A Gentleman’s Game

by Theresa Romain

  But if he tipped his head back, he could see the flags above the judges’ stand. They snapped in the warm breeze as though summoning him.

  And so he rolled forward, an inch and a foot and a yard at a time, and found his way to where the race would finish.

  At the judges’ stand, a neat wooden box from which the winning colors would be thrown, the white rails of the course ended. The globe-topped starting pole was at the other end of a curving horseshoe a mile and a half away. Not that anyone could see both start and finish. The inner field was just as crowded as the outer boundary of the track, and the Prince’s Stand—the only permanent spot from which to clamber up and watch the race—was so full that the spectators were crushed in shoulder to shoulder.

  Sir William edged his chair into place beside the judges’ stand, waving at the lucky few chosen to determine the outcome. He recognized one of them, a local landowner named Martinet. The younger man squinted, gaped, then grinned and gave a hearty greeting. “Happy to see you back on the turf, Sir William.”

  “I am too.”

  A ripple of silence spread through the crowd: the horses must be lining up. Somewhere, Pale Marauder’s jockey wore the Chandler silks of black and gold. Epigram’s jockey wore the same, but with the crimson hat of Sir Jubal Thompson. They’d be straight in the saddle, their lean faces set. Waiting for the shot that would fire them into a gallop.

  Then came a groan, a clamor of protest.

  “False start,” guessed Martinet.

  He didn’t have to guess the second time or the third—or any time after that. Word filtered around the curve of the track: two of the colts, Prince Paul and Pale Marauder, kept stepping out of line.

  “Damn you, Roddy.” Sir William shook his head, not entirely surprised.

  And then, after ten false starts, came the starting shot. With a whoop and a scream, the crowd cheered on the horses. Sir William craned his neck, as though the extra inch or two gained could show him the fast-flung bodies, the pounding hooves. Which would be the first to round the bend? A bay? A chestnut? Whose strides would be the first to cover the smooth green turf?

  At last, after an eternal minute, the Thoroughbreds rounded the curve of the track and came into view. Their silken galloping was a joy to watch, as first one then another lowered his fine head and nudged forward. From Sir William’s angle, he could not see who led the pack, but in the thick of it he spotted a cream-colored coat and a flash of gold and black.

  “Come on, Roddy! You’ve got it!” he shouted again and again until he was almost hoarse. So loud was the cheering around him that he couldn’t hear himself. The noise of the crowd seemed to lift the horses on a wave of sound, washing them down the slight slope toward the finish in a burst of fresh speed.

  The judges yelled. Waved. Called to each other, nodding.

  And then came the winning colors, flung forth over the stand.

  Black and gold.

  A roar of victory ripped from Sir William’s throat.

  Martinet looked about, puzzled, then shook his head and snatched down the scarlet flag over the stand and tossed that across the silks.

  The roar cut off—and then Sir William began to laugh. Not his horse, but Sir Jubal’s. Epigram. Epigram had done it.

  Martinet climbed down from the stand to speak to Sir William. “Sorry about that. Epigram’s jockey lost his hat somewhere along the course. Didn’t mean to give you the wrong impression there.”

  The laugh still lingered on Sir William’s lips. “Martinet, Epigram is a great horse. It feels like my own victory to have brought him along.”

  A double champion. Well, well. Sir Jubal would be delighted by how the Chandlers had served him. Trust was a lasting victory, maybe worth more than having a Derby winner in his own stable.

  “You always could turn anything into a triumph,” said Martinet.

  “Do you know, I really can,” said Sir William. He patted his pocket, where his and Nathaniel’s betting slips lay safe. “Especially when I bet on a winning horse. If you’ll excuse me, Martinet? I need to see to my horses now.”

  “Of course, of course. Hope to see you again next year.”

  Sir William doffed his hat to the judge. “Plan on it.”

  * * *

  Pockets full of banknotes, Nathaniel unlocked the private parlor of the King’s Waggon.

  Epigram had won. A good result to the weeks of good work.

