Virtue v-1

by Jane Feather

  "How're they doing?"

  Judith chuckled. "Pretty well, on the whole. Cornelia has the most difficulty. It's strange, because she's so clever in so many other areas. She plays the pianoforte beautifully and composes her own music, you know. And reads Latin and Greek."

  "Very bookish," Sebastian agreed. "And completely cow-handed."

  "Oh, that's unkind." But Judith couldn't help smiling. "Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing how they do. They're all absolutely determined to succeed."

  "Heaven preserve the husbands of London," Sebastian teased. "How will they ensure their wives' loyalty if they can't ensure their dependence?"

  Judith grimaced. "That may be a quizzing observation, Sebastian, but it has an unpleasant ring of truth. If you could hear Isobels description of the humiliating performance…" Remembering Charlie's presence, she stopped abruptly. Such details were not for his tender ears.

  Sebastian nodded in instant comprehension. "I take it back… I must be off. I promised to escort Harriet and her mother to the Botanic Gardens." He pulled a comical face.

  "Whatever for? I'm sure Harriet would prefer to visit the lions at the Exchange."

  "And so would I, but her revered mama does not consider it edifying, so the Botanic Gardens it is."

  "Well, make sure you have a plentiful supply of sal volatile, in case Lady Moreton becomes overcome with excitement among the orchids."

  "You are a disrespectful wretch," Sebastian declared.

  "Yes, I'd noticed that myself," came Carrington's voice from the doorway. "How do you do, Sebastian?" He tossed his riding whip onto the sofa and Jrew off his gloves.

  "Well enough, thank you." Sebastian grinned at his brother-in-law and picked up his hat from the side table. "Perhaps you could cure m'sister's lamentable tongue."

  "Oh, I've tried, Sebastian, I've tried. It's a lost cause."

  "I suppose it is. Pity, though."

  "Would you two stop talking about me as if I weren't here?" Judith demanded in half-laughing indignation.

  "I'm away." Sebastian blew his sister a kiss and went to the door.

  "Oh, there's something I need to discuss with you, Sebastian," Marcus said. "But I can see you're in a hurry."

  "Orchids await him," Judith murmured as the door closed behind her brother.

  "What?"

  "Orchids. He's gone to dance attendance on Lady Moreton."

  "Good God, why?"

  "Because he intends her for his mother-in-law."

  "Hell and the devil," Marcus said. "The daughter's a considerable heiress, of course."

  "What has that to do with it?" Judith demanded, bristling.

  "Why, only that all sane young men with barely a feather to fly with are on the lookout for heiresses," Marcus responded casually. "What are you playing, Charlie?" He strolled over to the card table.

  Charlie didn't immediately reply. He could see Judith's face and he was wondering why Marcus hadn't noticed the reaction his words were causing.

  Judith said stiffly, "You know nothing about Sebastian's circumstances."

  "No, but 1 assume he supports himself at the tables. I doubt the Moretons will look kindly upon his suit." Marcus turned to pick up the sherry decanter from the pier table.

  "Well, I trust you'll be in for a surprise."

  "I'd be happy to believe it, but you must face facts,}udith." He poured sherry, blithely indifferent to the effect he was having on his wife. "People like the Moretons would look kindly on an impoverished suitor only if he brought a significant title."

  "I see," Judith said icily, and firmly closed her lips. Rapidly, she finished dealing the cards.

  "So what are you playing?" Marcus inquired again, casually sipping sherry.

  "Macao," Charlie said, eager to change the subject. Judith was looking very dangerous, and he could detect the slightest tremor in the long white fingers. "You see, I'm not very good at gaming-" he began.

  "No, you're abominable," Marcus agreed, interrupting. "A baby could beat you… which is why you're

  in the trouble you're in," he added. "I'd have thought you'd do better to find some other way of amusing your-self."

  "But once I learn how to win, I won't have any debts," Charlie explained eagerly. "So Judith's teaching me."

  "She's what" Marcus exclaimed, his cheerful insouciance gone. Sebastian had been in the room too, and the memory of another macao table in a ballroom in Brussels filled his mind and chased away all rational thought. How could he ever have thought he could bury the past? "And just how is she teaching you to win?"

