The Deception

by Joan Wolf

  I said, “From what Harry has told me, your own home life was scarcely more pleasant than Charlwood’s.”

  “My father was a monster.” Her voice was deeply bitter. “But no matter how bad things got, Harry and I always had Adrian. Martin was not so fortunate. He adored his sister, but she ran away to get married and left him behind.”

  I tried to defend my mother. “She could not have taken him even had she wanted to.”

  She shrugged. “I suppose not.”

  “Did you love him, Caroline?” I repeated.

  She sighed again. “Not enough. I ran away with him because I felt so sorry for him, but we hadn’t gone very far before I began to wish I hadn’t done it. I have to confess that I was very glad when Adrian took the decision out of my hands.”

  “You were only sixteen,” I said.

  “Yes. I wanted to be happy, Kate. I didn’t want to take on Martin’s unhappiness as well as my own.” She stared out the window at the empty street. “I made my come-out when I was seventeen, and when I was eighteen I married Edward.” She turned back to me. “And I have been happy. I don’t want to see Martin again, Kate. I don’t want to be made to feel guilty.”

  I said awkwardly, “You shouldn’t feel guilty, Caroline.”

  “I know I failed him.”

  “You were too young. You shouldn’t feel that way.”

  She shook her head in denial. “He has turned into a very bitter man, and I could have saved him from that. He loved me, you see. He was older than I was, and he loved me more than I loved him.”

  The carriage horses slowed to a walk. I looked out the window and saw that we were approaching the turn into King Street. I asked Caroline the question that had been on my mind for a while. “But why did Charlwood have to elope with you, Caroline? Surely he was an eligible match—certainly every matchmaking mama in London thinks that he is! Harry once told me that your fathers didn’t get on, but certainly economic interest would have prevailed, given time.”

  She shook her head. “Our fathers hated each other, Kate. One of them was a bigger bastard than the other, and they had argued years before over some stupid thing or other. My father would never have allowed Martin to marry me.” There was a distinct note of pain in her voice as she added, “Martin fancied us as Romeo and Juliet, but I am not the stuff that heroines are made of.”

  “Juliet was a tragic heroine, and you wanted to be happy,” I said. “Don’t blame yourself for that, Caroline.”

  There was another coach in front of the sanctified doors of Almack’s, and we had to wait. I said. “Perhaps if Adrian realized that Uncle Martin truly loved you, he would not be so harsh on him.” The carriage before us had evidently emptied out, because we began to roll forward. “In fact, considering the similarity of their home lives, I should have thought that he would have had some fellow feeling for Uncle Martin.”

  “My brother is incapable of understanding a temperament like Martin’s,” Caroline replied as the carriage came to a halt. She gave me a half-smile as she gathered her shawl around her shoulders. “Adrian is so splendidly, competently male. Not even my father could tarnish him. He could never understand the deep insecurities of a man like Martin.”

  A footman opened the carriage door and put down the portable steps. Caroline made a graceful exit from the carriage and I came after her, my brain humming with all the new information I had just received.

  * * * *

  There had been a debate in the House of Lords that evening about once more scaling down the Army of Occupation, and when the session broke up at about ten-thirty a whole wave of husbands, fathers, and brothers descended upon Almack’s. Caroline’s husband, Edward, was the one who came for us. Adrian, he said, had gone along to White’s with a few of Wellington’s other old aides to discuss the session.

  There’s a whole section of the Lords that wants to keep on grinding French noses into their loss,” he told us, “but there seems to be enough peers who realize that the expense of keeping so many men abroad is prohibitive. Adrian is optimistic that things will go our way.”

  I nodded, but I have to confess that my attention was on something else. The Marquis of Stade had just walked into the room.

  “Do you know Stade?” I asked Edward.

  He looked surprised at this abrupt change of subject, but answered readily enough, “Not very well. I know you despise me for it, Kate, but I really am far more interested in cows than I am in horses, and Stade is definitely a horse man.”

  “Of course I don’t despise you, Edward!” My eyes hadn’t left Stade. “Is that Barbury he is with?”

