Steeplechase

by Bancroft, Blair

  Sarah gaped at the E. O. wheel, something she had heard of but never seen. How was it possible that people would stake their house, their land, their last shilling on where a ball might come to rest? It was absurd. But here the tension hit her like the strength of the waves in Brighton. Except that here the air was hot, acrid, almost searing. Sarah stepped back, pulling away from Geoffrey’s grip on her arm.

  The hazard tables were no better. To wager on the fall of dice from a box seemed as incomprehensible to her as putting one’s life in the care of a small ball whirling around a wheel until its ultimate descent onto on red or black. Faro—now faro at least seemed to require some skill. Or was she prejudiced because she knew Harlan was partial to the game, even though, thank goodness, he showed no signs of being a hardened gamester? But there was no way in this world she would ever be able to comprehend the intricacies of it enough to join the play . . .

  “Now you have seen it all,” Geoffrey whispered in her ear, “which is it to be? One of the illegals, I think, or Davenham will not be properly incensed.”

  “Hazard, I suppose.” Sarah groaned. “I daresay there may be some skill in shaking the box, whereas I cannot credit that E. O. is anything but pure chance.”

  “Hazard it is.” Lord Southwaite led Sarah back to the room done up in blue and gold, where a crowd was gathered around each of two gaming tables. Naturally, the Wicked Baron had no trouble inserting Sarah into the game, nor in taking up a post behind her chair where he could bend down and offer advice on her first venture into gaming. Even the most determined gamesters took a moment to look up at the fresh young face set down among them, the women with suddenly sharpened eyes and a curl of the lip, the men with a moment’s appreciation of what might have been if the lure of gaming had not obscured all thoughts of wives, children, and obligations to their estates.

  Geoffrey placed a rouleau of gold coins on the table. Sarah’s stomach churned. “The caster is throwing for main point,” Geoffrey whispered. “Ah . . . a six. Now he will throw for chance point. If he is not out immediately, he will keep casting.”

  Out? And how would he be out, pray tell? But the dice were rolling again . . . and again. And, suddenly, the caster slammed the box onto the table in disgust, and someone was adding gold coins and a flutter of paper scrip to Geoffrey’s stake. She had won? Or, more properly, the caster had lost.

  “Continue,” Southwaite whispered.

  Sarah’s neck snapped round, searching for Geoffrey’s face. “All if it?” she gasped.

  “Fortunes are won and lost here, Sarah. You’ve not more than a hundred pounds on the table.”

  A hundred pounds! Sarah shuddered. But the new caster had thrown a two and was out, his bet already being divided among the players. Immediately. So that’s what Geoffrey had meant.

  Fascinated, Sarah stared while a third caster accepted the dice box. Five casts later, he rolled his main point and was out. Sarah’s stake grew again. And then it was her turn. She stared at the growing pile in front of her and, never destined to be a gambler, reached out a hand to take most of it back. Southwaite placed his large hand over hers, murmuring a soft, “No. This is why you came.” Sarah gulped and threw the dice. A main of seven. On her third cast for chance point she rolled an eleven. Merciful heavens, she’d won! Sarah let out a most unladylike squeal and clapped her hands. Even some of those groaning over their loss, tossed indulgent smiles in her direction, for her youthful enthusiasm was hard to resist.

  “Not quite what I had in mind,” Lord Southwaite drawled, “but congratulations, my dear. I should have known you would come out on top—”

  The door burst open and men rushed in, batons flashing, their shouts so jumbled together Sarah could not understand a word. Amid screams, protests, groans, and flailing arms and legs, one of the intruders threw himself on the money in the center of the table. Her money. Heedless of the pandemonium around her, Sarah pounded the burly man on the back. She shoved his shoulder, tugged at his straggly blond hair. He did not budge.

  “Geoffrey! Southwaite!” Horrified, Sarah looked behind her. The baron was gone. She thought she caught a glimpse of his booted feet being dragged through the door into the corridor. A man, as burly as the one clutching her money to his chest, was laid out on the second hazard table, while two others wielded their batons on other patrons unwilling to give up their winnings. Even as she stood there, mouth agape, one of the robbers kicked a no-longer protesting gamester in the side, dusted off his hands, and turned to Sarah.

