Knave's Wager by Loretta Chase
“My dear Lilith,’’ she said when the girls were safely out of the way, “I know exactly what is in your mind, and of course I cannot blame you for thinking ill of him.”
Lilith gave the tiniest start—so minute as to appear a flicker of shadow upon marble.
“You are too well-bred to mention it,” her guest went on, “but we both know Robin has made an utter fool of himself over that French demi-rep.”
“I am sure, Glenda, I should never disparage your relations.”
“And I am sure you may do so all you like. You cannot abuse him—or his immediate family—any more heartily than I have myself. What a great lot of fools they are! When a spoiled child demands bon-bons, which will make him sick, does it serve to tell him, ‘No’, he must not? Indeed, it does not serve,” said her ladyship, shaking her head vigorously. “As a child, Robin was wont to hold his breath until he turned blue in the face. At present, I believe he is doing precisely that.”
“I am not certain I take your meaning,” said Lilith, though a vision of the rakish Lord Robert Downs in a childish tantrum drew a hint of a smile.
“Everyone has been ranting at him to leave her. If they had simply ignored the entire matter, I’m sure he would have tired of her very soon, but every new ‘No’ only makes him dig in his heels the more.”
“That scarcely recommends his maturity, Glenda.”
“But don’t you see? He is not so worldly and jaded as he likes to think. I only wish you could have heard him urging Astley’s as a treat for the girls. Rather like an older brother who wants the treat for himself as well. I should like him to have it. I believe the experience will be good for him. At any rate, it is innocent entertainment for a change.”
“I hope it may be,” said Lilith slowly. “The question is whether it would be good for Cecily. She is inexperienced, young, and impressionable, and he is exceedingly handsome—and, as you said, worldly.”
“Yes, of course, but we are going to the circus, my dear, not the Cyprians’ Ball,” was the brisk reply. “Rockridge and I will be there, and I dare say we may keep a handful of lively young people in order.”
This Lilith could not deny. Glenda’s common sense was always to be relied upon. Furthermore, for all her open warmth, Lady Rockridge was a thoroughly reliable dragon.
The following Tuesday was quickly agreed upon, Lilith being engaged to dine that evening with Lord Liverpool. The invitees were mainly of political persuasion, and Cecily had already expressed a disinclination to accompany her aunt.
“She told me she would feel like the village idiot in such company,” Lilith said with a smile.
“Meaning, I take it, she expected to be bored to pieces. Well, we shall spare her that, shall we?”
Chapter Five
The Tuesday evening found the eminently sophisticated man of the world, Lord Robert Downs, at Astley’s. He had dexterously managed matters so that he sat next Miss Glenwood—only, he told himself, for the amusement of watching her childlike excitement. This infantile enthusiasm manifesting itself in sparkling blue eyes, half-parted moist, pink lips, and a propensity to clutch at his sleeve during moments of high suspense, he might have been accounted tolerably amused.
From time to time the lips came disconcertingly close to his ear, as Miss Glenwood was inclined to whisper eager comments on the proceedings.
“How do they do it?” she asked during a display of equestrian feats. “It takes forever to learn how to keep your seat without a saddle—but to stand—and turn—and leap in the air—I could never do that. The last time I tried to stand—”
Lord Robert’s head whipped towards her. “You what?”
Captivated once more by the performance, she did not appear to hear him.
“They make it seem so easy,” she said after a moment. “Yet it wants tremendous concentration.”
“Miss Glenwood, did you just say you have tried to stand upon a horse?” Lord Robert asked, appalled.
“Once only. I can ride without a saddle, but no more. I shall never be an acrobat,” was the modest reply.
“You do not ride saddleless,” he insisted.
“But of course I do. Why, I have done it several times already in Hyde Park.” She must have remarked his look of horror finally, because she hastened to explain that she had done so very early in the morning, and naturally she had her own groom from home with her, and of course she wore her brother’s old clothes. One could scarcely ride bareback in a woman’s riding habit, she pointed out patiently.
