The Gamble

by Laura Parker

  Because the association was seen as an advancement of his own social stature, Cousin Robert had approved of her becoming the Countess Lovelace’s companion. No doubt he would have rescinded his consent had he discovered how much alike the two young women were in temperament and their need for constant diversion. Or, how freely the canary and madeira flowed in the countess’s home. Or, that gambling occupied most of the lady’s evenings. The countess even occasionally staked Sabrina to modest bets.

  All of a sudden Sabrina’s stomach cramped. She clapped both hands to her mouth, but it was too late. A loud undignified belch worthy of a trencherman escaped and echoed down the long empty hall.

  As chagrin vied with amusement, she smothered her laugher in her palm. Truth to tell, she was a trifled foxed! No doubt of it! The grip of “demon spirits,” as her uncle called liquor, had made her think she and Countess Lovelace could get away with visiting a tavern along the Thames dressed as gentlemen.

  If only she had run at the first sign of trouble. But she had been transfixed, appalled, and fascinated by the unexpected arrival at the tavern of London’s most notorious rake.

  The Stag Horn was one of many such taverns that stood within hailing distance of both the London Tower and the Thames. For two hundred years those ancient alehouses, leaning crookedly upon one another like tallow candles set too long by the fire, were the favorite gathering spots for sailors and unemployed soldiers of fortune. Crammed into their narrow common rooms, men drank their fill while trading tales of battles fought and women conquered.

  Further down river, Parliament’s lords and commoners met and squabbled among themselves over King George’s rights and theirs. But here, within the shadow of the Tower Bridge, untutored men of humble birth kept suspicious company with adventurous Dandies of noble heritage who sought amusement among the lower classes. The only thing these men had in common was boredom, and a fondness for drinking and quarreling.

  The drinking was hours old by the time Sabrina and Lady Charlotte arrived. Afraid their voices would give away their disguise, neither she nor Lady Charlotte traded more than speaking glances and the occasional whisper. For once they were overawed by their own audacity.

  The Honorable James Branston had suggested a masquerade as penalty for Lady Charlotte Lovelace’s gambling debt to him. Sabrina disliked him least of the countess’s many male admirers because his boyish good looks seemed to hide nothing more sinister than a predilection for pranks and a weakness for gambling. He had even offered to accompany them in order to see the challenge carried out.

  Ale had never tasted so crisp and refreshing to Sabrina as it did in that smoke-filled room that stank of humanity and perdition. She watched with wide eyes and listened intently to the crowd, seeking to commit to memory the lewdest of the jests and the bawdiest of the ditties she overheard, as proof of her escapade for those too timid to ever undertake such a splendid adventure.

  As more and more gentleman invaded the tavern, the newcomers saw to it that ale flowed even more freely than usual. With it the crowd grew more boisterous. Sabrina doubted she would have noticed yet another gentleman entering the tavern if Lady Charlotte had not stiffened and murmured in a breathless whisper, “Oh, my dear! That’s Lord Darlington!”

  Prompted by courtesy, Sabrina rose obediently from her seat.

  “Lud! Do sit down!” Lady Charlotte exclaimed as she tugged Sabrina back into her chair. “Do you think I wish to be made known to him at this moment?”

  Embarrassed by her gaucherie, Sabrina picked up her ale tankard, determined not to even glance at the gentleman.

  “Worst luck!” Lady Charlotte turned to Branston. “Jemmy, you must take us away from here before you draw his regard!”

  “No fear of that,” Branston replied glumly. “Darlington wouldn’t give his Blackamore my direction. Ain’t of his set.”

  Sabrina had heard of Darlington. All London echoed with the exploits of the new viscount. She had even once before been in his presence, briefly, as she was leaving and he entering Lady Charlotte’s salon. As was the custom, she had kept her gaze well below his jabot, for a commoner was not allowed to speak to or even gaze directly at a member of the nobility unless first addressed by him or her.

