Rakes and Radishes

by Susanna Ives

  More giggles.

  Lady Winslow blew out a sigh of disgust. “Let us play whist to warm up for Lady Bertram’s. Boxly! Bring cards. You will be this silly child’s partner.”

  Boxly appeared instantly with cards, as if he had been anticipating the ladies. He removed the bust from the marble table, set it on the floor, then moved chairs about the table for Lady Winslow and the princess. Henrietta slid her own chair over, Samuel followed at her heels, head down, tentative, as if he were scared.

  The princess removed her bracelets and gloves, stacking them beside her. She deftly dealt the cards, turning the last one. A heart.

  Henrietta had a nice run of hearts with a jack and an ace, a three of spades, a king and ten of diamonds, and a single of clubs. She yawned, suddenly drowsy, seeing the game play out before it even began. She would lose some tricks to weed out the singles, then win strong in the end, riding on her trumps.

  “Your lead, child,” Lady Winslow prompted. Henrietta laid down an eight of clubs that was quickly beaten by Lady Winslow’s jack. Then Lady Winslow made the mistake of leading clubs again, allowing Henrietta to take control of the game, systematically relieving everyone of their trumps. Lady Winslow and the princess were far easier to beat than her father’s mathematician friends, who calculated the statistical probability of every potential play.

  When the outcome of the game was assured, Henrietta tossed her last four cards, bored with her card partners. “The rest are mine.”

  “That’s not possible. You see, I have a ten of diamonds. It would have bested your six,” Lady Winslow cried.

  “I would have played the six last, long after I had relieved you of your ten.”

  “How do you know? You can’t guess my motives.”

  Henrietta sighed and recounted the entire game, revealing their hands from the cards they played or didn’t play. As she listened to her words, she knew why her mother and father were astronomers. There was a comfort and dependability in numbers. Anything was explainable. It was all in finding the patterns. Nothing beyond all comprehension such as how to mend her heart or if she would ever learn to love another man.

  Lady Winslow rose and went to the bureau desk, reached into a cubbyhole and pulled out a small, brown cheroot. She put the foul stick in her mouth and lit it on the wall sconce.

  Henrietta’s jaw flapped open.

  Lady Winslow blew out a haze of smoke, then ran her tongue under her teeth, as if she were contemplating a bargain at market. “Rubber is best of five.”

  “I-I feel rather tired and—and I’ve had a horrid day and—and I’m going home tomorrow. So I need to sleep.”

  “Boxly, it is your deal,” Lady Winslow said, unmoved.

  The princess refilled Henrietta’s glass, while the butler dealt the cards in the quick motion of a seasoned player.

  The combination of annoyance and the plum miracle drove her to play faster and flamboyantly, as if to prove her superiority. She quickly took the rubber in two more games.

  As the last card fell, Henrietta looked pointedly at the mantel clock. “Well, I guess you can go to Lady Bertram’s now. It’s nearly midnight. Enjoy yourselves.”

  “No, no. Let’s have some more to drink. Look, Boxly, we are out, and I haven’t felt it yet. You must have forgotten to add the brandy,” Lady Winslow said.

  Boxly nodded, expressionless, and whisked away the empty decanter.

  Lady Winslow and the princess looked at each other. Lady Winslow lifted a questioning brow. The princess slanted her eyes toward Henrietta and then twirled a curl around her finger.

  What?

  Princess Wilhelmina took Henrietta’s hand. “Vous êtes ici to find husband? Non?”

  “I have a husband—I mean, I have received an offer of marriage back home and I’m, well, considering it,” she replied, extracting herself from the princess’s grasp.

  Lady Winslow threw her head back, letting out an expansive, throaty laugh. “You mean you are leaving some poor fool to cool his heels in the wild jungles of Norfolk while you come to London looking for a better offer. I do say, I like you.” She leaned closer to Henrietta. “So now you must come to this little soiree. You can be our little companion. You know we share everything with Ellie.”

  “I can’t. Lady Kesseley will be angry if I—”

  “Don’t worry about Ellie,” Lady Winslow said, flicking her wrist. “She is far too sensitive. It’s a bore. The slightest thing upsets her.”

  “Oui, elle est très triste. Her heart is broken.” The princess’s pillowy lips drooped with sympathy.

