Chapter Nine #2
“Oh. No, I suppose not.” Lord Lockhart stripped off his gloves one at a time and laid them across his knee. Those frosty blue eyes examined the deck of cards in his hand as if they contained some secret trick within them. Carefully he peeled off a card and fit it into the cup of his palm.
“Bend it just a bit,” Grace said. “Not enough to crease it, but enough to keep it stuck there when you’ve turned your hand upside down.”
He did as she instructed, his brows lifting as the card remained firmly situated and obscured from view as he turned his hand over.
“And now,” Grace said, “you’ll want to keep your arm flat, release the pressure on the bottom of the card just a bit, and gently nudge the card inside the cuff of your sleeve with your fingers.
It will likely take you some practice, but—oh.
” Grace blinked as he followed her instructions to the letter, and the card disappeared up his sleeve.
“Well done,” she said. “Can you get it out again?”
He shook his arm once. Again. And again, with a sort of frantic urgency that bordered on panic. “I don’t think so. It’s caught up around my elbow somehow.”
Grace muffled a laugh into the palm of her hand.
“You will have to be careful,” she said.
“If you lose half the cards up your sleeve, eventually someone is going to notice the deck is substantially smaller than it ought to be. Keep your arms lowered as much as possible so that the card stays where it’s meant to.
” She canted her head contemplatively. “Have you got one of those shirts with frilly sleeves that your uncle favors?”
“Probably my valet has got one tucked away somewhere. I don’t prefer so much lace, myself.”
“Accustom yourself to it,” she said. “More lace will hide the cards better when you palm them or slip them up your sleeves. Probably they’ll also disguise a false shuffle and dealing from the bottom of the deck quite nicely as well.
Those are the things you must practice before tomorrow evening.
The false shuffle to arrange the cards according to your needs, the dealing from the bottom to ensure you receive the cards you want, and slipping cards up your sleeve to be retrieved when they are required. ”
“You ain’t givin’ away our secrets, now, are you, Gracie?”
Grace turned to see Uncle Chris standing in the doorway, one hand braced upon the door frame and the other fisted tightly around the silver handle of his cane.
He’d arrived for the tea that would be commencing upstairs briefly, no doubt.
“Our secrets?” she asked. “Come, now. You must admit they’re mostly mine.
” He was a dab hand at thievery, but she’d always been better at card trickery.
“Family secrets, then,” he clarified. “None o’ his nevermind, that’s for certain.”
Lord Lockhart had gone quite still upon the couch, and his glacial gaze was fixed upon Uncle Chris’ cane. Odd. “Mr. Moore,” he said, in what Grace assumed was an attempt toward politeness, regardless of the fact that Uncle Chris had shown no proclivity toward it himself.
“Lockhart,” Uncle Chris returned in what was very nearly a hiss. “Thought I had told ye that ye wasn’t to come sniffin’ around Gracie’s skirts.”
Sniffing around her skirts! “Uncle Chris,” she said reproachfully.
“I don’t like the way ‘e looks at ye,” Uncle Chris said baldly. “And what’s more, I told ‘im so m’self.”
Grace’s gaze sheared back toward Lord Lockhart, whose posture had become rather uncomfortably stiff.
A wash of hot color seared his cheeks above a jaw that had gone far too tight and tense.
He had, she supposed, alluded to the fact that Uncle Chris had made some veiled threats to him not long ago.
She simply had not expected them to be regarding her. What had been said, and why?
And moreover, how had he looked at her to cause Uncle Chris to take such offense?
Lord Lockhart tugged at the collar of his shirt as if it had begun to strangle him. “Yes, well, I believe I’ve stayed far longer than I ought to have done,” he said in a raspy voice as he set the deck of cards once more upon the table.
“Damn right ye have,” Uncle Chris growled.
“Uncle Chris!”
“What? ‘E’s overstayed his welcome, and ‘e knows it.”
But he hadn’t. In truth, she’d rather enjoyed showing off her skills for someone other than family.
There had been something extremely satisfying at the look of wonder upon his face as she’d made cards disappear and reappear.
Perhaps she wasn’t half so skilled in the ladylike arts that his set seemed most to admire as society would say she ought to be, but she’d spent quite a long time honing the skills she had.
Despite his principles, she thought he might have…admired them. Perhaps even admired her.