  And now the journey and the race and the waiting and the preparation were all over.

  All Epsom was a fete, still shouting and raucous. The sound rang through the walls like the notes of a brass band. Yet Nathaniel had the same flat feeling he experienced every time he ended a journey with the sight of Chandler Hall. That deflated sense of not knowing what to do next.

  One tiny next awaited him: he’d stash his winnings in his traveling trunk. Fifteen hundred pounds. A fortune.

  And how much of that was Rosalind’s? One hundred fifty was what she’d wanted to pay her debt. She ought to have that. At least that.

  She ought to have been here to see the race. She’d been a part of every step of the journey from the horses’ first illness to Epsom itself, and it seemed utterly wrong that she wasn’t here for the final triumph.

  But she had chosen not to be. Hadn’t she? She’d chosen worry about her family over her own wish to stay.

  He couldn’t fault her for that. Maybe he’d have done the same. Maybe she was right, and she hadn’t really had a choice to make. Maybe she could never have chosen him at all.

  Sliding to the floor, he leaned against a leg of the table. Knobbly and uncomfortable, it pressed at his head and his spine.

  How he wished he could become someone else for a while. Someone who knew where he belonged. Someone who knew how to get people to love him. Not just respect him; not merely follow him down the road.

  To love him.

  The brandy was still there on the table, the bottle unsealed now. At some point yesterday Sir William must have drunk his customary half inch.

  Nathaniel wasn’t interested in the brandy. No matter how one wished, there was no purpose to trying to forget or become someone else. Memory would return; he would return. And both would be a little duller and sadder for the departure.

  But enough of that. There was his trunk, with its lid open and box full of neatly folded items. He slid across the floor and sat in front of it, shifting aside the clothing. Beneath it was a secret compartment, and in there he could stash his winnings.

  Damn. Where was the latch of the thing? He’d have to unpack to find it.

  Rising to his knees, he lifted free the trappings of gentlemanly life. Neat cravats and linen shirts, waistcoats and breeches. He reached into the trunk again for the last of it. This time his fingertips brushed not fabric, but a book.

  When he pulled it forth, he recognized it at once. It was one of the set of Shakespeare’s plays, leather-bound and gilded and banded. There were four plays in this volume: A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Merchant of Venice. As You Like It. The Taming of the Shrew. So many romances, so many dreams. A pound of flesh and the quality of mercy.

  A Rosalind who would not and should not be tamed.

  He wanted to look at her name on the page.

  As he flipped through the heavy laid paper to the beginning of As You Like It, something slipped from the pages. He lost sight of it among the folded stacks of clothing—then spotted a dried flower on the floor.

  Picking it up, he clambered to his feet and held it up before the window. Though faded and flat, it was unmistakably a red carnation.

  “Rosalind.” A blossom from the day of the fete and the first time he had kissed her. When had she slipped this into his book? When there was still the hope of more kisses, or no longer a prayer for anything but a memory?

  With hands that shook, he held it by the fragile stem until his eyes blurred from gazing at it.

  It would be easy to drop it. Stomp it. Crush it to nothing but a deep red powder. For
a moment he considered this.

  Sighing, he again seated himself on the floor, took up the book, and slipped the flower between its pages. Packing it away.

  He turned a page, then another. Not reading. Just feeling the paper, fibrous and rich. Seeing the name Rosalind like a blur, again and again.

  And then one line leaped out at him.

  Yet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor, said Shakespeare’s heroine. She had been blamed for being the child of an enemy. Blamed simply for being herself.

  Exiled and mistrusted, she had protected herself with a disguise. But she remained herself within, always. Sure that she was worthy.

  No matter what anyone thought of her, she did what she thought best.

  He sat upright with a clunk of head against wall, but he hardly felt it.

  For so long, he had tried to live up to his father’s expectations. But Rosalind…she just was. She was used to having no one but herself, and so it was for herself that she sought respect. Liking. Love.

  She thought she couldn’t have the things she wanted—and maybe she couldn’t, not all of them. But the things she possessed? Those were precious to her.

