The Offer

by Sara Portman

  When his eyes took in his father’s expression, however, his pulse stilled, for what he saw was not disapproval. It was something far more worrying—guilt.

  Any last vestiges of respect that Bex harbored for his father hardened as the significance of the man’s expression registered. “There is more,” he said flatly. As much as he knew his own name, he knew his father had not delivered the last of the disastrous news. “Tell the rest you have to tell, Father.”

  Edward adjusted his position in his chair, lifted his chin proudly, and demonstrated a maddeningly thorough lack of shame when he spoke. “Your inheritance is gone.”

  Bex did not speak. He could not speak.

  “Explain yourself,” the duke commanded.

  “My father has been ill for some time,” Edward clarified. “He entrusted to me the oversight of his financial affairs.”

  “A disastrously misplaced trust,” Bex spat.

  “What, precisely, is ‘gone’?” The duke asked, making no effort to mask his impatience.

  “All of it,” Edward answered simply.

  “Has the estate been lost, or only the funds?” the duke asked.

  Edward had the grace to at least redden at this last question. He did not respond.

  So it was gone. Oakwood Lodge was gone. The home Bex had known all his life—the small, insignificant domain that should have one day been his, would not be after all.

  “I believe my father is quite thorough in all his undertakings,” Bex observed bitterly. He turned to the man he had once desired to emulate and felt a shudder of revulsion. “You had no right to plunder my inheritance.” But even as he spoke, he knew the point had no significance. What recovery could there be? He hated him anyway, as though hating him might somehow make the betrayal less of a blow.

  Edward half stood then settled back into his chair. “What need had you of that pitiful sum, when this was to be your inheritance,” he blustered. “We had every reason to believe the line continued with us! We could not assume the ducal title trussed out like poor farmers and unable to move about in society.” He turned his red-faced explanations toward the duke. “Would you have us shame the family name?”

  The duke interrupted. “Do I understand correctly that Oakwood Lodge has been sold? Where is your father? Where is your wife?”

  “The farm was sold with a lifetime lease,” Edward explained.

  “Whose lifetime?” Bex asked, his voice cold and harsh even to his own ears.

  “Your grandfather’s,” Edward answered.

  He should have known. A lease that lasted his grandfather’s lifetime would only minimally reduce the proceeds of a sale, whereas the deduction for a lease based upon Edward Brantwood’s life would be considerable, as the man could live for decades yet. Of course, his father would have pursued the larger sum and disregarded the risk.

  The duke sighed heavily and set his elbows on the desk, again joining his fingertips and thumbs into a contemplative triangle. “So the new owner of the house and lands will take possession upon your father’s death,” he said.

  “Yes,” Edward confirmed.

  “Leaving your family without a home or income,” the duke concluded.

  “My son and I currently reside in London, Your Grace.”

  The duke considered this statement wearily. “In a house for which you have taken a lease.”

  Edward gave a slow nod.

  “A lease that you will be unable to pay without an income.”

  Edward’s second nod was more abbreviated. He was quick to defend himself, however. “Surely, you can understand that my family had no need for a farm in Surrey, when we were to inherit the Brantmoor estate. The advanced funds from the sale of the farm allowed us to take our position in society and to prepare for the great responsibility of the dukedom.” Edward leaned forward, leaving no subtlety to his final comment. “But for the misunderstanding caused by your absence, Your Grace, it was a prudent arrangement.”

  Bex did not wait for the duke to respond to this open transfer of blame. He spun around to face his father, allowing all of the accumulated disgust of both the past few minutes and the past five years spill out of him. “You have wasted your life and mine counting unhatched chickens, Father, and you do not even have the decency to accept responsibility for your shortsighted actions. You sit in the pit of your own making and point the finger of blame at others. I will not join in your shame and disgrace.”

  Once more, Bex addressed the duke, his unrestrained anger clipping his words with bladelike precision. “I ask nothing of you, cousin, but that you will pass my felicitations on to your wife.”