“Miss Glenwood—”
He got no further. Lady Rockridge’s dragon eye having noted the two golden heads bent close together, she promptly ordered her husband to change places with Robert.
While the innocent Cecily was throwing Lord Robert into a dither, her aunt was experiencing her own brand of disquiet.
Sir Thomas had as usual forgotten her existence in his absorption with a political issue, but this was habitual with him. At any rate, Lilith had never expected or wished him to live in her pocket, even after their betrothal.
Tonight’s issue was again the Grand Duchess Catherine’s blatant hostility towards Prinny, her efforts to humiliate him at every turn, and her skill in making everyone detest her. The Czar’s sister seemed to devote all her waking hours to making mischief. Since she had considerable influence over her brother, and wrote him constantly, it was feared Alexander’s proposed visit to England would not be an auspicious one.
Thomas, who had any number of ideas regarding what might be done to appease the harridan, took every opportunity to express these views. He would not be averse to a diplomatic post, and this was a good way to start. Consequently, he devoted all his energy this night to business— and therefore, the most powerful men in the group.
The disquiet of the nation must, after all, take precedence over the disquiet of one woman, Lilith well knew. Her problem was not with Thomas.
The source of her uneasiness sat the length of the dinner table away. Amid the buzz of dinner conversation, one low, drawling murmur—inevitably followed by peals of feminine laughter—pierced her concentration as loudly as if there had been no other sound.
In the same way, she saw Lord Brandon without looking directly at him, because he was always there, in the periphery of her vision when she turned to respond to her dining companion. The black coat molded to broad shoulders... the immaculately arranged neckcloth in whose snowy depths an emerald winked from time to time, a counterpoint to the flickering green glance which lit here and there with equal lack of interest. Once, Lilith had felt that glance settle hard upon her, but she would not raise her eyes to acknowledge it, and the sensation soon vanished.
Her discomfort did not. He had done no more than greet her and Thomas politely at the start of the evening. At least, the words had been unexceptionable. But as they were moving past him, Lord Brandon had shifted his balance slightly, and his coat sleeve had brushed her gloved forearm. She had felt a tiny shock, and ever since, she had been unable to shake off her awareness of him, even when he stood a crowded room’s length away.
Lilith ate dinner with her customary marble-like composure and could not have said later what she had put into her mouth. When she withdrew with the other ladies, she conversed in her usual coolly courteous manner and could not remember after a single word. When the gentlemen rejoined them, she talked and drank her tea and might have been talking Hindu and drinking ditch-water for all she knew of it.
Once more the marquess spoke only a few unexceptionable words to her. Then he drifted away to a group of gentlemen in a corner, where he remained the rest of the evening. Yet he might have been breathing down her neck the whole time, so relentlessly did his presence grip her.
Thomas was among those with whom the marquess conversed. The night wore on, and Thomas showed no signs of wearing out. Instead, the conversation seemed to grow into an intense debate with Sidmouth and their host. So engrossed were the three men that they never noted the other guests taking their
Rachel approached her future sister-in-law.
“Enders says they are like to keep on all night and into the morning,’’ she said, nodding towards her brother. “Can I persuade you to leave with us? Thomas will find his own way home. Heaven knows he has done this a hundred times if he has done it once, and we shall be asleep on our feet waiting for him.”
Lilith was only too willing to leave, even if it meant abandoning her betrothed.
“It is about time,” said Rachel when the carriage finally arrived. “Nathan has been prodigious slow in coming.’’
“They are all behindhand, it seems,” said Lord Brandon from somewhere behind Lilith’s shoulder. “My own carriage was ordered at the same time, and even Ezra—usually a miracle of celerity—has dawdled. Perhaps they too have been debating affairs of state. Mrs. Davenant, you are losing your shawl. May I assist you?”
“No, th—”
He scooped up the end dragging on the carpet and draped it artistically upon her shoulder without touching her.
