Between school and his boxing club, George had received more than his fair share of punches to the gut. Bessie’s declaration felt strikingly similar—a heavy blow that tore the air from his lungs, followed by the burning of trying to get his breath back. He ought to be relieved that she wasn’t going to saddle him with the responsibility of a child, and part of him was quite happy to learn he wouldn’t be supporting Lucy’s babe for the next twenty or so years.
Another part of him wanted to smash something, preferably something fussy and fragile like the godawful statue of a cherub that now adorned the foyer.
Instead, he knelt on the floor, reined in his temper and tapped Lucy’s cheek. She opened her eyes immediately. Naturally. She’d been feigning her swoon.
“Were you planning on notifying me of your change in circumstance any time soon?” he asked through gritted teeth. “Or were you going to see how long you could get away with duping me?”
She pushed herself upright but at the same time shrunk away. Good. He’d never stoop to hitting a female, but let her worry. “This wasn’t my scheme. It was all Roger’s. All of it.”
“But you stood to profit from going along with it, didn’t you?” He leaned forward. His angry side had seized him in an unbreakable grip. “Didn’t you?”
“Naturally,” she said as calmly as if she were choosing a new gown at the modiste’s. Naturally, I’ll have the silk. Mr. Upperton is footing the bill.
“Naturally,” he spat back. “You don’t do anything unless there’s a profit to be had.”
She shrugged. “Business is business.”
“My business with you is through. I expect you to have vacated the premises by the end of the week.”
“End of the week? How am I to find a new protector so quickly?”
He raked his gaze down her body. To think, at one time he’d found her attractive. Now he only saw vulgarity. “I’m sure you’ll manage. You were a good enough fuck.”
“And I suppose you’ll have installed my replacement by Friday.” She nodded at the ceiling. “I do hope you plan on dressing her better.”
“Or perhaps you’ll be fortunate to find a dupe wealthy enough to take over the lease on this place. You won’t even have to move.”
“Is she a good fuck?”
If she were a man, he’d be beating her to a bloody pulp by now. No. No, he couldn’t stoop to such a level. Verbally, perhaps, but physically? Never. He clenched his fists to stop himself from taking her by the bodice and hauling her upright to slam her against the wall.
“Not that it’s any of your affair, but I haven’t fucked her.” It wasn’t even a lie. He’d taken Isabelle to his bed, but what had transpired there was nothing like his encounters with Lucy or any of his previous mistresses. With Isabelle, he’d transcended the earthy physicality of a mere swiving.
She pushed herself to her feet. “I don’t believe you.”
“I’m tired of this topic.” Their endless darts at each other were leading nowhere. “Why don’t you tell me where your brother is so I can be done with the lot of you?”
He expected more gibes, considering the way he’d emerged from his last encounter. Although that ape hadn’t really been Padgett, had he?
Instead, she turned away to run her finger across the rim of a porcelain vase. No doubt assessing its value. “He’s gone out.”
“Convenient, that.” George stood. “And when do you expect him back?”
She considered a mother-of-pearl snuffbox. This townhouse would most likely be presented to its next tenant minus all its portable valuables. “He doesn’t often trouble me with such details.”
“No, of course he wouldn’t.” He paused for a beat. Like a knock-out punch, verbal sparring was all about timing. “Tell me, have I ever actually seen your brother?”
“What on earth are you on about?”
“Oh, just a hunch. That man who tried to knock my block off. You must recall. You showed him such sisterly concern. Or was your concern of a baser nature?”
“Why you—” Lucy’s bosom heaved, and her fist clenched about that damned snuffbox. “How dare you? You know nothing.”
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much.” He studied his nails. “That ape tried to beat my brains out, you see, but he didn’t actually succeed. So you might as well admit it. You’ve set me up.”
“All right, but this was not my idea. Roger didn’t want to take the chance you’d recognize him since he was to attend the same party as you. So he hired a thug.”
