Love and Other Wicked Games (A Wicked Game Novel) (35 page)

“Yes,” Uncle George said with a finality in his voice. “You are.” He adjusted his coat. “And I won’t have it. Whatever it takes. Even if it means letting you follow this crazy dream...”

“Well, that’s one thing you’re right about. It’s crazy. It always was. And so was I to think someone like me could ever—”

“Someone like you?” Ellie asked, her brow fixed with concern. She turned to look at Uncle George. “I see what you meant now...”

“What in God’s name are you talking about?” Cal asked.

“I’ve been thinking about it and here’s what’s going to happen.” She said, ignoring his question. “This coming weekend—”

“No. I refuse. I’m not going to be part of this,” Cal circled his arms around. “Whatever this is. Why should I?”

“Because if you refuse, so help me God, I will vote against you and have you removed from the company.”

“Oh, is that so?” Cal hadn’t expected this possibility, but for some reason the thought of being removed no longer weighed heavily on him. His Uncle did have a point after all. Cal was the embodiment of poor judgment these days and maybe the company would be better off without him after all. The thought scared him, but he also felt relief. He’d proved over and over again in his life that he couldn’t even manage to take care of one person—Hart, his uncle, and most recently Ellie and himself—so what made him think he would actually be able to take care of the company?

“So do it. Vote me out. I don’t care.” Cal said quickly. He expected these words to bring him more relief but now that they were out all he felt was an intense loss.

“Oh, don’t you, now?”

Cal tightened his lips. No matter how he tried to get around it he still cared very much. For the company
and
for the workers. It embarrassed him to even acknowledge these feelings when he knew he had nothing left to offer them. But this business and the people who worked for him were all he had left. What would become of him if he let it all go? As much as he wanted to be left alone in his sorrow and to eventually feel nothing at all, he realized with a sudden sickness in his stomach, that he was afraid to let this happen. He was intensely and powerfully afraid.

“And what if…” Cal clenched his fists against the tremors that shook him. “What if I do as you ask, Uncle?”

“If you do this, if you give Ellie time to change your mind, and you do change your mind...” Uncle George took a deep breath. “Then you’ll have my vote. Both to keep you in the company and for whatever plan of reform you come up with, whatever the consequences.”

Everything slowed down. Cal heard his heartbeat reverberate inside of his ears and felt the sound echo in tingling vibrations inside of his head. He’d waited for this moment, fought for this moment, for over a year and now it had finally arrived at the most inopportune time possible. If he’d had any strength left he would have screamed until his lungs burst. But he couldn’t fight this anyway, no matter how much it hurt and how pointless he thought it would be, because this changed everything.

Cal crossed his arms and nodded his head once as he chanced to look at Ellie.

He swore he saw a smile cross her face for just a second before she answered. “Your Uncle says that the key to a happy life is following your gut no matter what anyone says or does. I have to agree with that. And I can’t think of a better example than my own family…”

Bloody hell.
This was going to be a nightmare.

“This coming weekend is my mother’s birthday, and her cousin Mary and Mary’s husband, Greg, are coming for a visit. They’ve rented a villa a half day’s journey outside of the city and we’ll all be spending a few days there on holiday. Come with us.” She slapped her hands against her side. “You must. Even Amelia is coming.”

“Mandy?” Cal asked with a raised brow.

“She politely declined the invitation.”

“I can’t imagine why…”

“I’m sure…” A small chuckle caught in Ellie’s throat before he saw her smile once more. “But, there you have it. That’s what I’m offering, and my family is offering it too. So, come with us. Come spend some time with my family and see what people who follow their gut are really like… And see what a difference it has made in their lives.”

The villa sat a half day’s ride outside of Manchester, on the northeastern edge of the city just outside of Cheetham Hill. At least that’s what the driver told Cal when he shook him awake upon arrival late Saturday afternoon. A quick glance at the time told him he was more than two hours late, and the pounding in his temple told him he was more than slightly drunk.

All he wanted to do was to find his room and take a nice long nap. Sleep clear through the weekend. That was his plan. Well, that and drinking. He’d told his uncle he would make this trip but he hadn’t promised to remain conscious. Cal’s muddled mind found this loop-hole rather ingenious at the moment.

