Duel of Hearts (13 page)

They pushed through the crowd. “Good lord, it's the
bumpkin!
” North chortled. An overindulgence in the club's excellent Madeira had weakened his already loose hold on good manners.

A murmur of disapproval ran through the crowd. Lord Styles and Edward both looked up, and Edward, to his chagrin, felt his color rise. Lord Styles frowned angrily, his white moustaches quivering at the ends. “Damned nail!” he muttered under his breath. “Don't let that sort of thing bother you, m'boy,” he said bluntly to Edward. “Means to rattle you, that's all.”

“Don't worry, sir, I'm not in the least rattled. In fact, I think I've made a quint.”

Lord Styles chuckled. “Good fellow! That's the rubber. My hat's off to you, even if it costs me a rouleau.” He paid his losses and patted Edward on the shoulder. “Damn good game, my boy. Enjoyed it heartily.”

The crowd gave a round of applause while Edward rose to leave the table. But a hand on his back stayed him. “Don't go yet, Middleton,” North said suavely. “How about trying your hand against a
real
player?”

“You flatter yourself, North,” Lord Styles interjected coldly. “I've bested you on many a day. You needn't let us keep you, Middleton,” he added, trying to help Edward out of what he feared would become a dangerous situation.

“Thank you, sir,” Edward said to Lord Styles, “but I've no objection to accepting Lord North's challenge.” He turned to North. “Lead us to a table, my lord.”

Lord Styles got up from his chair. “If you're determined, Middleton, to play with that … with North, you can sit here. I've had enough for tonight.”

The crowd, which had begun to disperse, reformed. The feeling ran high that this would be a match worth watching. “What stakes were you playing for?” North asked, taking fresh picquet cards from a waiter's tray and dropping some coins in their place.

“It was merely a friendly bout,” Edward said. “Five shilling a point.”

“Paltry, sir, paltry,” North said disparagingly. “A mere
country
wager.”

Edward looked across at Lord North shrewdly. The stakes he'd named were quite adequate—he was not such a bumpkin that he didn't know that. North was trying to rattle him. His eyes glinted with amusement. Did his lordship believe that because he came from the country he was necessarily behindhand in wordly goods? “You may name the stakes yourself, my lord,” he suggested calmly.

“Then shall we play for ten a point?”

The crowd murmured, but Edward merely smiled. “As you wish,” he said.

“And fifty pounds the rubber, to sweeten the pot,” North added slyly.

“I
say
!” Lord Styles objected. “That's too deep by half! What are you up to, North?”

But Edward smiled confidently at Lord Styles. “I don't mind, Lord Styles. You needn't concern yourself.”

Styles subsided, but he couldn't help grunting to the gentlemen standing near him that North was pulling a rum trick on an innocent stranger.

Some time later, Fitz, having lost all he could afford to the Faro bank, came looking for his friend. Seeing the large crowd in the rear card room, he joined them curiously and discovered, to his complete amazement, that
his Ned
was at the center of the congregation. “What goes on here?” he whispered to an acquaintance.

“Some sort of blood match, I think,” was the whispered response. “Piquet.”

“I can see it's picquet,” Fitz said irritably. “Who's winning?”

“Hard to say. A rubber apiece, so far.”

“Shhhh!” hissed Lord Styles in front of them, turning around in annoyance. “Oh, Fitzsimmons. Glad to see you, lad. Think your friend's gotten himself in a bit of a hole. North's got 'im playing too deep.”

When Styles had informed him of the stakes, Fitz frowned. He had no notion of the condition of his
friend
's finances, but he knew that
North
had little need to worry over the size of the stakes. He bit his lip, fingered his thick moustache, and watched the game with anxious eyes.

Edward, however, had no such concern. After two rubbers, he had the measure of his opponent. North played well and daringly, but he often gambled on slim chances. Edward, therefore, took pains not to bet against the odds. Soon the advantage of his strategy began to show. The murmurs of the crowd grew louder as Edward began to pull ahead in the score. He capped the final game with a quint major, causing the entire crowd, even those who'd bet against him, to burst into applause.