  On that occasion he had not acknowledged her as he strolled past her into the room. She suspected he could not be troubled to advance his gaze the great distance of three feet that would have been required to recognize a mere lady’s companion.

  The next day Lady Charlotte, a tenderhearted soul, had attempted to ease the insult of his direct cut. “There were reasons, dearest Sabrina, very good ones. His reputation as a seducer, gambler, and duelist makes his acquaintance quite unsuitable for any maiden who wishes her reputation to remain unsullied.”

  That memory prompted Sabrina to redirect her gaze over the rim of her tankard, curious as to what made the viscount Darlington so different from the likes of Mr. James Branston and Lord Lovelace. That question was answered the moment she laid eyes on him.

  He wore the requisite clothes of an aristocrat, a full-skirted satin coat and breeches, and sword. Yet nothing else about him was de rigeur.

  In a direct flaunting of custom, he wore his own golden hair unpowdered and tied back with a black ribbon. The murky yellow light from candles set in empty bottles about the common room revealed that his face was not rouged and powdered to a fashionably pale shade. Instead, his complexion was a deep golden shade from the effects of the tropical sun under which he had grown up. The long wicked scar on his right cheek gave his hard face a slanting, devilish mien. But that was not the feature that made her slowly lower her tankard in astonishment.

  As his survey of the room brought her table under his brief, indifferent scrutiny, the viscount’s pale eyes reflected the meager light with uncanny brilliance. She could not help but note the lack of humor in those strangely light eyes.

  “Magnificent but wild,” Lady Charlotte murmured in a deep voice as she attempted to mimic a male baritone. “Definitely wild.”

  Yes, Sabrina thought, as she felt a peculiar warmth flood beneath her skin. He was like a beautiful wild beast, gorgeous and golden but repelling in his attraction, and so wholly dangerous even a child would have recoiled in instinctive fear.

  Then a cultured falsetto voice rang out clearly above the general din and laughter of the tavern.

  “Ma foi! A colonialist joins us!”

  The startled pitch of the voice crested over the crowd, subduing it in the backwash of cackling laughter. “No paint. No powder. He lacks the manners and the delicacy required of a gentleman. His kind are no better than dogs!”

  “What folly!” Lady Charlotte gasped as Sabrina, equally alarmed, turned her head in the direction from which the insult had sprung.

  Several noblemen occupied a nearby table, dressed in the exaggerated style of elaborate, banded silk coats, buckles, braiding, and frothing lace that marked them as “macaronies.” Lady Charlotte had remarked upon the group when they first entered the tavern but the powdered and rouged Dandies were so far into their cups that she had decided there was no need for concern about being recognized by them or even approached.

  Now one of them lifted his tankard. “Salute! A plague on all colonialists!”

  The rejoining, “Here! Here!” of drunken approval from his cronies reverberated through the common room, attracting the tavern’s other denizens, who turned curious gazes on the tableau.

  Sabrina held her breath as the viscount turned to survey the five men, wondering why any sane human being would wish to antagonize this supremely self-possessed stranger.

  After the briefest of considerations, the viscount looked away from the table, apparently prepared to ignore them. Yet as he walked past, one macaroni stuck out his leg, blocking the way with a gold-buckled, red-heeled shoe.

  “But observe. The fellow’s as brown as a seaman.” The challenger half-turned to catch the eye of a companion and winked. “My dear fellow,
do you know what they say about West Indians? The tropical sun makes them all quite mad. Without culture or good society, they are reduced to ignorance and superstition. I hear they even practice witchcraft. Picked it up from the Africans they import.”

  “How positively droll that the colonials of the Caribbean should be so influenced by savages one would assume are their inferiors in every way,” remarked another.

  “Unless it be true,” added a third, “that they are the mongrel pups of depraved fornicators.”

  Chuckling, the self-designated leader looked up at his prey. “I’ve heard their women are all ugly, thin-tittied hags. I’d sooner mount a goat! What say you to that, colonialist?”

  The viscount laughed, the sound short and contemptuous.

