Love Match

by Maggie MacKeever

  Augusta’s jaw dropped open. “Dear heaven! Why are you dressed like that?”

  Magda’s décolletage was no less scandalous, the cameo from which she was never parted hung around her neck. “Ignore her, petite! Gus is feeling jealous. I told her already that she should purchase one of those false bosoms made of wax. Quel dommage! Saint will be sorry he did not come home.”

  St. Clair had not come home? Hopefully the duke would honor them with his presence before Elizabeth lost all her courage. She perched cautiously upon a chair.

  “Ladies dressing and behaving like harlots must not be surprised if they are treated as harlots. Therefore, I do not desire a wax bosom.” Gus moved to the piano and began to play a country dance. Birdie bobbed about in time to the music. Minou raced in dizzy circles in pursuit of his own tail.

  Came a sound at the door. St. Clair had come home! Elizabeth lounged back in her chair in an attempt at nonchalance. Her gown slipped off her shoulder. She yanked it back up.

  Not St. Clair walked into the room, but Chislett, with a note on a silver tray. With a bow, he presented the tray to Magda. All eyes were on her as she unfolded the note and read it, folded up the paper and tucked it in her bodice. “Eh bien. I must go out. No, you will not accompany me, Gus. Do not press me further, it is a private matter. Chislett, I require my cloak.” She swept out of the room.

  No sooner did Madame pass from view than Augusta sprang to her feet and followed. “Where are you going?” Elizabeth asked.

  Gus paused impatiently in the doorway. “After her, of course. I’ll wager anything you like Magda had that note sent to herself in an attempt to give us the slip.”

  Elizabeth wasn’t entirely certain Lady Augusta hadn’t contrived this entire business to give her the slip. “I’m coming with you.”

  There was no time to waste in argument. “Do as you will, but hurry,” Augusta replied, ungraciously.

  Dusk had fallen when the ladies stepped outside. Even wrapped in a velvet evening cloak, Elizabeth was chilled. “There she is!” Augusta hissed. Keeping to the shadows, they followed Magda along the curve of the Royal Crescent to Brock Street, down the Gravel Walk, and entered Union Street to see her entering a stately brick structure. Gus swore softly. “Catterick’s.”

  It looked little different from the other buildings on the street, this gaming hell where many a lordling and lady had learned the consequences of playing deep and hard. Again Elizabeth questioned Augusta’s motives. “Do you really suspect Magda of being an agent for the French?”

  “I suspect Magda of nothing and everything,” Augusta said gloomily, as she inspected the building’s Palladian facade. “Saint told me that if ever I set foot in Catterick’s, he would cut off my allowance for a year.”

  The air was damp and bitter. Elizabeth’s feet, in her evening slippers, were turning numb with cold. “Magda will not thank us for following her like this. We should go home.”

  “Magda isn’t up to all the rigs, though she will not believe it. She has tumbled into trouble more than once.” Augusta drew her cloak more tightly around her. “We must go inside.”

  Would St. Clair thank Elizabeth for keeping an eye on his cousin? Probably he would not. Nor was he likely to be delighted that his wife had entered a gaming hell. “Why must we go in?”

  “Despite the fact that we agree on nothing,” Augusta said stiffly, “I would not want Magda to come to harm. It’s too cold to stand here gawking. Come along. I can’t enter that place alone.”

  Elizabeth was fagged to death with worrying about St. Clair. She picked up her skirts and stepped into the street. “I haven’t seen any other indication that you care for your cousin’s opinion. Surely he would never cut off your allowance for an entire year!”

  “I think I know Saint better than you do.” Augusta grasped Elizabeth’s arm as they approached the front door. “Anyway, it’s not because I fear my cousin that I need your company.”

  Odd to see a beseeching expression on Augusta’s haughty features. Elizabeth trusted her no more in this conciliatory mood. “Oh?” she asked.

  “If you must know, because I cannot trust myself! People play at games of chance in Catterick’s— Faro. Hazard. Vingt-et-un. I like play more than anything. I like play so much that I dream about it. And once I start to play, I do not stop until either the club closes or I haven’t a shilling left. It is called gambling fever, and once the spell is past, I wallow in self-loathing until the next opportunity presents itself, at which point I succumb to the lure of the tables yet again. If I show signs of succumbing tonight, you must remind me that Justin will cut off my allowance if I gamble. If that doesn’t serve, you must kick me, hard.”