“Ah yes, the truth will out in the end. Now I’ve only to wait for him to come back so I can return the favor. He’ll have to come back by tomorrow morning at the latest. He was to bring Jack back to Kent, after all.”
“You cannot simply invite yourself to stay.”
He snatched the snuffbox from her hand and replaced it on the console. “It’s my house. I’ve paid for its use. I can stay here if I have a mind.”
“You’re staying? Here?” Isabelle spoke from halfway down the stairs, cold contempt lacing her words. In her arms, she hefted a decidedly green-looking Jack. Biggles trailed behind her.
“Only until I’ve finished my business with her brother.” He climbed to meet her and extended his arms to take the boy.
She tightened her grip. “I mean to return to Kent as soon as possible. I wish nothing more to do with this place.”
George went rigid as an icy chill blasted through his belly. He hadn’t mistaken her tone. It was distant and imperious, the same as her demeanor this entire trip to Town. Nothing more to do with this place might well mean nothing more to do with you.
No. He would not let her go so easily. He could settle his score with Padgett later, but he refused to let Isabelle go home with matters still unresolved between them. “You cannot return now. It’s too dangerous after dark.”
“I will not stay here.”
“I should say not.” Biggles sniffed. “I can’t say ye’ve much taste when it comes to lightskirts.”
“Lightskirts?” Lucy shrieked. “How dare you?”
George ignored the outburst and trained his gaze on Isabelle. Look at me. See. “I’ll take you to my family’s townhouse.” Before she could voice any protest about propriety, he added, “There’s no one in residence but the servants with my mother and sisters still at Shoreford. You can travel on to Kent in the morning.”
He backed away from the stairs to give them room to pass. “We’ll be leaving now,” he added to Lucy. “If your brother decides he would like to collect his ransom, I shall be delighted to receive him.”
He’d pay, all right. He’d pay in jabs and uppercuts. And if the coward should try to talk his way out of the situation, George wouldn’t stand for it. He’d go in swinging and let his fury for Isabelle’s sake fuel his blows.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ISABELLE BRUSHED the hair back from her son’s forehead. Jack stirred on crisp bed linens, but his eyes remained closed. His skin was cool but dry, a sign he’d soon be back to his usual impish self, a handful of a child, and she’d have to find a way to keep him in her sights.
“He’ll be fine,” Biggles had reassured her, but Isabelle was just as happy to see the evidence for herself.
Thank God. Thank God, her boy would be full of the devil once more when things could have been so much worse. From all appearances, Lucy hadn’t exposed Jack to anything scandalous. George’s former mistress had spent the past few days ignoring the boy as much as possible, and when Jack insisted on making his presence known, she’d plied him with sweets to keep him quiet. Isabelle must concentrate on that reality, and not think about what might have been—or the disgust that rolled through her belly whenever she thought of George with that woman.
A knock sounded on the door. She knew who it was before answering. Biggles wouldn’t stand on ceremony, and Isabelle had asked nothing of the servants.
Blast it all, she didn’t want to face George. Why had he insisted on bringing her to his family’s
townhouse when surely the servants would talk? His family would still learn of her presence once they returned home—if not sooner. He’d left the house party without notifying anybody. Surely they’d ask questions on his return to Shoreford.
And she might be partway home by now. The sooner she was rid of George, the sooner she might start to forget—both the pleasure they’d shared and what she’d learned today about his true character.
“Isabelle,” came his voice, muffled by the thick plank of wood, “I know you’re in there.”
Heaving a sigh, she crossed the heavy carpet to the door. Six years had passed since her footsteps had known this sort of cushioning. Six years of unforgiving wood and ill-fitting shoes. She pushed the thoughts aside as mere childish complaints. She’d adjusted, and she could stay that way.
She opened the door a crack. “Keep your voice down. Jack’s gone to sleep.”
