“It’s the same payout, I admit, but this way I can be certain I’ll win.” Nathanial grinned. “That’s what makes it not a gamble.”
Stirling’s gaze swept the room. Nathanial followed suit, taking in the miscreants and fools who were his peers. Not much to choose from in the seedy den of iniquity.
The chair scrapped back out. Stirling sat down across from him. “You’re in the same year at university as Charles Barton.”
Nathanial blinked at the odd choice of topic. “Charlie Barton? We fence weekly, as I’m sure you know.”
Stirling nodded. “His father has offered me a share in an upcoming business venture. Before I can decide whether to contribute my funds, I need more information.”
“Surely you could ask Mister Barton?” Did Stirling expect Nathanial to ask? Was a favor, even one from Stirling, worth being reduced to errand boy?
“No. I need the truth. I’ve heard certain rumors.” Sterling looked about. He leaned across the table. “Rumors that Barton is not the shrewd businessman he would have the world believe. That he’s lost most of his own money and everyone else’s, and that is why he needs new investors.”
“You cannot think Barton’s father will admit the truth to me? Like as not, he’ll view me as easy pickings for more investment.”
“Exactly, which is why he’ll welcome you into his home, for the opportunity to woo you.” Stirling issued a sly grin. “Once there, you will have plenty of time to look around. Peek behind the curtain, as it were. Tell me how good of a businessman Barton truly is. I want to know my investment won’t be squandered.”
Nathanial leaned back in his chair. He studied Stirling’s aristocratic features in the dim light. The task seemed simple enough. Get Charlie Barton to invite him for a visit. Let Mister Barton think he reeled in a young, foolish investor. Sneak about the house.
Nathanial would need a cover, of course, if he got caught where a guest ought not be. An affair with a maid, perhaps. There must be at least one pretty, amiable lass in the household. He grinned. Why not seek some entertainment while he won his favor from Stirling?
“You needn’t rifle through the man’s papers or anything,” Stirling said. “Your general impression will do. I’ve been to the house. Outwardly, the place is steeped in luxury. Mister Barton appears to be a wealthy man. Yet, why doesn’t he have a house in Edinburgh or London? Why isn’t he planning a Season for his daughter? The girl’s eighteen.” Stirling shook his head. “No butler greeted us and their ward… She was dressed like an orphan.”
“You deem the opulence a façade?”
“I worry it is.”
Nathanial took another sip of scotch. The task did seem suited to Nathanial, what with him and Barton already friends. Nothing about what Stirling asked seemed particularly difficult or perilous. So why couldn’t he shake the thought that he was falling victim to the puppet master?
Stirling straightened. “If you don’t want to get the information for me, I can find another. You aren’t Charles Barton’s only school chum.”
Nathanial pressed his lips together. When would the opportunity ever arise again to have Stirling in his debt? If all went well, Nathanial could return to wagering within the month. He could double his fortunes again, and this time, once he did, he’d stop. He truly would. As soon as he was up, he’d quit gambling for good. He’d told himself as much before, but this time he really meant the promise. No betting on horses, or bouts. No cards. Nothing. “I’ll go snoop around for you, Stirling, but remember, no matter what I find, when I’m done, you owe me.”
Stirling gave a sharp nod. “You have my word.”
Nathanial grinned, heady to be one up on Stirling. “May I offer you a drink?” He raised a hand to gesture over a serving girl.
With a shake of his head, Stirling pushed back his chair once more. “I am afraid not. I have other business to which I must attend. Have a pleasant evening, Mister Kensley.”
Nathanial lifted his glass in salute. “You, as well.”
Stirling nodded and turned away.
Triumph surged in Nathanial as Stirling melted into the sooty half-light. The night was turning out far better than Nathanial had anticipated.
A delighted feminine squeal drew his attention back to Lord Preston’s table. A woman clinging to one sleeve, Preston used his free hand to haul another from the gaggle about him. He wrapped an arm about the waist of each and turned them toward the staircase that led to the by-the-night private rooms the club offered.
Nathanial dropped his eyes to the cards on the table. He’d won his private wager. Though he would have taken the buxom blonde, everyone knew Preston’s tastes ran toward dainty brunettes. The blonde sat back down, profile to Nathanial, full lips pressed into a pout.
