“How did you know where to find me?” She took a tight grip on the balustrade, because it felt as if the floor were dropping out from beneath her feet.
“Do you suppose us entirely hen-witted?” With one sharp turn of her head Maria subjected her to the full force of reproof. “Eliza noticed when you went missing two Saturdays since, and you know what sort of conjectures she likes to make. When it happened again this past Friday she looked about and made sure of which gentleman was absent at the same time. Guessing where you’d gone wasn’t so difficult—there aren’t many places here where two people may effectively closet themselves.”
“We were only playing cards.” Why did the truth sound like such a feeble trumped-up tale? “You know how fond I am of cards.” But Maria didn’t know. She had no reason to believe cards meant anything more to Lydia than they did to the other ladies. Only Mr. Blackshear knew that part of her.
“I don’t concern myself with what you do. Mr. Roanoke has merited only the poorest claim to your loyalty. But surely you recognize the value of discretion. And the longer we stand here discussing it, the more time you give people to notice your absence.”
“It was only cards.” She lurched from her standstill, catching up her skirts and starting down the next flight as Maria trailed behind. She would not panic. Edward wasn’t as observant as the ladies—likely he’d formed no suspicions.
But she must not risk giving him anything to suspect. With quick decision she spoke over her shoulder. “Nevertheless I shall tell the gentleman we must give up meeting. You were very good to warn me and I promise you won’t be put to such trouble on my account again.” She and Mr. Blackshear would have to make other arrangements. She had no idea what those could be.
She reached the ballroom to find Edward altogether engrossed by Eliza, who was always happy to engross a man in service to a worthy cause. By the time the set broke up Lydia had concocted a tale of a passing headache and the interlude outdoors that had cured it, and this, combined with her protector’s residual enjoyment of the dance and followed by the half hour in the library for which he’d originally been seeking her, proved sufficient to satisfy him on all points.
“I hope it was a first-rate game of cards,” said Eliza some while later as she and Lydia stood side by side along the ballroom wall. Her gaze rested innocently on the dancers in the middle of the floor; her voice crept and twisted with merry insinuation.
“I swear on my soul it was nothing more. Did Maria tell you otherwise?” She felt for a lock of hair that had come loose in the library, and busied herself with pinning it back in place.
Sidelong she could see Eliza shaking her head. “You know she has a disdain for gossip. And I think she believes you. Indeed I suppose I may end by believing you myself.” Her near shoulder rose and fell in either a shrug or a sigh. “You’re not likely to lie, are you, when you know such a scandal would only garner you more of my good opinion?”
“I hope I’m sensible of your goodness in crediting me. Yours and Maria’s both.” Lydia pressed her lips together. She wouldn’t answer the unvoiced questions. Why Mr. Blackshear? Why in secret? When did you arrange it, and what makes it worth risking your position? She wasn’t in the habit of confiding. How to account, then, for her speaking of Henry the way she had?
“Mind you I say nothing of his motives. I wouldn’t be surprised if this business of cards were but the first step in an elaborate campaign.”
“Then he’s been a deal too slow about moving to the second step, hasn’t he?” Enough of this conversation. She pushed off the wall. “I shan’t be withdrawing upstairs with him anymore after tonight. So I told Maria, and so I shall tell the gentleman himself.”
And so she did, in a moment when he happened to be at the end of the ballroom where a cluster of potted palms offered partial screening for such a conversation. He nodded, his face tight with concern. Clearly he was blaming himself for the lapse in prudence, though he would not do so aloud because it would unnecessarily prolong what must be a brief, inconspicuous exchange.
“We’re nearly ready to go into the hells as it is,” she said before he could suggest they abandon the scheme altogether. “Only we’ll at least need to consult after you’ve scouted the establishments.”
“I might be able to arrange a meeting place.” He furrowed his brow at the nearest of the potted palms. “I have a friend who …” He checked his thoughts, angling his face back to her. “Can I write to you?” His efficiency sent a pleasant tingle down her spine. So quickly he absorbed these new terms and took the necessary tasks upon himself. Habit from his years as a soldier, no doubt.
