The Game of Love (The Love Trilogy, #2)

by Edith Layton

  The Game of Love

  By Edith Layton

  Copyright 2019 by Estate of Edith Felber

  Cover Copyright 2019 by Untreed Reads Publishing

  Cover Design by Ginny Glass

  The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

  Previously published in print, 1988.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, dialogue and events in this book are wholly fictional, and any resemblance to companies and actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Also by Edith Layton and Untreed Reads Publishing

  The Duke’s Wager

  The Disdainful Marquis

  The Mysterious Heir

  Red Jack’s Daughter

  Lord of Dishonor

  Peaches and the Queen

  False Angel

  The Indian Maiden

  Lady of Spirit

  The Wedding

  A True Lady

  Bound by Love

  The Fire Flower

  A Love for All Seasons

  Love in Disguise

  www.untreedreads.com

  “Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves: to bring in—God shield us!—a lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing…”

  “Therefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.”

  “Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through his lion’s neck: and he himself must speak through, saying thus…‘Ladies,’—or ‘Fair ladies—I would wish you,’ or ‘I would request you,’—or ‘I would entreat you,—not to fear, not to tremble: my life for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life: no, I am no such thing: I am a man as other men are…”

  “This Lion is a very fox for his valor.”

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  A Midsummer Night’s Dream

  1

  The dark was not quite light enough; it was difficult to be sure of anything in the room except for one’s hand in front of one’s face. There may have been a thousand candles in the several chandeliers, but they cast their harsh and wavering brightness only on those persons clustered in small rings directly beneath their sharp circles of light. All the others in the room swam secret as sharks in a fathomless sea, becoming only passing shapes of shadows, outside those pools of light.

  The gentlepersons gathered in the ornate room didn’t complain; they may have been unhappy about a great many things, but the deceptive light wasn’t a concern of theirs. They paid little attention to anything but their hands in front of their faces anyway, and if they could see them, or the dice or cards or piles of chips there, they were content. Or as content as gamblers could ever be, since from the look of the avid faces watching the fall of a card, the spin of the wheel, or the final resting place that an ivory die tumbled toward, it was clear that contentment was not an emotion any gamester in the room had ever aspired to.

  So it was as well for the two gentlemen who slowly prowled the outer edges of the room that they couldn’t be seen too well, for they were watching the other gamblers, searching for a particular face. And they particularly didn’t wish to be seen doing so.

  The larger of the two men was larger than most of the men in the room, even stooped and halt as he was with age as he made his laborious way about the room, bent over his heavily chased silver-headed cane. He was almost as broad in the shoulder as the width of one of the wide doors that had admitted him, and equally large in the chest and across his waistcoat too, as if many long years of luxurious living had padded him lavishly, besides having encumbered him with the gouty foot that necessitated his painful passage. And a lifetime of indulgence in wines as fine as the linen in his white cravat had doubtless colored his nose and his cheeks so cherry red, or else his snowy white box wig, as out of style and likely old as he was, only accentuated his high color. A huge old gentleman, and from the tone of the deep grumbling voice which sometimes could be heard, a testy one too, and it was as well that his youthful companion seemed as well-tempered as he was well-looking.

  But that would scarcely have been possible, for had the young gentleman that accompanied the cross old gent possessed a temperament to match his looks, he would have worn a pair of wings and should have been able to find his way about the room by the light he gave off from himself, for only an angel could have looked so. Yet only a mortal man could have made all the females in the room who were not gambling look so when they noted him, which they did immediately.

  He was somewhat above average height, and his elegant evening clothes—snugly tailored black velvet jacket and skin-close breeches—showed an athletic, lithe, proportionate form, just as the flat abdomen and long muscular legs told of athletic pursuits more profound than following an ancient, ill-tempered old gentleman around the circumferences of midnight gaming houses. As did his clear white complexion, lightly gilded by the touch of sun and wind. His forehead was high, the shapely nose and cheekbones subtly sculptured over perfectly crafted lips; a firm chin with a light cleft in it, to add charm to resolve, completed the symmetry under that tender yet masculine mouth. In the darkened room his long, tilted eyes took on the gray of cat’s fur, yet when he passed gracefully beneath the candles now and again, they grew light as the first rise of dawn. In sunlight they’d look so light as to be blind; in moonlight, they’d be shadowed silver as the moon’s path on water. The slightly overlong gold hair was thick and straight, except where it lay in tendrils about his strong young neck, like the curls of a young vine, almost as if, high white cravat and fashionable get-up of an English gentleman or not, he were the carved statue of some gloriously lusty young Greek god. Certainly he resembled classic statuary far more than common flesh; mortals were seldom so perfect, modern gentlemen seldom so startlingly handsome. And that modern word itself, “handsome,” scarcely conveyed the full force of his appearance. No, he was, in the fullest meaning of that antique word, beautiful.

