When You Wish Upon a Duke (25 page)

To Charlotte, whose experience with painted portraits was limited to the grim, beruffed specimens at Ransom Manor and those at Marchbourne House, this picture
was the finest she’d ever seen. The artist had discovered a luminous beauty and grace in Lady Finnister that wasn’t ordinarily visible in the lady herself, at least not to Charlotte; clearly the painter must be a genius at his art.

“I’m portrayed as Artemis, goddess of the hunt, which is the reason for that silly bow,” Lady Finnister said. “And goddess of maidenly virtue, too. Sir Henry wishes me always to say that, you know. But isn’t it a perfectly lovely picture?”

“It is, Lady Finnister,” March said, staring up at the painting. “Never was there a more beauteous Artemis.”

He made his pronouncement solemnly, a solemnity that Charlotte now realized he employed whenever he wished to be polite in a challenging situation. It made her feel clever and wifely—and closer to him, too—that she’d noticed this about her husband.

“Ooh, thank you, sir,” Lady Finnister said, preening in the glow of that same solemnity. “It is a Rowell, of course.”

“A rowel?” asked Charlotte, mystified.

“Sir Lucas Rowell,” March said. “He’s the artist of this fine work. A painter of considerable accomplishment and perception. He’s a favorite with the king for his portraits of the queen and the royal princesses.”

“His Majesty rewarded him with a knighthood,” Lady Finnister said, glancing side to side to make sure there were no royal ears to overhear. “When you are presented to Their Royal Highnesses, ma’am, you’ll realize for yourself that Sir Lucas is a master of diplomacy as well as art. La, plain as curdled milk, the lot of them.”

She tittered behind her fan. March did not laugh—doubtless the poor plain princesses were related to him in some way—and Charlotte didn’t laugh, either. It was hardly the princesses’ fault to have been born plain, and besides, Lady Finnister might do better to consider how
her portrait outshone her own beauty before she made jests about others.

“I’ve always admired Sir Lucas’s work, though I’ve never sat for him myself,” March said, turning back to Charlotte. “Perhaps we should consider asking him to paint a pair of marriage portraits of us. Would you like that?”

“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Charlotte. While the idea of sitting for a great painter was exciting, she was overjoyed that March wished to commemorate their marriage like this.

“Sir Lucas comes very dear, you know, and Sir Henry had fits over his fee,” Lady Finnister said. She puffed out her cheeks, screwed up her mouth, and lowered her voice to mimic her husband. “ ‘Fifty guineas for a few daubs of paint and varnish, and your feet shown bare as a pauper’s! Why, I could buy the whole cursed moon from the sky for fifty guineas, damn my eyes if I couldn’t!’ ”

“I should like to know where Sir Henry takes his custom,” March said. “I’ve never seen the price of a cursed moon at less than a hundred.”

Startled, Charlotte looked at March. He’d kept his solemn face, but his dark eyes were bright indeed, especially when he glanced at Charlotte. Her too-serious husband had made a jest. It was a small jest, to be sure, and likely would have gone unnoticed in clever company, but she’d heard it, and she’d understood the effort it must have taken for him to make such a comment at all—for her sake, she knew, for
her
. She grinned with delight.

“A hundred for a new moon, March,” she said. “But for an entire moon, fully ripened, I’d venture the price would be nearer to five hundred.”

He couldn’t help but smile now, the jest shared between them. “Five hundred, yes. But only for the best-quality moon, with a fine polish and patina.”

“Ah, Your Grace, I can see you’re in a fine humor for wagering!” Lady Finnister said, determined to bring the attention back to her. “Which table shall it be, then? Faro, roulette, or loo?”

“I’ll let Lady Marchbourne choose for herself,” March said. “I need to speak a few words with Sir Henry, Lady Finnister, and so I’ll entrust my bride to you while I do.”

He raised Charlotte’s hand to his lips and kissed it, his gaze still intent on hers, as if parting from her even for a few moments was nearly beyond bearing. Then he turned and made his way through the crowd.

Lady Finnister sighed dramatically. “His Grace is so handsome and gallant. How blessed you are, ma’am, to have such a husband.”

Charlotte looked after him, his height and unpowdered dark hair making him stand out among the others.

“Yes,” she said softly, more to March than to Lady Finnister. “He is gallant and handsome, and I am truly blessed.”

“Well, yes, you are,” Lady Finnister said. “But now, ma’am, we must introduce you into a game. What do you prefer? Quinze, loo, all-fours, piquet, or hazard? A place at the roulette wheel, or before the faro bank?”

