Regency Wagers

by Diane Gaston

  Guy tiptoed by the old butler and went into the library. The clock on the mantel said four-twenty. He might make it into town to complete his business, if he made haste. He gathered some of his other winnings from the locked drawer and put them all together in the packet, tucking it safely in the pocket of his coat. Proceeding quietly so as not to wake Bleasby, he collected his greatcoat and hurried out.

  Guy returned at dinnertime, rushing above stairs to dress, his heart light now his shoulders were free of the burden of debt. He dressed quickly, and finding no one in the parlour, headed to the dining room.

  His mother and the aunts all looked up when he entered. Emily was not at the table.

  ‘Guy, where have you been?’ his mother cried. ‘We have all been so worried. You should have told us you had business away from home.’

  He gave his mother a kiss on the cheek. ‘My apologies, Mother, I ought to have sent word.’

  ‘But your wife said you did send word,’ the Dowager said.

  Emily had lied for him? Of course. She would have known where he’d been.

  ‘Where is Emily?’ he asked.

  His mother fussed with the sleeves of her dress. ‘Oh, she pleads a sick headache. She has retired for the night.’

  Guy frowned. She’d never been ill. ‘Does she require a doctor?’ he asked.

  ‘She does not require a doctor,’ his mother responded in a peevish voice. ‘I believe she has the headache in order to keep from accompanying me this evening.’

  ‘Young people have no notion of manners these days,’ intoned Aunt Dorrie.

  He gave his great-aunt a stern look. ‘That is unkind, Aunt Dorrie.’

  Aunt Dorrie looked chastised.

  Aunt Pip almost smiled. ‘Young ladies do get headaches now and again. I am sure the poor dear needs a rest.’

  From her late nights? Aunt Pip was correct. She must be exhausted with the hours she kept. He had not wished to postpone his interview with her.

  Guy patted Aunt Pip’s shoulder on the way to his seat at the head of the table.

  His mother piped up, ‘It is a wonder we are not all prostrate after the worry you gave us, Guy.’

  ‘I do apologise, Mother,’ he said again.

  He let the rest of their conversation wash over him, mumbling occasional apologies for having worried them.

  He wanted to see Emily. With the money safe and their future secured, he wanted to tell her the whole. From start to finish.

  He wanted to tell her he’d known all along that she was Lady Widow. He wanted to tell her about the card game, how frightening it had been and how exhilarating. He wanted to confide in her his own weakness towards gambling and warn her to stop her own dangerous card playing before it ruined her like it had his father and brother. He wanted to confide in her what a shambles his father and brother had bequeathed to him, how many people would suffer if the estate went back into debt.

  Most of all he wanted to beg her forgiveness and ask for an opportunity to begin their marriage again.

  He was even willing to give up the intoxicating allure of Lady Widow. He wanted to put behind them Madame Bisou’s and all it meant. No more secrets. No more masks. But he should not inflict all this on her if she were ill upon her bed.

  Guy stared at his plate, his appetite gone.

  His mother’s voice broke through his reverie. ‘Guy? Guy!’

  He looked up. ‘Yes, Mother?’

  ‘You were not attending to me,’ she accused.

  ‘Merely woolgathering a moment, what were you saying?’ A change of subject might give a needed distraction.

  ‘We are invited to a card party,’ she said. ‘And your wife has begged off. I am very desirous of attending.’ She gave him a hopeful look. ‘Will you escort me, Guy?’

  He wanted to seek out his wife, not spend an evening at cards, but perhaps it would be cruel to inflict such a serious talk upon Emily if her head ached.

  He might as well make one person happy this night. ‘I’ll escort you, Mother.’

  It seemed he could not escape cards for even one evening.

  Emily had arranged to arrive at Madame Bisou’s early that night, departing before her husband and mother-in-law returned from the evening party. As soon as she handed Cummings her cloak, she asked to see Madame Bisou.

  The madam attended her immediately, a hopeful look on her face. ‘Robert?’ she asked.

  Emily shook her head. ‘I have not seen him, madame.’