“Good.” He’d had a chance to bathe, shave, and change. He stood before her now, expression composed and closed, dressed in a black topcoat, deep green waistcoat and starched cravat of all things. Eveningwear—velvet and brocade no less—as if he were planning on going out. “We might speak plainly then. You never gave me an answer this morning.”
Goodness. The proposal. After all that had transpired today, he was concerned over a blasted proposal made out of duty to assuage a guilty conscience. Only until this afternoon, she hadn’t known just how guilty. “I was about to refuse you.”
“Refuse? Even after you’ve had time to consider?”
She wanted to shut the door in his face. No, she wanted to slam it, but he’d only bang away and insist she speak. To avoid disturbing her son, she crossed the threshold and closed the door behind her. “The answer is no, now more than ever.”
He opened his mouth. Heavens, and he thought to argue? Time to forestall him. “Tell me, did you propose to your mistress?”
He shook his head slightly as if he hadn’t heard properly. “Propose to Lucy? Why in God’s name would I do that?”
“She was expecting, wasn’t she?” Isabelle drummed her fingers against her thigh. “Well, wasn’t she?”
“Yes, but—”
“So let me see if I understand this correctly.” She meted her words carefully, a difficult proposition when his blindness made her want to scream. How could he not see how Lucy’s circumstances paralleled hers? “You propose to me on the chance I may be in a delicate condition, while another woman is carrying your child?”
“It’s not the same. She was a mistress. She knew to take precautions.”
“How is that any different? We both served the same purpose.”
“No.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “No, you didn’t. Don’t even think of comparing yourself to that harpy.”
“Harpy, is it? She was carrying your child.”
“She never intended to see it through.” He reached for her, and she backed up against the door. “You heard her maid. She brought in Biggles to get rid of it.”
Biggles, yes. If Lucy spent so little as a day in the village, she’d have had a chance to hear of Biggles’s reputation. “And you’d never have learned otherwise, if you hadn’t come to Town today.”
He pushed out an annoyed breath and glanced down the corridor for a few seconds. “Because Lucy was trying to get all the blunt out of me she could.”
Right, then. If he refused to see, she had no choice but to spell it out for him. “That does not change the fact that you knew she was with child and you abandoned her. That makes you no better than Padgett. I cannot marry a man who would do that.”
THE gaming hell stank of cheroot and brandy, those essentially masculine scents according to his sister, but cutting through that reek was the sharper stench of unwashed bodies perfumed with desperation. George wove his way between hazard tables, their baize-covered tops faded and worn with use, where disheveled bucks wasted their allowances on one roll of the dice.
Through the murk, he spotted his quarry at the very back—a group of younger men, well dressed, seated at a faro table. Potential pigeons, they.
What passed for a footman in a place like this, a grubby man dressed in fraying homespun, emerged to offer him a bottle of brandy. Ah, the advantages of being known. George waved the man away. He wanted all his faculties about him tonight.
Besides, if he gave into the temptation to drink, he’d let down his guard and think about Isabelle. He’d recall the way she’d impugned his character, and if he did that, he might have to face the truth of what she’d said.
In her place rose the memory of a portrait—Julia and Revelstoke staring into each other’s eyes as if the world began and ended there. For some reason, the look of adoration on Julia’s face made his throat thicken. After his cock-up, Isabelle would never turn a similar expression on him.
Damn it all to hell if he didn’t wish for that very thing, even if it meant making an idiot of himself and gazing back like some love-struck calf. Hellfire and damnation if he wasn’t the biggest, bloody, sodding idiot of them all. He’d let himself fall in love and never realized it until it was too late.
He shook off the thought along with the emotion. The only truth he intended to face tonight was some judicious wagering at faro until he convinced a pigeon to take him on at a more easily manipulated game. Winning at piquet relied more on a player’s skill than the pure chance of the faro table. If he was careful with the contents of his purse, he could multiply the amount several fold. He could win enough to pay Summersby’s debts along with his own. Now that Isabelle had cast him aside, it was time he take up his quest to restore a friend’s dignity, and perhaps, along with it, some of his own.
