Corey McFadden (18 page)

At the thought of the earl, Maude’s heart gave a painful twist. They had had such companionable afternoons while he recuperated, sitting over cards. As his strength had returned, they had moved from the bed to the card table set up in his room for that purpose, while he had watched and practiced the tricks she showed him. Now he dressed every morning as fastidiously as Mrs. Formby had said, and he needed little help with his morning attire. Maude had admitted to herself a shocking sense of disappointment that once he was well, he had required no help with his bath, other than having his things laid out ahead.

During the past few weeks, she was surprised and pleased to find him an easy man to work for, given that he was obviously used to only the most competent personal service. He was never impatient as she fumbled to arrange and rearrange his snowy-white neckcloth, although she certainly got impatient with herself. He praised her for her sense of organization and the apparent ease with which she had mastered the various drawers and cabinets which housed the labyrinth of an earl’s attire, unaware that when he was out, she spent hours going through his things, memorizing the location of each. She would not admit to herself that she felt a warmth and sense of pleasure just from touching his possessions.

Then, abruptly, her pleasure had ceased; the sense of camaraderie had evaporated. That woman, that Bella, had arrived one evening, sweeping into the room with not so much as an announcement, spilling out of her magenta satin gown, her black hair a riot of curls around her heart-stoppingly beautiful face with its dark brown eyes and sensuous, red-painted, pouty lips. She made Amelia look like mud. And there was Radford in his dressing gown, ready for bed! Had the creature shown any shame? Not in the least! Indeed, she had purred at him like a cat and had wrapped herself around him as if his valet were not even there. And the cad had done nothing to fend the woman off. Nothing at all! Why he had lapped it up, wrapping his arms around that overblown, painted she-devil, giving her such a kiss that Maude had wondered how they could breathe, and waving Maude away as if she were a fly spoiling a picnic.

Leaving the room, Maude had encountered her own reflection in the tall mirror standing in the hallway outside his room, all the better for him to admire himself on the way out. A gangly boy had looked back at her, freckled and red-haired, with broken fingernails, a smudge from mucking the stables across her cheek, and a miserable expression.

Then the rake had announced to her yesterday that he would be dining in the evening with that woman, and that he would not be in until quite late. He had whistled as Maude had fumbled, tight-lipped and silent, to get him dressed properly. He had had the nerve to remark that he considered Miss D’Amico the most exquisite creature of his acquaintance. On his way out he had had the temerity, the gall, to wink at Maude, as if she were a willing partner in his debaucheries!

And then, the unkindest cut of all, he had not come home! She had waited up all night, unable to sleep in the narrow little bed in the alcove of his dressing room, straining at every sound, listening for the thud of his boots on the floor in the next room. Sounds that would tell her he was out of that witch’s clutches and home safely. Instead, Maude had dropped into an uneasy sleep near dawn. She had been awakened by the morning serving girl with the tea tray, who had giggled at her, but had seemed utterly unfazed that the earl’s bed had not been slept in.

Mrs. Formby, too, had been unconcerned. It seemed that the earl frequently absented himself under “these circumstances.” Mike need have no concern for his lordship’s safety, or, in fact, she had suggested with a quelling look, was it any of Mike’s business where the earl slept. And sure enough, sometime this afternoon, a smirking footman had arrived from that woman’s house with a note from the earl requesting that fresh evening attire and his riding gear be sent to him. He would return on the morrow. Maude could not bear it.

Tonight had obviously been the night then to seek out Eddie and put her plan into motion. The trouble was, she had forgotten it was Wednesday night, the night of the weekly card game. She had arrived just as they were getting started and there had been no excuse for her not to play. To tell the truth, she had not been displeased to be invited into the game.

Aha! There was the palm again, the card slipped back into the sleeve, as clear as day to anyone who knew what to look for. Tom wasn’t even particularly good at it, sloppy and slow. She could not allow this hand to continue. It was clear Tom would win if it did.

“Ow! The bugger bit me, he did!” Maude cried out suddenly, her foot jerking out and kicking the makeshift table off its pinnings.

Cards flew everywhere. Boys scrambled to back away from whatever “bugger” Mike was going on about. In a loft over a stable it didn’t pay to be careless about what bit.

