Regency Wagers (33 page)

Guy spent the next morning in the library puzzling out how much of his winnings to reserve for debts, how much for daily expenses, how much to risk at the tables that
evening. It was a daily balancing act that seemed more like constructing a house of cards than safeguarding the future. One careless step and the whole would tumble down around him.

As he’d hoped, he managed to gain ground by coming to London. He’d barely ventured from White’s, where play was deep the year round, but still kept his ears open for more lucrative settings. He’d not always won. There were some nights his losses were deep, but slowly he’d gained enough reserves to play for higher stakes. He should do so soon.

He glanced at the figures he’d written on the paper in front of him. Not bad, but the icy, insinuating fear of losing everything was constant. So was the intoxication of winning. He’d felt that same intoxication even at the tame card party with his mother and Emily.

Emily was a good player, as Sir Reginald had said. For that one hand Guy had been locked in combat with her to win—the game of cards, that is. He’d enjoyed sharing that excitement with her, though, typically, he could not tell if she cared to win or not. She had the perfect face for cards, giving nothing away.

He gave a grunt of frustration.

He placed a packet of his winnings in his pocket and returned the rest to the desk drawer to lock away. He was off to the bank and to the post, to send another sum back to Annerley.

He walked past the front drawing room. Emily was seated by the window, peeking through the curtains.

His wife.

She looked pretty with the sun illuminating her features and shooting gold through her brown hair. Had he ever told her she was pretty?

She’d looked pretty the previous evening in the
lavender dress she’d worn several times before. She’d done something new with it. He did not know what. He ought to have told her she looked well in it, but his mother arrived in what was obviously an expensive new dress. Emily should have had a new dress to wear. He ought to have given her money for a dress.

He might tell her now, how pretty she looked by the window, her face aglow. Maybe she would smile. He longed to see her smile as she had the morning after they’d made love, before all went wrong between them.

She glanced to the doorway. For a moment, her expression was almost animated, but had he imagined that? When she saw him, the veil dropped over her eyes.

He forgot his intended compliment in his disappointment. He tried to smile. ‘Good morning, my dear. Or is it afternoon by now?’

‘A bit after,’ she said, her voice without expression.

He paused, but then decided to enter the room. She clearly was not eager for his company. ‘My mother and aunts are not with you?’ he asked, then kicked himself. This was nothing like what he’d intended to say.

With perfect equanimity she responded, ‘They prefer the small sitting room. There are fewer draughts, Miss Nuthall says.’

He smiled again, more genuinely. ‘Yes, she would say that, wouldn’t she?’ He picked up a chair and moved it close to where she sat. ‘You are not cold by the window, my dear?’

She continued to look at him, but without apparent emotion. She finally spoke. ‘I am perfectly comfortable.’

‘Ah,’ he said.

More silence, as usual between them. He hated the silence.

‘You are well, I hope,’ he tried again.

‘Yes,’ she said.

The silence returned.

His head always flooded with all manner of things he ought to say to her, beginning with, ‘I’m sorry.’ Her composed expression stopped him. He was a bundle of emotions with her, but she seemed to have no emotion at all. He halfway wished, as before, she would rail at him, throw more books at him, torment him with what he had done to her. It was what he deserved. It was what he would like. He said nothing.

She glanced back to the window, fingering the fringe on the curtains. ‘My brother is supposed to call. I am watching for him.’

‘Indeed?’ At least she’d spoken to him. She rarely added to a conversation. ‘How nice for you.’

He’d met Emily’s brother a time or two. A frivolous young man. A poor card player. When Guy decided to marry Emily, he’d reasoned Robert Duprey would be no threat to the scheme. He was not the sort of brother to chase after a carriage headed to Gretna Green.

She fixed her gaze out of the window again, and the silence returned.

‘Emily?’ He spoke her name so softly he was not sure he’d even done so.

She turned to him, slowly, it seemed. ‘Yes?’

He faltered. ‘I…I hope all is well with you here. That is…I hope you are enjoying London.’

Good God, he might be addressing a guest in his house instead of his wife. Why was it so difficult for him to talk to her?

‘I assure you,’ she said, her voice composed, ‘all is well.’

Guy met her nondescript eyes, which did not waver. If eyes were supposed to be windows to the soul, hers were
shuttered, curtains drawn. He doubted he would be able to open them to the light. With an inward sigh, he stood, his body suddenly heavy with fatigue. ‘Enjoy your visit with your brother,’ he said and walked out the door.