Charlotte didn’t recognize a single one of the games, let alone how to play them. “What of whist?”

“Bah, a tedious diversion for old hens,” Lady Finnister said with a dismissive sweep of her fan. “We can, and will, do better than that for you, ma’am. Loo will be best, I think. ’Tis wicked fast, and easily learned.”

She led Charlotte through the crowd to a large round table and unceremoniously asked another lady to give her seat to Charlotte. Introductions were made with a complement of bows and curtseys, and a footman helped Charlotte settle into her chair. There were six other ladies and gentlemen around the mahogany table, with many more gathered to watch. The table was specially
designed for the game of loo, with shallow, scalloped recesses before each player. In each of these recesses were piles of small mother-of-pearl fish, some players with more, and some with very few.

“Now, these are quite cunning,” Charlotte said, plucking up one of her fish and making it swim through the air before her, much to the indulgent amusement of the other players.

“Those are your counters,” Lady Finnister explained quickly as she claimed the chair beside Charlotte’s, “and this place before you holding the fish is your pond. The house bank has staked you to twenty-five counters. You must decide your wager and enter you stake in the pool, there in the center of the table, before you’re dealt your hand. Then you can decide if you wish to play your hand, or pass and forfeit your stake.”

Charlotte nodded. It sounded similar enough to put, the old rooking game she’d played with the stable grooms at home, and her confidence grew.

“There are three tricks to a play, ma’am,” continued Lady Finnister, “and if you don’t take at least one of those, then you’re loo’d, and must forfeit the whole amount of the pool.”

“All?” asked Charlotte with surprise.

“All, Your Grace,” said a man standing close behind her. She turned and discovered Lord Andover, the gentleman from the park. “You’re wise to be cautious, ma’am. It’s Lady Finnister’s pleasure that we play the unlimited game in her house. With a table of seven, as here, it means that four lose with every hand, and thus the pool quadruples with every hand as well.”

Charlotte nodded and quickly turned back toward the table. It wasn’t her fault that Andover was here, or that he stood behind her chair, but she could only imagine what March would say if he found the marquess there.

“His Lordship doesn’t like my rules because he’s unlucky,
ma’am,” Lady Finnister said tartly as she glared at Lord Andover.

“Pray forgive me, Lady Finnister,” Lord Andover said easily, “but it isn’t a question of my luck so much as your desire for a fast game.”

Lady Finnister flushed, her cheeks so red that the color showed beneath her paint.

“The benefits of an unlimited game are clear, ma’am,” she said to Charlotte, though she still looked at Lord Andover. “The play never lags or grows flaccid, and the rewards are much greater for those who dare reach for the sweetest prize.”

Lord Andover only smiled and bowed toward Lady Finnister. But from the way others around the table smirked and raised their brows knowingly, there was clearly more to their acquaintance than luck and loo. A flaccid game? The sweetest prize? Who described a hand of cards in such a fashion? March had said that Lord Andover seduced married women. Could Lady Finnister have been one of his conquests, or had she been the one pursuing the marquess?

“We also play with a Pam card, ma’am, that black fellow the knave of clubs,” Lady Finnister continued, her voice more brittle by the word. “His value is wild.”

Lord Andover leaned over Charlotte’s shoulder again, as if only to point to the cards on the table. “A wild knave is always useful in a lady’s hand, ma’am, as he can obligingly masquerade in any way she requires to reach her goal. Especially for a flush. A flush will loo all the other players and clear the table. What greater pleasure can there be than to claim the pool and the ponds of all your rivals?”

Now Charlotte was the one who blushed. Or rather she flushed, her whole face burning as she began to comprehend the marquess’s meaning.

“Thank you, Lord Andover,” she said, and nothing
more. She didn’t dare. Instead she pointedly stared down at the shining fish in her pond, trying to concentrate on the game instead of the scandal that was so obviously swirling around her. She felt like a tiny little fish herself, swimming in a pond where she did not belong. Clearly loo in London was a good deal more complicated than whist with her sisters at Ransom.

“Shall we begin, ma’am?” Lady Finnister said, stacking her fish into three precise little piles. “Your wager, if you please.”

With a deep breath Charlotte counted out five of her fish and pushed them into the center. The other players followed, and the hands were dealt. Charlotte’s cards weren’t good, and in the next instant—or so it seemed—she’d lost, and her first fish were swept away. But worse still was realizing that she must now stake the next pool as well, and suddenly she found herself with twenty of her twenty-five counters gone and only five remaining, quite lonesome, in her pond.