  The henna-haired madam pursed her lips.

  ‘I wished to request of you a private room,’ Emily said.

  Madame Bisou’s eyes brightened. ‘Ah, you have selected a fortunate gentleman? How very superbe!’

  Emily affected her most haughty Lady Widow tone. ‘I wish a room in which to play a private game of cards. You have such rooms, do you not?’

  Madame replied, still sounding amused, ‘I do indeed. Will you follow me?’ She grabbed a candle from the hall table.

  Emily followed her to the floor above the game room, the set of rooms where Madame’s girls took their gentlemen. Madame opened one of the doors and ushered her inside. She lit a colza oil lamp above a small card table.

  ‘Will this do, my lady?’ Madame asked.

  Emily looked around. The card table would do nicely, but she also noticed a bed tucked away in the corner, swathed in curtains and piled with pillows.

  ‘It will do,’ she responded. ‘I should also desire some refreshment. Some champagne, some brandy, and something to eat as well.’

  ‘Certainement,’ said Madame Bisou in her bad French. She started for the door.

  ‘Another thing,’ Emily said.

  Madame paused.

  ‘Would you please ask Lord Keating to join me?’

  Madame’s eyes lit up as brightly as her hair. ‘Aha!’ she exclaimed. ‘So it is he! Très bien.’

  ‘To play cards,’ added Emily.

  ‘Of course,’ said Madame Bisou with a trill of laughter as she swept from the room.

  Emily wandered around, touching the furniture, checking the fire in the grate, avoiding the bed.

  She supposed it would be all around the premises that she had invited Lord Keating to a private party. It put her to the blush, but as Lady Widow she must remain cool.

  She turned towards the bed and stared at it.

  Nerves fluttered in her stomach. What had happened to her resolve? Did she not wish to carry off this new scheme? It was revenge she was after, was it not? What other reason could she have for seducing her husband?

  Emily closed her eyes against an image of herself and Guy in that bed.

  No, not herself and Guy. Lady Widow.

  How much clearer could he have made his desire for Lady Widow than he’d done the night before, holding her and touching her in so familiar a manner? He had not come into his wife’s bed, looking for that sort of intimacy, had he? No, he’d gone to sleep alone. He’d not even attempted to give his wife one word of explanation of where he had been for two full turns around the clock.

  Her revenge would be to give him what he wanted. Lady Widow. Perhaps even this night she would entice him into that gaudy bed. Perhaps she would engineer a long sordid affair. When she was ready to leave him, she would reveal her secret. He would discover exactly what he had lost by chasing after a woman in a gaming hell and ignoring his wife. By then she would be gone, disappeared into a new quiet peaceful life somewhere.

  Alone.

  Directly after Guy returned from escorting his mother, he hurried up to his bedchamber. He strode immediately to the door connecting his wife’s room with his. He had thought about it all evening. He ought not to have let her headache impede him. He ought to have visited her and asked after her health and informed her he wished to speak with her when she recovered. He hoped it would not be too late. He could see candlelight from under the door. She would be awake.

  He opened the door.

  Her maid gave a shriek and dropped the dress she’d been holding
in her hand. Guy looked around. Emily was not to be seen.

  ‘I am looking for my wife,’ he said to the maid.

  She turned very pale and stood as still as a statue.

  ‘Well, girl? Tell me where she is.’

  The maid trembled. ‘She’s…she’s gone out, sir.’

  Out? To Madame Bisou’s, no doubt. Without another word he slammed the door. Grabbing his hat and cloak, he hurried back down the stairs to the hall. Rogers sat attending the door.

  ‘I’m going out, Rogers,’ he said, not even waiting for the footman to open the door for him. He flung it open himself and ran down the street to secure a hack.

  By the time he arrived at Madame Bisou’s he’d calmed down somewhat. She’d not done anything out of the ordinary—her ordinary, that is. She did not know he wished never to see this establishment again. If her headache improved, why would she not go gaming?

  He asked Cummings if Lady Widow were present and Cummings said, ‘Aye.’

