Proof by Seduction (31 page)

She said nothing, but turned to find a cloak and bonnet. She had to succeed; Gareth had no other plans for his cousin. And if she couldn’t help, then Ned was doomed—doomed to spiral downward without any hope of redemption.

It wasn’t only Ned who needed redemption.

“Just come,” he said. “Be Madame Esmerelda again. Conjure spirits. Tell fortunes. I don’t care what you tell him, so long as you make this stop.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

D
ESPITE THE FACT
that Gareth had referred to the gaming establishment as a hell, the room Jenny entered struck her as a far cry from brimstone and burning pitch. A fire burned in the room, but it was of the cozy, coal-burning variety, separated from the rest of the room by a mundane brass screen. There was an occasional orange glow when someone puffed a cigar. But for a hell, there was a distinct paucity of smoke and ashes. It wasn’t even sulfurous.

There were neither imps nor devils. No demonic overlords; the denizens here were mere sinners, every one.

If this was hell, hell was red velvet upholstery. It was the acridity of rancid tobacco and the sharp scent of spilled gin. It was the clink of coins and the dull murmur—in voices accented with those distinctive lazy drawls that bespoke wealth and years of education—of gentlemen engaging in the damnably honorable task of losing fortunes and pretending not to care.

Despite the warmth of the room, Jenny shivered. She understood why sailors gambled, why clerks scraping together their pitiful quarterly incomes wagered. After all, when you had little to lose, a chance win could change a life.

But these men had everything—wealth, property and family connections. A handful of the coins these men tossed around would solve all Jenny’s problems.

Ned slouched in a corner, surrounded by men she supposed must call themselves his friends. The sullen slump of his shoulders told her everything she needed to know. After two years of his acquaintance, she knew the ups and downs of his moods rather well. There was that jocular, irrepressible Ned that she normally knew. And then there was the fellow she’d first met. Dour. Quiet.
Depressed.

Ned picked up his cards from the green baize before him. He stared at them dolefully and blew out his breath. He seemed oblivious to the gentlemen on either side of him; he certainly didn’t look across the room to see where Jenny and Gareth stood, framed in the doorway.

Gareth shifted uneasily. “He doesn’t listen to me. He must know he’s destroying his place in society. He will be ostracized for the rest of his life if he persists in this sort of callous behavior. And you haven’t heard Ware speak of his daughter. Do you have any idea what a duke is willing to do on behalf of his only child?”

Jenny interrupted Gareth’s explanation with an upraised hand. “I know Ned when he’s like this. He’s almost past despair. Of course he won’t listen to you—he can’t feel anything right now.”

“Can you stop it?”

“I did once.” But she hadn’t. Madame Esmerelda had.

Gareth clenched his fists. Then he looked at her. “Do it again.
Please.
”

She could bring Madame Esmerelda back. She could earn a livelihood. She’d have her independence and Gareth, too. Madame Esmerelda had done the impossible before. She could beguile Ned out of this mood. A soft smile; a whisper of hope in his ear. A few spoken words, and Ned would be as ensnared by her as always. All she had to say was that the past week had been a test, that he’d been meant to endure this misery for some fateful reason.

But what path was there through Madame Esmerelda’s fraudulent ways for Jenny Keeble? Jenny was a simple girl with complex wants. Independence. Love. Respect. Family. A few hundred pounds.

Who am I, that I deserve these things?

She was a fraud, a charlatan and a cheat.

“First,” Gareth mused, “we’ll have to get rid of his friends.” He scuffed his boot against the floor. “I doubt I could manage that. They don’t
listen.
”

“That part,” Jenny said, flipping her palm up, “is easy. Pen knife.”

“Pardon?”

“Your penknife. I need it. Give it over.”

He didn’t ask questions. Gareth fished in his pocket and retrieved the slim, polished blade Ned had once used to eviscerate an orange. She snatched the weapon from his fingers and marched on the gaming table.

Ned was still unaware of his surroundings. He rested his forehead on one hand, elbow propped against the table. The fingers of his other hand listlessly grasped his cards. He didn’t look up when Jenny stopped in front of the table, although all his friends did. He didn’t even flick a glance in her direction when she put one hand on her hip.