Lord North shoved a pile of rouleaux across the table insolently and clumsily pushed himself to his feet. “If I hadn't drunk s' much, it would've been diff'rent,” he mumbled in a surly tone. “I s'pose you play this stupid game all the time in … where
is
the rusticity you come from?… Lincolnshire?”

“We're much too busy in the country—yes, it's Lincolnshire—to spend time at cards,” Edward came back promptly. “Of course, we play occasionally—when we have visitors from town. There's so little else you townsmen seem to know how to do.”

The crowd laughed and surged in on Edward. Fitz clapped him enthusiastically on the shoulder, and Lord Styles pumped his hand. Lord North was joined only by Ingalls, and the two made a prompt exit from the club. But before North left the card room, he heard Lord Styles declare loudly that he was putting Middleton up for membership the first thing in the morning.

“That country
put
cost me more than five hundred pounds,” Lord North muttered for the tenth time later that night, as he and his crony sat sprawled on two loveseats in his lordship's drawing room, to which they'd repaired after leaving the club. Boozy and depressed, they'd tossed aside their coats, loosened their neckcloths and ordered the butler to bring them a decanter of brandy. With a careless disregard for the damage they might do to the satin upholstery, they'd filled their brandy glasses and sprawled over the furniture, each one preoccupied with his own discontents. “Five hundred pounds in less than two hours. 'S a disgrace.”

“Not such a disgrace,” Ingalls remonstrated. “Not as bad as letting a silly chit like Corianne Lindsay keep one dangling like a marionette.”

“'S a disgrace,” North insisted. “I let th' fellow make a fool o' me.”

“I wouldn't say that,” Ingalls argued. “Just lost a game o' cards. Nothin' so very foolish about that. Everyone does it. But to let a snip of a female do it—”

“Lost to a
bumpkin
. Don't like losin' five hundred pounds to a bumpkin.”

Ingalls nodded in agreement. “Don't like bein'
dangled
by a bumpkin, either. A female bumpkin.”

North emptied the dregs of the decanter into his glass unsteadily. “Somethin' about that bumpkin I don't like. Don't like at all.”

“Too high in the instep, that's what she is,” Ingalls declared bitterly.

North blinked at him appreciatively. “That's it. Just what's been irritatin' me. Too high in the instep. You've put your finger on it. He's too high by half.”

“Who?” inquired Ingalls.

“The bumpkin … Middleton. Who else?”

“Oh, yes, Middleton. Don't refine on it, old f'low. Everyone loses at cards sometimes.”

“Too high in the instep, I say!” North roared.

“Yes, that she is. That's what I've been sayin',” Tony explained carefully.

“Must take 'im down a peg. That's what to do. Take 'im down a peg.”

“Who, Corianne? What a good idea … take 'er down a peg. Don't know
why
the chit won't have me. Does she fancy herself too good for me? She
plays
with me … like a cat with a mouse.”

Lord North tried to shake the cobwebs from his brain by rapidly shaking his head from side to side. “I'm not talking about your silly little chit. Do you hear me, Tony? Talking about
Middleton
. Never
did
like that bumptious makebait … not from the first time I saw him. Owe him a lesson.”

“Yes, of course. Middleton. Take 'im down a peg. Just the thing to do. And Corianne, too, if it comes to that.”

North smiled. “Yes, why not? Both of 'em.” He studied his empty glass for a moment and then turned it over to make sure it was empty. “We'll
break
'em!” he declared, tossing his empty glass into a corner of the fireplace where it shivered into a thousand pieces. “Just like that!”

Tony Ingalls started. Did he mean the glasses or…? Then he laughed and, following his host's example, tossed his glass, too. The crash sent a tinkling spray of splinters against the fire screen. “Just like that,” said, chuckling uneasily.

Corianne had spent the evening under her aunt's chaperonage at a small dinner party held by Lady Ridgelea in honor of her daughter's betrothal. From Corianne's point of view, the evening had been a horror. The guests were, she decided, almost all in their dotage, the rooms were airless and stuffy, the food was insipid and the music boringly tame. The betrothed girl was made so much of that no one had eyes for anyone else. And worst of all, there were only two young men present who could be considered eligibles. One was the omnipresent Wilfred Shirley, whom she was coming to despise, and the other was a stranger named Clement Fenell, for whom the best that could be said was that he wasn't
quite
bald.

