by M C Beaton
Tommy took her hands in his and said, “Calmly now. Can it be Bohun? Bohun thinks she is an heiress, so I do not think he would queer his pitch by suggesting she meet him on the sly. Charles is at the opera. We will need to go there. Charles will know what to do.”
Chapter Five
FANNY ENJOYED HERSELF at first. All the ladies were so friendly. She had played faro before with her schoolfriends and remembered the excitement when one of the girls had managed to smuggle a pack of cards into the school. And just as she had lost a great deal of money on paper to her schoolfriends, so it was here. “We don’t play for money,” said Dolly gaily. “You just sign your vowels.”
So Fanny cheerfully signed IOUs in the comfortable belief that it was all pretend.
But as the evening wore on and the company began to drink more heavily, the conversation grew coarser. Fanny began to feel uneasy and wondered if Charles had in fact known what he was doing in warning her to stay clear of Dolly.
Just one more game and then she would go. She was playing against Dolly.
“And that,” said Dolly as she won again, “means you owe me five thousand pounds.”
Fanny laughed. “I shall just sign another of your intriguing pieces of paper and then I really must leave. Charles may be home himself soon and he will wonder where I am.”
And Miss Grimes, thought Fanny, with a qualm. She will already have found out I am missing, and what on earth shall I tell her?
“If you are going,” said Dolly, “we should make arrangements. A draft on your bank will be sufficient.”
Fanny laughed merrily.
“If you do not have the necessary papers with you,” said Dolly, a note of steel creeping into her voice, “do not worry, for I shall call on you tomorrow, or you can leave some of your pretty jewels.”
The glitter in Dolly’s eyes should have told Fanny that her hostess was quite drunk, for sober, Dolly would never have been so clumsy, but Fanny only felt lost and frightened. Five thousand pounds! Oh, they would need to run from London, and Charles would never see Miss Woodward again, and he would never forgive her, and she—she would never see Lord Bohun again, either.
As for the jewels! No, the scandal would be too much to bear if London society remembered them both for robbing its most famous jeweler.
Her nervous little fingers moved over the surface of the cards … and then again. She felt infinitesimal little pricks on the smooth surface. She remembered a conversation Captain Tommy had had with Aunt Martha. He had been explaining the ways of card sharps. “But how do they mark the cards?” Miss Grimes had asked. And Tommy had replied, “Pin pricks.”
Her face hardened. Her mind raced. To call Dolly a cheat would not get her anywhere. The obsession about Lord Bohun left her body; her mind became clear and sharp and seemed to be working in double-quick time. As far as Dolly knew, she had been drinking heavily. But Fanny did not like strong drink, and, when Dolly had been concentrating on the game, had frequently decanted her glass into a hothouse plant next to the table. She looked around the room and saw the others for what they were—silly, greedy women obsessed with gambling. They were not friends of Dolly’s. This was a gambling club and she, Fanny, was the gull, the flat, the pigeon for the plucking.
“I have decided to stay,” she said in a voice she made slurred. “I have so much money, what is five thousand pounds to me?” My love, my life, my happiness, cried a voice inside her. But she went on aloud, “But I swear these cards are unlucky for me. A fresh pack if you please, Dolly.”
Dolly’s eyes gleamed with a hectic light. So the new pack would not be marked. But this little innocent, so well and truly foxed, would be no match for her.
And so they began to play again, but this time Fanny’s mind was crystal clear. She was determined to play all night if necessary to cancel that debt.
Sir Charles stood impatiently outside the Woodwards’ box at the opera, where he had been summoned by Tommy. “Are you sure you cannot find her?” he declared impatiently. The opera ball followed the opera and he had dreamed of waltzing with Miss Woodward.
Tommy shook his head. “I found Bohun at White’s, gambling heavily, so she’s not with him.”
“Dolly,” said Sir Charles heavily. “That little harlot thinks Fanny’s an heiress—and I remember some fellow in our regiment telling how Dolly had gulled his wife by inviting her to a little party that turned out to be Dolly’s private gambling club. Damn Fanny! I will need to make my apologies and go and rescue her. Oh, God, if she’s lost a great deal there is no way we can stay in London … and I will be tied to that irritating featherbrain for the rest of my life.”
