Regency Wagers (44 page)

‘Hang your coat,’ Guy said. ‘Where is Emily?’

‘Em…Em…Emily?’ he stuttered.

Guy grabbed the lapels of the young man’s superfine garment and backed him into an alcove. ‘Cut line, Duprey,’ he spat. ‘I know you are behind this Lady Widow business of hers. I ought to call you out.’

Robert struggled feebly. ‘Oh, no! Not a duelling man. Not good at it at all.’

Guy shoved him against the wall and came within an inch of his face. ‘Then why did you bring her here, you fool!’

‘Made me do it,’ shrieked Robert, his voice rising more than an octave. ‘Forced me!’

‘Emily?’ Guy gave a dry laugh. ‘My bet is you put her up to this charade and I demand to know why!’ Guy let go of him with another shove and stepped back, waiting for Duprey’s answer.

Robert cowered. ‘Said…said she wanted money.’

Guy leaned menacingly towards him again. The young man raised his arms to protect his collar and neckcloth.

‘Why did she need money,’ Guy demanded. ‘For gambling?’

‘Y…yes,’ stammered Robert. ‘Fool plan, I told her. Couldn’t win enough, I said. All of it yours anyway.’

‘Explain yourself, man,’ Guy said, again reaching for Duprey’s lapels.

Robert tried desperately to protect his coat. ‘Planned to leave you, she said,’ he wailed. ‘Told her it was not the thing!’

Guy dropped his hands. ‘Leave me?’

Robert nodded vigorously. ‘Said she’d buy a cottage where you’d never find her.’

The air filled with the pungent odour of too many hot-house flowers.

‘There you are,
chéri
!’ Madame Bisou’s perfume had preceded her as she flounced in Robert’s direction.

A relieved look came over the young man’s face. Guy stepped away from him.

‘I have pined for this moment,’ Madame said, throwing her arms around his neck and crushing his coat and neckcloth with her embrace. ‘You will have time for me, no?’

‘Y…yes.’ Robert cast a wary glance at Guy. ‘N…now if you wish.’

‘I do wish.’ She nuzzled his neck and pulled him towards the stairway.

Guy remained frozen. Emily had become Lady Widow in order to leave him. He ran a ragged hand through his hair, trying to reconcile the sweet, compliant, eager-to-please Emily with a woman plotting her escape. From him.

He could not blame her, to be truthful. It had been reprehensible of him to trick her into marriage in the first place, then to all but ignore her in his single-minded quest for money. But this day had offered hope for them, had it not?

He wandered absently to the doorway of the card room. The Duke’s son nearly collided with him.

‘The odds are three to one in your favour, Keating,’ the man said excitedly. ‘Have you placed your bet?’

‘In my favour? What the devil are you talking about?’ Guy asked.

The Duke’s son smirked. ‘Sloane proposed the terms. I suppose he did not like losing the other wager. The odds
are three to one he will fail to win Lady Widow from you.’

‘What?’

The man continued, ‘But he’s closed up with her in a room at this moment, so there’s some chance the odds will change—’

Guy did not wait to hear the rest. He ran up the stairs, pounding on two locked doors, and receiving shouts from unfamiliar voices.

What did she think she was doing? Who was this woman that she could bed one man one night and another the next? Then it struck him. She was seeking Sloane’s silence. Would she do so with her body?

The third door was unlocked. He did not bother to knock, but burst into the room. He saw the champagne. He saw the cards. He saw Lady Widow and Sloane seated at the table, each with a fan of cards in their hands. They were, he was relieved to see, fully dressed.

‘Guy!’ cried Lady Widow.

‘Damn,’ cursed Sloane.

‘What goes on here?’ Guy demanded.

Emily felt the air sucked from her lungs. Her legs trembled beneath the table. Her vision blurred.

He had come in search of Lady Widow after all. She could not speak.

Sloane answered him, his voice casual. ‘Why, this is a friendly game of cards, Keating. A private one.’

‘The devil it is,’ Guy growled. ‘I hear otherwise below stairs.’

The room grew dark and the men’s voices echoed through her head. Emily fought the impulse to faint. She pressed her fingers to her temple. Of course, he would presume Sloane brought her here for seduction, would he not? The jealous rage inside him was palpable. Even a
gamester did not feel so passionately about a wager already won. His attachment had been to Lady Widow all along.

Where did that leave her?
Where does that leave Madeleine?
she thought in a panic. How was she to win Sloane’s silence now? She must keep her wits about her. She needed to win the card game. After this, Lady Widow would never return.

Would Lady Widow linger in her husband’s memory? she wondered. Would she always stand between Guy and his wife? No. She mentally shook herself. She must think of Madeleine.