  Monstrous, to be in the grip of such compulsion. Elizabeth drew in a deep, cold breath. “Very well. We will go in, and you will assure yourself that Magda is in no danger, and then we will depart. And if you make one move toward the tables, I will leave you there and tell St. Clair he is to cut off your allowance for the rest of your life.” Probably this was not entirely what Mr. Melchers had in mind when he suggested Elizabeth show St. Clair some affection, but it was more practical than moping about the drawing room.

  The door was opened by a burly individual who resembled less a butler than a pugilist. He gazed down his crooked nose at the ladies and lifted a scarred eyebrow. Elizabeth raised her own eyebrows and elevated her chin. “We are friends of Madame de Chavannes. I believe she has already arrived.”

  The butler recognized a gentry mort when he saw one. Gentry morts had no business in such a place as this. However, it was no skin off his nose if the silly twits gambled away their garters. He stepped aside and allowed the women to enter, and bore away their cloaks.

  A footman led the way up the staircase to a suite of rooms on the first floor. The establishment was furnished like a grand private home, with thick carpets and marble fireplaces, richly upholstered furnishings and comfortable chairs, green baize-covered tables and numerous potted palms.

  One room was given over to deep basset, another to faro and E.O. In yet another, supper was being served. All the rooms were crowded with people engaged in every conceivable game of chance. Some of the more serious gamblers had turned their coats inside out for luck. Others wore eyeshades and leather guards around their cuffs. In this establishment, five or ten or fifteen thousand pounds might easily be lost in an evening’s play.

  Augusta whimpered at sight of a faro table. Elizabeth took a firm grip on her arm. “No! Not even a rubber or two of piquet. I don’t see Magda. Where can she have gone? Maybe she realized we’d followed her, and slipped out a back door.”

  Gus fought to ignore the temptations all around her. She moved toward the supper room, where chicken in mushroom and wine sauce was being served, along with an excellent claret and green peas; started to enter the room, then abruptly spun around and blocked the doorway. “Magda isn’t there, either. You’re right. We should leave now.”

  Here was an abrupt about-face. Elizabeth tried to look beyond Augusta into the supper room. Gus moved also, to block her view. “Fiend seize it, Duchess!” said Conor Melchers, from behind her. “What are you doing here?”

  “Mr. Melchers! You startled me.” Elizabeth turned, and Conor caught her arm. He and Augusta exchanged a glance. “Why shouldn’t I be here? What are the two of you trying to keep from me? If you do not remove yourself from that doorway, I will make you sorry, Gus!”

  “It is nothing to signify!” Lady Augusta said quickly. Mr. Melchers added, “You must leave now, Duchess. I will explain another time.”

  Elizabeth did not feel like leaving. She jerked away from Mr. Melchers, and kicked Augusta in the shin. Gus yelped and grasped her injured leg. Elizabeth stepped around her and entered the supper room.

  Here, too, the appointments were lavish. Guests were dining off the finest china and glassware. The room was crowded with visitors pausing to refresh themselves before resuming their pursuit of Lady Luck.

  Among those visitors
was the Duke of Charnwood. An auburn-haired beauty clung possessively to his arm. The woman murmured; the duke smiled. He appeared to be on better terms with his auburn-haired companion than with his own wife.

  The woman looked up, caught Elizabeth staring, stood on tiptoe to murmur into the duke’s ear. Justin glanced at the doorway. His expression, upon seeing Elizabeth standing there, wearing a gown so diaphanous that she might as well have been naked, and with Conor Melchers clutching her arm, was not indicative of admiration. He brushed off his companion and strode toward the door.

  Mr. Melchers watched the duke approaching. “This is not the way I meant for you to get your husband’s attention, Duchess.”

  Before Elizabeth could respond, St. Clair was upon them. Had he worn a sword-stick, the three people in the doorway would have been made into a human kabob. Lacking a sword-stick, he reached out and grasped his wife’s bodice, and yanked it up as far as it would go. “Melchers, I require a word with you. Augusta, you will escort Elizabeth home, at once. And if you dare say so much as one word to me, I will wring your blasted neck.”

