The Gamble

by Laura Parker

  “—Darlington in Lord Revoit’s box!”

  “Give’s a man a start, that scar.”

  “ ’Tis the first letter of the word ‘cursed’.”

  “That scar?”

  “—his own sire done it.”

  “ ’Pon oath!”

  “The late viscount suffered delusions—”

  “Still, a peer and all, not much to be done.”

  “—ran mad, convinced the boy was not his but Satan’s spawn, he murdered his wife and—”

  “—sought to put the mark of Cain on his own son with a knife.”

  “—sent to relatives in the West Indies for safekeeping.”

  “What could one explain his peculiarities. His own hair! Not at all a la mode.”

  “—wild from the first, they say. Ran away from his guardians at thirteen.”

  “Lived among the pirates, privateers, and gamblers of the Caribbean.”

  “Wild, m’dear!”

  “—and women!”

  “A positive satyr!”

  “A renowned duelist.”

  “Surfeit of madness there?”

  “Believe it.”

  Accustomed to the sly glances and scandalous whispers that often accompanied his public appearances, Jack Laughton sat like stone. The only sign of unrest were his long hard fingers tapping an impatient tattoo on his bronze silk-clad thigh.

  Unlike his companions, he was not even mildly entertained by the spectacle. He felt only faint annoyance eddying through his haze of intoxication. When the serpent sank its dagger-like fangs into Eurydice’s enticingly bared neck, it dawned on him that he knew the actress, intimately, and that her neck tasted of greasepaint and sweat.

  As the beast sluiced away, its deadly deed accomplished, Jack considered dispassionately the fact that every man present believed him to be as cold-natured as that mechanical reptile. Upon rising at five P.M. he had responded to the news that Chichester had, indeed, died from his wounds with the order that the widow be sent the standard funereal arrangement and his wishes for a speedy recovery. Even his admirers blanched as he recounted the tale at supper.

  Bitterness curled Jack’s upper lip, making the seam in his cheek more pronounced as the audience oohed and ahhed in lamentation over Orpheus’s lost love. To his mind the aristocrats seated about him were nothing more than carrion birds dressed in exotic plumage. Rings adorned their sharp talons and practiced smiles blunted the wicked curves of their beaks. Yet their fixed-eyed stares betrayed them to be every bit as heartless as vultures who sought in every glance a sign of weakness among their own. They fed daily on the misery of their neighbors, spicing their mealtimes with gossip of others’ frailties and shames and misfortune.

  They might linger in sentimentality over this gaudy sham of mythology and yet they rallied around a duplicitous social order that had required for the sake of primogeniture that society protect a murderous nobleman at the expense of justice for his dead wife and abused son. Only in their fear of appearing equally vulnerable were they banded together. Let them talk. They feared him and, for now, that was enough.

  “Darlington!”

  Jack looked up with faint disinterest at the tall man who had entered the box. “Lord Lovelace, we had despaired of your company this evening,” he murmured with just enough apathy to make a mockery of the greeting. He turned to the younger of his two companions. “Be a good fellow and provide Lord Lovelace your chair, Alan.”

  The younger man grinned amicably and rose. “Do join us, Lord Lovelace. The pantomime has just ended and the best part’s about to begin. The gladiators’ spectacle is next.”

  “Promises to be of the rarest sport,” added Lord Revoit, who made up the third member of the party. “A healthy wager by you would be welcome, Lovelace.”

  “I do not bet,” Randolph returned shortly.

  Jack’s interest quickened as he turned a deceptively languid gaze on the earl. Lovelace’s patrician features were more drawn than usual, as if he were struggling to keep his temper at bay. It was an interesting possibility Jack could not resist putting to the test.

  “We’ve seen damned little of you these last weeks. Your lady wife so opined over supper but recently.”

  Randolph accepted the seat, then said peremptorily, “You dined with my wife tonight?”

  His clipped tone drew Jack’s smile. What had lovely naughty Lotte been telling her prideful spouse that should have him looking like a cock with his tail feathers caught in a stile? Just for the devilment of it, Jack drew out his answer. “You have my compliments of her. Not three in London can equal your wife’s charm or her complexion. Alas, Lady Charlotte and I did not dine together this evening. Believe me, I would not abandon so charming a companion for an evening elsewhere.”

