The dining room was dark, the few remaining candles guttering badly. Abandoned plates and glasses sat on every available surface. The room was still crowded, an intense silence hanging over it. Only two men remained seated at the table, Ernest and a man unknown to Hope. They were throwing dice and sliding fish and IOUs about with rapid hand movements, their faces rigid with concentration. Around them, a watchful, expectant audience had gathered.
At the far end of the room, Lady Sara dozed on Cousin Henry’s shoulder, while Mr Ambleside and Mr Burford whispered together. Hope and Hugo tiptoed across to them.
“Is he the only one left?” Hope said quietly, gesturing at the table. “Who is he?”
“No one seems to know,” Mr Burford answered. “Whoever he is, he is very, very good. He has been taking money from Ernest for an hour or more now. Soon there will be only the house to stake, and then it will be over.”
“I know him,” Hugo said in surprise. “His name is Kent. He helped me with Jacob after that business at the assembly.”
“Hmm,” Ambleside said. “I wonder, then, what his interest is here.”
“The same as everyone’s,” Mr Burford said. “He wants to win the house.”
“Yes, but why?” Hugo said.
A rumble of voices arose around the table.
“You cannot stop now, Allamont,” someone said. “Bad sportsmanship to withdraw at the crucial moment.”
“Aye, you offered the house,” someone else said. “Have to play it now, dear boy.”
“Until dawn, I said.” Ernest’s tone was petulant. “It is dawn, therefore I stop playing.”
“Very bad form,” a third voice said.
“Let me make it amusing for you,” Mr Kent said, as calmly as if they were taking tea together. “Let us both put everything onto the table. One final throw of the dice, highest throw wins all. What do you say, Allamont?”
Ernest sat back in his chair, considering his opponent. Then, “Why not?”
The audience cheered. Mr Kent slid all his accumulated fish and papers into the centre of the table, and Ernest heaped his on top. Then, with a grin and a flourish, he carefully balanced the wooden house on the top.
“You may throw first,” Mr Kent said languidly, leaning back in his chair, one arm over the back.
Ernest nodded. Picking up the two dice he rattled them together in his hands, shook and shook again. Then, with a sweeping gesture, he threw.
A five and a six. The crowd gasped.
“Your turn,” he said with a smirk.
Mr Kent scooped up the dice. “Hmm. You have set me quite a challenge, Allamont. How about best of three?”
Ernest laughed. “No. You asked for a single throw, and that is what was agreed. So throw.”
Mr Kent shook his head. “Maybe I should concede. What does everyone think?” He looked around at the waiting audience, and a buzz of excited chatter broke out. There were cries of “Play on!” and “You must try, sir!”
Ernest laughed, looking round at the crowd, before folding his arms and settling back in his chair with a smirk. “Get on with it.”
Mr Kent nodded. He rattled the dice, lifted his hands to his lips and blew into them for luck, then rattled again. He exhaled with a rueful grin. “Ah well, here I go…”
He threw two sixes.
The crowd roared, Hope gasped in astonishment, Hugo yelled gleefully and even Mr Ambleside muttered, “Good God!” Mr Kent smiled, acknowledged the cheers, laughed, picked up the model house.
“No.” The single word, quietly spoken, silenced the crowd. Ernest’s eyes were cold. “No. You are a cheat, sir.”
Mr Kent rose to his feet, still clutching the wooden house. When he replied, his voice was calm, his words very deliberate. “I am no more a cheat than you are.”
With a roar and a lunge and a flash of steel, Ernest stretched across the table, and then, realising his reach was short, ran around the end of the table. Men scattered before him, glasses fell, a candelabra toppled over, its candles fizzling out. Hugo pushed Hope behind him.
But by the time Ernest had reached Mr Kent, Mr Burford was there. “I think not, sir.” And with one economical movement, he grabbed the wrist holding the dagger and twisted the arm up behind Ernest’s back. “Drop it. Now.”
With a growl, Ernest did as he was bid, and George Graham snatched up the dagger and carried it out of reach.
