Knave's Wager

by Loretta Chase

  Sir Thomas was a widower of nearly forty. He topped his prospective bride by a mere inch or two, his square figure was not so fit as it had once been, and his light brown hair, to his grief, was thinning. Though he was well enough looking—his jaw firm, his brown eyes alert and clear—he had never been sufficiently handsome to break hearts, or even win them without effort. Thus, he had very sensibly concentrated on the winning of hands, and did so for practical reasons.

  Though as ambitious as ever, he was no longer the nearly penniless youth he had been at the time of his first marriage. Then, as now, he was content to do without love, though for different reasons. Of his first wife he’d required only money. Of his second, he required strong character, irreproachable reputation, and superior breeding. He wanted, in short, the perfect political hostess.

  There was nothing, certainly, of Love in her response. Lilith acknowledged she respected him and was honoured by his proposal. So far, so good.

  “I should be pleased to be your wife, Thomas,” she continued composedly. “But before we make an irrevocable commitment, I must deal frankly with certain circumstances of which you are at present unaware.”

  Sir Thomas’s smile faded into a puzzled frown.

  “As you may know, I had a considerable fortune in my own right,” she went on. “As my grandparents’ only living descendant, I inherited everything. The property was not entailed. My grandfather’s title was recent—and the bulk of the property was my grandmother’s.”

  “My dear,” he quickly intervened, “I am aware of these matters. All the same, in like frankness I must remind you of my own situation, which is such, I flatter myself, that your finances are irrelevant. Certainly they are and always have been irrelevant to my wish to make you my wife.”

  She hesitated a fraction of a moment. Then, her chin just a bit higher, she answered, “Nonetheless, I prefer to be quite open with you. My income is sadly depleted. Mistakes have been made—certain investments my previous financial advisor—”

  Once more Sir Thomas interrupted. “I am sorry you have been ill-advised,” he said, “but there is no need to weary yourself reviewing the details. In future, I hope you will allow me to see to your comfort—the very near future, if you will excuse my impetuousness, my dear. That is to say, as soon, of course, as your niece is set up.”

  “I am telling you,” she said patiently, “that I am no longer a woman of means.”

  He smiled and stepped towards her. “And I am telling you, Lilith Davenant, it matters not a whit to me. Will you become Lady Bexley, and make me the happiest man in Christendom?”

  If the answering smile was tinged with resignation, Sir Thomas was unaware of it. He heard the quiet “Yes” he had wished for these eighteen months or more, and his heart soared. He did, truly, believe himself the happiest man in Christendom. He had achieved another great ambition and won the hand of the regal Lilith Davenant.

  So great was his appreciation of and respect for her queenly reserve that, instead of embracing her as he was fully entitled, he only planted one fervent kiss upon the back of her hand. He did not perceive the way she had steeled herself for the obligatory embrace, nor did he remark the relief that swept her features when he only bent instead over her white hand.

  ***

  “The good die early,” Mr. Defoe once observed, “and the bad die late.”

  Thus it could come as no surprise to any reasonably intelligent person that, despite his relatives’ unflagging efforts to plague him to death, Lord Brandon did not expire. On the contrary, he recovered surprisingly swiftly.

  “Small wonder,” his aunt remarked with a sniff. “Even the Old Harry is in no hurry to have you. A more selfish, insufferable, obstinate blackguard of a nephew there never was and never will be.”

  “Auntie, your tender affection will unman me,” the nephew replied. “Really, you ought not dote upon me so extravagantly at mealtime. I cannot see my beefsteak for my tears.” All the same, Lord Brandon cut into his beefsteak accurately enough.

  He had just come down to breakfast. It was proof of his aunt’s determination that she had risen from her bed before noon, only to be on hand first thing to nag at him.

  The Marchioness of Fineholt was a small, fragile-looking woman with a will of iron and a tongue, her relative reflected silently, like a meat axe.

  “I had always thought your sire the greatest villain who ever lived,” she went on. “Yet worthless reprobate that he was, my brother Alec at least knew what was due his name and family. Though why I expect you to care about anyone’s name when you don’t trouble with your own—”

  “My dearest Auntie, my name came to me when I was born and has remained with me ever since without my bothering about it at all.”

