Knave's Wager

  “Ah, he bowed so beautifully, did he not, Robin? Still, the lady will not smile. She will not even look his way.”

  “Which lady is that, Julian?” Lord Robert asked. He was apparently the only person in the theatre who had not observed Society’s latest sensation.

  “It does not signify. It is certainly not worth interrupting your conversation with your beautiful friend.” The marquess dropped carelessly into his seat.

  “It is the widow, mon cheri,” Elise confided. “I have the suspicion your cousin takes a fancy to Madame Davenant.”

  “Madame who?”

  Elise touched a finger to Lord Robert’s lips. The music had recommenced.

  Lord Brandon joined the couple for a late supper at the Piazza. As he’d predicted, word of the widow’s snub had sped through the audience—thanks no doubt to the kind offices of Silence Jersey.

  “She cut you, Julian?” Robert asked, aghast. “But no one has ever done that. No one would dare. Who the devil does she think she is?”

  “She is the Widow Davenant,” said his mistress. “Half the ladies are afraid of her, and all the gentlemen. She is a paragon. Everyone in the ton is naughty sometimes, no? But they are discreet, and so everyone knows, perhaps, yet they make believe they are all virtue. But Madame is all virtue. She has never stepped wrong, even the little step.”

  “Gad, she sounds awful. I must say, Julian, when Elise pointed her out, you could have knocked me over with a feather. She’s not at all in your style.”

  Lord Brandon slowly turned his wineglass, apparently studying its colour with great care. “Thank you for calling that to my attention, cousin,” he said. “I was ill, you know. Evidently my vision suffered. My short-sightedness has been mentioned before.”

  Elise shrugged. “She is very handsome, I think. Not a great beauty, but very fine. It is her air, perhaps.”

  Something flickered in the green eyes. It was quickly hooded, but perhaps not quickly enough, for Elise continued, “She is strong and proud. I think she has great will. It is not easy for a widow—for any woman alone—even in the Beau Monde. Or perhaps it is more difficult there. Still, one hears never a whisper of scandal about her. She presents her nieces, and always they marry well.”

  “You seem to know a great deal about this lady,” said the marquess.

  “Ah, je sais tout. It amuses me. The shopgirls are always so willing to repeat what they hear. Everyone wonders about Madame, because she is a mystery. She has no intimate friends. Her companion knows as little what is in the widow’s heart as do the horses of the fine carriage that brought us here.”

  By this time, Robert had had quite enough of the widow. He had much rather hear of doings in France and wherever else Julian had been.

  Obligingly the marquess turned to Talleyrand and Castlereagh and Metternich and Czar Alexander and the rest. His anecdotes were, as one would expect, wickedly amusing. If the telling bored him even more than usual and his mind wandered elsewhere more than once, one of his listeners at least did not remark it.

  The following Monday, Cecily’s aunt accompanied her to the dressmaker’s. As usual, Lilith’s in-laws’ notions of a proper Season’s wardrobe had been sadly inadequate. Since this was usual, she was not taken unawares. She had carefully hoarded a sum for this express purpose. She would have probably done so in any case: treating her nieces to clothes and trinkets was one of her special pleasures.

  She entered the shop... and stopped short, her pleasure abruptly extinguished.

  Lounging in a chair, idly turning the pages of a fashion journal, was the Marquess of Brandon. He glanced up at their entrance, and his bored green eyes lit with amusement. Lazily he rose and made the ladies an extravagant bow.

  Her lips compressed in a tight line, Lilith took her niece’s arm and swept coldly past him, on to the dressing-room door. At that instant, the door flew open, narrowly missing Cecily, and a woman sailed heedlessly through. Lilith stepped hastily out of the way and stumbled against her niece. The woman made no apology, but headed straight for Lord Brandon. She was the one who’d been in his box the previous evening.

  “Ah, pauvre home,” she cried. “Were you horribly bored, waiting?”

  “Unspeakably so,” he answered. “That is, until the very last.”

