Kasey Michaels (7 page)

“From the top of the—I
knew
it!” Bones exclaimed, slapping a hand against his forehead. “There was fuzzing going on, wasn’t there? Well? Wasn’t there? Stap me if I’m going back there, no matter how much you beg me, Simon.”

“Well?” Armand prompted when Simon didn’t answer Bones. “Are we to become inveterate gamblers at all the low dives, with bailiffs living in our drawing rooms, ready to pick our bones for bills owing—they won’t have much luck with you, dear Barebones, will they now?—or are we done with such evil places? You know Bones and I won’t allow you to frequent such hellish places unaccompanied.”

Simon made a great business out of tracing a small cross on his chest. “Upon my word, my friends, I will not darken the door of any gaming hell in this city again. I shan’t have to, now that the bait has been dangled. From now on, the game will be played in more familiar and decidedly friendlier waters.”

“You’re that certain the fish will bite? I believe that’s a tad arrogant, Simon.”

“Fish do bite,” Bartholomew announced solemnly. “So do sharks. They take big bites out of your pockets and leave you bloody. Ripped. Torn. Not a pretty sight. Next thing you know, you’re lost in misery and hanging yourself from a lamppost just off Bond Street. It happened to my Great-uncle Theodore.” He then frowned, looking pained. “We don’t talk about it much—upsets m’mother.”

Simon eyed Bartholomew consideringly, his affection for the man keeping him from laughing aloud at his doom-and-gloom remarks. “Sharks? Is that so, Bones? Well then, perhaps I should consider using a larger hook?”

“A stout cudgel would be more the thing,” Bartholomew opined earnestly, obviously having given the notion some serious contemplation at one time or another. “Knock the shark senseless, firmly on the snout; it’s the best way.”

“I’ll give that some thought as well,” Simon promised as, with a sweep of his hand, he indicated the empty chairs at the table. “Am I late, or too early? Or is it worse than that?”

“Considerably worse,” Armand told him, even as a servant placed a glass of Simon’s preferred champagne in front of him. “Your latest appeals to Prinny have fallen on deaf ears, I’m afraid. Sheridan’s gone to ground to avoid prison for debt. So many friends our dear Richard had, and every last one of them currently unable to remember his name, let alone his great deeds or brilliant wit. He’s ill, Simon, gravely ill, and has probably gone off to die of a broken spirit, if you don’t mind a modicum of melodrama. Although Dickie, knowing the man, would doubtless prefer to play the thing as a farce.”

“Damn, I was afraid of that!” Simon exploded, tossing back his first measure of champagne as if it were water, then thanking the servant who quickly poured him another glassful. “Where are the others?”

Bartholomew pulled two scraps of paper from his coat pocket and read them one after the other: “‘Are you mad, man? One of the clock? In the
afternoon
?’ Afternoon is underlined, three times. And this one: ‘I never was much the one for pity. Pity.’ Can you guess which is which, Simon?”

Simon pushed a hand through his hair, dislodging its former neatness, allowing it to fall into its more natural waves, which gave him a casual, youthful appearance his valet deplored and his mother adored. “The first from Beau, the second courtesy of George,” he mumbled, then looked to Armand. “And the pair of them roundly insulted by our gesture, I suppose?”

Armand, who was lounging very much at his ease in his chair, stretched forth one long, fashionably covered arm and took up his wineglass. “
Certainement
. As I tried to warn you. Just as you would have turned away from all overtures of assistance had any of them offered it to you. However, you are not alone in your ambitions to help Byron, at least. Knowing you don’t look at your invitations until we press you to do so, you may not yet have noticed that there will be a large party next week at Almack’s, hosted by a dozen or so well-meaning but ill-advised ladies hoping to bring our poor George back into favor. It will be a dismal failure, of course, especially as dear Augusta Leigh is also known to be on the guest list.”

“Not at Almack’s, surely. And they’ve invited Augusta—George’s sister?”

“Half sister, Simon,” Bartholomew corrected, gnawing on his knuckle. “Half sister, friend, compatriot—
chérie amour
?”

“Christ on a crutch!” Simon groaned, slapping his palm against the tabletop, which earned him more than a few interested glances from other occupants of the room. “What the devil do they think that will accomplish, other than George’s utter destruction? He won’t attend, will he?”

“With rings on his fingers and bells on his toes. At least the scribblings in the betting book here are leaning heavily that he will, and that, to a man, everyone will turn their backs the moment he enters the room,” Armand said, nodding his head as if in full agreement with the outcome the bettors were backing.

