Spinster's Gambit

by Gwendolynn Thomas

  He needed the handicap, he thought, not five minutes into the game. Miss Holcombe had started to focus more and more, her eyes glazing over before she made her moves and her hands only steadier as she made her decisions. She was evening their positions from the start. Aspen fought desperately for a win, taking more time in his moves than was perhaps socially amiable, but still he felt as if all of his pieces were threatened and all his attacks questionable.

  He saw a way to pressure her queen, at a time when he desperately needed to push her back and he played it. Miss Holcombe leaned back in her chair, gazing resolutely at the ceiling for a moment and Aspen felt a jolt of pride strike through him that he'd managed to surprise her.

  How likely could it be for Miss Holcombe to be so similar in chess skill to her cousin? A man who had very few equals in all of London? Aspen wondered, blinking before he realized that he was drawing attention from his mother by staring at the spinster and he averted his eyes back to the game.

  “They do seem to be very close, don't they?” Miss Faring said from across the room. Aspen realized belatedly that Miss Holcombe was taking her move and he refocused, letting the rest of the room and its gossip fall away. It took him three moves to discover how he'd trapped himself.

  “Oh, well done, Jack!” he exclaimed, grinning at the board as he admired the trap. He was in a very good position to lose a rook, which would definitely cost him the game.

  The room was too silent and Aspen looked up to find Miss Holcombe staring at him with very wide eyes, along with the rest of the room. Most especially her brother. And he remembered what he'd said.

  Jack. Oh, Lord. He could guess how the rest of the room saw it, that he'd just called her by her Christian name and worse, by a diminutive of it. Jacoline. Aspen stared at the woman, trying to imagine what she’d look like, dressed in a man’s garb. Mr. Jack Holcombe had seemed to curtsy to him, when they’d first been introduced.

  No…

  “Excuse me, Miss Holcombe, you remind me of a friend of mine so strongly I forgot my opponent,” he babbled and she nodded, her eyes still wide. His mother had a smile on her face, he realized, and closed his eyes in mortification. No doubt she thought he'd been secretly courting the spinster. Aspen wanted to bury his face in his hands but tore his eyes back to the board in front of him, pretending to concentrate.

  But how was it possible that 'Jack' and 'Jacoline' Holcombe had such similarities? They looked practically identical, had the same voice, same fierce intelligence, the same social oddities. Jack, whose voice was too high pitched, his hands too soft; Miss Holcombe, who'd let herself out of a carriage without a glance to the waiting footman. He'd swear they were one and the same and he'd met Miss Holcombe in the fencing hall that day, but it was madness, utter madness. Perhaps they were both simply too smart by half to fit into their society and it manifested in similar ways. Jack, at least, could still join the chess association and blow almost all of them off the board. Miss Holcombe had to hide it.

  Aspen glanced up at Miss Holcombe, who had also returned to staring fixedly at the board, her cheeks bright with embarrassment. His mother was watching them, he knew, and ignored her, thinking about Miss Holcombe’s awkward social position. She was a mature, accomplished woman but she was too intelligent for most of the men of their age. They'd have bored her in a second. And now she was soon to be of an age to chaperone the girls they would be marrying.

  Miss Holcombe knew that too, he thought. She'd spent the entirety of the house party finding polite ways to stay out of the way, playing piano and embroidering and flitting from place to place in the rooms they occupied, somehow never moping in one corner like a wallflower and yet never getting caught up in any conversation. But then, perhaps she hadn't simply been trying to stay out of the way, Aspen amended, interested. Perhaps she was as bored by the goings on as he was, though she was too polite to appear so.

  Perhaps she is not particularly social in crowds, Aspen thought, remembering the woman with her head thrown beak in a hearty laugh, the quiet glances with Daniel that suggested a shared humor.

  Aspen tried to refocus on the game but the magic of it was gone and it was nothing but a pastime while he tried not to stare at the woman across from him. Miss Holcombe made her move and he stopped, dragging his brain back to reason. He tipped his king, seeing that the rook was doomed and she gave out her hand, gracefully accepting his surrender.