But he jumped when she grabbed his cards from his loose grip. The look that painted his face was sheer, unadulterated shock.

“You gentlemen must be blind.” Jenny waved Ned’s cards at them. “These cards are marked.”

A soft murmur of surprise met this announcement. The other youths at the table turned their cards over in speculation. Ned’s mouth hung open. He was not yet able to form words. Jenny laid the cards faceup on the table for all to gawk at, and transferred Gareth’s penknife to her right hand.

“I don’t see it. How?” A voice to her left. The men surrounding her were lords and gentlemen, powerful, wealthy fellows who could have her thrown into the street with a single word. But she couldn’t let her uneasiness show.

Jenny flicked the blade open. “Like this.” She impaled Ned’s cards, stabbing the blade deep into the table.

Ned stared at the cards she’d pinned to the table, his mouth gaping. “Mada—I mean, Miss Keeble. What the devil are you doing here?”

Jenny put one hand on the knife handle. “What do you think I’m doing here? I’m scaring away your so-called friends.” She surveyed the other gamblers. They’d turned as white as gristle on a cut of meat. Doubtless the only time they’d seen a woman at the gambling table was when one was brought up as a form of entertainment. “Well? Scramble, unless you want to be next.”

As one, the men beside Ned scrambled. They left the table in a giant rush, retreating to huddle in the far corner of the hell like the rats that they were.

Jenny turned her attention back to Ned. “Now I’ve told you why I’m here. What are
you
doing here?”

“I—You—”

“Oh, don’t bother explaining. I already understand.”

He raised his chin. “You said you owed me, right? I want you to go away.”

Jenny sat on the table and pulled the knife from the surface. It took a bit of tugging to free the blade. The tool snapped shut with ease and Jenny dropped it in her pocket. “Unfortunately, Mr. Carhart, you don’t get to tell me how I pay my debts.”

She swiped a handful of cards off the table and shuffled through them. Good. There were enough. She flicked cards into a pile, facedown, and shoved it over to Ned. “Now you’re playing with me. There. That’s your hand.”

“But you looked at them!”

She had not thought beyond getting Ned alone. But she realized suddenly why Ned had sought out this game, and played for these high stakes. He wanted to frighten himself, to put so much at risk that he would snap to his senses. He was trying to fight the darkness that engulfed him.

Well. If Ned wanted a scare, Jenny would deliver.

“Ah, yes. I had nearly forgotten.” She rummaged through the remaining cards on the table until she found the right suit. She slapped the card on the table. “Diamond’s trump. Now are you going to wager or not?”

“No! This is ridiculous. It isn’t random. And you haven’t even dealt your own hand.”

“Ridiculous seems to be your style. Shall we set the pool at five thousand pounds, or is that too low?”

He slammed his fist on the table. His cards bounced. “I’m not in! I don’t want to play.”

“Suit yourself. I was only trying to be helpful.”

“Helpful! By cheating me and taking my money?”

“Yes,” Jenny said. “As you are no doubt aware, I
excel
at cheating and taking money. Besides, I owe you a debt. It seems you want to ruin your life in a melodramatic fit of pique. Why dribble the task out over weeks and weeks? I can help you accomplish your goal within the hour.”

“I don’t—I wasn’t—I can’t—”

“Oh, stop sputtering, Ned. It’s silly to deny what everyone can see. If you’re not trying to ruin your life to prove you’re in control of it, I don’t know what you’re doing.”

His lips pressed together.

“Five thousand pounds not enough for you, then? Blakely,” Jenny asked, “how much is Mr. Carhart here worth?”

“
Blakely’s
here?” Ned turned his head and saw his cousin standing behind him. He sighed and put his head in his hands.

Gareth’s expression shuttered. “Some eighty or ninety thousand, I believe. Maybe less after these last few days.”

Ninety thousand pounds? The figure was dizzying. With ninety thousand pounds, Jenny could shatter society’s requirements of respectability. She could invent a past, a family. She might even marry. She cast a glance at Gareth, and shook her head.

Not that he would have her, especially not if she stole the money from his cousin under his nose. Still.

