“Seventeen.”
“Then I think a man of twenty-three might be expected to refrain from throwing away his entire fortune on the turn of a card.”
Anthony sighed and stood, stretching as he did so. “You are right, of course. The man has been foolish, especially if he is that far into debt. However, I cannot help but think that you and I are different from most. My stepfather saw to it that we knew more than men of means even at the young age of seventeen. Not everyone has had our advantages.”
“No. That is true.” Marcus flexed his shoulders where they were tight. “It’s an ugly business, any way you look at it. But do not think I am totally heartless.”
“I don’t. I just want to be certain you’re really looking at this man, listening to him, and not just judging him.”
Marcus frowned. What did Anthony mean by that? But before Marcus could ask, Anthony shrugged. “I’ll leave before Melton arrives. It doesn’t sound like a meeting I’d like to witness.”
“As you wish.” Marcus glanced at Mr. Donaldson. “Are you ready?”
“Yes sir. Quite ready. I have all the papers here. Now all we need is Lord Melton and it shall be done.”
A discreet knock sounded on the door. “Yes?” Marcus called.
The door opened and Jeffries stood in the entry, impeccably dressed as ever.
“My lord, Lord Melton to see you.”
“I’m off!” Anthony said. He winked at Marcus. “Go gently on the lad.” And with that, he walked past Jeffries and left.
Normally, at this stage of the game—the moment of capitulation—Marcus felt a certain flush of victory. However, after Anthony’s quiet appeal, nothing remained but a rather uncertain hollow feel, as if Marcus had been robbed of some opportunity.
Mr. Donaldson set aside the heavy account book and reached for his leather case once again. “Finally we can settle that little matter.”
Marcus nodded at Jeffries. “Send him in.”
“Yes, my lord.” With a quiet bow, the butler left the room.
“Such a pity,” Donaldson said, pulling out a thick sheath of papers. “I don’t know how Lord Melton could be so irresponsible. You’d imagine that at some point in time he had to be aware that he was sinking into debt and that it was against all sense to continue gambling, especially at such a rate.”
“Youth has never been good at visualizing the future,” Marcus said. Or so Father always said. Of course, as Anthony had pointed out, Melton hadn’t had the benefit of Father’s wisdom.
Jeffries admitted Lord Melton. The young lord was pale and there was a slight swagger to his step that suggested a strong dose of spirits, though fortunately he didn’t seem nearly as inebriated as he’d sounded at the museum.
Marcus watched the young man approach, noting that his dark blue coat and morning clothing were perfectly pressed. Except for the garish blue and gold striped waistcoat, he was almost somberly attired.
Marcus stood, raising his brows at the sight of the waistcoat. “Four Horse Club?” The club was very exclusive, and only a whip of the highest order was allowed in.
Melton’s face reddened slightly, a bitter smile on his lips. “One of my few accomplishments.”
Marcus gestured toward a chair near the desk. “Thank you for attending me this morning, Lord Melton.”
“I looked for you earlier, at the museum.” There was a faint hint of accusation in his voice.
“Did you?” Marcus said blandly, waiting for the younger man to take his seat first. “May I offer you something? Some tea perhaps?”
Melton perched near the edge of his seat, as if ready to spring up and run at a moment’s notice. “No, thank you. I just wish to sign the papers and get this over with.”
“I understand.” Marcus nodded to his man of business. “This is Mr. Donaldson. He has handled many such transactions.”
Donaldson presented the neat stack of papers to Lord Melton. “Here you are, my lord. You need to sign the top of each section where I have indicated.”
Melton took the papers, his hand trembling noticeably. He stared down at the papers. “There are so many.”
“It is quite a complicated process,” Donaldson said calmly.
Melton nodded, though there was a decidedly disbelieving look in his brown eyes. Marcus doubted the viscount was capable of actually reading in his current state of mind, but politeness forbade him from saying so aloud.