  He shook it, her hand soft and familiar in his own, and Aspen felt another jolt of curiosity. He crushed the thought determinedly, reminded that he was not a madman. She was a perhaps slightly less outgoing, female version of her cousin. Nothing more. Aspen crossed the room to talk with his mother, whose eyebrows had almost disappeared into her hairline.

  ~~//~~

  Jac tried not to hope for the improbable in any aspect of her life but she was too busy doing exactly that to focus on the game at the end. It felt too much like flirting, sitting there with the duke, arguing over playing at knight odds and doing her level best to triumph over him. He'd called her Jack and seemed to see right through her to those wonderful afternoons learning to fence, but then he'd looked away and seemed to ignore it all again. She desperately wanted to live in a world where she could tell him that she had been the one playing billiards with him and he'd laugh and suggest they play again and kiss her over the chess table.

  He tipped his king and shook her hand and walked away to go sit by his mother and act as if nothing had happened at all. He was a duke, she reminded herself. She was a twenty-six year old shy viscount's daughter. Of course nothing had happened at all. He was being considerate. He could not appear to be courting her. Jac felt her stomach drop into her feet and left the room, needing the privacy. She could only hope that his faux pas in calling her ‘Jack’ had grabbed Mrs. Clarence’s gossiping spirit and wrenched the woman's attention away from Daniel.

  ~~//~~

  The dinner table was subdued that night. The Duke of Aspen led the men into the billiards room after, leaving the ladies to fend for themselves. Jac followed the other women into the yellow salon and started immediately for the chair by the smallest window, knowing it was the most comfortable.

  “Miss Holcombe?”

  Jac turned, only to blink in surprise, seeing that it was the duchess calling her. The widow settled into a chair by the strong fire and gestured her to the settee across from her. Jac started toward her politely, her heart falling. The duchess had rarely spoken to her so directly, except to ask her to join a game or play at the pianoforte. But now the woman thought her son was courting her, Jac guessed, wanting to stride in the opposite direction and hide behind the china cabinet there.

  Has she heard the rumors as well? she wondered as she lowered herself into the chair in front of the duchess and clasped her hands in front of herself.

  “There,” the duchess said meaninglessly, smiling at her. “I find March difficult to endure without a steady fire and diverse company,” she said. Jac nodded, unsure how to respond.

  “I do as well,” she said finally. The woman smiled shortly, like she knew Jac was bored, and Jac leaned forward in her chair, trying to look interested. They sat in silence for a moment and Jac’s back started to ache. She knew the woman wanted to get to know her but she did not know where to start.

  “Do you play?” she asked finally, gesturing at the pianoforte. The duchess sighed and shook her head.

  “Only very ill, I’m afraid. I cannot get my fingers to remember the placement of the keys and -” the woman waved a hand sharply as if giving up right then. “I much prefer history and art, if I’m to study anything,” she answered. Jac smiled, thinking of Aspen as a boy, presenting his first painting.

  “Did Aspen get that from you, then, Your Grace?” she asked, smiling, and the duchess’ eyebrows rose very slowly until they were almost hidden in her pinned back hairline.

  He does not talk about his art, Jac remembered, cringing. She could not even get through two sentenc
es with the woman without giving something away.

  “The Duke of Aspen, I meant,” she corrected awkwardly. The duchess smiled suddenly, her gaze brightening and Jac felt like a mouse caught in the gaze of a fox.

  If she didn’t think he was courting you before, she does now, Jac berated herself, wanting to smack her hand against her own forehead. The duchess leaned forward, her voice lowering to a whisper.

  “May I show you his gallery? I cannot brag to anyone with his dreadful rules in place,” she confided and Jac felt her heart leap at the chance to learn more about the man, even from his mother.

  “Will he mind horribly, do you think?” she asked, whispering back, feeling a bit like a schoolgirl with a secret.

  “Come,” the duchess ordered, grasping her hand and practically tugging her from her chair. Jac smiled as they rushed from the room and down the wide hallway, trying not to laugh at the idiocy of a spinster and a duchess sneaking through the home.