  On top of the insult to Sebastian-insults Marcus didn't even seem aware of-this was too much. Judith knew quite well what he was implying, and the last shreds of control over her volcanic temper were severed.

  "Well, there's a little trick I know," she declared, the lynx eyes ablaze. "It involves nicking the right-hand corner of the knaves… it's almost impossible to detect if one does it aright; and then there's-"

  The goad found its mark. Marcus exploded, his expression livid. "That'll do!"

  With an incoherent mumble Charlie leaped to his feet and hastily left the room, closing the door behind him.

  "I will not have you interfering in my family concerns," Marcus stated. "I've already told you that Charlie is my business, and I will not have him influenced by your dubious ethics, your views, your practices-"

  "How dare you!" Judith sprang up from the table in violent interruption. "How could you imagine I would teach Charlie to be a cardsharp?"

  "From what I know of you, very easily," Marcus snapped. "You forget I know full well how you go about winning."

  Judith was now as pale as she'd been flushed with anger a minute before. "You are unjust," she stated flatly. "First you accuse my brother of fortune hunting, and then you accuse me of the ultimate unscrupulousness. I wish to God we'd never met." The words were spoken before she had a chance to monitor them, and there they lay, like stones on the air between them.

  For a moment Marcus was silent. The hiss and crackle of the fire in the hearth was the only sound in the room. Then he said, "Do you?" His eyes were fixed on her face with an almost aching intensity.

  "Don't you?" Her voice was now flat, the fire had died in her eyes, and for some reason she was crying inside. But her face showed no emotion.

  "Sometimes… when… sometimes," he said slowly. When he found himself loving her and then he'd remember her trickery, the use to which she could put her beauty and her passion-that was when he wished they'd never met. And that knowledge was never far from the surface, however hard he tried to bury it.

  He went out of the room, closing the door quietly.

  Judith stood in the middle of the room, the tears now coursing soundlessly down her cheeks. If they'd never met, she would have been spared this hurt. But if they'd never met, she would have missed…

  She drew out her handkerchief and blew her nose. Soon enough she would be free to leave him. Soon enough he'd be free of his conniving trickster wife. Only why did such thoughts make her so miserable?

  17

  Bernard Melville was puzzled. He was losing to Sebastian Davenport and he couldn't work out how it was happening. His opponent was playing with his usual insouciance, lounging back in his chair, legs sprawled beneath the table, a goblet of cognac at his elbow. He laughed and joked with those who stopped beside the table to watch the play, often seemed careless of his discard, and yet the points were adding up with a remorseless momentum.

  Bernard had lost the first hand, won the second by a hair, and was clearly about to lose the third. The cards seemed to be running evenly, although Davenport had laughingly congratulated himself when he'd looked at his hand, counted thirty points, and declared a repique. But the earl knew his own cards were certainly good enough to give him the edge even against a major hand when playing with someone less skilled than himself. And Sebastian Davenport was a careless, inexpert player… wasn't he?

  Sebastian watched his opponent. Gracemere
was not aware of the observation, conducted as it was from beneath lazily drooping lids, but Sebastian was making a fairly accurate guess as to the earl's musings. He wondered whether to throw a guard that they would both know he should have kept. He would lose the hand, but he was ahead on points and could easily win the game with the next hand, after which he would rise the winner by a narrow margin. His fingers hovered over the cards, and a deep frown furrowed his brow. He reached for his cognac and drank.

  Gracemere watched this performance of indecision with an inner smile. Despite his present success, the man was so transparent. When, with an almost defiant gesture of resolution, Sebastian threw down his only heart, the inner smile nearly broke 10 the surface. That was more like it. Careless, inexpert… positively bird-witted. Gracemere played to win the hand.

  "Ah, I knew I should have retained the heart," Sebastian lamented. "I just couldn't remember what had gone before."

  "I know how it is," Gracemere said with smooth reassurance, dealing the cards.