Sir Matthew Graham looked around at the crowd. “Where are his friends? You, sir. And you two. Get him out of here, for God’s sake, and see him safe to Liverpool. Get him and his wife onto a ship bound for the West Indies as soon as may be.”
“My wife?” Ernest yelled. “My wife! Ha! You think I would marry a lightskirt like that? She’s no wife of mine. Thought it would be fun to make her an English lady, and it was fun, until all you starchy people turned up their noses at her. You think you’re so grand, looking down on her, and on me, too, but you’re just snobs. All right, all right! I’m going!”
With no more than a few curses, Ernest was induced to leave the room in a small cluster of his friends.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” Mr Kent said. “Your intervention was timely, and most welcome. I am obliged to you.”
“Perhaps now we might know the identity of the new owner of Allamont Hall?” Sir Matthew said.
“I am Erasmus Kent of Shropshire,” he said, with a little bow.
“Sir Matthew Graham. You will wish to discuss arrangements with Mr Hugo Allamont, I daresay.”
Mr Kent smiled at Hugo. “Indeed. In fact, I should like to talk to all the Allamonts. As for the rest of you, since the spectacle is now over and it will soon be light enough for carriages to take to the road, might I propose that all those here who are not of the Allamont family take their leave? Yes, you, sir, and you. Not you, Sir Matthew. Or Mr Burford.”
In this manner, most of the company departed, their voices in the hall calling for greatcoats and hats, and ordering carriages. Mr Kent likewise chased out the servants, and with the help of Hope and Daniel Merton, cleared away the detritus from the table, heaped all the fish into baskets and sorted the promissory notes and IOUs into neat piles.
“Please, will you all sit?” he said, settling himself at the table.
As they began to find seats, the sound of horses galloping up the drive could be heard, followed by shouts for grooms. Not long afterwards booted feet thundered across the entrance hall and the dining room door burst open.
“Are we in time? Damnation! We are too late!”
“Lord Carrbridge! And Lord Humphrey!” Hope cried, rushing across to them. “How splendid of you to come! Have you ridden through the night to get here?”
“My apologies for my language. I had no idea there were ladies present. Yes, we rode as hard as we could but it was all in vain, I see.”
“Mr Kent is the new owner of the Hall.”
“Mr Kent, eh?”
“This is a wonderful family,” Mr Kent said. “I had not realised how marvellously you all rally round when there is a crisis. Please, my lords, do join us and sit down.”
“If I might make so bold, sir.” Mr Plumphett stood uncertainly, wringing his hands. “I need only your card, sir, so that I may begin drawing up the papers of transfer. I do not wish to intrude upon private family business.”
“Quite right, Mr Plumphett,” Mr Kent said. “The deeds must be transferred as soon as possible. But not to me. No, not to me.”
“Not to you, sir? Then to whom? You have another beneficiary in mind?”
“I do. I wish the estate to be transferred to the man with the most right to it, to the man who should already be in possession of it. Pray make the estate over to Mr Hugo Allamont.”
~~~~~
Hope could not believe it. Give the estate to Hugo? But why would anyone go to so much trouble to win it, and immediately give it away again? It made no sense.
Mr Kent smiled. “Here — this is yours now.” He tossed the wooden model across to Hugo, who was so a
stonished that he made no attempt to catch it, and it sailed past his ear to land on the floor.
“But why?” Hugo said. “Why on earth would you do such a thing? Especially after all I have said this night.”
“Because you have been wronged, and I came here with no other intent but to right that wrong. You were the one who wrote to me, imploring me for help, you might recall.”
“I was desperate enough to pursue any avenue, but I did not expect you to come,” Hugo said.
“But come I did, as did the many other members of your family that I see here now, even Lord Carrbridge who has ridden in great haste across the country to be here. We all came with but one purpose in mind, to rectify the damage caused by Mr Ernest Allamont. He had nothing but mischief in view from the start, you must know that. I am very sure he had no intention of settling here at all. His whole plan was to create havoc. Well, now he has been thwarted and I have the greatest pleasure in restoring your inheritance to you. Mr Plumphett, you have your instructions.”