He’d accounted for everything, except the persistence of Ellie’s family. He’d barely stumbled out the carriage before he was ambushed.

Bloody hell. He should have known better. Ellie had to get it from somewhere after all.

The introductions were quick and cheerful, much to his surprise, almost as if Ellie’s family was actually glad to see him. Almost as if they were welcoming him, instead of just merely accepting his presence. It certainly felt that way, as the men of her family shook his hand and the women, all except Ellie, folded him into a hug.

And then, despite Cal’s utter reluctance, they all insisted he call them by their first names—Angela and Andrew for her parents, and Mary and Greg for her cousins. It was all so…familiar, and he couldn’t help but relax as they all helped him inside and showed him to his room.

That young seamstress he’d met before, Amelia, appeared more than thrilled to be included in the birthday celebrations—especially upon discovering the library and vowing to spend every free moment of this holiday inside its walls. That other woman though—Mandy. The one who’d told Ellie who he was. The one he now remembered meeting shortly after learning about Hart’s death—was not there. Just as Ellie had told him. And lucky for them both that she’d declined the invitation. As bad as things were Cal didn’t want to die this weekend and he doubted Mandy wanted to be jailed for the murder of a duke, which he guessed was the exact reason she’d declined to come along.

Whatever the reason Cal didn’t care so long as he survived the weekend, preferably without remembering a fair bit of it. Again though, his hosts were having none of it and he was only left in his room long enough to unpack before being forced downstairs to play cards. He was quickly learning that with Ellie’s family, it was much easier to comply than protest. Cal reluctantly agreed to a game of Basset. Now though, as he looked down at the thirteen cards being dealt to him by Ellie’s father, he began to have second thoughts.

He hadn’t played Basset in years. Not since his early days at University where he’d been cleaned out more times than he cared to admit, before finally giving up the game. At least in private settings, anyway. Government decree on house rules and betting limits couldn’t be enforced here and the chance of complete ruin was very real. As if he needed any help from a card game on that front.

“So this is why you invited me, then. To clean me out?” He was certain Ellie’s family didn’t actually intend anything of the sort but the game still made him nervous. It was a very risky game and something told him that was the exact reason they’d chosen it. What he hadn’t figured out yet was what sort of risks he’d be expected to take.

“Clean you out? Of course not. We don’t play with money. How boring is that?” Mary said with a sly smile.

“Boring, is it? Tell that to the men playing in the public gaming houses. I doubt they’d agree…”

Greg cleared his throat. “Oh, she has.”

“What?” Cal’s eyes bugged as he looked to Mary and Greg at his left and then Ellie and Angela at his right. “Really?”

Ellie shrugged her shoulders, as if to say she’d warned him.

“And if you must know, no they did
not
agree.” Mary’s eyes shone with savage excitement and joy. “But that was quite a day, wasn’t it dear?”

“I’m not sure if that’s how I remember it, my girl…”

“Oh, so serious, Greg,” Andrew said as he laid out the last of the cards for everyone and readied the rest of the deck in front of him on the table. He crossed his arms with a clever smile. “Our guest will get the wrong impression of us all.”

“No worries on that end,” Cal murmured just below his breath but apparently not so softly as he’d thought because he heard Ellie snicker next to him.

“I’m perfectly serious.”

“Oh, Greg. You’re such a tease.” Mary playfully shoved her husband’s arm, “I don’t think you’d know what to do with yourself if I become predictable, or if our life did.”

Now Greg smiled a smile that mimicked the glow in his wife’s eyes, a smile that held all the years of warmth and admiration in their relationship. And he kissed her gently on the cheek. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Of course, you wouldn’t… And neither would I.” She kissed him back and sighed, resting ever so peacefully against her husband’s side. His hand came up around her shoulder and he played absentmindedly with her coppery golden hair.

For an ever so fleeting instant Cal felt a pang of jealousy for their relationship and their peace in life but as always, he quickly dismissed such a far-fetched fantasy.