“No harm in her,” said Tommy awkwardly. “Not up to all the rigs and rows of town. Needs a little bronze.”
“Pah,” said Sir Charles nastily. “Wait here until I make my apologies.”
On the way to Chelsea, Tommy bravely tried to suggest to his friend that he forget about Miss Woodward and try to make a go of his marriage. Sir Charles did not even attempt to protest. Tommy’s words did not seem to have any effect on him; his face was stern and set in the bobbing light of the carriage lamp.
“There she is,” said Tommy when they drove up outside the Marsdens’ house.
The curtains at the bay window at the front of the house were drawn back. Dolly and Fanny sat at a card table in the bay. Sir Charles groaned inwardly when he saw the borrowed diamonds glittering around Fanny’s neck and sparkling in her hair.
They entered the room just as a game was finishing. Sir Charles had expected a blushing and ashamed Fanny, but she looked up at him and said mildly, “I am just leaving, Charles. How kind of you to come and bring me home. You owe me five hundred pounds, Dolly. A draft on your bank will suffice.”
Dolly looked at her in baffled fury. The shock of finding she had been outwitted by this innocent was sobering her rapidly—but doing nothing to improve her temper.
“I always pay my debts,” she said. She called a footman over and whispered to him. Fanny sat very still, her face hard and set, waiting.
The footman returned with a bundle of notes that Dolly passed to Fanny. Fanny counted them slowly and insultingly. At last she looked up. “I prefer gold,” she said, “but notes will do on this occasion.” She stood up. “Your arm, Charles. Come, Captain Tommy. Miss Grimes will wonder what has become of me.”
Sir Charles waited until they were all seated in the carriage and then he shouted, “What the devil do you think you were doing with that strumpet in that slap-bang shop she runs? You fool!”
“So I was a fool, but I repaired my losses,” said Fanny. “I lost five thousand pounds because Dolly told me it was only pretend gambling and I believed her—until she started to demand a draft on my bank and suggested I leave some of the jewels with her. It was then I found the cards were marked and noticed that she was drunk. So I won back the money I lost, plus five hundred pounds, and I feel very clever. I am sorry you were dragged away from the opera, but you can go back now, Charles.”
“It is high time you realize the enormity of what you have done!” he raged.
But Fanny was triumphant. She felt she had just slain a monstrous dragon. She felt brave and clever.
“Why don’t you shut your potato trap and give your tongue a holiday,” she said gleefully.
“You jade! How dare you speak to me thus?”
“Pooh! Because I am rich and you are poor.” And Fanny leaned back in the carriage and fanned herself with the bundle of notes.
“I shall talk to you later, when we are alone,” he said threateningly. “You will never, hear me, never go anywhere again without my permission. I have a good mind to give you the beating you deserve.”
“I shall see you ride backward to Holborn Hill—with a book in one hand and a nosegay in t’ other—before I let you lay a finger on me,” said Fanny, meaning she would see him hanged first. Fanny had enlarged her vocabulary immensely in just one evening.
Tommy tried to signal to his frien
d to stop berating Fanny because the more Charles went on, the more defiant and unrepentant Fanny became.
Miss Grimes was waiting for them when the carriage drew up. “Why, Fanny,” she began, “what …?”
But Fanny walked briskly past her and ran lightly up the stairs. It was left to Sir Charles and Tommy to explain what had happened.
“I will go to her,” said Miss Grimes, heading for the stairs.
“No.” Sir Charles put a hand on her arm. “Fanny is my responsibility and I will deal with her.”
When he entered Fanny’s room, she was carefully removing the jewels and putting them back in the box. She twisted round and glared at Sir Charles, then went back to rearranging the jewels.
“Fanny, look at me!” he ordered. Two small white shoulders raised in a shrug. “I am not going to berate you,” he said sadly. “You are young and untried … and were easily fooled by such as Dolly. No doubt, Bohun, who hates me, put her up to it.”