  Randolph held himself in check though he longed to bodily attack the man whose sardonic wit seemed always to hold him up to faint ridicule. Yet how alike was his bon mot to Lotte’s chastisement. When had Darlington become a rival for his wife’s affection? And just how successful had he been? The questions roiled in his belly but he would not give them voice. “I have informed my lady wife that we shall no longer be at home to her greater circle of acquaintances. Your name adorns our list of visitors inconvenient.”

  Jack noted the sudden twitch at the back of the box and turned to find Hugh Millpost standing there, eyes wide with intrigue. His often silent approach had served the gossipmonger well on this occasion. There would be no need to inform anyone of Lovelace’s action. Millpost would make certain the on dit accompanied every cup of cocoa served to the Beau Monde at breakfast. A pity, Jack thought. Lovelace should have had the presence of mind to spare his wife the embarrassment.

  Randolph, too, had noted the presence of another but gave the tongue-wagger the cut direct by not speaking to him. He could not dismiss the man, but he did not have to encourage him.

  He turned back to Darlington, his voice distinctly lower. “I expected to find Branston here. Or was he too fatigued by the night’s earlier adventure to join you?”

  Too shrewd to rise to the bait of the earl’s tantalizing question, Jack yawned. “The fellow’s a noncock and a fool.”

  Randolph could but agree with that assessment of Branston, yet he did not make the mistake of applying the label to Darlington. Though his drunken state was obvious from his flushed face and lazy posture, the viscount retained a shrewd calculating gaze and the superiority of self-possession. He might detest the man, disapprove of and resent him, but he did not underestimate him. If Darlington had set his sights on seducing Lotte then he would not easily be distracted.

  “Oh, but look here. Didn’t I predict there’d be rare sport tonight?” Sir Alan said as the curtains again parted. A surprised cheer went up as two women emerged from the wings of the stage, each carrying a three-and-a-half-foot, two-handed sword.

  “What’s this?” Randolph asked, jarred momentarily out of his own dark thoughts.

  “Women gladiators?” Lord Revoit gave a harrumph of discomfort. “All but unheard of.”

  As soon as they reached the center of the stage, the two women bowed deeply to the audience in show of deference.

  “This is preposterous!” Randolph voiced in irritation.

  “They make a change from ballerinas,” Jack drawled, his mood improved by the chance to further goad the earl. “Conveniently, they provide the usual stimulation.” He leaned forward in feigned interest of the proceedings on the stage. “Observe how the short petticoats leave the limbs free while the bodices hide only the summit of their delights.”

  “And they wear different colored ribbons,” Sir Alan offered in the spirit of amiability. “ ’Twill make it easier to tell them apart.”

  Jack shot the younger man a disbelieving glance. Far more obvious demarcations than colored ribbons were the differences in size and hair color between the two women. One was amazingly stout with a shock of dirty blond hair scraped back from her face and ti
ed with a bit of red ribbon and the ham-like arms of a coal miner. The other, russet-haired and clearly a dozen years younger, was tall and broad-shouldered, but much more slender.

  The older woman stepped forward first and snarled at the younger woman, causing her to falter back a step. A ripple of self-conscious laughter skirted the crowd and was quickly silenced.

  The impressive muscles in her arms were apparent as she raised over her head her sword. The three-inch wide blade was dull for most of it. But the last six inches caught and reflected the stage lights with the telltale gleam of a well-honed edge.

  “ ’Ere ioy stands, luwies!” she cried in a gin-blurred voice. “Give us a coin afore ioy gives ye a show. Guaranteed spectacle.” She jerked her head toward the younger woman and curled her lip. “Ioy’m a smithy by trade and will make quick work o’ the Irish drab. Ask me ’usband. Beats ’im every mornin’ just to keep me hand in!”

  The boastful claim drew laughter and a few coins that sailed past the apron of the stage to ring merrily on the boards.