  “Thirty-five years old,” she snapped, “and you haven’t got a wife—not to speak of an heir.”

  “I can understand your wish not to speak of him,” the marquess answered sadly. “His mama was so misguided as to have been born in Philadelphia—to a haberdasher. I cannot imagine what she was thinking of.”

  “I don’t mean those dratted Yankee cousins, and you know it, Brandon. You haven’t got a son—not on the right side of the blanket at any rate, though I don’t doubt there’s a score or more of the other sort peppering the countryside, here and abroad.”

  “Wicked girl,” said the nephew between mouthfuls. “Will you not spare my blushes?”

  “Spare you?” she echoed wrathfully. “There is your poor uncle—a sad invalid these last five years—and even he took pen in his poor, trembling hand to plead with that unspeakable woman. While you, strong and healthy as an ox, spend your days lolling about upon the sofa, refusing even to discuss this debacle.”

  Lord Belbridge entered the breakfast room at this juncture.

  “Now, Mother,” he placated as he sat down beside her. “You know Julian’s not been lolling about. He’s been gravely ill.”

  “And bound to send me to an early grave in his place,” she grumbled. “I should have expected it. Not a male in the lot with an ounce of ingenuity. Or if they’ve got any,” she added with a darkling look at her nephew, “they’d rather spend it coaxing the next trollop into their bed.”

  “You mean to say there are trollops about this fair green countryside, Aunt?” Lord Brandon turned to his cousin in reproach. “You might have mentioned it, Georgy.”

  “Julian, please—”

  “Don’t beg him, George. It isn’t dignified, and you’ve made a sorry enough spectacle of yourself as it is. There’s the tart showing you her letters, and what do you do but politely give ‘em back.”

  “Mother dearest, I couldn’t well bind her hand and foot while I searched the premises. Besides, she’s too dashed clever to keep ‘em all with her. Stands to reason she’d have ‘em locked up with a solicitor, or someplace safe.”

  “Reason,” her ladyship repeated scornfully. “When were you and Reason ever acquainted, pray tell? Oh, that ever I should live to see this day.” Her voice grew tremulous, and a very dainty lace handkerchief was applied to very dry eyes. “My baby, caught in the toils of a French drab, and no one will lift a finger to save him.”

  “Now, Mother—”

  “You have no conscience, Brandon,” she went on, ignoring her son. “No feeling for your kin.”

  “I am positively bubbling with feeling, ma’am. Unfortunately, the situation is beyond mending.”

  “Fiddlesticks! You have made a profession of bending women to your will. You will not persuade me you cannot wrap this baggage about your finger, clever though she may be. You are simply too lazy to trouble with any matter not pertaining to your own pleasure.”

  She rose to deliver her parting shot. “You are spoiled, vain, selfish, and far too clever and good-looking for your own good. I pray that one day—and may I be alive to see it—a woman will cut up your peace. Pleasure has taught you nothing. Mayhap pain will.” With that, her small, rigid figure swept out of the breakfast room.

  Lord
Belbridge threw his cousin a reproachful glance. “I wish you wouldn’t tease her, Julian. She takes it out on me after.”

  “Have you considered sending her to Wellington, George? Perhaps she might be employed to browbeat Napoleon into submission. I wonder no one thought of that before.” Having finished his breakfast during the marchioness’s verbal bombardment, Lord Brandon took up the newspaper.

  George sighed, went to the sideboard, and filled his plate. When he sat down again, his cousin asked from behind the newspaper in a very bored voice, “Are you acquainted with a fellow by the name of Bexley? Sir Thomas Bexley?”

  “Not intimately acquainted. He’s a deal too political for my tastes. Still, one can’t help knowin’ of him. One of Liverpool’s protégés.”

  “I see. An ambitious young man.”

  “Ambitious, yes, but he’s forty if he’s a day. Looks older. Goin’ bald,” George explained. “Probably all those years in the West Indies did it. Bought plantations there, you know, with his wife’s dowry. Made pots. Came back... well, I couldn’t say when, exactly. Two or three years ago, maybe. After he lost his wife.”