Jenny swallowed this foolishness. “Simple rules. Five cards. Whoever wins more tricks takes the entire pool. You put in everything you have—some ninety thousand pounds. I wager…”

Jenny pushed away her uncertainty and reached behind the waistband of her skirt. It took a few moments to pull the small pouch of coins into her hand. It had seemed so light when she’d sold the dress just that morning. Now the sack weighed heavily in her hand. She upended it, and small change rolled about the table with a clatter.

“I wager sixteen pounds, five shillings.” And eight pence, although in the face of Ned’s wealth, there was hardly any need to mention those sad coins. If she did, she might let the two men who watched her with open mouths realize that all her wealth in the world was laid out in specie before them.

Sixteen pounds was a number Jenny understood. It fit inside her head, a sum she could hold in her hand. It was all it took for a shrewd woman to survive a quarter while she looked for other work. It was bread and cheese and the occasional apple for months. It was a roof over her head. It was three months spent trading kisses with Gareth while she tried to find an honest alternative to her former career. Sixteen pounds was Jenny’s last hope.

She glanced at Ned.
It need not be.

“That’s not equitable,” Ned groused. “Ninety thousand against a few pounds?” He swept his hand across the table.

Jenny tried not to wince as her coins went flying. “That seems about right,” she snapped. “Everything you own pitted against everything I own. You want to destroy your life? At least have the courage to do it all at once like a man.”

“Very well.” Ned drew himself up, anger hardening his features. “I accept. You’ve already ruined my life once. I might as well let you have a second go at it.”

She could give most of it back, after Ned was well and truly shocked to his senses. What if she retained a mere four hundred pounds, as a fee of some kind? Maybe a thousand pounds, enough to keep her in independence for the remainder of her life. She could find the respect she’d wanted, no matter who her parents had been. After all, money spoke.

But temptation whispered.

Jenny’s head buzzed with the possibilities. Her hands trembled.

Who am I?
The question echoed in her head.

The hubbub of the hell seemed to cut off around her, as smoothly as driving rain turning to drizzle. Quiet blanketed her mind. For a bare moment, everyone else disappeared. There was nothing but Jenny and an immense stillness in the midst of a sea of temptation. Into that great silence, she repeated herself.
Who am I?

She hadn’t expected an answer. But it came anyway, from somewhere deep inside of her.

Who do you want to be?

It was all the answer Jenny needed. The world thawed. Noise returned, almost deafening after that slice of tranquility. But despite the frenetic worry that boiled around her, she carried that still center inside her. It did not waver. No mere fear of poverty could budge it.

Behind Ned, Gareth reached out toward his cousin’s shoulder. He stopped, inches away. Ned huddled in his chair, and didn’t glance behind him. Finally, Gareth drew his hand back and wiped it against his trouser leg.

Jenny smiled and picked her own cards from the leftovers and arranged them in order in her hand, from lowest to highest.

Ned gathered up his cards—a handful of carefully constructed threes and fours—and sighed. He let a card fall on the table. Jenny trumped it easily with the jack she’d dealt herself. She took the next trick, too, and yawned as she did.

She’d managed at least one thing. Ned clutched his cards, holding them as if they mattered. For the first time since she’d seen him that evening, he cared about losing.

Across the thin table, Ned’s despair was as palpable and acrid as the smoky air Jenny breathed. Already, she’d managed to convince him he had something to lose. Jenny wanted to smile. Instead, she played her next card.

It was the two of clubs. Ned stared in disbelief. Every card in his hand could beat it. Tentatively, he selected one and placed it on the table. He won the next round, too. They were left with one card each in their hands, and an even score.

“You’re cruel,” Ned said bitterly. “Trying to show me how close I could come?”

He threw the four of diamonds on the table. Gareth set his hands on Ned’s shoulders.

For one last time, Jenny was Madame Esmerelda again, smiling that mysterious smile at two men who had no idea what would happen next, but every expectation of a poor result.

She placed her card gently on the table.

Ned and Gareth stared, twin expressions of shock writ over their faces. Neither moved. Then Gareth reached out one finger to prod its edge—gently—as if somehow, he could not believe what he had seen.

Ned found his voice first. “You lost. You lost on purpose.” He scratched his head in confusion. “You lost
ninety thousand pounds
on purpose.”