Maude rubbed at a spot above her boot. “Sorry about the cards, Tom. Here, let me help.”

Before he could stop her, she was scrambling in the straw, picking up the cards at random, making sure their former order had been spoiled. After she had the pile together, she gave it a shuffle, as if absent-mindedly, then sat down to Tom’s right to count the deck.

“One short, I’m afraid. Must be in the straw.” Maude made a feint at searching the floor, knowing Tom would have to “find” the missing card.

“’Ere it is, I’ve found it.” Tom held out a card, sounding rather sullen. It was the ace of hearts.

“Well, now, that’s lucky, ain’t it?” Maude said cheerfully, taking it from his hand and burying it in the middle of the deck. “No harm done. Your deal, I believe, Tom?” She handed him the deck with a grin. “Nasty little vermin up here in the straw, ain’t they?”

Tom took the deck without a word and began to deal. The hand went to Eddie, who took his winnings with a look of relief.

Tom had indifferent luck for the rest of the evening. The new boy, Mike, jabbered on and on like the country fool that he was, but every time he cut the cards he picked them up and made them into a seamless pile, handing them back to Tom. Tom knew only a few tricks, and he was stymied, no longer having any idea where a few good cards were in the deck. It was not long before he quit the game.

“Aw, it’s no fun playin’ with a pack of babies like you. I can’t bother to concentrate on the cards with the stakes so low. I’m off.”

Maude was amused to note that not only did Tom take no winnings with him, but he had left a few of his own coins in the other boys’ piles.

She watched him go, then turned to face the table. Besides herself and Eddie, there were two more boys from the stable. Maude had not met them before but they seemed nice enough, too nice to be cheated by the likes of that bully, Tom.

“Eddie,” she began, after listening to the door slam below, “Tom cheats. He’s no good, that one. Don’t let him play anymore.” With Eddie, Maude softened her accent and her grammar.

“Mike, that’s a dangerous thing to say about anyone, especially Tom. He could ’ave us beaten just for the fun of it. A real toady to ’Is Grace, is Tom.” He looked around nervously, as if somehow the walls had ears.

“It’s true, all the same. Look here. I’ll show you how it’s done.”

Maude began her whirlwind, then produced three aces from her sleeve. The boys stared at her as if she’d sprouted two heads.

“’Ow’d you come to be knowin’ such tricks, anyway?” asked one of the boys, suspicion dawning in his eyes.

“My old master taught me, so’s I’d know how to spot when it was done to me. But don’t worry. He made me swear up and down I’d never use them to cheat, and I never have, on my soul.” Maude held up her right hand.

The boys looked thoughtful. It was true, at least tonight. This boy, Mike, had won no more than a few shillings, and on indifferent hands at that.

“Look, if I planned to cheat you, would I be showin’ you this? I just hate seeing the likes of him get your wages with such scurvy, sloppy tricks.” Maude dealt again, and once more produced a spectacular hand. “I’m not going to show you how it’s done, because I swore on my honor I would not, but I’ll show you how to spot it, and how to foil it.”

For the next half hour, Maude showed the boys how to shuffle carefully, to disarrange any trapped decks. She showed them how to cut, then placed the cut halves back together so no seam appeared to mark where the cut had been.

“Your best move in a game like this is to have a rule that the one who deals cannot make his own deck, and then, that someone else cuts. Also, make sure you watch him like a hawk. He’ll depend on your being easily distracted, but he won’t dare try his tricks if you are obviously watching him. Watch for him to palm a card or two up his sleeve, then deal them to himself. Also, he may have a spare deck stashed away somewhere on him, maybe in his boot. Watch for a switch on his deal.”

“You wasn’t bit by no vermin, was you, Mike?” The younger of the two stablehands had replaced his suspicious look with one of worship.

“Nah, no bite.” Maude giggled. “But you should have seen the look on his face when his deck went flying. And with that ace up his sleeve!”

The four laughed, and Eddie clapped Maude on the back. “I really owe you one, Mike. That bastard’s cleaned us out any number of times. ’E only shows up when we’ve just got paid. Next time, won’t ’e be surprised... Hssst, listen!”