Nathanial’s grin didn’t waver. He knew precisely what would cheer the doxy up. As a gentleman, he couldn’t permit the blonde to go unrewarded for the hours she’d put into flirtation with Prescot. The girl had to make a living, after all. Nathanial would watch Mister Fisk drink himself under the table another night. He downed the remainder of his scotch and gathered up the cards.
He reached for the final card, the king of hearts, and frowned. He spread out the deck to check for the missing king, then swept the cards back into a neat pile. Ducking his head under the edge of the table, he checked the greasy, rush-strewn floor. He came back up emptyhanded, frown still in place.
Somehow, though the card had lain directly in front of him on the table, the king of hearts was gone.
Chapter Three
Rebecca folded Maggie’s gown and placed it in the top of her sewing basket. Last night, by the flickering light of a candle stub, she’d repinned the hem. She planned to stitch it in place today, while the curtains were open. Rebecca didn’t care to sew by candlelight, and Missus Barton only permitted daylight into the parlor in the morning. Later, when sunlight streamed in to leech color from the lush fabrics, the heavy curtains would be drawn and candles lit.
Sewing basket under her arm, Rebecca navigated the narrow servants’ stair, the only means to access the cramped attic rooms. When she reached the upper hall where the family and guestrooms were, she turned down the wide corridor. Not because pride compelled her to traverse the more opulent hall, but because the front staircase would bring her down near the front parlor rather than the kitchen. As she descended, she heard Missus Barton’s and Maggie’s murmured voices but made no effort to decipher the words.
“That’s why that attorney came here?” Maggie squawked.
Startled, Rebecca stopped. Poised halfway down the staircase, she marveled at the anger and shock in Maggie’s voice. Whatever could be the matter?
“That worthless, mad old bat,” Maggie continued. “Did you know she was wealthy?”
Low words, hissed and unintelligible, whipped up the steps. Though Rebecca had no notion what Missus Barton said, she recognized the tone, and the order to speak softly. On the heels of Missus Barton’s reprimand, Maggie’s voice roiled from the parlor, intense but too low to untangle her meaning.
Rebecca realized she stood with one foot pointed, ready to settle on the next stair. Maggie’s tone, so steeped in vitriol, had stopped her in mid-step. Rebecca resumed her descent, chagrinned she’d eavesdropped. She hadn’t meant to.
The brittle whispers of the two women still snapped within the parlor as she reached the foyer. Resolved to make no effort to clarify their words, Rebecca squared her shoulders and plastered on a smile. She strode into the room.
Two blonde heads, one touched with gray, swiveled toward her. Missus Barton, blandly composed, sat on a plush settee beside a red-faced Maggie, who gaped at Rebecca as if she’d grown a tail and turned green.
Rebecca frowned. “Are you unwell, Maggie?” She looked back and forth between the two women.
“Margaret is perfectly well.” Missus Barton reached toward her daughter’s knee. Maggie flinched, but received only a pat before Missus Barton stood. “I’m going to work on my correspond
ences.”
She shook out her skirt and walked around the gold-fringed settee, headed toward her writing desk in the corner. Set beside one of the narrow windows, the desk was well-situated for reading and replying to letters. At least, at that hour, before the curtains were closed for the afternoon.
As Missus Barton sat in the desk’s straight-backed chair, Rebecca turned a questioning look on Maggie. Maggie pursed her lips into a tight knot. She spread her arms wide to drape along the low back of the settee and angled her face toward the ceiling and the spiraling leaf pattern there.
Rebecca suppressed a sigh. She’d no idea what role she played in Maggie’s annoyance, but her lack of knowledge wouldn’t excuse her. Her smile irretrievable in the face of Maggie’s unhappiness, she crossed to her favorite window seat, catty corner from Missus Barton’s desk.
Rebecca prepared needle and thread, though the strained silence made her fingers clumsy. She began sewing, each stitch a challenge, but soon the familiar dip and rise of her needle soothed her. She put Maggie’s mood from her mind as her needle rose and fell in companionable accord with the gentle scuff of Missus Barton’s pen. The morning settled into a lull, the parlor quiet.
