The Viscount's Revenge (The Royal Ambition Series Book 4) (21 page)

So Amanda outlined the Colby predicament. She said she was desperately in need of money, and winning money at cards would mean she did not have to get married.

Susan began to look bored. She detested card games almost as much as she detested the opera.

“And don’t you see,” Amanda went on desperately, “Mr. Cartwright-Browne has left or is leaving Fox End, so if we had money, Richard and I could return, and you could come with us. We could go fishing and shooting and you would not need to go to balls or parties.”

“So what do you want me to do?” asked Susan with sudden enthusiasm.

Amanda held out the invitation. “Come to this gaming house with me.”

Susan scowled at it. “Lady Mannering… she is not quite
bon ton
but I have not heard anything really bad about her. Very well. We will take the vis-á-vis as if we are going on a call. If we go and get a hack, the servants might gossip.”

Amanda went to give her a friendly hug, but Susan said gruffly, “Keep your distance. I still do not trust you.”

“Oh,
Susan
!” said Amanda, much exasperated. “You never wanted Mr. Dalzell anyway. You’re like a dog with a bone it doesn’t really want.”

“But such a pretty bone,” remarked Susan. “Come along. It’s all very exciting. But I shall watch, mind you. Do not expect me to play. You have money?”

“Yes, I’ve saved most of my allowance.”

Despite Amanda’s secret fears of finding herself in a smoke-laden den of iniquity full of painted women, they set out.

The gambling club turned out to be almost disappointingly refined.

Amanda handed over the card and introduced herself to Lady Mannering, a grim-faced woman of uncertain years who looked like a governess. They left their cloaks and rather shyly entered the gaming room.

To Amanda’s relief, she recognised several of the ladies present. She sat down at a faro table and Susan stood behind her, occasionally sighing and shuffling her feet.

Amanda played and played. Susan eventually moved over to a sofa in the corner and fell asleep.

Sometimes Amanda won a little, sometimes she lost a little, and then, quite amazingly, she began to win and win. When she found she had won the incredible sum of five hundred guineas, she tore herself away from the table and awoke Susan. Lady Mannering relaxed her grim visage to congratulate Miss Colby on her luck. Miss Colby should return the next night, she said. The stakes would be higher, a deal of very rich ladies were expected to attend, and there would be a champagne supper. Amanda looked excited. Susan yawned cavernously in Lady Mannering’s face and said grumpily that once was enough.

“But I have won five hundred guineas,” exclaimed Amanda as they jogged home.

“Then keep it,” said Susan. “You’ll lose it if you go back tomorrow.”

“No. Just one more time. And
please come
with me. I’ll… I’ll pay you.”

“Just invite me to that place of yours in Hardforshire,” said Susan with a reluctant smile. “And take five of those guineas and give them to John coachman to keep his mouth shut. If he gossips in the kitchens, cook will tell the housekeeper and she will tell the lady’s maid, Mathers, and Mathers will tell Mama.”

The coachman not only promised to keep quiet but also let them in by a back door to the house around by the mews and so they were able to creep quietly up the stairs unnoticed.

“I think the headache must be becoming infectious,” said Lord Hawksborough to his fiancée, Lady Mary Dane, as they sat out in the refreshment room at Lord Tavistock’s ball the following night. “Both Susan and Miss Colby seem struck with it at the same time.”

“Then it is a mercy,” said Lady Mary tartly. “I feel like a governess, having to be constantly in the company of these pimply schoolgirls.”

“I would call neither Susan nor Miss Colby pimply.”

“Their
souls
are pimply and covered with chalk and ink blots,” said Lady Mary, raising her hand to the sapphire pendant that hung between her breasts and hoping that his lordship’s eyes would be guided by the gesture and so divert his mind to a more interesting subject.

Lady Mary had reluctantly agreed to give the next dance to Lord Tavistock but was hoping he would not remember the fact, since she was not in the ballroom, but to her irritation, she found him at her elbow reminding her of the promise.

