“Theo, you have to let it go,” Bea said gently. “You have to put Archie’s betrayal behind you and look forward. Clubs are a part of life, men play cards, and women do too. They wager at the horse races, which is both legal and part of the fun of a race meet. I love you like my own sister—more than my sister, to be honest—but if you marry a man of an appropriate station, he’s likely to engage in the same behaviors Archie did.”
Not all of Archie’s behaviors, please God. “My next husband had best claim far more moderation than Archimedes ever aspired to, and that includes avoiding all establishments like The Coventry.”
Lord Casriel had found a clean plate and was taking three eons to choose a slice of beef. He was apparently to be Bea’s escort for her adventure, which made no sense at all. Casriel was known to have limited means, and the sole purpose of The Coventry and venues of that ilk was to fleece its patrons.
“If you ever change your mind,” Bea said, passing Theo a French chocolate drop, “I will happily join you at the tables. I will also understand if that day never comes, but I cannot approve of your choice, Theodosia.”
She kissed Theo’s cheek and wafted away, calling a greeting to the earl.
Lord Casriel left off dithering among the remains of the roasts and bowed to Bea. He also spared Theo a nod, his gentian eyes oddly serious for a man in contemplation of a diversion. But then, he could not afford to waste coin. Perhaps the outing for him was more about the company to be had than the diversion.
“Good hunting,” Theo whispered as Bea took Casriel’s arm and left the room.
Theo sat beneath a guttering sconce and made a sandwich of her bread and cheese.
Jonathan understood the damage Archie’s intemperance had done, or understood as much as Theo had admitted, and Jonathan was a man of more than appropriate station.
“He won’t expect me to throw money away at some notorious hell and pretend I’m enjoying myself.” In every way, Jonathan Tresham was an estimable man.
Though Theo would ask him where his money came from. That was something a wife should know, and in a month’s time, she would be his wife, his prospective duchess, and—God be thanked—his lover.
For exactly what sort of business called a man away from his intended in the middle of the night?
* * *
Jonathan was torn between admiration for Della Haddonfield’s tenacity, pride that his sister should see and admire The Coventry, and lingering resentment from earlier in the evening.
Theo had given him permission to pay his addresses, the very last step before the formality of a marriage proposal. Why must the club have difficulties now? Why couldn’t the place for once hum along without intruding into his other affairs? His obligations to other ventures and to the dukedom had only mounted, and his bride-hunting had run him short of sleep.
“Mr. Tresham.” Della Haddonfield curtseyed. The blond giant beside her bowed, another one of her endless supply of legitimate brothers.
“My lady. Sir.”
“Call me Dolph. My proper name is Maximus Adolphus, but my older brothers couldn’t stand to call me that as I grew taller than all save the earl.” His voice was a bass rumble, and the merriment of a younger sibling who’d had the last laugh shone in blue, blue eyes. A man this tall and striking would see no point in delicate fictions regarding the use of personal names.
“You’re the fellow who likes to blow things up,” Jonathan said. “Your sister has spoken highly of you.”
Her ladyship was watching this exchange with an overly bright smile, while for Jonathan the encounter underscored an unwelcome truth.
Della looked nothing like her Haddonfield brother. He was a Viking, the youngest of a troupe of Vikings, while her ladyship was a Pict—short, dark-haired, petite. Her brows were slightly heavy—a legacy from her father—and her hair came to a widow’s peak, another trait she shared with Jonathan.
“I’m a chemist,” Mr. Haddonfield replied. “Explosions are one of the perquisites of the profession. I’m actually studying chemical reactions that bear directly on the means by which a leavened product—”
Lady Della wrapped an arm around her brother’s elbow—her other brother. “If we allow you to start your discourse on the effects of heat on gases and the chemical results of fermentation, then I will never get to watch you play.”
Watch him play. Like a spotter?
“I’m an evangelist for science,” Mr. Haddonfield said, patting Lady Della’s small hand. “But tonight, I am also a dutiful escort and instructor.”