  “I think so.”

  Sir Charles Barbury was the perpetual president of the Jockey Club, the inner circle of men that virtually ran horse racing in England. It was a very prestigious group. Papa had once said it was easier to marry an Italian princess than it was to be admitted into the Jockey Club.

  “I wonder what they’re doing at Almack’s,” I muttered. Almack’s, with its pallid offerings of lemonade and tea, seemed far too tame a place for the sport and gaming-mad gentlemen of the Jockey Club.

  “Sir Charles has a tendre for Mrs. Welton,” Caroline said. “And Mrs. Welton is always at Almack’s, because she is launching her husband’s niece this season.”

  Well, that effectively explained the: presence of Barbury. Stade, I supposed, was here because he had accompanied Barbury. Stade was not a member of the Jockey Club, although everyone knew that he longed to become one.

  As I watched, Barbury’s eyes alighted upon a dark-haired woman wearing a pale blue satir dress. He said something to Stade, then moved to join the woman, who welcomed him with an extremely cordial smile. Stade looked around the crowded room. His eyes found mine and stopped. For a long moment we stared at each other across the room.

  Murderer, I thought.

  A voice at my ear said, “I wonder if I might have this dance, Lady Greystone?”

  It was Mr. Cruick, a very wealthy middle-aged gentleman who had a stud farm near Newmarket. He had, in fact, come to my father’s funeral. He was also a member of the Jockey Club.

  I smiled. “Mr. Cruick! How lovely to see you. But whatever are you doing in a boring place like Almack’s?”

  “Pushing off my daughter, my deal,” he said with a sigh. “We had her ball at the start of the Season, but then my best broodmare was due to foal, so of course I went home. The wife insisted that I come back, however, so here I have been, wasting all these days of good weather in London. I’ll be going back to Newmarket for the Second Spring Meeting, of course. Told the wife I didn’t care if I missed Bella’s marriage, that nothing would stop me from watching the running of the Guineas.”

  I nodded sympathetically, and he looked with apprehension toward the dance floor. “I hope this isn’t one of these newfangled waltzes, my dear. I don’t want to step all over your toes.”

  I grinned. “Would you like to sit this one out with me, Mr. Cruick? I see two chairs over there that we could nobble.”

  He beamed. “Just the thing, Lady Greystone!” We moved together toward the chairs and he said, as if he were confiding a great secret, “Dancing ain’t my strongest suit.”

  We sat, and as I arranged my skirt, I said, “I just saw Stade come in with Sir Charles Barbury. His colt, Castle Rook, is sure to be the heavy favorite to take the Guineas this year.”

  Mr. Cruick looked gloomy. “I’m afraid so, Lady Greystone. I have a colt running myself, and he’s one of the best I’ve ever bred, but those Alcazar colts are simply outstanding.”

  “They have certainly been doing well.”

  “Can’t figure it out,” Mr. Cruick muttered. “Horse was mediocre at best when he was running.”

  The music started, and it was indeed a waltz. I watched the elegantly twirling couples and said innocently, “I didn’t realize that Stade was a member of the Jockey Club.”

  “He ain’t,” came the swift reply. “He’s been up for membership twice and been blackballed twice.
”

  I showed well-feigned surprise. “Blackballed? Good heavens, he’s a marquis!”

  “A title alone don’t mean a man ain’t a bounder,” pronounced Mr. Cruick, whose grandfather had been a duke.

  I could feel Stade still watching me from across the room. Ignoring him, I asked, “Is there anything known to his disrepute?”

  “He was almost barred from racing a few years ago,” Mr. Cruick confided. “There was an incident where a horse of his lost a race he should have won and then came back the next day to beat a well-backed favorite handily. The favorite was a horse of mine, as a matter of fact. Questions were raised. The official verdict was that the jockey was to blame, not Stade.”

  “But enough people had doubts to get him blackballed?”

  “Precisely, my dear.”

  “He and Sir Charles Barbury seemed very friendly,” I said tentatively.