  Bex strode from the room without a glance backward for its remaining occupants.

  What a stroke of luck, he thought bitterly, that the vicar’s daughter did not elect to ruin herself on his account. He could scarce afford a dockside whore.

  Chapter Six

  April 1818

  Bex sat quietly at a corner table and waited. He sipped his drink absentmindedly while he watched. The Birdcage was a busy place and there was plenty to attract his attention as fortunes changed hands at hazard and faro.

  He took entertainment in watching. He could tell by the expression on each man’s face whether luck had been kind that evening. Some were less subtle than others, he thought, as he watched a ruddy-faced man toss his cards to the table and stomp away. He turned to another group and his attention was caught by a man in a finely cut jacket of rich blue. The man’s eyes subtly narrowed at the turn of the cards. His patrician features were otherwise expressionless. His eyes were sharp, rather than cloudy with drink, like so many of the others. He had the manner of a savvy cardplayer, one who played the game as though it were a sport, applying skill in the hopes of gaining an advantage.

  “Always watching, never playing. You will put me out of business, my friend.”

  A shorter man with a build that spoke of manual labor and clothes that hailed from the finest tailors slid into a chair beside Bex and looked onto the scene with him.

  “You’re far too successful to need my meager contribution, Gibbs,” Bex said, setting his glass to rest upon the table.

  “But you set a poor example,” his companion insisted. “If everyone came only to take in the view, my doors would be closed for good in a fortnight, and my poor family turned out on the streets.”

  “Fear not.” One side of Bex’s mouth curved upward. “The Birdcage will always attract a flock of enthusiastic pigeons.”

  “No one wants to come to a cage.” Gibbs shook his head in reproach at Bex’s use of the unofficial moniker. “We are humbly providing a service for all who desire it.”

  Bex turned to face Archibald Gibbs. The man was wrong on both counts and he knew it. No. 22 King Street, affectionately known among its patrons as “The Birdcage,” was by no means a humble establishment. And if the doors ever closed for some unforeseen reason, the Gibbs family would in no way go hungry. The Birdcage might be the center of Archibald Gibbs’s business pursuits, but his interests stretched far beyond cards, dice, and drink—as Bex well knew.

  Bex gave no voice to these thoughts, however, but simply nodded at the other man. “You are a most magnanimous public servant.”

  “I do what I can.” Gibbs waved a hand, and the motion brought a serving girl sashaying to the table. “Bring me a drink and send the Mathematician.”

  The girl nodded and left as she had come, never sparing a glance for Bex.

  So that was the reason.

  Bex had suspected Gibbs had summoned him here to discuss his accumulated debt. If they were to be joined by the Mathematician, his suspicions were most assuredly correct.

  It seemed Bex was being summoned everywhere of late. The insistently polite invitations to Worley House had come with weekly regularity since his last disastrous visit there and were exceeded in number only by the less
polite demands from his father. Bex disregarded both of these and had done so for nearly two months, though avoidance of the fatherly demands required greater skill, given their shared residence.

  Bex had no interest in hearing whatever dictates his father had for him. His father was responsible for the dire circumstances in which Bex now found himself. And damned if he would appear for a family dinner at Worley House, despite the invitations that arrived weekly. They were only sent out of obligation anyway. He would not accept funds from the duke to pay his own debts, and he could not show his face to the duchess, who most certainly despised him after his ill-advised encounter with her friend.

  A summons from Gibbs, however, could not be avoided. He owed the man a significant sum, and only by the grace of their amiable relationship did Bex escape the less civilized methods of collection that Gibbs could employ.

  He wondered how much Gibbs knew. Everyone knew Bex would never be a duke, but did Gibbs know the extent of it? Bex would never be anything. He currently lacked funds, but the truth was so much worse. Bexley Brantwood lacked an identity. He had been lowered to a state in which he subsisted solely upon the grace and favor of others. He was a beggar, despite his gentleman’s clothes. Today, he needed the grace and favor of Archibald Gibbs to continue for just a bit longer.