“I know how to handle the cards,” Lady Della retorted. “You will teach me to gamble.”
Foreboding roiled in Jonathan’s belly, because Lady Della’s blond brother might be the spotter. His height would give him an advantage in that regard, and he would support any effort on Della’s part to bedevil a half-sibling she saw as negligent.
Sycamore Dorning was still at his post beneath the stairs, though he’d left off playing solitaire and was enjoying Jonathan’s wine.Jonathan raised a hand in a gesture a patron might use to signal a waiter, and Mr. Dorning sauntered over, wineglass in hand.
“My lady, sir.” Dorning bowed and came up sipping wine. “A pleasure to see you both.”
“Good evening.” Another curtsey from Lady Della. “I have come to learn about the pleasures of games of chance among the wealthy and wanton. You must never tell a soul you saw me here.”
She was teasing, maybe. Too late, Jonathan recalled that Lady Della had seemed fond of Dorning’s older brother Ash.
“One of the unspoken rules of this establishment,” Jonathan said, “is that nobody sees anybody here. The authorities frown on gambling, and some hells go so far as to use dim lighting and to hand out masks at the door, so that nobody’s identity can be reliably reported.”
“But dim lighting,” Dorning observed, “makes bad behavior easier to hide as well. The owner of The Coventry is happy to spend a fortune on candles, but then, he’s neck-deep in blunt, so why not make sure we’re all behaving as we misbehave?”
His smile was charming. Jonathan wanted to dash the wine in the bloody pest’s face.
“Perhaps you’d be good enough to show her ladyship the rudiments of play at the vingt-et-un table,” Jonathan said. “I’ll accompany her brother to the dining room. I’m told the chef at The Coventry is among the finest in London.”
Haddonfield seemed amused by the entire exchange, but then, a man who topped Jonathan’s brawn by three stone and several inches could afford to be amused by much.
“Are you her spotter?” Jonathan asked as he and Haddonfield gained the quiet of the corridor. “Or is she yours?”
“Are your pistols clean?” Haddonfield replied in the same tone as he might have asked about Jonathan’s elderly uncle. “Because I’m almost certain you’ve implied that our sister cheats. This is a degree of dunderheadedness worse than implying that I cheat, because a devoted brother is honor-bound to defend rather than malign his sister’s good name. Perhaps that lesson was neglected at baby-duke school.”
Jonathan kept going past the dining room, Haddonfield ambling at his side. The smaller of the private parlors was unoccupied, so he took a lamp from a sconce in the corridor, gestured for Haddonfield to follow, and closed the door.
“You certainly know your way around this place,” Haddonfield said. “Della has a theory about that.”
“A theory based on rumors, no doubt. Why on earth would a devoted brother escort his sister, who’s all but a debutante, to a venue like this?”
Haddonfield took the lamp and squatted by the unlit hearth. “You don’t know Della. She would have come without me. My brothers understand this, which is why they won’t pummel me en masse for this escapade.”
He peered up the dark chimney. “You could install a convection flue here,” he went on. “Use it to turn a fan that would draw the smoke up from the table. A clerestory window would finish the job, and then the room wouldn’t bear such a coal-smoke and
tobacco stench. So is it to be pistols or swords?”
Anselm behaved with the same casual high-handedness. Jonathan had assumed the attitude was ducal, though now he suspected it was fraternal.
Theo had never mentioned siblings other than Seraphina, though he must ask about her extended family.
“I’m sure the owner of the premises would be very interested to hear your theories, Mr. Haddonfield. Some people associate that scent with late nights spent in pleasurable social pursuits. Why is Lady Della here?”
Haddonfield rose, the lamplight casting his features in diabolical shadows. He’d doubtless done that on purpose too.
“You are concerned for her,” he said, setting the lamp in the middle of the table. “That means I can’t call you out, because I am concerned for her too, but if you think she’d cheat merely to gain your notice, you’re daft.”
He slid into a chair, and even sitting, his height was apparent.
