Virtue v-1

by Jane Feather

  Judith returned to the card room, but only to make her farewells, pleading a headache. Charlie was all solicitude, begging to escort her home, but Sebastian was on his feet immediately.

  "No need for that, Fenwick. I'll take m'sister home." He yawned himself. "In truth, I'll not be sorry to keep early hours myself tonight. It's been a hard week." He grinned engagingly around the table.

  "A demmed lucky one for you, Davenport," one of the players said with a sigh, pushing across an IOU.

  "Oh, I've the luck of the devil," Sebastian said cheerfully, pocketing the vowel. "It runs in the family, doesn't it, Judith?"

  Her smile was somewhat abstracted. "So they say."

  Sebastian's eyes sharpened and his gaze flickered to the door of the card room, to where the Marquis of Carrington stood, taking snuff. "You look a little wan, m'dear," Sebastian said, taking his sister's arm.

  "I don't feel quite the thing," she agreed. "Oh, thank you, Charlie." She smiled warmly as the young man arranged her shawl around her shoulders.

  "Perhaps you won't feel like riding tomorrow," Charlie said, unable to hide the disappointment in his voice. "Shall I call upon you-"

  "No, indeed not. My aunt detests callers," she broke in, touching his hand fleetingly as if in consolation. "But I shall be perfectly well tomorrow. I'll meet you in the park, as we arranged."

  Brother and sister made their way out of the card room. Marcus bowed as they reached the door. "I bid you good night, Miss Davenport… Davenport."

  "Good night, my lord." She swept past him, then, on an impulse she didn't quite understand, murmured over her shoulder, "I am riding with your cousin in the morning."

  "Oh, I fully understand that you've thrown down the glove," he said, as softly as she. "But you have not yet tasted my mettle, ma'am. Take heed." He bowed again in formal farewell and turned away before she could reply.

  Judith bit her lip, aware of a strange mingling of apprehension and excitement unlike anything she'd felt before, and she knew it was as dangerous as it was uncomfortable.

  "What's amiss, Ju?" Sebastian spoke as soon as they were out of the mansion and on the cobbled street.

  "I'll tell you when we get home." She climbed into the shabby carriage that awaited them on the corner, sitting back against the cracked leather squabs, a frown drawing her arched brows together, her teeth dosing over her lower lip.

  Sebastian knew that expression. It usually meant that his sister's eccentric principles were aroused. She wouldn't say anything until she was ready, so he was content to sit back and wait for her to tell him what was absorbing her.

  The carriage drew up outside a narrow house on a darkened lane in a part of town that had definitely seen better days. Brother and sister alighted and Sebastian paid the driver for the evening's work. Judith was already unlocking the front door, and they stepped into a narrow passage, lit by a single tallow candle in a sconce on the stairway wall.

  "One of these days someone's going to notice how we never give anyone our direction," Sebastian observed, following his sister up the stairs. "The tale of the irritable aunt won't hold good forever."

  "We won't be in Brussels for much longer," Judith said. "Napoleon's bound to make his move soon and then the army will be gone. There'll be no point in our remaining in an empty city." She pushed open a door at the head of the stairs onto a square parlor.

  The room was dark and dingy, the furniture shabby, the carpet direadbare, and the gloomy light of tallow candles did nothing to improve matters. She tossed her India shawl on a broken-backed couch and sank into a chair, a deep frown corrugating her brow.

  "How much did we make tonight?"

  "Two thousand," he said. "It would have been more, but after you'd gone off with Carrington, I lost the next hand by miscounting an ace." He shook his head in self-disgust. "It's always the way; I grow careless if I rely on you for too many hands."

  "Mmm." Judith kicked off her shoes and began to massage one foot. "But we need to practice now and again to keep our hands in. In fact, I think we must spend some serious time perfecting the moves because I must have made a mistake, although I can't think how. But the Most Honorable Marquis of Carrington is wise to us."

  Sebastian whistled. "Hell and the devil. So now what?"

