A Gentleman Undone

by Cecilia Grant

  The mull overdress, when she put it on, made her … marginally more decent. It fastened down the bosom to the high waistline before falling open. It would float out to the sides when she walked, no doubt, giving the world a view of the way the silk skirts clung.

  So much the better. They could notice that, and forget to heed anything she did at the table.

  “Well, then. No need for you to wait up.” Her voice was striving a little too hard for cheerful unconcern. “I’ll watch for Mr. Blackshear and open the door myself when he comes. We’ll be leaving directly for the club.”

  “If Mr. Roanoke calls …” Jane had gone to the dressing table and now fidgeted with the comb and brush.

  “He won’t. He never does, on Wednesdays.” She crossed to the table, that her maid must look her in the eye. “You remember, don’t you, that Mr. Blackshear is a gentleman? You remember he gave up his seat in the curricle for you? He’s not the sort to do anything improper.”

  Jane nodded, though that might have been a rote response.

  “He’ll go with me a few times to these clubs, we’ll each win the money we need, and that will be that.” She hesitated. “I want to have a respectable establishment, Jane. I’d like to pay my own bills, instead of depending on a gentleman. I need money to do that, and I know of no better way to get it than by playing cards in a high-stakes club.” Her pulse was ticking hard in her throat. She’d never confided quite this much to the girl before. “All those hours you’ve seen me play at cards all by myself? All those papers covered with scribbled numbers?”

  The maid nodded again, this time with conviction.

  “This is how I mean to reap the fruits of that labor. All those hours have led up to this night.” Indeed more hours than those had led to it. Long mornings with the tutor, Mr. Sinclair. Those puzzles Henry was always setting her with diamond-paned windows, or the multiplication of one three-digit number by another while he softly counted off the seconds it took her to call out an answer. Finally, tonight, she would do the thing she’d been preparing for all her life.

  Jane retired to her room and Lydia waited on a bench in the entry hall, wrapped in her cloak, until the creaking wheels and clopping hooves of some conveyance drew to a stop outside. She jumped up and pulled the door open.

  Mr. Blackshear—Will—was already out of the hackney and halfway up the steps, his face lit with a smile that would have exactly mirrored her own, had she the lopsided quality and the irregularity between the front teeth. He cut a rather Byronic figure in his carelessly draped greatcoat, with his cheeks unshaven and one of those faddish handkerchiefs in place of a cravat. The very picture of a man poised to ruin himself in romantic fashion, a pigeon ripe for the plucking, which of course was the role they’d agreed he would play.

  “Come in.” She stepped back. “I’m ready. Just let me fetch my reticule.”

  In fact she’d left it on the hallway table and had only to turn away, swipe it up, and turn back. But in that interval his countenance underwent a change. She faced him again to find his smile gone, his gaze pitched to the bottom of her cloak, his attention keen as a bird dog’s. “I’ve never seen this gown,” he said, and his eyes rebounded to hers with an unvoiced question.

  “Ah, yes. Well, you’d better have a look now so it won’t distract you at some critical moment.” Often enough she’d spoken flippantly of this gown and its powers, but her insouciance now rang false in her own ears. When she caught her cloak’s edges and swung them apart, she found she must look elsewhere than at his face.

  Like him, she had a role to play: courtesan trolling for a moneyed protector. He knew that. He wouldn’t be shocked to find her wearing something a bit brazen. Still her nerves prickled along the cut edges of her too-short chemise, and the knots of her garters felt conspicuous as a man’s ill-timed erection.

  Well, he’d seen it. Now they could go. She shrugged to flip the edges of her cloak to, and—

  “Wait.” His voice came out half strangled and his hand shot across to stop her covering herself.

  “What is it?” But she could imagine. You can’t possibly go out in that. Do you have any idea what sort of men frequent these places? At least put a petticoat on.

  “Nothing. Just … wait.”

