Jack of Clubs (28 page)

“And then your guardian could gamble with my money instead of his own. No thank you. I could feed my bank notes to the hogs. At least I might get some bacon out of the investment.”

“Oh, Cap'n Jack would never wager with Allie's money. He is a gentleman.”

“And half the members of the House of Lords, gentlemen all, are in debt to the cents-per-centers while their well-dowered wives go without new frocks. There is no guarantee what a hardened gamester will do.”

“But Papa Jack isn't like that. He hardly wagers at all, except when he has to, to pay the bills. And he always wins.”

Of course, Montford reasoned, he could make so many stipulations in the settlements that the former officer could never touch a groat of the money. That is, if the marquess decided to grant the child her favor, which was by no means a foregone conclusion, except in Harriet's mind.

She pressed on. “But if he had funds, maybe he would start a new business, one Allie could like better, so she'll marry him faster.”

The marquess looked at the child over the top of his glass. “What makes you think I care whether those two get wed or not?”

“You care about Lady Margery and Harold being happy, don't you? And you are going to pay her dowry, they say, and they don't even need it, 'cause they can live at home in the country or here with you.”

“Heaven forfend,” his lordship muttered.

“Allie and the captain need the money, and she is your granddaughter, too. It's only fair that you give her the same amount, like what you would have given her mother.”

“I would have given Miss Silver's mother far more, if she had married the man of my choice.”

“But she had to choose the man she loved, like Lady Margery and Darla and Patsy and Mrs. Crandall.”

“Am I supposed to dower them, too, whoever they might be?”

“No, only Allie. It's only fair,” Harriet repeated.

The marquess's views had not been changed by wiser heads and better orators. He set his glass down and stood. The conversation was at an end. “I am sorry, young lady, but the world is not fair. You will have to learn that lesson sooner or later. Now go on home before someone comes searching for you here. I have had enough botheration for one day. I owe nothing to your guardian or your governess.”

Harriet's lip started trembling and her eyes filled with tears. “My lord,” she said, her voice not much louder than a whisper, “my mother was killed by my uncle when I was three. My father died in the army, and my grandmother is too addled to care for me. Don't you think I know that the world is not fair?”

Montford stared at the frog, rather than the child.

“Don't you think I deserve a family, sir?”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Jack was pacing in the street in front of Carde House. Allie was standing in the carriage drive. He was waiting for Harriet to come home; she was waiting for a ransom note. Neither wanted to think about someone carrying back a small broken body or, almost worse, no news whatsoever.

Then there she was, skipping through the nearly empty park, merry as a grig.

“I'll kill her,” Jack growled.

“There will not be enough of her left when I am done,” Allie said when she saw whose hand Harriet was holding. The Marquess of Montford was holding a tin bucket in his other hand.

Harriet saw them waiting and rushed forward, her arms opened wide. She raced past Jack, who knelt to scoop her up, and she rushed past Allie, who held her own arms out, despite her fury.

Harriet hugged the dog.

Patsy and Mrs. Crandall had been watching through the windows, so now they ran out and beat the fire gong as hard as they could and as long as their arms could stand. Servants and searchers came tearing out of houses all along the street, cheering and laughing, and patting each other on the back.

“Ale for everyone, in the kitchen,” Jack called out, winning another cheer. “And thank you, my friends.”

“A fine welcome, eh, Miss Hildebrand?” Montford asked, his lip curling in a sneer at the spectacle.

“The best! Oh, Allie, you were wrong! His lordship isn't a mean old dastard at all! He is giving you a dowry and letting me keep Hubert.”

Jack looked at the older man, who had kept his distance. “Why is the marquess suddenly recognizing his elder granddaughter, snip, and who the devil is Hubert?”

Now Montford stepped forward and handed Jack the bucket. “Hubert is the frog. Miss Hildebrand says I might come visit him whenever I wish. With your permission, of course,” he added dryly. “As for the dower money, you might say Miss Hildebrand and I had a small wager.”

“About how far, ah, Hubert can leap?” Jack had thought about making a few bets on the frog's jumping himself. He set the bucket down.

“No, rather about how many tears it takes to bring an old man around to her way of thinking and under her thumb. The puffguts in Parliament ought to take lessons from the child in manipulation.”

Jack grinned. “I'll wager it did not take many tears at all.”

“Oh, but you cannot bet any more, Papa Jack. I promised, so Grandfather Montford would give you the money and you and Allie can get married.”

“What?” Jack swore. “You have gone beyond the line this time, my girl. Going to Montford and playing your tricks off him behind my back? Making promises in my name? Sticking your nose into matters that do not concern you? Just for that you cannot come to the wedding!”

“Wedding?” Allie asked.

No one answered.

Jack turned to Montford. “Did you think I would live off my wife's money? That I needed your gold to sweeten the deal to restore your granddaughter's good name? Then you are an old fool, and I won't invite you, either.” He reached into his inner coat pocket and pulled out an official looking paper. “I purchased a special license this very morning, with my own money, thank you. And I asked Allie to marry me without any of your meddling, miss, or your sudden consideration for Miss Silver's reputation, my lord. And she agreed.”