Time passed. Melton turned one page. Then another. Each with more rapid succession, until he was almost flipping through them. When he reached the last page, he gave a bitter laugh. “Good God, what a lot of words there are here. I—I—” He stood as if sprung from the chair by force. “I will have to take these with me so that I can read them more carefully.”
Donaldson frowned. “I assure you the papers are in order.”
Melton’s face flushed. “I am sure they are. But I need more time to be able to read through them and make certain—I want to be sure everything has been done correctly and that—”
Marcus frowned. “As we agreed when we first embarked upon this endeavor, I left you Melton House in Knightsbridge and the surrounding lands. All you’ve forfeited are the farmlands in Kent, which is rather generous of me at that, considering the number of your markers that are in my possession.”
“Generous?” Lord Melton’s voice cracked on the word. “How can you stand there and say that you’ve been generous?”
Marcus’s temper flared. “You were the one who gambled your family lands.”
“Damn it, I know that!” There was a desperate keen to the young man’s voice. “I was a fool, I admit it. But I was young. I didn’t realize—that is to say, the people I was with, they went out of their way to conceal the danger I was in.”
Marcus looked at the stack of papers in Melton’s hand. For some reason, he found himself remembering Honoria this morning, of her indignant reaction when he’d suggested that perhaps her father had been a poor investor. Her eyes had flashed with the same fire he saw now, in Lord Melton’s rather desperate face.
Was it possible that the young man had been tricked into foolish behavior at a younger age? Certainly many of the notes Marcus had found that belonged to Melton had been signed several years ago, though he wasn’t sure of the exact amount. In truth, he hadn’t paid it a lot of attention.
Marcus rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “If you lost so much then, why did you continue to gamble? Some of the notes I hold are recent.”
“Because I didn’t know how else to recoup my losses!” Melton gave a bitter laugh. “I don’t have your ability to make money out of nothing. I was desperate and I thought—” He closed his eyes, his lips clamped together. After a moment, he took a slow breath and said, “I thought wrong, I know that now. But it just seemed that there was no other way. I kept thinking that perhaps…if I got lucky, I could win enough to fix things.”
There was no doubting the man’s sincerity. Still, there was the matter of the notes, all of which Marcus had purchased with painstaking care. “I am glad you realize the error of your ways.”
“My lord—Lord Treymount—could we not find another way to work this out between us? If I could have two more months, I could find some funds—not all, but enough perhaps to satisfy some of my more pressing debts.”
“How? By gambling yet more?”
Melton flushed. “I am no longer gambling.”
“Oh? Then why were you in the card room at the Oxbridges’ ball?”
“At the—Oh that! We were just playing whist!”
“Ah, but you were wagering, were you not?” Marcus lifted a brow, noting Melton’s tight expression. “How do I know that if I give you a reprieve, you won’t just throw yet more of your lands and money onto a felt table somewhere?”
Melton’s shoulders stiffened. “I am sorry I asked for your consideration. They say the Marquis of Treymount has no heart, and now I believe it.”
“I have a heart. But I also have a head for business. If I gav
e you a reprieve, what guarantee can you offer to prove that you won’t squander it away?”
Mr. Donaldson blinked at Marcus, plainly shocked at the suggestion of reprieve, but Marcus ignored the man. “Well, Melton?”
Lord Melton stood, his chin high, a fierce light in his eyes. “I shall never again wager so much as a groat. You have my word on it.”
Marcus looked at the sheath of papers now sitting on the corner of his desk. His own property in Kent would double in value with this addition. And yet…for some reason, he kept thinking about Honoria’s father, and about Honoria herself. About how at times effort and skill could not make up for ill luck. Marcus nodded toward the papers. “I’ll accept your word. For now. Take those papers with you and think about your situation. Perhaps, if you can find a more legitimate method of regaining your fortune, I might accept your proposal.”
“You—I—” The young lord snatched up the papers, gripping them so tightly his fingers left indentions. “You will not regret this.”
“We don’t have an agreement yet. I’ll give you two weeks to find a solution. After that, we are back where we started, and then you will sign those papers. Am I understood?”
