The Missing Heir

by Ranstrom, Gail

  She tried for an indifferent shrug. “What are you playing, Lord Geoffrey?”

  “I am at your disposal, Mrs. Forbush.”

  “Vingt-et-un?”

  “Would you like to play me or the tables?”

  How droll. He was giving her a chance to escape. But, of course, there was only one answer, and only one reason. Laura Talbot. “You, Lord Geoffrey,” she said.

  He led her to the first private room at the head of the stairs and summoned a monitor for a deck of cards and counters. She sat across from him and watched as he shuffled and dealt the first hand. Nothing, no fumble or hesitation, betrayed sleight of hand or trickery of any kind. She lost. And the second game, and the third. She had really expected to win a hand or two. Could it be that Lord Geoffrey had tired of toying with her and was now ready for the coup? At this rate, she’d have lost all her money within an hour.

  She must have betrayed her consternation in some way, because Lord Geoffrey signaled the monitor over and handed him the deck. “If you please,” he said, and gestured at a chair.

  The man, now their croupier, sat and gave his attention to the cards. Was this yet another ploy to put her at ease? Lord Geoffrey kept up a stream of easy chatter, not taxing, not diverting, certainly nothing engineered to distract her to the point of being unable to play her cards and make decisions. He talked about his horse, a manor house he’d just bought in Wiltshire for his bride-to-be, his penchant for Scotch and his preference for gambling at Covent Garden hells.

  “Anything can happen here,” he said, a trace of amusement in his voice. “There are no limits and nothing is sacred.”

  Was he taunting her? Was he really so confident that she’d fall victim to his machinations? She smiled and kept her composure despite her pile of dwindling counters. She was aware that their game was drawing mild interest by the number of men who would wander into the room and watch for a time, then leave only to return with a friend.

  Lord Geoffrey began to make slightly smaller wagers, as if drawing out his victory. Or prolonging her defeat. She could not decide which. With each win, Lord Geoffrey would look almost apologetic, as if he’d wanted to lose but just couldn’t manage it.

  Grace despaired that she’d ever determine how the man could be so infernally “lucky.” It was beginning to look as if she had lost a disgraceful amount of money and expended considerable energy to no avail.

  And, two hours after her arrival at Thackery’s, with a hollow feeling of despair and a silent prayer, she pushed the last of her counters into the center of the table. She had a count of twenty. It was as good a hand as she’d had all night.

  The croupier turned up Lord Geoffrey’s last card. “Vingt-et-un,” he announced.

  “I am awed by your skill,” she said, pushing her chair back from the table and preparing to rise.

  “Please, Mrs. Forbush,” Lord Geoffrey entreated. “Sit down.”

  “You’ve won the last of my counters,” she said, easing back onto her chair. “I have nothing left.”

  He smiled again, the smile that was somehow knowing and sinister. “You have other…assets.”

  Grace stared at him, trying to decide if he’d meant those words the way they’d sounded. When she did not speak, he took the initiative again.

  “Your pendant, Mrs. Forbush. I’d say that was worth…oh, one hundred pounds.”

  That was generous. It had been recently valued at eighty. Laura Talbot’s face haunted her. Everything within her power, she’d said. She nodded and Lord Geoffrey slid one hundred pounds in counters across the table to her as she unfastened the pendant and lay it on the table. He nodded at the croupier to deal another hand. Grace was aware that the crowd at her back was growing but she refused to turn around. If she acknowledged all those faces watching her, speculating on her, she feared she would lose her nerve.

  And, in the end, she lost everything but her nerve. Again she pushed back from the table. Again, he called her back.

  “Wait, Mrs. Forbush. I’ve won everything but what I wanted most.”

  The room, abuzz a moment ago, hushed. She felt a blush creep into her cheeks. Surely he would not shame her in front of a crowd. “What is that, Lord Geoffrey?”

  “An answer.”

  She laughed. She had a slight satisfaction in that, at least. “An answer to what?”

  “What you really want. I’ve watched you gamble, Mrs. Forbush. You are not addicted to the excitement. Nor are you caught up in the competition of winning. You gamble with a purpose, but I have been unable to determine what that purpose is, or what it has to do with me.”