  As the blond bent over to scoop out the coins, the younger woman strutted forward and gave the larger woman a wallop on the buttocks with the flat of her sword. “Shut up, ye ole sow!”

  The bigger woman roared her chagrin as she straightened. “Sneakin’ lil’ whore! I’ll chase ye clear back to the fey isle ye sprung from.” She swung her sword violently at the younger woman, who sidestepped it with ease.

  “Sure’n I’m spry enough to keep ahead of the likes of ye, ye anvil-handed English cow!”

  The younger woman’s sally elicited a light shower of coins on her side of the stage.

  “Thousand pounds on the Irish girl!” Lord Revoit proclaimed with a shout of glee. “ ’Twill be worth it to lose if she lands even one good blow. Who’ll take my wager?”

  When no one answered, Millpost moved from the curtain at the back of the box, his carrion bird beak of a nose twitching in excitement. “Lord Revoit’s wager will not go taken?”

  “I’ll not wager tuppence on so tawdry a display,” Randolph answered and rose abruptly.

  He again drew Jack’s sardonic gaze. “Are you leaving, Lovelace? The fun is only beginning.”

  A muscle ticked in Randolph’s jaw. “On the other hand, I am unastonished that this spectacle of female depravity should arouse a man of your tastes.”

  The warm breathy roar of the crowd momentarily swept over them as Jack considered his options. Lovelace was no fool and only a fool phrased himself so carelessly that his words might be mistake for an insult. Yet he offered him that possibility. “On this occasion I shall bow to your judgement of the proper pursuits of womanhood.”

  Randolph’s expression betrayed his inclination to repeat his insult, but he said, “As I do not share your predilection for bloodshed, I withdraw my hasty words.”

  Millpost craned his neck forward, all gleaming yellow teeth and reptilian smile accompanied by a faint malodorous whiff of digested cheese. “Awager! That ith how gentlemen thettle their acrimony. Will you not acthept a friendly wager from Lord Lovelace, Lord Darlington?”

  Randolph suddenly remembered a bit of gossip Lotte had let drop a few days earlier. Darlington’s finances had suffered a reversal of fortune which a steady stream of loses at the gambling tables were aggravating. A final staggering loss, one he could not easily repay, might turn the trick of driving Darlington in humiliation out of London.

  “Very well, to indulge you, Darlington, I will make a wager with you alone. What say, ten thousand?”

  Jack felt a faint flush of gambling blood creep up the back of his neck. Ten thousand! That amount would settle his debts—if he won. If not …

  The whispering of warning returned, swift and urgent. Yet, he had never been a man to abide curtailment of his desires, even if the suggestion came from his own conscience.

  “Ten thousand, you say.” His voice was absolutely steady. There was no flicker of fear or greed in his expression. Gambling might be his passion, but it was a bloodless, cerebral activity at which he was exceedingly good. “Why not twenty?”

  “Jack you can’t—” Revoit’s soft-spoken alarm was silenced by a quelling glance from Darlington.

  Randolph’s expression eased into warmth for the first time. “Why not, indeed.” He indicated the stage with an economic sweep of his arm. “Choose your champion.”

  At last Jack found his full interest drawn to the stage.

  The referee, who carried a long staff, was calling out the rules of the battle. It was his job, he said, to separate the two should blood flow. The winner would be determined by the first to draw blood three times, unless one combatant cried halt sooner. Despite her cockiness, the redhead appeared more than a little afraid of the older, stout-bellied woman. Her sword trembled in her grasp as they slowly circled one another. The crowd’s merciless mirth urged her on to what most likely would be her doom.

  “The Cockney slattern,” Jack said suddenly.

  “Done!” Lovelace pronounced the word in satisfaction and turned to leave.

  “You awe not abandoning youh enterprize, milord?” Millpost exclaimed in disappointment

  “I’ve no interest in the outcome. The sole purpose of my bet was to accommodate Darlington.” Randolph’s gaze flicked briefly over his adversary. “I expect you will wish to collect or settle the debt before noon?”

  Jack met the full hostility in his opponent’s gaze with his usual pose of indifference. “At your service, Lovelace.”