Allie tugged on his arm. “I did? I thought I agreed that I would be your lover.”

Jack clamped his hand over her mouth, a bit too late. “Damn, I am tempted not to ask you to the wedding either!”

“No wedding, no dowry,” the Marquess declared. “I won't have my family name dragged through the muck and the mire, I say.”

Jack was not paying attention to his future in-law. “What kind of man do you take me for, to dishonor the woman I love?”

“You love me?”

“Of course I do! Why else would I ask you to marry me?”

“Good, then that is settled and I can go home to my supper.” Montford turned to go. “Have your man of business call on my solicitor in the morning to discuss settlements and draw up papers.”

“Wait, my lord,” Allie called to him from Jack's arms, where she thought she might stay forever. “What makes you think I will take your money?”

“Because Miss Hildebrand says you are no fool, that is why. What, would you let pride rule your life like I did mine, costing me my only daughter? I wouldn't be surprised, for your mother was just as obstinate. I thought you were more intelligent, though, than to give up your best chance for respectability because you were too mulish to forgive a stubborn old man.”

“I have decided that respectability is not all it is cracked up to be, especially as you in Society define it. Being with the one you love is more important, as my mother decided before me.”

“Yes, but now you can have both. Think of how much better your life—and Endicott's and your future children's lives—can be with a share of my fortune. Would you turn it down and condemn them to a life of chance? Would you gamble on their futures at the outskirts of acceptance, when all you have to do is accept what should have been your mother's portion?”

Allie looked at Jack, then at Harriet, who was starting to look forlorn, even though she had used up her quota of tears at the marquess's house. Jack shrugged his broad shoulders. “I can support my own family, but not as comfortably as I would wish.”

Allie swallowed, then said, “In that case, I accept, my lord.”

“Grandfather.”

“Grandfather,” she acknowledged, stepping out of Jack's embrace and holding her hand out. Montford placed Hubert's bucket's handle in it. “I'll come by to see how you go on tomorrow, what? And you, sir,” he said to Jack. “I have a few ideas of what you can do so that my great-grandchildren will not be social pariahs.”

After he left, Jack sent Harriet to her room, promising a few words about disobedience, disappearing, and deceiving a nobleman. And about dealing him a heart attack when he could not find her.

Then he took Allie's hand and led her through the house, past the grinning workmen and the smiling servants. He kept going, out through the French doors to the terraced gardens behind his brother's house.

“I have a few ideas of my own, Miss Silver.”

“Do you?”

So he showed her, starting where they had left off that afternoon, but a cold concrete bench was not conducive to lovemaking. It was perfect for love-pledging, however.

Jack reluctantly took his arms from around Allie—where they had been to keep her warm, naturally—and knelt at her feet. “I realize I did not ask you properly before. But now I am begging you to make me the happiest of men. Will you marry me, my dear Miss Silver? My life, my love?”

“Are you sure you love me?”

“Sure? I am kneeling in damp dirt for you, aren't I? Ruining a perfectly good pair of trousers.”

She pulled him up to sit beside her again, keeping his hand in both of hers. “But are you sure about staying married? What if you decide next year that you'd prefer to be a bachelor again?”

“I am sure that I want to change my life, become a better man for you. I cannot promise forever. Look at Hildebrand, dead so young. But yes, as long as there is breath in my body, I will love you, and only you. That's the family motto, you know,
Ever True
. You are the only woman I have wanted since I first laid eyes on you. You are the only woman I will ever want.”

Which called for another heated celebration.

“But what of you, my dear? You have not said yes. For that matter, you have not said you love me.”

“Of course I do. I would have left the day I arrived, otherwise. And I was ready to be your lover, because I cannot think of anything I would rather be, except your wife. You have made me the happiest woman on earth, my own true love.”

“No matter that I am a gambler?”

She patted his chest, where his heart was beating madly. “It is not what you are but who you are. Inside, you are the man I love.”

“Then you won't mind if I change the club into a school? I have been thinking, you see, about finding a new occupation. The club has not brought my sister back, but maybe a school would. What do you think about opening an academy for young women of limited means, so they can learn skills and not have to take to the streets? My brother will help set up an endowment. He already finances orphanages and hospitals, so I am sure he will contribute. That way I can keep a place for information to come and rewards to be offered. We will not be wealthy, but neither will we be in need.”

“You would really start a school? That has been my dream for years. Oh, Jack, I think that is the best idea you've ever had, other than marrying me, of course.”

“Of course. And I do have a bit of property in the country, and some funds of my own and—”

She patted his chest again. “You have everything I need, right here.”

“The special license?”

“My heart, in your keeping. Forever.”

“You can bet on it.”

*

While Jack and Allie were planning their wedding and their future, a young woman was also looking forward. A beautiful, blond-haired girl was at the docks in Dover, waiting to board a packet boat headed for France. She wasn't safe in London, with people looking for her, people threatening her about old secrets. But in France, she could study with one of the grand couturiers, learn to design exquisite gowns for exquisite, wealthy women. She had names, letters of reference, and enough funds to live on while she learned. When she was done, she could return to England with money and prestige.

Then Queenie could unravel the secrets of her past herself.