  Lilith hustled Cecily into the dressing room.

  “I do not understand,” the niece said. “Is it not impolite to ignore an acquaintance?”

  “He is not an acquaintance,” was the low answer. “We have not been properly introduced.”

  “But at the inn—”

  Lilith turned to the eagerly listening modiste and asked for a moment’s privacy. Reluctantly, Madame Suzette exited the room.

  In still lower tones, the aunt explained that it was her Christian duty to help a fellow human being in trouble. Having fulfilled her duty, she was no longer under any obligation to converse with or even acknowledge Lord Brandon. Even if she were inclined—which she certainly was not—she would never do so without a formal introduction. “A lady,” she pointed out, “does not respond to every person who seeks her attention.”

  Elise Fourgette was not only clever, but possessed of virtually infallible instincts. Though she teased Lord Brandon about the widow as soon as they were in his carriage, Elise knew this was merely a prelude.

  The marquess had come to London with a purpose. All of Robert’s relatives, it seemed, had come on the same business. This time, however, her adversary was more than worthy of her mettle. Even without hearing of his reputation, Elise would have sensed immediately that Lord Brandon was a force to be reckoned with.

  He spent ten minutes fencing lightly with her about Mrs. Davenant. Then the duel began in earnest, and, figuratively speaking, the sword was at Elise’s throat before she had time to say, “En garde.’’

  “You have some letters in your possession,” he said in deceptively easy tones. “I should like to have them.”

  “Ah, milord, that is what everyone would like, I think.”

  “But I am not everyone, mademoiselle.” His voice was soft. His green eyes were pitiless. “You may give them up to me voluntarily today—or another day, quite soon, I promise, involuntarily. You see, the matter is excessively tiresome, and I should like to have done with it as quickly as possible. I hope you are not in a dilatory frame of mind. In that case, I should be obliged to ask certain more efficient persons to see to it.”

  His smile was utterly devastating. Were not for his eyes, one would think he offered her carte blanche.

  “That would be tedious and inconvenient for both of us, I believe,” he added. “They are such uncomfortable fellows to have about.”

  Brandon, it was said, always got what he wanted, by fair means or foul. Since he was reputed to prefer the latter, Elise had no doubt his threat was genuine. Such persons as he spoke of existed, and he would not shrink at employing them. How she hated him at this moment, this devilishly handsome, rich and powerful English lord.

  “Je comprend,” she said tightly. Then she set her brain to work.

  No more was said until they reached the cramped lodgings Robert shared with his mistress. The younger man was still out, Lord Brandon having had the foresight to dispatch his cousin on an exceedingly time-consuming errand.

  The marquess accepted the glass of wine Elise offered him, and leaned back, perfectly at ease, in his chair.

  “I do not have all the letters with me,” she said in French. “I can give you only some half-dozen this day.”

  He answered flawlessly in the same language. He had rather not be overheard by prying landladies.

  “I did not suppose you were so careless as to keep them all in one place. Nor do I suppose,” he added lightly as he turned the goblet in his hands, “you will be so impractical as to release them all. No one knows how many there are—least of all Robert.”

  “I am not so reckless of my health as to deceive you, milord.”

  “All the same, I shall not put temptation in you
r way. In addition to giving me Robert’s letters, you will write one of your own to him. In it you will firmly and irrevocably, now and for all time, decline to be his wife.”

  Elise’s dark eyes flashed. “That I will not do,” she said quietly. “If you wish such a thing, you must hire assassins as well.”

  Lord Brandon covered a yawn. “I see you mean to be tiresome, after all. You are under some misapprehension that I cannot persuade you to write this letter. Let me assure you, dear lady, I can.”

  She laughed. “You will torture me, I suppose? I had not thought you so foolish. I have never told Robert how his relations bully and threaten me. He is so protective—and impetuous, you know. He would insist we be married at once.”

  “That is hardly to your advantage. His family will cut him off without a penny.”

  “We shall make do for a few months, I think. In July he is five and twenty, and no longer depends upon their charity.”

