Fortune's Lady (6 page)

“But you just said ...”

“Every woman has her vanity, Linky; it is natural to the creatures. But Maria is a simple person, and her only worry when I ignore her is that I am dallying with another. She stands to lose significant income should I lose interest in her, a fear that can be quickly laid to rest by the presentation of another expensive trinket.”

“Sounds like a damned cold-blooded relationship to me.”

“On the contrary, it is extremely, ah,
ardent.
The Italian temperament is predisposed to lovemaking.”

“Perhaps, but who wants a woman to look upon one as a mere banker?”

“Believe me, it is more pleasant than being what the world calls
loved.
Maria only asks money of me. That is easy to give. However, a woman who claims to love becomes jealous of one’s time and attention. The object of her love is subjected to increasing demands; the expectations are as limitless and variable as the woman’s state of mind, and the lover is supposed to be alive to all these variations all the time. I will take a woman who asks for my purse over the woman who demands my heart and soul any day.”

“I tell you, Gareth, it ain’t natural. At the end of a day every man wants a cozy little armful who cares about him.”

“Not I. Give me freedom anytime. I prefer to live my own life to having it run for me by someone who does not understand me, but whose mere interest in me, for whatever reason—fortune, position, title—gives her the right to dictate my actions.”

“Sounds damn lonely to me.”

“But uncomplicated.”

Gareth took his leave and headed toward the snug little villa in Marylebone that he had purchased for Maria some months before. The dancer had just arrived home herself after a most successful evening. Having been singled out by particular applause and numerous flora! tributes, she was feeling quite pleased with herself. The long slender box that Gareth presented to her by way of apology for his absence only added to her sense of well-being.

“My lord,” she exclaimed, lifting out the diamond bracelet and trying it on her slender wrist, “it is exquisite. You are so generous. But”—she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his head down to look up at him under seductively lowered lids as her tongue flicked over her full, red lower lip—”I can be generous too.” Her mouth clung to his as she pressed herself into his arms.

Why, Gareth asked himself as his hands traced the ripe curves of her truly voluptuous figure, should he be thinking of a pair of startling blue eyes set under delicately arched brows when deep rich brown ones, warm with passionate invitation, were promising him a world of physical delights? He could not imagine why the image of another woman’s delicate eyebrows frowning in concentration or her beautifully sculpted lips compressed in thought should intrude into his consciousness at this particular and most inopportune moment. Or why, he wondered, as his lips explored Maria’s, should he be speculating on whether or not such passion could be aroused in an Ice Princess.

But Maria was far too skillful to allow a lover much time for wandering thoughts. Undoing the marquess’s neck cloth as she pulled him toward the low damask sofa, she soon made Gareth forget everything but her long, firm dancer’s legs and the hungry lips that claimed his.

Several hours later, a pleasantly exhausted Gareth slowly donned his clothes as he admired the picture she made, her nude body draped across the rich fabric of the sofa, the glow of the flickering firelight playing on her skin.

Maria raised her graceful arm to admire the sparkle of firelight in the diamonds on her wrist. “It is a lovely bracelet.” She smiled with satisfaction at the picture it made on her bare arm.

“To make up for an absent lover and the warm welcome he received despite his absence.”

“Why should I waste time sulking over his absence? The two things of most importance in my life are passion and money, and I savor them both—passion to be enjoyed for now, and money for when I am too old to enjoy passion.”

Gareth glanced in the looking glass and gave his cravat a final tweak. “You are a practical woman, Maria, a rarity among your sex, believe me.”

“What other way is there to be?” The dancer shrugged her elegant shoulders.

“What other way, indeed?” But Gareth found himself thinking not about the dancer’s practicality, but the practical streak of someone so coolly self-possessed that she could ignore everything to beat him soundly at cards.

Chapter 7

The question of practicality was most definitely a concern the next morning in an elegant drawing room in Grosvenor Square where the young woman in question was trying desperately to convince herself that the inquiries she was posing to her cousin Reginald were motivated by purely pragmatic considerations.