“I’ll write down my direction. I’ll leave the arrangements in your hands.” Ordinarily she’d at least want to know what sort of meeting place he had in mind. But she was going to have to depend on him in the gaming hells. She might as well practice depending on him now.
HIS FIRST impression, on setting foot in his first high-stakes gaming club, was that the men who’d told him tales of these establishments had neglected to give sufficient due to the décor. Clearly Beecham’s was aiming for this, and clearly Beecham’s was falling far short of the mark.
“Try not to gape,” Cathcart murmured at his left. “They’ll mark you for a pigeon straightaway.”
And Will made a mental note: gape. When he came to a hell to gamble in earnest, he would do well to look like a man who didn’t know his way around a pack of cards.
Not that the astonishment would be hard to feign. The climb up a dim, nondescript stairway, three separate doors closing behind them to mark the stages of their journey into the sanctum sanctorum, had prepared him to expect something drab and utilitarian, its smoke-begrimed walls perhaps garnished with a painting or two, bawdy in subject matter, indifferent in execution.
Instead the room fairly sparkled with splendor. The enormous chandelier did sparkle, its illumination thrown back and amplified by grand gilt-framed mirrors that were probably meant to facilitate cheating at cards, but were no less handsome for that. The ceiling had been worked in a pattern of recessed squares, white with a relatively restrained gold outline. They neatly echoed the squares of the polished parquet floor.
For a room of such ill purpose, it was remarkably pleasing to the eye. But then, it had better be, with no windows to offer a prospect on any world beyond this one.
And then again, the splendor must go largely unnoticed by the establishment’s clients, intent as they were on eight feet of green baize, the racket of a wheel, the somersaulting of a pair of dice, the spring of the topmost card from a faro box.
“Well, you’ve seen it. Can we go now?” Nick, on his right, dusted one cuff as though some foul particles of the place had managed to land there in the ten seconds since they’d entered the room. But doubtless Nick had made up his mind to be unimpressed well in advance.
I begin to grow weary of Beecham’s, he’d said to Cathcart. What do you say to visiting a few hells? And Cathcart, of course, had risen to the occasion, plotting out a long night of profligacy and suggesting they drag earnest, industrious Nick from his chambers to join them. Already it felt a bit like being at university again: into how many such pranks or dubious errands had the viscount cajoled them during the two years they’d all overlapped there, and how many times had his brother declared he’d never be drawn into such nonsense again?
“Show a little spirit, Blackshear.” Cathcart wheeled out front to precede them, walking backward, toward the tables. “At the very least you’ll be able to describe the evils of these places in detail at one of your political salons.”
“More likely it will be used against me.” Nick flicked at the other cuff, in case his first such gesture had not made his disapproval clear. “Some opponent in court will question my fitness, and produce all manner of wastrels who’ll attest to having seen me in a hell. In multiple hells. How many did you say we must visit?”
“As many as are wanted to sate my curiosity.” Will clapped his brother on the back.
“Come along. The sooner we start, the sooner we finish.”
“What will it be, then, Blackshear?” The viscount nodded from one table to the next. “Hazard? Chemin de fer? Roulette? Which path to damnation do you prefer?”
“Something that will allow a small bet. I shouldn’t like to ruin myself in the first stop of the evening.” No women in this club, so he needn’t scout the vingt-et-un table. But neither need he make his companions suspicious as to his true errand, so he’d stay a bit before proposing they move on to some other establishment.
“Roulette, then. It will afford your brother the greatest opportunity for disapprobation.”
The other two fell to good-natured sparring of a style honed in their years at Caius. Will sidled after them into the crush of bodies standing round the table where the great wheel spun. A long night stretched out yet before him, and he didn’t feel tired in the least.