“Ye got two minutes to take yerself off,” Uncle Chris said to Lord Lockhart, with a vicious thump of his cane upon the marble floor as he turned to go. “And just to be certain ye go, I’m sendin’ Redding along to evict ye.”
Lord Lockhart breathed a sigh of relief as Uncle Chris disappeared, his shoulders wilting from the unbearably stiff pinch they had crept up to about his ears.
He patted at his knee for his discarded gloves.
Came up with only one. “What the devil?” he muttered, his brows drawing as he darted a glance about for the other.
Her head held high and her fluffy grey tail swishing elegantly behind her, Tansy sauntered past Lord Lockhart’s feet toward the open doorway.
The fingers of a gentleman’s glove were snared between her teeth, and without a backward glance she disappeared through the door, carrying it off for parts unknown.
A moment passed in stunned silence. “Your damned cat stole my glove,” he said at last.
“It would appear so, yes.”
Tentatively, Lord Lockhart ventured, “I don’t suppose there’s any hope of fighting her for it?”
“I wouldn’t recommend it. She’s quite fond of stealing my ribbons, and I’ve never dared to take one from her once she’s laid claim to it.”
He gave a heartfelt sigh. “I thought not.” And then, in faint tones of awe, “Of course you would own a cat whose proficiency in thievery rivals your own.”
“What am I meant to say to that?” Grace asked, settling her chin in her palm. “Naturally, she learned from the best.”
∞∞∞
Henry had remembered the card still tucked up his sleeve only once he’d returned home.
He’d had to strip himself of his coat and unbutton the sleeve of his shirt to get at it, of course.
Probably he ought to have returned it to Grace, but he was loath to present himself at the house once again whilst Mr. Moore might still be in residence.
As he sat outside in the garden, he practiced the smooth, rhythmic motions of making the card disappear and reappear, hidden in the cup of his hands.
Even with hours of practice he wasn’t half so elegant and seamless as Grace, but what had begun as a bit of a fumbling journey had eventually approached tolerable.
The false shuffle had proved a bit trickier, though he rather thought he’d become reasonably proficient in dealing from the bottom of the deck.
His fingers still wanted to stutter a bit over the movements—as if a tendency toward honesty had been bred into his very muscles and bones—but except for that slight hesitation, if he moved quickly enough even his own eyes could not tell the difference between a card dealt from the top and a card dealt from the bottom.
When he kept his fingers just slightly curved, the card bent into the cup of his palm and stayed tucked there securely.
So long as he remembered not to lift his hands too high, and provided he could adequately tuck the cards down into his sleeve and subtly slip them loose once more, he ought to be capable of providing the distraction Grace required.
Perhaps not quite so elegantly as she did, but late in the evening, when the gentlemen present would be well into their cups, he supposed he just might fool the lot of them.
Another flip of the card, which slid smoothly through his fingers. Grace’s deck was now missing a card, rendering it incomplete for parlor games, but he suspected she likely had a fair few decks to her name. Probably she wouldn’t miss this one card, anyway.
Probably she already had, actually, though she hadn’t seen fit to ask for the return of it before he’d left, which was just as well, considering he’d decided he was going to keep it.
It was the queen of hearts which had ended up stuck in his sleeve, and it felt like a sign of sorts.
It was a hell of a risk they’d both be taking tomorrow evening, and weren’t gamblers supposed to be a superstitious lot?
They would both require all the luck they could lay hands on, and this card seemed a suitable token of it.
“You missed dinner.”
Henry startled to the words, his head lifting. In the gloom of early evening, he saw Mother standing perhaps twenty feet away as if uncertain of her welcome. The unrelieved black of her gown seemed to meld into the encroaching darkness. “Mother,” he said in surprise. “What are you doing out here?”
“I had heard,” she said softly, in that waifish, nearly inaudible little voice which had somehow become hers this past year, “that you intended to attend Alicia’s dinner party.”
They hadn’t really spoken more than a few words to one another in the last few days.
Out of the shame of it all, he supposed, Mother tended to make herself scarce whenever he was about.
After that conversation they had had, in which she had tearfully informed him of his illegitimacy and Uncle Nigel’s subtle threats, she had been quieter even than usual.
“I am,” he said. “How did you learn of it?”
“Alicia sent a note round this morning,” she said, “asking if I’d reconsidered my attendance.”
Though he suspected he knew the answer already, he asked, “Have you?”