  Now he scanned the room and then paused and inclined his noble head and spoke to his aged companion quietly, in a dulcet tenor voice no less attractive than himself.

  “Over there?” he asked softly. “The fellow in the blue with the lady all in golden gauze…or,” he added with a hint of laughter, “rather, the lady not quite in all the golden gauze?”

  The old gentleman looked up. There were dozens of well-dressed persons crowded into the large room, and yet despite the dim candlelight and the further impediment of blue cigarillo smoke eddying as it rose from several locations, his quick and sparkling hazel eyes followed the direction of his younger companion’s gaze immediately. He saw the lady in her insufficient gold gauze gown instantly, sighed, and then replied in a low rumble, “No, no, my boy. Never. The gent has a diamond at his throat, and the lady several more at the breast she’s about to drop on the table along with her wager. And real ones at that.”

  “Well, obviously,” the young man said with a great deal of admiration, “I’ve seldo
m seen finer. I’d be pleased to take her bet myself.”

  “I meant the diamonds,” the old man said with what might have been a chuckle that soon translated into a cough, “and I’ll wager you this night’s work her bets have already been covered, and often, by every gentleman in this room, save for us. No, no, my Apollo, our bird has nothing so fine at his fingertips, or about his lady’s person. He’s a confirmed gamester, and so any diamonds he holds, in cards or set in gold, are gone from his hands almost as soon as he’s been dealt them.”

  “Are you sure they are real diamonds?” the young man asked plaintively. “I think we ought to go closer for a better look.”

  “And put you off your favorite game forever? No, lad, I can tell a true gem from thirty paces, and I assure you that the lady’s jewelry is real as her complexion, hair, and figure are not. Bend but one of your dazzling smiles upon her, Julian, and you’ll find that as soon as you’ve gotten her out of her gown, you’ll have to free her from her stays, and that would be as much work as and even less pleasure than getting me out of mine. Ah yes,” he said as he limped on and they passed the table the lady played at, “I see you’ve taken a closer look. Don’t scowl so, it only makes you look in pain, and if you keep at it, we’ll soon have all the females and not a few of the males in the room rushing over to solace you. It’s being inconspicuous that we’re after at the moment.”

  “Damn your eyes,” the young gentleman said pleasantly as they strolled past in the perimeters of light near the table in question, “you’re right again. She’s old enough to be your grandmother, Grandfather, and you could cut glass with her smallest rings, dirty as they are. I still can’t understand how it is that you can judge a jewel and a person from across a room, and a dungeon-dark one at that,” he complained.

  “My father, the Gypsy King, taught me,” the old man commented absently as they walked through a doorway to another of the salons in the noisy, thronged gaming house. “And you know how dark those caravans can be. Ah,” he said with some more interest, “look there, in the corner, the fine-drawn old fellow in the biscuit coat, with the lively little blond party laughing over his shoulder. Our pigeons, or I’m really your grandfather. I’ll lay a pony on it. And let’s make that ‘Uncle,’ not ‘Grandfather,’ shall we? A wastrel uncle is very understandable, but corrupt grandfathers are not thick upon the ground even here in France, where almost everything else I can think of can be twisted interestingly.… Ah, piquet!” he exclaimed suddenly in loudly audible tones as they walked toward the table he’d been gazing at. “A good solid British game at last. Nevvy. Haven’t had a hand at that in an age, b’God. I was used to be a dab hand at it in my salad days, or did I ever tell you?”

  “I believe you did, Uncle,” the young man replied with a patient sigh, smiling apologetically at the persons whose play their sudden appearance had interrupted.

  Those persons—a small elderly, neatly gotten-up old gent with sparse light hair and pale eyes, the fashionably dressed fair-haired young woman in a deep crimson velvet gown who stood by his side, and the old fellow’s opponent, another aged gentleman, this one with too many chins and not enough hair—all looked up at once, amazed at the pair that had loomed up from the shadows to address them. For though it was a crowded gaming house, and though over half a hundred persons were in this small salon with them, few of the other gamesters had paid them any notice or could be expected to. This wasn’t surprising; the salon was for the use of those interested in small personal wagers and games. And in a private tripot such as this one, a gaming house whose attractions included thrilling games of macao, baccarat, rouge et noir, faro, vingt et un, and the delicious, forbidden deep hazard, all games more treacherous and exciting than could usually be found at some of the most infamous clubs in London, not a great deal of interest could be expected to be taken in a private game of piquet between two elderly gentlemen.