After nearly an hour of sewing, Rebecca paused to study her cousin again. She desired a conversation about the bodice of the gown, but a glance found Maggie’s bow-like little mouth turned down at the corners. A line marred her pale brow and she glowered at the ceiling through eyes narrowed into slits of ire. Rebecca returned to sewing.
Maggie let out a lugubrious sigh. “Mama, I’m bored.”
Rebecca glanced up from the half-finished hem. Hopefully, her cousin’s mood was over. Maggie’s head tilted even farther back, her long white neck exposed. Rebecca couldn’t see enough of her face to judge.
“Good, then you shan’t mind conducting your correspondences.” Missus Barton didn’t look up from the page before her as she spoke.
Maggie groaned. “Must I?” Her head popped up from the back of the settee. “Becca, put down that incessant sewing. I’ll dictate to you. You know writing tires me.”
“Keep sewing, Rebecca.” Missus Barton favored the back of Maggie’s head with a stern look. “Margaret, you can pen your own letters for once.” She tapped a sealed envelope against the desktop. The stiff paper sounded a hard rhythm. “I’ve written to Charles demanding he return for Lord Haywood’s hunt. You shall write him as well. Make it clear he’s to bring at least one eligible and well-heeled gentleman home with him. You’ll be a sight less moody once we see you wed.”
A gleam lit Maggie’s eyes. “An excellent proposition, Mama.”
Rebecca worked to conceal her happiness at the thought of Charlie’s return. Away at university, he hadn’t been home in months, not even for Hogmanay, and she missed him. Charlie ordered her about, true, but he also made her feel like someone cared she existed. Ever since she came to live with the Burtons, a child of nearly four, whenever he was sorrowful or otherwise out of sorts, he would sneak up to her attic room and unburden his troubles to her. That he trusted her with his grievances made her feel special.
“Will Charlie truly return for the hunt?” she dared to ask, tone deliberately bland. “He didn’t last year, or the year before.”
A smug smile turned up Missus Barton’s thin mouth. “Certainly, he will, dear. I’ve made it clear to him that his duty to this family lies right here, and now.” She tapped the letter on the desk again, then stood. “Come, Margaret, before the pen dries. There’s no sense in waste.”
“I truly can write for you, Maggie,” Rebecca offered. In that way, she would be permitted to add a few lines of her own to the bottom. Ink and paper were too expensive for a letter of her own.
Maggie shook her head, her expression at least as smug as her mother’s. “I shall write to Charlie myself. A wealthy gentleman is worth any amount of fatigue.” She stood and stretched, arching her back. “Besides, with a marriageable gentleman being delivered to me, it’s all the more important for you to finish that gown.”
Annoyance shot through Rebecca. This one time, Maggie would do her own work, when Rebecca wished to write Charlie? “And what about Mister Escott?” she asked.
Maggie paled and shot Rebecca a glare.
Rebecca’s anger melted into remorse. Mister Escott was a sensitive topic.
“Mister Escott?” Missus Barton snapped. She paused in collecting her stack of letters to turn narrow eyes on Maggie. “I believe we agreed there is no need for Margaret to think of Mister Escott.”
“We did agree, Mama,” Maggie quickly assured her. “There is no place in my heart for a penniless second son destined for the clergy.” She shot Rebecca another glare, then headed around the settee, toward the desk.
Rebecca dropped her gaze to the dress in her lap. She shouldn’t have let a fit of temper draw Walter Escott’s name from her lips. Though Maggie would never admit as much to her mother, perhaps not even to herself, she loved Mister Escott and had for years. They’d grown up as friends, like Rebecca and Charlie, but Mister Escott never ordered Maggie about. Wholly smitten with her, he brought her wildflowers, and wrote her poems. What a shame, to cast aside such devotion for wealth.
She heard Missus Barton settle into the settee Maggie had vacated. “Now, Rebecca dear, we need to discuss improving your wardrobe. Charles is coming home, and we can’t have you looking like a wayward urchin we permitted in off the street.”