  “There is no need to summon the Mathematician,” Bex said in a carefully congenial tone. “I have a full reconciliation of my accounts. This scheme in Hertfordshire seems very promising.”

  Gibbs nodded slowly. “There may yet be cause for optimism in Hertfordshire,” he said, but there was no confidence in the statement.

  “I received the information your man delivered on Birmingham,” Bex added.

  Gibbs ran his hands from his thighs to his bent knees as he sat looking at the crowd. He sighed heavily. “Yes, well, we may be unable to pursue Birmingham.”

  Bex took another sip of his drink and slowly lowered it to the table before asking, “Oh? And why is that?”

  Gibbs eyed him steadily. His drink arrived and he accepted it without acknowledgment to its deliverer. “Hertfordshire,” he said, setting the beverage on the table, untasted, “has taken considerably longer than anticipated. When we sent you the information regarding Birmingham, it was with the expectation that there would already be progress in Hertfordshire.”

  Bex searched his companion’s expression, but Gibbs had the eyes of a cardplayer and they revealed nothing. He turned to the room and gave an easy shrug. “These things require patience.”

  “Patience becomes thin as interest remains unpaid.” There was more truth than menace in his tone, but Bex knew better.

  He met the other man’s steady, dark gaze with an unflinching stare of his own. Mentally, he calculated. If Gibbs was unwilling to advance further funds, he possessed sufficient information regarding Birmingham to pursue it on his own, provided he could borrow the capital elsewhere. He let his eyes fall and gave another shrug. “Then we don’t pursue Birmingham. I am still bullish in regard to Hertfordshire, despite the delays.”

  “Optimism does not feed my family in the meantime. More importantly, optimism is no guarantee of collection in the end.”

  Bex shifted in his seat to face Gibbs more directly and spoke firmly. “I am confident. Confidence is a measure above optimism, wouldn’t you say? And your fee is collected regardless, if you recall our arrangement.”

  “Therein lies the challenge to my patience. If there is only failure in Hertfordshire,” he said, with a smile that did not reach his eyes, “the fee is still owed, but from whom will I collect? Who will pay the other amounts owed?”

  Bex understood the implications of the man’s questions. He understood them certainly better now than he had as a young pup first arrived in London. The consequences of failing to repay debts to men like Archibald Gibbs could be far more disastrous than any debtors’ prison.

  “I have invested considerably in you,” Gibbs continued, calmly surveying his domain as he spoke. “I felt much more secure in my investment when I believed it was backed by the wealth of a dukedom. Then your cousin returned and now I understand there is an heir on the way. Your family’s ascension to that title becomes more improbable by the day.”

  Bex’s jaw clenched, despite his best efforts to project an unconcerned air. “The balance you are owed is not so great that only a duke’s wealth will repay it.”

  “It is great enough.”

  Bex tilted his head in acknowledgment. He couldn’t very well dispute it.

  “I was rather heartened,” Gibbs continued, still surveying his domain rather than meeting Bex’s eyes, “to learn that the duke had been generous with your father.” His hand lifted then to stroke the underside of his chin. “I understand Worley has settled a number of his accounts around town.”

  Bex stiffened. The man was well informed. It should not have been a surprise, he supposed. Gibbs’s business depended upon it. Bex had not remained to participate in the arrangements after his father had shamelessly demanded a financial rescue from the duke, but he knew it had been granted—though to what extent and for how long, he could not be certain. Although Bex had very clearly declined any direct assistance from the duke, it rankled him to know his cousin now paid the monthly rental for the London house.

  “I had rather hoped you, and thus, I, would benefit from such generosity, but none has been forthcoming.” Gibbs investigated the tidiness of his fingernails. “Though I understand, despite your family connection, you are not necessarily an intimate of the duke’s.”

  Very well informed, indeed.

