Appalled, Diana stared up at him. In her real life, she had always been protected from moments of clumsiness by her sex and status. Here, she had neither of those defenses and wondered wildly if she should already be on her knees begging clemency.
The man whose wine she had spilled, frowned down at her. He was a tall young man, still in his twenties, probably, with black hair cut shortish, though not in any fashionable style. His face, long and lean like the rest of him, might have been handsome. Diana was too agitated to tell. Certainly, it was the sort of face one noticed. Beneath thick, dramatic brows, his dark eyes were intense, somehow belying the aloofness of his overall expression. His shapely lips looked rigid, no doubt with irritation. Worse, he possessed a clear if indefinable air of authority, of importance, that told her not many people dared to spill this man’s wine.
“Shall I fetch another, sir?” she blurted.
His frown twitched and smoothed. “No, I think my coat has had enough for one evening. But thank you.”
Perhaps it was nerves, but a snort of laughter escaped her, and she had to straighten her face. “Shall I have it sponged, sir? In case it suffers in the morning.”
Amusement and a hint of surprise flickered across his face. “No, I think we should let it bear the consequences.” He set down the wine glass on the nearest table and strolled away toward the smoking room, drawing a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his hand and coat as he went.
Both relieved and intrigued by his careless response to her crime, Diana didn’t wish to scurry too closely after him. However, the scowl of the watching Titan forced her to maneuver through the throngs more quickly than she would have liked.
The man she’d bumped into stood just inside the door between the smoking room and the lounge, gazing around. Diana slid past his back and onto her harp stool. Only as she drew the harp against her shoulder and settled her sore fingers across the strings did she become aware of what was happening in the rest of the room.
The supper tables were nearly full now but had been pushed to one side. The armchairs had been set back against the walls to make space for the crowd of young men who stood about encouraging a bizarre race between a dog and a cat. Neither participant seemed to be terribly interested, much to the annoyance of the inebriated young bucks who had bet on one or the other.
Diana shrugged mentally and began to play, ignoring the protest of her fingers. She was sure the man she’d spilled wine over turned to glance at her, but she refused to look back, keeping her gaze instead on the strings or on the confused dog sniffing about for his master. The cat, bored by the entire proceedings, was cleaning itself.
The dark-haired man sauntered through her line of vision, pausing to speak to an acquaintance or two as he moved to the one empty table in the far corner. There had been something appealing about his humor and careless kindness, but his eyes were perceptive and direct, and she certainly did not want him recognizing her as a female.
On the other hand, she recognized several gentlemen who drifted in and out of the room—a few friends of her father and brother, others who had visited the Princess of Wales or formed part of her court. The latter made her extremely nervous, but if any glanced her way, they must have seen only the powdered boy in the ridiculous costume playing music on the harp that no one listened to, merely one of the many servants of Mrs. Dove-Lyon.
The great lady herself—for that is what she was, in this place at least—walked regally through the room occasionally, never lifting her veil but exchanging friendly remarks with a few favored clients. So far as Diana could tell, she never so much as glanced at her servants.
Not long after the dog versus cat race—which the dog won in the end through the cat’s supreme indifference to either food or human approval—a heavy mattress was brought in by several of the Den’s servants and propped up against the far wall. Close on their heels, two gentlemen strolled in with matching dueling pistols in their hands. One of them was the loud Scotsman, whose red face and slightly lurching gait proclaimed he was more than a little the worse for drink.
Diana’s hands fumbled the strings.
One of the gaming staff strode in with a large book and sat down by the wall. “Place your bets,” he invited cheerfully, “on your choice of these two gentlemen who will endeavor to shoot a wine glass from each other’s hand until one fails to hit the target! The winner is the man who hits all the glasses. After every round, the shooters will drink a glass of wine, and the target will be held ever-closer to the body for the next shot.”