  She let herself look at him. He didn’t notice. His hand still gripped her right wrist, holding that side of the cloak away, and his gaze ran over and over her gown as though he would never see it again and must fix the sight in his memory. She heard him draw a breath through his teeth.

  A sizzle ran from the nape of her neck right up over her scalp, and some base part of her brain scrambled to life. Take him upstairs. The hells can wait. You’ll never have a better chance.

  That base part could say whatever it liked. What would Jane think of her, after all that talk of respectability, and Mr. Blackshear’s propriety? What would she think of herself, throwing off this worked-for, planned-for expedition to get a bit of what any man could give her? This man alone had put his trust in her abilities, his fortunes in her hands. She knew better than to misprize that.

  “Well, then.” He let her cloak fall and took a step back. His voice wasn’t quite steady and his smile, when he raised his eyes to hers, seemed something he must sustain by force of will. “I presume that’s the gown a gentleman ought to like?”

  “It seemed appropriate for the occasion.”

  “Exceedingly so. I think I just forgot my own name.” His smile came naturally then, an easy admission of his own fallibility, an assurance that their partnership could absorb and transcend a scandalous gown and the animal response it inspired. He half-turned and crooked an elbow to her. “Ready to bring Oldfield’s to its knees?” And indeed she’d never been readier for anything in her life.

  She did remind him, as the hackney made its way into central London, that they couldn’t count on finding a favorable deck the first night. That he must be mindful of the fact that odds needed time and repetition to assert themselves and that even under favorable odds the wrong cards would sometimes come up.

  He listened dutifully—or so she must assume, his expressions being lost to her from the opposite seat in the hackney’s dark confines—and delivered reminders of his own. Where and how to change her money for counters. The way she was to signal him if she were harassed by any of the establishment’s patrons. The location of the side hallway he’d marked out for impromptu conferences, and the place a block away where she’d meet him with the hackney when they’d finished for the night.

  “This will be Bury Street,” he said when the carriage made a final turn, and shivers of excitement chased down her spine even as the familiar, reliable self-possession descended to cloak her like the scent of her own soap. “I’ll be five minutes behind you. I’ll settle where I have a view of you. Probably the hazard table. Lydia.” Unerringly his hand found hers through the darkness. She felt the stirring of air as he leaned in, caught the bay-rum scent as he lifted her hand and pressed the gloved knuckles to what must be his mouth. “Good luck,” he said, and she thought the usual thoughts concerning how a serious gamester knew better than to trust to luck. But she did not, this time, voice them aloud.

  FIVE HUNDRED pounds in twenty-pound counters. He couldn’t hope to pass himself off as an aristocrat in any case, but he might convincingly portray a man newly flush with the proceeds of his commission, and determined to risk it in style.

  Will scooped the tokens from the silver bowl and stuffed his pockets. Five minutes ago Lydia must have stood here, trying everyone’s patience by purchasing mere ones and fives.

  Though perhaps the cashier and the other patrons would be in a mood to indulge her. She would have had her cloak off by the time she’d entered the room.

  She was right to dress so, of course. Several other ladies prowled about the room in similar garb, or rather garb of similar intention. No other gown looked quite like hers.

  God above, that gown! All over again he felt the electrical frisson, the nerve-sizzling, blo
od-simmering charge that had raced through him at the sight. Now his brain had had a bit of time to clear and to consider, he could perceive she’d left off some three or four of the usual layers that came between a lady and her gown. At the time he hadn’t known how to account for the blunt force of its appeal. Hadn’t tried to account, either, nor cared to. That gown had bypassed his brain to address his body directly, and his body had paid it the fervent attention of a treasure-hunter poring over a newly discovered map.

  You’re here on business. She’s depending on you. Time enough for those thoughts later. He clasped his hands behind his back and started a leisurely circuit of the room. Eventually he would come to land at the hazard table, just a bit removed from where Lydia already sat, bidding her scant pound-counters at vingt-et-un. And he would wait for the moment when he could sweep in and use her cleverness to turn his five hundred into more.