His own curiosity piqued the previous evening by the sight of Althea playing whist with one of the
ton’s
most notorious gamblers, Reginald had made it his first priority, after consulting for the better part of the morning with his tailor, to call on his cousin and discover more about the particulars of the situation.

“My dear Althea, you are frequenting very select card-playing circles indeed if you can convince Harwood to take a seat at your table, but are you sure you know what you are about? Do take care; he is dangerous company.”

“Reginald, you
know
that I am always careful to a fault.” Althea sighed. “I
never
do anything that is not perfectly becoming to the only child of the Duke of Clarendon. The Marchioness of Harwood was most gracious to Grandmama and me, befriending us and offering herself and her son as partners. In fact, she went so far as to say that we can count on seeing them regularly at all the functions Mama insists we attend. You know I find it uncomfortable to appear at these things where I know no one and Mama insists on thrusting me into the arms of one highly eligible young man after another, regardless of whether or not they can put two words together. The marchioness has been most cordial, which I cannot say of most people. She knows that Grandmama and I enjoy a game of whist, and the first time we played with her, she was so kind as to ask her son to take the place of her partner so that we could continue even when Lady Edgcumbe left because of a headache. I was not at all sure at the outset that her son was best pleased by this arrangement. He seems a rather formidable person, does he not?”

“Formidable!
Unbeatable
is more the word. My dear Althea, you have no idea! He has made a fortune at the tables. They say he never loses, and that he never wastes his time on a game where he does not stand to win at least ten thousand a sitting. The question is, what is he doing playing against you and your grandmother?”

“I told you, his mother asked him to take the place of her partner. And Grandmama and I are quite good, you know.”

“Yes, I know you are, but Harwood is the
best!
He is a wizard with cards and no one has beaten him yet.”

“Except me.”

“You
what?”

“I beat him. Well, Grandmama and I did. It was a very near thing, and he is certainly a very fine card player, but we beat him all the same.”

Oblivious to the wrinkles he was making in his coat and his waistcoat, Reginald leaned forward eagerly, his boyish face flushed with enthusiasm. “I say, Allie, what was it like? It is common knowledge that no matter how much money you have to lose, he will only play against the best of the best; he says there’s no point in it otherwise. I am longing to try my hand against him.”

“No, Reggie.”

“But, Allie, you know I have played ...”

“Yes, but you have not established a reputation anywhere near to what you claim the Marquess of Harwood’s to be.”

“How can you say that? I have been playing since I was in short coats. I am a regular at Brooks’s. I ...”

“Because I have played against you, Reggie.”

“Oh.”

“And beaten your consistently.” Althea could not help smiling at her cousin’s crestfallen expression.

“Reggie, believe me, he is very, very good. You may have experience, but this man is brilliant, at cards anyway. It is quite obvious that he has a prodigious memory, a head for figures, and a talent for strategy. In fact, I have never seen better. However, they are just not equal to Grandmama’s and mine. And,” she added reluctantly, “his mother, though competent, was not an equal partner the way Grandmama and I are. If she had been, what a game it would have been.” A reminiscent smile curved Althea’s lips.

“All the more reason I should like to play against him.”

“I warn you, Reggie, you will find yourself under the hatches in no time, and you cannot afford that. Even you must acknowledge that your talent for choosing a waistcoat or tying a cravat is far superior to your skill at cards.”

“You sound just like Augustus. He too considers me a useless fribble.”

His cousin’s eyes softened. “No, Reggie. You are not a useless fribble. You have exquisite taste, which is no small accomplishment in itself, and you have winning manners. It just happens to be that your pompous brother cannot appreciate such things—not that he can appreciate anything beyond his hunters and that precious pile of stones he continues to call home, though any normal person would have moved out of that drafty abbey years ago. And it is not, as he claims, that your attics are to let because you
are
very clever about some things—people, for example. But you do not have the memory for figures or a head for mathematics. The marquess does, and so do I. Heaven knows it is not a particularly useful characteristic, and Mama is forever telling me that it is most unladylike, but there it is. And not having that is certainly no reflection on you.”