That is insane, Diana thought, shocked. Did people really wager on such dangerous and pointless displays of idiocy? Anyone could see that Garvie was foxed. She could only assume the other gentleman was in a similar state, which endangered everyone in the room. But no one fled. Instead, they all scrambled to make their wagers.
Diana would have stopped playing, except Lysander had entered the room again and glared at her, so she carried on. His stated purpose was to reload the pistols and enforce the rules, while one of the other escorts watched from the doorway.
The Scotsman went first, removing his coat and waistcoat, and standing behind the line Lysander had chalked on the wood floor. His opponent, an elegant man with a haughty expression and deep lines of dissipation on his face, was similarly undressed. He stood beside the mattress with an empty wine glass held out at arm’s length. He gripped it by the base with two fingertips. A decent shot might not kill him, but the ball could still make a horrible mess of his hand.
The Scotsman took aim. Diana stopped playing and grasped the frame of the harp.
The gunshot seemed to explode in her head, along with the tinkling of glass.
“Ha!” exclaimed the Scot with pleasure. “Got it, by God!”
Diana saw no blood. Instead, a waiter swept away the glass while the gentlemen nonchalantly swapped places. The elegant Englishman, whose name was apparently Harrington, took aim, shot, and also broke the glass with no injury to his rival. They both returned to the table and drank a glass of wine each. Then Garvie took his reloaded pistol from Lysander, and marched off to the chalk line, while the Englishman went to the mattress.
Lysander adjusted Harrington’s arm so that the elbow was slightly bent, bringing the glass several inches closer to his body for this next stage.
Satisfied, Lysander stepped away. “Fire at will.”
Astonishingly enough, this round also ended in no injuries, and the gentlemen then took another drink. The Scotsman resumed his reloaded pistol, and Harrington, showing remarkably little fear, walked in a fairly straight line to the mattress where the glass was arranged worryingly close to his body this time.
“Fire at will,” Lysander instructed.
The drunken Garvie aimed somewhat owlishly at his opponent.
“You should stop this,” Diana hissed at Lysander. “He’ll kill him!”
Lysander ignored her.
Oh well, there goes my bridegroom, imprisoned for pointless murder. She tensed.
Another explosion rent the air, and the wine glass shattered. A tiny trickle of blood appeared on Harrington’s hand, but according to Lysander, it was only from a small flying shard.
Garvie grinned, all but threw his pistol at Lysander for reloading, and lurched up to the mattress.
A movement near the chalk line caught her eye. Harrington had already lifted his reloaded pistol from the table and was taking aim.
Diana cried out an inarticulate warning.
Lysander jerked around and barely had time to leap out of the way before Harrington fired, and Garvie roared. The glass fell to the floor and shattered.
“Too quick!” Lysander snarled, striding up to the Scotsman who was clutching his bloody hand in pain. “I never gave the order to fire!”
Diana, with no recollection of leaving the harp, found herself on Garvie’s other side, helping him into a chair. A bowl of warm water appeared on the table along with bandages.
“The ball’s gone straight through
one finger,” Lysander said grimly. “We’ll fetch Mrs. Dove-Lyon, but you should live. Di, can you staunch the blood and bandage him up for now?”
Diana nodded, tight-lipped. She had been brought up to care for household injuries and sicknesses. But what had the fools been thinking of? Did Mrs. Dove-Lyon really allow this kind of behavior? No one else seemed terribly moved by the incident, even the victim who merely growled at her to hurry and get on with it and bring him a very large brandy for the pain.
“He should see a doctor,” she said harshly.
“Madam is just as good,” Lysander said laconically. “She—”
He broke off at a sudden call from elsewhere in the building. Some other commotion was clearly occurring, for both Lysander and his colleague at the door departed rapidly. The man with the large book slammed it shut and trotted after them.
Harrington, the loser of the bet, came and sat on the table where Diana was wrapping the bandage around Garvie’s broken finger. He smiled rather cruelly at his victim. “Losing was almost worth it to hear you bellow.”