Alert to any sudden movement, he approached the group at the back of the room. One could never be too cautious in a place where strong drink and deep play formed an explosive combination. He carried a knife in his boot just in case, as much for the denizens of the hell as for the footpads who lurked without. By all appearances, these players were dandies. Their piled, pomaded hair and superfine topcoats reeked of money. Just as his did.
“Evening, gentlemen.” Evening. What a joke. The time was going on two in the morning. “Might I join your table?”
One of the players pushed back a half-finished drink and looked George up and down. Assessing his worth, no doubt. He’d dressed just as carefully as the man who surveyed him. In a velvet topcoat with no less than three watch fobs dangling from his brocade waistcoat, he’d out-fopped these young men. To make his welcome certain, he withdrew his purse from inside his topcoat and hefted it. The sovereigns inside clinked against one another.
The man gave his crony a nudge and nodded. So much the better. Let them think George an easy mark. He took a seat and extended a hand. “Name’s Upperton, by the way.” He glanced from one face to the next. The other three were younger than he, but the man to his right looked vaguely familiar. “Didn’t you attend Eton?”
“Why yes. The name’s Matthews.”
George reached into his purse and exchanged several guineas for chips. Just a few for now. He needed to save the bulk of his funds for later, when he lured one of them into a private game. “Thought I’d seen you somewhere.”
Matthews reached out and moved his pile of chips to the king of spades. One glance at the case-keeper confirmed George’s suspicion that the wager was an odd one. Three of the four kings had already been played. Either the man was in over his head or he was feigning his misunderstanding of the game.
“And your friends?” George prompted. He offered his hand round the table, collecting names: Andrews, Williams, and Roberts—men in want of proper family names, and not just superfluous first names vaguely disguised.
“They went up to Harrow,” Matthews said. “Padgett, too.”
“Padgett?” George shifted back in his chair and the damned thing nearly toppled over. It wasn’t possible. It simply wasn’t possible. George’s luck was never this good. Of all the gaming hells in London, he’d just happened on Padgett by
accident. If he’d set out to look for the idiot, he’d have spent a week or more in the search. “Is he here?”
Roberts grinned. “He’s stepped upstairs for a moment.”
Upstairs where the whores plied their trade pleasuring their customers out of their winnings. “Only a moment? Surely he’s more of a man than that.”
“He’s already been gone awhile,” Williams said.
George nodded, careful not to let his eagerness show. Beneath the movement, the chair quivered. Damned cheap thing. No doubt it had seen use as a weapon a time or two, the encounters with one hard head and another weakening it further. “Seems a waste of valuable time, when you might be winning.”
“How do you know Padgett?” Matthews asked. “He hasn’t been back in England very long. Lived on the continent for the last few years, he did.”
“We still had the chance to meet here and there.” He kept his gaze trained on the dealer. “Are you planning on laying a wager?”
If George could manage to place a few poorly thought-out bets the same way Matthews had, he stood a chance of drawing one of them in. Anything, as long as he didn’t wear out his welcome before Padgett reappeared.
The third time he lost, he gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Looks as if I’m out of practice. Whist always was more my game.”
The thought of playing whist dredged up memories of inventing a two-handed version with Isabelle. He chased the image away, but not before an odd pang struck through his gut. Damn it all, he needed to concentrate more than ever, because once he’d won enough blunt and once he’d settled accounts with Padgett, he’d be well and truly quit of Isabelle.
Then he could set about the long and winding path that would lead to him forgetting her. Eventually. In another few decades.
Not surprisingly, none of the others took the hint and suggested a change of game. They could play whist for high stakes at any ton function, after all. But he must take care not to lose too much more, or he’d dig himself a hole he’d have difficulty clambering out of. In fact, best to sit the next turn out. “I bar this bet.”
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