Surrender To Ruin

by Carolyn Jewel

  “There you are, Bracebridge,” Glynn said too heartily. “We thought you’d forgot us, but what better reason for delay than a beautiful woman?” He clapped a hand on Bracebridge’s shoulder.

  She only just managed to restrain Frieda from attempting to greet the Glynns with kisses. “Down, Frieda. Down.” She was delighted when the dog obeyed. “Stay.” While she had the chance, she went to Clara and kissed her cheek. Kind, generous Clara was the very best friend one could have, and she was absolutely the sort of woman Bracebridge ought to marry. “How lovely to see you.”

  Clara briefly squeezed Emily’s hand. “I say the same to you.”

  “Miss Sinclair,” Glynn said in a softer voice. “You are perfection, as always.”

  “Thank you.” She had always treated Harry Glynn with the familiarity that came with a lifelong acquaintance. She had never encouraged his recent admiration of her. He was too close to her age and, well, not Bracebridge.

  Glynn patted Frieda on the head, and the dog gazed at him as if the sun rose and set on his broad shoulders. “You mustn’t leave us to fend for ourselves, Miss Sinclair.” He knew the trick of keeping a hand on Frieda to prevent her jumping on him. He grinned. “What a propitious meeting, for here you are, cloak and hat already donned for an outing on this beautiful autumn day.”

  “I came to see the children.” Mary and Aldreth had three, two boys and a girl. “Bracebridge was on his way out whilst I was on my way in. He was detained by meeting Frieda. You know how she must make a friend of everyone new to her.”

  “We aren’t going far,” Glynn said. He snapped his fingers, and Frieda came to attention. Her tail thumped against Bracebridge’s thighs. “You see how she anticipates an excursion.”

  “She’s already had a walk from the Cooperage to here. Besides, I haven’t seen the children in an age.”

  She must have convinced everyone she hadn’t a care in the world, for Clara said, “Well, Harry and I haven’t seen you for an age. Join us, won’t you?”

  “Come, Miss Sinclair,” Glynn said. “My sister is correct. We’ve not seen you in too long.”

  “Please?” Clara squeezed her hand again, and Emily’s heart sank. If she refused now, she would seem childish and petty.

  “Please do,” Bracebridge said when she caught his eye. His request seemed genuine.

  “Very well, then. Frieda and I should be delighted.” She looped Frieda’s leash several times around her hand, then extended her other arm to Harry Glynn. Though he was not as tall as Bracebridge, he laid proper claim to six feet. Emily scarcely reached his shoulder. Why couldn’t she return his affection? He was tall, handsome, and good-natured, yet in all the time she’d known him, he had never made her insides shiver.

  Outside, Frieda pulled Emily several paces ahead until she was well ahead of the others. She walked briskly, doing her best to control excitable, gigantic Frieda, all the while excruciatingly aware she was using the dog as an excuse to walk alone. Harry caught up with her from time to time. He did so, she knew, to give Bracebridge and Clara privacy.

  At one point when Harry had fallen into step with her, she picked up a stick and waved it just out of Frieda’s reach. “Tell me,” she said, “have you ever seen such a sight as Frieda with her ears flapping and her tail wagging?”

  “Unique among canines, I dare say.” Harry had helped her rescue Frieda when she was a starving, aggressive young stray living in the alley near the Bartley Green livery stable.

  “She’s growing into a monstrously large dog.”

  “You’ve an affinity for the monstrous,” he said gently.

  Those soft words defeated her utterly, and she found she had to swallow several times against the lump in her throat.

  “Why not let Frieda off her leash? It would do her good to exhaust herself.”

  “Oh, no!” she said without thinking. “She might run away. What if she does and cannot find her way back?” Her fear was unreasonable, but it was also unshakeable.

  “That is unlikely,” he said.

  “She doesn’t always come when she’s called.” She held tight to Frieda’s leash while she and Harry walked side by side in a silence that was no longer comfortable. She wanted badly to look behind her at Clara and Bracebridge and, eventually, she could not resist. She looked. Clara was laughing at something Bracebridge had said to her. He was smiling, too.