That brought her round, eyes flashing. “You are going on like a real husband, Charles,” she said. “Did I whine and complain about you going to the opera with the Woodwards?”
“Do not be such a widgeon. The opera with a respectable family and a gambling hell are worlds apart and you know it. What has happened to you? You are become so hard!”
Her face softened. With a little shock, he realized that despite her lack of inches, Fanny was very pretty indeed with her huge brown eyes looking almost black in the candlelight, her creamy skin, rioting black curls, and soft little mouth. “I am in love, Charles,” she said simply. “You know what it is like. Dislike of Bohun has colored your judgment. Look at the facts. He is very rich, so rich that my lack of money will not matter to him. What if I constantly complained about Miss Woodward, said she was only after your imagined money? Would that not hurt? Would you not deny it vehemently? Very well, I concede I should not have gone to Dolly’s and I will not do so again—and I will be sharper when it comes to ladies of the ton who are not quite ladies.”
He studied her for a few moments, thinking hard. She had only really met Bohun at that breakfast. He had been very attentive to her and danced with her twice, but that did not amount to a proposal of marriage. Look at the courage and good sense she had shown in getting herself out of debt at Dolly’s! Such courage and good sense would help her to assess Bohun’s true character. By forbidding her to see Bohun, he would only give the horrible man all the added attraction of forbidden fruit.
“Very well, Fanny,” he said. “I will not stand in your way, provided you do not get into any more scrapes.”
She ran to him and gave him a light kiss on the cheek. “Oh, Charles, I knew you would see sense.”
Sense, his mind echoed as he walked back downstairs to report to Tommy and Miss Grimes. Sense! Was he not himself as crazy as Fanny? Would such a prize as Miss Woodward not shrink from him when she learned that he was not only poor but married as well? Folly! And yet Miss Woodward—Amanda—had looked at him with such glowing eyes. He shook his head as if to clear it. Better not to think. Fanny was safe for the moment. Provided she told them in future where she was going and what she was doing, she could not possibly come to any harm.
“You owe me five hundred pounds,” Dolly was saying to Lord Bohun. Her guests had gone; she had sent them all packing as soon as Fanny had left and had then sent a footman to White’s to summon Lord Bohun.
He eyed her coldly. She looked flushed and blowsy—and smelled abominably of stale brandy and perfume.
“Why should I?” he retorted. “I did not tell you to cheat at cards. At least if you cheat at cards you should make sure you are not found out. It is better I distance myself from you from now on.”
Her eyes glittered with a hectic light. “I would like to remind you again of that five hundred,” she said. “You would not want me to tell your little heiress that it was you who put me up to inviting her, that it was you who circulated those tales of Deveney being jealous of you.”
He sat down at one of the gaming tables and swept aside the clutter of cards and dice and glasses with one savage movement. Dolly smiled and brought over inkwell, quill, and sand shaker. He wrote out a draft and handed it to her. Then he walked around the table and put his hands around her neck and squeezed hard, then shook her so that she gasped and choked.
“You say one word,” he whispered, “and what you have just received will prove to be a foretaste of the real thing. You blackmail me and I will blackmail you. That husband of yours would not be so complacent were he to learn of our liaison. Ah, that has got you, has it not? The only thing that keeps you from whoring on the streets is Marsden, who lends you a certain spurious respectability. He goes along with your little schemes, for you make money for him. But hear this. Not only will I ruin your reputation … but I will damage you so badly that no man will want to look on you again.”
He released her; Dolly shrank back in her chair, her face white. He laughed. “Hang me, Dolly, if you don’t look as if you have just had a fright.” And still laughing, he thrust his bank papers in his pocket and strolled out.
Had Lord Bohun been a woman, he would most certainly have been excluded from Lady Denham’s ball. Lady Denham was a high stickler, and, like the Countess Lieven, was fond of saying, “It is not fashionable where I am not.” Any lady who had committed a whisper of an indiscretion was not allowed in her stately town house. But men were ever men, and everyone loved a rake. So Lord Bohun’s dark past and dark reputation only lent him a certain added interest. Besides, he was rich and came from an old family. So he was invited, whereas a certain Miss Frampton, who was a model of good nature and courtesy, had been found to have had roots in trade and so was struck off the list and a chilly note sent to her—in which her ladyship frostily hoped that Miss Frampton would not have the temerity to attend.