  Now that Napoleon had been bottled up again after his defeat at Waterloo, and this time on an island even more remote than the Elban kingdom he’d been able to slip away from last year, the world had come back to France to play again. Or at least it seemed that the English world had done so, and especially here, in this exclusive country hotel and gambling house. For though play was play, after all, wherever it took place, it seemed to have a more exotic flavor for the British here. As did all things French now, after having been in short supply for so long, from perfumes to cuisine, from fashions to the females who wore them. So although there were nationals from many lands come to lose their several monies here, the predominance of them spoke French with a Scottish burr, or a Welsh purr, or any of the several dialects of England.

  Obviously, then, it couldn’t have been the accents of the new arrivals that had startled the players. At any rate, the intrusion seemed to break the players from their concentration as well as their silence.

  “Damme, sir,” the fattish fellow grunted, looking up from his cards to his opponent in disgust, “mebbe I ought to throw in my hand and give this chap a turn, at that. My luck ain’t in tonight, and if I’m to lose my sauce, I’d just as soon watch it disappear all in one stroke on the wheel instead of leaking it out drop by drop in this game with you.”

  “Why, I’d be pleased to raise the stakes if it would suit you, Henderson,” the old gentleman said in a smooth voice, but then, being fixed by a long stare by the bright-faced young woman, he went on in more regretful, conciliatory tones, “but sure as the tides turn, your luck’s due for a change, you know. Be pleased to have you sit in, friend,” he added in an aside to the huge old fellow who stood staring down jealously at the table.

  The young man solicitously fetched a chair for his gruff companion and brought it to the table with a particularly charming smile at the young woman as he did so. Then the old fellow he called “Uncle” sat, but with so many groans and grunts of effort and muttered curses of annoyance at his own bulk and his bandaged foot, and, it seemed, his life, as he did so, that he almost drowned out the declarations being made in the game he wanted to watch.

  The stout gentleman playing cards groaned as well, if for a different reason.

  “A point of four!” he said, scowling, and all the young woman’s sympathetic smiles could not seem to raise his spirits as his opponent answered tonelessly, “Good.”

  “A point of five. I score five. A quart,” he intoned, still frowning ferociously, as though none of the pretty young woman’s warming smiles could be seen, as though it wasn’t a triumph as well as a major modern miracle that she completely ignored the gloriously good-looking young blond man who had just joined them so that she could continue to smile down upon him from across the table instead, and he a stout, balding, five-jowled fellow with more decades to his name than he had jowls, and her own gentleman’s opponent, at that.

  For she was a pretty and lively looking young creature, with a neat figure and a set of small even white teeth. If her nose was a shade overlong, her chin a trifle too decisive, and her frame more sturdy than sinuous, and overall, her looks as common as meadowsweet in the June fields of her homeland, still she was pretty enough, with eyes like bluebells and ringlets more blond than brown, and a dimple that was surprised from hiding in her fair cheek when she smiled. If she wasn’t spectacularly beautiful, she was a true English rose, and so as exotic here in this gambling house outside of Paris among international lovelies as a dancing girl from Carthage might be in the heart of Sussex.

  And not the least interesting thing about her, the old gentleman who watched the game go forth noted, was that though the fragile old gentleman whose side she hovered at was likely her relative or protector, she ignored him entirely and reserved all her winsome smiles and coy glances for the stout fellow who played against him, even though that fat fellow did nothing to encourage her, but only grumbled at his cards. And this, even though her party had just been joined by a young man whose looks made marble statues blink.

  “How high?” the frail old gentleman asked evenly.

&nbs
p; “Jack,” the stout fellow replied nervously.

  “Not good,” his opponent said softly.

  “A pair of queens, the other spoke up immediately.

  “Not good,” the older fellow said again.

  “Damme, no point in going on, I concede it,” the other declared, casting his cards down. “You’ve left me only the lint in m’ pockets, Wyndham, I’m gone. Perhaps we’ll meet again tomorrow. Change my coat, change my luck. Never know, what?” He dug a wallet from a tight inner jacket pocket, and after sorting through it, cast some notes down atop his discarded cards. “That should settle it,” he grunted. “Till then,” he said as he rose, and then, casting a full and meaningful look at the young woman at last, added, “Madam. You’ll let me know if your friend changes his mind, eh? I’m still at the Deauville Hotel, near the Palais Royal…in my own set of apartments, too,” he added pointedly, but then, recollecting that he’d an interested audience to his awkward attempt at setting up a meeting with the young woman, he bowed abruptly, and just as gracelessly left them.

  “Well, then, sirs,” the older gentleman said with a smile, deftly scooping up the cards in his long white fingers and rising to bow to the gentlemen that had joined him, “I’d be pleased to have a game with you. No, no, pray do not,” he protested as the huge old man began to try to struggle up to return his bow. “Let’s not be so formal as all that. I am Sir Geoffrey Carlisle, Baron Wyndham, from Norfolk, and I’m pleased to make you known to my good friend Mrs. Cobb, from the Isle of Wight. Her late husband,” he said somewhat more gravely, “was a friend to our family for many years.”