Fortune's Son (7 page)

“I need your help,” she said simply.

“Anything short of murder, my lady,” Philip answered.

She dismissed the remark with a laugh. “If only it were so easy. But it is nothing quite so ominous.”

“Then I am yours, body and soul, to command.”

She answered, matching his flirtatious banter, “Come now, what use would I have for your soul when your body should more than suffice?”

“Would it indeed?”

She felt a strong pull in the pit of her stomach. Perhaps she had encouraged this flirtation too far? It had been much too long since she had known a lover.

“Nothing so lurid,” she answered, deflecting the conversation away from the quicksand. “I only want you to teach me about gaming. I want to learn which games to play and how to play them. I want to win money.”

“Good God,” he exclaimed. “You left Belsize House only a few nights ago with over seventy pounds in your purse, enough to feed, clothe, and house an average family for a year! Have you spent it all so quickly? Has the fever taken to your blood?”

“You don't understand.”

“I've lived this life for nearly five years, my lady; I understand only too well the danger you court.”

She flashed her most beguiling smile. “But with you by my side, someone I trust for protection, what possible harm can beset me?”

“I am confounded how I have inspired your faith,” he answered sardonically.

“Mayhap it is not so much what you have done as who you are,” she softly replied.

“What? A gamester? A scapegrace? A feckless ne'er-do-well?” He laughed mirthlessly. “Just
who
, or
what
, do you think I am?”

His retort took her aback. Though he carried a jaded, world-weary demeanor beyond his years, his youthful vulnerability surfaced at the most unpredictable times. While Philip guarded himself closely, in those brief moments of candor they'd shared when his defenses were down, she'd glimpsed pieces of the real man, or the one he secretly wanted to be.

“Not who you pretend to be, and far too much like another for whom I once cared deeply.” Her words were out before she realized and were not to be taken back.

It was the last thing Philip had expected to hear, but there was more. It shone in her eyes, and though evanescent, he had seen it. “An erstwhile lover?”

His black eyes probed too deeply for comfort. She ignored the question, instead turning her attention to the harper, who plucked the opening strands of a popular old ballad.

“Do you know this one?” she asked, anxious to break the mounting tension. “It's an old favorite of mine.” In a dulcet contralto, she sang the first verse:

“'Twas down in Cupid's Garden

For pleasure did I go,

To see the fairest flowers

That in that garden grow.

The first was the Jessamine,

The lily, pink and rose.”

Surprisingly, Philip broke in to finish the stanza.

“And surely she's the fairest flower

That in that garden grows.”

“La, child! You do take the role of troubadour to heart!” Disconcerted, she plied levity as her weapon.

His hand moved to possess the hand that lightly rested on his arm. Once captured, he replied lowly, “The verse was apropos.”

Her bemused smile faded with the last notes of the harp. Her bantering tone sobered under his searching stare. “Between lovers, perhaps.”

He answered by drawing her hand to his lips and upturned her palm. The lingering kiss he planted there made her pulse throb acutely. She attempted to extract her hand, but he held it firm. His eyes never broke contact with hers as his lips traced a path to her wrist.

With a hammering heart, she followed his motions, mesmerized by the sensation of his warm mouth on her cool skin. When at last she broke the lengthy silence, her voice was husky. “I seek only gaiety, Philip. Not a lover.”

“Do you not? Then why are you here with me? What do you
really
want from me?”

She fixed her eyes above his left shoulder. “I told you. I desired the diversion of gaming and needed someone to teach me.”

“I think you deny what you truly desire.” He met her indignant stare with a look that sent tremors of desire to her very core.

Shocked by her own reaction, she pulled abruptly away. “You now
presume
to know my mind?”

He answered with a laugh. “What need have I to read your mind when it's written all over your face?”

She visibly started. She had told herself she'd made that afternoon assignation to persuade him to accompany her to a gaming house, but deep down he was right. She longed to feel a lover's caress, the passion of a lover's kiss, and betrayed by this truth, she made to mask it with a lie. “I think you make far more of our time together than what it is. You are a charming and diverting companion. That is all.”