Lord Hawksborough watched her go. He found himself disliking her more and more and wondered irritably if he would have been quite comfortable in his engagement had Amanda not entered his life.

He saw Mrs. Burke, a notorious old gossip, bearing down on him and made a move to escape. But he was too slow and she was upon him, her old eyes snapping with malice and mischief.

“Well, Hawksborough,” she said. “You ought to keep an eye on that sister of yours. And little Miss Colby. Too young to be fleeced in a gambling hell.”

Lord Hawksborough took out his quizzing glass and stared awfully at Mrs. Burke. “What are you talking about?” he said acidly.

“Sally Struthers-Benson was at Lady Mannering’s hell in Montague Street last night and she said Miss Colby was gambling like Sheridan, while your sister egged her on. They allowed Miss Colby to win. They always do that the first time, you know. Got her coming back tonight to fleece the lamb.”

“My sister and Miss Colby, since you appear so interested in their welfare, are both at home with the headache,” said Lord Hawksborough, turning away.

“They’re both at Frederica Mannering’s faro table,” cackled Mrs. Burke, “or I’ll eat my wig.”

Lady Mary was performing a neat
entrechat
in a set of the quadrille when she stumbled and almost fell. She had just seen Lord Hawksborough striding out of the ballroom with a face like thunder.

She contained herself as best she could until the dance was over. Mrs. Burke came up immediately. “I was talking to Hawksborough,” she began.

“Where
is
Charles?” demanded Lady Mary, looking at Mrs. Burke with dislike.

“Said he had to find that Colby girl,” said Mrs. Burke maliciously, watching with satisfaction the red tide of anger rising in Lady Mary’s face.

“Is that the sister of the Colby I met at Bellingham?” said Betty Barrington, stopping suddenly beside them. “I had such hopes of Richard Colby. I met him when I was at the seminary in Bellingham, you know, I sent him to get chocolate drops. Well, he wanted to know when the Hawksborough coach was leaving, and that was on the very day they were held up by highwaymen. I thought Mr. Colby was a dashing and romantic highwayman who would throw me over his saddle bow and ride off with me. But alas! It was all so ordinary. I met him at a ball and he turned out to be nothing more than a respectable young man who had a
tendre
for Susan Fitzgerald. Ah, me!” said Betty, rolling her eyes in mock distress. “My heart was quite broken!”

She flitted off. Mrs. Burke saw new prey and took herself off as well.

Lady Mary stood very still, her blue eyes quite, quite blank.

Amanda had at last succeeded in dragging a reluctant Susan back to Lady Mannering’s in Montague Street. Susan was in a foul temper. The supper was in the form of a buffet and Susan immediately left Amanda to her card-playing and stomped over to it and began to help herself to an amazing amount of delicacies, which she proceeded to wash down with several bumpers of claret.

Drawing room and back drawing room had been joined together for the added company. There was hardly any sound, apart from occasional voices making a bid. Amanda was immediately and totally absorbed in the game.

She lost a little and won a little, just as she done on the night before. And then she began to lose steadily.

At one point she raised anguished eyes from her cards and looked to where Susan was moodily drinking wine.

Susan caught the look and came over and stood beside her. As Amanda’s last guineas were scooped away, Susan leaned over the banker’s muslin shoulder and ran a thumb over the cards.

“No wonder you’re losing,” she said in a loud carrying voice she had inherited from her mother. “These cards are marked. See!” She held one up to the room full of women. “Pinpricks. The oldest trick in the game.”

“Cheat!” raged Amanda, seeing Fox End and an escape from Lord Hawksborough and the terrors of the London Season being snatched from her.

“Nonsense,” said Lady Mannering, sweeping forward regally. “Do not listen to the silly words of these little misses. Murphy! See these ladies leave immediately.”

A large, tough individual who acted as butler lumbered forward purposely.