  And for a night, she had owned him.

  No, she would own him forever. Whether she wanted him or not, he was hers. As surely as this petal had been a piece of her wreath, he had given her a piece of himself.

  Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t rudderless. From here, he knew exactly where he wanted to go next.

  Twenty-four

  “Did you notice him today when we set off? Fresh as a daisy. Strong as an ox. Sleek as a—”

  “Father, please. You’ve been spouting similes about Epigram for an entire day. Surely we could pause for a moment.”

  The baronet laughed.

  Nathaniel would have preferred to ride Bumblebee northward, but at his father’s request, he instead sat in the carriage with Sir William. For the day and a half since they’d left Epsom, the baronet had mulled over the race—aloud, always aloud, as though a tap had been opened and thirteen years’ worth of wishful planning had been allowed to flow. He’d asked Nathaniel to recount all he could remember of the ten false starts, dissecting each one. In turn, he had described the finish, speculated on the middle, and told Nathaniel about every detail of the bookmaker’s reluctance when he paid out for the wagers on Epigram.

  “But you love similes,” the baronet replied. “Something else on your mind?” He leaned forward, bracing himself with the walking cane he enjoyed holding onto in the carriage. “Something you love more?”

  At Nathaniel’s startled glance, the baronet angled his head toward the carriage window. Outside, the heart of London had fallen away, and he realized the road would soon lead them past the Eight Bells.

  Devious Sir William. He must have asked the servants for its location.

  “As a matter of fact”—Nathaniel tried to sound casual—“I need to stop when we reach the Agates’ inn. There’s something I must return.”

  “Something you need to return. Hmm. Should I suggest that you send it through the mail?”

  Ha. Hilarious. “You absolutely should not.” Adopting an expression as mild as Sir William’s, Nathaniel teased him back in kind. “It will only take a moment. If you’re embarrassed because you don’t want to face Miss Agate’s family after dismissing their daughter, you may of course wait in the carriage.”

  “It’s my carriage. I don’t need permission to stay in it.”

  “Then you won’t mind me leaving it for a few minutes, will you?” Craning his neck again, Nathaniel watched for the white-painted brick structure to appear. “Ah, here we are. I knew we had to be close.” He rapped on the ceiling of the carriage, and the coachman obediently drew to a halt.

  As Sir William grumbled about good deeds and nothing going unpunished, Nathaniel sprang from the carriage and strode back to the rougher traveling carriage. Walking, riding, and driving, the whole party had come to a halt. “Ever’thing all ri’, Mr. Nathaniel?” called Lombard.

  “Perfectly all right.” He waved. “Just need to get something out of my trunk.”

  The nearest outrider, Button, rode up to Nathaniel’s side. “We surely have missed the maidy since she left us. You’ll tell her hello, will you?”

  Nathaniel paused in the act of shifting trunks. “I… Yes, of course. If I see Miss Agate, I will tell her hello.”

  Of course, he couldn’t halt here only to call upon Rosalind, even if the hope of seeing her was ninety-nine percent of why he wanted to stop here. As it happened, he had thought of a different excuse. “Aha.” From his trunk, he pulled Severn Agate’s shirt and cravat.

  And a fistful of banknotes.

  He closed up the trunk, then the carriage. With another wave, he tucked the items under his arm and strode to the front entrance of the inn.

  When he entered, eight silvery chimes greeted him. The next greeting came from Mrs. Agate, who scurried by to see what was needed. On recognizing Nathaniel, she enfolded him in the sort of embrace one generally only got when returning from battle. “Oh, Mr. Nathaniel, what a lovely surprise! I’ll get Rosie at once. You must have come to call on her?”

  He should have taken into account the number of Agates in the household. The chance of encountering Rosalind first was small. “I came to return some items to your son Severn.”

  The excuse sounded transparent to his own ears, so he added, handing the shirt and cravat over to Mrs. Agate, “And of course I’d love to greet Rosal—Rosie if she is nearby.”