Philip's mouth twitched. There it was again. Every time she allowed him closer, she would just as suddenly repel him away. He was devilish tired of this game she played. “Very well,” he replied, rising stiffly. “If those are your sentiments, our idyll is indeed at an end.”

They proceeded back toward the stairs with a perfunctory civility alien to them until then. She slanted a glance at his face, but his expression was inscrutable, and with every moment of the strained silence, she regretted more deeply the hostile ending of what had earlier been for her a blessed escape.

Her remorse grew as they ventured nearer the waterman. Turning to speak, to make amends, she found herself swept into a fervid embrace. He silenced her protest with his mouth.

Philip's lips melded with hers, dragging over them in a possessive kiss. She willed herself not to answer him in kind, schooling herself to passivity, but all the while her body, quivering with outrage and suppressed passion in equal measure, begged to respond.

He paused for a breath, only to claim her again, but with a kiss nothing like the first.
This
kiss threatened to sweep away all of her resistance and lies. Tenderly he cupped her face, probing her lips with his tongue. With a moan, she parted for him and he entered her mouth, exploring her more deeply, transforming what had begun as almost an assault into a warm, languorous question. She responded fervently, each tangled stroke stripping away layers of her defenses, crumbling her walls. She clung to him now, powerless to demur.

Just as suddenly as it had begun, Philip broke the embrace.

Leaving her breathless.

Whirling.

Wanting.

He removed the trembling hands that clutched his lapel. “I thought perhaps you needed something to ponder.” Without a backward glance, he turned toward St. George's Fields.

Dazed and unsettled, she realized the truth: all the while she had lied to him, she really only deceived herself.

Philip tried to stay away, to occupy himself otherwise, but after only a few days he was drawn back, as ore to a lodestone. Although she yet refused to acknowledge the growing magnetism between them, Philip knew she was as uncomfortably aware of it as he was. Yet when he called upon her, it was as if their honest, candid, and unmasked moments had never transpired.

“You've had a change of heart? You will teach me after all?” she asked hopefully.

“I will teach you the basics, my lady.” He had yet to discover her true game, but somehow she'd engendered in him a desire to protect her, if only from herself.

“I am delighted!” she exclaimed, giving him a fleeting glimpse of the damsel in distress from Belsize House and the pert maid of Cuper's Garden. Just as quickly however, she transformed back to the Merry Widow Messingham, hiding behind her firmly fixed society façade. “Shall we begin with the cards, or do you prefer the dice?” she asked, indicating a chair at the green baize-covered table.

“Cards,” he said. “No dice. The game is too fast and the stakes run too high. I'll teach you whist, loo, and perhaps piquet, the more genteel games you would be expected to know. The ones most frequently played at any assembly, dinner party, musicale, or rout.”

He had conceded, against his better judgment, to teach her a few games. When he joined her at the table, it was with reluctance, but he decided with a glimpse of her milky breasts as she leaned forward for the cards that it was not such an onerous charge after all.

“What game shall it be? I would much like to learn piquet.” Lady Messingham knew many people wagered high on the game.

“You must first learn how to shuffle.”

“But I already know how to shuffle,” she protested. “I wish to learn your tricks with the cards.”

Philip laughed. “So innocent of the arts, and yet the lady would aspire to the society of the Greeks? Pray allow me.” He purposely brushed her hand as he retrieved the deck from her fingers.

Taking the cards in his right hand, Philip used his middle finger to cut the deck into two perfectly even stacks. Then, with the expertise of a professional conjurer, he spread the cards fanlike onto the table and then flipped them to ripple over one another like a row of dominos. The effect was as if they were suddenly animated. Smoothly sweeping them back up, Philip then performed a precise and rapid series of softly clicking riffles and flawless bridges. He completed the act by fanning them once again, face upward, onto the table.

Lady Messingham's eyes grew wider and rounder as she followed the deft movements of his hands, but gaped outright upon discovering the cards once more in perfect order. “Amazing!” she gasped. “And I thought your talent limited to dice! How do you do it?”

“Simply the product of my misspent youth,” he remarked dryly.

“You will teach me this?”

“God no! Even if we had the time, do you wish to announce yourself an Athenian to the world? 'Twas but a conjuring trick I used only to achieve that priceless look of awe on your lovely face. My little performance was sheer vanity, my lady, nothing more. There are three cardinal rules to live by at the tables. Rule the first: one succeeds best at the tables by appearing an errant novice.”