  "I don't know exactly." Judith was still frowning as she switched feet, pulling on her toes with an absent vigor. "He said he'd not call foul on us, but he issued a most direct command that I cure Charlie of his infatuation."

  "Well, that's easily done. You've never had any difficulty disentangling yourself from an overzealous suitor."

  "No, but why should I? I have no intention of hurting Charlie. In fact, a little sophisticated dalliance will do wonders for him, and if he loses a few thousand at cards, it's not as if he can't afford it. Apart from those few minutes tonight, the only unfair odds he's faced are in your native talent. He plays because he chooses to, and I fail to see why Carrington should be allowed to meddle."

  Sebastian regarded his sister warily. It was definitely a case of offended principles. "He is his guardian," he pointed out. "And we're a disreputable pair, Ju. You shouldn't take it too much to heart if someone realizes that and behaves accordingly."

  "Oh, nonsense!" she said. "We're no more disreputable than anyone else. It's just that we're not hypocrites. We have to put a roof over our heads and bread on the table, and we do it in the only way we know."

  Sebastian went to the sideboard and poured cognac into two goblets. "You could always go for a governess." He handed her one of the goblets, chuckling at her horrified expression. "I can just see you imparting the finer points of watercolors and the rudiments of Italian to frilly little girls in a schoolroom."

  Judith began to laugh. "Not at all. I would teach them to play piquet and backgammon for large stakes; to flutter their eyelashes and offer amusing little sallies to gentlemen who might be induced to play; to know when it's time to move on; to find the cheapest lodgings and servants; to slip away in the night to avoid the bailiff, to create a wardrobe out of thin air. In short, I would teach them all the elements for a successful masquerade. Just as I was taught."

  The laughter had left her voice half way through the speech and Sebastian took her hand. "We'll be avenged, Ju."

  "For Father," she said, lifting her head and taking a sip of her cognac. "Yes, we'll be avenged for him."

  Silently Sebastian joined her in the toast, and for a moment they both stared into the empty grate, remembering. Remembering and reaffirming their vow. Then Judith put the glass on a side table and stood. "I'm going to bed." She kissed his cheek and the gesture reminded her of something that brought a glitter of determination to her eyes. "I'm in the mood to play with fire, Sebastian."

  "Carrington?"

  She nodded. "The gentleman needs to be disarmed. He said he wouldn't cry foul on us, but supposing he decided to alert people in London to beware of playing with you? If I can intrigue him… engage him in a flirtation… he'll be less likely to concern himself with what you do at the tables."

  Sebastian regarded his sister dubiously. "Are you a match for him?"

  Was she? For a minute she felt again the press of his fingers on her skin, saw again the sharp shrewdness in the black eyes, the unconciliatory slash of his mouth, the prominent jaw. But of course she was a match for any town beau. She knew things, had seen and done things, that had honed her wits to a keenness he would not be expecting.

  "Of course," she declared confidently. "And there'll be great satisfaction, I can tell you, in seeing him succumb as easily as his cousin did. It'll teach him to be so high-handed."

  Sebastian looked even more dubious. "I don't like it when you mix motives like that. We're so close to catching up with Gracemere, Judith. Don't risk anything."

  "I won't, I promise. I'm just going to show the most honorable marquis that I don't take kindly to insults."

  "But if you arouse his curiosity, he's going to want to know who we are and where we come from."
r />   She shrugged. "So what? The usual fiction will satisfy him. We're the children of an eccentric English gentleman of respectable though obscure lineage, recently deceased, who, after the death of his wife at a tragically early age, chose to travel the Continent for the rest of his life with us in tow."

  "Instead of the truth," Sebastian said. "That we're the children of a disgraced Yorkshire squire, disinherited by his family, driven out of England by scandal and his wife's subsequent suicide, forced to change his name and earn his bread at the gaming tables of the Continent." The story rolled glibly off his tongue, but Judith knew her brother and could hear his pain; it was her own, too.

  "And he taught his children all he knew, so that from a horribly precocious age they were his enablers and assistants," she finished for him.

