“Very well. Let us cut for the deal.” He reached out to cut the deck in half. “There. Shuffle them and we shall pick the top cards. The highest card takes the deal.” He watched as she shuffled the cards expertly; her hands, slender and elegant, were as assured as she was.
Althea finished shuffling and laid down the deck. “Choose.”
“King.” The marquess was not a superstitious man. No successful gambler could afford to be. But he could not stop the shiver of anticipation as she announced, “Ace.” As a nondealer he could surely win the first trick. And if he could win the first trick, surely he could win them all. Then the first game at least would be his.
Althea dealt the cards as unhurriedly as if she were playing a friendly teatime game of piquet with her grandmother instead of a bitter contest against a man who had been called the most formidable card player in all of London. Studying her hand carefully as the marquess discarded two cards from his hand and drew two from the stack, she very deliberately discarded three and selected three in their place.
Gareth surveyed his hand. Three kings stared back reassuringly at him. “Trio,” he announced smugly. He glanced over at her, trying to read her expression, but there was none.
“Quatorze.” Calmly she showed him the four aces.
He bit his lip and led the first trick. The rest of her hand must be equally strong for her to declare her combinations. He won his first trick and the next, but it was no use, her hand was too strong and he wound up losing the game.
The next game was more evenly matched in the declaration, but this time Althea, with the elder hand, was the first to lead and thus able to take all the tricks. “Capot,” she announced in the same calm voice as Gareth gnawed his lip in frustration.
His brows drew together as he frowned in an effort to concentrate more intently. She seemed to be able to picture in her mind, not only what she held in her hand but what he had in his as well as what remained in the stack. He knew that she must be looking at the cards in her own hand, remembering what had been played, then calculating what was left, but she did it so calmly and so quickly that it was uncanny, not to mention unnerving, even more so because he knew precisely how it was done yet he could not match the rapidity of her calculations.
Gareth battled her for every point, but when she announced carte blanche after the fifth deal, he knew he had lost. The best he could do was to win enough points to make a decent showing.
They played out the final hand in a silence so profound that each one could hear every breath the other one drew. The last card was finally played. Althea rose and held out a hand. “I shall take my cousin’s vowel now, my lord.”
Without a word, Gareth strode over to a massive mahogany desk, opened the top drawer, and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, smoothing it in his hands as he crossed the carpet to where she was standing. Carefully he refolded it, placed it in her hands, and closed her fingers over it. “He will not take it back from you, you know, Althea. No gentleman would. No gentleman could. And no matter how foolish your cousin may be, he is a gentleman.”
She could think of no reply, nor could she trust herself with one. Her anger at him and the mental energy she had summoned for the game had kept her going, but it had evaporated the instant the last card had been played. She had kept her misery at bay with the thought of revenge. Now that she had won that revenge, the weight that had settled in her chest the moment she had heard Reggie’s tale of woe now threatened to suffocate her.
Forcing herself to remain calm and collected, Althea allowed Jenny to help her on with her bonnet and pelisse; then she turned on her heel and, without a word, left the room.
Without looking at her maid or acknowledging Ibthorp, who opened the door for her, Althea marched out the door. She walked home as if in a trance. Still in a trance she climbed the stairs to her bedchamber and sank into a chair by the fire without removing her bonnet or pelisse.
Observing her mistress’s profound preoccupation, Jenny crept silently away to leave her with her thoughts. The little maid had never seen her quite that way before. Lady Althea was always a model of dignified self-possession, but there was something unnatural about this new air of resolute calm that resembled despair more closely than it did self-possession. Her lovely face had remained expressionless during the entire adventure, but her blue eyes had been dark with an emotion very much akin to pain. There was a stricken look in them that told Jenny her mistress was suffering an agony too deep to acknowledge to anyone.