  “She’ll be in the scullery, scrubbing away at the dinner dishes.” The plump smiling face smiled even more broadly. “May I get you some dinner, Mr. Nathaniel? Or something for your men?”

  “They’re my father’s men now,” he admitted. “Sir William is waiting in the carriage, and I promised—”

  “There’s a baronet on the road before us?” A hand fluttered to her bosom. “Oh, heavens, you must stay here! Truly, it would be an honor.”

  “No, it really wouldn’t. Please believe me. He’s so full of similes at present that—”

  He stopped talking, because Rosalind had stepped into the corridor from the doorway Nathaniel knew led to the kitchen.

  When she saw him, her eyes went wide. She froze like a statue.

  A beautiful water-splashed statue in a gown the color of her eyes, with a damp apron and soap-reddened hands.

  Before he realized, he had taken several steps toward her. How he had missed her face. Her smile. Her hands, whether or not they were reddened by soap. “Rosalind.”

  She snapped from her rigor with a deep, sputtering breath. “Nath—Mr. Chand—wha—how—why are you here?”

  Mrs. Agate piped up. “He brought back Severn’s shirt and cravat, Rosie. Wasn’t that nice?”

  “Yes—very nice.”

  “And he says his father is waiting in the carriage and they can’t stay, but you see if you can’t talk him into it.” With a wink, Mrs. Agate bustled off.

  They stared at one another, alone for the moment, surrounded by the constant sounds of a busy coaching inn.

  All Nathaniel’s glib charm seemed to have deserted him. “I am glad to see you,” he said simply. “So glad.”

  “I didn’t think I would ever see you again.” She brushed back a fallen wisp of hair, tucking it behind one ear. “I had almost got used to the idea.”

  He could not stop looking at her. He had days upon days of looking to make up for. “I…ah, here.” Clumsily, he thrust the wad of banknotes at her. “This is for you. You won the race. Did you know?”

  “Did I? And I’m not even winded.” She looked at the money as though she didn’t recognize it. “This is a fortune. How much is here?”

  “Since you trusted me to choose, I decided that you bet ten pounds on Epigram. And at fifteen to one odds—there’s one hundred fifty there.” He lowered his voice. “It’s what you wanted. It’s enough to pay your debt.”

  Her hands trembled as she tucked it int
o the pocket of her gown. “I never expected it. I didn’t…” She seemed not to know where to look. “You did this for me? You didn’t have to do this for me.”

  “Of course I didn’t have to. You’re a terrible negotiator. You’ve never forced my hand. What I’ve done for you has been my choice.”

  “Your choice,” she echoed in barely more than a whisper. She placed a steadying hand against the plaster wall, looking not at Nathaniel but at the splay of her fingers. “You chose this, even after I left you with no hope.”

  “Maybe you had no hope. I managed to scrape a bit together, and I hope—ha—that it’s enough for the both of us.” The letter that sent her away; he should have asked about it at once. “How is your sister? Is everything all right?”

  “As all right as it ever is.”

  “Then why didn’t you come back?” He had to ask, though the answer could only be because I didn’t choose to.

  “Because I couldn’t untangle myself,” she said. “I told you, I have ties—old ties. I owe Aunt Annie a great deal.”

  “Surely you owe yourself something too. You don’t have to be trapped here. If you think it’s a trap. Which you might not. Because it’s your family. And—”

  “Your short sentences are charming.” When she looked at him, her eyes were heavy with tears—yet she smiled. “I do think I owe myself something, yes.”

  Her eyes shone, her shoulders were squared, her mouth was a sweet, curved promise.

  It would be wrong, completely wrong, to kiss her now. He knew that. This was neither a kissing sort of place, nor should it be a kissing sort of conversation.

  But somehow with her they all became the kissing sort of conversation. There was always something new to admire in her. There was always some reason to want to touch her. To be near her.

  He did not kiss her, but instead placed his hand over the spot on the wall where hers had just rested. “Do you owe yourself me?” Love? A happiness unrationed?

  “I owe myself a clean breach.”