Forcing herself to stiffen her spine, she said, ‘I resent your insinuation, sir!’ Her voice was Lady Widow’s. ‘This is a private game of cards, and I ask you to leave.’

She could feel the rage flaming inside him, putting more colour in his face, more sparks in his eyes.

He strode over to the table and picked up her nearly empty champagne glass, lifting it to the light, then sweeping his eyes over her. ‘Is it indeed a mere card game, ma’am? It must have just commenced, for I see you are completely dressed.’

Emily’s cheeks grew hot. ‘You wrong me, sir,’ she murmured.

Sloane broke in, losing only a tad of his composure. ‘I don’t have a jot of an idea of what you two are talking about, Keating, but, I assure you, cards were the only game played in this room.’

‘Do not take me for a fool,’ said Guy, his voice like a sharp-edged sword. He did not take his eyes off Emily.

‘Alas, it is true.’ Sloane stood, adding, ‘I give you my word.’

Guy shot him a look.

‘Tell you what. You play out my hand. Lady Widow
may explain the stakes. Tell me later who won. I’ll honour my part, my word on that, too.’ Sloane ambled towards the door. ‘I must go below stairs. I suspect there are considerable debts to settle.’

He gave an exaggerated sigh. With an equally dramatic bow, he fled the room.

All was not lost, Emily realised. To save her sister all she need do was win the game with Guy.

If she failed, however, she must remove her mask and he would see who really played tricks with him.

‘We ought to replay this hand,’ she said, feigning a casual tone so unlike the emotions churning within her. She collected the cards and shuffled them. ‘It is your deal.’

Guy grabbed Sloane’s chair and sat in it. When she finished shuffling, she handed him the cards.

‘What game?’ he asked gruffly.

‘Piquet,’ she replied.

He stared at her for at least half a minute before he spoke. ‘What are the stakes?’

She met his eye. ‘I shall tell you when we have finished.’

He dealt the cards.

T
he atmosphere was like in a dream, looking real but unreal at the same time. Sound echoed as if far away. Light seemed excessively bright. Guy felt as if he were in a dream, acting as if it all was perfectly ordinary, sitting across the table from the alluring creature who was his wife and who likely had been prepared to bed another man.

‘What is the score?’ he asked.

She answered in a voice without emotion. ‘The first partie was mine by one hundred seventeen points. This is the first deal of the second.’

‘Do you play for points?’ he asked, in like tone.

‘The most points after the third partie,’ she said.

Guy sorted his hand, estimating what was likely in hers. He chose his play ruthlessly, his anger intensifying concentration, wresting every possible trick from his hand. He did not speak and neither did she, except to make their declarations and responses, call out their points.

The anger boiled inside him with every play of every card, though he was not certain which fuelled it the most. Sloane for trying to bed his wife? Emily for risking her virtue? Plotting to leave him? Or was he angered against
himself for letting matters reach this moment, when he might have put a stop to them that first night?

At the end of six hands, he won easily. Guy burned to win the third partie, to discover if he were correct in what he feared she offered Sloane. She would be playing to win Sloane’s silence about her sister’s past, that was obvious, but had she wagered what he feared?

He dealt the cards. Damn Sloane for accepting her challenge when the man had already given his word to Guy. Perhaps Sloane was no better than his reputation suggested, placing a new wager in Madame Bisou’s betting book. Sloane had lost the first bet about Lady Widow. Guy had no notion that the man would create a second one—the seduction of Guy’s wife.

But Sloane did not know Lady Widow was Emily, did he? He thought the two of them were competing for a woman who frequented a gaming hell and toyed with its patrons. Lady Widow dangled the gentlemen from her fingers like puppets in a Punch and Judy show. She’d not improved Sloane’s perception of her when she played her private game of cards with Guy. If Sloane believed she’d bedded one man, why not another?

She exchanged five cards. He exchanged three.

No, he, Guy, was not innocent in this situation. Plenty of blame could be laid directly at his door.

He’d fallen under her spell as well, even knowing she was his wife. He had not refused her lovemaking. On the contrary, he had revelled in every moment of it.

She led an ace of hearts.

They called out their points as she took several tricks, he others. At the end, the round went to her.

He glanced up at her. She breathed a long sigh of relief, not at all like the gambler he knew she could be. The lines of tension at the corners of her mouth eased slightly.

He shuffled the cards.

She sat stiffly in her chair, gazing down at the table, avoiding looking at him, he suspected. This was nothing like the playful, erotic game of piquet they had played the night before. Even though she wore the gown, the hat and the mask of Lady Widow, this was the woman he had met in Bath, the one who sat across from him at the breakfast table, the one who faded from one’s sight, who hid behind her mask of mediocrity. All liveliness gone. All charm vanished.