  “Here,” the duchess said as they turned the corner onto a long hallway. The hall was lit only by its tall chandeliers but it was open to the back gardens on the right side, its tall windows sending long swathes of moonlight across the marble floor and onto the opposite wall, to brighten the paintings hanging there. The first was a painting of King Arthur with his knights behind him, bursting out of the gates of his castle. The faces were flat and slightly misshapen and the horse heads too large for their spindly bodies. An early painting, Jac thought, smiling, and the duchess beamed at her. The paintings seemed to be in chronological order, the skill and mind of a growing adult blossoming in each successive piece as they became less violent and more subtle, revealing quieter historical moments with more attention to the background and the character’s faces.

  “This is my favorite,” the duchess said and led her to the last painting, presumably the last he’d kept before his works had begun to sell.

  Jesus and the sinful woman, Jac recognized, feeling her eyes widen at the image of the prostitute crying on a man’s feet in the duchess’s home. The duchess smiled at her wryly, her eyes alight with humor.

  “There may be a reason it’s still kept at the end of the hall,” she murmured.

  Did he paint this after his encounter at the whorehouse? Jac wondered, trying to keep her face blank as the duchess led her back down the hallway.

  I was so disturbed by the notion that I turned around, gave half a fortune to a local charity house, and never considered it again, she thought, watching the paintings slowly devolve as they returned in the opposite direction.

  He did not grow up scarred. What was it like, realizing that a woman would not want him? She wondered, her heart twinging as she looked at the distorted painting of King Arthur again. Is that what he’d aspired to become as a child? A great handsome king?

  “Miss Holcombe, may I ask what these tittering idiots in my home are saying about your brother?” the duchess asked and Jac turned back toward her, blinking rapidly as she took in the acerbic tone. The duchess tilted her head, her brown eyes glittering with amusement.

  She looks just like Aspen, Jac thought dumbly and started walking ahead, back toward the yellow salon.

  “There are some rumors about our cousin Jack and Daniel’s relationship, but they are entirely unfounded, I assure you. No doubt they will pass soon,” Jac said as easily as she could, looking straight forward as she strode toward the parlor.

  “Yes, certainly,” the duchess agreed, but by her tone, she was not convinced. Jac smiled at her as bravely as she could and reentered the drawing room. The clusters of loud conversation inside were all immediately stifled. Jac hesitated in the doorway and the women quickly moved to benign subjects, quashing the telling silence. The duchess shot her a surprised glance but did not comment and Jac crossed to the pianoforte, deciding to play something too loud to allow for conversation until the gentlemen returned. She could only hope the men were still in the dark about the rumors and were busy discussing horses and guns and the short-lived independence of Norway.

  ~~//~~

  Aspen was oddly grateful when the Duke of Mariton and the boisterous Earl of Longbourne abandoned the billiards room to rejoin the ladies, leaving him alone with Daniel. He hadn’t realized he’d wanted to talk with the viscount until after they’d left and silence had fallen in the room. It was Daniel’s shot and Aspen added the count for him on the slate chalkboard hung by the fire.

  “There are rumors building up,” he commented. Daniel took his shot, missed, and stepped back from the table, as uncompetitive as ever. It was unlike Daniel to be so secretive - at least with him. He was perhaps the only man in the world that knew Daniel’s secrets.

  “You think so?” Daniel asked and gestured for Aspen to take his turn. Aspen prepared his shot, trying to decide what he wanted from the conversation. He didn’t know the precise nature of the spreading rumors; he hadn’t asked and no one had offered. But he could guess and the tension stretching between Daniel and Mr. Henry Charington only confirmed it. If the secret between the two men was finally coming to light, there was nothing Aspen could do to hold back society’s repudiation. But it was not like Daniel to withhold so much from him.

  “Out of curiosity,” Daniel started finally, looking uncharacteristically uncomfortable in his own skin, “why have you never considered pursuing my sister?”

  Aspen paused. That was certainly an odd choice for a conversation change.