  “I know.” My partner looked gloomy again. “It takes two blackballs out of nine to reject a membership application, and Barbury and I have been the two who have consistently blackballed Stade.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’ve heard he promised that Barbury could breed one of his top mares to Alcazar,” Mr. Cruick went on.

  We looked at each other. Nothing more needed to be said.

  All in all, I found my conversation with Mr. Cruick extremely satisfying. It confirmed my own belief that once the truth about Alcazar came out, the Jockey Club would ban Stade from racing. They could do it. A few years ago they had run the Regent himself off the turf. Stade would be a bagatelle after that.

  It would destroy Stade, and give me my revenge for Papa. Papa would have loved it.

  The waltz ended and my partner for the next set, a very tedious young man who had decided to be in love with me, made his appearance and dragged me away from my fascinating conversation with Mr. Cruick.

  We left Almack’s early, as Caroline had developed a headache. I felt a pang of guilt that I had brought it on with my questions about Uncle Martin, but on the whole I thought it was for the best that she be prepared for the meeting that I knew must be in her immediate future.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “What does one wear to a gambling hell?” I asked Harry late the following afternoon.

  He groaned. “Something that disguises you, Kate. Ladies aren’t supposed to go to gambling hells.”

  I was annoyed. “I will be as discreet as possible. I certainly don’t wish anyone to recognize me, Harry.” I ran over my wardrobe in my mind. “I have an extremely plain rose-colored evening dress. Would that be appropriate?”

  “Do you have a cloak with a hood?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wear that,” he recommended. “And keep the hood pulled up so that no one can see those eyes of yours.”

  I asked sweetly, “You don’t think that people will remark upon a cloaked and hooded lady playing E.O.?”

  “They may remark upon you, Kate, but as long as they don’t know who you are, we’ll be safe. We don’t want somebody running to Adrian with the tale of having seen his wife in a gambling hell.”

  I shuddered at the thought. “We certainly don’t.”

  “Wear the cloak,” Harry advised, and I said that I would.

  Needless to say, Mr. Chalmers could hardly come to the house to call for me, so I arranged to meet him at the theater. Harry told Adrian he was taking me to see Kean do Richard the Third, and Harry and I did actually sit through the first act of the play before we slipped out to meet Chalmers in the vestibule. Then I got in a cab with Chalmers, and Harry got in another cab to go and steal back his IOUs.

  From the moment that I got in the cab, I had qualms about the evening. For one thing, the worm sat much too close to me. I kept sliding toward the door, and he kept following, and by the time we finally arrived at the hell on St. James Square, I was pressed up against the side of the cab. I couldn’t slap him and tell the cab to take me home, because I had to keep him occupied while Harry robbed his desk. I got out feeling distinctly flustered.

  Chalmers gave me his shark smile and offered his arm. I hated to touch him, but it was for Harry. I took his arm and let him lead me to the freshly painted door of a perfectly innocuous-looking brick building. For some reason, the clean paint on the door made me feel better.

  Chalmers knocked and the door was opened by one of the most enormous men I had ever seen in my life. He was as tall as Adrian, but he was wide all the way up and down. He was huge. “Good evening, Mr. Chalmers,” he said in a voice that came directly from the London streets.

  “Good evening, Jem. I hope the E.O. wheel is well-oiled tonight, for I’ve brought someone who wants to play.”

  The huge man grinned at me. He had no teeth.

  I pulled the hood of my cloak farther forward, and we went in.

  The first thing I noticed was the unappetizing smell of mingled gin and beer and wine and male sweat. I shot a swift glance around the room, which was filled with men in green eyeshades playing at cards or dice around green-baize-covered tables, and saw to my dismay that there were only three other females present, and I could tell from their dresses that they were not ladies. One of them looked at me and sneered. The whole thing was even worse than I had imagined.

  “Damn,” I muttered under my breath. Adrian would murder me if he ever found out about this.

  “The E.O. table is this way, my dear,” Chalmers said smoothly. I resented the “my dear,” but I could hardly demand that he call me Lady Greystone.

  “What time is it, Mr. Chalmers?” I asked.