  “Yes, of course, how sad about the late Lord Kesseley,” Henrietta said, adding another pin to her mental pincushion of guilt.

  Lady Winslow frowned in confusion. “The late Lord Kesseley?”

  “L’homme terrible!” the princess added.

  “Her heart was broken long before her husband,” Lady Winslow explained. “It’s some horrid family secret she can’t tell. Quite gothic. You know how she enjoys being tragic.” Lady Winslow waved her hand, dismissing the topic. “But you and the night are young, my darling. Do come out. You can’t sit here all night, alone and miserable, when there is music and dancing. Come. We will tell Ellie. She won’t be angry.”

  Boxly reappeared with a full decanter, took Henrietta’s glass and filled it just shy of the rim. Lady Winslow and the princess waited as Henrietta took a sip. It roared through her body like fire, burning away her headache, as well as the remainder of her better sense.

  Samuel began to whimper and rub his nose on her leg. She nudged him away.

  Lady Winslow and the princess were right. She had nothing else to lose. She couldn’t make Edward love her again or keep Kesseley happy. Why not just give up? Fling everything to the wind. She was in London after all. London! She needed one night in this wild, loud heaven to remember all those years she would be married to Mr. Van Heerlen.

  These emboldened thoughts swept her into Lady Winslow’s carriage and through the streets of Mayfair, then ran away like a frightened hound with its tail between its legs before the lines of fashionable people entering a white mansion towering over Green Park. Gazing upon the elegant ladies with bared shoulders in silk and lace, an anxious thought exploded in Henrietta’s head.

  What if Edward were there?

  She looked down at her plain gown covered with brown Samuel fur. What was she thinking leaving the house in this rag? This was not a gown of triumph, not the breezy Oh-hello-I-didn’t-know-you-were-going-to-Lady-Bertram’s-party kind of gown. This was the comforting gown you huddled in while sobbing into a handkerchief, your fingers leafing through fading letters and poems.

  “I can’t go. I can’t. Please take me back,” she cried, digging in her heel at the entrance.

  “Mais, nous sommes ici!”

  “But my gown—”

  “Your gown is perfect,” Lady Winslow assured her. “Country innocence is all the rage.”

  The princess gripped her arm. “You are a sweet little German girl, like me.”

  A grand staircase with a gilded scrolling balustrade rose like a big wave to the upper floors. Henrietta felt seasick gazing upon it. The princess and Lady Winslow held her tight and pulled her up the stairs. They passed two stationed footmen entering a garish turquoise drawing room. Henrietta’s heart fell. There was no orchestra, no dancing, no young people. Just seven or so round card tables spaced evenly through the room.

  It wasn’t London at all! They had taken her to a dull old card party!

  Lady Winslow scanned the crowd. “There’s Lady Bertram, that bold whore!”

  Maybe not so dull after all.

  Henrietta followed Lady Winslow’s gaze to the card table where the hostess smiled tightly to acknowledge their entrance. Henrietta was struck at how much Lady Bertram resembled Lady Kesseley, like a poor imitation of an original. Same hair and eyes, yet Lady Bertram was more pretty than beautiful.

  “Look at her!” Lady Winslow said, her voice darkening. “F
launting her diamonds, thinking she is better than everyone because Lord Damien gave them to her.”

  Henrietta squinted to see the tiny necklace around Lady Bertram’s neck.

  “Oui, they are her lucky diamonds, and Lady Bertram never loses at cards,” swore the princess. “Never.”

  “That’s a statistical improbability,” Henrietta pointed out.

  “What the princess means to say, we have never beat Lady Bertram at cards—or anything else.” Lady Winslow’s eyes glittered dangerously. “Until tonight. Now, this is how we shall do it, darlings. Wilhelmina and I shall play one rubber and begin the second. After the first game of the second rubber, the one of us who is not lucky, must motion like this—” she twirled her earring, “—and say how very tired I am this evening. That is when you—” she pointed to Henrietta, “— come rushing forward, saying please may I help you, do you require a drink—whatever companions do. Then you must finish the hand.”

  “This isn’t right,” Henrietta stated.

  “I can assure you there is not one lady in this room who would not relish seeing Lady Bertram lose. Not one.”

  “Oui!”