  He lost the next hand so quickly, he could only put it down to the fall of the cards. "Your game, I believe, Davenport."

  Sebastian smiled fuzzily as he began to count the points. "Not by much, but it makes a change, Grace-mere."

  "You must allow me my revenge." The earl gathered up the cards.

  Sebastian yawned. "You'll have to excuse me tonight. Three games is as much as I can manage at one sitting… too much concentration." He laughed in cheerful self-deprecation. "Think I'll have a turn at hazard. See how the dice fall for me. I've a feeling my luck's in tonight."

  "As you wish," Gracemere said, finding it hard to hide his contempt. "But I insist on a return game soon."

  "By all means… by all means… wouldn't miss it for the world." Sebastian stood up, caught sight of a friend across the room, and strolled off. Gracemere watched him weave his way through the tables, an occasional unevenness in his step indication of the cognac he had been downing so liberally. He played with a wealthy man's improvidence.

  Gracemere smiled. Fleecing such a careless fool would be easier than taking cake from a baby. And as for the sister… she'd fallen into his hand like a ripe plum with the tale of her husband's pride and jealousy. Really, such innocents shouldn't be let loose upon the world. However, his plans for her were going to prove highly entertaining for both himself and Agnes, who had declared herself a most eager partner. And he would humble Marcus Devlin at last.

  For a moment, his surroundings faded into a mist and he no longer saw or heard the men at the tables, the soft slap of cards, the efficiently bustling waiters replacing bottles of burgundy, refilling the decanters of port and cognac. The flame on the branched candlestick that had lit the piquet table blurred in front of his eyes. Now he saw again the chamber above the stables on that long-ago dawn, and he saw again the pitiless ebony eyes. So vivid was the image that he could almost smell the terror he'd felt when he finally understood what Marcus Devlin was going to do to him.

  Gracemere shook his head clear of the vision and slowly unclenched his fists, absently massaging his bloodless fingers. Judith would help him erase the memories and the burning wound of that unendurable humiliation.

  Once out of the card room, Sebastian's step steadied, his eyes focused, his shoulders straightened. They were little adjustments, so discreetly made as to be almost un-noticeable by any not on the watch for them. Only Judith would have seen them.

  "Still playing with Gracemere, I see," Viscount Middleton observed as Sebastian joined him in the hazard room.

  "Yes, and my luck was in tonight," Sebastian said, watching the fall of the dice, listening to the groom porter intoning the odds, calculating how much he was prepared to lose to chance in the interests of appearances. He was supposed to be an addicted gamester, who was nevertheless unworried about his losses, and it would become quickly remarked if he chose only to play games of skill.

  "Well, it's your business, I suppose," Harry observed in a tone that was not altogether approving. He tossed a rouleaux onto the baize table beneath the brilliant light of a massive candelabra. "But don't forget what I said."

  "I haven't," Sebastian reassured him, making his own bet. "And if I tell you not to worry about me, Harry, I can assure you I mean it." He realized he would have liked to have said more, to repay his friend's kindness with a degree of confidence. Friendship was a dangerous thing. Until now, he'd only had one friend-his sister-and they'd both been content to have it so. But as their world had expanded, it had become harder to keep to themselves. And he'd be lying to himself if he said he didn't enjoy these new relationships.

  Soon after, he left Watier's, making his way to the soiree at Hartley House where he hoped he would find Harriet, although it was past midnight.

  Judith was at the macao table when he entered the card room, having discovered that his beloved had been taken home by her mama an hour earlier. He strolled casually around the table to watch her play. Judith gave him a brief smile and returned all her attention to the cards. She knew her brother was watching with the eye of a critic. He would tell her afterward if he thought she'd made any errors, and he would be able to detail every one of them from an infallible memory for every hand played. It was a service they performed for each other, although Judith was the first to acknowledge that Sebastian was the better card player.

  After a few minutes' observation, he gave her a short, unsmiling nod that told her she was playing well and wandered away, pausing beside the tables where Judith's pupils were playing. Sally looked up as he stood at her shoulder and gave him the smile of one amazed at her success. He saw that she had a substantial pile of rouleaux at her place. He watched her for a minute and, when she played a weak card, said quietly, "Stop soon. You're losing your concentration."

