Amanda Scott (26 page)

The table was a large round one with a deeply beveled edge, which she saw at once was meant to prevent the dice from shooting to the floor when they were thrown. Yarborne began to explain the rules, saying, “The only throws that win are
main
and
chance.
One begins by calling a main and casting the dice. If the caster throws her main, she wins. If she doesn’t, the number that turns up becomes chance. Chance is then the caster’s winning throw. If she casts her main after that, she must pay each of those playing against her a sum equal to their stake. Any player can demand a change of the dice at any time during the game, and the demand must instantly be honored. Here is your champagne, my dear. Thank you, Fenton.”

Taking the glass offered her and sipping slowly, enjoying the sensations of bubbles tickling her nose, Melissa watched the play for some time before joining in. Though the game was complicated, she caught on quickly, and soon discovered that her luck was still in. Several turns at casting the dice showed her that she was singularly fortunate. She found the game not only more fun than faro but also addicting. Yarborne left to mingle with his other guests, and as play progressed, she won more, lost some, and began to think herself a natural gamester. Charley soon wandered off, but though she suggested that Melissa accompany her, Melissa shook her head, sipping her second glass of champagne, keeping her attention focused on the table.

When Yarborne, who had gone to mingle with other guests, returned and asked how she was faring, she looked up with a grin and said, “I’ve thrown chance six times running, sir. Just look at my winnings!” She indicated what seemed to her to be a vast quantity of sovereigns and markers on the table. “I’m going to throw one more time.”

“More champagne, Fenton. Her ladyship’s glass is nearly empty again. I take it the main is seven,” he added, “if chance is five.”

She nodded, shaking the leather cup, her mind already on the pair of dice rattling inside. As she threw, a feminine voice called, “Dice!”

Seeing the ivory cubes turn up a four and a one, Melissa scarcely heeded the interruption. Grinning, she reached to scoop up her winnings.

“One moment, my dear,” Yarborne said. “You must throw again, I’m afraid.”

“But I’ve won.” She looked up at him, not understanding.

He said in a kindly tone, “The dice were called. That means you must change them and cast again.”

“But I’d already thrown!”

“Nevertheless, that’s the rule, I’m afraid. If you recall, we play by the same rules as Brooks’s.” He signed to the groom-porter, who scooped the dice off the table with his rake and dropped new ones into Melissa’s cup.

“I don’t know,” she said, hesitating, finding it hard to think clearly. “Perhaps I had better stop now.”

“Oh, but you cannot,” he said. “You have already placed your wager and nearly everyone else has covered it, but have faith. I myself am so confident of your extreme good luck tonight that I will wager my own money on you, and agree to double your winnings if you will give half of the excess to my orphans.”

“Done,” she said, giving the dice cup a shake, shutting her eyes, and casting.

A collective gasp from around the table alerted her to disaster before she opened her eyes, and when she did, she stared at the two wayward cubes, one showing a six, the other an ace, and sighed with disappointment. Taking the refilled glass of champagne that Fenton produced just then, she turned to Yarborne and said, “I’m sorry not to live up to your faith in me, sir, but at least there’s a satisfactory amount of money there for your orphans. I’m going to find my aunt now, I think. I’ve only twenty pounds left, and I mean to keep it.”

“I’m afraid you won’t do that, my dear,” he said gently.

She stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“You didn’t just throw out, Lady Vexford. You threw your main.” A new note entered his voice, one that recalled instantly the man who had agreed to her auction at Newmarket. He turned to the groom-porter, who had not yet raked in the money on the table, and said, “Pay them all, and make an accurate reckoning of the total.”

Only then did Melissa recall that throwing the main after the first cast meant paying everyone who played against the caster. She had won small amounts before when others had cast an unlucky main, but she had not thrown one before, and no one else had faced such an enormous number of markers on the table. Having dared to leave her winnings in place, just as Yarborne had encouraged her to do at the faro table, she had been delighted to see how well the strategy served her. Now, owing money to everyone else at the table, she saw how fortunes were lost to a single cast of the dice.

She realized, too, and with chagrin, that she had been carried away by good fortune and champagne. Worse than that, she had wanted to stun Charley with her winnings, and she had wanted to show her husband how well she could succeed in his world. Setting down her glass, and waiting with a sinking heart to learn the sum she had to pay, she wished desperately that she had left the table when her cousin had.