  The last and silent member of the dandy’s party suddenly leaned forward toward the challenger. “Chris!” he said with a worried expression. “Do you not know whom you address?”

  The leader tossed a contemptuous glance over his shoulder. “A colonialist. What of it?”

  “ ’Tis Lord Darlington.”

  Once spoken, that name seemed to cast a spell of utter silence over the tavern’s other patrons.

  The news had no such impact on the challenger. He rocked back onto his rear chair legs as he looked up at the man before him. “So you’re Darlington. Should I be impressed?”

  Sabrina watched in rapt fascination as Lord Darlington picked up the man’s tankard of ale, took a leisurely sip from it, and then flung the rest into the face of his detractor.

  With a roar of rage the sodden gentleman arched forward to set the front chair legs back on the floor. The viscount was faster. He lifted a foot and set it against the wedge of seat showing between the macaroni’s spread thighs and shoved, sending him tumbling backward onto the floor.

  “ ’Tis no wonder the English aristocracy has no luck controlling their colonies when you observe their way with ale,” Darlington commented to the room at large, then turned away.

  The comment set the patrons rocking with laughter. Their mirth was cut short by the pungent profanity that erupted from the gentleman who sat on the floor mopping up his ale-soaked lace. All heads turned expectantly toward him.

  A shiver of excitement passed through Sabrina, for even she knew that the gentleman must now respond to the viscount’s insult or live with the pain of his public humiliation.

  Tossing away his ale-soaked handkerchief, the dandy struggled to his feet with the help of his companions. Then, flanked by them, he rushed the retreating man and caught him by the sleeve, forcing him to turn around.

  “God’s body, but you’re an ugly rascal!” he crowed when his eyes came to focus on the viscount’s face.

  Something less than a smile traced the viscount’s lips. “And you, sir, are a drunk. ’Tis a failing that may save you from gray hairs.” His silver gaze measured the distance to the man’s dangling sword arm, the fingers of which twitched in uncertainty. “But, I pray you, find some other executioner. I’ve killed once this day. My bloodlust is surfeited.”

  The announcement electrified Sabrina, as it did the crowd who backed away from the two men. She rose to her feet and this time Lady Charlotte did not attempt to stop her.

  “You will not stand to a challenge?” the dandy shouted in false bravado for as his hands twitched, his knees trembled.

  The viscount made a short gesture of dismissal. “I refuse.”

  Sabrina expelled a breath of relief as Darlington turned his back on his enemy and strolled confidently toward the exit. She was about to smile in approval when their gazes met.

  For no more than the length of a checked step his incisive pale gray stare bored into her. In that moment she wondered if his gaze had sliced through her disguise, through the silk and lace and full-bottomed wig to lay bare the furiously beating heart of the woman beneath her corsets. The sudden vulnerability of that exposure and its wonder provoked in her a hard shiver that was not all trepidation.

  Until this moment, she had not met a man in all London that she might admire. Now she felt the stimulating presence of this man that led men to envy him and women to succumb.

  A moment later he turned to the door and went through it.

  She slumped back against the filthy wall, uncertain of whether she was glad or disappointed that he had not spoken. She had seen in his face an expression that contained no emotion, no anger, no fear, and no interest in whether its possessor lived or died.

  A moment later the tavern’s company erupted in chaos. As if failing to have the fight they have spoiled for, the company decided to create a release of their pent-up expectations by venting it upon their own.

  “Come, quickly!” James Branston shouted and they ran away from the fracas.

  It was pure bad luck that their retreat from the tavern had been intercepted by the night watch, whose attention had been drawn by the tavern brawl.

  The opening of a door on the hall interrupted Sabrina’s reverie and Mrs. Varney, her cousin’s housekeeper, stepped into the gallery.

  “Mr. McDonnell will see you now,” she said with distaste in her voice.

  Ignoring her, Sabrina stepped across the threshold into a well-lit room.