Jonathan took the seat across the table. “She wants my notice. I understand that, but I have embarked on the process of finding a bride, and my calendar has been busy. I sit on a half dozen boards of directors, and they all demand my time. I’m also trying to untangle decades of bookkeeping and the lack thereof for the Quimbey dukedom, another endeavor that is more time-consuming than it should be.”
Haddonfield stared at the shadows dancing on the ceiling. “You are ashamed of her. She said you were smart, but I gather you’re smart like an abacus. All manner of correct answers can be had from you, but in fact you’re nothing more than wooden parts cleverly arranged by a chance hand.”
Jonathan was tired, he was angry at Lady Della, and most of all, he would rather have spent the rest of this evening with Theo. Not even making love with her, simply talking. Simply holding her hand, holding her.
“Lady Della has an understandable interest in me, for we are related by blood,” Jonathan said. “She has no concept of the gossip an association between us would stir. My parents made a Drury Lane farce look boring, with their unending and inane drama. If Lady Della is my sister, how many other dark-haired young ladies am I related to? She’s the only one I know of, but until you’ve lived with such talk, Haddonfield, you don’t know the damage it can do.”
“Della has been dubbed the Haddonfield changeling. She knows about talk.”
“No, she does not. When nobody offers for her, Season after Season, despite her settlements becoming more and more generous, then she’ll have an inkling of the damage talk can do. When her daughters, should she escape the fate of an old maid, are treated to slights and whispers and her sons beaten bloody in the schoolyard, then she’ll know. When an outing like this—innocent, if ill-advised—becomes common knowledge, and her reputation is sullied past all recall overnight, then she’ll know.”
Jonathan had not raised his voice, but inside, annoyance had escalated to indignation and then rage. Why couldn’t Haddonfield see the peril he’d allowed their younger sister to blunder into?
“From the grave,” Jonathan said, rising and leaning over the table, “our father has the power to ruin her. She does not grasp this. She who has brothers and sisters to spare merely wants to add to her collection.”
Haddonfield sat across the table, his expression as impassive as a judge’s. “You said you’d call on her.”
Bloody hell. Jonathan sank back into his chair. “I will.”
“Call on her tomorrow, if you value your sanity, and if you value that of her other siblings. You think she wants merely to flit about on the arm of a ducal heir to whom she has hidden connection. You do her a discredit. She wants to know who her family is, and she does not grasp how you can ignore her when she’s the only sibling you have. She was raised as a Haddonfield. We do not turn our backs on family.”
Jonathan was very glad he’d confided this situation to Theo. Her counsel would clearly be needed going forward, because Haddonfield was making some obscure point that Jonathan hadn’t the patience to pursue.
“I will call upon Lady Della tomorrow afternoon,” Jonathan said. “Somebody is trying to sabotage this club, and the less she’s seen here, the better.”
“Della would not betray family like that.” Haddonfield fiddled with the wick on the lamp, turning the flame brighter, then to a tiny glow. “But how would you know that? You did not have a family, not worth the name. Such an existence bewilders Della, and she has made it a mission to console you for that terrible lack.”
Which was, of course, what Della would tell a doting brother if she wanted his aid to gain access to the club.
“I have been given leave to pay my addresses to Mrs. Theodosia Haviland,” Jonathan said. “I am hopeful that I will at least have a bride in the very near future and that family will follow in due time. This is a recent development, not common knowledge.”
Haddonfield wrinkled an aquiline beak. “Does Mrs. Haviland know that Della is your half-sister?”
“Yes. I trust Mrs. Haviland’s discretion utterly.” Her loyalty, her discretion, her everything, and what a relief that was.
Haddonfield rose and collected the lamp. “If you’re marrying the woman, then trusting her discretion should be a foregone conclusion. Mrs. Haviland is well connected in polite society, and my sister-in-law speaks well of her.”
His sister-in-law would be… the Countess of Bellefonte. How Theo kept the whirling cast of polite society’s characters straight was a marvel.
“You will please not disclose my marital aspirations, Mr. Haddonfield.”