  “Bow Street, miss. Illegal gaming and assaulting an officer of the law. You’ll be coming along with us.”

  Not robbers! Dear God in heaven, what had she done?

  Harlan!

  He would divorce her. And she would not blame him. In one mad night she had ruined her life as thoroughly as gamesters who lost their entire fortunes.

  As the Bow Street Runner motioned for her to proceed him out the door, Sarah took one last forlorn look at the hazard table. The Runner on whom she had pounded with such vigor was smiling happily as he scooped her money into a canvas sack. The men who had raided Number Forty Pall Mall had done very well for themselves.

  She was being taken to Bow Street. She would have to appear before a magistrate. And poor Southwaite—would he be there as well? Sarah could only hope so, even if the hope that he, too, was taken up by the Runners was quite, quite selfish. Alone at Bow Street seemed a far crueler fate than was warranted by one short night at a Hazard table.

  No wonder they called it Hazard.

  Outside Number Forty Pall Mall, the men were being herded into a dray of the kind used to haul casks of wine, while the women were being steered, with what appeared to be good-natured banter, wandering hands, and an occasional slap on the rump, into a vehicle that looked for all the world like the tumbrils that transported French nobles to the guillotine. Sarah quailed, finding it difficult to recall, alone and abandoned in the middle of the night, that this was London, her husband, family, and certain rescue close at hand.

  She was, however, infinitely grateful for the segregation of the sexes until she noted the quality of the females with whom she was to share her fate. They were all—well, not to put too fine a point on it—the kindest term to describe them was “ladies of the evening.” And she was taken up as one of them! The members of the nobility had likely paid a “fine” that allowed them to go directly home, while she, dressed as no young lady of the beau monde would ever dress, was thrown in with the courtesans and some who looked little better than doxies.

  Sarah twisted her head to search the men’s cart, but there was no sign of Geoffrey. Beast! Had he paid his bribe, then run off and left her? She could scarcely believe it. Perhaps he had had his head bashed in and was lying in an ally? She bit her lip and struggled not to cry. She was Lady Davenham, daughter of the Marquess of Rotherwick. Never would these . . . these canailles see her cry!

  She tried to stand erect, as a proper aristocrat should, but as the driver set the single horse in motion, the cart shuddered and jounced as if its wheels were as square as the cobbles on the street below. Sarah sank to the bare wooden floor with all the other forlorn females who had not had the ready to buy their way out of a visit to the magistrate at Four Bow Street. Females who had not bathed in a week Sarah quickly decided.

  Weeks.

  “Well now, dearie,” said a voice in her ear, “I always said men were blind as bats. Stupid Redbreasts must ‘a’ looked at that gown instead of your face. Attended a masquerade earlier, I reckon. What ’appened to your man?” The perfumed and painted creature next to Sarah, brilliantly red-headed and more than a decade Sarah’s senior, patted her hand. Her kindly tone brought a rush of moisture back to Sarah’s eyes. “Run off and left ye, did he? Well, never you mind, lovey. You speak up and tell the magistrate the dibs are in tune, you’ve friends to pay your fine, and you’ll be home in no time at all.”

  “Don’t listen to her, luv,” said a voice from the other side of the cart, a d
istance so narrow, the women’s skirts and legs were all of a tangle down the middle. “You’re in the trade, same as us, now ain’t you? Just up from the country, I’d wager, with no idea of how to go on. A face like yours and your man left you flat. A cruel world, it is—right cruel. But you stick with us, dearie. We been to Bow Street a dozen times. A bit of slap and tickle from the Redbreasts, a scold from the magistrate, and we’ll be off soon as cat can lick ’is ear.”

  “Without money?” Sarah murmured.

  The woman’s hand reached out, saucily jangling one of the Sarah’s silver bells. “Well, now, luv, there’s usually someone willing to pay in return for a promise of future services, if’n you know what I mean.”

  “Idiot!” spat the woman next to Sarah. “Don’t ’y recognize quality when it’s touching your very toes!” To Sarah she muttered, “Stay by me, darlin’, and I’ll see you get home safe. That one”—she glared at the black-haired female across from them—“that one would sell the clothes off your back, then sell you in nothing but your shift, to the highest bidder.”