“Well you must have whatever it is or Gareth de Vere would not waste his time playing cards with you at a ball.

They also say he refuses to play with women,” Reginald concluded gloomily.

“Why ever not, if he is such a gambler?”

“Well, he is not just a gambler, at least not anymore. Now he only plays for the challenge of it, and he generally does not find competition stiff enough to be a challenge outside of Brooks’s card room.”

“Why
not anymore
”? What happened?”

Reginald glanced suspiciously at his cousin. It was unlike her to be so curious about a person. If the Marquess of Harwood had been a horse, her interest would have been understandable, for she infinitely preferred animals to people any day. But this particular person seemed to have caught her attention, for whatever reason. If he had not been so preoccupied with the enigma of Gareth de Vere playing cards with a female at a ball, Reggie might have speculated a good deal about his cousin’s preoccupation with the man, but he still had not recovered from the initial shock of seeing the Marquess of Harwood at the card table with his cousin, nor could he accept the fact that Althea was warning him against playing cards with the man she had contrived to beat.

With a start Reggie realized that his cousin’s eyes were still fixed questioningly on him. “What? Oh, er, why does the Marquess of Harwood no longer gamble? Well, he gambles, but only if the challenge is there. If he is certain to win, he will not play, no matter how high the stakes are—no sport in it. But there was a time when he would play for anything.”

“When was that?”

“When his father died. He returned home from the Peninsula to find the family in dun territory. The estates were mortgaged to the hilt and most of the servants had left. He needed funds in a hurry and gaming was the only way, though gaming was the way his father had lost it all in the first place. Fortunately he was more successful than his father and it was not much more than a year before he was able to pay off the creditors and start on building his own fortune. Now they say he is rich as Croesus.”

“He did play a very strong game with Grandmama and me, though we were not playing for high stakes.”

“There is more to lose than money. Have care, Allie.”

His cousin looked puzzled.

“There is a reason that the matchmaking mamas are not flocking around one of the
ton’s
wealthiest, most eligible catches. He is known as the Bachelor Marquess, and it will do your reputation no good to be seen with him.”

“Reputation, pooh. I could do with a little less reputation.”

“It ain’t a laughing matter, Allie. His name has never been coupled with a respectable woman’s. And he lets it be known that he is not in the market for a wife—only women who ah, er ... well, never mind, but being seen regularly with him, even if it is at card tables and even if you are accompanied by your grandmother, is bound to give rise to comment.”

“And what is his aversion to marriage?” Not being in the least concerned about maintaining a reputation in a society for which she had very little use, Althea did not bother to respond to her cousin’s warnings.

“Lord, Allie, how should I know? But it is not because he doesn’t like women. I can tell you that he has got the nicest little, ah, er ... Well, at any rate, he is very successful with certain kinds of women, but not the sort you should know.”

“And what is—

“That is all I am going to say, Allie,” Reggie said, interrupting her. “Should not even had said that much. Not the sort of thing for a gently bred young lady to discuss.”

“Nonsense, Reggie. I am more than seven, you know. I have spent my life in the country, where they do not put such a fine point on things. I hear the gossip among the servants.”

“Well, you shouldn’t listen to it. Ladies are not supposed to know such things.”

“More fools they. They could spare themselves much disillusionment and heartache if they did. I wonder why he avoids all but ‘certain kinds of women’?” Althea stared ruminatively out the window at the branch of a beech tree whose buds were just beginning to open.

“I have not the least notion. But if I were you, Allie, I would forget the entire thing. Forget him. It ain’t worth the risk.”

“But, Reggie, you know that every good card player is accustomed to taking risks. And I am a very good card player.”

“You cannot say I have not warned you.” Shaking his head gloomily, Reggie rose and took his leave.