  She arched an eyebrow at him, debating whether she should tell him now that she’d lost everything. She thought not. Leaving him with questions was the only satisfaction she had now.

  As she moved to rise, he made her another offer. “One more hand. If I win, you’ll answer the question. If you win…” He dangled her pendant from his left hand.

  She eased back into her chair. “Very well, Lord Geoffrey.”

  And, again, he won.

  He sat back in his chair and regarded her with greater satisfaction than she’d seen him display when winning her fortune. He raised his wineglass and toasted her. “I am ready, Mrs. Forbush. Enlighten me.”

  Conscious of the crowd at her back, and that this tableau would be grist for the gossip mill tomorrow, she chose her words carefully. “I thought you were a cheat, and that I could prove it if I could just tempt you into carelessness.”

  There were gasps behind her and she knew if she’d been a man she’d have been challenged for those words. But Lord Geoffrey merely smiled. “And what made you think I was a cheat?”

  “Reports. After all, what could possibly account for your luck at cards?”

  “Skill?”

  “Lord Geoffrey, the cards could hardly arrange themselves for your convenience,” she scoffed. “Common odds would have you losing occasionally rather than rarely.”

  “Then what of the old axiom about love? Lucky in cards, unlucky in love.”

  Grace would have laughed if she hadn’t remembered Constance Bennington. Lord Geoffrey had been courting Constance at the time of her murder. Yes, he’d been unlucky in love.

  “Why does it matter to you if I am a cheat, Mrs. Forbush? Do you think I cheated one of your friends?”

  “No.”

  “Then what did you hope to gain?”

  “Laura Talbot’s freedom.”

  “Ah! So this is where Miss Talbot comes in. I wondered. Then these last few weeks have been an effort to expose me as a cheat so Miss Talbot would not have to marry me?”

  “Yes,” Grace admitted, almost relieved to be done with the deception. She stood and the silence behind her told her that the crowd was as stunned as Lord Geoffrey.

  His expression did not change as he studied her. She’d have given her eyeteeth to know what he was thinking, but she never would have anticipated his next offer.

  His gaze swept her from head to toe. “I told you last time we gambled, Mrs. Forbush, what I would require to release Miss Talbot from her brother’s debt. Are you prepared to pay that price?”

  She swallowed the lump in her throat, closer to losing her composure at that moment than ever before. Dear Lord! He was serious. He would take her in trade for Laura Talbot! But, in spite of her urgings to Miss Talbot, could she…marry a man she did not love? Of course. She’d married Basil.

  Lord Geoffrey’s requirements of a bride were not too taxing. In fact, if she recalled correctly, they required very little of her but that she “lie still and spread her legs on occasion and subsequently push out a brat.”

  She sank back into her chair, fighting her impending panic. “Would you forgive her brother’s debt, as well?”

  “What would that gain me?”

  She was silent. It would gain him nothing. Exchanging Laura for her was an even trade. Both were female. Both would perform their required function. But forgiving the debt was no trade at all—nothing
for him to gain, everything to lose.

  She kept hearing her promise to Miss Talbot echo in her head, taunting her, prodding her on.

  Her hesitation must have challenged him because it couldn’t have been pity that led him to make the next offer. “I won’t hold you to marriage, Mrs. Forbush. We shall cut for high card. If you win, I will grant Miss Talbot a choice in the matter, independent of her brother’s debt. All I require is that she meet with me and talk to me before she makes that choice. But if I win, you will go upstairs with me tonight and pay your debt. And Saturday I shall wed Miss Talbot as scheduled.”

  A single night with Lord Geoffrey in exchange for one last opportunity to redeem Laura Talbot? She looked down at the deck. A slim chance. Almost nonexistent. Better than none?

  The years of Leland’s torment rose to taunt her and urge her on. Nothing mattered now that Adam had turned his back on her—nothing but the chance to strike a blow against the inequity of women and the tyranny of men. And to uphold her promise to a woman too weak to stand on her own.