  BUT AN hour later his nerves were raw from waiting. He was forty pounds down because he couldn’t stand apart all night, watching other men play while his own pockets sagged at the seams with counters. People would wonder. So he’d thrown twenty away on the dice, and, after an interval, twenty more. He couldn’t afford this. And she, too, must be losing else she would have signaled him in.

  Naturally, you couldn’t tell the state of her fortunes by looking at her. She was, to all appearances, a good deal more occupied by the would-be Corinthian at her right elbow than by the game. She frequently laughed at things he said, her body twisted toward him like a flower toward an overdressed, fatuous, self-satisfied sun. Twice the cod’s-head had to remind her to take her own turn, so caught up was she in marveling over whatever play he’d just made.

  Will gritted his teeth and eased a step back, letting another man edge ahead of him in the crowd round the table. He was no idiot. He wouldn’t mind her antics if he could have faith that a profit lay waiting on the horizon. But wasn’t there some point at which a gambler must say This is not my night and walk away before yet more money was lost?

  Lydia gave a helpless little laugh—the sound didn’t reach him but her attitude was unmistakable—as the banker swept away her wager with his silver rake. She reached out a hand to brush some invisible speck from the Corinthian’s coat. The Corinthian puffed himself up like a cockerel on the rut.

  Confound it all. Enough. Will stuck his elbow up overhead and stretched that arm with his opposite hand. When she touched her fingers to her lips, to indicate message received, he slipped apart from the hazard crowd and made his unhurried way out of the salon.

  SHE WAS late. He’d almost made up his mind she’d missed the signal after all when he finally heard slippered footsteps in the main hallway, and put his head round the corner to see her approaching. The underlayer of her purple gown clung in every place imaginable when she moved. The overlayer skimmed and floated, a promise and a shameless tease.

  “We have to be patient. I told you.” She was speaking before she reached him. Her straight arms ended in fists at her sides. Apparently she’d not had to wonder at the purpose of this conference.

  “We’re wasting time. I say we ought to quit now and hope for better luck another night.” With one hand he caught her elbow and drew her with him, deeper into the darkness of this hallway where perhaps even servants didn’t go.

  “You know I won’t hear any talk of luck.” An hour of cards had dissolved the adventurous good nature with which she’d addressed him at her house and in the hackney; she was all rigid determination now.

  He sighed, and let go her elbow. “What I know is that I’m out forty pounds, forty pounds wasted at a game I wouldn’t ever play but that I cannot just stand about waiting for a signal that might never come. How much have you lost?”

  “It’s not important. Will.” Her hand fumbled at his sleeve, awkward and endearing for the two seconds she took to find a grip. Then less awkward, but still a bit endearing as he felt her concentration, her effort to lend him the confidence she possessed in such abundance. “We knew it might go this way. Remember? This hasn’t taken us by surprise.”

  A broken nose at Gentleman Jackson’s wouldn’t take a man entirely by surprise either, but that didn’t mean he’d be wise to stay in the ring and fight on with blood spouting down his front. “Lydia, you might exhaust your stake without ever seeing a good deck. What will you do then?” She had a hundred pounds in counters, he knew. The idea of her going through that amount in ones and fives, going through so many hands without encountering a situation worth signaling him, had seemed so remote as to warrant no consideration. It didn’t seem that way now.

  “I’ll buy more counters. I brought more money along.” She knew no doubt. He ought to be reassured by such unshakeable faith.

  But a man could follow unshakeable faith into unequivocal disaster. Ask any soldier of the Grande Armée who’d followed Napoleon to Moscow. For that matter ask George Talbot. I’ll get you home to your family. I will not let you die. God knows his own bold assurances had given him reason enough to mistrust people who didn’t doubt.

  She moved a step nearer, grip still steady on his arm, the light rose fragrance of her soap infusing his breaths. “Please,” she said. “I cannot do this without you.”