  Sebastian shook his head. "Too harsh a truth for the delicate sensibilities of the Quality to handle, my dear."

  "Just so." Judith nodded with a return to briskness. "Don't worry, Sebastian. Carrington won't get so much as a sniff at the real story. I'll invent some playful reason for that piece of dubious card play this evening. Mischief rather than need, I think. And if he doesn't catch us at it again and I manage to charm him a bit, I'm sure he won't mention it again."

  "I've not yet met the man you can't entangle when you put your mind to it," Sebastian agreed, chuckling. "Just watching you at work is an everlasting delight."

  "Wait until I turn my charms on Gracemere," his sister said, blowing him a kiss. "That'll be a treat, I promise you."

  She went into her bedroom next door-a room as dingy as the parlor and none too clean. The landlord's serving maid was less than thorough at her tasks, but the Davenports had been living in such lodgings for as long as they could remember and were accustomed to seeing only what they chose to see.

  Undressed, she climbed into bed and lay looking up at the faded canopy. Gracemere was in London. They would need maybe twenty thousand pounds in ready money to set themselves up in London in a reasonably fashionable part of town. There would be servants to pay, some form of carriage and horses, even if they were only hired. They would both need large and elaborate wardrobes and at least an illusion of a generous income. The gaming would take care of their everyday expenses once they were established, but they would have to tread a fine line. High-stakes gaming was an accepted activity in Society, for women as well as men, but one must never give the impression that it mattered whether one won or lost.

  They would operate their double act only in the final stages of the plan, when it was time to administer the coup de grace. It was too dangerous and powerful a tool to be used except in extremity.

  George Davenport had never known of the double act. He had taught his children to rely on wits and skill at the tables, but there had been times of dire necessity… those days, sometimes weeks, when he had retreated into the dark world of his soul and there had been no money for food or fuel or even lodging. Then Judith and her brother had learned to fend for themselves.

  Tonight they had been practicing, as they did now and again, but somehow she had slipped up and been discovered.

  Marcus Devlin, Marquis of Carrington.

  Bernard Melville, third Earl of Gracemere.

  Her strategem with the one must advance her plans for the other. Sebastian was right about the dangers of mixed motives. She must concentrate only on the need to disarm the marquis in order to guarantee his silence. And any personal satisfaction she might garner from his submission would be a purely private and secondary pleasure. Nothing must be permitted to jeopardize the grand design… the driving force behind the life she and Sebastian presently led.

  2

  "My dear Bernard, how will I endure two whole months without you?" Agnes Barret sighed and stretched out a bare leg, examining the supple curve of calf, the delicate turn of ankle with a complacent smile. She pinched her thigh several times between finger and thumb; the flesh was as firm as a girl's.

  "Your husband's entitled to a honeymoon, my dear." The Earl of Gracemere watched his lady with a knowing smile laced with desire. Agnes's vanity was one of her few weaknesses-her only weakness, in fact, and she was undoubtedly entitled to it. At forty-three she was more beautiful than she'd been at twenty, he thought. Her hair was still as lustrously auburn as ever, her tawny eyes as luminous, her skin as soft and translucent, her figure as lithe and elegant. In truth, there wasn't a woman to touch her, and Bernard Melville had known many women. But always there had been Agnes. She was woven into the fabric of his life as he was woven into hers.

  "Oh, Thomas!" Agnes dismissed the inconvenient bridegroom with a languid wave of one white hand. "He's suffering from another attack of gout, would you believe? He can't bear anyone to come within six feet of his left foot, which should rather cut down on the customary activities of a honeymoon." She picked up a glass of wine from the bedside table and sipped, glancing at the earl over the rim.

  "Is that a cause for complaint?" Bernard inquired. "I was under the impression that you were dreading the duties of the conjugal bedchamber with an elderly husband."

  "Well, so I am, but one must have something to do to while away two months of rustication," Agnes returned, a shade tartly. "I assume you will find solace for your empty bed somewhere in Yorkshire… a village girl, or a milkmaid, or some such."