“Yes, my lord. I will return in two weeks and you’ll see—”
“I’m certain we shall.” Marcus picked up his pen and pulled the rest of the day’s correspondence toward him. “Thank you for coming to visit, Lord Melton.”
Melton reached across the desk and, heedless of the damage he was inflicting to the papers between them, he grabbed Marcus’s hand and shook it. “You will not be sorry, my lord! Not for a moment!” And with that impulsive gesture, Lord Melton left, a spring in his step, his head held high.
As his tread faded down the hallway, Marcus threw down his pen and sighed. “I hope I have no cause to regret that.”
Donaldson wiped his glasses and then blew his nose in a most suspicious manner. “From the look on Lord Melton’s face, I don’t think you will. That was—It was quite good of you, my lord.”
“Nonsense,” Marcus said, though he had to admit that his heart felt oddly lighter. “It was just good business, that’s all. Now the lad will work his heart out, and be the better for it, too.”
Donaldson replaced the papers in his satchel. “Of course, my lord. I look forward to seeing what type of endeavor the young man will undertake. Will there be anything else today?”
“No. But tomorrow we will go over the annual rents and—”
A soft knock sounded, and then Jeffries once again stood at the door. “Pardon me, my lord. A Mr. McTabish wishes a word with you.”
Marcus nodded to Jeffries. “Send him in.”
Jeffries bowed, then withdrew.
“Now we shall see which foot is in the fire,” Marcus said with some satisfaction.
Donaldson raised his brows in inquiry.
“A former Bow Street runner,” Marcus said. “I had the man watching something that belongs to me.”
The door opened to admit Jeffries. He introduced Mr. McTabish and then withdrew.
Marcus waited for the door to close before he looked at the rough-looking individual before him. “Well? What have you to report?”
McTabish straightened his shoulders. He was a squat, square man with blunt features and sharp, black eyes. Greatly flushed, his face red and perspiring, his neck cloth damp and askew, as if he’d run a great distance, he appeared a little distressed. He tugged his forelock at Marcus, never sparing as much as a glance for Donaldson. “I apologize fer comin’ in like this, me lord, but ye said to tell ye quick if’n anyone from that household were to so much as look at a jeweler’s.”
Marcus tensed. “Jeweler? Which one?”
“Rundell’s, sir. The lady went there not two minutes ago.”
“Which lady?”
“The tall one, my lord. The one ye said I was to watch particularly.”
Marcus stood so suddenly a stack of papers caught on his sleeve and scattered to the floor. “Tell me all.”
“Aye. She tooked that ring to a jeweler. I waited ’til she went in then I peeked inside a window and saw her takin’ it off and handin’ it to the gent inside the store. She’s there now, tryin’ to sell it.”
“Ten pounds.”
“Ten pounds? That is not even enough to justify my trip here.”
Mr. Rundell straightened his stooped shoulders in an apologetic shrug. “I am sorry I cannot go higher, Miss Baker-Sneed. But I have a surfeit of these items and—”
“Not like this one! It is an exquisitely made snuffbox. Look at the painting on the inside. And the silverwork is perfection.”
The jeweler lifted his glass and peered at the snuffbox once more. He lowered the glass and regarded Honoria from beneath his lashes. She knew he was assessing her worth—the more funding she might have, the more likely it was that, after she left her current embarrassments behind, she might return as a customer. It was for that reason Honoria had dressed in her best gown of green silk with a scattering of pink rosettes and her favorite bonnet with Russian trim.
She looked well and she knew it. In fact, catching a glimpse of herself as she’d left her home, she’d been somewhat saddened to think that Treymount would not see her in such a fetching bonnet.
Not that she cared. She didn’t. Especially after he’d been so presumptuous as to kiss her, and in the middle of the British Museum, too. Ye gods, if they’d been caught—
The jeweler finally laid down his glass. “It is a lovely piece. I suppose…fifteen pounds, but that is as high as I will go.”