  He took out his watch. “Nine-thirty.”

  Harry was supposed to come and get me after he left Chalmers’s lodging. We had figured that he should be able to make it to St. James Square by ten-thirty. “Just play E.O. for an hour, Kate, and then I’ll fetch you home,” he had said.

  I squared my shoulders and said bravely, “I can hardly wait to play.”

  It took me exactly one half hour to lose all the money I had come with. I bet odds eight times in a row, and evens came up eight times in a row. Then I switched to evens, and what came up? Odds!

  The men gathered around the table commiserated with me on my bad luck.

  “I’m afraid I haven’t any more money,” I said to Chalmers.

  He looked surprised. I suppose what I had lost seemed paltry to him, but it represented all the money Harry and I had won the previous afternoon at whist, plus the remainder of my quarter’s allowance.

  Chalmers’s surprised look was quickly followed by one of his shark’s smiles. “Allow me to procure you some refreshment, my dear,” he said. “The luck is sure to change.”

  I accepted the offer of refreshments, because I had another half an hour to waste until I could look for Harry to rescue me. I was not happy when Chalmers escorted me down the hall and into a small, deserted salon, but neither did I want to spend any more time than was necessary in the view of the denizens of that disgusting hell.

  “You can take off your cloak now, Lady Greystone,” Chalmers purred. “Make yourself comfortable and I will pour you some wine.”

  The only seating in the room was two small sofas, which faced each other on either side of the fireplace, with a table between them. I left my cloak on, sat squarely in the middle of one sofa, and folded my hands. “I do not drink wine, Mr. Chalmers,” I said. “I would like some tea.”

  “This isn’t Almack’s my dear,” he said. “We don’t serve tea.” I found that “we” very interesting. Evidently Harry had been right when he surmised that Chalmers was in partnership with the owners.

  “Well, lemonade, then.” It cost me some effort, but I did not twist my hands nervously in my lap.

  He shrugged and went to the bellpull. After a minute, a thin, pimply-faced boy came into the room, and Chalmers ordered lemonade for me. Then he poured a glass of wine for himself.

  The lemonade came, the boy left, and Chalmers closed the door behind him. We were alone.

  Damn, I thought.
Now I’m really in the soup.

  He put the lemonade down on the table, sat next to me on the sofa, and lifted a hand to push back the hood of my cloak. “I can quite understand that you don’t want anyone in the room outside to recognize you, Lady Greystone,” he said, “but surely there is little point in hiding your lovely face from me?”

  “I’m cold,” I said.

  The worm actually touched my cheek. It took heroic self-control on my part to keep from flinching away from him. “You don’t feel cold to me,” he said.

  I began to inch toward the end of the sofa.

  “If you would like to continue to play E.O., Lady Greystone, I will be happy to advance you the money,” he said.

  “That is very nice of you, Mr. Chalmers,” I moved a few more inches, “but I am afraid that I would be unable to pay you back. I’ve gone through all of my quarter’s allowance, and I can’t possibly ask my husband for more money.”

  “You’ll win,” he said confidently. He moved after me.

  “But what if I don’t?”

  His eyes narrowed in a manner I didn’t like at all. “There is another way you could pay me back, my dear,” he said, “and your husband wouldn’t have to know a thing about it.”

  By now he had me pressed up against the arm of the sofa. He reached an arm in front of me, neatly trapping me in the corner. “Let me up, Mr. Chalmers,” I said warningly.

  He leaned forward so that his face was very close to mine. “Kate,” he said huskily. “You are so beautiful. You can play E.O. to your heart’s content, my dear, and all you have to do in return is be kind to me.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. His face was coming even closer, and I realized he was going to kiss me.

  Revulsion galvanized me into action. I put the palm of my hand under his chin and shoved hard. I may be small, but I am strong. One cannot regularly ride a thousand pounds of horse in a collected frame without developing back muscles.

  The worm was thrown off balance, and I slipped under his arm and ran to the door. I heard him curse as I lifted the latch. I slammed the door closed behind me and gave a quick look up and down the corridor.