  Could she actually do it? Could she not? Her reputation was already ruined. Adam was gone. She nodded.

  When he’d been unable to find Barrington, Adam had gone to Leland York’s hotel. After a brief chat, and getting the answers he’d been seeking, he’d put Leland on a late coach out of London with the promise to return only if Grace summoned him. Adam would take steps later to assure that Leland would never be a threat to Grace again. He’d made sure that Leland understood he owed his life to the fact that he was Grace’s brother. Adam had all he needed to send Leland to prison for the rest of his life, or to have him hanged, and Leland knew it.

  When a messenger intercepted him on the front steps of the house on Bloomsbury Square, he’d been surprised. Not that Grace had gone gambling without him, but that he’d been summoned. He’d be glad of the chance to straighten out their last quarrel. When Grace had chosen to keep her secrets rather than to honor his wishes, he’d been hurt and angry. He’d said things he hadn’t meant and he’d left her with the impression that he was finished with her, hoping the thought would sober her and recall her to reason. And, as Carter had reminded him, he’d kept secrets, too, and had not placed his full trust in her. His mistake—one he wouldn’t make again.

  Now he drew more than a few curious stares in his buckskins, but he was beyond caring about polite social rules of dress and conduct. Thackery’s did not appear to be the sort of establishment to adhere too strictly to such codes. He shouldered his way through the crowd in the upstairs room, uncertain what he’d find.

  Grace was sitting with her back to the crowd, her amethyst pendant in the pile of counters in front of Lord Geoffrey. He was seated facing the crowd, his posture relaxed. He was tapping one counter on the tabletop, waiting for Grace to speak. Adam acknowledged him with a nod.

  Grace’s hand came up, and he knew she would be pressing that spot between her eyebrows. Then she nodded and an excited murmur ran through the crowd. One man hurried from the room, probably to spread the news of a new wager. But what was it?

  Lord Geoffrey sat forward and glanced quickly at Adam with a shift of his eyes to the side. Adam began to edge around the crowd toward the side to come up on Lord Geoffrey’s right. The room began to fill as men from the lower floor poured in.

  The croupier shuffled the deck and pushed it into the center of the table, looking interested for the first time.

  “You first, Mrs. Forbush,” Lord Geoffrey said.

  Was he the only one to notice how Grace’s hand shook as she reached out toward the deck? He pressed closer to the side and finally reached a position where he could see her face. She looked feverish and terrified. What was the bet? He heard a whisper from behind.

  “Her favors, that’s what,” a man was telling his companion. “High card. If she wins, Morgan’s fiancée can beg off. If he wins, she goes upstairs with him.”

  No longer concerned with subtlety, Adam shouldered men out of his way in an effort to get to Morgan’s side. At last he knew the reason for Grace’s gambling. But what the hell was Morgan thinking? One thing was certain—Grace really was unraveling!

  Her fingers slid the depth of the deck, then up again, as if searching for the exact place to cut. Her shoulders rose with a deep breath and she parted the cards midway down and turned the cut up. The knave of hearts. She sat back with a sigh. It was a good card.

  She wasn’t safe yet. There were still thirteen cards that could beat hers. Adam finally broke free of crowd and came up behind Lord Geoffrey’s chair. Grace looked up at him and her flushed complexion went instantly pale. Her dark eyes glittered and her teeth worried her lower lip as she held his gaze.

  Lord Geoffrey reached out and made a careless cut of the cards. He tilted the cut so that only he and Adam could see the card he had exposed. The ace of spades. He replaced the cards facedown on top of the deck and smiled.

  “Your win, Mrs. Forbush.”

  Exclamations and gasps went up from the gathered crowd. Money changed hands and backs were slapped as the room emptied. Adam understood. Lord Geoffrey Morgan had just repaid his debt. At that moment, he almost liked the man.

  Grace stood unsteadily, gripping the back of her chair for support. “I shall have Miss Talbot arrange an appointment with you at her earliest convenience, Lord Geoffrey.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Miss Talbot was the reason for your gambling,” Adam said as he handed Grace into the coach.

  Grace nodded. “She did not deserve to be her brother’s pawn.”