  She knew exactly where his weakness lay, didn’t she? He couldn’t walk away from a plea for help. Was she using that now, contriving to yank his puppet-strings the same way she was playing that Corinthian at the table? “Lydia.” He angled his head to make the shortest path from his mouth to her ear without actually bending, and sent the word out on just enough breath to reach her. “I know I need to trust you, but—”

  “You don’t need to trust me.” Her second hand joined the first, the two of them clasped halfway between his wrist and his elbow. “In fact I don’t advise it. But please trust the odds.” Her fingers gave a quick squeeze. “If circumstances haven’t changed in another hour, we’ll consult here again. In the meanwhile, apply yourself to amusements that will keep your counters in your pockets. Have a drink. Find a lady to flirt with. Just be sure you can always see me.” Her hands slid down his arm to fold about his hand. His fingers curled in spite of themselves round hers.

  The longer they stood here, the more ways she found to seduce him to her will. He drew one more breath. “Very well. I’ll drink and flirt. But won’t it serve you right if I get into a brawl and go home with someone else.”

  “That will teach me a lesson indeed.” He could hear the shape of her smile. She wiggled her fingers free of his and flattened her two hands with his between for an instant, as though she were patting out a mud pie. Then he heard the shush of her skirts as she spun and left him, striding with adamant purpose back to the gaming salon.

  HE DIDN’T, however, drink or flirt. Alcohol compromised his quickness; no point in adding that impairment to a situation that was likely already to tax his brain. As to the flirting, he’d succeeded in making only one circuit of the room, and ruling out two ladies—both of them already juggling the attentions of several would-be suitors—from the list of contenders before a quick glance at Lydia sent all the rest of his surroundings into a dim haze.

  She was talking to the banker, with that same vapid animation he’d witnessed on his every previous glance. But she was leaning forward now, forearms on the table, hands clasped.

  The signal. His pulse pelted like hail on a slate rooftop. Finally, the deck had turned and it was time for his part of the scheme.

  He made his careless way to the vingt-et-un table, where she glanced up as he pulled out the chair to her left. She smiled. Her glance flicked downward, taking in the ridiculous assemblage of clothing he’d thrown on, and her smile spread like spilled honey, slow and sweet and rich with sensual approbation. When her eyes came to his again they were heavy-lidded, as though she’d been drugged by the mere sight of him.

  Yes, he’d known she might play it this way. If her guise was to approach every man as a potential protector, then an indifferent manner with him should have come off as conspicuous
. He bowed—not too friendly, not too distant—and took his seat.

  Three other men sat to Lydia’s right: the Corinthian, to whom she now turned with some remark no doubt calculated to keep him on the string, and beyond him, two older gentlemen who had apparently been proof against her charms. The seating arrangement, of course, would not be accidental. His place at the end, last in every deal, would mean she could incorporate the visible cards of the other players, in addition to her own cards, when she made the mysterious calculations that would drive his wager.

  Will took the counters from his pockets and heaped them before him on the table as the first cards came down. Six, eight, three, Lydia’s was a four, and he drew an ace. The banker showed nine.

  As the first man set out his bet she angled left, facing him with a smile so bewitching it ought to be burned at the stake. “Let me guess.” She made a quick survey that took in his person as well as the abundance of counters. One of her hands rose from the table and draped pensively at the ridge of her collarbone. “You’ve just come out of the Navy and you’ve got prize money wearing holes in your pockets.”

  Navy was the pertinent word. Any maritime reference must lead him to boat. From boat to sank, from sank to cinq. Five counters.

  She wanted him to bet a hundred pounds on his first card alone. No wading in gradually here.

  “Madam, please.” The banker’s tone of voice suggested he’d had to recall her attention too many times already from the gentlemen about her to the game. “Place your bet.”

  With her free hand she plucked up one of her pound counters and set it forward, her other hand still at her collarbone performing an idle caress. He could almost hear the drag of her kid-gloved fingertips over her skin.