  For a moment Sarah thought she might be sick. But her Ainsworth heritage ran true. She lifted her head, took a deep breath of the damp night air. If the cream of French nobility could ride to their deaths with aristocratic sangfroid, then she could ride to Bow Street with a cartload of English whores. After all, she had only to declare herself to the magistrate . . .

  Dear God, Harlan was going to be beyond furious. Best send a message to her papa. Yes, that was it. Perhaps she could be back in Margaret Street before Davenham wended his way home from the arms of Amaryllis LeFay.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “My lord.” The liveried footman at White’s leaned down to speak privately with Lord Davenham, who was once again at his favorite game of faro . “I’m that sorry to disturb you, my lord, but Lord Southwaite has just arrived and demands to speak with you. He says the matter is of some urgency. He is—ah—somewhat disheveled, my lord, and awaits you in the small salon in the rear.”

  For the briefest of moments Harlan closed his eyes while horrible visions of footpads, carriage accidents, and a runaway bride swarmed through his head. Then forcing his lungs to breathe again, he excused himself and followed the footman from the room.

  “Good God, man, what happened?” Davenham burst out when he caught sight of Southwaite. “Sarah, was she with you? Where is she?”

  Lord Southwaite, reclining in a comfortably upholstered chair with a glass of brandy in his hand and the entire bottle perched at his elbow, waved Davenham to a similar chair. “Have no fear. I have reason to believe she is alive and well, but action is required at once, and I am inclined to think you are the one to manage it, not I.”

  “Urgent, you say, yet you spend the entire night dragging out the gist of it?”

  “Forgive me,” Southwaite murmured. “I would much prefer to be at home soaking my aching flesh in my bath, yet I have made my way here from Number Forty Pall Mall, where I was rather roughly handled by a pair of Runners out to make as much as they could above and beyond their meager salaries.

  “My wife?” Davenham demanded through clenched teeth.

  Southwaite took a leisurely swallow of brandy, ran the snifter round in his hands, finally made a wry face and shrugged. “Lady Davenham desired to visit a gaming hell. I was fool enough to think my escort sufficient protection. It should have been, but—”

  “If you do not tell me this instant what has happened to my wife, I swear I will bruise the rest of your flesh!”

  “Ah, yes.” The baron sighed. “For some ill-fated, inexplicable reason the Runners decided to raid the place. Tonight. I was dragged out a rear door and held to ransom—or hefty bribe, whatever you wish to call it. When I made my way to the front, the women were being loaded into a cart bound for Bow Street.”

  “Bow Street!” Harlan exploded.

  “The men were in a dray, with both vehicles surrounded by more Runners than I thought existed. They must have called out the entire force. I made my way here as fast as I could. If you hurry, she will not yet have been brought before the magistrate.”

  Into the extended silence following his words Lord Southwaite ventured, “Davenham, will you rescue your wife? If not, I must be off to do it myself.”

  “I was merely wondering if I should take the time to issue my challenge now, or wait until after my wife is safely home again.”

  “I will not go out with you, you know,” Southwaite drawled. “I promised Lady Davenham I would not kill you, nor have I any intention of offering myself up for sacrifice because you are such a fool you do not recognize the treasure you have directly under your nose.”

  Harlan bounded to his feet, hands fisted at his sides. “We will discuss this at a more appropriate time, Southwaite.” He bowed. “I thank you for informing me of my wife’s dilemma. Good night.”

  Geoffrey Hatton poured another brandy, downed it in one gulp. Youth . . . he vaguely recalled what it was like. Exciting, painful, and all too fleeting. Yet with any luck, perhaps this time Davenham had learned his lesson.

  Between the magistrate’s dais and the raised box where the alleged criminals must appear was a fenced area where the miscreants, crowded together, waiting their turn. As the session dragged on, Sarah learned a good deal from the snippets of conversation around her. Evidently, the life of a courtesan was not as glamorous as she had thought. Turning to her red-headed protector, she asked, “Do you know Amaryllis LeFay?”