  “Yet you will always be outcasts. You will always be pinched for funds. His income is scarcely what a woman of your talents merits.”

  She smiled at him over the rim of her wineglass. “There is some compensation in wedding a nobleman. My mother is a whore, my father most likely a sailor. Mama never catered to the aristocracy, you see. How amazed she will be at my title! Perhaps she will come to live with us.”

  “I hope you have not built too many castles in the air, mademoiselle,” he drawled, though it cost him something to suppress his revulsion at the prospect she painted for him. “Rest assured you will never marry my cousin. Or, in the unlikely event you do, please be quite certain the marriage will be dissolved—one way or another.”

  She must know she could not win, yet her features betrayed no hint of distress or alarm. In spite of himself, Lord Brandon had to admire her sang froid, even as he acknowledged his own uneasiness. It was, after all, preferable that Robert know nothing of his family’s machinations. The young man was stubborn and, as Elise had reminded, impetuous.

  “It seems we are at point non plus,” she said after a short, tense silence. “Yet how sordid we are, to goad and threaten each other. From you I had expected better. Of all I had heard, never once was it said Lord Brandon bullied women. What sport do you find in that?”

  The marquess glanced at her calculating face.

  “No sport at all, I agree,” he said cautiously. “The matter is so absurdly simple it is a wonder I have kept awake throughout.”

  “Naturally. You are more accustomed to using guile. This requires neither wit nor daring. There is no difficulty, no challenge. I am an unworthy adversary. I cannot fight you on equal terms,” she said. “I am not even your social equal.”

  Lord Brandon’s expression softened slightly. “If you were, my dear, we should not be having this discussion.”

  “Thus I am left with no chance to better myself-—not even to make my future secure. You will have these letters in the end, and I do not doubt you will soon drive Robert from me as well. You have not the courtesy,” she added, her voice dropping, “to fight me fairly.”

  “You yourself admit the match is unequal. What would you have?” he asked. Though his tone was lazy, Lord Brandon was fully alert.

  “A champion,” she said. “I ask the right to choose a champion to fight on my behalf. Not Robert,” she added quickly, before he could express his disappointment. “A woman. One who is your social equal. One strong enough to defy you, which I dare not.”

  “A champion, is it? You wish another woman—a lady, I take it—to wear your... er, favour? That bears at least the distinction of novelty. Pray elucidate.” He raised the wineglass to his lips.

  “Madame Davenant,” she said.

  He put the glass down.

  “It is simple enough. Seduce her and I set Robin free as you and all your noble family wish. Fail, and you set me free—absolutely. You and all of them must cease to trouble me.”

  Lord Brandon gazed consideringly at her for a long moment. Then he laughed and said, “Elise, you are a wicked woman.”

  “There are many wicked women,” she answered with a shrug. “But I am intelligent.”

  “That I readily admit. I had suspected so before. Now I am assured of it. You must know the challenge is irresistible.”

  “I took care to make it so. I am not blind. I have watched how you change when you see her. The ennui leaves you. You are tense, like the hound when he scents the fox. You want her. That, any woman of my”—she paused briefly— “profession would know. But you will not have her, I think. Not this one, my handsome, powerful lord.”

  “Naturally you believe so. You would not have proposed this otherwise.”

  She smiled. “We understand each other, then. Do you accept the challenge?”

  Lord Brandon’s reflections consumed approximately thirty seconds. Since he had not particularly cared in the first place what absurdity Robert committed, Robert’s future and his family’s distress were a minor consideration. Besides, they would be distressed only if Brandon failed, which was inconceivable.

  In the second place, the marquess had fully intended to seduce Mrs. Davenant. That, after all, was why he had come to Town instead of boarding the first sailing vessel bound for the Continent. Elise’s challenge only added piquancy to the pursuit, made it a bit different—yes, more exciting, perhaps—than usual.

  “I accept,” he said.

