Chapter 2
She heard a groan and ran back to Oliver, who was carefully feeling his jaw. “Plague take it. Who was that? And what on earth were you doing entertaining a man here?”
“Entertaining? The devil broke in.”
Oliver scrambled shakily to his feet and straightened his powdered wig. “Broke in? Why? There’s nothing of value here. Not for a man like that, at least.” Then he reached for his sword again. “By gad, but I’ll have satisfaction of him if I can but find out who he is.”
“Lord Arcenbryght Malloren is the name he gave.”
Oliver’s hand dropped from his sword, and he stared at her as if she’d announced the plague was in Maidenhead. “A Malloren!”
“You know him?”
“A Malloren? Of course not.” He was looking around dazedly, still feeling the effects of that cruel blow.
Portia took his arm and steered him toward the stairs. “He merely came to retrieve a letter that had been left here. Why don’t we go down to the kitchen? It’s warm there, and I think there’s some coffee left on the hob.”
When they were on the stairs and he seemed in better order, she said, “Tell me about the Mallorens.”
“Rothgar,” he stated, as if it were explanation in itself.
“What is Rothgar?”
But they were in the hall now and crumbs of plaster crunched under their feet. Oliver picked up the fallen pistol and looked at the scarred ceiling. “Why the devil was he firing a pistol in here?”
“It was me,” said Portia soothingly, steering him on. “I was startled. Unfortunately I didn’t hit him.”
Oliver looked back at the ceiling. “Unless he was flying, Portia, you never came close.”
Portia decided not to enlighten Oliver about the exact circumstances. Though younger than she, he took his position as head of the family seriously. If he faced up to Bryght Malloren the results would be disastrous.
There was little danger of it. When he collapsed down at the kitchen table, Oliver sank his head in his hands. “Bryght Malloren. Devil take it. The last thing we need is to be on the wrong side of the Mallorens.”
“Who are they?”
Oliver looked up. “The Mallorens? They’re one of the great families. Rich and powerful, with connections that run through society like dry rot through timber.”
Portia placed two cups on the table. “Then why was such a man breaking into this house?”
“They’re known to do their own dirty work at times.”
“Dirty work? You make them sound like criminals. Although I must say, that man acted like one.”
Oliver grimaced. “People like the Mallorens can damn near do as they please.”
The intruder had implied as much. Portia wished she could bring a certain Malloren before the magistrates for his crimes. She’d like to see him in chains. At the thought of him on a gibbet, however, her mind balked. No, she wouldn’t want it to go quite so far as that.
She put sugar and a jug of cream on the table. “What did you mean by Rothgar?”
“The Marquess of Rothgar. He’s the head of the brood.”
Portia returned to the stove for the coffeepot. “I’ve read the name in the news-sheets. Lord Rothgar takes some interesting positions in the House.”
“Doubtless ones which serves his own interests. He’s a cold-hearted devil by all accounts. Bryght’s a gamester.”
Portia froze in the act of lifting the heavy coffeepot.
A gamester.
She had to put the pot down again for a moment.
A gamester. The bane of her existence.
The whole world seemed riddled with an insane addiction to games of chance. Before her time, her father had apparently been a gamester. After marriage he had “reformed,” but instead of settling to honest labor, he had turned to investments—risky ones promising astonishing profits.
He had lost all and shot himself.
Only a toddler at the time, Portia had no memory of the event. She had heard of it often enough, however, especially when her mother wished to warn her against any kind of risk-taking.
“Don’t you be like your father, Portia—always thinking you are cleverer than the others, that you will win against the odds. Accept what the Good Lord sends.”
Portia had a sudden memory of that Malloren man asking if she always fought against the odds. How had he known her so quickly and so well?
It was true that she did not like to “accept what the Good Lord sends” and seemed driven to fight fate. She had often been irritated by her mother and stepfather because they were so accepting, so unwilling to take any kind of chance.
Now she saw she should have been grateful.
Oliver was a risk-taker like her. He loved rough, dangerous sports, and had wanted to join the army. Denied that by his mother’s distress, he’d turned to gaming and lost his money and perhaps their home. If he didn’t raise five thousand guineas within weeks, Overstead Manor would be lost forever.
Bryght Malloren was another of the same type, it would appear, and he was not a young misguided fool like Oliver. He was a mature man, steeped in the vice. Why that should so distress her, she did not know.