There was a sudden hush as the boys froze. Maude looked from one to the other, trying to fathom the cause. Then she heard it—the sounds of a carriage coming in below.

“Cor, the old man’s back. And it’s so early!” Eddie hissed.

The boys sprang to their feet. The look of terror was unmistakable in their eyes.

“We’d better get down right away. Mike, can you ’ide up here, quiet-like? Don’t make a sound, until we get ’im out of the carriage. ’Is Grace don’t take to us ’avin’ comp’ny. Don’t like us gossipin’ with the rest of the neighbor’ood,” Eddie whispered.

“Aye, don’t worry. I’ll be quiet as a mouse.”

“Climb down an’ run when it’s clear. Won’t take us too long to get ’im in. Unless ’e’s drunk, that is, and lookin’ for a fight.”

Eddie disappeared down the ladder, behind the two other boys. Maude shuddered at the thought of working for a man who could inspire such a reaction just by coming home.

She waited in the dark until the all-clear, then she crept down the ladder and hurried out the back into the alley. She had not had a chance to talk to Eddie about what she really wanted. But now he owed her one, and that wasn’t so bad.

Chapter Twelve

Lord Radford was preoccupied. He was vaguely aware of his valet’s straightening up the room and seeing to the clothes the earl had carelessly stripped off and flung about on his return. The boy was frowning at the red-wine stain down the front of his dress shirt. Radford smiled to himself. Bella could be so deliciously impulsive. He sat at his elegant Louis Quinze desk and glanced cursorily through the two days’ worth of personal correspondence that had accumulated in his absence.

Bella had had a dinner party last night with the usual bright, glittering crowd. She, of course, had looked stunning. There was no color in nature’s pallet that would not set off her glowing skin to perfection, and it was hard to imagine what kind of feed sack she would have to wear in order not to show off her magnificent, voluptuous body. If only she weren’t such a rattle brain.

But it was not Bella who held his thoughts this morning. He had heard things last night in a private moment with his friend, Paul Gillingham, that had made his blood run cold. Brompton was dead. He had been found the day before yesterday in the stables of his townhouse, shot by his own hand. Just like Atherley. But, unlike Atherley, there had apparently been some sort of accommodation reached with the Duke of Sommesby. According to Paul, whose valet was engaged to a maid in the duke’s establishment, Brompton had recently taken to visiting the duke very privately, and the winnings had been returned.

It seems that several days ago, one of the duke’s underfootmen, entering a room he thought empty, had come upon the duke and the young man in a most compromising position. The servant had been thrashed within an inch of his life. But Brompton, aware that no power on earth could silence the flow of downstairs gossip to the
ton
, had taken his own life.

What a hideous way to have to recoup one’s losses. Radford felt his stomach lurch at the thought of Sommesby’s pasty-white face and fat, be-ringed fingers. It made perfect sense. The duke did not need money; that was obvious. There was absolutely no intimation that he had spent unwisely over the years, or had made poor investments. But it was clear that he was a man with a strange, voracious appetite. He seemed to thrive on power and he had found the perfect way to feed his need.

Poor Atherley. Poor Brompton. It was no wonder each had chosen the gentleman’s way out of this nightmare. And Radford, too, had been a target. He felt sick at his stomach. He sighed and lowered his head into his hands. Now he knew precisely how the duke could ruin a young man at the end of an evening. It was so preposterously simple, as this boy from a muddy ditch had shown him. It did not even take real skill in a room full of gentlemen drinking brandy and chatting among themselves. Hiding behind the inviolate code of gentlemen's honor, the duke could get away with murder. And worse.

All these years he had thought Sommesby such an easily distracted popinjay, smiling, waving, interrupting the game. Now he saw the truth. The man was a master at distraction. And God only knew what went on inside his boots.

“Is anything amiss, my lord? Shall I get you something?”

The boy sounded so formal, so stilted. Radford turned and gave his valet a considering look. “I want your advice, boy, and, I think perhaps your help.”

“My lord?” The boy stood at attention, uncharacteristically stiff and would not meet his eye.

“What ails you, boy?” Radford asked. “You’ve been sniffing around here all morning like my Great-Aunt Sophie.”

“There is nothing wrong with me, my lord. I regret having given offense.”