  Lady Winslow wagged a finger before Henrietta’s face. “Now, when you’re playing cards, don’t make it look too obvious. Be more—more Norfolk. Understand?”

  “What is more Norfolk?” Henrietta asked.

  “Backwards, be more backwards!” Lady Winslow elaborated.

  “I’m not backwards! People in Norfolk aren’t backwards!”

  “How would you know, darling? Oh, oh, the table is changing. Come, princess.” The two hurried away, leaving Henrietta to ponder her backwardness.

  Lady Winslow and the princess greeted the hostess in the French manner, kissing either cheek. Sitting down, Lady Bertram ran her fingers over her jewelry as if to taunt her card partners. Lady Winslow peeked at Henrietta, the corner of her lip lifted.

  Henrietta found a vacant space on a bright shiny sofa beside two elderly ladies. It took two cups of black tea, three biscuits and a lengthy conversation about which apothecaries in London best treated constipation for Lady Winslow and the princess to lose the first rubber.

  By then Henrietta had recovered enough good sense to know she should never have agreed to this scheme. However, it was too late, for Princess Wilhelmina was looking about, practically pulling her ear off. Henrietta hurried over.

  “You do not feel well, princess,” she said. “I can see you are flushed, perhaps you should sit on the sofa.”

  “Henrietta dear, play out the rubber,” Lady Winslow suggested casually. “May I introduce our dear little companion, Miss Henrietta Watson. She is from Norfolk. Isn’t she sweet?”

  Henrietta curtsied for Lady Bertram. “I like cards. I play all the time with Papa since there is so little to do in Norfolk. That’s why we’re so backwards.”

  ***

  Lady Bertram considered her, her fingers caressing her diamonds. It was a heavy old necklace, the kind one of Henry the Eighth’s wives would have worn—while they still had necks, of course. The pale gems gleaming in the candlelight matched Lady Bertram’s eyes.

  “You may finish the rubber,” Lady Bertram said like an acquiescing queen.

  “I like whist. What a jolly game!” Henrietta sat down. “And such pretty cards. Oops! I dropped one.” Henrietta giggled, picked up the fallen jack and restored it to her hand.

  Lady Bertram’s partner, an animated matron with silvery gray hair and twinkling eyes, led the game. Henrietta flipped any old card that matched suit, while watching Lady Bertram play. She always rubbed her necklace before choosing a card, as if it were some sort of crystal ball guiding her choices.

  “What a beautiful necklace,” Henrietta said. “I can’t help but admire it.”

  “Thank you. They are from a dear, dear friend,” Lady Bertram said, her voice smooth and low, like a purring cat.

  Lady Winslow played a seven of spades. “But you have so many dear friends, do you not, Lady Bertram? How can you remember any one friend in particular?”

  “This one was the dearest. Oh, how my friend made me feel. How I love and cherished that friend.” She smiled at Lady Winslow, playing the king of spades over Lady Winslow’s seven. “Some spend a lifetime only wishing they had such a friend.”

  “Speaking of Lord Damien, I just read The Mysterious Lord Blackraven,” Lady Bertram’s partner said, tossing a worthless heart on the pile.

  “I adore that book!” Henrietta cried.

  “The likeness between Lord Blackraven and Lord Damien was so striking that twice I had to remove myself from the fireplace for fear of overheating.” The graying lady fanned herself with her cards, flushed. “After almost thirty years—”

  “Twenty-five,” Lady Bertram corrected.

  “—and he still gets me right here,” she said, poking her chest.

  “You mean Lord Blackraven is based on a real man!” Henrietta exclaimed.

  “Lord Damien was more than a man,” Lady Bertram replied, a smug, knowing smile curling her face. “A mortal god. Like—like—”

  “Theseus, Hercules, Achilles,” Lady Winslow supplied. “Looking at Lord Damien was like looking at the surface of deep, dark water. Mysterious and enigmatic. Leaving you longing to know what lay underneath.”

  “These young ladies and their dandy rakes.” Lady Bertram’s partner held up a bejeweled finger. “Show me just one rake today who could stand up to Lord Damien’s muster. I feel sorry for these poor young ladies out now. To never know a real rake. I wish Lord Damien would come back from wherever he fled if just to show these tulips how it’s done. Now there was man who could steal your heart and break it in one afternoon, leaving you begging for him to do it all over again the next day. I will never forget our honeymoon—”

  “You were married to Lord Blackraven!” Henrietta cried. “I mean, Lord Damien.”

