by Liz Carlyle
Kemble shook his head. “Porcelain, I think. Antique bits of glass and pottery, perhaps old jewelry—that sort of thing. But only the very best, of course. In the Strand, I think. Lots of traffic, reasonable rent.”
“The Strand?” echoed Jonet. “You are seriously looking—”
But suddenly, her attention was distracted by some sort of activity within the crowd. She glanced swiftly toward David, who still stood by the hearth chatting with a stream of well-wishers. Cecilia had not returned to his side.
And then Jonet saw him. Robin. His expression impish, he had pressed his way through the crowd and paused before his uncle. With a grand flourish, he presented David with an elegantly wrapped package.
David stared down at the box which he’d just been given, feeling vaguely amused at Lord Robin’s behavior. The boy had hardly spoken to him since their rather heated argument a fortnight earlier. But in the end, it had been settled. David had made good Robin’s gaming debts—including every farthing the boy owed Rutledge—but at a somewhat painful interest rate. And Robin was repaying him in quarterly installments which left him essentially poverty-stricken. The boy had liked it very little, but he’d liked the alternative—flinging himself on his mother’s mercy—even less.
David lifted his gaze to study Robin’s face. “What is this?”
“A wedding gift, my lord,” said his nephew with a wink. “Something I trust you will find deeply and personally meaningful.”
“I’d never thought you the sentimental sort, Robin,” he dryly remarked. “Shall I wait until my blushing bride returns before I open it?”
Chuckling, Robin shook his head. “No, I think not,” he whispered. “This is more of a gesture of sympathy—a little tribute to mark the passing of a truly glorious bachelorhood.”
Sportingly, David untied the silk cord and unwrapped the package, to find that it held nothing but an old pack of cards which were significantly the worse for wear. Sharply lifting one brow, he cut a dubious glance up at his nephew. “Looks like the aftermath of a hard night, my boy,” he remarked. “What the deuce did you soak them in? Cheap brandy?”
Robin threw back his head and laughed. “Hardly! It was the finest French cognac money can buy—Charlie’s best stock, specifically.”
“Bloody hell,” whispered an almost inaudible voice at David’s elbow.
David glanced around to see that Cole had joined them. Jonet, too, had somehow managed to cross the room on Kemble’s arm. Stuart stood behind his mother. Anxiously, David glanced back and forth between them all. “Charlie’s brandy—?” he muttered, feeling very much as if he had missed something. Something important, perhaps.
But Robin was still laughing. “Oh, come on, Delacourt! Do they not look the least bit familiar? When was the last time you played a hand?”
David shook his head and stared at the cards. “Why, one pack looks very like another, Robin. And I’ve been quite busy of late, what with the mission and... other things.” With a strange sense of unease, David turned the pack over. Immediately, his gaze fell upon the top card, the queen of spades, its corners curled and stained from damp.
David’s mouth turned up into an involuntary grin. “I say—this is the pack we played with in the book room, is it not? The very one Cole trounced me with?”
Robin lifted his brows and opened his hands in an uncharacteristically innocent gesture. “It is one of the packs we played with that night, yes. But not, specifically speaking, the one with which you were beaten—or not all of it, at any rate.”
David caught sight of Cole, slinking from the crowd. “Not all of it?” David’s brow furrowed in thought. “But I remember... I remember someone spilt the brandy—”
“Papa did,” Robin quickly interjected.
“And then—why, we stopped the play and wiped it up. But the cards weren’t harmed. I distinctly remember that. Because Cole had the queen of spades. He tossed it up to set trumps.” As he spoke, David kept staring at his nephew, willing him to say something.
Robin merely grinned.
“And his queen was dry when he played it,” insisted David. “I remember. He used it to trump my ace of diamonds.”
Robin kept grinning. For a long, long moment.
Finally, David swallowed hard. “I was cheated—?” he whispered weakly. “You mean to tell me I was sharped—? By a bloody village parson?”
Suddenly, David felt a warm, somewhat tremulous hand slide around his elbow, and he looked down into the bottomless blue depths of his bride’s eyes.
“Who was cheated?” asked Cecilia curiously. “And what did they lose? Given your expressions, it must have been something precious indeed.”
“It was nothing,” interjected David, scarcely considering the words before he spoke. “Nothing of value.” For after one look at Cecilia’s pale, perfect face, all thought of what had gone before fled his mind. And in that one blindingly sweet moment, he thought not of what he had lost—a life of wretched excess—but of what he had won. The knowledge left him weak in the knees.