  Harry sighed. “There’s no shortage of women who like what he has on offer.”

  “Mr. Glynn, I—I am sorry. Forgive me for my thoughtlessness.” She faced him and immediately regretted doing so because she could see Bracebridge and Clara walking slowly, arm in arm.

  He was courting her. Clara, her dearest friend. What sort of awful person was she to wish that were not so?

  “I hope you do not misunderstand what I’m about to say.” Harry took Emily’s arm and turned her around. “I don’t mean to give you hope where there is none. I meant what I said about Bracebridge and other women. He has a savage charm that appeals. But not, I worry, to my sister.”

  “I don’t care what anyone says about him.” No one knew that three years ago, shortly after Anne’s marriage, Emily had seen Bracebridge without a stitch of clothing. The incident was burned into her soul. Him very deliberately getting out of bed and standing in front of her, daring her to faint. Savage charm, indeed. “That is in the past. He’s not a prizefighter anymore.”

  “No, not that.” Harry meant a good deal more by that oblique denial than he was willing to say to her. She supposed his disapproval had to do with the source of Bracebridge’s personal wealth.

  “I mean no disrespect,” she said, “but I sincerely hope your mother does not intend to interfere.” Few people disapproved of Bracebridge more than Clara’s mother and, naturally, one of them was Emily’s father. Emily disagreed vehemently with all of his detractors, and she held tight to that anger because it helped soothe her hurt and jealousy.

  Harry did not immediately reply, but when he did, it was thoughtfully. “She’ll interfere. She cannot help herself. But the fact is, Lord Bracebridge has asked for and received my permission to court Clara.”

  She stared at the path ahead. Her happiness for Clara and Bracebridge was dwarfed by her abject misery. Harry was the head of the family since his father had passed away. So, yes, Bracebridge would apply to Harry for permission.

  “I’ll manage my mother. But now I have a question for you.” His tone went from avuncular to something too intimate.

  “Oh, Harry, no.”

  “Do you know what Bracebridge told me to do?”

  She did not want to know. She shook her head to discourage him.

  “He told me that if I wished to engage your affections, I should tell you I find you beautiful beyond words and that I love you with a mad passion.”

  She refused to cry. She absolutely would not.

  “You see how badly he underestimates you,” Glynn said softly. “Sinclair women are immune to flattery.”

  Emily tossed her head. She was an expert at smiling, no matter the circumstances. “I adore being told I’m beautiful.”

  “You hate it.”

  She tossed Frieda another stick, throwing it just to the length of the leash. They watched in silence while she destroyed the stick in two bites.

  “Consider this: I understand where your heart lies. Call me a fool, but that state of affairs cannot last, not without encouragement. Not past his marriage. We could grow old together, you and I.”

  The weather was fine. Blue sky, only a hint of a breeze. “With your mother?”

  “I would not have her in my household. Mama must live at Withercomb surrounded by her memories of our father and her iron hold on the society of Bartley Green. You and I can make our home elsewhere. Far from here.” He gestured. “Far from your father. Far from the Earl of Bracebridge.”

  “I cannot leave Papa.” That was a lie. How could she marry Harry Glynn when it meant she would regularly see Bracebridge? However far away they we
nt, one saw family on holidays and other occasions. It was inevitable. She simply could not bear the idea of having to pretend her heart wasn’t broken.

  “The sentiment greatly behooves you. Clara feels the same loyalty toward our mother. However, I will not allow your father to live with us any more than I would permit my mother to do so. My willingness to support his more objectionable habits is already nonexistent. But he won’t starve, and I promise I shall keep a roof over his head.”

  “Your confidence in my character is misplaced,” she said.

  “I think not.” He sighed. “I am not foolish enough to make you an offer yet. But I don’t want to see you spend the rest of your life looking after your father. Not after the way he’s treated you and your sisters. I do indeed mean to speak ill of him.” He pressed her arm. “If your situation becomes intolerable, you must inform me. I’ll have us in Gretna Green as soon as possible.”

  “An elopement?” She laughed.

  “Marriage is a permanent solution to your difficulties with your father.”