  He looked for her first in the card room, but she was not to be seen there.

  He wandered into the supper room and was waylaid by Sir Reginald, who begged him to sit down for a drink. Guy obliged his father’s old friend, because he thought the man could give him news of Lady Widow. He ordered a glass of port and sipped while the older gentleman launched into his latest plan for winning the fair Lady Widow, shutting out all the younger bucks and winning the wager for her favours. It took all Guy’s powers of self-command to refrain from planting a facer on this old gent, who rhapsodised about the delights he expected to find when he finally won the prize. Guy’s wife. He might have punched him if not distracted by the notion that he had also not seen Cyprian Sloane about the place. Guy began to worry anew.

  Madame Bisou waved at him from the doorway, potentially saving Sir Reginald’s long straight aristocratic nose, and Guy’s sanity. He excused himself.

  When he reached the flamboyant madam, she took his arm and led him out into the hall.

  ‘She awaits you upstairs, chéri,’ Madame Bisou whispered, somehow sounding more like a mother giving her son a treat than a procuress.

  ‘Who?’ he asked. Madame Bisou had occasionally attempted to interest him in one of her girls.

  ‘Why, our Lady Widow, of course.’ She smiled. ‘You have won, it seems.’

  His heart skittered. Lady Widow? She had arranged a room and invited him there?

  He bent down to Madame Bisou’s ear. ‘Tell me the room, but do not refer to the wager about her. I am not a part of it.’

  She gave him a sceptical look and directed him to a room near the one where he’d spent twenty-four hours.

  He knocked.

  After a pause, he heard her voice. ‘Come in.’

  Heart now pounding, he entered.

  She stood in the centre of the room facing him, her posture stiff, as if she were a fox that had suddenly discovered dogs trailing it. She wore the blue gown, with a matching cap. Her face was blurred by the netting and obscured by the mask, but she looked to him like some goddess down from Mount Olympus.

  He ought to stop right now and tell her exactly what he knew about her. He ought to, but he could not make himself form the words. He saw the card table set up with decks of cards and stacks of counters. He saw the bed in the corner.

  Closing the door, he turned the key in the lock, and leaned against it, waiting.

  This was her game and to know what card he should play, she needed to toss hers down first.

  ‘Good evening, Lord Keating.’ She relaxed her body and spoke enticingly in Lady Widow’s voice.

  ‘Good evening, my lady,’ he responded.

  She walked over to the card table and fingered its green cloth. ‘I understand you have a penchant for private card games.’

  ‘Hardly a penchant, but I did very recently agree to one, as you well know.’

  ‘Yes, I do know.’ She cleared her throat and looked him directly in the eye. ‘I fancy a game of cards, and you are the only gentleman of my acquaintance who will honestly challenge me.’

  He glanced again to the bed. If this were merely an invitation to a game of cards, she could have met him in the game room. The rise of excitement he felt had nothing to do with gambling. He moved closer to her.

  She walked over to a side table. ‘Would you like a drink? I will have champagne, but I took the liberty of ordering brandy for you, since you like it so well.’

  What the devil did she mean by that? He raised a brow. This game became more and more intriguing. ‘I had no idea my likes and dislikes were of interest to you.’

  Emily had never spoken to him in such a seductive voice, nor moved with that surety he was seeing in her. Those behaviours bore the seal of Lady Widow and he was enticed.

  She feigned a small laugh. ‘A good gamester studies the opponent, does he not? If desiring to win, that is.’ She held up the bottle. ‘Shall I pour for you?’

  He gave a nod.

  She poured brandy for him and champagne for herself and carried both glasses to the card table, where she sat down, her skirts rustling like the sound of bed linens.

  He sat in the chair opposite her. ‘What game do you propose, Lady Widow?’ he asked.

  ‘Piquet?’

  A difficult game. It required attention, computation, memory and skill. And he was damnably rusty at it.

  ‘As you wish,’ he said.

  She lifted her chin. ‘What stakes?’