  Lord Brandon was granted eight weeks in which to effect Mrs. Davenant’s fall from virtue. This was an absurdly generous amount of time. Elise, however, had laughingly maintained she might grant him an eternity and the result would be the same. Her patent belief in the task’s impossibility only heightened Lord Brandon’s zest for the chase. By the following day, one of the marquess’s most ingratiating servants had made the acquaintance of certain of Mrs. Davenant’s staff. Within another few days, Lord Brandon began receiving regular reports regarding the widow’s comings and goings.

  These reports must have been accurate, for Lord Brandon and Lord Robert Downs were to be found strolling within sight of Hookham’s Circulating Library when Mrs. Davenant’s carriage stopped at the door, and aunt and niece disembarked.

  “I believe I must step into Hookham’s for a moment,” said the marquess to his cousin.

  Puzzled, Lord Robert glanced towards the building in time to see the widow enter it.

  “Really, Julian, you aren’t going to try again, are you?” he asked incredulously. “She doesn’t want to know you, and I don’t see why you want to know her.”

  The last words were spoken to air. Lord Brandon was already crossing the street. Curious, Lord Robert followed.

  Since Mrs. Davenant had not seen either of the two men, she continued in an equable frame of mind. She even forbore commenting upon her niece’s unfeminine tastes when that young lady went hunting for equestrian books.

  Lilith took herself the other way, where the novels were. She picked up a copy of Mansfield Park and began to skim it, to ascertain whether this new effort by the author of Pride and Prejudice would be as rewarding as its predecessors.

  The hour being early, the place was not crowded, and the aisle in which she stood was empty. Since she was not interrupted, she soon became engrossed in the novel.

  She was halfway through the first chapter when she became disagreeably aware of being watched. She looked up.

  Not five feet from her, the long, elegantly clothed form of the Marquess of Brandon lounged against the bookshelves. He played idly with his walking stick while his green eyes regarded her with amusement. Her muscles tensed.

  Lilith turned to exit in the opposite direction. That way, she found, was now blocked by a set of steps. Upon it a hapless clerk stood, a stack of volumes in one hand. These he was with great deliberation returning one by one to their places. There were two more stacks of books on the steps.

  Lilith steeled herself, turned once more, and marched up to the marquess. He did not move out of her way. On the contrary, he had set his walking sti
ck across the narrow aisle.

  She glanced at the walking stick, then up at him, her expression stony. He smiled. Her nerves prickled, but she had no intention of retreating. She took another step forward. He did not budge.

  “Would you be kind enough to let me pass?” she asked coldly.

  “It cannot be necessary. You have given me to understand I do not exist. In that case, you should not find it difficult to walk right through me.”

  In one carelessly graceful movement, he came away from the bookshelf and planted himself directly in her path.

  Lilith was a tall woman, and he was not a heavy-set man, yet that lean, athletic form with its broad shoulders shut out everything else from her sight. She was acutely conscious of a faint scent of sandalwood.

  “I do hope you will make the experiment,” he went on, his voice dropping. “Surely you cannot expect a collision— though I should not object if there were.”

  “Your remarks are not amusing, sir. Let me pass.”

  “I am too tired. I am but recently—and not fully, I’m afraid—recovered from an illness. You had better scream for help. I haven’t the strength.”

  “I see,” she said. “You wish to create a scene.”

  “And you do not.” The green eyes glittered with mischief. “The question is, which of us has more to lose?”

  The goading words and his oppressive physical presence turned her hot and cold simultaneously. “I have no wish to bandy words with you,” she said icily. “The aisle has two ends.”

  “But it is bad luck to walk under ladders. I shall be obliged to warn you, very loudly, not to try it.”

  “You just said you hadn’t the strength to raise your voice.”

  “Did I? My senses must have been disordered. I am struck all of a heap to find you so... very... near.”

  Though he had not moved, the space between them seemed to vibrate.

  “You are silent,” he said. “Dare I hope the feeling is mutual?”

  “I will not be the butt of your crude humour, sir.” With a strength born of anger and desperation, she pushed her way past him.