Dear Impostor (23 page)

          “Or would a discriminating gent like you
prefer a cheroot?”

          Gabriel grinned. “I’d bet the house you could
offer every vice known to man.”

          “And a few unknown, milord.”

          The heavy rouge that coated her lips cracked
when she smiled. He felt a mild disgust when her hand became bolder. Smoothly,
he captured her wandering hand in his own and brought it up to his lips.

          Her hard eyes melted at the unusual chivalry.

          “Ah,” he said, brushing his lips over her
cracked knuckles to soften his refusal, “knowledge and beauty. Too much for a
weary adventurer.”

          With one deft movement, he plucked the cheroot
from its snug display and clenched it between his straight teeth. He left in
its place one of his last remaining guineas. Her shoulders hunched in reaction
to the warm coin against her skin and a gasp escaped her at his largesse.

          “Allow me the privilege of just observing you
and enjoying the anticipation.”

          She sighed.

          “Oh yes, milord. Whatever you wish.”

          Gabriel had turned to walk deeper into the
hell when she called after him.

          “Just ask for Annie, should you be needing
anything, milord. Anything,” she called after him, her knuckles pressed to her
cheek.

          But he had already forgotten. With an
experienced eye, he observed the procession of little rooms which ran into one
another. Faro, E.O., and hazard were all being played with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
But in the back room, Gabriel found his game—whist. A number of young, foolish
aristocrats with more money than sense sat eagerly at the tables. Their faces,
so delighted at being out of the school room, showed every trick as clearly as
if they were spreading their hands open on the tables before them. The serious
gamesters lolled against their chairs in varying degrees of bored superiority,
looking as if each maneuver was purely whim. But their eyes never missed a
thing–always weighing, always calculating the odds. All to relieve the foolish
of the burden of their wealth.

          Tonight, Gabriel shared similar ambitions. Any
twinge of shame he might have felt for the prey had long been tempered by his
very necessary need for survival. A man walking into such a place as this
deserved to face the consequences. Gabriel was long past any crisis of
conscience.

          Or so he thought.

          “Why, I’ll be damned
for a bastard of a whore. It’s Sinclair!”

          Gabriel winced, recognizing the voice of
drunken excess. And drunken excess had no discretion.

          Pretending deafness, he turned and began to
weave his way back to another room and another game. But a hand grasped his
upper arm and exerted pressure to pull him around. Sighing to the inevitable,
Gabriel turned.

          “By God, it is you, you bastard!”

           The handsome young man swaying in front of
Gabriel in very expensive boots wore a smile of delight such as only the very
drunk can assume. He looked as pleased at recognizing an old acquaintance as if
he had rediscovered America.

          Gabriel felt a moment of pleasure, tempered
sharply by the need for caution; he shook the hand off his arm and bowed
slightly.

          “David.”

          “Son of a bitch, I’m glad to see you.” David
Lydford, Earl of Westbury, whose estates marched along side Gabriel’s one-time
home, was ten years younger, but as a lad, he had had a severe case of hero
worship for the older youth. David had followed after Gabriel through the
fields of the home farm as they shot birds and waded through cold streams when
they angled for trout. And Gabriel had, mostly, been patient with him, teaching
him to cast a fly, showing him how to gentle a horse. Neither of them had had
loving fathers, and they had found solace in each other’s company. David had
followed, puppy-like, wherever Gabriel had led. Gabriel had thought about him
at times, during his exile, wondering what had become of the lad. David’s lofty
title had been thrust upon him at a very early age when his father had caught a
fever of the lungs and died. David had once confided how his rake of a father
had caught his sickness. The old roue had fallen ill after making love to his
mistress in the garden fountain.

          It seemed David had not forgotten their
boyhood friendship, but he could hardly have chosen a worse time to announce
their acquaintanceship to the world. They were beginning to draw stares.  

          Gabriel sighed. He could not ignore David. The
boy had grown into a man of stature, only an inch shorter than Gabriel himself,
with chestnut brown hair and blue-gray eyes.

          “David, I would be much happier to see you if
you were sober.”

          David laughed raucously and pounded Gabriel’s
shoulders in a bear hug. “Don’t tell me you’ve turned into a damned Puritan,
you sotty ol’ bastard. I won’t believe it. Why, I learned everything I know
from this man,” he told a disinterested passerby.

          Gabriel grimaced slightly and tried to avoid
the whisky fumes emanating form David’s mouth.

          “I’ve never been prouder, I’m sure,” he said
dryly. “And David, my legitimacy is not a subject to be bandied about a gaming
hall. Please refrain.”

          Much to his discomfiture, David grinned and
hugged Gabriel again. Gabriel straightened his lapels.           

          “Course, I know that. Say!” David paused
theatrically as a thought occurred to him.

          Gabriel watched warily as David’s alcohol-blurred
eyes brightened.

          “I need you!”

          “And I need to find a game, David. So if
you’ll excuse me.” Gabriel tried to loosen his hold, but David held firm. “And
David. Try to be discreet. I am not ready to announce my return as of yet.”

          “But that’s what I need you for, Gabe.” David
gestured to the table behind Gabriel. “I lost my partner, and if you don’t join
me, I shall lose the very cloth that’s covering my arse.”

          David laughed with drunken delight, seeming
completely unconcerned about his losses.

          Gabriel glanced over his shoulder toward the
table to which David had pointed. Surprise and shock sent him spinning to face
it.

          Seated at the table and idly fingering the
enormous pile of markers in front of him was the last man Gabriel wanted to see–the
man whom Gabriel knew to be a cheat, a thief, and recently, a would-be
murderer. It was the man who had lost his estate to Gabriel–Nathaniel Barrett.