FIVE DAYS later, and nearly a week since he’d seen her last, he fought the urge to offer Miss Slaughter his arm as they walked down the east side of Russell Square. In public they must always be the remotest of acquaintances.
“I haven’t told him how I’m raising the money.” He folded his restless arms behind his back. “I’ve represented this whole gaming-hell affair as something of a lark; a favor I’m doing for you.”
She nodded gamely. “He won’t learn otherwise from me.” Her chin came up and her face angled itself his way. “What does he suppose to be the nature of our connection?”
“I’ve left that vague. He knows we have a need for discretion, so he may have drawn the obvious conclusions. On the other hand, he must see that if we’d intended anything truly iniquitous we would simply have gone to my rooms. Whatever his suspicions, I assure you he’s too well-mannered to let on.”
“That should be interesting.” She sent him a grin, good-natured and mischievous as if she was indeed his mistress. Or perhaps his friend.
He was fortunate in his friends. Jack Fuller had listened stone-faced to a most irregular request—I have some business to discuss with a woman and I’m in need of a place where we may meet, out of the public eye—and offered up the use of his parlor without so much as a raised eyebrow.
Of course, a raised eyebrow on Jack Fuller would be no easy thing to detect. “One thing for which I must prepare you.” He spoke quickly as they drew near the front door, and bent a bit toward her to keep the words confidential. “He was badly burned in the fire at Hougoumont and the resulting scars have given him rather an alarming appearance. I shouldn’t like you to be taken by surprise.”
She nodded again, silently making whatever preparations a lady must make before meeting a fearsome-looking man. And when they entered the house, and were shown by a footman into the parlor, Will admired all over again the ability her face had to keep her secrets. She bore the introduction with perfect aplomb, no fixed quality in her smile; no wandering of her glance to the damaged leg as the man came forward from behind his desk to greet them. One would think there was nothing remarkable in Fuller’s appearance, or else that Miss Slaughter met men with burn-blasted faces every day.
She was more than polite: within ten minutes he could see she liked the man, and that Fuller was thoroughly diverted by her. She explained her scheme for winning at vingt-et-un, and spoke of the thousands of hands she’d dealt in her solitary hours in an attempt to gain some knowledge of odds. Then the talk turned to timber, and the glittering prospect of a new-built ship with a capacity of three hundred and fifty tons.
“How on earth do they determine the tonnage?” She’d taken a seat on a high stool at the table where ledgers were kept; she sat with her feet on a rung and her hands gripping the sides of the seat, looking, despite the gown, like a young clerk who’d left off managing the accounts for a few minutes of affable conversation. “It sounds like a matter for Archimedes’s rule of floating bodies displacing water, but I know there can be no suitable tank for the purpose.”
“Prepare to be shocked and dismayed, Miss Slaughter: what we call tonnage isn’t true tonnage at all.” How long had it been since anyone had visited Fuller? He looked happy as a boy come home from school for the holidays. “They measure the ship’s length and breadth, and make some calculations using those figures.”
“Length and breadth?” She sat up straight as a spindle. “Don’t they include the depth?”
“The depth of the hold is reckoned as half the breadth of the ship’s widest point. There are other adjustments, to account for the curving of the hull and so forth. Guesses, though, all of it but your length and breadth.”
“Then it seems the clever thing to do is build a ship with a narrow breadth and a very deep hull, and run more cargo while paying the lower port dues and pilot fees.” How eagerly she entered into the mechanics of this business. Wave a few numbers in front of her and you could lead her anywhere.
Will sat back in his armchair by the fire, stretching his legs out before him. “Not so clever, though, when a low tide runs you aground while your shallow-hulled competitors sail past you.” He threw her a smile that was nearly accompanied by a wink.
“Ah. I didn’t think of that.” Her voice softened with chagrin and her straight form wilted slightly. Apparently she expected of herself that she should grasp the intricacies of shipping, and probably everything else, just as readily as she grasped odds and calculation.