“I have, sir,” Plumphett said. “Thank you, sir. I shall bid you all a good day.”
With several low bows, and an especially deep observance to Lord Carrbridge, he departed, closing the door quietly behind him.
Lord Humphrey picked up the model house, and placed it on the table in front of Hugo. “Yours, my friend. I am afraid some of the chimneys are a little wobbly.” Then he began rummaging among the discarded plates and glasses and chafing dishes and decanters on the sideboards until he had found food and drink for himself and his brother.
“You will forgive us, I am sure,” he said, “but we are famished. We stopped only to change horses and the last few posting houses had no provisions, not even hot coffee.”
“You are very good to have come at all,” Hope said.
“I wanted to help if I could,” Lord Carrbridge said. “Lady Carrbridge has been most distressed, and I cannot allow that, you know. I brought Humphrey because he is much better at this sort of thing than I am. Cards and dice and so forth. I thought he might have had a chance. If the weather had not been so bad, and Mrs Burford’s letter had arrived but a day earlier, we should have been in time.”
“It would have made no difference,” Mr Kent said. “I am sure Lord Humphrey is an expert player, and up to all the usual tricks, but Ernest was cheating in a dozen different ways. Loaded dice, marked cards, stacked decks… a dozen ways or more. No regular gaming could have defeated him, although the Grahams came the closest. That was some fine playing, gentlemen. I should dearly like to try my luck against you some day.”
“You would not be welcome,” Sir Matthew said stiffly. “You were cheating too, sir.”
“I do not deny it, Sir Matthew, for Ernest is a professional card sharp, and only another such could possibly best him. Would you rather have seen him keep the house, and all those extra thousands he wheedled out of his guests? Very sharp practice, that was. So, yes, I used every device to win, but I make no apology for that, since the house is now Hugo’s, and all these promissory notes and IOUs will be returned to those who signed them.”
“I still do not understand,” Hugo said obstinately, fingering the loose chimneys on the wooden house absently. “It is one thing to offer assistance with an injured man, Mr Kent, but why would you voluntarily give away an estate worth two thousand eight hundred pounds a year? Who are you?”
He laughed. “Did I not say you would not recognise me? That even my own brother would not recognise me? Or my own mother? You did not know me, did you, Mama?” he said, turning to Lady Sara.
Her mouth opened in amazement. “I… No, I did not know you.”
“Frank?” Hope whispered.
He smiled even more broadly. “Just so. With a little grey powder in my hair, and some padding about the waist, and an alteration to my voice…” His tone changed as he said, “This is my real voice. Do you recognise me now, little sister?”
She laughed. “That is astonishing! Even to fool Ernest!”
“Ah well, it helps that the lighting is so dim in here. And then, he thinks I am dead. One does not generally expect to see one’s dead brother.”
And then Frank had to explain his whole history to those in the room who were not aware of it, and the ladies cried and the gentlemen laughed and slapped Frank repeatedly on the back. Hugo sent for more food and champagne, if there were any to be found in the cellar, and the relief in the air turned the gathering into a joyous family party.
Lord Humphrey threw back the curtains, and pointed out of the window. “Look at that! It is snowing heavily, and appears settled in for the day. We shall never get away again today. You will just have to put us up for a while, Hugo. Perhaps we will be snowed up until Christmas or beyond. What jolly fun, eh?”
“The Allamonts reunited,” Lord Carrbridge said, slapping Frank on the back. “What a pity the rest of the ladies could not be with us to enjoy this moment. It is always more fun with the ladies around. But how delightful to have another brother back in the family fold. Even as one is lost, another is restored to his proper place.”
Hope watched them in silence, thinking of her two newly-found brothers. Two brothers, two cheats, two disreputable characters, and for all that Frank had generously given the estate to Hugo and returned all his IOUs, still she did not trust him.
~~~~~
Later that day, Hugo walked from room to room, Hope on his arm, assessing the damage. Here was a wine stain on a sofa, there a scorch mark on a rug where a burning log had fallen. The cellar had been the hardest hit, and Hugo looked at the empty racks in despair. The book room was thoroughly disordered, and the bedrooms that Ernest and Clarissa had used looked as if a whirlwind had whipped through.