  The marquess glanced over the paper. “Careless of him.”

  “She passed on, Julian,” his cousin answered with a touch of vexation. “Dash it, you’ve got no respect, even for the dead. She passed on, and the poor fellow came back and I guess he buried his sorrow in politics. They say he’s movin’ on fast. Shouldn’t be surprised to find him in the ministry one day.”

  George swallowed a few mouthfuls. After a moment or two, he asked, “If you don’t know him, what makes you ask?”

  “Boredom, I suppose.”

  “Somethin’ in the paper?”

  “Only that his engagement is announced.”

  George put down his silverware. “You don’t say! He’s done it, then. Well, there’s a few chaps stand to lose money on that. Mean to say—It’s Davenant’s widow he’s marryin’, ain’t it?”

  Lord Brandon nodded.

  “Better him than me. Feel an east wind blowin’ just thinkin’ of her. Cold female, Julian. But you knew her, I expect. You and Davenant were together a good deal.” George returned to his meal.

  “I never met the lady then. She was in Derbyshire. Charles was in London. He took ill and returned to the country shortly after I was required to take residence out of England.”

  “I recollect. Annoyin’ that. And not a bit fair. Stupid female. Burstin’ out from the wood, shriekin’. If it wasn’t for her, you’d have only winged him. A wonder we weren’t all killed. Duel’s no place for a woman.”

  “Perhaps, having provoked the situation, Lady Advers felt obliged to see it through to the conclusion. At any rate, she taught me a valuable lesson.”

  “Yes. Keep away from married women.”

  The marquess laughed. “Good heavens, no, George. What I learned was never to let my attention wander, on any account.’’

  Two hours later, Lord Brandon threw his relatives into transports of joy and relief when he announced plans to proceed to London that very day. He was bored with rustication, he said, and from all reports, Castlereagh seemed to be muddling along well enough without his dubious assistance. Since he had nothing better to do elsewhere, Lord Brandon thought he might toddle off to look into this tiresome little matter of Robert’s nuptials.

  Chapter Three

  Lord Enders’s opera box was rarely an object of interest to the audience. If he and his wife had company, it was bound to be the wife’s brother, Sir Thomas Bexley, and he was sure to be escorting Mrs. Charles Davenant. Though Bexley was absent tonight, the widow was not, and her severely cut, sombrely coloured costumes had never aroused envy or even interest in her neighbours.

  Lady Enders was equally unexciting. Hers were the same passable features as her brother’s. Unlike him, however, she always appeared fussy, a veritable snowstorm of stiffly starched ruffles and furbelows heaped upon her gown, and the entire contents of her jewel-box mounded upon her throat and bosom.

  Nonetheless, on this particular evening, the opera box received second, third—indeed countless—glances from a majority of the gentlemen present. This was because tonight a young lady broke the monotony. She was a jewel of a young lady, with her guinea-gold curls, her wide blue eyes, her dainty nose, and (here the sighs became audible) her pink, bee-stung lips. More than one masculine pulse accelerated at the sight of Miss Cecily Glenwood.

  “I see we may expect a stampede at the intermission,” said Lady Enders in an undertone. “I had not thought it possible, but the child is even prettier than her cousins.”

  One of her rare smiles softened Mrs. Davenant’s features. “She is a dear, sweet girl as well,” she said softly. “Those her beauty attracts will return on account of her nature.”

  “You have always been so fortunate in your girls, Lilith. Lady Shumway, on the other hand—Why, whatever are they gaping at?”

  The enquiry was occasioned by a sudden stirring in the audience. The usual buzz of voices preceding the curtain’s rise had swelled to a Babel, and every head was swivelling in the same direction.

  Lilith followed the general gaze... and stifled a gasp. The Marquess of Brandon, in the company of one fair-haired gentleman and one brunette female—of obviously dubious character—had entered the box nearly opposite.

  “Brandon!” Lady Enders whispered harshly. “I cannot believe my eyes. He has not been seen in Society in years. Why, he has scarcely been in England, to my knowledge— not since he killed Advers in that scandalous duel. Seven years ago that was, when Brandon had to flee the country. Wicked man! Do you see how brazenly he stares back at them, the insufferable scoundrel?”