Emily remained at the drawing-room window, her husband’s brief visit putting a pall on her excitement. He’d seemed so sad. A part of her had yearned to comfort him, but not for gambling losses, for that surely must be what troubled him. What else would bother him? Marrying a woman and regretting it?

Her mother-in-law appeared at the door. ‘Do you accompany me? I have several calls to make.’

‘I fear I cannot, ma’am,’ she responded. ‘I must stay here.’

Lady Keating gave her a sour look and left in a swish of skirts, never asking one question about Emily’s plans.

Emily waited, trying to pass time by catching up on some mending for Miss Nuthall. She glanced at the clock on the mantel. Nearly four o’clock. Robert would not come. She needed him so, and he would fail her.

She’d been mad to think Robert could be trusted to help her. He was as consumed by his own interests as were all men. Why did she think she could bully Robert into helping her as she’d always done when they were children? He was a man now. A very foolish man, but a man none the less.

With a sigh of resignation, she stitched the rent in Miss Nuthall’s lace cap. An approaching carriage sounded in the street below, and she nearly decided not to bother to look.

Her brother drew up in a stylish curricle. He had come! She fairly flew from the room. By the time Bleasby had
admitted him into the hall, she had already fetched her bonnet, gloves and warmest pelisse.

Her brother barely lifted the hat from his head when she descended the stairs. ‘Robert, take me for a turn in the park.’

‘The park?’ His hat remained in mid-air. ‘Dash it, Emily. Cold out there.’

‘Nonsense,’ she replied, donning her pelisse with Bleasby’s assistance. ‘It will be refreshing.’

She pulled him out the door, assuring Bleasby she would be home in plenty of time for dinner.

Grumbling the whole while, Robert flicked the ribbons and the horses pulled away from the house. Emily’s chest was a-flutter with excitement, as if this were truly the moment of her escape.

They reached the end of the block, and she saw her husband turning the corner on foot. She hurriedly looked away, pretending not to see him. She did not wish to think of him.

‘Dash it, Emily. Why do we have to drive in the park?’ her brother complained, using a rare complete sentence. ‘It’s cold.’

‘I wished to speak with you in private,’ she said, tucking a rug around her feet.

‘Me?’ He gaped at her, neglecting to attend the horses.

A hackney driver shouted, and he barely had enough time to pull on the ribbons and avoid a collision.

‘Don’t talk now,’ he grumbled. ‘Driving. Not a Four-in-Hand fellow, y’know.’

After a couple more close calls, they turned into Hyde Park where the pace was more sedate and the paths nearly empty.

‘What the devil, Emily?’ he said, which she took for permission to speak.

‘I want you to take me to a gaming hell.’ No sense in mincing words, not with her brother.

He nearly dropped the reins. ‘G-g-gaming hell?’

She nodded vigorously.

‘Hoaxing me,’ he said.

‘No, indeed. I am very serious.’ Her heart beat rapidly. To speak her plans out loud made them seem very real. ‘I need money, and the only way I can get it is to play cards.’

‘Bamming me,’ he said. ‘Can ask Keating for money.’

She drew in a breath. ‘No, I cannot. Besides he gambles away the money, but never mind that. I’ll explain, but you must promise to tell no one.’

‘Very well,’ he said in a resigned voice. ‘Won’t like it one bit, though.’

She began by telling him of the rumour their father had spread around Bath and how Guy had believed it and married her, expecting a fortune. Best to start there instead of telling him their sister Madeleine was alive, no thanks to their parents. Madeleine had never made her existence public, so Emily felt she could not. Neither did Emily remind her brother again that he’d been the one to assure her Guy Keating was not a gamester like the previous Lord Keatings. What a Banbury tale that had been. Fussing at him now would serve no purpose. She desired his help.

‘So I wish to win enough money to live alone,’ she concluded.

‘Jove, Emily,’ Robert exclaimed. ‘He ain’t beating you?’

She waved her hand dismissively. ‘No, he does not beat me. He’s perfectly civil. It is just—’

‘Nothing to it, then,’ he said.

‘There is something to it. He…he does not wish to be
married to me, you see. It is unbearable.’ Her voice cracked.

Robert cleared his throat. ‘Dash it, don’t bawl like Jessame. Won’t abide it.’

She drew in another deep breath. ‘I want to have money enough to set up my own household. Nothing fancy. A cottage somewhere.’

‘Can’t do it,’ he said firmly. ‘Married now.’

‘Oh, I know. Anything I won would be his, by rights, but I plan to run away where he’d never find me.’ She expected her husband would not even trouble himself to look for her.