Only now he knew what events had forged her need to disappear from everyone’s notice. If she’d given her parents any reason to consider her value, she might have risked being sold as they sold her sister.

A muscle in Guy’s cheek twitched. Her father had sold Emily, in a way, by inventing a way to use her for collateral. Guy had fallen for the ruse, because he’d sought to use her as well.

His anger ebbed suddenly, but was replaced by a tide of remorse. If he had been thinking of anything but his crippling debts he might have recognised how out of character it had been for the colourless, all-too-proper Emily to agree to an elopement. The desperation to escape her parents must have been intense indeed for her to take a chance marrying him.

What had he offered her in return? He was her husband, the man who ought to have cosseted her and protected her. What neglect of his caused her to risk everything at Madame Bisou’s?

He passed her the cards.

Emily reached for the deck, her hand brushing her husband’s. The touch jolted her as much as if a spark of static electricity had jumped between them. Her eyes flew to
his, but she quickly looked back to the cards, getting ready to deal.

She would rather have studied him, drinking in every feature, every nuance of feeling revealed in his face. She longed to see his lips widen into a smile, lighting up his eyes with happiness, but this was impossible. He was lost to her, as surely as this card game would ultimately be lost. Luck had long abandoned her.

Blinking back tears she realised three good hands might give her an edge. The point spread after the first two parties was only slightly in Guy’s favour, but he was playing his cards with uncanny skill. The gamester in her marvelled at it.

She tried to steel herself for the loss, though what could be worse than failing her sister and removing her mask in front of him? The thought of unlacing the silk covering her face, peeling it from her sweat-dampened brow, and seeing Guy’s shocked expression when she revealed herself, made her stomach roil with nausea.

If luck returned, she might win, but that hope seemed suspended on a very thin thread. Even if she won, she must invent a reason for gambling on the fate of Lady Devlin Steele. How would she explain to Guy why Lady Widow would care about Emily’s sister? Or how Lady Widow had been informed of the threat to Lady Devlin’s reputation? No matter what happened, she would lose.

The deepest ache, like heavy metal scraping her insides, was the knowledge that his regard truly belonged to Lady Widow. Why else be so furious at finding Lady Widow with another man?

She glanced up while he pulled out cards to exchange. How foolish a woman’s heart could be! Once she’d been so eager to leave him. Now, even knowing he loved an illusion, she knew she would stay. She would run his
house for him. She would economise when his gambling brought losses and debt. She would endure a thousand cuts to her heart if it meant being with him.

He’d shown her he was the man she’d hoped he would be, a good man, a man she could depend upon, no matter his love of gambling. She remembered his arms around her earlier that day when she so desperately needed his strength. He might never love her like Lady Widow, but perhaps they could find their way to become friends. If she could just last through this one final card game.

Her exchange was reasonably successful, adding a third ace to her hand. If she could just guess in what order he would throw his cards, she might have a chance to earn good points.

In the previous rounds, he had worked out what cards she held and in what order she would play them. In this round, however, that talent appeared to fail him and she beat him by twenty points. Like withered flowers greeted by rain, her hopes revived. She forced herself to clear her mind of everything but the cards.

Three more hands.

She won again. And again! It was down to the last round. He dealt and they exchanged their cards. She declared her points and her score climbed. She won trick after trick, until her score reached thirty.

‘Pique,’ she said, the word catching in her throat. Her points doubled to sixty, and her heart pounded in her chest. She had won.

They played out the rest of the cards, but she already knew she’d amassed the points she needed. Her whole body trembled with relief. Her sister was safe! And she would not have to remove her mask.

‘Congratulations, Lady Widow,’ he said as he lay down
his last losing card. There was an odd, melancholy expression in his voice.

It took her several seconds before she could breathe in enough air to speak. ‘You…you wished to be told the stakes.’ Like a good gamester, she would fulfil her part of the bargain, knowing it meant more explanation than she knew how to make.

He stacked the cards neatly and stood. ‘Since I lost, it is not necessary. Unless something is required of me?’

Another reprieve? She rose, too, but did not dare take a step towards him. ‘Nothing is required of you.’

She could barely make her legs hold her upright. Having prepared herself for the worst, she could not conceive of escaping all of it. All she wanted now was to leave this place posthaste and never return.

She looked at her husband, who seemed as immobilised as she. ‘Would you inform Sloane for me? Tell him that I won? It is he who must keep the bargain with me.’

‘You do not wish to tell him yourself?’ He returned her gaze with pain in his eyes.