  "Jealous, Agnes?" He smiled and took up his own glass. He walked to the window, looking down at the sluggishly flowing River Thames below. A horse-drawn barge inched along the south bank of the river. One of London's many church bells pealed on the hot June air.

  "Hardly. I don't consider country wenches as rivals."

  "My dear one, you have no equal anywhere, so you cannot possibly fear a rival." He took a sip of wine and bent over her, holding the wine in his mouth as he brought his lips to hers. Her mouth opened beneath his and the wine slid over his tongue to fill her mouth with a warm sweetness. His hands went to her breasts in a leisurely caress and she fell back on the bed beneath him.

  The evening sun had set, turning the river below their window to a dull, gunmetal gray, before they spoke again.

  "I don't know how soon I'll be able to ask Thomas for a sum sufficient to quieten your creditors." Agnes shifted and the bedropes creaked. "It's a little awkward to demand a substantial sum from one's bridegroom as one leaves the altar."

  "That's why I'm going into Yorkshire," Bernard said, letting his hand rest on her turned flank. "I can escape my creditors for the summer, while you, my love, work upon the gouty but so wealthy Sir Thomas."

  Agnes chuckled. "I have my appealing story well prepared… an indigent second cousin, I believe, suffering from rheumatism and living in a drafty garret."

  "I trust you won't be required to produce this relative," Bernard remarked with a responding chuckle. "I don't know how good a master of disguise I would prove."

  "You are as much a master of deception as I, my dear," Agnes said.

  "Which is why we suit each other so remarkably well," Bernard agreed.

  "And always have done." Agnes's mouth curved in a smile of reminiscence. "Even as children… how old were we, the first time?"

  Bernard turned his head to look at the face beside him on die pillow. "Old enough… although some might say we were a trifle precocious." He moved his hand lazily to palm die delicate curve of her cheek. "We were born to please each other, my love." Hitching himself on one elbow, he brought his mouth to hers, exerting a bruising almost suffocating pressure as his palm tightened around her face and he held her flat and still with his weight. When finally he released her mouth, there was an almost feral glitter of excitement in her tawny eyes. She touched her bruised and swollen lips with a caressing finger.

  Bernard laughed and lay down beside her again. "However," he said as if that moment of edging violence had not occurred, "I shall look around me for a fat pigeon to pluck at the beginning of the Season. I don't wish to be totally dependent upon your husband's unwitting charity."

  "No, it would
be as well not. It's a pity Thomas is no gamester." Agnes sighed. "That was such a perfect game we once played."

  "But, as you say, Thomas Barret is no George Dever-eux," Gracemere agreed, reaching indolently for his wineglass. "I wonder what happened to that husband of yours."

  "It's to be hoped he's dead," Agnes said, taking the glass from him. "Otherwise I am a bigamist, my dear." She sipped, her eyes gleaming with amusement.

  "Who's to know but you and I?" Her companion laughed with the same amusement. "Alice Devereux, the wife of George Devereux, has been dead and buried these last twenty years as far as the world's concerned… dead of grief at her husband's dishonor." He chuckled richly.

  "Not that the world saw anything of her, either before or during her marriage," Agnes put in with remembered bitterness. "Having married his country innocent, George was interested only in keeping her pregnant and secluded in the Yorkshire wilds."

  "But with the death of reclusive Alice in a remote convent in the French Alps, the sociable Agnes was born," Gracemere pointed out.

  "Yes, a far preferable identity," Agnes agreed with some satisfaction. "I enjoyed making my society debut as the wealthy young widow of an elderly Italian count.

  Society is so much more indulgent toward women of independent means, particularly if they have a slightly mysterious past." She smiled lazily. "I wouldn't be an ingenue again for all the youthful beauty in the world. Do you ever miss Alice, Bernard?"

  He shook his head. "No, Agnes is so much more exciting, my love. Alice was a young girl, while Agnes was born into womanhood… and women have much more to offer a man of my tastes."

  "Sophisticated, and perhaps a little outri," Agnes murmured, again touching her bruised mouth. "But to return to the question of money…"