She’d been round and round about this in her head. It was her duty to give him an heir, true, but he’d not approached her bed since that first night in Bath, when he’d thought she would bring him a fortune. She must conclude he had no wish to bed her now, heir or not. For all she knew he might have another woman to fulfil those manly needs.

But she could not bear to think of that.

‘Won’t fadge,’ Robert said.

‘It will so,’ she countered. ‘I have fifty pounds from our aunt’s inheritance. I can stake that money on cards. I want you to take me to a place where ladies can gamble. Where I can win huge sums.’

He neglected the horses, but the beasts trudged ahead anyway. ‘Botheration, Emily. Don’t play the cards much any more. Lost a bundle. Stay away from those places.’

‘Take me to one just one time, so I might be introduced. You don’t have to play. After that, I will go on my own.’

‘Can’t go on your own, Emily,’ he said. ‘Ain’t proper. Bound to see you. Tell your husband. Talk all about town.’

‘I have no intention of going as myself,’ Emily said. ‘I will go in disguise.’

Robert dropped the ribbons and nearly lost his seat retrieving them.

G
uy finished dressing for dinner, assuring Bleasby, whose assistance was often more taxing than doing without, that he had no further need of the butler’s services and would indeed follow him downstairs directly. Bleasby finally ceased fussing over his master’s coat and his neckcloth and left the room. Guy followed a pace or two behind.

A quick footstep sounded on the stairs, and Guy heard Emily’s voice. ‘Good evening, Bleasby,’ she said brightly. ‘I told you I would return in time for dinner.’

‘Indeed, ma’am,’ Bleasby answered.

She turned the corner at the top of the stairs, hurrying to her room, her face aglow with colour, a smile on her lips. The smile stopped Guy in his tracks.

‘Oh,’ she said, seeing him. Her smile fled.

He tried to disguise the plummeting of his spirits. ‘I see you enjoyed your visit with your brother.’

Her cheeks turned a darker pink, the effect unintentional but most becoming. ‘We…we took a ride in the park.’

Guy felt a stab of envy, which ought to have been some relief from the guilt he felt about her, but it wasn’t. Her
face had come alive for a fleeting second. Until she spied him.

What did he expect? Her brother had given her enjoyment. Her husband gave her nothing.

‘The air did you good.’ Guy’s voice emerged stiff.

‘Yes,’ she said.

The familiar silence returned.

‘I must hurry to dress for dinner,’ she said.

‘Of course.’ He stepped past her, but turned before heading to the stairs. ‘Emily?’

She paused at her doorway. ‘Yes?’

‘I am glad you enjoyed yourself.’

She stared at him, unspeaking, then entered her room.

That night Emily again could not sleep, her mind flooded with schemes. She’d extracted a promise from her brother to introduce her to a private gaming club where ladies could play. He would take her there a week to this day, an evening when no other obligations would impede her.

She’d dosed off finally, only to wake when she heard her husband open his bedchamber door. Wide awake again, she could not help but listen to him moving about the room, more restless this evening than other times. He’d probably lost.

His footsteps came towards the door connecting their rooms, and her heart nearly stopped. She held her breath. Surely he would not come in her room. To what purpose?

Memories of the two nights he’d spent with her came flooding back. How he’d gently undressed her on their marriage night. How his hands had felt on her skin that night in Bath. The thrill of him entering her. The sensations that erupted.

His footsteps retreated and soon all was quiet in his
room. She bit her lip to keep it from trembling. She’d promised herself never to think of the nights she’d spent with him.
Never.
He’d thought her wealthy then. He did not want her now.

How like a gamester, when holding aces and kings all full of bonhomie, but if the hand contained twos and threes, suddenly consumed by self-pity.

She would show him she was more than a widow hand, the hand dealt but left on the table for no one to play. She would be in the game at last and she would win.

The widow hand would win.

After breakfast she called Hester to her room. If her scheme was to work, she needed to call in the young maid’s debt to her. Hoping her credit with Hester was high enough to ensure the girl’s assistance and discretion, she described her plan.

Hester listened with widening eyes. ‘But, my lady,’ Hester interrupted her. ‘Why ever would you want to do this? Won’t it make his lordship angry if he discovers what you are doing?’

‘He must not discover it, of course,’ Emily said, trying to think of a reason the maid would accept. ‘He…he needs money, you see.’ True enough. ‘And I wish to help him.’

‘Aye.’ Hester nodded. ‘I’ve heard the others speak of his lordship needing money.’

Emily was a bit taken aback by Hester’s statement, but she supposed the servants knew very well of her husband’s gambling. ‘Yes, and I wish to help him. I am skilled at cards, but he has refused to let me play at the places where good money may be won.’

