by Donna Hatch
Were those the only choices in her life? Spinsterhood and poverty or marriage to Lord Stratford? The raindrops increased, driving now against the windowpanes. She pressed her hand against the cool pane and felt the cold travel along her arm to her chest until it reached directly into her heart.
Chapter Three
“Your money’s gone,” Victor told Southill in a flat voice. “You need to excuse yourself while you still have a few pounds to hire a carriage to take you home.”
They’d been playing for more than three hours, and Victor was leading the night. Southill had won a few hundred pounds in the third round, but now he was reduced to his last ten.
“I’ve my own c-carriage,” Southill slurred after downing another shot of brandy. “I’m the Earl of Southill, you know.”
“We know,” Hudson muttered.
Southill turned to face the older man. “What did you say?”
Victor leaned forward in his seat. “We’re tired of you speaking of your earldom. No one at this table cares, especially when you’re lousy at cards and have run out of money before midnight.”
Southill’s blue eyes focused on Victor. “I have plenty of money, I’ll have you know. My carriage outside of White’s is b-brand new.”
“We don’t barter goods in high-stakes games,” Hudson cut in.
“Why not?” Southill asked. “I mean, y-you could take my carriage and sell it for nearly what I paid for it. I’ve only had it two w-weeks.”
Victor took the bottle of brandy and poured some into Southill’s glass. Maybe if he got drunk enough, he’d pass out and stop his infuriating attempt at bartering.
Southill picked up the glass and sipped. “Maybe y-you’re the one who’s out of funds. Does the duke keep your purse strings tied?”
Victor wouldn’t rise to the insult. He took a sip from his own glass of brandy that he’d been nursing most of the night. Two drinks on gambling nights was his limit. He and alcohol had a checkered past. The last thing Victor wanted to do was end up a drunkard like his father.
“Or maybe the value of my carriage is more than your pea brain can calculate,” Southill continued.
Victor clenched the hand resting on the table. He was tired of Southill, and Victor was tempted to take the man for all he was worth just to get rid of him. After Victor was done with him, Southill wouldn’t dare show his face in London again.
Victor tapped a long finger on the rim of his glass. “If everyone at the table agrees that your carriage is a worthy barter, then I’ll accept the terms. But it’s all or nothing.” He looked to Hudson, who nodded.
Hudson’s agreement was followed by both Mr. Gilbert’s and Lord Duncan’s.
Southill grinned.
“Looks like you’re either the luckiest man in London or unluckiest.” Victor dealt a card to each man.
Gilbert took one look at his and said, “One.”
“Three,” Southill declared.
Duncan said, “Two.”
Victor eyed his own card, then dealt one more card to each man.
“Fold,” Gilbert said.
“I’m out too,” Duncan added.
Victor looked to Southill.
The man was smiling, but it wasn’t a friendly smile. Victor noted the streak of panic in Southill’s eyes. If Victor lost, then he’d be out a good pile of money, but he would recover. If he won, well he’d just earned himself a brand new carriage. Not too bad for a few hours of gaming.
Southill laid out his cards, revealing two tens.
Victor waited a full thirty seconds before laying his down. Everyone stared at his two cards: an ace and a ten. “Vingt-et-un,” he said.
Southill released a hissing breath. “Cur!” he growled, then slammed his palm on the table.
Victor flinched, but he forced himself to stay seated and let the man ride out his emotions.
No one moved as Southill ran his fingers through his hair then clenched fistfuls of it. “Unbelievable. My sister is going to kill me!” He groaned and rubbed his face. Then his gaze settled on Victor. “One more game. Give me a chance to win it back.”
Even if Victor liked Southill, giving into him would be akin to cheating. If Southill had nothing to barter, no new game could be played.
“Let this be a lesson, Southill,” Victor said. “Go home and get yourself cleaned up. Settle your debts, and never, ever pretend like you can beat me again.”
Southill’s face flushed. “I have more to barter. All or nothing. You have my carriage now, but I still have my sister’s dowry.”
Victor barked a laugh. “The sister you just said was going to kill you for gambling away your carriage? What do you think she’d say about you betting her dowry? No one can touch that but her husband.”
Southill swallowed, but his gaze remained focused. “Then marry her. Whoever wins this hand marries my sister and gets her twenty-five thousand. If I win, I get my carriage back, and my sister can marry some other poor sop.”
Victor blinked. Southill couldn’t be serious. Or if he thought he was serious, then he was drunker than Victor thought.
“You can’t wager your sister’s hand in marriage or her dowry,” Victor said in an even voice. “It’s illegal, and if there’s anything I’m a stickler for, it’s keeping the law.”
Southill scoffed and finished his brandy. He reached for the bottle and poured his own glass. Drank that one too.
The man could hold his liquor.
“I think you’re afraid,” Southill said. “I think you’ve been cheating, and if we get rid of your friends here, we’ll see who’s the best card player in London.”
Victor didn’t want to react, but heat spread across his neck.
“Every story I’ve heard about you is suspicious,” Southill continued in a cutting tone. “You strategically lose a little, but you always win big in the end. There’s no way someone can be that lucky. Night after night. Week after week.”