Yarborne, having finished conferring with the groom-porter, drew her aside and said, “Only a hundred twenty pounds, my dear. Not so bad, after all, especially when you consider that twelve pounds of that goes to the orphans.”

“One hundred and twenty pounds!” She had been feeling dizzy from the shock of losing, and the champagne, but the appalling amount sobered her instantly. “You must be mistaken, sir. I have only twenty pounds. I cannot pay such a large sum. Indeed, I must not.”

He frowned and said, “I know you ladies don’t set as much store by debts of honor as gentlemen do, but I’m afraid I’m not willing to pay your losses for you, Lady Vexford. It’s only because I feel some responsibility in having urged you to go forward that I’m willing to cover them until you can repay me. You say you have twenty pounds? Then I need only apply to your husband for—”

“No,” Melissa said, opening her reticule and lowering her voice to add urgently, “you must not. Indeed, sir, here are the twenty, and I will repay you the rest somehow. It might take me some time, though. I-I cannot do so at this moment, I’m afraid.”

“Am I simply to take your word that you will pay?”

“I can write you a-a promise—”

“A vowel?” He chuckled. “I think I would rather have surety. Though you are reluctant to have word of this get to Vexford, which I perfectly understand, I must point out that he might well refuse to believe you had written a promise to pay if you were to deny it later.”

“But I would never do that!”

“Nonetheless, I think I would rather keep those pretty earrings of yours until you can redeem them,” he said gently.

“I cannot give them to you. Not only are they worth much more than I owe you, but Vexford gave them to me as a wedding gift and would instantly notice their loss.”

“Then I’ll take that bracelet.”

Reluctantly she unclasped her watch-bracelet, saying, “This was a gift from my favorite aunt, sir. As you can see, it’s got a small watch set into the band. I don’t know what it’s worth, but I assure you, I would redeem it at any cost.”

“Excellent.” He took it, and patted her paternally on the shoulder. “Don’t trouble your head about this, my dear. I daresay we can make things right very soon.”

“Melissa!”

Hearing Vexford’s voice made her jump as if she had been shot, for it was the last voice she had expected to hear in that house. When she turned, she saw that he was frowning heavily. She stammered, “G-good evening, sir. My, what a surprise!”

“I can see that. Where is Lady Ophelia?”

Relieved to see Yarborne slip the bracelet into his pocket and turn away to speak to his servant, she tucked her hand in the crook of Vexford’s arm and smiled up at him, saying, “How did you get into the house, sir? We were told that no gentlemen other than Yarborne himself would be allowed on the premises tonight.”

“They could scarcely object when I said I had come to collect my wife,” he said, adding curtly, “What the devil are you doing at such an affair, and flirting with that scoundrel Yarborne? And why did he have his hand on your shoulder?”

“Goodness me, sir, I was not flirting. He is our host, and he just patted my shoulder in a fatherly way to console me for losing my money to his charities.”

“So you lost it all, did you? I learned at Brooks’s what manner of entertainment this was, which is why I came to fetch you, but you cannot have had much to lose.”

“I had what you gave me Monday,” she said, “and Aunt Ophelia gave me twenty pounds more.” She hoped devoutly that he would never learn she had lost another hundred pounds above that. She had already cost him far too much money.

“Where is Lady Ophelia?” he asked her again.

They found her at a whist table, and when Melissa asked if she had seen Charley, she said, “Not for an hour or more, but don’t concern yourself. She cannot get into trouble here amongst all these women. Just how did you get in, young man?”

He explained, adding, “I came to save you a journey to Barrington House, ma’am, and to repay the twenty pounds you lent my wife.”

Lady Ophelia took the money with an appreciative chuckle. “Thank you. If my cards don’t improve, I shall need it.”

Outside, Melissa discovered that he had driven his tilbury. Artemus held the horses’ heads while Vexford lifted her to the front seat. Once he had swung himself up and taken up the reins, Artemus climbed up behind, but no one spoke until they reached Barrington House. Vexford’s expression was so forbidding that Melissa hesitated to initiate conversation, but as he reached to help her down she said, “Thank you for coming to fetch me, sir. It was a delightful surprise.”

“Well, it was a surprise, clear enough. Take them round to the stables, Artemus. I’ll not need you again tonight.”