“Give her her money back,” said Susan, her eyes glittering with wine and excitement, “or I’ll draw your cork.”

“I wouldn’t like to see the pretty ladies gettin’ their darlin’ faces messed up, now, would I?” said Murphy with awful geniality.

There was a fluttering in the room. Feathers on headdresses trembled, reticules were hurriedly scooped up, chairs were pushed back.

Murphy swung around. “Now, ladies,” he said. “You will just all be keepin’ to your seats until this little matter is sorted out.”

He squared his massive shoulders under his plush jacket and the ladies nervously subsided—with the exception of Amanda and Susan.

Amanda marched up to him and put her hands on her hips. “My money,” she demanded loudly, “or I will summon the watch.”

Murphy picked her up and twisted her round so that she was held powerless against him.

“I’ll just be putting this bit o’ rubbish outside where it belongs, my lady,” he said to Lady Mannering.

“Stop!”

Susan marched forward and faced Murphy. Her black eyes were fixed on him in an autocratic glare of great hauteur. Her voice had a cutting edge, and she said, “Release her this instant!”

And Murphy did as he was bid, almost unconsciously reacting to the edge of authority in Susan’s voice.

“You
fool
, Murphy,” hissed Lady Mannering.

Murphy hesitated and began to advance on Amanda again.

Amanda, who had skipped quickly out of his reach as soon as she was released, walked over to Lady Mannering and faced up to her, her little jaw thrust out.

“My money,” she said slowly and clearly. “You will give me my money… you… you… horrible old Friday-faced
cheat
!”

“I have no intention of giving you a single penny,” retorted Lady Mannering coolly. “Murphy, remove these creatures.”

“These ladies will not let you treat us thus,” said Amanda, looking confidently around the room for help. But the ladies who frequent gaming hells do not cultivate notoriety of any sort. Eyes stared at the floor, at the ceiling, at anywhere except at Amanda and Susan.

“If my husband learns of this,” whispered one lady to another in Amanda’s hearing, “I will be sent to the country to rusticate!”

Murphy glanced around the room. He saw that no one was going to come to the help of the girls.

He advanced again on Amanda.

Susan edged close to Amanda. “We must summon the watch,” she whispered urgently. “Try to keep everyone’s attention on you.”

Amanda faced Murphy. “Lord Hawksborough will be here at any moment,” she cried.

Murphy hesitated.

“Go on,” snapped Lady Mannering. “No one knows these girls are here! Do you think they would have been allowed out without a maid? Get rid of them, Murphy. There is no need to be gentle. They dare not tell anyone where they have been.”

Out of the corner of her eye Amanda saw Susan edging towards the buffet. For one despairing moment Amanda thought Susan was calmly going to start eating again. Hoping that Susan really
had
some plan of action, Amanda pointed to the doorway. “Look!” she cried. “
There
is his lordship!”

Murphy swung round, Lady Mannering opened her mouth to shout to him that Amanda was lying, and in that second Susan picked up a pitcher of ice water and threw the contents full at the blazing chandelier.

The effect on the company was the same as the effect Tam o’ Shanter had on the witches in the kirk when he called out “Weel done, Cutty-Sark!” In an instant, all was dark. Figures scrambled through the gloom. Women screamed and fought for the door.

“My money,” wailed Amanda.

Susan threw up window. “Help!” she screamed in a loud voice. “Help! Summon the watch!”

In the dim light of the back drawing room, which was lit by only one oil lamp, Amanda saw Lady Mannering wrenching at a door, trying to make her escape.

“She’s getting away,” she shouted to Susan.

She ran into the back drawing room with Susan at her heels. Lady Mannering popped a fat purse down her cleavage and stood glaring.

“Doxy! Jade! Whore!” hissed Lady Mannering.

“Where’s the money?” demanded Susan.

“I have not got any money,” snarled Lady Mannering. “Let me go!”