She made no objection at all when her aunt took her home at the shamelessly early hour of eleven. Even bed was to be preferred to that disastrous party. The two ladies entered the foyer of Stanborough House wearily, handed their cloaks to the butler and started for the stairs. But Lady Stanborough's eye was caught by a splash of color on the table near the door. “What's that, Tait? Flowers?”

“Delivered this evening, my lady. For Miss—”

“For
me
?” Corianne asked eagerly, running down the stairs again.

“No, ma'am. For Miss
Sarah
. I suppose she forgot to take 'em upstairs with her.”

Lady Stanborough's eyebrows rose delightedly. “For Miss
Sarah?
But
who—?
”

Tait shrugged. “I'm sure I couldn't say, ma'am. I believe there was a card…”

But her ladyship was already
reading
the card, with Corianne looking over her shoulder. “How irritating!” Lady Stanborough muttered. “It isn't signed.”

“Why … that looks like …” Corianne sucked in her breath in a horrified gasp. “Like
Edward's
writing!”

“Edward
Middleton
?” Lady Stanborough blinked at Corianne while the information slowly percolated into her consciousness. “You don't mean it!” Her eyes began to gleam with a matchmaker's rapacity. “Edward Middleton! How very
interesting
!”

Corianne snatched the little card from her aunt's hand and stared at it. “No, it couldn't be. This is some sort of coincidence. I must be mistaken.”

Lady Stanborough's eager smile faded. “Yes, I suppose it
is
too much to expect.” And with deflated spirits, she went up the stairs to bed.

Corianne followed. For the first time since her arrival, she felt a surge of discontent. London could sometimes be a great bore. As she walked down the hallway to her bedroom, she shook her head in disbelief. “It
couldn't
be Edward,” she said aloud. “Not in a hundred years.”

Chapter Ten

C
ORIANNE WAS STILL
abed when the note from Edward was brought in by a housemaid. Cory ordered the curtains opened, read the note uninterestedly, tossed it aside, ordered the curtains redrawn and flung herself into the pillows again, pulling the covers up to her neck. The maid was tiptoeing out of the room when Corianne sat up with an anguished cry. Ordering the curtains opened again, she stumbled out of bed and searched impatiently about for the paper she'd tossed aside. She found it on the floor and perused it again, this time with intense curiosity.

There was nothing much to be gleaned from the note. He'd only asked, in the most mundane style, to be excused this morning from their semi-weekly ride. Since she'd always found this ride to be rather a chore—for Edward always subjected her to a veritable cross-examination concerning her activities—one would think she would be relieved to be able to avoid it. Instead, however, she flounced angrily across the room to the window seat and threw herself upon it with petulant irritation. For she had a sudden and vivid recollection of the flowers—and the accompanying card—she'd seen the night before.

“Is there somethin' wrong, Miss?” the surprised housemaid asked.

“No, nothing. Why are you standing there gaping? Go on about your duties,” Corianne muttered curtly.

The girl whisked herself out of the room while Corianne stared out of the window at a grey, ominous morning that exactly matched her mood. The note was crumpled in her right hand while she thoughtfully chewed at her left thumbnail. It was a strange coincidence. The note on the flowers had been written in a hand that looked like Edward's. And now this. It was not that she minded the cancellation of the ride but that the circumstances made her feel suddenly insecure. Edward had always been so reliable. His constant and protective affection had been hers since childhood … like the very ground beneath her feet. Perhaps that was why his note this morning made her feel as if she'd stumbled into a hole.

But she was being foolish. He probably had some business to take care of. Hadn't he said something about moving out of the Fenton? She'd scarcely paid attention when he'd informed her and Aunt Laurelia of his change of address, but
that
was probably what occupied him this morning. She'd no reason to upset herself. Although, she thought petulantly, he
could
have arranged to move at some hour other than the one he'd set aside for
her
.