‘Lady Keating thinks you are a very good player,’ agreed Hester.

Lady Keating had made that known? What a surprise.

‘So I am. I know I will be successful, but Lord Keating must never know what I am doing. No one must know. I need a disguise, and that is where I beg your assistance.’

‘Mine? I know nothing of gambling.’

‘No, I need you to craft me a disguise,’ Emily said. ‘You are good with a needle.’

The girl beamed at the compliment. ‘I thank you, ma’am, but you said you must be ready in a week. I cannot make you a disguise in a week. I do not know how to make a disguise.’

Emily opened the door to the small dressing room. She opened her mother’s trunk. ‘You shall do very well. We will alter my mother’s dresses, and craft a mask and hat to obscure my face. I have it all worked out in my head.’

Her mother’s clothes were nothing like what Emily wore. They pulled out rich silks in a rainbow of vibrant colours, gold, red, green, blue—not a muted tone among them.

Hester fingered the fine material, ‘Oooh. They are beautiful!’

Emily pulled up a small chair and draped several dresses across her lap. The fabrics were lovely, but she could never wear so many frills. Her mother loved frills.

‘Do you think you can work with these?’ she asked the maid, still exclaiming over each new discovery in the trunk.

‘Oh, my lady,’ Hester responded dreamily, ‘I don’t know about making a disguise, but I can make these dresses into the prettiest in all London.’

A week later, Emily stood in front of the full-length mirror in her room. Her mother-in-law had retired in a miff when learning Emily would not be home to play
cards with her and the aunts. Lady Pip and Miss Nuthall had said their goodnights shortly after. Her husband had gone out hours before. There was no one to concern themselves about her preparations.

She and Hester had selected an emerald green dress from her mother’s trunk. Hester had removed much of the lace and ribbon on the bodice and narrowed the skirt. The result was a plain but elegant drape of satin, though the neckline was daringly low. With the extra material, the girl had created a hat, an elegant cap of satin and silk that included netting to pull over her face.

The mask, however, was Hester’s real masterpiece. A buff-coloured silk, almost flesh in tone, it seemed moulded to the top half of Emily’s face, leaving holes for her eyes. Hester had so cunningly crafted the mask it was barely noticeable, but managed all the same to obscure her identity.

In the trunk Emily had discovered a box of face powders and tints that her mother had either discarded or forgotten. Emily used them to rouge her cheeks and tint her lips and eyelashes, though she did so with a much lighter touch than her mother would have done.

She had also found an envelope of paste jewellery, more likely misplaced in the trunk. She chose an emerald-like pendant, surrounded by false diamonds.

Emily stared transfixed at her image in the mirror. She saw a stranger, an exotic, mysterious woman, nothing like herself. Surely no one would know who she really was, if she did not.

‘You may call me Lady Widow,’ she practised, using her mother’s voice and holding her head up proudly as her top-lofty aunt had always done. It came more naturally to her than she would have supposed. ‘Is there any gentleman kind enough to partner me in a game of whist?’

Yes, she sounded nothing like herself.

There was a soft knock on her door. Hester jumped to answer it, opening the door a mere crack. Rogers, the footman, had come to announce Mr Duprey’s arrival.

Emily’s heart leapt into her throat. She carefully removed the cap and mask and reached for her black cloak.

‘Good luck, my lady,’ Hester said, helping her into the garment.

‘Oh, Hester,’ Emily exclaimed, ‘I shall need luck.’

She carefully tucked the hat and mask in an inside pocket, and impulsively gave the girl a quick hug.

Hester skipped over to open the bedchamber door. Emily hesitated. It was not too late to abandon this wild scheme. She could send her brother away—he would be delighted, she was sure—and continue her days as the new Lady Keating, wife to Guy Keating, in name only.

She set her jaw firmly, squeezed her hands into fists and strode purposefully through the doorway and down the stairs to where Robert waited, twirling his hat in his hand and bobbing from foot to foot.

Bleasby stood nearby, looking as if he might topple over from fatigue.

‘I’m ready, Robert,’ she said unnecessarily.

He responded with a look of gloom.

As Bleasby opened the door for them to depart, Emily whispered, ‘Go to bed, Bleasby. That is an order. You will not be needed this night. Have Rogers attend the door.’

A grateful but guilty look passed his face. ‘As you wish, my lady.’

Robert assisted Emily into a waiting hackney coach. Like another lucky card drawn off the top of the pack, Hester had a brother who drove a hackney coach and who, for a hefty fee, agreed to transport Emily on her nightly
jaunts. Her brother’s worries about her welfare were thus appeased, for the burly young man had also agreed to look out for her.