Martha Grimes detested Lady Denham. They had been debutantes together in their youth. But Lady Denham always had the cream of society at her functions, and Miss Grimes was anxious to swallow her own pride in doing her very best for Fanny.
Lady Denham, having married a man considerably older than herself, was now a widow. She lived in a mansion during the Season in Grosvenor Square. She was a flat-figured woman, flat front and back, with an oddly squashed sort of face, like a face pressed against a window. Tommy whispered to Miss Grimes that Lady Denham looked like someone who had just been put through the mangle; Miss Grimes laughed, her clear, youthful laugh—one of her charms that was daily endearing her more to the army captain. Tommy would have been amazed and distressed to know that he was often the subject of the spinster’s sad thoughts, thoughts in which she felt hopeless. He was only a few years younger than she, but she knew that although only in her forties, that was considered a great age—and that men in their forties were always attracted to younger women, never to respectable spinsters.
The ball was a very grand one. Fanny, looking radiant in a lilac silk gown cut low at the bosom and displaying the borrowed jewelry, was dancing with Lord Bohun, too naive to school her expression of absolute joy, thought Miss Grimes.
Lord Bohun had not had much opportunity to talk to Fanny because the dance was an intricate country one involving a lot of changing partners, but when they were promenading round the ballroom at the end of the dance, as was the custom, he said seriously, “I am afraid I unwittingly introduced you to very bad company.”
Fanny’s large eyes flew up to meet his. “Mrs. Marsden,” he went on. “I believe she lured you to that gambling hell of hers by pretending to be a friend of mine.”
Fanny looked startled. “But I thought …”
He shook his head. “I have a certain affection for Marsden, but his wife is a sad rattle. Do not, I pray you, have anything to do with her again.”
“Oh, I won’t!” said Fanny fervently. “Charles was very angry with me.”
“Poor Miss Page. Ah … he has a vile temper.”
“Well, it was not like that, you know. Not at all. In fact, now I
come to consider the matter, he could have been much angrier with me. I must be a sore trial to him.”
“He sometimes goes on more like a husband than a cousin,” said Lord Bohun, looking across the ballroom to where Sir Charles stood against a pillar, watching them steadily—and so missed the guilty blush that had risen to Fanny’s cheeks.
“He knows I do not have any town bronze,” said Fanny quickly. “But I am learning. Here is my next partner.”
“Are we never to be alone?” he asked, with such sudden intensity that Fanny felt her heart beat harder. “We have another dance later. The waltz. We will talk then.”
Lord Bohun retired to a corner of the room and thought hard. To deflower Fanny would supply him with the perfect revenge on Sir Charles Deveney. She was an enchanting creature and an heiress. His pulses quickened as he looked across at her. He must plot and plan to get her on her own.
He began to get the glimmerings of an idea and went over to where the chaperons were seated and found a chair next to Miss Grimes. Tommy was absent, having gone to the card room. She went very stiff and haughty.
“I come to beg your permission to take Miss Page driving tomorrow afternoon,” said Lord Bohun.
Miss Grimes fanned herself vigorously. “I think you should ask Sir Charles.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Her cousin? Surely, ma’am, as her chaperon, you should say whom she sees or does not see.”
Miss Grimes bit her lip and wished Tommy were with her. Charles had said any obstacle to Bohun’s courtship would only make Fanny want him the more. And where was Charles? Dancing with Miss Woodward—and certainly looking at that moment as if no other woman in the world mattered to him.
Fanny could not come to any harm driving with Lord Bohun in the Park. “At the fashionable hour?” she asked cautiously.
“Of course.”
“Then I can see no harm in it,” said Miss Grimes, giving in with bad grace. That was men for you! Never around when you needed one, she thought, cursing the dancing Sir Charles and the absent Tommy Hawkes.