“Tell me, please,” she whispered to Lady Finnister. “How much does each marker represent?”

“Not much,” Lady Finnister said. “Only ten guineas.”

Ten guineas
. Charlotte swallowed hard. She might be a duchess, but ten guineas still seemed like a prodigious amount of money. Only yesterday she’d generously increased Polly’s salary to eight guineas, a sum befitting a lady’s maid—more than any of the servants were paid at Ransom Manor—and that eight guineas was for the whole year. Entire families in the country could live well on twenty guineas. A full-length portrait by Sir Lucas Rowell was fifty. Here she’d already lost twenty markers, or two hundred guineas, and that was only after two hands of loo.

“Do you wish to continue to play, ma’am?” Lady Finnister asked delicately. “You must enter the pool
again if you do. I will gladly have the bank raise your stake—”

“Yes, yes, please do,” Charlotte said with fresh determination. She couldn’t let March see how much she’d lost, not after he’d cautioned her against the hazards of gaming. She had to win back those guineas before he returned to her, and with a sigh of relief she watched as a footman scooped a fresh pile of fish to clatter into her pond.

But before long, those fish, too, were forfeited and claimed by others, and another scoop as well. Feverishly she tallied her losses in her head: oh, preserve her, she’d lost over
seven hundred guineas
in a quarter hour’s play.

“Your play, ma’am,” Lady Finnister said gently. “You’ve just enough for a fresh stake. If you wish, the bank will oblige—”

“Thank you, no,” Charlotte said quickly. “I’ve no wish to borrow more.”

Lady Finnister tipped her head to one side, considering.

“Those earrings are monstrous fine, ma’am,” she said. “No one here at the table would object if you added those to your wager. Your luck’s sure to change, you know. It always goes that way for beginners.”

Charlotte’s hands flew to the earring, her fingers touching the heavy, swinging pearls: Nan Lilly’s pearls, the gift from the king, and now given to her by March.

“Matched pearls like that are rare, and worth a pretty sum,” Lady Finnister continued, her words a covetous purr. “If you don’t wish to place them on the table, I’ll take them now for a hundred guineas.”

Certain Charlotte would accept, she began to count out her markers.

But Charlotte placed her hand out to stop Lady Finnister’s.

“Not the earrings,” she said firmly. “I’ll play with what I have.”

She pushed the last remaining markers forward and with a deep breath took up her cards. At last she’d received a good hand, and for the first time that evening, she won. Her share of the pool came her way, filling her pond. But she’d much further to go to recover her losses, and resolutely she pushed all her winnings into the pool again.

And she won again, and again, and again after that.

Before long, Charlotte had a small mountain of fish before her, the heaped mother-of-pearl gleaming softly in the candlelight where her pond overflowed with markers. She’d gone far beyond winning back her losses and what she owed the house’s bank, yet still she played on, unable to resist the heady delirium of winning.

The crowd around the table grew. They cheered her with each new hand and wager, and roared when she won. While the ladies watched her play with envy, the gentlemen watched with desire—both for her luck and for her beauty.

“What is that racketing?” asked March, two rooms away. “Sounds like a pack of heathens.”

“It could well be heathens,” Lord Willoughby grumbled with an extra snort of disapproval. He was an older gentleman, powerful in the House but grim company everywhere else. “Many of the women here are as wanton and free as any savage’s wife. Maybe more, considering how many feathers they thrust into their hair.”

March only smiled. Not even Willoughby’s grumpiness could spoil his humor this night, and besides, he liked the black plume that Charlotte was wearing in her hair, curling to one side of her face like an apostrophe.

His smile widened unconsciously as he thought of her. Things were going well, very well, with Charlotte this night. He’d resolved to trust her as she’d asked, and to his surprise it had worked. She’d been so happy and beguiling in the coach that he’d nearly had the carriage
turned round for home so he’d have her to himself for the evening. She was becoming more and more a part of his life—even, perhaps, the best part. Already it had become difficult for him to remember a time when she wasn’t his wife, and after only a fortnight of marriage, too. The tiniest things about Charlotte enchanted him: the graceful way she turned her head, how she smiled up at him, the unruly curls at the nape of her neck, and the way her laughter bubbled up so full of merriment that he was helpless to resist it, and her with it.