          Barrett and one of his ugly henchmen sat at
the battered table. Knowing how Barrett operated, Gabriel glanced around and
found two other eager helpers behind David. Damn it, he had just delivered
himself right into Barrett’s dirty hands. He might as well have been bloody
gift-wrapped.

          “Why, Sinclair, of all the hells in London, you walk into mine.”

          Accepting this bit of unlucky news with
characteristic composure, Gabriel stepped closer to the table and his greatest
enemy. He should have asked his new valet not just the location of the most
promising hells, but who owned them. Not that Brickson would necessarily have
known. With practiced nonchalance, Gabriel swept up the pack of cards that were
on the table and began shuffling the thin sheets of cardboard.

          “Oh no, Barrett. This is turning out to be
my
personal hell.”

          If it were possible, Barrett’s expression got
uglier.

          “You best be polite, my lad. I could have my
men toss you out in the alley and cut your throat for good measure.”

          “No need, I assure you. I much prefer the
refuse in here.”

          Barrett’s man half rose out of his chair, but
a motion from his employer had him sitting again.

          “Got that, did you? You’re brighter than I
gave you credit for.”

          “Yes, yes. Glad we are all acquainted.” David
had been swaying happily and chugging another drink he had snagged from a
passing barmaid. “Gabriel, sit down and help me win back my self-respect.”

          “Among other things.” Barrett said, his eyes
glittering with satisfied malice.

          Gabriel’s stomach turned over sickly as sudden
comprehension came to him.

          “What things?” he asked tersely.

          “Only ten, fifteen . . .” David trailed off,
squinting his eyes with uncertainty.

          “Fifty,” Barrett said decisively.

          “Fifty thousand pounds,” David finished
blithely.

          Gabriel jerked David up by his lapels and gave
him a frustrated shake.

          “You drunken idiot! You’ve been playing that
deep with these characters?”

          David pushed himself away and attempted an
expression of offended hauteur. “What’s come over you, Sinclair? I often play
this deep. I’ve seen
you
play even deeper.”

          Gabriel wanted so much to go on shaking David
that he had to clench his hands to restrain himself. “Yes, but not with a man
such as this, and not when I am the only thing standing between a sickly mother
and ruin.”

          The hauteur disappeared from David’s face. The
young, proud features hardened into a mask of anger and hurt. Reminded of his
responsibility, he seemed to feel it hanging heavy as a shroud.

          “You would speak so to me, when I count you
among my friends!”

          “Oh, save your wounded sensibilities for
later, you young fool.” Placing a hand on David’s shoulder, Gabriel shoved him
down into a chair. “Right now, I’m the best friend you’ve got.”

          With grim purpose, Gabriel pulled up another
chair and sat across from David.

          “Shall we play?”

          Barrett nodded regally. “By all means. It
would cap off my evening perfectly to retrieve what I was so reckless to lose
before.”

          And just like that, because of some damned
shred of honor that Gabriel hadn’t been sure was still in him, he was risking
his only chance at a future. Gabriel turned to look at David.
You had better
be worth it
, he thought.

          David reached out to grab another drink as it
passed him on a tray.

          “Oh no, you don’t.” Gabriel took the glass
from David’s hand and then tossed it back himself.

          “What the hell?” David exclaimed in disbelief.

          “Only tea for you, my friend. You’ve drunk
just enough to be dangerous.”

          David sputtered indignantly, but Gabriel
ignored him and turned to face his nemesis.

          Barrett lolled easily in his chair as he
watched closely the interplay between Gabriel and David. His fleshy lips curved
into a smile. “It seems Fate has decided we shall have another game, Sinclair.”

          Gabriel meet his gaze squarely. “Not Fate,
Barrett. But rather you, taking advantage of a schoolboy who should be drinking
milk and not the swill you serve.”

          Barrett picked up the deck of cards and sent
them flying between his fingers. “He entered on his own power and imbibed on
his own as well. He is the Earl of Westbury and has no nursemaid with him.”

          David, who had been studying the cards flash
past him with fascinated absorption, raised his head and said proudly, “Hell,
no! Evaded them. Very cunning, you know.”

          “Who is cunning, David?” Gabriel asked with
waning patience.

          “I am, of course. I lost the annoying brutes. Don’t
need them bloody hanging about me. Am man enough myself.”

          It did not surprise Gabriel in the least that
David’s smothering mother had hired guards for her only son. And of course, it
had only driven him to further excesses.

          “Yes, indeed, Westbury,” Barrett said
soothingly. “Grown men do not need nursemaids following them about and telling
them what to do.” He pushed his glass of whisky—untouched— toward David. David
reached eagerly for it but Gabriel swept it aside, adding the glass’s contents
to the already sticky floor.

          “That’s right,
Earls
don’t need
nursemaids, Sinclair.” David grimaced at Gabriel. “You know, I’m beginning to
forget why I ever liked you.”

          “Because I never could resist a hopeless
case,” Gabriel drawled. “Lucky for you.”

          “This is all vastly entertaining,” Barrett
said, rolling his narrow eyes. “But am I going to win back what is rightfully
mine or not? I doubt you have enough blunt to match David’s losses–and my
winnings–in this game, else.”

          “It appears I must play with my old friend
here. But one game only, winner take all. And you will not recover what is now
mine.” Slowly, reluctantly, Gabriel reached inside his pocket and pulled out
the note, the deed, that Barrett had lost to him weeks ago. He had never been
without it. Swallowing the lump in his throat, Gabriel dropped it to the table.