“Fifteen? But—” She clamped her lips closed. She could tell by Mr. Rundell’s expression that this was his final price. Feeling slightly misused, she sighed, then nodded. Fifteen pounds was still a goodly sum, though nowhere near what the box was worth. Muttering to herself, she took the money and left the shop. She’d taken a hackney here, wanting to arrive just as the store opened, and the shilling it had cost her had been worth it. But now she was faced with a long, rather windy walk home.
Oh well. She’d just put her head down and go her way. She grasped her reticule and was about to put the pound notes in it when a band of steel snapped about her wrist. She blinked at her fingers, surprised to see that the band of steel was made of a human hand. A rather strong, masculine human hand at that. She allowed her gaze to travel from the hand to a muscular wrist enclosed in a snowy white cuff and then on up a strong arm to a wide shoulder. From there her startled gaze slipped to the marquis’s face.
Honoria’s heart sank a bit. His lips were thinned, his face almost white as he glared down at her gloved hand. He forced her hand into the air, his fingers tightening cruelly.
Honoria clamped her lips around a cry, but she could not but gasp when the money fluttered to the ground.
He stared down at it, anger darkening his gaze.
Honoria took advantage of his distraction to wrench herself free and scoop up the dropped money. The crumpled notes in hand, she flicked a furious glance on her captor. “What is the meaning of this?”
His eyes flashed with fury. “Fifteen pounds? Is that all you thought it was worth?”
Honoria blinked at him, her previous sense of outrage returning. “It’s too little, isn’t it? I thought so, too, but that blasted jeweler would give no more.” She glanced back at the shop front with a baleful glare. “If I’d had the time, I’d have sold it at the auction being held two weeks hence, but—” She suddenly realized she was giving away far more information than she should. “Never mind. This isn’t your concern.”
“Like hell it isn’t.”
Honoria stiffened. “I beg your pardon!”
“Just because I did not accept your ridiculous offer for the ring, you think to pawn it off on whomever just to punish me.”
“Punish? Why…” Her gaze went to the notes, comprehension dawning. “Oh! You think I sold your ring.”
A moment’s silence met this, his blue eyes never wavering. “Didn’t you?”
“No.” She tucked the notes into her reticule and then peeled off her left glove. There, shimmering gently, was the St. John talisman ring.
Relief flickered over his face. “Thank God! I thought you had gotten upset with me and disposed of it.”
“Not yet.”
She was gratified by his instant reaction. His brows twitched lower, his eyes narrowed in irritation. Really, the man was devilishly attractive on a normal day, but for some reason, when angered, he appeared positively devastating.
His eyes flashed blue. “If you didn’t sell the ring, what did you sell?”
She pulled her glove back on and turned on her heel. “That, my lord, is none of your concern.”
She made it two steps before his hand grasped her elbow and he inexorably led her toward his waiting carriage.
Honoria planted her heels and drew them both to a halt. “What do you think you are doing?”
“Taking you home.” He pulled her another step.
She forced him to a halt. “Do you ever ask for things?”
“You cannot think that walking some twenty blocks is preferable to riding there in my coach?”
He had her there. And she had not been looking forward to the walk at all. Not to mention that the wind was picking up and would have tossed her skirts and bent her poor bonnet to bits. “I didn’t say I didn’t wish to ride in your carriage. I just said it would be nice if you would ask instead of demand.”
He grimaced. “It is in your best interest to—”
“It is my job to decide what is in my best interest and what isn’t. Not yours.”
“Damn it!” He took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders as if shrugging off an unpleasant thought. “Very well. Have it your way.” He made a curt bow and said in a voice of exaggerated civility, “Miss Baker-Sneed, will you do me the honor of riding with me to whatever location you wish?”
“That is much better,” she said approvingly. “Now say it again, only unclench your teeth.”
“Unclen—” He snapped his lips together. “I was not clenching my teeth.”
“Yes, you were. You were also playacting in a very poor manner, rather like a participant in a family theatrical.” She arched a brow at him. “Did you ever have those? A family play?”