  Mrs. Davenant had looked away as soon as she recognised him. Like her companion, she had observed how more than one head turned away, abashed, upon meeting the marquess’s haughty stare.

  Cecily had not missed this phenomenon. “Why, Aunt,” she said, “is that not the gentleman—” Then she fell silent.

  Puzzled, Lilith slanted another quick glance at the box. She’d not regarded the other, younger, gentleman before. Now she perceived he was perfectly capable of attracting notice in his own right, for he was remarkably good-looking. Still, had not Cecily expressed an aversion to blonds?

  Lilith was about to point out that staring was rude when she experienced a prickling sensation at the base of her skull. Almost reflexively, she looked away from Cecily and across the theater... and locked with Lord Brandon’s mocking gaze.

  The marquess smiled and made an elaborate bow.

  Instantly, Lilith felt every eye in the audience upon her. Her poise held, however. She did not withdraw, in confusion or otherwise. Turning deliberately from the marquess, her own gaze swept coldly over the audience and finally came to rest upon the stage. To her relief, the orchestra started up.

  Mrs. Davenant heard little of the performance. She could not have said afterwards whether it had been Gluck or Mozart. Lord Brandon’s presence had spoiled it for her, tainted the very atmosphere of the hall. She was too conscious of him throughout, too tense with pretending he was not there. Nor did Rachel improve matters by relating in rasping whispers every outrage the marquess had ever committed.

  By the interval, Lilith could not endure another word. She left Lady Enders to deal with any stampeding gentlemen, took Lord Enders as her own escort, and made for the box of an old friend of her grandmother.

  Mrs. Davenant was careful to remain with the ancient dowager until the last minutes of the interval. There were several famous gossips in the audience. Thanks to Lord Brandon’s attention-drawing gesture, they would be sure to seek her out.

  She and Lord Enders had nearly reached the door of his box when Sally Jersey popped out of it.

  “Why, my dear Lilith,” the countess gushed, “whatever have you done with your betrothed?”

  “Lord Liverpool had need of him,” Lilith answered tightly. “Lord and Lady Enders were kind enough to invite my niece and me to join them this ni
ght.”

  “Oh, yes. Rachel made me acquainted with your niece. Charming girl. Naturally, you may expect vouchers for Almack’s. We dare not deny them,” she said with a silvery laugh. “The gentlemen would be sure to break out in violence.”

  “That is exceedingly kind of you.” Lilith moved to let her pass, but before the widow could step through the door, Lady Jersey’s gloved hand dropped lightly upon her arm.

  “Speaking of gentlemen,” the countess said too sweetly, “I was not aware you were acquainted with Brandon.”

  “Nor was I,” Lilith said with perfect composure. As soon as she spoke, she experienced once more the odd prickling in her neck.

  “Not formally introduced, that is,” came a low, resonant voice behind her. “May I suggest the oversight be corrected?”

  Lilith turned slightly. The green eyes were lazily contemplating her shoulders—or rather, the prim few inches to be seen of them.

  She threw him one frigid glance, then deliberately turned her back. Mercifully, Lord Enders was holding open the door to the opera box. As Lilith entered, she heard Sally say, “Why, Brandon, you rogue, I don’t believe she wants to know you.” The door closed, cutting off her ensuing tinkle of laughter.

  Apprised by her husband of the confrontation, Lady Enders congratulated Lilith. “You did right,” she declared. “One can only hope the others will follow your example and shun him as he deserves.”

  Cecily made no comment, and Lilith wondered whether the girl had heard a word. Though Cecily sat, her attention apparently fixed on the stage, a rapt expression glazed her eyes, and from time to time her glance stole across the hall.

  The object of this devoted study knew nothing of it. Lord Robert Downs was, as usual, devotedly studying the countenance of his mistress.

  As soon as Lord Brandon reentered the box, the mistress turned her amused attention to him.

  “I wonder if I can make a guess, milord, what drove you from us the instant the curtain fell,” she teased.

  “There is no need to guess,” he answered. “In twelve minutes, half the audience will know. In another twelve, the other half. By the end of the performance, the Watch will be announcing it.”