The Wagering Widow

by Diane Gaston

  He gave an exaggerated sigh. With an equally dramatic bow, he fled the room.

  All was not lost, Emily realised. To save her sister all she need do was win the game with Guy.

  If she failed, however, she must remove her mask and he would see who really played tricks with him.

  ‘We ought to replay this hand,’ she said, feigning a casual tone so unlike the emotions churning within her. She collected the cards and shuffled them. ‘It is your deal.’

  Guy grabbed Sloane’s chair and sat in it. When she finished shuffling, she handed him the cards.

  ‘What game?’ he asked gruffly.

  ‘Piquet,’ she replied.

  He stared at her for at least half a minute before he spoke. ‘What are the stakes?’

  She met his eye. ‘I shall tell you when we have finished.’

  He dealt the cards.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The atmosphere was like in a dream, looking real but unreal at the same time. Sound echoed as if far away. Light seemed excessively bright. Guy felt as if he were in a dream, acting as if it all was perfectly ordinary, sitting across the table from the alluring creature who was his wife and who likely had been prepared to bed another man.

  ‘What is the score?’ he asked.

  She answered in a voice without emotion. ‘The first partie was mine by one hundred seventeen points. This is the first deal of the second.’

  ‘Do you play for points?’ he asked, in like tone.

  ‘The most points after the third partie,’ she said.

  Guy sorted his hand, estimating what was likely in hers. He chose his play ruthlessly, his anger intensifying concentration, wresting every possible trick from his hand. He did not speak and neither did she, except to make their declarations and responses, call out their points.

  The anger boiled inside him with every play of every card, though he was not certain which fuelled it the most. Sloane for trying to bed his wife? Emily for risking her virtue? Plotting to leave him? Or was he angered against himself for letting matters reach this moment, when he might have put a stop to them that first night?

  At the end of six hands, he won easily. Guy burned to win the third partie, to discover if he were correct in what he feared she offered Sloane. She would be playing to win Sloane’s silence about her sister’s past, that was obvious, but had she wagered what he feared?

  He dealt the cards. Damn Sloane for accepting her challenge when the man had already given his word to Guy. Perhaps Sloane was no better than his reputation suggested, placing a new wager in Madame Bisou’s betting book. Sloane had lost the first bet about Lady Widow. Guy had no notion that the man would create a second one—the seduction of Guy’s wife.

  But Sloane did not know Lady Widow was Emily, did he? He thought the two of them were competing for a woman who frequented a gaming hell and toyed with its patrons. Lady Widow dangled the gentlemen from her fingers like puppets in a Punch and Judy show. She’d not improved Sloane’s perception of her when she played her private game of cards with Guy. If Sloane believed she’d bedded one man, why not another?

  She exchanged five cards. He exchanged three.

  No, he, Guy, was not innocent in this situation. Plenty of blame could be laid directly at his door.

  He’d fallen under her spell as well, even knowing she was his wife. He had not refused her lovemaking. On the contrary, he had revelled in every moment of it.

  She led an ace of hearts.

  They called out their points as she took several tricks, he others. At the end, the round went to her.

  He glanced up at her. She breathed a long sigh of relief, not at all like the gambler he knew she could be. The lines of tension at the corners of her mouth eased slightly.

  He shuffled the cards.

  She sat stiffly in her chair, gazing down at the table, avoiding looking at him, he suspected. This was nothing like the playful, erotic game of piquet they had played the night before. Even though she wore the gown, the hat and the mask of Lady Widow, this was the woman he had met in Bath, the one who sat across from him at the breakfast table, the one who faded from one’s sight, who hid behind her mask of mediocrity. All liveliness gone. All charm vanished.

  Only now he knew what events had forged her need to disappear from everyone’s notice. If she’d given her parents any reason to consider her value, she might have risked being sold as they sold her sister.

  A muscle in Guy’s cheek twitched. Her father had sold Emily, in a way, by inventing a way to use her for collateral. Guy had fallen for the ruse, because he’d sought to use her as well.