Portia looked sharply at her brother. Had Oliver played against Lord Bryght? Had the man not only invaded her home and assaulted her, but filched away her life and home on the roll of a die?
She found the strength to lift the coffeepot and thumped it down on the wooden table. “Do you know Lord Arcenbryght well?” she asked, meaning, have you gambled against him?
Oliver gaped at her. “A Malloren? Far above my touch, my dear. I didn’t even recognize him in that light. But everyone knows about them.”
“What does everyone know?”
“That they’re rich, powerful, and let nobody cross them.”
Portia sat down opposite. “If they’re so rich, why would one be a gamester?”
He sighed with exasperation. “I’ve tried to explain to you, Portia. Everyone plays. The king plays, the queen plays, the ministers of the Crown play. Even the bishops play. And every man who wants to call himself a man, plays.”
“But why? ”
Ever since Oliver had returned to Overstead with the shocking news that he had lost the estate at play, Portia had been asking that question. Why would any reasonable human being risk everything on the turn of a card or the roll of a die?
Oliver poured himself some coffee. “What can I say? A man has to play or be thought a demmed strange fellow. It’s a sign of courage for a start, of nerve. Not to play is to brand oneself a timid, worthless creature.”
“If not to play would be unfashionable and unpopular, then that would take courage, wouldn’t it?”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand. It’s a man’s thing, I suppose, though many women play.”
“I’d think their husbands would put a stop to it.”
“Why, when they play, too?”
“But why? ” Portia asked again.
“It’s exciting,” he said simply.
“Exciting? How can it possibly be exciting to lose money?”
“It’s exciting to win,” he pointed out. “Come on, Portia. It’s not like you to be so stuffy. Remember the time you climbed out of your window at night to meet Fort so you could try to catch the Bollard brothers poaching? It was stupid, but I’ll go odds it was exciting.”
Portia didn’t like having her youthful follies thrown up at her. “It was hardly the same sort of thing.”
“But it is!” He leaned forward, eyes brightening.
“The thrill of that adventure was the risk. The risk of breaking your neck. The risk of a whipping. The risk that the Bollard brothers would catch sight of you and kill the witnesses. It’s like that at the gaming tables.
It’s exciting to risk and to survive. The greater the risk, the greater the thrill.
It tests a man’s mettle. It makes him come alive…
.” But then he realized what he was saying and sagged back in his chair.
“But I am done with it. Give you my word, my dear.”
Portia’s hands shook slightly as she poured herself coffee.
Oliver kept promising never to play again, but sometimes she doubted him. He spoke of gaming almost like a man in love, in love with the tainted thrill of chance.
“There are surely other ways of testing your mettle.”
“I suppose so.” He flicked her a look. “The army, for example.”
“Oliver, you know it would break mama’s heart.”
“Damnation, Portia, it’s not surprising I took to the tables. The only thing you and mother do is let me do is put my clothes on and ride around the countryside.”
“You could manage the estate.”
“Dull stuff, and you’re better at it than I. But I suppose life will be exciting enough now.” He gave her a wry smile. “For a start, I’ll have to challenge Bryght Malloren.”
“No!” Portia exclaimed. “Don’t be so foolish.”
“He did give me a blow, Portia.”
Portia had forgotten that. She’d been thinking of the man’s treatment of herself. “It can’t be necessary to fight him.”
“Maybe not, especially if I never encounter him again. Which seems likely, the way things are. In fact, we had better hope you didn’t anger him. We don’t need the enmity of the Mallorens to add to our load.”
Portia didn’t comment on that. She’d opposed Lord Bryght and tried to shoot him, but he hadn’t been in a rage until he’d found that letter and she’d told him her name. The more she thought about it, the stranger it seemed.
She pinched some sugar from the cone and stirred it thoughtfully into the dark coffee. “He seemed to recognize the name St. Claire. Can you think why?”
Oliver shook his head. “I suppose your father’s family might be known to him. Your uncle is Lord Felsham after all, though he’s very minor nobility.”
Portia’s father had been the third son of Lord Felsham.
After his death, Portia’s mother had married Sir Edward Upcott, and had more children, two of whom had survived—Oliver and Prudence.
Pretty Prudence, who was sixteen and had hopes of a good marriage before her brother made her a pauper. Portia stopped that line of thought.
There must be a way to save their home and their future.