  Like many wealthy practitioners of Calvinist austerity, Robert McDonnell denied himself all public show of riches yet did not stint upon his private pleasures. The fire was thickly piled with coal. Enough candle wax burned to illuminate a far larger room. Near the fire, he sat ramrod straight in a high-back chair, soberly attired in a buff brown suit with plain white linen. He was square and well fed. Only the severity of his temperament betrayed his extremist views.

  Sabrina noted these things at the edge of her thoughts, for her cousin was staring at her with eyes as dark as ink as they took in the leather boot tips showing beneath her cloak. “Well, mistress. Let’s have a good look at you.”

  Certain he would order his servants to strip her if she refused, Sabrina threw back her cloak defiantly, revealing what lay beneath. Mrs. Varney’s indrawn breath hissed like a snake in the silence.

  The sight of his female relation dressed in a gentleman’s silk coat and breeches set her guardian’s lips aquiver. He blinked rapidly as he took in the details of lace ruffles, leather boots, and even an ornamental sword.

  When she could stand the suspense of his silence no longer Sabrina said carelessly, “You need not have worried that I’d raided your cupboard, cousin. Our tastes are tres dissimilar.”

  He started at her bold words. “Is this an example of what London has taught you? That you are no better than—than …”

  She saw a speck of spittle fly forth as he fumbled for words. It seemed he did not possess the vocabulary to describe his abhorrence of what she had done. “ ’Tis the device of a slut!”

  Sabrina held her head high though she flushed deeply at the deprecation. “ ’Twas no more than a bit of foolery, cousin. ’Tis all the rage among London ladies.”

  “The rage of harlots, I’ve no doubt! No lady could ever conceive of so disgusting a display. Whose garments do you wear, mistress?”

  Resentment throbbed inside Sabrina. If her cousin cared to look he would find Lady Lovelace’s family crest embroidered inside of the clothing she wore. That she must not allow. “I did not inquire. I stole them from a laundry line.”

  McDonnell’s lids flickered again. “I demand the name of the person who tempted you to this.”

  She shrugged elaborately and wrapped her cloak about herself, emboldened by the liquor singing in her veins. “ Betray a friend? Would that not be unchristian?”

  “Don’t blaspheme!” He rose from his chair, his jowled face livid. “You are in dishonor and disgrace.”

  Sabrina hid a hiccup behind one small hand. If this was the best threat her cousin could manage, she had wasted a good quarter hour in needless worry.

  He pointed a finger at her. “If you had not been recognized as a lady of Quality, do you know where you would
be at this moment?”

  Sabrina held back the tart observation that she would most probably be safely abed. He wanted contrition. She would give it to him because the ale that had earlier made her merry was now making her woozy.

  She lowered her head, her thick lashes sweeping over smiling violet eyes that would certainly give her away. “I beg your pardon, Cousin, and swear to never again be found out in folly.”

  She turned abruptly to Mrs. Varney. “Send my maid to me with an ewer of hot water. I should like a bath before I retire.”

  “We are not done, mistress!”

  Sabrina turned back to her cousin, one black brow arched in imperious inquiry. “Must there be more, cousin? The evening has left me most dreadfully dull. I assure you, I shall make a more worthy recipient of your wrath in the morning.”

  Her unrepentant tone enraged him. “God curse your impudence!”

  The moment the words were out, she noted, he seemed to regret his excess of feeling and subsided into his seat. “I have heard it preached many times that the devil makes wickedness attractive in order to entice the virtuous. I am forced to conclude that you have been fashioned for the sole purpose of corrupting souls. I would not doubt you have made a bargain with the Great Deceiver himself.”

  Sabrina felt the sting of that accusation to the soles her feet. “You would not dare speak such insults to me were I a man.”

  McDonnell banged the arm of his chair. “You forget that britches do not make you a man!”

  The anger drumming at Sabrina’s temples redoubled. She had seen a man in action this night with whom she would gladly trade places, be it with her soul as the bargain. Lord Darlington would have made very short work of her cousin! Aye, he would have seen her guardian cowered and begging for mercy!

  “… shall be married at once, to a man with a heart harder and a resolution stronger than mine.”