  His anger ebbed suddenly, but was replaced by a tide of remorse. If he had been thinking of anything but his crippling debts he might have recognised how out of character it had been for the colourless, all-too-proper Emily to agree to an elopement. The desperation to escape her parents must have been intense indeed for her to take a chance marrying him.

  What had he offered her in return? He was her husband, the man who ought to have cosseted her and protected her. What neglect of his caused her to risk everything at Madame Bisou’s?

  He passed her the cards.

  Emily reached for the deck, her hand brushing her husband’s. The touch jolted her as much as if a spark of static electricity had jumped between them. Her eyes flew to his, but she quickly looked back to the cards, getting ready to deal.

  She would rather have studied him, drinking in every feature, every nuance of feeling revealed in his face. She longed to see his lips widen into a smile, lighting up his eyes with happiness, but this was impossible. He was lost to her, as surely as this card game would ultimately be lost. Luck had long abandoned her.

  Blinking back tears she realised three good hands might give her an edge. The point spread after the first two parties was only slightly in Guy’s favour, but he was playing his cards with uncanny skill. The gamester in her marvelled at it.

  She tried to steel herself for the loss, though what could be worse than failing her sister and removing her mask in front of him? The thought of unlacing the silk covering her face, peeling it from her sweat-dampened brow, and seeing Guy’s shocked expression when she revealed herself, made her stomach roil with nausea.

  If luck returned, she might win, but that hope seemed suspended on a very thin thread. Even if she won, she must invent a reason for gambling on the fate of Lady Devlin Steele. How would she explain to Guy why Lady Widow would care about Emily’s sister? Or how Lady Widow had been informed of the threat to Lady Devlin’s reputation? No matter what happened, she would lose.

  The deepest ache, like heavy metal scraping her insides, was the knowledge that his regard truly belonged to Lady Widow. Why else be so furious at finding Lady Widow with another man?

  She glanced up while he pulled out cards to exchange. How foolish a woman’s heart could be! Once she’d been so eager to leave him. Now, even knowing he loved an illusion, she knew she would stay. She would run his house for him. She would economise when his gambling brought losses and debt. She would endure a thousand cuts to her heart if it meant being with him.

  He’d shown her he was the man she’d hoped he would be, a good man, a man she could depend upon, no matter his love of gambling. She remembered his arms around her earlier that day when she so desperately needed his strength. He might never love her like Lady Widow, but perhaps they could find their way to become friends. If she could just last through this one final card game.

  Her exchange was reasonably successful, adding a third ace to her hand. If she could just guess in what order he would throw his cards, she might have a chance to earn good points.

  In the previous rounds, he had worked out what cards she held and in what order she would play them. In this round, however, that talent appeared to fail him and she beat him by twenty points. Like withered flowers greeted by rain, her hopes revived. She forced herself to clear her mind of everything but the cards.

  Three more hands.

  She won again
. And again! It was down to the last round. He dealt and they exchanged their cards. She declared her points and her score climbed. She won trick after trick, until her score reached thirty.

  ‘Pique,’ she said, the word catching in her throat. Her points doubled to sixty, and her heart pounded in her chest. She had won.

  They played out the rest of the cards, but she already knew she’d amassed the points she needed. Her whole body trembled with relief. Her sister was safe! And she would not have to remove her mask.

  ‘Congratulations, Lady Widow,’ he said as he lay down his last losing card. There was an odd, melancholy expression in his voice.

  It took her several seconds before she could breathe in enough air to speak. ‘You…you wished to be told the stakes.’ Like a good gamester, she would fulfil her part of the bargain, knowing it meant more explanation than she knew how to make.

  He stacked the cards neatly and stood. ‘Since I lost, it is not necessary. Unless something is required of me?’

  Another reprieve? She rose, too, but did not dare take a step towards him. ‘Nothing is required of you.’

