The Seduction of Elliot McBride (Mackenzies Series) (31 page)

L
ONDON
1890

He doesn’t have the ace.

Daniel held four eights, and had backed that fact with large stacks of money.

Mortimer thought he was bluffing. He’d been trying to convince Daniel that he’d drawn the straight, that he’d been given an ace from the young woman who dealt the cards at the head of the table.

The other gentlemen in the St. James’s gaming hell called the Nines had already folded in Mortimer’s favorite game of poker. They and the rest of the hell now lingered to see the battle of wits between twenty-four-year-old Daniel Mackenzie and Fenton Mortimer, ten years older than Daniel and a hardened gambler. So much cigar smoke hung in the air that any consumptive who’d dared walk in the door would have fallen dead on the spot.

The game of choice at this hell was whist, but Mortimer had recently introduced the American game of poker, which he’d learned during a yearlong stint in that country. Mortimer was very good at it, quickly relieving young Mayfair aristos of thousands of pounds. And still they came to him, eager to learn the game and try to beat him.

Ten gentlemen had started this round, dropping out one by one until only Daniel and Mortimer remained.

Daniel kept his cards facedown on the table so the nosy club fodder couldn’t telegraph his hand to Mortimer. He gathered up more of his paper bills and dropped them in front of his cards. “See you, and raise two hundred.”

Mortimer went slightly green but slid his money opposite Daniel’s, his fingers shaking a little. Daniel picked up another pile of notes and laid them on the already substantial stack.

“Raise you again,” Daniel said. “Can you cover?”

“I can.” Mortimer didn’t dig out any more notes or coin, but he obviously hoped he wouldn’t have to.

“Sure about that?”

Mortimer’s eyes narrowed. “What do you take me for? I can cover the bet. If you’d like to question my honor in a private room, I will be happy to answer.”

Daniel refrained from rolling his eyes. “Calm yourself, lad,” he said, making his Highland accent broad. He lifted a cigar from the holder beside him and sucked smoke into his mouth. “I believe you. What have you got?”

“Show yours first.”

Daniel picked up his cards and flipped them over with a nonchalant flick of his wrist. Four eights, one ace.

The men around him let out a collective groan, the lady dealer smiled at Daniel, and Mortimer went chalk white.

“Bloody hell. I didn’t think you had it.” Mortimer’s own cards fell faceup—a ten, jack, queen, seven, and three.

Daniel raked in his money and winked at the dealer. She really was lovely. “You can write me a vowel for the rest, Mortimer.”

Mortimer wet his lips. “Now, Mackenzie…”

He couldn’t cover the bet. What idiot wagered the last of his cash when he didn’t have a winning hand? Mortimer should have taken his loss several rounds ago and walked away.

But no, Mortimer had convinced himself he was expert at the bluffing part of the game, and would con the naive young Scotsman who’d unashamedly walked in here tonight in his kilt.

A hard-faced man on the other side of the room sent Mortimer a grim look. Daniel guessed that the ruffian had lent Mortimer cash for this night’s play and wasn’t pleased that he’d just lost it all.

“Never mind,” Daniel said. “Keep what you owe as a token of appreciation for a night of good play.”

Mortimer scowled. “I pay my debts, Mackenzie.”

Daniel glanced at the bone-breaker and lowered his voice. “You’ll pay more than that if ye don’t beat a hasty retreat, I’m thinking. How much do ye owe him?”

Mortimer’s eyes went cold. “None of your business.”

Daniel shrugged. “I don’t wish to see a man have his face removed just because I was lucky at cards. What do ye owe him? I’ll give ye that back. Ye can owe
me
.”

“Be beholden to a Mackenzie?” Mortimer’s outrage rang from him.

Daniel filled his pockets with his winnings and took his greatcoat from the lady dealer. She ran her hand suggestively across Daniel’s shoulders as she helped him into it, and Daniel tucked a banknote into her bodice.

“Aye, well.” Daniel took his hat from the lady who gave him an even warmer smile. “Hope you can find tuppence for the ferryman at your funeral. Good night, man.”

He turned to leave and found Mortimer’s friends standing in front of him.

“Changed my mind,” Mortimer said. “The chaps reminded me I had something worth bargaining with. Say, for the last two thousand.”

“Oh aye? What is it? A motorcar?”

“Better. A lady.”

Daniel hid a sigh. “I don’t need a courtesan, Mortimer. I can find women on me own.”

Easily. Daniel looked at ladies, and they came to him. Part of his attraction was his wealth, part of it was the fact that he belonged to the great Mackenzie family and was nephew to a duke. He never argued about the ladies’ motives; he simply enjoyed.

“She’s not a courtesan,” Mortimer said quickly. “She’s special. You’ll see.”

An actress, perhaps. She’d give an indifferent performance of a Shakespearian soliloquy, and Daniel would be expected to smile and say she was worth every penny.

“Keep your money, pay your creditors,” Daniel said. “Give me a horse or your best servant in lieu—I’m not particular.”

Mortimer’s friends didn’t move. “I think I must insist,” Mortimer said.

Seven against one. If Daniel argued, he’d only end up with bruised knuckles. He didn’t particularly want to hurt his hands, because he had the fine-tuning of his engine to do, and he needed to be able to hold a spanner.

“Fair enough,” Daniel said. “But I assess the goods before I accept.”

Mortimer agreed. He clapped Daniel on the shoulder as he led him out, and Daniel stopped himself from shaking off his touch. Mortimer’s friends filed around them as though in a defensive flank as they made their way to Mortimer’s waiting landau.

Daniel noted as they pulled away from the Nines that
the bone-breaker had slipped out the door behind them and followed.