  Sally flushed and looked put out. But then she bit her lower lip and nodded. A minute later she yielded her place to one of the spectators.

  "Thank you, Sebastian."

  He shook his head. "No need. It's as important a lesson as any other-stop the minute your play starts going bad."

  There was little advice he could give Cornelia, whose play was wildly erratic. Sometimes it verged on the brilliant, but then she would forget everything and play like a rank amateur. Her winnings fluctuated as erratically as her play, and at no point could he advise her to stop because there was no certainty that she wouldn't win the next hand.

  "How am I doing?" she asked in a loud whisper, dropping her fan.

  He picked up the fan, saying quietly, "It's hard to say. How much do you want to win?"

  "Two hundred guineas," she whispered at her original decibel level. The other players looked up from their cards, glaring at her, and she blushed, her arm jerked, knocking over a wineglass. A servant rushed forward to deal with the mess and in the confusion Sebastian said, "Let me take over your hand."

  Cornelia stood up, apologizing vigorously for her clumsiness. "I do beg your pardon, but I seem to have wine on my gown. Oh, do take my place, Mr. Davenport. Thank you so much."

  Sebastian winked at her and sat down. "If the table doesn't object."

  There were no objections, and he increased Cornelia's winnings to the necessary sum within half an hour. Cornelia and Sally stood behind him, watching his play intently. He rose from the table and offered them both his arm with a little grin. "Did you learn anything, ladies?"

  "Yes, you and Judith are the same when you play- you don't seem to notice anything that's going on around you," Sally said. "Your expressions are completely impassive, almost as if you've ceased to inhabit your faces." She laughed. "That sounds silly, doesn't it? But you know what I mean, Cornelia."

  "Yes," Cornelia agreed. "And I suspect it's because Judith and Sebastian are not ordinary card players." She looked up at her escort. "You're true gamesters, aren't you?"

  "And what's a true gamester, Mrs. Forsythe?" he asked, laughing, hoping to deflect her. Cornelia Forsythe had too sharp a brain for comfort, even if she was cow-handed and inclined t
o erratic thought processes.

  Cornelia looked at him for a minute, then she nodded her head. "You know what I mean. But it's none of my business. I'll not mention it again."

  "What are you talking about?" Sally demanded.

  Cornelia laughed, breaking the tension. "Nothing at all. I'm teasing Sebastian. Let's go and see how Isobel is doing."

  Isobel was flushed with success. "Just look at what I've made," she said, opening her reticule to reveal the pile of shining rouleaux. I'd have had to order Henley's favorite meals for a week, and sit on his knee and beg for hours to wrest this sum from him." Then she recollected Sebastian and blushed crimson. What one confided to one's women friends couldn't be shared with a man.

  But Sebastian merely frowned and said, "How very unpleasant for you."

  The three women exchanged a look of amazement. What kind of a man was Judith's brother?

  "Let's see how Judith's doing," Sally said, to break the moment of startled silence.

  "No," Sebastian said immediately. "She won't want to be disturbed. When she's won what she intended to win, she'll stop playing."

  Cornelia smiled to herself and Sebastian caught the smile. Again, he reflected that friends could be hazardous when one had secrets to keep. He suggested they repair to the supper room while they waited for Judith.

  She joined them there shortly. Her eyes were tired, Sebastian thought, and her face was drawn… much more than an evening's intense gaming would produce. In fact, it occurred to him that she'd been crying. He gave her a glass of champagne and sat quietly as she responded to her friends' eager accounts of their various successes.

  "How much did you win?" Sally asked.

  "A thousand," Judith said, as if it were nothing. "I don't owe 'the fund' anything for the horses, do I, Sebastian?"

  "No, Pickering Street settled that, if you recall."

  "Oh, yes, I remember."

  "Fund?" Sally asked.

  "Private language," Judith said, smiling with an effort.

  "I'm going to escort you home," Sebastian said. "You look exhausted."