She felt the pain reflected in her own body. He would still be thinking Lady Widow wagered her body, that she had been willing to lie down with another man.

A knife twisted inside her. In the morning she would wake up alone in her bed, knowing he lay in the room connected to hers wishing he could be with Lady Widow. He would not know Lady Widow was about to disappear forever. He would not even realise Lady Widow had been faithful to him.

She raised her eyes to him one more time. ‘I have had enough of cards for one night.’

He looked resigned. ‘I will inform Sloane of your win.’ He headed towards the door, placed his hand on the knob.

She could at least spare him the pain of believing Lady Widow had betrayed him. ‘Lord Keating?’

He stopped and turned back to her.

‘I would have removed my mask. If Sloane had won, that is what I offered him. That is all I offered him.’

He stared at her a long time, his eyes unfathomable. Then he opened the door and walked out.

Emily waited until he would have had time to reach the floor below. She hurried out of the room and down the stairs, hoping to avoid notice. From the stairway she heard the hum of voices. As she passed the door to the supper room, she spied her brother, seated with Madame Bisou, holding that woman’s hand, looking as relaxed and carefree as he’d been as a boy playing tricks on his sisters. She walked past the game room, where she glimpsed Guy leaning over Sloane, seated at a card table with Sir Reginald and two of the others. With the cards to distract them, she supposed that, in the space of a fortnight, none of the gentlemen would even recall Lady Widow.

Except perhaps her husband. Would he pine for Lady Widow? When he regarded his colourless wife, would he wish for the charm of Lady Widow?

She hurried down the stairs to the hall, retrieving her cloak from Cummings and fleeing out into the night to where her hack awaited her. As soon as she was inside, she pulled off her cap and mask.

In no time she was home, let in the house by a waiting Hester, and soon back in her bedchamber.

She could not wait to remove the green silk dress. Hester could pack the dress and cap away in the trunk, and Emily would never open it again. Perhaps she could ask Hester to sell the clothes on Petticoat Lane and keep the profits. As soon as the maid left the room, Emily would
throw the mask into the fireplace and watch it burn to ashes.

Emily took the pins from her hair, letting it tumble to her shoulders. She held her hair aside as Hester unbuttoned the dress. Hester pulled it over her head and she was free of it.

As Hester held the gown in her arms, the door connecting her room to her husband’s opened.

Her husband stood silhouetted in the doorway.

‘Hester,’ he said in a mild tone, ‘be so good as to leave. I wish to speak with Lady Keating alone.’

Hester gave a quick curtsy, dropped the gown on the floor, and ran out of the room.

Emily, dressed only in her corset and shift, stood awaiting him, sick at heart, but almost relieved at the same time. She’d had enough of masks. When he asked her where she had been, she would tell him everything, no matter what.

But he did not ask her where she had been. He walked up to her and handed her a paper. In the candlelight, she could barely make out that it was a banknote made out to her, allowing her to withdraw a huge sum from his accounts.

‘What is this?’ she asked.

He looked so much like he had in that private room at Madame Bisou’s, but also so different. So sad, so determined.

‘Your freedom,’ he replied.

She examined it again and glanced back at him. ‘I do not understand.’

His eyes flicked over her undressed state, but she did not have the presence of mind to reach for her nearby shawl. He finally gazed directly into her face, but did not answer her. At last it dawned on her.

‘Do you wish me to leave?’ She could barely hear herself, her words came out so softly.

‘Is that not what you wish, Emily?’

‘No, I—’ Once she had wanted nothing more than to escape him, but everything had changed.

With a grim expression he reached over and took the banknote from her hand, placing it on her dressing table. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘Let us talk.’

He led her to the set of chairs her mother-in-law had used earlier in the day. It seemed a lifetime ago.

Emily had draped her paisley shawl over one of them. She wrapped it around herself before she sat down.

‘First,’ he began, ‘I know everything. I’ve known most of it from the beginning, from the first time I walked in to Madame Bisou’s.’

Her mind tried to take this in, while her heart thudded painfully in her chest. ‘You knew?’

‘I recognised you almost immediately—’

‘You knew!’ It was not possible. When he had gazed upon Lady Widow with such desire in his eyes, he knew she was Emily? When she peeled her clothes off for him, he knew? When he made love to her, he knew he made love to his wife?

‘Yes,’ he said quickly. ‘And I do not expect your forgiveness for not letting on until now.’

Her forgiveness? Was it not the other way around?

His words came out in a rush. ‘I did not know until tonight why you came to Madame Bisou’s. I thought it was for love of gambling. I feared it was…for other interests, as well. Tonight I discovered you were desirous of money—’