Haddonfield moved toward the door, the lamp in his hand. “You have much to learn, Tresham, but because I am not allowed to instruct you with my fists, I will attempt the less reliable route of instructing you with words: You will tell Della of your marital aspirations. You will bring Mrs. Haviland to call upon her. You will intimate that nobody, save perhaps old Quimbey, has been alerted to the news before you confide your joy in your only sibling. That’s how it works with sisters, Tresham, unless you have some bosom bow from your boyhood whom you must inform first.”
Anselm was hardly a bosom bow. Jonathan hadn’t thought to write to Quimbey. “My thanks for your insights. If you’d see to it that Lady Della’s visit is brief and uneventful, I’d appreciate it.”
Haddonfield paused in the doorway, the light from the corridor making him appear as a looming shadow.
“She thinks you own this place. I think she’s right. I wonder how Mrs. Haviland reacted when you confided that secret, assuming it’s true.”
“Good night, Mr. Haddonfield.”
Haddonfield bowed, twirling his wrist to turn the gesture ironic. “My brother the earl claims there is no trouble so dire as woman trouble. He knows of what he speaks.”
Jonathan rose as another snippet of memory prodded him. “Does Mr. Ash Dorning have woman trouble? Della seemed fond of him.”
Broad shoulders slumped. “As best we can decipher, Mr. Ash Dorning has money trouble. He’s a younger son without means. Bellefonte made it plain that Della will require a certain standard of living, though that lecture—which Dorning should have expected—doesn’t explain why the man rusticates at such length. Perhaps Della is interrogating Mr. Sycamore Dorning on that very subject as we speak.”
He withdrew, taking the lamp with him and leaving Jonathan in nigh complete darkness.
“I should tell Theo that I’m responsible for building this place up from its humble beginnings, for turning it into one of the premier venues of its kind anywhere in the world.”
She’s be surprised, but in Theo fashion, she’d take the news in stride. She might even have ideas for how to improve the club’s appeal.
“But first, I must solve the mystery of who is trying to ruin my club.”
That sequence made sense. Clean house—or stop Lady Della’s mischief, if that was what the marked cards were about—then invite Theo for a tour. She’d be reassured to learn the true extent of Jonathan’s personal wealth and to know how reliable The Coventry was as a source of in
come.
* * *
Diana and Seraphina were bickering, the weather had turned from sunny to a steady rain that might continue for days, and Theo was struggling to compose a letter to the viscount.
“Mr. Tresham has come to call,” Williams said. “Shall I show him to the formal parlor, ma’am?”
Jonathan edged past Williams. “No need for that. Mrs. Haviland, good morning.”
“Mr. Tresham.” She rose, putting a self-conscious hand to her hair. “This is a pleasure—an unexpected pleasure. Williams, you are excused.”
“Shall I bring a tray, ma’am?”
“Mr. Tresham?”
“Nothing for me, thank you.”
He’d caught Theo in the breakfast parlor, which had the best morning light in the house. He’d also caught her with her hair in a single braid and in her oldest day dress.
Which was very old.
“How are you?” he asked.
“Please have a seat. I’m trying to compose a letter to Lord Penweather and my manners are failing me. The first draft informed him that if he was having a cow byre swept out to house his poor relations, he needn’t bother. The second warned him that I might not recognize him should he deign to appear at the wedding.”
Jonathan’s hair was damp, his smile tired. “And the third?”
“Dear Viscount Foul Weather, you need no longer threaten me with sending Diana and Seraphina to some dreary school in the north. Our circumstances have improved, and you are an ass.”
A gasp from the doorway revealed Seraphina in her best day dress. “You never said Cousin Viscount was threatening to send us away.”
Jonathan rose. “Miss Seraphina, good day.” He bowed, she curtseyed.
Theo wanted to toss the ink bottle at her dearest little sister. “Viscount Penweather has graciously intimated that should the need arise, he’d be willing to see to the education of the household’s minor females. Was there something you needed, Seraphina?”
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