Inside, as they went upstairs together, Melissa said coaxingly, “Are you vexed with me, sir?”

He looked down at her ruefully and put an arm around her shoulders, giving her a hug. “No, my dear, just possessive of my belongings. I’ve been that way since childhood. Just ask Oliver.”

No female relative of Lady Ophelia’s would like to hear herself referred to as a man’s possession, but Melissa was too relieved to hear apology in his tone to take exception. In her experience, an apologetic man was much more easily dealt with than an angry one. She said lightly, “I have scarcely laid eyes on Oliver of late, sir, so I’ll simply have to take your word for that. My, but I’m tired. I’ll
be
very glad to lay my head on my pillow, I can tell you.”

“Not at once, I hope,” he said, giving her another hug. “A man who goes out of his way to look after his wife deserves some reward, don’t you think?” His smile said he was teasing, but she felt herself stiffen and did not blame him when the smile faded.

Hastily, she said, “I will do my best to stay awake.”

“Don’t put yourself out,” he said, looking at her more narrowly. “I must say I don’t understand you, Melissa. One minute, you act as if you want to seduce me, the next you’re tired or have a headache. I’m beginning to think you might benefit from some quiet time at Owlcastle.”

“Owlcastle?”

“My family’s home in Hampshire,” he reminded her.

Biting her lip, Melissa resolved to do her best to please him at once, in order to keep him from sending her out of town. Not only did she not want people to think her husband had sent her away in disgrace but she was determined to go nowhere until she had managed to redeem her watch-bracelet from Yarborne. She smiled seductively and said, “I’m sorry if I vexed you, sir. What can I do to make it up to you?”

L
UCY OPENED THE CURTAINS
to let in the sunlight, and the first thought that stirred in Melissa’s head was a depressing awareness that she had failed in her resolution to please her husband the previous night. She was alone in her bed.

Lucy said, “’Tis a fine bright day, my lady, perfect for the King’s Drawing Room. Not a cloud in the sky. My lady and Lord Vexford are in the breakfast parlor, and my lady said she hopes you will join them, so I didn’t bring your chocolate, but if—”

“Of course, Lucy, I’ll dress at once and go downstairs.”

She was surprised to find her husband breakfasting with his mama, for she had not seen him do so before. The blame was not all his, however. Lady Ulcombe rarely showed her face before eleven.

Vexford rose politely when she entered, but Melissa was quick to notice that, although his mama greeted her, he said nothing.

“I hope you slept well, my dear,” Lady Ulcombe said.

She had not slept much at all, but avoiding her husband’s eye, she said, “I slept very well indeed, ma’am, thank you.”

“Well, you’ve a busy day ahead,” Lady Ulcombe said, “so do get your plate and sit down. We’ve certain matters to discuss. We ought to have talked them over before, I expect, but it is the nature of things that one remembers last-minute details at the last minute. Now, I have arranged it with Ophelia that she and Charlotte are to come here at noon so we can go in train to St. James’s Palace. Your court dress was delivered last evening after you had gone, and it looks perfectly splendid, but of course, you must try it on to be sure it fits properly, and to practice your court curtsy. If there is anything amiss, don’t trust your Lucy to adjust it but send for my woman instead.”

Vexford said, “Considering the enormous cost of that gown, I should expect it to fit her as well as her skin does.”

“Now, Nicholas, don’t be difficult,” his mother said. “You could not in good conscience allow Ophelia to pay for your wife’s court dress, after all, and you would not be at all pleased to have a dowdy at your side at the Drawing Room.”

“At my side? Whatever gave you the notion that I would be present, ma’am? Royal Drawing Rooms are petticoat affairs.”

“They are no such thing.” Lady Ulcombe stared at him. “My dear Nicholas, you cannot think we are going without you.”

“But, surely, my father—”

“Don’t be vexatious. Your father will go much earlier than we shall, for he’s been asked to be at hand when His Majesty receives the French ambassador. Moreover, Melissa is being presented on the occasion of her marriage, so you must certainly be with her to present your compliments. For goodness’ sake, even if she were not being presented, your father would expect you to go. Would you offend His Majesty by making it appear that you support the opposition? And for goodness’ sake, do not neglect to wear knee breeches, Nicholas, and a smallsword. Remember, His Majesty has a veritable obsession with propriety of dress and appearance.”