  He was right, of course. Marriage was her only escape from her intolerable situation at home. But she needed a husband who would also provide her an escape from Bracebridge. Who, though, would marry her, only to give up the considerable advantage and influence of her connections to her brothers-in-law?

  Chapter Two

  Aldreth’s butler approached Bracebridge and, in a low voice, said, “A Mr. Gopal Rachagorla is downstairs asking for you.”

  Bracebridge sat straight. He and Aldreth were in the breakfast room, about to go fishing, so it was still dark out. A caller at this hour was reason for concern. The last time Gopal had been obliged to fetch him back to London, the authorities had been threatening to shut down Two Fives.

  Two Fives was a gaming hell at 55 St. James’s Street, London, that he continued to operate in direct partnership with Gopal. He’d transferred the others to Gopal shortly after he was invested with his title.

  “He says his business is urgent, my lord.”

  The timing of Gopal’s call could not have been more unfortunate. Leaving Rosefeld now, and so abruptly, would not advance his case with Clara. He was anxious to have the uncertainty of Clara’s affections for him resolved. He put down his tea. “May I use your study?”

  “You may, of course.” Aldreth dabbed the corner of his mouth with his serviette. Aldreth and his wife had met Gopal several times, seeing as Gopal often dined at Bracebridge’s London home. “Tell Mr. Rachagorla he is welcome to stay for as long as it pleases him. Lady Aldreth and I should be delighted to have him as our guest.”

  “I’ll extend the invitation.” To the butler, Bracebridge said, “I’ll see him immediately. You’ll bring us tea and something to eat?”

  “My lord.”

  Once in Aldreth’s study with the door closed, Bracebridge assessed his friend’s state and was relieved to see no sign of agitation. Good. Good. The last thing he wanted was a scandal for Mrs. Glynn to get wind of. He took a calming breath. “Two Fives remains open for business, I trust?”

  “Yes.” Gopal walked to the window and gazed out. The sun was just barely tinting the horizon pink and orange amid the grey. Gopal knew nothing sensitive could be said until the servants had come and gone, and so his first remark was banal. “It’s lovely here.”

  They’d come far in their decade-long friendship. In those early days of struggle, neither of them had leisurely watched a sunrise, and if they had, it would not have been from the inside of a centuries-old house like Rosefeld.

  A sunrise view was hard to come by in Cheapside. At the time, Bracebridge had been determined to prove the truth of every accusation his father had thrown at him. That he was incorrigible, disrespectful, a reprobate, and a disgrace to the family, among other choice epithets leveled at him. At the time, Gopal, only recently arrived from India, had found himself at loose ends after his employer’s bride objected to Gopal’s presence in her household. He had wandered down the same street where Bracebridge, then plain Mr. Devon Carlisle, had been looking to start a fight. Gopal had dissuaded him from that foolishness.

  “There’ll be refreshments soon,” Bracebridge now said.

  “Excellent.” Gopal turned from the window. He was a tall, slender man, younger than Bracebridge by five or so years, well-formed and handsome.

  As usual, his friend was impeccably dressed. Though he sometimes wore garb native to his country, he typically wore English clothes, as he did today, and with an élan all his own.

  He’d known Two Fives was a going concern the day he saw a gentleman in what he privately referred to as the Rachagorla waistcoat. The style was distinguished by close-fit silk in bright colors, exquisite embroidery, and a slightly higher collar than most. Nothing outlandish, but enough for a discerning eye to notice. No man of fashion could hope to succeed in the Rachagorla waistcoat without a perfectly tied neckcloth. Gopal’s, of course, was perfection itself.

  “Sit, please.” He did so himself, but Gopal returned to a contemplation of the view. Their meeting had been fortuitous, and their friendship unstinting. Because of Gopal, Devon Carlisle had become a wealthy man. Bloody richer than a military career would have made him, and sooner, too. Gopal often reminded him that they were wealthy because of their partnership, and this, he had to admit, was true. They had different yet complementary talents.