“We have to stop him, talk some sense into him,” Simon declared feelingly.

“You can’t save him from his own folly, Simon, no matter how hard you try, any more than we can continue to bail Beau out of the River Tick now that Prinny’s so set against him. It would only be throwing good money after bad, is the saying, I believe. That said, would you care for a stroll down Bond Street, as we’ll accomplish nothing by sitting here, displaying ourselves for the edification of the masses, as it were. There’s this neckcloth I’ve been fancying—”

Simon waved Armand back into his chair. “I was abducted at gunpoint after leaving you last night,” he said baldly, having decided he needed his friends’ full attention. Other than to start himself on fire, this statement seemed the quickest way of getting it.

“What? Never say so!” Bartholomew sputtered, then frowned, looking closely at Simon. “When? Where? After you left us? Well, that’s what comes of frequenting low gaming hells, or so I say. Probably served you right.”

“Why, thank you for asking, Bones. I’m quite fine, completely uninjured after my harrowing experience. I must say, the concern and comfort of my friends at times such as these is all that sustains me,” Simon purred, lifting his glass once more. “Armand? Have you nothing to say?”

“No, I don’t think so,” he answered, then reconsidered. “Why, yes, perhaps I do have something to say. I believe Bones here to be dashed happy he chose to ride home with me last night. Do I have that right, Bones?”

Bartholomew nodded his agreement. “Tell us,” he mumbled around a mouthful of knuckle. “What all happened, and why aren’t you dead? Most people would be dead, you know.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Bones.” Not one to waste valuable time in hurt feelings, however, Simon simply motioned for his friends to lean closer across the tabletop, then quickly went over the events that had transpired after he’d left them behind at the gaming tables. Also not one to flatter himself with nonsense meant to make him appear in a better light, he left out none of his humiliation at the hands of the mysterious Miss C.

“Vaulted onto the horse without assistance?” Bartholomew questioned him as Simon’s story ran down to its fairly embarrassing conclusion. “But I thought you said it was a girl? No female could do that.”

“Bones,” Armand put in, “our friend here might not always recognize the nuances dividing a Waterfall draped neckcloth and the Mathematical knot, but I have it on good authority that he is a positive genius at deducing the subtle differences between males and females. I tend to believe him, and only wish that I could have been with him, to witness this grand sight.”

“You wouldn’t have thought that at the time, with a clog winging toward your head, although I do remember myself reflecting later that you might have been tickled,” Simon said, draining the contents of his glass. “But I also believe both of you are missing the point. This girl, this Miss C, is bent on shooting Noel Kinsey. I can’t let that happen.”

Bartholomew frowned, his thin lips drawing up in a distasteful pucker. “You’re going to warn him, aren’t you? Why? It’s not as if we like the man. Does it really matter who brings him down?”

“You truly don’t understand, do you, Bones?” Armand commiserated, patting his friend’s hand, “Even after spending half of last night watching Simon here lose hand after hand to the fellow. For very good reasons, our own Simon-pure here has decided to bring the dear earl of Filton low. Now, how would it look if some little milk-and-water country chit with big green eyes was to beat him to it? Why, he might never get over the ignominy of it.”

Simon smiled without humor. “Exactly. I don’t know what our young lady’s motives may be, and I really don’t care. Mine take precedence.”

“You’ve got a
reason
to be going after Kinsey? You really do? You’re not funning with me? You have something deep in mind? Why didn’t I know this? Don’t I listen? I’m sure I listen. You just don’t talk. That’s not nice, Simon. Does Armand know? Yes, I’m sure he does, even if no one bothered to tell me. I simply thought you’d scrambled your brains at Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Saloon yesterday afternoon, sparring with Armand here,” he admitted sheepishly. “I mean, why else would we go to a gaming hell, when we can lose much more comfortably here at White’s? I never before saw you have such a plaguey run of bad luck, Simon. Oh, and did I say I’m sorry you were kidnapped and all that? I should have said that, shouldn’t I? Sorry.”