The cards had fallen so neatly into place, Emily had to believe in the rightness of her course of action. It was not a mistake to take her future into her own hands. Card hands, that was.

The hackney made its way down St James’s Street. Emily thrust a pocket mirror at her brother and aimed it to where she could see to don her mask and turban.

‘Zounds, Emily,’ Robert said when she’d completed her disguise. ‘Don’t look like yourself.’

She flashed him a smile. ‘Exactly so. And I am not Emily, you must remember. I am Lady Widow.’

‘Ghastly name,’ he said. ‘Makes no sense.’

The name made sense to her, however.

They pulled up to a sedate-looking house on Bennett Street and Emily was relieved it looked like a respectable residence. Robert helped her out of the coach and escorted her to the door opened by a giant of a man dressed in livery. Robert nodded familiarly to the man, and they were admitted without question.

Inside, the house was ablaze with light, and the murmur of voices could be heard from rooms above stairs. They passed by a gentleman who greeted Robert by name and who ogled Emily with open curiosity. Robert quickly led her into the large gaming parlour. Its walls were bright yellow with carved white moulding, so bright she almost had to blink, as if in strong sunlight. She glanced up at the ceiling and quickly glanced back. The ceiling depicted a Bacchanal scene, with many unclothed figures whose activity she dared not examine too closely.

Card tables were set up in the centre. Along the walls were hazard tables and faro banks, with gaily dressed
women to run them. There were mostly gentlemen playing at the tables, but a few women players dotted the room.

A lady circulated among the card players. Not a lady, actually. Her bright red dress was cut so low, her generous breasts seemed ready to topple out at any moment. It made Emily’s look like a Quaker’s. Her lips and cheeks were almost as bright as her dress and her hair, also red, was a shade Emily was certain did not exist in nature. As the woman threaded her way through the tables, she rested her hands on the gentlemen’s shoulders or patted their cheeks.

Surely she was a madam, Emily thought, in the baser use of the term. She could not help but stare, fascinated, as one stared at the oddities displayed at Bartholomew Fair. The creature in red glanced in their direction, flashed a white-toothed smile at Robert, and headed directly for them. Emily, still clutching Robert’s arm, felt him fidget.

She nearly panicked. As the madam came nearer and nearer, Emily suddenly remembered seeing a stairway to an upper floor. What sorts of rooms were up there? Rooms for gentlemen to pass time with women such as this one? She gazed around the room. There were other women patrons playing cards, but no one she’d ever been introduced to. She’d landed in the world of the
demi-monde
. What was she doing in this place?

The riffle of cards and clink of coin brought her back to her senses. She was here to win money, as were the more respectably dressed ladies who dotted the room, playing cards or throwing dice. She would not flee back to Essex Court now.

She stiffened her back. The creature in red descended on Robert, taking both of his cheeks in her hands and kissing him full on the lips. Emily nearly dropped her jaw.

‘Robert, darling,’ she said. ‘Where have you been? We have missed you.’

Robert blushed as deep a red as the woman’s dress. ‘Been busy.’

Emily contrived to look composed. It was somewhat of a challenge.

The woman eyed her. ‘Who have you brought with you,
chéri
? A paramour?’

‘Good God, no,’ exclaimed Robert. ‘She’s my—’

Emily pinched his wrist. Hard. ‘I am a mere friend, I fear,’ she said, remembering in time to affect her mother’s voice.

‘That’s the thing.’ Robert pulled away and rubbed his wrist. ‘Friend. Wants to play. Secret. Masked, you know. Call her Lady Widow.’

The woman extended her hand to Emily. ‘I quite understand. I am Madame Bisou.’ She laughed. ‘Like your name, a description. “Little kiss”, no?’

Madame Bisou’s French accent was undoubtedly as affected as Emily’s own speech.

She returned the handshake with a wide smile. ‘I see you do understand.’

Madame Bisou turned back to her brother. ‘Robert,
chéri
, if I do not know your…friend’s name, how am I to know she will play an honest game? How will my loyal guests be assured she will pay her debts?’

‘Uh,’ said Robert. ‘Vouch for her. Upon my honour.’

Emily flashed Madame Bisou another smile. ‘I do not intend to lose.’

The woman laughed. She threaded her arm through Robert’s and pressed the profusion of her bosom into his chest. ‘I like her,
chéri
.’

Emily averted her gaze. Raising her voice, she said, ‘I
would like to play whist,
madame
, if some gentleman present would be kind enough to partner me.’