  She could barely make her legs hold her upright. Having prepared herself for the worst, she could not conceive of escaping all of it. All she wanted now was to leave this place posthaste and never return.

  She looked at her husband, who seemed as immobilised as she. ‘Would you inform Sloane for me? Tell him that I won? It is he who must keep the bargain with me.’

  ‘You do not wish to tell him yourself?’ He returned her gaze with pain in his eyes.

  She felt the pain reflected in her own body. He would still be thinking Lady Widow wagered her body, that she had been willing to lie down with another man.

  A knife twisted inside her. In the morning she would wake up alone in her bed, knowing he lay in the room connected to hers wishing he could be with Lady Widow. He would not know Lady Widow was about to disappear forever. He would not even realise Lady Widow had been faithful to him.

  She raised her eyes to him one more time. ‘I have had enough of cards for one night.’

  He looked resigned. ‘I will inform Sloane of your win.’ He headed towards the door, placed his hand on the knob.

  She could at least spare him the pain of believing Lady Widow had betrayed him. ‘Lord Keating?’

  He stopped and turned back to her.

  ‘I would have removed my mask. If Sloane had won, that is what I offered him. That is all I offered him.’

  He stared at her a long time, his eyes unfathomable. Then he opened the door and walked out.

  Emily waited until he would have had time to reach the floor below. She hurried out of the room and down the stairs, hoping to avoid notice. From the stairway she heard the hum of voices. As she passed the door to the supper room, she spied her brother, seated with Madame Bisou, holding that woman’s hand, looking as relaxed and carefree as he’d been as a boy playing tricks on his sisters. She walked past the game room, where she glimpsed Guy leaning over Sloane, seated at a card table with Sir Reginald and two of the others. With the cards to distract them, she supposed that, in the space of a fortnight, none of the gentlemen would even recall Lady Widow.

  Except perhaps her husband. Would he pine for Lady Widow? When he regarded his colourless wife, would he wish for the charm of Lady Widow?

  She hurried down the stairs to the hall, retrieving her cloak from Cummings and fleeing out into the night to where her hack awaited her. As soon as she was inside, she pulled off her cap and mask.

  In no time she was home, let in the house by a waiting Hester, and soon back in her bedchamber.

  She could not wait to remove the green silk dress. Hester could pack the dress and cap away in the trunk, and Emily would never open it again. Perhaps she could ask Hester to sell the clothes on Petticoat Lane and keep the profits. As soon as the maid left the room, Emily would throw the mask into the fireplace and watch it burn to ashes.

  Emily took the pins from her hair, letting it tumble to her shoulders. She held her hair aside as Hester unbuttoned the dress. Hester pulled it over her head and she was free of it.

  As Hester held the gown in her arms, the door connecting her room to her husband’s opened.

  Her husband stood silhouetted in the doorway.

  ‘Hester,’ he said in a mild tone, ‘be so good as to leave. I wish to speak with Lady Keating alone.’

  Hester gave a quick curtsy, dropped the gown on the floor, and ran out of the room.

  Emily, dressed only in her corset and shift, stood awaiting him, sick at heart, but almost relieved at the same time. She’d had enough of masks. When he asked her where she had been, she would tell him everything, no matter what.

  But he did not ask her where she had been. He walked up to her and handed her a paper. In the candlelight, she could barely make out that it was a banknote made out to her, allowing her to withdraw a huge sum from his accounts.

  ‘What is this?’ she asked.

  He looked so much like he had in that private room at Madame Bisou’s, but also so different. So sad, so determined.

  ‘Your freedom,’ he replied.

  She examined it again and glanced back at him. ‘I do not understand.’

  His eyes flicked over her undressed state, but she did not have the presence of mind to reach for her nearby shawl. He finally gazed directly into her face, but did not answer her. At last it dawned on her.

  ‘Do you wish me to leave?’ She could barely hear herself, her words came out so softly.

  ‘Is that not what you wish, Emily?’