  “La grande LeFay? Indeed I don’t. Way above my touch, she is! Has a grand lord what keeps her in snug apartments, I hear, with all the silks, satins, and jewels she could wish.”

  Indeed. “I just wondered what she was truly like,” Sarah murmured. “She is very beautiful, is she not?”

  “Dearie, if I had my druthers, I’d take your looks any day. Ah, to be young and innocent again, there’s the ticket!”

  “It is very kind of you to say so, but—”

  “But me no buts. I daresay you’re the freshest young thing Bow Street has seen in a dog’s age.”

  “Thank you,” Sarah murmured, “but I assure you at the moment I feel as if I’ve been dragged at the tail of the cart. Never—never did I expect to see the inside of Bow Street!”

  “Quiet!” bawled the bailiff. “And keep those blasted bells mum too!”

  Sarah grabbed her skirts, holding the ribbons close. Doing her best to melt into the crowd, she ducked behind a woman of considerable size and rank odor.

  She was so very tired. And mortified . . . though not so frightened as she had been when the Runners first thrust her into the cart. Her new acquaintances, with the exception of the whore whose heart was as black as her hair, had proved staunch and true. She was not alone. When her turn came to mount the stairs to the box, she had only to declare her name and rank . . .

  “Sarah!”

  Davenham. Oh, no!

  “Is that the one what deserted you?” hissed her friend “Do you wish to hide, lovey?”

  Did she wish to hide? How perfectly awful she had to ask herself that question. Hide from Harlan who was here to rescue her? Hide from Harlan who would give her a scold that would rattle her teeth worse than that miserable cart? Who would likely send her to Chesterton where she would moulder, simply moulder, for years to come?

  And the alternative to being rescued by her husband was . . . ?

  A possible fate worse than death.

  “Sarah! Sarah Ainsworth, where are you?”

  Ainsworth. Harlan was so ashamed he was not using her proper name. His name.

  “Bailiff, I am told my wife is here. If so, a frightful error has been made. I am Davenham, and my lady does not belong in this place.”

  Around Sarah, all the women went, “Oo-oo-oo!” and shoved her forward, hand after hand after hand until she found herself at the high railing looking directly into her husband’s eyes. He glared at her.

  “What must I do to procure her release?” the viscount demanded of the bailif
f, who was now hovering anxiously by his side.

  “You must get us all out,” Sarah told him flatly. “All the women from Number Forty. I will not leave without them.”

  Lord Davenham groaned but did not deign to lower himself to a public argument. A good deal of money exchanged hands, and amid a cacophony of cheers and raucous suggestions from both male and female bystanders, my lord escorted his lady, bells jingling merrily, out of Number Four Bow Street and into his carriage. Where, not surprisingly, Lady Davenham burst into a flood of tears.

  What was a man to do? Thrusting his fury to the back of his mind, Harlan enveloped his wife in his arms and allowed her to sob upon his chest. Undoubtedly, Morgan would have an apoplexy when he saw his coat.

  By the time they reached Margaret Street, Harlan’s large white handkerchief had been substituted for the inadequate scrap of linen Sarah had retrieved from her reticule, and her heartfelt sobs had been reduced to an occasional sniff. Lady Davenham had, in fact, recovered well enough to murmur a swift “Thank you, my lord,” before hiking up her skirts and starting purposefully for the stairs.

  “Not so fast.” In two strides Harlan had her by the arm. “I believe we must discuss this matter.”

  He might as well have told her she was to be hanged at dawn. Eyes wide with horror, his wife gaped at him. “Surely not tonight?”

  “An explanation of this escapade will not wait for morning,” Harlan declared grimly. “Come along.” Firmly, he propelled her toward the study that was part of his private apartments, the damned silver bells jingling every step of the way. He seated her with exaggerated care in the shockingly scarlet leather wingchair, hanging onto his temper by a thread, lest he wring her neck first and asked questions later. With equal deliberation, he lighted the wall sconces before bending down to coax the fireplace into life. It might be June, but there was a decided nip in the air, and tonight his cozy study seemed set down in the vast expanse of the frozen north, quite possibly due to the chill atmosphere radiating between himself and his wife.