Lilith murmured polite thanks and quickly moved away, but she found him at her shoulder again as she stepped out onto the walkway.
“Perhaps you didn’t require your wrap, after all,” he said. “The night is unseasonably warm. You must beware growing overwarm yourself. That is an excellent way to take a chill. Shall I—Well, that is odd.”
He stepped away from her towards Lord and Lady Enders, and stopped the latter as she was about to enter the carriage.
Lilith saw him whisper something to Matthew and gesture towards the coachman. At that moment, to her very great surprise, the coachman toppled sideways onto the seat.
“What the devil is wrong with the fellow?” Matthew cried.
Lord Brandon inspected the head dangling over the coach seat. “Drunk, it looks like,” he said coolly.
“Drunk?” the others chorused.
“I am sorry to say the man reeks of gin.” The marquess retreated a few steps from the head, and turned back to Matthew. “He will not recover for many hours, I’m afraid. May I offer my own carriage as substitute? Ezra has taken a vow of abstinence from strong spirits, and the vehicle is commodious. What good fortune,” he added, with the barest flicker of a glance at Lilith. “My curricle is in pieces, or else I should have taken it and been unable to accommodate you.”
After making the obligatory objections to inconveniencing his lordship and receiving the obligatory chivalrous responses, the three climbed into his carriage and were quickly on their way.
Lord and Lady Enders promptly began to quarrel regarding Nathan’s future. The lady insisted he be turned off at once without a character. The lord, being more forbearing, was all for a sound scold, a signed oath of abstinence, and a second chance.
Lord Brandon pointing out the merit of both sides of the debate, it continued at full speed during the entire journey.
Lilith was too painfully conscious of a dove-grey wool-encased knee three inches from her own to formulate any opinions, let alone give voice to them. The knee was giving her a headache.
Thus it happened that Lord and Lady Enders were deposited at their front door before they knew it, and Lord Brandon’s carriage had travelled merrily down the street and was turning the corner before Rachel realised what had happened.
“Good heavens!” she cried, interrupting her spouse mid-harangue. “He is alone with Lilith—in a closed carriage!”
It was a curious circumstance that the loss of two passengers rendered the vehicle more confined than it had been, as though the masculine presence opposite Lilith possessed the power to expand to fill all available space.
She quickly thrust this fancy aside and tried to quell her rising anxiety. There was nothing in taking Rachel and Matthew home first, she told herself. The coachman had merely taken the shortest route, and certainly he seemed in a hurry, for they’d arrived at Enders House precipitately. Which was just as well. Lilith was eager to be home, to lay her throbbing head upon her pillow. She would travel in greater comfort and doubtless arrive more swiftly than she would have in the Endorses’ coach.
She had scarcely formulated the thought when the carriage began to abate its spanking pace. Lilith glanced out the window.
“I do not believe this is the correct turning,” she said. This is South Audley Street.”
“And you are alarmed. Perhaps I mean to abduct you and hold you for ransom.”
She suppressed a gasp, and instantly took refuge from anxiety in anger. ‘You would get precious little, as you well know, my lord,” she snapped. “While we are on the subject—”
“Of abduction?”
“Of money—”
“I did not know that was our topic. I hope not. It is exceedingly dull.”
“I am a dull person, as I have mentioned before. My man of business tells me your representative refuses to discuss terms of repayment.”
“Yes, and I wish you would stop plaguing them both, Mrs. Davenant. It hints of a disordered mind, not to mention a woeful want of consideration for poor Mr. Higginbottom.”
“He is well paid to engage in such work.”
“Another lamentable waste of your resources. Really, your affairs are in such a muddle it is a wonder the man hasn’t hanged himself-—or that you haven’t been deposited in the King’s Bench already. Did your previous agent not do sufficient damage? Or was his disease contagious?”
“I freely admit I ought to have kept a closer watch on him,” she said frigidly, “but that is hardly to the point. The fact is, I owe you—”
“Davenant owed me. You do not.”