“You, though, you strike me as a bit boring. You said he was handsome, but you didn’t tell me he was boring, Ellie.”

“Mary!” Ellie and her mother both snapped, but Greg and Andrew both choked on a laugh.

“No, no wait. Maybe I’m wrong.” Mary held up her hand. “I am wrong. Not boring but rather… static.”

Cal raised his eyebrow. “Static?”

“Yes… Static.” Mary leaned forward on the table and tilted her head, looking him up and down. “Stuck somewhere between the ease that comes with listening to the world and the struggle for completeness that comes with listening to yourself.”

Cal shifted, unsure how to address such an assessment. It hit much closer to the truth than he’d expected or hoped, and the sting of it burned in the pit of his belly. He hadn’t signed on for this and he didn’t have to stay. What the hell did these people know about him anyway?

He put his hands on the table and gripped it tightly, but before he could push away and leave the room and this conversation, he felt the comforting touch of Ellie’s hand on his arm. His eyes darted in her direction where he read the clear message on her face.
Stay. Just a bit longer. Stay. I promise that you’ll be alright.

His hands relaxed their grip on the table and he stayed put. For now.

“Reminds me of myself at that age,” Angela mused.

“Reminds me of us all at that age,” Andrew added taking his wife’s hand and squeezing it lovingly. Angela, Greg, and Mary all nodded in agreement.

Ellie exhaled and looked at her cousin as if she was trying to understand something new that she’d never thought of until now. “But Mary… from the way you tell it, I thought you
did
listen to yourself. Always did what you wanted no matter what anyone thought…”

“Oh, I heard myself, alright, dear. Loud and clear. Problem was that I never actually listened. There’s a difference.”

“What do you mean?” Ellie asked.

“In the end the only person you need to prove anything to is yourself. But I was so concerned with proving that I was my own person, I lost sight of that.” Mary gestured her hand into the distance in front of her. “Went clear past my true self until I was just as lost as everyone else. And in the end we all faced the same choices and the same risks...”

Andrew nodded. “Becoming the person you want to be, the person you’re meant to be, is definitely a risk…”

“But a risk worth taking,” Angela said with a smile to her entire family, “Because there’s not much about life that’s worth living if you’re not true to yourself.”

“Speaking of risks…” Cal cleared his throat, now a bit desperate to steer the conversation off this slushy road. “What
are
we betting in this game if not money?”

“Points,” Ellie answered. “Well, partially anyway.”

“Points?” Cal raised his brow and turned to look at Mary. “I thought you said your way of playing was more interesting than playing with money.”

“The points just determine the winners. The real game is in the bets we make each other.”

“Bets?” Cal’s stomach jumped a bit.

“We all start out with the same number of points—let’s say fifty each in this game?” When everyone nodded, Mary opened up the wooden box on the table and began to count out fifty small glass beads for each person. “We play the game as we normally would with money—”

“House rules on wager amounts?”

“You can wager whatever you like,” Andrew clarified, “since we’re not betting real money.”

“Exactly,” Mary nodded and continued. “As I was saying, we play the game as if we were using actual money—place your wagers on your cards as you see fit and then either lose points to the banker if a card you bet on matches his cards or win points from the banker if a card you bet on matches the other cards he pulls.”

“And then what?”

“In the end we total our points and whoever has the most points wins the side bets.”

Cal lifted his eyebrow, still confused.

Mary smiled. “For instance: Ellie dear, I’ll bet you this jade pin I’m wearing for the beautiful blue silk scarf I saw while you were unpacking. And Greg, my love, I bet you a foot rub, for a foot rub.”

Greg considered his wife for a moment and nodded. “Give it a ten minute minimum and I accept.”

“Agreed.”

“And make it your jade comb instead of the pin,” Ellie countered, “and I accept as well.”

“Agreed.” Mary turned to Cal. “Do you still think betting for money is more interesting?”

Ten years ago, at University, this version of Basset could have been riskier and more interesting. Now though, Cal wasn’t sure what to make of it, but two hours and three expensive bottles of whiskey in his possession later, the game was actually beginning to grow on him. And so was the company.