  He took a sip of his brandy. If he wagered money and she lost, it might eventually support his request that she resist the lure of gaming. On the other hand, he could not count on his skill in piquet. He’d not played since being posted to the Peninsula.

  She knew he would play in earnest. If she won from him, would it not further fuel her passion for the cards? He must choose stakes which would leave him at least even, should he lose.

  ‘If I win the partie,’ he stated, ‘you will remove your mask.’

  Her hand flew to her face, as if needing to ensure the mask remained in place. She checked herself and slowly lowered her hands to the table. ‘That is too easy,’ she said. ‘Not exciting enough by half.’ She cocked her head, her eyes suddenly brilliant from beneath the netting of her cap.

  Her eyes were blue this night, he noticed, reflecting the blue of her gown.

  She lifted a finger in the air between them. He wondered if it could gauge the palpable excitement in the air, an excitement which had nothing to do with winning at cards. ‘I suggest…’ she began, but then left a pregnant pause. ‘I suggest the loser of each round must remove a piece of clothing. If you play well enough, I might be forced to remove my mask.’

  ‘And the winner of a partie?’ The blood already surged through his veins.

  She gave him a most seductive grin. ‘The winner of a partie does the removing of the article of clothing.’

  He was ensnared. He’d surely lose this game by virtue of being too addled by carnal desire.

  He made himself answer as calmly as she. ‘And does the winner of the partie choose the piece of clothing to remove?’

  She laughed and shook her finger at him as if he were a naughty boy. ‘No, indeed. You will not win my mask in that manner, sir.’

  He lifted his glass and she raised hers to clink against his. They both drank, gazing at each other, as the fire crackled in the grate and the lamp flickered.

  ‘Your deal or mine?’ he asked.

  Chapter Fifteen

  By the time the clock struck the next hour, Emily sat at the card table without gloves, without shoes, and with only one stocking remaining. Guy had handily taken all five rounds, once with repique, earning sixty points before she’d even played a card. One round he took all the tricks, earning a capot. Fully dressed, he dealt the sixth hand.

  Her third glass of champagne calmed her nerves somewhat, but her eyes suddenly went out of focus. Opening wider, she made out too many sevens and eights and not one ace. Holding her breath, she made her exchange. Luck was with
her. She picked up the high spades, giving her a sequence of eight, and two more aces.

  She made her declaration with confidence. For the first time, the round was hers.

  Her husband grinned at her. With exaggerated drama, he removed one shoe, lifting it high in the air so she could see it was off his foot.

  ‘Do not gloat, my lady. I won the partie, you know,’ he said with a wicked grin. ‘Your rules require me to remove an article of your clothing. What shall it be?’

  She was so vexed at losing the previous rounds, she had not much heeded this part of their bargain.

  No matter. It was merely the first partie. The rest would be hers. Her luck would change.

  ‘You may remove my other stocking,’ she said. How bad could that be?

  He grinned and rose, twirling his finger to signal her to move her legs from beneath the table. She turned in her chair, but without a shred of graciousness.

  He knelt at her feet, which suddenly felt very exposed without shoes. She tucked her bare foot under her chair out of his sight.

  He placed her stockinged foot in the palm of one hand and covered it with the other, warming it in his hands. Then slowly he kneaded her foot, fingers digging into the sole and thumbs rubbing her arch. Not only did her foot tingle and throb and melt all at one time, but the sensations climbed clear up her leg, spreading a blanket of pleasure throughout her whole body.

  ‘This…this is removing my stocking?’ she managed, hoping her voice did not sound as breathless as she felt.

  His clever hands moved to her ankle. ‘No, this is for my enjoyment…and yours,’ he murmured. His hands worked their way up her leg, higher and higher, warming, massaging.

  Once, what seemed so long ago, he’d touched her even more intimately. The shock and the pleasure of that moment returned as if a mere hour had passed. She could not help but slide down in her chair, straightening her leg and giving him easier access. A long sigh escaped her lips.

  Would his fingers reach that very private spot? Would he dare touch her there again? Please?