Victor wrapped his fingers around his brandy glass. “I’m not a cheat. If I were you, I’d leave right now before I call you out.”
A smile bloomed on Southill’s face. “You’re afraid, aren’t you? The most eligible bachelor, soon to be duke, in all of England. Yet, you won’t marry. What’s wrong, Locken? Afraid that putting a baby into your wife will kill her, just like you killed your mother?”
Victor hadn’t realized he’d shoved the table aside and leaped onto Southill until he’d already driven his fist into the man’s nose. Southill toppled backward, taking Victor with him.
Hands grabbed at Victor, pulling him off Southill. It was a good thing too, because Victor wouldn’t have been able to stop hitting the man.
Southill cursed in pain, and while Hudson restrained Victor, the other two men helped Southill out of the private room. In the main room beyond, voices of surprise and condemnation reached Victor. There were a few cheers as well as Southill continued his escorted walk all the way out of White’s.
Victor only felt numb. His ears were ringing, his hand aching. His shoulder felt strange, and he couldn’t quite catch his breath.
“Are you all right?” Hudson asked, but Victor couldn’t respond. Not yet.
The other men came back into the room and put the table and chairs to rights. The cards were picked up. Someone cleared away a broken glass, and someone else sopped up the spilled brandy. When the room came back into focus, Victor stepped away from Hudson. “I’m all right.”
“Are you sure?”
Victor nodded and scanned the room. It looked how it did before Southill ever entered it. Victor’s heart rate slowed, returning to normal. His breathing evened out. Tomorrow, or the next day, he might laugh about this. But for now, he wanted to forget all about it.
“I need a drink,” he told Hudson.
“I’ll go fetch another bottle,” Hudson said.
But before Hudson could leave, a shout went up in the main room.
“He’s been hit!” someone yelled.
Men hurried out the front
entrance into the dark night. Hudson followed, and Victor made his way reluctantly to the door. Probably some drunkard had stepped in front of a carriage. When he reached the entrance of White’s and saw the man everyone was gaping over, his blood chilled.
Victor would recognize the green vest anywhere because he just spent four hours staring at it.
“Is he alive?” someone asked.
“Call for the doctor,” another person said.
Victor pushed his way through the crowd and walked up to Southill, who lay prone in the street. “What happened?” Victor ground out.
One of the men said, “He stumbled into the street, holding his nose. That horse reared up and knocked Lord Southill to the ground.”
Victor looked to where the man was pointing. The horse looked unharmed, and the carriage unmarred.
“Southill,” Victor said, bending down and shaking the man’s shoulder. “Wake up.”
Southill groaned and turned over to his side, cradling his head. He was already plenty dirty, and he only soiled his clothing more by his movements.
“Call for a doctor,” someone said.
“No.” Victor held up his hand. “I’ll take him home. He needs to sleep off the drink. Call for his carriage.”
“Southill doesn’t have a carriage,” someone blurted.
Victor spun around. “Who said that?”
The portly Ludlow stepped forward. “Southill’s carriage was taken yesterday by a creditor,” he said in a tremulous voice. “He never delivered payment.”
Victor stared at the man. “What is his address? I’ll deliver the man in my own curricle.”
Ludlow rattled off one of the house numbers at Grosvenor Square. It wasn’t far from Victor’s own place, and he was surprised that he hadn’t run into Southill earlier in the season. With the help of a couple of other men, Victor loaded Southill into his curricle, and soon they were rattling over the cobblestone streets into the night.
When they slowed in front of Southill’s address, Victor was surprised to see no evidence of occupation. He searched his memory and was sure this was the location given him. Exhaling a sigh of frustration, he alighted, walked to the front of the house, and rapped on the door. No candle burned in any of the windows, but perhaps Lord Southill’s servants hadn’t expected him to return this evening?
No one answered, and Victor didn’t hear any shuffle of footsteps coming from inside. He knocked again and called out, “Hello?”
Nothing.
Victor left the front entrance and walked around the house, finding a side door that probably led to the kitchen. He knocked on that door, and in a few moments was gratified when someone from the inside unlocked the door and cracked it open.
An older woman, who had clearly been roused from sleep, blinked up at him. She must be the housekeeper or one of the kitchen maids. Her eyes widened as she took in the whole of Victor, another odd thing. Surely she’d been around gentlemen of the ton before.
“Hello, ma’am, I’m Lord Locken, and I have Lord Southill in my curricle,” he said. “Your master’s taken ill, and I’ve brought him home. Is there a butler or groomsman who can help me get him to his rooms?”
The woman’s mouth gaped, then she tried to shut the door.
Victor shot his hand out to stop her. “Is this not Lord Southill’s residence?”
“Was,” the woman said in a voice that cracked. “He was booted out this morning. The creditors forced him.” She attempted to shut the door again in Victor’s face.
He held it firmly open. “Lord Southill needs his bed.”
“There’s no bed here for a louse like him,” the woman continued.
It seemed this woman’s high-and-mighty attitude was far above her station.
“Are you his employee?” Victor pressed.