  Little conversation passed between the ladies during their journey, on which they were accompanied by a footman from Catterick’s, whose purpose was less to see that the ladies reached their destination unaccosted than to make sure that they reached the destination the duke had in mind, which was not the nether regions, where he might have fairly consigned them both, but his home in the Royal Crescent. Once safely in the drawing room, Lady Augusta rang for refreshment, as well as for burnt feathers and hartshorn. The women were alone, Birdie and Minou having already been taken off by little Katy to their beds. “I am so sorry,” Augusta said. “I didn’t know Meloney was in Bath.”

  Elizabeth was sorry, also, for a great many things. “Who is she?” she asked quietly. “Other than St. Claire’s paramour.”

  The duchess should have kicked Augusta harder. Gus should have kicked herself. She sat down beside Elizabeth on the sofa and took her hand. “Her name is Meloney Smythe-Litton. She is a dashing young widow who has been in Justin’s keeping for some time. Meloney is not important. She is but the favorite of the moment. You know how gentlemen are.”

  If she didn’t, she was finding out. How foolish Elizabeth had been to hope she could attract her husband’s attention by putting on a pretty dress. Mr. Melchers would have been kinder to inform her that she couldn’t attract her husband’s attention if she ran naked through the streets.

  Magda entered the drawing room, followed by a footman with a tray of refreshments, and another armed with burnt feathers, hartshorn, and vinaigrette. “This is a pretty kettle of fish. Saint is furious with Conor for luring Elizabeth into a gaming hell.”

  “It’s hardly Melchers’ fault.” Gus waved a vinaigrette under Elizabeth’s nose. “We followed you there.”

  “And set the cat among the pigeons.” Magda sat down in front of the teapot, and began to pour. “What were you thinking, to take Elizabeth into such a place?”

  Augusta accepted a cup of tea. “What were you thinking, to go there yourself?”

  Magda shrugged and selected a macaroon and an almond cake from the pastry plate. “I go where I please. Since you are so determined to know, I went to see Sir Charles.”

  Elizabeth sneezed, and set aside Gus’s vinaigrette. “My Sir Charles?”

  Magda popped the macaroon into her mouth. “It’s not what you imagine. But your Maman would not approve.”

  Elizabeth suspiciously eyed Madame, so lush and devious and stuffed with pastries. “You’re not wearing your cameo.”

  Magda removed a second almond cake from the tray. “The cameo was never mine. Ah ça! We have more important things to discuss. By morning all the world will know that Saint’s bride discovered him in Catterick’s with his petite amie.”

  So much for convincing the world that theirs had been a love match. “St. Clair is going to divorce me,” Elizabeth said gloomily.

  Magda patted her knee, leaving pastry crumbs on the thin muslin. “Things may be in a bad case, but Saint will not divorce you.”

  Elizabeth was in no mood for consolation. “How can you be so certain? He divorced you.”

  “That was because she had run off with Conor,” volunteered Augusta. “Poor Justin had no choice.”

  “Conor?” echoed Elizabeth.

  Magda bit into the ratafia. “You are startled. I can see it. Hélas, I cannot help but recall poor Armand.”

  “Armand?” Elizabeth wondered just how many times Magda had eloped. “Who is Armand, and what has he to do with this, pray?”

  Magda licked her fingers. “Armand met his end in an affaire d’ honneur. He was very jealous. As was cher Christienne. I was desolated, naturellement.”

  Though aware of Madame’s history with Mr. Melchers, Augusta was confused. “You said your husband’s name was Jules.”

  Magda inspected the pastries still remaining on the tray. “Oui. Jules was guillotined.”

  Elizabeth reached for the burnt feathers. “I don’t understand. Both Armand and Christienne died in duels?”

  “They died in the same duel. And all over a simple kiss. But that is far and far off! The question is, what are you going to do?”

  Elizabeth blinked. “Do about what?”

  Magda threw up her hands in exasperation. “Mon Dieu! Will you stand there and let them blow each other’s brains out? Or maybe you will be more fortunate than I and one will delope. Which will it be, I wonder? Saint is the more honorable, but Conor holds you in genuine fondness and for that reason probably will not blow out Saint’s brains, in which case Saint will probably blow out his!”