  “As you were Leland’s?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  He had suspected that Laura Talbot had had something to do with her gambling, but she had brought herself within inches of total ruin. There had to be more. “You lost half your fortune, your reputation and nearly any claim to virtue. How could you have risked so much?”

  “Because I…” She took a deep breath and started again. “Because love is worth any risk.”

  The slight catch in her voice told him she wasn’t talking about Miss Talbot. He reached out and touched her cheek. “Miss Talbot is in love?”

  The color rose in her cheeks. “Deeply, she says.”

  “Are you done now, or is there more?” he asked gently.

  She tried to smile but looked more as though she would cry. She turned her face and kissed his palm. “I am done.”

  “Good,” he said, backing away, closing the coach door. If he stayed a minute more he wouldn’t be able to send her away. “I want you safe at home. I have one last detail to attend and then I will come to you. There are some matters we need to discuss.” He was going to marry this woman and he’d do whatever it took to win her consent.

  “Adam, I do not want there to be rancor between us. I wish—”

  Rancor? Then she really did not suspect how he felt? He warmed as he thought of the many ways he would tell her when he had finished this last task. “Please, Grace. I have reason to believe that you are in imminent danger. Can you just do as I ask?” He waited until she nodded, then asked the question that nearly threatened his sanity, afraid of the answer. “Would you have honored your wager with Morgan?”

  She frowned. “I thought I could until I saw you standing there. But now I know I could not. Thank heavens, an angel was watching over me.”

  The devil, more likely. He laughed with profound relief as he closed the coach door. With a call to Mr. Dewberry, the coach lurched forward and entered the late-night traffic.

  The moment the coach disappeared around a corner, he headed for the Eagle Tavern. Now that he knew Grace would be safe, he could finish his long odyssey.

  The house was silent when Grace arrived, and she knew Mrs. Dewberry would be in the coach house waiting for her husband. A candle burned on the foyer table, flickering faintly in the glass globe protecting the flame.

  Leaving her reticule on the table, she climbed the stairs to her room, feeling emotionally drained but wonderfully light and fr
ee. Though she hadn’t been able to prove Lord Geoffrey was a cheat, she had achieved her main objective. Miss Talbot would now have an honorable choice as to her fate. Grace hoped she’d choose wisely. The privilege had cost her and the Wednesday League dearly.

  And tonight, she’d finally go to Adam with no secrets and nothing held back. He knew everything. He’d seen beneath the veneer. After all the barren years between, Adam instinctively recognized the girl she had been beneath the woman she had become. She’d been so careful to hide it, fearing Leland, fearing that part of her was wicked, that no one, certainly no man, had discovered that part of her. Adam had seen the worst of her in her willfulness and her rash wagers. Tonight she’d show him the best.

  She disrobed, leaving her clothes in a pile on her dressing room floor, and poured tepid water into her washbowl. She lathered and rinsed every part of her with her jasmine scented soap, knowing how much Adam liked the scent. She would seduce him tonight in a way he’d never forget. And she would forget, at least for tonight, that he loved someone else.

  She slipped into her light dressing gown, removed the pins from her hair and shook it out. The dark lengths fell around her hips, curling gently at the ends. She would not braid it or tie it back tonight. And tomorrow she would cut it to her shoulders. No more prim little chignon. No more tightly controlled facade to give the impression of calm elegance. She was Ellie again. And she’d be Ellie as long as Adam wanted her.

  She lit candles for the bedside tables and brought a wine carafe and glasses up from the library. She wouldn’t worry about falling asleep tonight or leaving Adam to hurry back to her own bed. She’d lock her door and hold out the world. Tonight she’d finish what she’d begun before Adam had stopped her with a promise for the future. The things she intended to do to him! It would seem she had no shame at all. She hadn’t known that about herself.

  She smiled as she untied the sash of her dressing gown and let it drop to the floor, then went to her bureau and rummaged through the bottom drawer. The white silk nightgown she’d been given as a wedding gift was still wrapped in tissue. She’d never worn it for Basil, afraid he would call her bold or brazen. But Adam would like it.