  “Of course not. I was married to Lord Travis, so I had to do something,” she said as she played the last card, taking the trick. “Well, my young dear from Norfolk, I’m afraid we have set you two. This may be a fast rubber, despite your love of cards.”

  “Yes, please mind the trumps. Do not waste yours if someone has clearly overtrumped you. You will need them for later,” Lady Bertram said like a benevolent mother. “That is a lesson to you. Always remember your cards.”

  “Yes, my lady, thank you. We get to play one more time, don’t we? Maybe I can do better.”

  “Yes, one more time.” Lady Bertram stifled a yawn in her fist while Lady Winslow shuffled and dealt.

  Lady Bertram led with a diamond. Henrietta trumped it.

  “Breaking trumps already?” Lady Bertram cried, outraged.

  Henrietta gave her a backwards smile.

  ***

  “They took her to Lady Bertram’s?” Mama shouted at their butler. “She’s just a little innocent! She’s never been to London! How dare they! She mustn’t find out about—” Lady Kesseley looked at her son. “You must find her.”

  “Boxly, call my horse!” Kesseley’s blood raced through his body. He bolted out the door, never bothering to replace his hat or coat. A shiny black town carriage ambled around the corner. Inside, female voices were singing so loudly, they echoed down the street.

  The crested carriage pulled to a stop and a handsome young footman stepped down and opened the door. Henrietta missed the footman’s outstretched hand and spilled onto the pavement at Kesseley’s feet.

  He pulled her up. She was laughing, her muscles loose with drunkenness. She clung to him, her warm, plum-scented breath on his face.

  “I learned this darling little song. Listen.

  Therefore, in jolly chorus now,

  Let’s chaunt it altogether,

  And let each cull’s and doxy’s heart

  Be lighter than a feather,

  And as the kelter runs quite flush—”

  Kesseley tossed her into his arms, removing her before the neighbors heard anymore. Lady Kesseley waited in t
he hall, her face tight and red.

  “I beat Lord Blackraven’s dear friend at cards.” Henrietta said. She giggled, her whole body shaking in his arms. “She never loses when she wears Lord Damien’s diamonds.” Her glossy eyes widened. “Did you know Lord Blackraven is really Lord Damien?”

  “Take her to bed! I do not want to hear that horrid rake’s name in my home,” Lady Kesseley cried, turning away, disgusted.

  “Ellie, don’t you dare get angry at our dear little companion!” Lady Winslow warned from the door.

  Mama stared at her friend. “Kesseley, leave us.”

  In the stairwell, Henrietta started singing again,

  “Like natty shining kiddies

  To treat the coaxing, giggling brims—”

  “Hush now, that’s enough,” Kesseley whispered.

  She lifted her arms and put them around his neck, snuggling close until her nose rested just below his chin.

  “Hmm, you smell like apple blossoms and leather,” she whispered. Her lips were so close they brushed his skin.

  His throat tightened. His eyes started to burn.

  He twisted the knob on her door with one hand, then swung it open with his foot. He pulled her into the darkness, then against all decency and manners, held her small body against his. He buried his face in her curls, closed his eyes and rocked her—slowly, tenderly—her touch a balm to all his hurt.

  “Henrietta,” he whispered. “Oh, Henrietta.”

  She turned her head and took a fistful of his hair, pulling his head to hers.

  No, no, I can’t, he thought. Not this way.

  She raised her mouth, taking his upper lip between hers.

  Kesseley couldn’t move. He shouldn’t let this happen. She didn’t know what she was doing.

  She released his lip and murmured something he couldn’t understand, then took his lips again, her mouth open, her warm, wet tongue slowly running under his teeth.

  He shouldn’t let her. It was against every trust, every gentleman’s code of honor.

  Her hand tightened around his curls, and she thrust her breasts against him, straining, her lips moving faster, deeper, tasting him. Clumsy with inexperience, yet driven by instinct. It would be so easy to kiss her back, lay himself on top of her. Feel her softness under his hard muscles, lose himself in her dark cinnamon scent.