Chapter 18
Althea went through the rest of the day and several following it in a gray fog of lassitude that she was powerless to dispel. Even the winnings that now put her so close to her goal that she could begin scanning advertisements for properties in the
Times
did not restore her spirits. The sparkle and the zest that had recently energized her life seemed to have disappeared. She felt utterly enervated and more lonely than when she had first arrived in London.
The one thing that might have brought her pleasure, restoring his estate to her cousin, was also thwarted, for despite her best efforts to inform him of the good news, she was unable to track him down. Footmen dispatched with frequent messages to his lodgings returned with no reply except that he was not there. Discreet inquiries among his friends revealed their knowledge of his whereabouts to be as nonexistent as hers.
In addition to suffering from her own listless unhappiness, Althea began to be concerned for her cousin’s welfare. Surely if he had committed some drastic act after losing his inheritance, she would have heard. But there was nothing. He seemed to have completely disappeared from the face of the earth.
Finally, a week after her first frustrated attempt to contact him, Althea was brought a message that Reggie awaited her in the drawing room. Hastily tying on her cornette whose ribbons matched the lemon-colored trimming of her morning dress, she opened her escritoire, snatched the vowel handed to her by the marquess, and hurried down to tell him the good news.
Much to Althea’s surprise, he greeted her quite cheerfully. “Hello, cousin. That is certainly a most fetching ensemble.” He raised his quizzing glass. “Madame Celeste, I suppose. The cornette is an elegant touch. I had not thought you would trouble yourself with such frippery, but it is vastly becoming, I assure you.”
Althea scrutinized her cousin carefully. Surely this air of insouciance was no more than a ploy to cover his desperate state of mind, but the color in his cheeks and the lively expression in his eyes certainly seemed to indicate a man far from despair. In fact, she could not help but be amazed at the contrast between the pale, distraught youth who had sat a week ago in her drawing room with his head in his hands and the lively young man now before her. She was so amazed by this transformation that she completely forgot the wonderful news she had to tell him, but continued to stare at him in astonishment.
“No doubt you are surprised to see me looking so well.”
She nodded dumbly.
“I have been in the country. No, not at Kennington. I have been to visit Squiggy Metcalfe.”
“Squiggy Metcalfe?” Totally at sea, Althea could only gaze at him stupidly.
“Yes. I was with him at Eton. His brother, Charlie, you know, is quite the man in India—father is a director of the East India Company. At any rate, he spoke to some fellows, friends of his brother and to Lord Wellesley, and it is all set. I am to sail for Calcutta the end of next week. From there I shall go to Bengal as secretary to the Marquess of Hastings, who is Governor General there and is in need of some help. In fact, I ...”
“But, Reggie.” At last Althea found her voice. “You have no need to go to India. I have won Kennington back for you.”
“... Am quite looking forward to going. They say that a man, any man, can make his fortune out there, and society is a great deal jollier than it is here—no starched-up old tabbies to point a finger at you, no stiff-rumps like Augustus to prose on about the family and one’s duty to it. Yes, I think that India is just the ticket for me. Er, what did you say, Allie?”
“I said that there is no need to go to India. I have won back Kennington for you.”
“That is very kind of you, Allie, but I really have no need for Kennington now.”
If Althea had been surprised by his previous announcement, she was completely nonplussed by this one. “Not need Kennington? But it is your heritage.”
“And one that made me feel guilty about it every day of my life, or at least Augustus did, for not taking better care of it. Do you not see? I am not cut out for that sort of thing, to be a country gentleman.” A sudden thought struck him, and he turned to stare at his cousin. “You won it? From Harwood?”
Althea nodded.
“If that don’t beat all. You
are
a cool customer, Allie. As cool a customer as I ever saw. I tell you, it is a damn shame you cannot be a member of Brooks’s.”
“Thank you, Reggie. That is praise indeed. But you cannot just leave for India in this harum-scarum fashion.”