“Is that so?” she asked, her interest completely engaged. “What is rule the second?

“Ah, rule the second is of paramount importance.” He gave her a meaningful look. “Know when to quit the table.”

“But how can one know? The luck can always reverse in one's favor again.”

“An absolute fallacy. Luck tires as surely as the mind, and once fortune turns, it rarely reverses. I tried to tell you as much at Belsize House.”

She had the sense to look shamed. “I'm sorry I didn't heed you, Philip. I was so caught up in the game, you see.”

“This segues right into the third rule. If you choose to follow no other rule, hearken to this one: never engage to play with a troubled mind or excited emotions. Lucidity of the mind is crucial and once one's emotions become engaged in the play, all is lost.”

“But isn't the emotional charge the attraction? The thrill of winning?”

“More than balanced by the anguish of loss.”

“I have seen you at dice, Philip. Though you hide it well, I refuse to believe you maintain such a cool detachment from the game.”

“I don't deny the temptation. The table to a gamester is as powerful as the lure of cheap gin to a drunkard, but in both cases those who cannot exercise control are surely doomed to hell. I have come to know my limits in gaming, and if you endeavor to play, I entreat you to learn the same.”

“Oh, fear not for me,” she said. “I intend to play with care.”

“I pray that is true. Women who play deep risk far more than
financial
ruin.”

“La! How you go on. As if I would be so careless with my
virtue
! Besides, I told you I intend to win.” Her confidence didn't waver. “Now, be pleased to show me how.”

While she still exuded feminine charm, he now detected a steeliness he had never before remarked.

“As you wish.” He gave a resigned shrug. “We'll begin with a very clumsy shuffle, and then proceed to deal the cards to your advantage.”

“Is that possible? How can one control the placement of the cards when the entire purpose of shuffling is to randomize them?”

“'Tis child's play, my lady. Let us say that we have just completed a rubber of… a simple game… let's call it five-card loo. The player to your right has just played Pam—”

“The knave of clubs,” she volunteered.

He nodded and then fanned the deck in search of this card, adding, “Otherwise known as Pamphilus, the ultimate trump card. You have taken note of Pam's position on the table and are next to deal. While collecting up the cards you place Pam on the bottom of the pack.” Showing her the card, he places it under the stack in his hand.

“You divide the cards into two slightly uneven stacks with Pam on the bottom of the larger. You then commence by first riffling the bottom card of the larger stack, whereby Pam remains on the bottom. You split the cards in like fashion, and in repeating the maneuver, Pam will ever remain ‘civil' in his place.” He finished the demonstration with a flourish. “You then bottom deal the ultimate trump card to yourself. You try now.” He handed her the pack.

After a few clumsy attempts, she squealed with glee at her success. “But it is so simple!”

He answered with a vulpine grin, “The best tricks usually are.”

Lady Messingham sat at her dressing table in
dishabille
, garbed only in her stockings, shift, and stays, as her lady's maid put the finishing touches on her coiffeur. The lady regarded her reflection in the glass with a slight moue. Though Sarah was a competent enough dresser, she lacked the flair of Monsieur Brissard. The unfortunate dismissal of her personal
friseur
was but the first of what already appeared vain attempts to economize.

Sarah applied a light dusting of powder to her mistress's face, and foregoing the proffered black silk patch, the lady rose to be dressed for her morning call to Lady Hamilton, currently in residence with the Princess Augusta at Leicester House.

Sarah had already pressed her best dove-colored mourning gown for the occasion, but Lady Messingham turned up her nose. “I have done with mourning, Sarah. I care not what anyone says. If I am to go to Leicester House today, it will be in the height of style.”

After selecting a modish new mantua of Spitalfields silk, Sarah assisted with panniers and petticoat, then pinned onto the gorgeous confection of rust and ochre hues an ornate stomacher worked in a complex pattern of silk and gold lace. It was one of Susannah's dearest gowns and suited her coloring to perfection, but also the last she would order from Madame Guilane, she thought with a touch of melancholy.

“What shall it be, my lady?” Sarah proffered the jewel box.