Fuller proceeded to assure her that ships frequently were built on just that plan for traders willing to risk the hazard Mr. Blackshear had mentioned, and the deepest of them quite often did run aground and sometimes even tipped over when the tide receded from beneath them. Will crossed one booted ankle over the other and simply listened, glancing from left to right; from the merchant at his desk to the sharper perched atop her stool.
It wasn’t so difficult to imagine, in a drowsy sort of daydream fostered by the fireplace’s warmth, a life in which the three of them might meet often. When she’d bought her independence, she could visit wherever she liked. Perhaps she’d like to visit here, browsing through the ledgers and playing the occasional hand of vingt-et-un with two gentlemen she might come to count as friends. It was possible, wasn’t it? That out of such an adversarial beginning, they might safely navigate the shoals of flirtation and attraction, and end as friends?
The time came at last to conduct the business that had brought them there. He took out his list of the most promising hells, and as he gave his opinions of each she listened with such keen-eyed reliance on his judgment as made his skin seem to shrink a size. Would he ever again in his life feel comfortable in the face of someone’s trust, even on such a small matter as choosing which hell to visit first?
But he did make his recommendation, and they agreed on a night, and a time when he would come to fetch her. It was all down to odds and fate now, and the efficacy of her scheme.
“Well done, Blackshear,” Fuller said when she’d left for home in a hackney the man had insisted on hiring. “Where the devil did you find her?”
“At a club. On another gentleman’s arm, which is where she’ll remain.” He turned from the street, where they’d stood watching the hackney roll away, and stepped back into the house. “I’m pleased to do her a service, but it can go no further.”
“Pity. She likes you.” Fuller followed him in.
“I think perhaps she does. She didn’t, at first.” A footman stood in the entry hall with his coat and hat; he shrugged into the coat. “But we seem to have attained a solid mutual regard.”
“Solid mutual regard, my arse.” His mouth was stretched into one of those painful-looking smiles. “There’s got to be a reason she asked you instead of that other gentleman to do this with her.”
Well, yes. She knew he needed the money, and she almost certainly believed Roanoke would disapprove of her playing in a hell. The former reason, he could not offer to Fuller. The latter was Lydia’s own business. “I suppose there’s a lack of volatility in a plain friendship, as compared to a relationship with
the element of passion, that makes it better suited to the sort of business we mean to undertake.” He took his hat from the footman and settled it on his head.
Fuller only nodded, and if the scarred flesh about his eyes had not robbed him of subtler expression, there would almost certainly be a wry flavor to his persistent grin.
But it was true, after all, the bit about the lack of volatility. So Will told himself as he took his leave and started the walk home. They must both bring sharp, uncluttered minds to the gaming table. They didn’t need the distraction of wondering at the state of each other’s sentiments.
She likes you. Very well. So did he like her. But the more important fact was that she must rely on him, in the hells, and he must do whatever was necessary to uphold her reliance. If that meant smothering all improper impulses, then smother he would, for the sake of her trust.
Chapter Eleven
WHAT KIND of place is it?” Jane stood back of Lydia’s right shoulder, her eyes skipping about to avoid settling on any part of the scandalous image the pier glass showed.
“Not an altogether respectable one, truth be told. Not like the club to which Mr. Roanoke takes me.” Her hands lifted to smooth her sarcenet front, but she checked the impulse and brushed fingertips over her curls instead. “The women who usually go there aren’t the nicest sort, so I must wear something like this, so as not to seem out of place.”
“You will wear the overdress, though?”
“Oh yes, of course. I only wanted to be sure this underlayer fell properly first.” Properly. That was rich. The purple silk flowed over her body like cream poured from a pitcher, delineating her nipples for the edification of anyone who cared to look.
And who could blame Jane for wondering just how undressed she planned to be? Not one petticoat came between her and the sarcenet, and the chemise she wore was hardly a chemise at all, having had its neckline lowered to meet the top of her corset and its hem raised to well north of her stocking-tops. The knots of her garters announced themselves when she moved.
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