Simon chuckled, amused by his friend’s rambling confusion. “That’s all right, Bones, I forgive you. And, yes, I am most definitely after the earl. I’ll tell you about it, but at some other time, in a more private place, all right? Filton’s been playing most often in gaming hells, finding the pickings easier there, where no one cavils overmuch at the slight fuzzing of a few cards—or even
knows
they’re being fuzzed. I don’t like him, but I must say the man is an accomplished cheat, so that it took someone with Armand’s vast and varied experience, and now mine, to spot him at it. I mean to draw Filton out into the open, back to the clubs, so that I—hoping to be proved a worthy student of Armand’s expertise—can then fleece him very publicly, which he roundly deserves. I do not, however, wish the man dead. Merely dead broke, and on his way to the Continent with many of the others who have had to flee their creditors.”

Armand shook his head. “Which is why we’ll be seeing much more of Noel Kinsey than we have the stomach for until the deed is done, I presume? It will be delicate work, Simon, if you mean to ruin him, not just relieve him of some of his money, and do it honestly at that. You can’t empty his pockets too quickly, or he’ll become suspicious and bolt back to his favorite haunts. If little Miss Green Eyes doesn’t put a hole in him first, of course.”

Simon sighed, fingering his champagne glass. “It’s strange. I never thought I’d be trying to save a man like him from having a hole blown through him. It’s lowering, that’s what it is. Although I will admit that the possibility of an encounter with the inventive Miss C tickles my fancy. We will find her soon enough, I’m sure of it, skulking about, doing her possible to get Filton in her sights and then shooting him like a dog. She struck me as a very determined sort.”

Armand closed his eyes for a moment, then looked across the table at his friend. “Oh, what a lovely picture has just formed in my mind, one you won’t care for at all, so I won’t mention it. After all, you’ve already assured us your interest in Miss Green Eyes is purely protective. Still, Simon, once we have found her—what on earth shall you
do
with her?”

“Ship her off home? Turn her over to the Watch? Spank her and send her to bed without her supper? You did say she’s just a child, right? No hardened murderess?”

Simon looked at Bartholomew, who had offered these three equally unpalatable alternatives. His friend’s suggestions reminded him that he hadn’t had an answer to the question when it had first been put to him, by his mother. He didn’t have an answer now. “I haven’t the slightest idea: what I’m going to do with her, Armand. I certainly believe I owe her some sort of punishment. Actually, Bones,” he mused, smiling, “spanking her might not be completely unreasonable. Or locating and knocking down her father, for having so carelessly let her off her leash.”

“Uh-oh, here comes Filton,” Bones said, trying to look across the room and at the floor both at one and the same time, so that he ended up appearing as if he was flirting with the man just now making his way in their direction. “Can’t sit here,” he continued half-under his breath. “Beau never invited him. Don’t he know that? Encroaching mushroom, that’s what he is. Probably should have let the girl shoot him, Simon. That really was wrong of you, to stop her.”

“She was about to shoot me, Bones, and as I was just going to suggest that we go in search of the man, I consider him extremely agreeable to have saved us the trouble,” Simon pointed out reasonably. He rose and turned to extend the hand of greeting to Noel Kinsey, his bright smile hiding the fact that he longed for nothing more than to knock the greedy, unscrupulous creature on his rounded rump, then step on him. “Filton! How good to see you again. Certainly scorched me last night, you did. Have you come to offer me the opportunity to win back some of my blunt? You’re such a gentleman!”

Noel Kinsey smiled ingratiatingly, his gray eyes narrowed to intelligent, assessing slits, his blond hair perfection itself, as was the impeccably tailored suit of clothes that graced his tall, only slightly beefy frame. “I’m into you for less than five hundred pounds, Brockton, barely enough to produce a whisper of smoke from your deep pocketbook. However, if you’ve a mind for another meeting, I suppose I’m game. But not for a few weeks, I’m afraid. I’ve been called to the sickbed of my dearest great-aunt, and must hie off into the country for a space. With any luck she’d be tucked up with a shovel within a fortnight, and I and her lovely money will be back in Mayfair in short order. I only wanted you to know that I am not the sort to take a man’s money and then not give him a chance to recoup it.”

“As I’ve said, Filton, a gentleman to the backbone,” Simon drawled, tugging his hand free of the earl’s, hard-pressed not to wipe his hand on his pant leg, to clean it of the taint. “I’ll be looking forward to sitting down with you again, I assure you. Never have I had such a run of curst bad luck, and I appreciate the chance to redeem myself. But here at White’s or one of the other clubs, yes? No more gaming hells for me, if you don’t mind. I didn’t care to be surrounded by so many Johnny Raws fresh from the country. The smell of hay emanating from them was almost overpowering. So, you’ll be leaving for the country today?”