her life, but—she feared—not out of her heart.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The low ceiling of the tavern swallowed all conversation, leaving the dark room filled with smoke from the hearth and mumbles from the crowd. Depressions in the stone floor were filled with stinking pools. Tables, hidden in every crevice along the uneven walls, offered the perfect place to plan a tryst or a death. At most of them, the patrons were drunk on the cheap gin. However, at the table in the corner farthest from the door to the street, a man in an ebony cape sat with a shorter man. No one approached them, for the fine material of the tall man’s cloak bespoke wealth.

  Hamilton shrugged aside his cape as he listened to Mallory. When the Bow Street Runner finished with his lengthy, rambling report, Hamilton asked, “So you are certain Oakley played no hand in cheating my father?”

  “Not a finger, m’lord,” he answered in his thick accent as he drained the blue ruin from his glass and refilled it, spilling some on his hand. Licking it off, he added, “Whatever blunt ’e ’as, and ’tis little, ’e got when an uncle went to his Diet of Worms.” He chuckled. “Don’t sit down with ’im at the board of green cloth, m’lord. ’E don’t ’ave the brass to pay ’is d
ebts.”

  Hamilton let him prattle on as he glowered into his ale. Damn! He had thought his suspicions about Oakley might prove valuable. They had been nothing but another false lead. He must start over again.

  “I want answers!” he said, cutting Mallory off in mid-word. “And I want that thief taken. I have waited long enough for you to do what you vowed you would do before a week passed. It’s been more than twice that, and my patience is depleted.”

  Mallory cringed away from his honed words. The shorter man had recovered from the beating by the unseen assailants, but his face became ruddy with his own outrage. “I’ve done what I can! Ye’ve got to give me another chance, milord.”

  “You have done nothing.”

  “I tell ye, the man ye want me to take ’as vanished!”

  “No man can vanish.” Hamilton took a deep drink of his ale and watched Mallory squirm like a lad called before the headmaster. “Even if he has left Bath, which is altogether possible after this delay, there must be some clue or someone who can give us the answer we need. I suggest that, if your past methods have failed to get the answers I need, you try other methods.”

  Mallory swallowed a mouthful of gin, then scratched his unshaven chin. “There be someone who might be knowin’ somethin’, but—”

  “Do what you must.”

  “The lass may be quality.”

  Hamilton hesitated. Inflicting Mallory’s brutality on a woman, whether she was gentry or not, was unthinkable. He had seen what the stocky man’s bare fists could do when he had walked into this house of waste tonight to discover Mallory with a man at his feet, groaning from a broken jaw. Although Hamilton had no idea what had precipitated the milling—and he had no wish to know—he could not order Mallory to turn those bunches of fives on a woman.

  “Talk to her,” he said quietly. “Get some answers.”

  “And if she don’t want to be talkin’?”

  He took another drink of the bitter ale, then set his tankard on the table. “If she will not cooperate, Mallory, bring her to me, and I will be sure she tells me everything she knows.”