  “Pardon?” he asked.

  “Why not?" Daniel shrugged and Aspen took his next shot. He missed.

  "I've never thought about it," he replied honestly. Daniel nodded and took his shot. His ball cracked evenly against the cue and rolled back into a good position.

  “Our family name is a bit marred now,” Daniel commented, sounding like he was agreeing. Aspen snorted.

  “I’m a duke covered in scars popularly believed to be the result of a sexual encounter with the French; I’m hardly one to be swayed by public opinion,” Aspen laughed. Daniel smiled softly, clearly grateful.

  “Why then?” he pressed. Aspen blinked.

  “She seems quite shy,” Aspen answered carefully, only too aware that he was speaking to her brother.

  Daniel lowered his cue stick onto the table, letting it hit the wood base with a crack barely dampened by the thin felt top, apparently giving up the game. He sighed and faced Aspen fully, leaning back against the heavy table, his jaw tight and angry. He ran a hand down his face and over the stubble growing on his jaw, looking exhausted and regretful. Aspen blinked, unsure what private confession he’d stumbled onto with such an innocuous comment.

  “I was not there when my sister was growing up,” Daniel admitted, gripping the rim of the table behind him. “At twelve years old I left for Eton and, grateful to be gone, I didn’t look back. Not even when my father died, though my mother had passed long before. I took my newly granted funds, paid for my sister’s governess and gowns and by the time I got my head on straight and returned home, it’d been ten years. My sister was a nineteen year old woman with her own skills, household, and wardrobe, not yet introduced to society because there had been no one to present her,” he said. He ran his tongue over the front of his teeth, looking hateful, and shook his head. “I was shaking in my boots, meeting her again,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. Aspen blinked, remembering the days at Eton with Daniel, a blond, scrawny lad surrounded by boys years older than him, all desperate to be friends with the confident, humorous heir of Holcombe.

  “She forgave you?” he asked, thinking over the amused, quiet moments he’d seen the siblings exchange, the way Daniel had laughed at his sister’s words before they’d entered the house party. Daniel smiled but it did not reach his eyes.

  “That and more. She is one of my closest friends. But I have a great debt I cannot make up to her for making her miss her first seasons. I cannot say how damaging that was,” he said earnestly, before turning back to the table to grab his cue stick. “So d
on’t ask me about Jack. I was gone for that period,” he said firmly, lining up his next shot. Aspen frowned, confused again. Miss Holcombe had said she’d played with Jack when they were young, before Jack went off to school, presumably after her brother had gone, but if that were true, how would Daniel have met Jack at all? He must have met him much more recently.

  “How did you meet Jack?” he asked curiously, wondering if Miss Holcombe had introduced them.

  Close friends with a woman, he thought, considering the oddity.

  “We played together as boys,” Daniel said, gesturing for Aspen to take his turn. He’d missed his shot, Aspen noted absently, only more confused by the man’s answer.

  “Your sister does seem remarkably similar to the man. Were they close as children?” he asked, stepping toward the table. Daniel grabbed his drink from the fireplace mantle and chugged it down thirstily.

  “I would not know,” he replied finally, his voice firm and the subject over. Aspen blinked, surprised by the closed topic. Daniel always managed to seem so open with him.

  Aspen got another two counts, lost in his own thoughts, trying to determine what in Jack’s story rang so false.

  “Would you like to play a game of chess after this?” Daniel asked. Aspen prepared his shot and got the red ball in the corner, along with Daniel’s cue. Now he could get counts without moving either ball. He’d almost certainly won. “Or… now,” Daniel added, snorting when he saw the set up. Aspen smiled and took his shot. He needed four more counts to get to fifteen and he’d win it. “Good game,” Daniel said wryly before he’d started and Aspen laughed and made his first count, letting his confusion fade from his mind for a different time.

  ~~//~~

  Aspen’s mother did not often join him in his painting studio. He’d carved out that part of their home to be his and she left it to him, so he was surprised when she joined him there when all of the guests had gone to bed.