  ‘No, I—’ Once she had wanted nothing more than to escape him, but everything had changed.

  With a grim expression he reached over and took the banknote from her hand, placing it on her dressing table. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘Let us talk.’

  He led her to the set of chairs her mother-in-law had used earlier in the day. It seemed a lifetime ago.

  Emily had draped her paisley shawl over one of them. She wrapped it around herself before she sat down.

  ‘First,’ he began, ‘I know everything. I’ve known most of it from the beginning, from the first time I walked in to Madame Bisou’s.’

  Her mind tried to take this in, while her heart thudded painfully in her chest. ‘You knew?’

  ‘I recognised you almost immediately—’

  ‘You knew!’ It was not possible. When he had gazed upon Lady Widow with such desire in his eyes, he knew she was Emily? When she peeled her clothes off for him, he knew? When he made love to her, he knew he made love to his wife?

  ‘Yes,’ he said quickly. ‘And I do not expect your forgiveness for not letting on until now.’

  Her forgiveness? Was it not the other way around?

  His words came out in a rush. ‘I did not know until tonight why you came to Madame Bisou’s. I thought it was for love of gambling. I feared it was…for other interests, as well. Tonight I discovered you were desirous of money—’

  ‘Robert.’ Robert must have spilled everything.

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘I saw Robert. I was rather harsh with him, I’m afraid, but he told me you masqueraded as Lady Widow to win enough money to…’ he paused and took a breath ‘…to leave me.’

  A dam of pain broke inside her.

  ‘I have the money to free you,’ he said.

  He wished her to go! Of course. She’d shamed him, seduced him at Madame Bisou’s as though she were as common as one of the girls employed there. If it ever became known that Lady Widow was in fact Lady Keating—

  ‘You need not return to Madame Bisou’s. In fact, I wish very much for you not to return to that establishment or any like it. It is too dangerous.’

  Would he believe she had already decided not to return? Never to be Lady Widow again? ‘I—’ she began.

  He held up his hand. ‘No, let me finish.’ He shook his head. ‘I wronged you from the start, Emily. I deceived you so often, but I have no wish for more secrets between us. Do not think
I have not seen how good you have been to me and my family. I do not know what I would have done without you, if I’d had to concern myself with my mother, her aunts or the household. You were better to me than I deserved.’

  He had valued her all this time? Noticed her efforts to care for his family? Why did that not please her? She wanted more from him. She wanted what she’d had as Lady Widow.

  Heart bleeding, she touched his arm. ‘No, please, do not say—’

  His eyes flashed. ‘I am not finished.’ He glanced down to where her hand rested on his arm. His other hand reached over and grazed hers, but she was uncertain if he meant to remove her hand or hold it there in place.

  He looked back at her and continued, ‘I do not blame you for wanting to be rid of me and my family.’

  Be rid of him! She opened her mouth to protest.

  ‘We do not deserve you,’ he carried on, apparently willing to send her away with at least some pride salvaged. ‘But you must not take any risks. I can pay for your freedom now. I have enough money.’

  The money he won at gambling, no doubt, but she would never forgive herself if she accepted his money and later learned he was in terrible debt.

  ‘No, Guy, you must save the money,’ she spoke earnestly. ‘Do you not realise you will have a streak of losing some day? You must always keep money in reserve. If you wish, I will hold the money for you, so you cannot put your hands on it to gamble away.’

  He looked puzzled now. ‘Gamble it away? Do you think I would keep the money to gamble it?’

  She grasped his hand and held it tight. ‘Oh, you would not plan to, I am sure, but I know about this, Guy. From my father. When gaming takes hold, a gentleman will risk everything. Please let me stay with you. I can help you. I know I can.’

  He gave a dry laugh. ‘You would stay under such circumstances?’

  His laugh wounded her, but he must be made to see she could help him. ‘Yes. I know you are not like my father, but the gambling is so very hard to resist.’

  He gave her a cynical look. ‘Gambling is hard for you to resist as well, no doubt.’