Mortimer took Daniel through the misty city to a respectable neighborhood north of Oxford Street, stopping on a quiet lane near Portman Square.

The hour was two in the morning, and this street was quiet, the houses dark. Behind the windows lay respectable gentlemen who would rise in the early hours and trundle to the City for work, while their gentlewomen wives readied themselves for calls to other ladies of the neighborhood.

Daniel descended from the landau behind Mortimer. “She’ll be asleep. Leave it for tomorrow.”

“Nonsense,” Mortimer said loudly, with drink in his voice. “She sees me anytime I call.”

He walked to a black painted front door and rapped on it with his stick. Above them a light appeared and a curtain was drawn back. Mortimer looked up at the window and tapped on the door again.

The curtain dropped, and the light faded. Mortimer waited with ill-concealed impatience, letting his stick continue to tap lightly on the wood.

Daniel folded his arms and leaned against the door frame, stopping himself from ripping the stick from Mortimer’s hands and breaking it over his knee. “Who lives here?”

“I do,” Mortimer said. “I mean—I own the house. At least my family does. We let it to Madame Bastien and her daughter. For a slight savings in rent, they agreed to entertain me and my friends anytime I asked it.”

“Including the middle of the bloody night?”

“Especially the middle of the night.”

Mortimer smiled—self-satisfied English prig. They had to be courtesans. He’d reduced the rent so he could obligate them to pay in kind, so he could rub their noses in his power anytime he wished.

Daniel turned back to the landau. “This isn’t worth two thousand, Mortimer.”

“Patience, patience. You’ll see.”

The rest of Mortimer’s friends had arrived and hemmed them in, blocking the way back to the landau. The bone-breaker was still in attendance, hovering in the shadows a little way down the street.

The door opened. A maid who’d obviously dressed hastily stepped behind the door as she opened it wide and let the stream of gentlemen inside. The drunker lads of the party wanted to pause to see what entertainment she might provide, but Daniel planted himself solidly beside the door, blocking their way to her. They moved past, forgetting about her the moment they turned away.

Mortimer led the way to double pocket doors at the end of the hall, and pushed them open. Daniel caught a flurry of movement behind them, but by the time Mortimer beckoned Daniel in, stillness had taken over.

A fire danced on the hearth behind a long, empty table, the walls covered with a pale blue, gold, and burnt orange striped wallpaper. The gas chandelier above the table hung dark, and one solitary candelabra with three candles sat on the table. A young woman was just touching a long match to the candlewicks.

When the third was lit, she blew out the match and straightened up. “So sorry to have kept you waiting, gentlemen,” she said pleasantly enough in a voice very faintly accented. “I’m afraid my mother is unable to rise. You will have to make do with me.”

She bathed them in a smile.

Whatever Mortimer and the other gentlemen said in response, Daniel didn’t hear. He couldn’t hear anything. He couldn’t see anything either, except the woman who stood poised behind the candelabra, the long match still in her hand, the smile of an angel on her face.

She wasn’t beautiful. Daniel had seen faces more beautiful
in the Casino in Monte Carlo, at the Moulin Rouge in Paris. He’d known slimmer bodies in dancers, or in the butterflies that glided about the gaming hells in St. James’s and Monaco, smiling and enticing gentlemen to play.

This young woman had an angular face softened by a mass of dark hair dressed in a pompadour, with ringlets trickling down the sides of her face. Her nose was a little too long, her mouth too wide, her shoulders and arms too plump. Her eyes were her best feature, set in exact proportion in her face, dark blue in the glint of candlelight, and framed by lush black lashes.

They were eyes a man could gaze into all night and wake up to the next morning. He could contemplate her eyes across the breakfast table and then again at dinner while he made plans to look into them all through the night.

The young woman wasn’t a courtesan, however. Courtesans began charming from the moment the gentleman walked into the room. They leaned slightly forward, they gestured with graceful fingers, implying that those fingers would be equally as graceful traveling a man’s body. Courtesans drew in, they suggested without words, they used every movement and every expression to beguile.

This woman stood fixed in place, her body language not inviting the gentlemen into the room at all, despite her words and the smile she’d thrown at them. If her movements were graceful as she turned to toss the match into the fire, it was from nature, not practice.

She wore a plain gown of blue satin that bared her shoulders, but the gown was no less respectable than what a lady in this neighborhood might wear for dinner or a night at the theatre. Her hair in the simple pompadour had no ribbons or jewels tucked into it—the unaffected style hinted that the dark masses of hair might come down at any time over the hands of the lucky gentleman who pulled out its pins. She wore no jewelry at all, in fact, except for one silver locket that nestled at her throat.

The young woman spread her hands at the now-silent men. “If you’ll sit, gentlemen, we can begin.”

Daniel couldn’t move. His feet had grown into the floor, disobedient to his will. They wanted him to stand in that place all night long and gaze upon this woman.

Mortimer leaned to Daniel, his eyes glittering. “You see? Did I not tell you she’d be worth it?” He cleared his throat, straightening up. “Daniel Mackenzie, may I introduce Mademoiselle Bastien. Violette is her Christian name, in the French way. Mademoiselle, this is Daniel Mackenzie, son of Lord Cameron Mackenzie and nephew to the Duke of Kilmorgan. You’ll give him a fine show, won’t you, mademoiselle? There’s a good girl.”

The man Mortimer called Daniel Mackenzie came around the table and boldly stopped right next to Violet.

Scottish,
she thought rapidly, taking in his bright blue and green plaid kilt, fashionable black suit coat, and ivory waistcoat.
Rich
, went her assessment, noting the costly materials and the way in which the coat hugged his broad shoulders. Tailor-made, and not by any cheap or apprentice tailor. A master had designed and sewn those clothes.
Used to having the very best.