  Lady Augusta sighed. “You are trying to tell us something, Magda? Pray be less obscure.”

  “I am not at all obscure, chérie. You are not listening. Elizabeth would not like being a widow. She has not yet learned to like being a wife.” Magda made another selection from the tray.

  Nor did Elizabeth like being toyed with. “Are you telling us that St. Clair and Melchers are going to fight a duel?”

  Magda bit into an almond cake. “They will meet at dawn. At Kingsdown on the outskirts of Bath.” Augusta moaned and groped for the hartshorn.

  St. Clair and Mr. Melchers would fight a duel. One of them would be wounded, if not worse. If not both. And all because Elizabeth had wished to show her husband some fondness. Said the duchess, “Damn and blast!”

  Chapter 24

  “No circumstance, however trifling, which strengthens the bonds of an honorable and mutual attraction should be ignored.”—Lady Ratchett

  The plateau atop Kingdown Hill commanded a lovely peaceful view of noble trees and rolling green hills dotted about with farmhouses and sheep. Some five miles in the distance in one direction lay the city of Bath, while the opposite side of the hill faced eastward toward Box. Along the hillside stretched a village, several of the homes quarried from the local limestone rock. The local pub perched so precariously on the slope that it was secured by chains.

  The pub was not open at this early hour, as the first fingers of light inched their way across the sky, and two carriages rattled along the road to the heights, where a herd of grazing sheep were enjoying the emerging view. The carriages drew to a halt. Mr. Melchers emerged from one vehicle. Unenthusiastically, he observed the brightening sky. “This is curst uncivilized,” he said, for the second time in as many days.

  From the second carriage descended the Duke of Charnwood, followed by Nigel Slyte. The duke looked murderous. This expression was due less to the earliness of the hour than to the circumstance that Mr. Slyte was engaged in reciting the twenty-seven rigid rules which governed a dueling event. It had been Mr. Melchers’ prerogative, as the challenged party, to make the choice of weapons. Since Mr. Melchers had opted for fisticuffs, the duke was consequently unable to utilize either his excellent dueling pistols or a sword. If it was not at all the thing to settle an affair of honor in such a manner, neither was Mr. Melchers the thing. The gentlemen
had dispensed with the nuisance of seconds. St. Clair stripped off his coat.

  Nigel drew out a flask. “Whiskey anyone? It’s damned cold out here. No? Excellent. That means more left for me. I can see that you are anxious to bludgeon one another. You will please remember Broughton’s rules. No hitting below the belt. Wrestling holds not allowed below the waist. No hitting or kicking an opponent who is down. I don’t suppose I can persuade either of you to call off the business?” Hopefully, he paused.

  St. Clair and Mr. Melchers glared at one another. Nigel shrugged. Flask in hand, he chose a well-situated boulder, and sat back to watch the mill. Though Nigel was not addicted to sport himself, he had in honor of the occasion scanned Mendoza’s Art of Boxing, not that said art had stood the champion in particularly good stead when Gentleman Jackson grabbed him with one hand and beat him senseless with the other and took away his crown. Also in honor of the occasion, Mr. Slyte was dressed in funereal black.

  “You’re set on this?” inquired Mr. Melchers, as he took off his own coat. “You might recall that this won’t be the first time I’ve given you your bastings, Saint.”

  “Tongue-valiant, aren’t you?” inquired the duke, as he unbuttoned his shirt. “I haven’t spent the last twenty years drowning myself in dissipation. No, I will give you your bastings, and you will take a fancy to someone else’s wife and leave mine alone.”

  “You are rapidly becoming a bore on that subject.” Mr. Melchers pulled off his cravat. “Your wife has a level head on her shoulders. You, however, are a chowderbrain.”

  Justin yanked off his cravat and dropped it on the grass. “Gobblecock!” he snapped, and raised his fists. Mr. Slyte explained to an inquisitive ewe that this would be no rough and tumble turn-up, but a scientific application of the manly art of self-defense. Short, choppy blows delivered with the swiftness of lightning. A crushing blow to the jugular delivered with the full force of the arm shot horizontally from the shoulder. The gentlemen would stand up for a round or two until one cracked the other’s napper, after which they would all shake hands and go home.