“No longer,” she said. “He’s paid none of us last quarter, and we stayed on until we could find something else. I’ve been kept on for the new residents, who will be arriving within the week.”
Victor dropped his hand, and the woman seemed to comprehend the frustration in his eyes, because she kept the door open.
His mind raced. He had a drunk man in his curricle—a despicable drunk man. “Where did he take his things?” he finally asked.
“That I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “He had few friends that I know of, and no one to put him up. He might have sent them to his home at Southill Estate.”
Yes, Southill Estate. If Victor remembered right, the place was at least a two-hour ride from London. Not something to attempt in the dead of night. But . . . what other choice did he have? He could leave Lord Southill on the side of the road, or he could deposit him at an inn, but then the gossips would speculate. So Victor decided to take him home and be done with him for good.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Victor said, his mind reluctantly made up. “I apologize for disturbing your rest.”
The woman nodded, then slowly eased the door shut. Victor stood outside the closed door for a moment, arguing with himself. He had no responsibility toward Southill. If anything, the man deserved what he’d gotten. He was a cheat, a drunk, and broke as a result. But the knowledge at the back of Victor’s mind pushed its way to the forefront. Southill had a sister who could take over the care of her brother. Victor would deliver Southill to his sister and then wash his hands of this whole event.
Victor strode back to his curricle, hoping he could find Southill Estate. He knew the general direction, and the nearly full moon would offer plenty of light. Victor settled into the driver’s seat while Lord Southill slept behind him. The man’s scent had become rank, and Victor didn’t want to guess why. Two hours, he told himself. This would all be over in two hours.
He only had to ask for directions once, and by the time he reached Southill Estate, he was so tired, he could have slept sitting up.
Victor turned up the long road leading to Southill Estate according to the directions he’d received. He drew the curricle to a stop and climbed out, stretching his legs. Victor looked toward the towering manor. In the moonlight, the place had an imposing, solid look. A decent estate by the looks of it, but there was something melancholy about the place. Perhaps because its wayward master had bungled up the finances that were meant to care for such a legacy.
Then, Victor noticed signs of renovations in process, although they appeared to have been abandoned. A crumbling gazebo to the left of the house had a few wood braces in place, and a pile of rocks was not too far from where the stone fence that probably surrounded a garden had fallen into disrepair.
Not a glimmer of light appeared in any of the windows. Surely, he’d be waking up the staff; it was nearly two o’clock in the morning. But it couldn’t be helped. Victor would haul Lord Southill into the house, then Victor would make the long journey back to London and sleep the morning through. By the next evening, the man would be only a sour memory in Victor’s mind.
Victor strode to the front door and knocked firmly. The sound was much louder in the country than it had been in Grosvenor Square. Just as in London, there was no immediate answer. Victor waited another moment, then knocked again.
A light glowed from the window, which must be the front drawing room. Ah. Someone was awake, and Victor could be done and over with this ordeal in mere minutes.
He waited. And waited.
Then a woman’s voice spoke from the other side of the door. “Who are you?”
This he should have expected, but it still gave him pause. Partially because the voice was younger than a housekeeper’s should be.
“My name is Lord Victor Roland, and I’ve brought Lord Southill home.”
A gasp was followed by a rapid series of clangs as the door was unlocked and pulled open.
Whoever Victor had expected from the woman who’d questioned him, it wasn’t the woman who stood before him, holding a candle. She was young. Not yet twenty, if Victor had to guess. Her honey-gold hair spilled over her shoulders, and her eyes shimmered blue in the candle
light. She wore a night rail of soft white that was modest, yet gentled over her womanly curves, making Victor swallow hard. The young woman’s lips were full and pink and her lashes dark, belying the color of her hair. She was, for lack of a better description, a veritable Venus.
He must still have brandy running through his veins, because no woman’s appearance had ever made him speechless, yet here he was. Speechless. The woman was like a living, breathing artist’s masterpiece. He told himself it was because he’d expected a housekeeper, or a maid, or a butler, or anyone, but not a well-bred lady.
“Where is he?” she asked.
Victor exhaled. His mind refocused. “He’s in my carriage. He’s had a bit of an accident.”
The woman’s hand flew to her mouth. “Is he all right?”
“Yes,” Victor was quick to say. “He’s merely . . . I am sure he’ll be much better once he’s slept off his inebriation.”
The woman’s eyes widened, and then her cheeks flushed a beautiful red. “My brother’s drunk?”
She was Southill’s sister? The unmarried sister he’d tried to wager? Victor cleared his throat. “Well, yes—”
The door slammed shut. Before Victor could react, the locks slid into place, and the woman said in a fiery tone, “You can tell him to go to Hades!”
Chapter Four
Juliet knew she was being completely unreasonable, but a middle-of-the-night visit from a stranger telling her that her brother had been delivered home as a drunk wastrel had sent her over the edge of reason. If someone were to interrogate her on her true feelings, she could honestly say that at this moment, she hated her brother.
She hated how he’d left her alone at the estate after their father’s death. She hated that he’d surrounded himself with friends, drink, women, gambling, and other vices while Juliet had to oversee all he’d left behind.