  “I could gaze for hours at such a view,” Gopal said. Though he retained the accent of his homeland, his English was impeccable. He had adapted to life among the English. He was literate in the language and fluent in society. He looked a gentleman, spoke softly and kindly, and possessed a ruthless streak to rival Bracebridge’s own.

  A footman entered with tea and a selection of dishes, and they fell silent while the repast was set out.

  “Stay then. Enjoy the view. They’d be delighted if you did. I hope you will consider it.” He’d be glad if Gopal were to stay to celebrate his engagement and see the door close on his broken heart.

  “If I am able, yes.” The footman departed, and Gopal served himself tea. Bracebridge declined more for now.

  “Stay for luncheon, at the very least.”

  Gopal took a sip of tea and brushed a lock of black-as-night hair from his forehead. “That would be agreeable.”

  “Assuming we don’t both make an immediate return to Town, I look forward to that.” He was now sanguine about Gopal’s presence here. If this were something dire enough to require his presence in London, Gopal would already have told him. Still, whatever had brought him here must and would be dealt with. “If Two Fives is open for business, what brings you to Bartley Green?”

  “My friend.” Gopal shook his head and drank more tea. His waistcoat was peacock blue with gold and silver embroidery—a thing of beauty. Gopal’s striking looks were suited to the embellishments of fashion. For himself, Bracebridge did not see the point. “I am not certain I ought to have disturbed your leisure, and at such an hour as this.” He arched an eyebrow and cocked his head, a half smile on his mouth. “Have you news for me?”

  “Soon, I hope.” Gopal’s vague words were intended to ask whether Bracebridge had news of an engagement. He relaxed even more. This was friendship: Gopal wanting to share in the happiness of an event that would transform his life yet again.

  Gopal bowed and helped himself to a slice of toast, asking, “Nothing for you?” Bracebridge shook his head. “May you find happiness in her answer.”

  “I hope you’ll stay. I want to introduce her to you.”

  “I should like that very much.”

  He imagined Gopal raising a glass in a toast of congratulations along with Aldreth and his wife. Emily, too, for that matter. He sincerely hoped they were past their difficulties. That was an end to be wished for: to be friends with all the Sinclair sisters. “Now, then.” He settled himself on his chair. “You are here. The reason must be important, or you would not have come all this way.”

  Gopal finished his toast, then drew a packet of pape
rs from the slim case he’d brought with him. He placed the papers on Aldreth’s desk. “Behold.” He flashed a grin that had devastated women wherever the two of them traveled. Bracebridge did not doubt the devastation continued. “Whether with dismay or pleasure, I cannot say.”

  Bracebridge walked over to have a look. The packet consisted predominately of scraps of paper, half sheets of foolscap, a bill of fare, a portion of a pamphlet, and several sheets of the letterhead provided by Two Fives for the convenience of gentlemen required to document their debts. “What are these?”

  “The reason I have come all this way and perhaps delayed whatever fate is to befall you here. Please.” Gopal set a finger on top of the papers. “I beg you examine them, my lord, for then the reason for my visit shall become plain.”

  True, as it turned out. All too true. The papers were a collection of vowels signed by one Thomas Sinclair of the Cooperage, Bartley Green. Ten pounds, twenty, fifty. Five hundred. Over a thousand. Three thousand pounds. Another for nearly as much as the last. “I hadn’t realized he was playing as deeply as this.”

  “Nor I.”

  The bill of fare fell to the floor, reverse side up. When Bracebridge retrieved it, the numbers written on the page shocked him. “Bloody sodding—”

  “I took the liberty of acquiring these from the various persons who possessed them.” Gopal pulled over a chair and sat, elbow propped on the arm, while Bracebridge continued to scan through the documents. “Just over eleven thousand for them all.” He evened out his cuffs. “It was necessary to offer more than fair value to secure them all. However, the majority are from Two Fives.”

  “Understood.” Bracebridge counted the notes. More than a dozen, double that, even. Thirty-bloody-seven, in fact. As he arranged them by date, he asked, “Acquired how recently?”

  “Over the preceding three days.” Gopal smiled in that way that implied no good for anyone, and leaned close to select another of Sinclair’s notes. “This convinced me I must act immediately.”