The Scotsman snorted. “Go away, Harrington, or I’ll bellow too loud for your delicate little ears. Very happy to take your damned money. And that of all the other fools who bet on you. You might not slur your speech, but by God, you can’t hold your drink!”
There was an ugly curl to Mr. Harrington’s smile. “Perhaps I lost deliberately for the pleasure of your pain.”
“Ha!” Garvie snorted derisively. “Not you. You love the readies too much. You just can’t see straight.”
Diana finished tying up the bandage and rose without a word to tidy everything into a box. Neither man noticed her, let alone thanked her.
“Prove it,” Harrington said at once. “Double or quits.”
“Go to hell, Harrington. I need one hand to drink with.”
The rest of the room was clearly entertained by this exchange. Only she seemed to find the mood ugly to the point of dangerous. The gentleman she had spilled wine on sat where she had last seen him, in the shadowy corner, watching impassively. He rose, making his way toward the front of the room as though he found the whole scene either distasteful or boring. Or both.
Harrington glared round everyone. “What about the rest of you, then? Anyone brave enough to take me on? Same rules, same play.”
“Not on your life,” one man said fervently. “You’re drunk as a wheelbarrow, Harrington, and I’ve no wish to lose my hand or my head!”
“Cold feet, eh? What about you, Nester? Never known you to turn down a wager.”
“First time for everything,” came the firm reply.
“Take a powder, Harrington,” an older gentleman advised. “The book isn’t here, anyway. Try again tomorrow, about four hours earlier in the night.”
But Harrington had latched on to his idea with drunken stubbornness and wouldn’t be deflected. “Don’t need a damned book,” he declared, striding across the floor so suddenly, he knocked into Diana. She staggered, almost falling over, which brought her to his attention.
He smiled and snatched her by the collar. “You’ll do.”
Chapter Three
“Change of rules,” Harrington said cheerfully as she wriggled to be free. “I get three shots. If I make them, I win. Who’ll bet against me?”
“No one will bet at all,” the older gentleman said irritably. “Sit down man, and leave the lad alone. The staff is not for wagering.”
“He doesn’t mind, do you, boy?” Harrington said, dragging her toward the mattress. On the way, he snatched up the reloaded pistol from the table.
“Yes, I do!” Diana declared, tugging away from him. But he was unexpectedly strong for a man so drunk.
She glanced wildly around the tables for the second pistol. Lysander had had no time to reload it before he left, but if Harrington didn’t remember that, it might give her something to threaten him with. For although there were several protests from the other men in the room, none of those she passed made any physical effort to stop her captor. She supposed with growing horror that it was still simply amusing.
How had her life come to this?
Harrington all but threw her the last couple of feet, so that her back slammed against the lumpy mattress, now leaking a few feathers. He had grabbed a glass, too, and emptied its contents on the floor before shoving it into her hand.
“Don’t be so mean, Harrington,” one of the guests said. “The boy’s a musician. He won’t thank you for a broken hand.”
It wasn’t much of an argument to the drunk Harrington, who didn’t even respond. As with his last shot, he clearly had no intention of waiting.
Diana gripped the glass harder, intending to hit him over the head with it, just as soon as he released her arm. But as if he guessed her intention, he leveled the pistol at her face before he let go. For an instant, she stared into his eyes and saw only entitlement and cruelty, as though all humanity had left him, along with sense.
“You cannot just murder me,” she uttered.
“Then stay still,” he snapped. With the pistol still aimed at her, he backed several paces and changed aim toward her outstretched hand. She lifted her chin, trying hard to remember she came from an old and proud family that never showed fear.
The inevitable explosion of the pistol made her jump, but she held desperately onto the unbroken glass, waiting for the pain to hit her. Only, in that instant, she saw that Harrington had dropped the weapon, that it was his hand that bled. He was staring at it in shocked puzzlement.
The dark-haired gentleman she had secretly admired walked up to Harrington and laid a smoking pistol on the nearest table. It was the other dueling pistol, the one Lysander hadn’t had time to prepare. The man had clearly loaded it himself, though why he’d chosen to interfere, Diana had no idea.