  Jack turned back to the spectacle with only half interest, for it quickly became clear the battle had been choreographed. As the first blows were delivered with the broad sides of their weapons, landing an equal number of times on both, it occurred to him to wonder if Lovelace were already privy to the outcome. He rejected the thought at once. That supercilious stickler for propriety would never be party to a rigged contest.

  Something akin to amusement struggled in Jack’s chest. Perhaps he could afford Lovelace’s high morals if he also had his deep pockets! To redeem his blackened character, he should reconsider wedding the wall-eyed termagant with a hundred thousand a year who had pursued him shamelessly last year in Tortola. Nay, not even for two hundred thousand!

  His guffaw of immoderate laughter drew the quick sidelong glances of his companions, but no questions.

  On stage the Englishwoman suddenly roared, lifted her broad sword over her head, and brought it down with a vigorous slash that drove the Irish girl backward so quickly she trod on the toe of her own shoe. The girl shrieked as the blade passed within inches of her nose and then sliced into the arm she had raised in protective instinct.

  “Halt!” cried the pikeman who moved to separate the bleeding girl from her attacker.

  Half the audience crowed their delight, showering the Englishwoman with shillings and half-crowns that she wasted no time in collecting and stuffing into her bodice.

  “ ’Twould seem your bet’s assured,” Revoit remarked at Jack’s elbow. “Lucky thing. As I recall, you haven’t twenty sovereigns to your name at present.”

  “I had not expected there to be real blood drawn,” Jack murmured with a frown.

  “Why, these drabs are accustomed to hard knocks. They receive worse when falling down drunk,” Sir Alan replied jocularly, as if to convince himself that the wounding was part of the mummery.

  Jack did not answer.

  Once the Irish girl was bandaged and the Englishwoman fortified by a bucket of ale graciously offered up from an admirer in the audience, the referee called for the battle to recommence.

  Each now carried a dagger with which to fend off blows. The women circled one another warily, calling out curses and jeering the audience who alternately encouraged and derided them.

  Jack noticed how the Irish girl kept her dagger close to her body with her wound-weakened arm. He knew he should be delighted by that show of weakness. His champion would easily pick her off and he would go home with his finan
cial problems solved.

  Instead, he drew his chin into his collar as his fingers again tapped an impatient rhythm on his knee. This was no sport. This would be a massacre and he no longer wanted any part in it.

  Cautiously and then ever more vigorously the women engaged one another with slashes and jabs until their bodices darkened with their exertions and droplets of sweat flew from the ends of their tresses as they swung and swayed, groaned and cried out.

  The crowd’s hurrahs and cheers became disappointed hoots and catcalls when the pike bearer moved between the two women and ordered them to opposite sides of the stage. There the daggers were exchanged for wicker shields. The Englishwoman again drank a large glass of spirits.

  When the pikeman called them to combat for the third time, the Irish girl paused on her side of the stage to tuck in a loose end of her bloodied bandage.

  Seeing an advantage in the moment, the Englishwoman charged with the wicked edge of her blade. A cry of warning from the crowd jerked the girl’s head up just in time.

  She raised her wicker shield to take the brunt of the attack and desperately twisted her body away from the deadly edge. The force of the blow sent her reeling away in a spin that ended when she crashed into the scenery at the rear of the stage. The canvas backdrop, freed by the impact, collapsed upon her.

  Seizing the advantage, the Englishwoman took the flat of her blade and delivered a stunning blow across the top of the younger woman’s head. Certain of her victory, she then cast aside her armaments and moved to the center front of the stage, lifting her arms in victory and signaling for more tribute.

  Several assistants raced out from the wings to help untangle the fallen girl. Once freed, she scrambled to her feet and stood a moment, shaking her head like a colt trying to toss a bridle. Then, to the surprise of every soul present, she launched herself, unarmed, at her opponent.

  The attack sent both women sprawling onto the boards. Immediately, the girl swung a leg over the panting woman’s belly. Yelling invectives, she grabbed two fists of hair and began banging the woman’s head against the wood floor to the bloodthirsty delight of their audience.