“I am not. I have made arrangements, written letters. I have handled everything for myself. Don’t you see, Allie, this is the first time that I have decided what I shall do—not Papa, not Mama, not Augustus, but I have thought it out. And I
want
to go. I think I can make something of myself out there where I am not always having the sainted Augustus held up to me as an example. He is a fine fellow, if you like that sort of person, but I am not Augustus, and I never shall be. This is something I can do. I know I can.”
She was silent a moment considering what he had said. Reggie had always chafed at his family’s rigid rules, and a good many of his foolish pranks and misadventures had sprung from his constant efforts to prove that he was not his older brother. He was not a useless fellow, certainly not as useless as they had all claimed him to be, but he had just never been given the chance to be Reggie. Perhaps this was his chance. He had been enthusiastic over things before, but not as enthusiastic as this. It was more than enthusiasm. His eyes were alight for the first time with energy and purpose. Althea had never seen him look quite that way before, never seen his expression so hopeful.
She smiled and held out her hand to him. “I expect you can, Reggie, if you’ve a mind to.”
He gripped her hand gratefully. “Thank you, Allie.” A sly grin slowly spread across his face. “And at the same time I can help you escape the stuffy confines of your own family and give you the freedom to live your life as you wish to live it.”
“You can? How?”
“Well, actually,
you
did it for yourself.
You
won Kennington back from the Marquess of Harwood. It is yours now. You do not have to buy an estate; you already have one. And you can use your previous winnings to make any repairs or improvements that you might wish to.”
“Oh, I could not. I could not take Kennington from you, Reggie.”
“You are not taking Kennington from me. Harwood took it from me. No, actually, I practically
gave
Kennington to him, nodcock that I was. You have won it back. Even if I did want it now, which I don’t, I lost it, and it would still belong to Harwood if it were not for you. Kennington is all yours, Allie. I know you will do a better job of managing it than I ever did.”
“Oh, Reggie!” She rose to fling her arms around his neck. “Thank you!”
“No need to thank me, Allie.” He patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. “Thank that clever head of yours. Lord, I would have given a monkey to have seen Harwood’s face when you won it back from him.”
“He was not best pleased,” she responded soberly.
“I would expect not. You are a quick-witted thing, Allie. There was never any doubt of that. I only hope that running an estate by yourself is truly what you want.”
“It is, Reggie. You know it is. I have never wished for anything else.”
“Every woman I know wants jewels and fine clothes as well as a devoted admirer to shower her with them.” He shot a suspicious glance at her.
She shook her head emphatically, almost too emphatically, her cousin thought, watching her closely.
“Well, then, I wish you joy of it. And how do you plan to break the news to your mama and papa?”
“I do not know. How do you plan to tell your family about going to India?”
“Letter.” Reggie grinned sheepishly. “To be delivered by Gregson, after I have sailed. He has no heart for the trip, so I have recommended him to a friend of mine who is in dire need of a good valet.”
“I think I had better do something of the same. Once I have left and it is discovered that I have embarked on a course that makes me so obviously ineligible to be the wife of whomever they choose for me, they will have nothing to do with me. It is only while they still can hope to contract a brilliant alliance for me that they will try to control me. When they can no longer do that they will leave me alone.”
“I hope for your sake, Allie, that you are in the right of it. At any rate, I must be going. There is a great deal to be done before I leave. I shall write to my agent, Duckworth, to tell him of your impending arrival. He is an excellent man, though he has had little enough help from me. He deserves a better master than I have been and now he shall have one.”
“You will not leave without saying good-bye?”
He was touched by the anxiety in her voice. “No. Of course not. How could I not bid farewell to the only real family I have? I shall call on you before I go. But not a word to anyone else, mind you. I shall send you all the accounts and papers I have pertaining to Kennington. I am sure you will make more sense out of them than I have. Soon you will be able to begin your new life.” And with a cheery wave he was gone.
However, beginning a new life was easier said than done, Althea thought sadly as the drawing room door closed behind him. A man might go off and start his life over, especially armed with the introductions that Reggie was armed with. But a single, unmarried woman, especially a young one, was always looked at askance.