It was possible he had saved her life. He had certainly saved her from a nasty injury.
Slowly, she lowered her arm, placed the glass on the nearest table, and realized she was trembling.
Her savior kicked Harrington’s feet from under him, and the dangerous drunk fell into the chair behind him. Harrington was curiously silent, staring in growing horror at his bloody hand. The man who’d shot him walked away as if there was no more to be done.
Garvie, staring at his own bandaged hand, said, “Not sure you should have done that.”
“Done what?” demanded Mrs. Dove-Lyon, sweeping into the room with Titan and several escorts and waiters at her back. “What has been going on here?” She hurried straight to Diana. From the subtle movement of her veil, she was breathing too quickly. For the first time since Diana had met her, she was genuinely agitated.
A dead servant would have been bad enough. The dead daughter of Sir Geoffrey Wade in her establishment was another matter altogether. Very bad for business, Diana thought cynically.
“Bring fresh water and bandages for Mr. Harrington’s wound,” she snapped. “Staunch the bleeding, and I will see to it in a few moments. Who shot you? And why?”
The last was aimed at Harrington himself, but the man was too busy staring at his injury to respond.
“I did,” said Diana’s savior. “It seemed the simplest way to prevent him from shooting your harpist.”
“Oh, dear God,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon muttered beneath her breath. She took Diana’s arm in a firm, almost comforting grip. “Come with me. Sir,” she added to Diana’s savior, “be so good as to come to my sitting room before you leave. You know the way.”
He bowed in acknowledgment, and his dark eyes flickered over Diana.
“Thank you,” she said hoarsely.
He merely nodded and poured a glass of brandy from the nearby decanter. He didn’t give it to Harrington.
“Child, I am so sorry,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said as soon as they were alone. They were in her private room where Diana had first met her hostess, but sitting on the sofa now instead of at the desk. “Lysander and Francis were meant to look after you, but both left you in order to deal with a fight that ha
d broken out in the main hall. But that is no—”
She broke off, and Diana guessed she was not used to owning fault.
“I am not shot or hurt in the slightest,” Diana said. “But you must know that if you permit such stupid wagers, someone will be hurt.”
Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s breath hissed through the veil. “You’re right, of course, they are stupid. And this is hardly the first time guests have been injured by the more extreme…games. But that is the reason people of your class come here in their droves. And keep coming back. They like the risk, the danger, the differentness of what goes on here. If they didn’t come for such games, ladies wouldn’t come to catch a shocking glimpse, or to ask me for husbands.”
Diana sat abruptly. “I had almost forgotten that. I don’t like your Lord Garvie. He’s a vulgar, drunken fool.”
Mrs. Dove-Lyon sat in the chair opposite, regarding her in silence. It was impossible to tell if she cared, and yet Diana could have sworn she was surprised. “Is that your veto?” the widow asked at last.
Diana flapped one hand. “I don’t know,” she said miserably. “Your establishment does not give me a pleasant view of gentlemen.”
“I thought it might clarify to see them as they are.”
“I don’t like what they are.”
“Not even Lord Garvie?”
Diana shuddered.
“Well, you have had a shock. As indeed have I. I’ve no idea how I would have told your mother,”
Diana summoned a rueful smile. “The task would no doubt have been harder had I lost a hand as well as my reputation. Do I have to go back out there tonight?”
“No. No, I think you should go to bed now and sleep. We shall leave vetoes and next steps until the morning. Enter,” she added in a louder voice as a knock sounded.
Lysander stuck his head around the door. “We’ve got Mr. Harrington cleaned up as best we can, but you’d better take a look at it. And the other!”
“I’ll come directly.” Mrs. Dove-Lyon stood and briefly gripped Diana’s shoulder. Then she lifted a glass from the table and thrust it into her hand. “Drink this and then go up to the bedchamber you were given. Two floors up, remember.”
Fed to the Lyon Page 3