  “On the contrary,” Bex said with as much of a casual tone as he was capable. “The duke and duchess are not hosting much, given the duchess’s condition, but I am regularly invited to family dinners and attend when I can.” He looked out over the gaming tables. “I will be dining at Worley House in two days’ time, as it happens.”

  One fastidiously trimmed eyebrow lifted dubiously. “Is that so?”

  “It is.”

  Damn. Now it would have to be so. Bex cursed his rash speech. “I am on quite good terms with the duke and duchess,” he lied, just to settle a little more quickly into his sinkhole.

  “I am very glad to hear it.”

  Bex gave a clipped nod in response, not wanting to commit beyond what he’d already implied—that payments from the duke might be expected shortly.

  “Did you have need of me, sir?”

  Bex lifted his eyes to a tall, gray-eyed man of indeterminate age and an ill-fitting jacket. His complexion bore the look of one who kept indoors to an unhealthy degree.

  The Mathematician.

  If the man had a true name, Bex did not know it and Gibbs never used it.

  “Ah. Your timing is exemplary,” Gibbs said. “Please provide Mr. Brantwood with a current detail of his accounts.”

  “Of course, sir.” The man gave a slight bow.

  “Thank you,” Bex responded with a nod, seeing no purpose in reminding them he already possessed a full accounting.

  The Mathematician’s eyes flitted over Bex, and he had the distinct impression there was very little this man failed to notice. Bex imagined behind every successful gaming operation there must be at least one such man—a man who was more interested in the numbers for the numbers’ sake. When so many funds, cards, and dice moved freely around the room, with credit extended here and winnings disbursed there, any wise proprietor of a gaming hell must rely heavily on a man who excelled at sums and figures. But none other than the Mathematician did so with such spectacular memory and precision that his reputation exceeded his employer’s. If rumor held true, he could recall every play, every card, every shilling owed, and his word was final in the settlement of any dispute. He was not a brash or forceful man, but at his quiet signal, other men—less intellectually inclined—could be dispatched with immediacy.

  “Will you be
staying longer, or should I have your statement sent around to your house, Mr. Brantwood?” the Mathematician asked.

  “No need for the trouble of a courier,” Bex said, rising from his seat. “Perhaps I’ll see what is happening at the card table this evening while I wait.”

  “You don’t play cards, Mr. Brantwood.” The man’s response was not a question. It was a fact—noted by a man who specialized in factual details.

  “I no longer play cards,” Bex confirmed, “but I find still I enjoy observing cardplayers.”

  The tall man nodded stiffly in acceptance of this explanation and departed their company.

  Gibbs rose as Bex had done, smoothing his hands down the front of his thighs as he did so. “You won’t be harassing my cardplayers, will you, Brantwood?” he asked, his voice congenial and light despite the unpleasantness of their recent business. “They’re a superstitious lot. A loitering observer may put some off their luck.”

  “No need for concern. I’m simply an interested spectator. I won’t linger overmuch near any one player.”

  “If you want to observe without discomfiting anyone, perhaps I might draw you to the hazard table. It’s an intriguing game. You might find yourself drawn in.”

  Bex looked across the room to where a crowd gathered around the hazard table, a group large enough to include both players and observers. He would much prefer to observe cardplayers this night, but his position with Gibbs was precarious enough, so dice it would be. “Indeed,” Bex said. “Perhaps I can watch and learn. But tell me,” he said, “who is the cardplayer at the far table? The serious fellow in the blue jacket? He has drawn my curiosity.”

  Gibbs followed Bex’s line of sight to the man in question. “Ah. Lord Ashby. He does take his play quite seriously.”

  Ashby.

  The name tugged at him with a distant familiarity before he remembered. Lord Ashby had daughters in addition to a penchant for cards. Bex’s interest was only in the latter, so he resisted the smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth. He did not inquire further. Gibbs would have too much discretion to clarify whether “serious” play translated to skill and thus success at the tables. “That was what drew my notice,” he said. “Good luck to him.”