“I will not accept your charity, my lord.”
He studied the top of her head. “Now I wonder why not,” he said meditatively. “It cannot be a greater blow to your pride than accepting Bexley. That decision carries a lifetime of consequences.”
Without heeding her gasp of outrage, he went on. “Not that I blame you. Women have so few economic alternatives. Still, I cannot but wonder at your choice.”
“How dare you,” she said, her voice choked. “You have no right to refer to matters—to personal matters—or to speak slightingly of a worthy gentleman.”
“I did not say Bexley was unworthy. I was referring to his hairline, which is receding at an alarming rate. I can only hope your offspring will not suffer premature baldness,” he said charitably.
“I find your conversation in the worst possible taste, my lord.”
“I beg your pardon. Perhaps baldness does not distress you. I have noted your preference for a coiffure designed, apparently, to pull your hair out slowly by the roots,” he said, his eyes once more upon the tight coil of dark auburn braid. “I cannot look at your head without wincing in sympathy—which is a great pity, because I have very recently acquired a partiality for redheads.”
Lilith decided not to dignify this with a reply. She turned her gaze to the window, and immediately discovered, with a return of alarm, that they were circling the darkest square of London.
“This is Berkeley Square,” she said, forcing her voice to be steady. “Is your coachman drunk as well?”
“No, he has infallible instincts, which have apparently informed him of my wish to kiss you. Naturally, the locale must be poorly lit. I realise you are shy, Mrs. Davenant.”
She had her hand on the door handle before he’d finished.
“Ah, you wish to alight,” he said calmly.
The coachman, to Lilith’s confusion, was ordered to halt. To her further confusion, the marquess assisted her in disembarking, and in the next minute, his carriage was clattering away, leaving her alone, on foot, with its owner.
He offered a bland smile, took possession of her arm, and proceeded to stroll in the most leisurely way down the street with her.
Lilith’s wish to escape the carriage had been reflexive, and for perhaps two whole minutes she had actually believed she would walk home. Now, in the shadowy square, reason returned. A lady did not walk anywhere without escort,
“You see what comes of permitting me to provoke you,” he said, voicing her thoughts. “Though how you could have helped it, I cannot imagine, considering the pains I took.”
“You upset me deliberately,” she said, half disbelieving, half accusing.
“Yes. I hoped you would fly at me and do me some violence. But you are far too well bred for that. Your composure is extraordinary. What a dragon of a governess you must have had.”
“She wasn’t—” She paused and looked at him, but there was too little light. She could read nothing in the arrogant profile. “Why did you wish to provoke me?”
“Because I find it disconcerting to converse with a stone monument. You do it very well, I admit. One is tempted to hold a glass to your lips to ascertain whether respiration has ceased.”
She was both angry and frightened, and his remarks could not be construed as complimentary. All the same, the long-suffering note in his voice made her want to laugh.
“Stones do not scold,” she said, moving on again.
“That is the trouble. Virtually the only words I can prize from you are scolding ones, yet I know you can converse quite amiably. Your suggestions to Lord Velgrace regarding the draining of his fields, for instance.” He glanced at her baffled countenance. “My hearing is very acute—despite my illness.”
“If you wanted my views on agriculture, you had only to ask.”
“Had I? I think not. The evening cools,” he went on, gazing upwards, “and the heavens make a mighty struggle to clear. I discern one courageous star striving feverishly against the London smoke.”
Lilith looked up at the faint twinkle in the heavens.
“I recommend you make your wish now, Mrs. Davenant, before the haze crushes it altogether. You will doubtless use the occasion to wish me to the Devil.”
“I hope,” she said quietly, “I have wishes more worthy of a Christian than that.”
“Then what will it be? A cabinet post for Bexley? No, that is not altogether worthy, either. Too mercenary and selfish. Something for your niece, perhaps—but I will not press for details, or the wish is spoiled.”