“These rooms will take a lot of work to be made good,” Hugo said. “Still, I should like to have them back. One night — that was all the time we had to enjoy the best bedrooms in the house. Can you ask Miller to begin on them today?”
“There is no rush,” Hope said airily. “We are very cosy in our present accommodation, and… and I do not mind having only one bedroom, Hugo.”
She blushed adorably, and Hugo was compelled to hold her tight and kiss her several times.
“I think, for the sake of appearances, we must have a bedroom each, my little wife, but it does not follow that we need use both of them, does it?”
She shook her head, looking up shyly at him.
“Besides,” he went on, “I should like to have my book room back, for the gun room was not as convenient. So you can set Miller on to that, if you will.”
“She will be busy for today organising rooms for all our unexpected guests,” she said. “How we are to entertain them if this snow keeps on I cannot imagine. Even if Mama can walk back down to the Dower House, we will have twelve in the house.”
“Three tables of whist,” he said promptly. “That should keep them quiet. I am more concerned about the wine. Ernest and his friends made excessive depredations on supplies. And food! I daresay there is plenty of bread and cheese to be had, but what about meat and game, with the Garmins’ farm so disrupted? Although at least what we have will not spoil in this cold weather.”
Some of Ernest’s destruction was more serious than wine stains or scorched rugs, and as soon as the snow had stopped that afternoon, Hugo went to the Dower House to inform Young that he might return to his role as butler at the Hall as soon as Lady Sara could spare him. Then he rode across to the Garmins’ farm to tell them of the change in circumstances, and reassure them that they need not leave. He found them surrounded by boxes, on the point of departure, and had to endure being wept all over by Mrs and Miss Garmin, and receiving their effusive gratitude.
As he was leaving, Garmin came out into the yard to see him off.
“It’s not just us, Mr Hugo,” Garmin said. “Mr Ernest went all over throwing tenants off or trebling the rent overnight.”
Hugo huffed in annoyance. “It was too bad of him! Naturally no one must leave their home, but I canno
t get around all the farms and cottages in this weather. Will you spread the word where you can? Tell everyone that all will revert to the way it was before.”
“Aye, I’ll make sure everyone knows. I can ride the cob over to West Brafton tomorrow, if this break in the snow lasts, and they can pass the word on from there. And may I say, sir — we’re right glad things have worked out as they have. We’re very happy to have you and Mrs Hugo in the Hall.”
“Thank you. As we are happy to be there,” Hugo said.
He meant it, too, even though he was not quite so obsessed with the house as he had once been. He had become reconciled to the idea that the Hall was lost forever, and it was oddly jarring to have it returned to him in such a neat way. He need not now be an agent, or bow to a master, and he would be Mr Allamont of Allamont Hall, just as he had wanted. He could even have his cards printed and order the carriage, which he had never quite liked to do before. Everything was as he had always wanted, and yet everything had changed. He had changed. And he smiled then, as he rode home through the darkening winter’s afternoon, thinking of Hope waiting for him at the Hall.
And there she was, almost the first creature he saw after settling his horse in the stable, standing in the entrance hall as if waiting for him, and perhaps she was.
“There you are!” she cried, her face lighting up as she saw Hugo approach. “I was beginning to wonder whether you would be home before dark.”
Home. Such a small word, and yet full of meaning. He sighed with pleasure, and kissed her, not caring about the footman and housemaid passing by. A burst of laughter from the drawing room told him that the guests were well settled.
“Is all well?” Hugo said.
“Yes. Mama has gone back to the Dower House, and taken Cousin Henry with her, and… and Frank has gone.”
“Oh, what a shame! I had hoped we might get to know him properly at last.”
“I believe it to be better this way,” she said quietly. “We have just been upset by one brother. I do not think we should instantly put our faith in his twin.”
Hope (The Daughters of Allamont Hall Book 6) Page 21