“The emeralds, don't you think? I am going to the court of the Princess Augusta, after all.” Lady Messingham donned eardrops and matching pendant, pausing to admire the effect of the milky stone surrounded by diamond baguettes that lay shimmering against the creamy white expanse of her bosom.

“Aye, my lady. Those jewels be fit for royalty.”

Her mistress's lips curved with the consolation that though she must economize, no one had finer jewels.

***

She had already descended the stairs and called for her chairmen, when the footman announced the arrival of Mr. Allendale. She swept into the library where he awaited with a worried frown. “Sir, you are unexpected and come at a most inconvenient time.”

“A thousand pardons, my lady, but there is never a convenient time for such pressing matters. The state of your accounts—”

She silenced him with an admonishing look and swiftly moved to close the library door. “Your discretion leaves much to be desired.”

“I beg your pardon, madam, but I fear I am a bit overwrought these days.” The gentleman pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to mop his bushy brow. “I genuinely fear for you, Lady Messingham. If you had only heeded my advice to take up residence in the country, all this may have been avoided. But now… I'd never have guessed that matters would come to such a pass.”

“What are you saying, sir?” she asked with mounting alarm.

“My dear lady, I know not how to break the news gently.”

“Then just out with it!” she exclaimed, her face already ghostly pale.

“I am in receipt of a summons for you to appear before Colonel Sir Thomas de Veil, the Westminster magistrate. Unless you are immediately prepared to settle your accounts, there is little I can do.”

“When, Allendale?” she asked with rising panic. “How much time do I have?”

“Tomorrow at half eleven, you are expected to present yourself at number four Bow Street.”

He pulled the parchment from his pocket and presented the summons into her trembling hands. She grasped the back of a nearby chair with the fear she might soon collapse.

“I am sorry, my lady. I will see myself out.” She watched in silence as Allendale stiffly departed, leaving in much greater haste than she would have expected, but then again, he evidenced obvious relief in having dispatched his duty and was no doubt pleased to have washed his hands of her.

She tried to focus on the document in her hands, desperate for a loophole or some way to forestall the proceedings, but her welling tears blurred the words. She collapsed into the chair. “Good God! What am I to do now?”

She briefly considered asking Lady Hamilton for a loan, but dismissed the notion as quickly. Little good ever came from borrowing from a friend. Besides, the sum was too great and she had no true assurance of repayment.

Reflexively, her hand went to her throat where her fingers met the cool stones, and the answer was upon her like a bolt from the blue.

She paused to consider the prudence of it, but perceiving no other viable course she scrawled a hasty note of regret to Lady Hamilton, claiming a severe megrim. Then, feigning the same, she instructed her servants not to disturb her for the balance of the afternoon. Sarah helped her to undress and returned to her with the jewel case, which Lady Messingham accepted before dismissing the servant.

With a determined but heavy heart, she removed her emerald necklace and eardrops. She lifted them reverently, holding them up to the light. A perfect match for her eyes, the emeralds had always been her favorite. No. These she could not bring herself to sacrifice. Instead, she laid them aside to her right.

She lovingly caressed the carved mahogany lid before raising it to reveal her full treasure trove. The first item to catch her eye was a triple strand of pearls with a diamond and ruby clasp. Taking them into both hands, she raised the pearls to her lips and passed them lightly over her front teeth. She closed her eyes to appreciate the slightly gritty sensation she might never know again.

With regret, she laid them on the dressing table to the left. She continued through the box delicately examining, mentally appraising, and sorting the contents into two distinct piles before replacing those few items she had reserved back into the box. The rest she swept, along with her diamond wedding ring, into a silk-lined purse.

She dressed herself once more in her plainest gown and slid her bundle into the pocket beneath her petticoat. Covertly, she moved through the house and down the servants' stairs to exit facing the mews. Stepping through the garden gate, she pulled her cloak closely about her, and with her hand protectively over her hidden treasure, made her way briskly down Bedford Street toward the Strand.

From this bustling intersection, it was little trouble to hail a passing sedan chair. “Where to, missus?” one of the burly fellows asked.

Her response was tremulous but resolute. “To Fleet Street. I seek a pawnbroker.”