Rebecca jerked in surprise, nearly stabbing her finger with her sewing needle. “Improve my wardrobe?” The question came out in a squeak, not unlike Maggie’s voice. Missus Barton always said Rebecca did not need to dress above her station or exhaust the family coffers in any way. An extra mouth to feed should feel lucky to have a roof to sleep under and ask for no more.
“Yes, dear. When you’re done with Margaret’s dress, I would like you to select several of my old gowns for yourself. If you work hard, you should have plenty of time to make them over before Charles returns.”
Gowns for herself? Not pieced together from scraps? Rebecca gapped.
“Close your mouth, dear. Hanging it open is unseemly.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” Rebecca clamped her lips together, but opened them again to say, “Thank you, Missus Barton. For the dresses. It’s very kind of you.” A thrill shot through Rebecca as she cast her memory over Missus Barton’s wardrobe. A day dress or two, perhaps an evening one as well, and maybe…a ball gown? “For, ah, for what occasions, Ma’am?”
“Oh, you will certainly need two day dresses, and two gowns for evening.” Missus Barton shrugged. “Whatever you feel you can ready in time, dear.”
“Thank you,” Rebecca stammered, stunned by her good fortune. Her eyes flew wide as she realized her hands were still. She must finish Maggie’s hem and then bodice. For the first time in her life, Rebecca wouldn’t be piecing her clothing together from scraps. She had gowns of her own to alter.
Chapter Four
Alone in the vast chamber that served his and his fellow students’ needs for physical exertion, Nathanial divested himself of jacket, cravat and vest. Foil in hand, he strode to the heart of the polished wood floor. Early for his match with Charlie Barton, Nathanial began to run through his repertoire of attacks, beginning with a straight thrust. One should never neglect the most basic and steadfast techniques.
Nearly a week had passed since his encounter with Stirling, but the delay didn’t concern Nathanial. His prearranged bout with Barton was the obvious opportunity to secure an invitation without arousing suspicion. If Stirling, who knew about the matches, wanted the deed accomplished sooner, he no doubt would have said as much.
Nathanial moved through his offensive forms and then on to various parrying techniques. The door at the far end of the room opened. Barton offered a jaunty wave as he strode in, grin cheerful under his neat, oiled brown hair. Nathanial nodded acknowledgement but didn’t halt the series of forms he worked through.
“I say, Kensley, is that perspiration on your b
row?” Barton said as he reached the bench. He shucked his coat. “Hoping some last-minute practice will give you the edge?”
Nathanial completed a final parry and lowered his foil. “I could give up fencing for a year and still beat you.”
Barton shook his head, eyes bright. “Not today. I’ve had some splendid news. I am at the top of the world.”
“Oh?” Nathanial prompted. Perhaps Barton’s news offered an excuse to visit his family’s country residence.
Barton stilled, hand halfway to his cravat. He darted a suspicious gaze about the obviously empty chamber. “I’ve had a letter from my mother,” he said, voice lowered. He patted the pocket of his crimson vest. Paper crinkled. “Look, I don’t mind telling you. You’re rich as sin, so you wouldn’t go and waste your time luring a drab slip of a seventeen-year-old girl from me, but this is between us, Kensley. I’ll have your word.”
Nathanial raised his eyebrows but nodded. “You have it, of course.” Barton was correct on both counts. Nathanial was quite wealthy. He also wanted nothing to do with some young innocent. Especially an apparently drab half-child. He preferred a woman who knew what he wanted from her and wouldn’t balk at providing it outside of wedlock.
“There’s this girl my parents took in,” Barton continued. “Oh, fourteen years gone by, I think. Her mother was a cousin to mine. When the girl’s parents died, we gave her a place.” He tugged off his cravat and tossed it atop his coat.
“Fascinating,” Nathanial said, tone dry. He counted tales about innocents almost as undesirable as associating with them. “Is this your attempt to delay our match?”
Barton chuckled as he set to work on the mother of pearl buttons of his vest. “Hear me out, Kensley. The story gets more interesting.” He shot Nathanial a smirk. “Unless you’re so eager to get to losing?”
Nathanial shook his head. He walked over to the bench and pulled a clean towel from the pile. Voice slightly muffled as he scrubbed sweat from his face, he asked, “What’s so interesting about this drab slip of a girl, then?”
A Lord's Kiss Page 53