Chapter 17
A Most Amusing Evening
… she gave herself up to the demands of the party, to the needful civilities of the moment …
Jane Austen Persuasion
Barron’s was one of a very particular type of London establishment.
The usual gentleman’s club existed to bring men of similar background together over at least a semblance of shared interest, such as horses, or clothes, or food.
However, Barron’s and its ilk existed to bring men together solely in order to separate them from their individual fortunes, however large or small those might be.
What kept Sanderson Faulks away from such places was less their dreary raison d’être and more their lack of imagination.
They were, he found, tragically similar.
The light was low to disguise any flaws in the room.
Despite this, the gaming floors were kept bright with a great deal of gilding and a profusion of mirrors.
There also tended to be a larger than usual number of paintings and statues that might be considered of a …
stimulating nature to the majority of the gentlemen in attendance, and perhaps a few of the ladies.
Despite this, there could be a certain attraction in such places. As much as he loved beautiful and precious objects, it was still the people, in all their glory, variety, and absurdity, that made any room interesting.
It was in the company of Rosalind and the Littlefields where Sanderson found a useful purpose for this combined love of people, beauty, and the absurd.
This, in turn, had probably saved himself from succumbing to the all-to-common fate of becoming thoroughly jaded, not to mention more than a little absurd himself.
Now, for instance, he could make good use of his carte d’entrée into Barron’s to discover more about the person George Littlefield had dubbed “the most mysterious Miss Smith.”
She was quite easy to pick out, even in the crowded room. Amelia McGowan had described her with all the precision of an experienced servant. When one’s living depended on the details of another person’s body, one did naturally became very skilled at observation.
Sanderson watched Miss Smith from across the room.
Even in the low lamplight, she shone like a beacon.
She’d dressed herself to great advantage.
In a place where the women favored ruby reds and sapphire blues, she was all in white silk and pink brilliantines.
The effect was that of a child dressed up for a tea dance who’d somehow gotten left at the wrong address.
Even her fan was white lace. She fluttered it, and her eyelids, expertly as she laughed with the gentlemen at the tables and coaxed them to place bets for her at the new roulette wheel.
Sanderson pursed his lips, and he waited.
One of the truths about a place like Barron’s was that everyone was constantly in motion.
Therefore, if one wished to be seen, all one really had to do was stand still.
So, Sanderson lounged at the edge of the gaming floor, fully relaxed and ready for whatever, or whoever, might come his way.
That someone proved to be an old friend.
“Faulks! My very dear fellow!”
“Mountrose.” Sanderson nodded at the man who called his name. “I had no idea you were back in the country.”
“Yes. It’s the worst of the civil service. One never knows where one will be from this week to the next.”
Gerald Mountrose was the younger son of a very old family.
As with many old bloodlines, the fortunes had thinned out over the years, thanks in no small part to places like Barron’s.
This meant that a growing number of younger sons found themselves required to make their own way in the world.
Sanderson had gravitated to the buying, selling, and critiquing of art.
Mountrose had made the still unfashionable decision to do something potentially useful for the world, or at least the country, and joined the burgeoning diplomatic corps.
“We will have to have dinner,” said Sanderson. “Come to my house tomorrow.”
“I’d be delighted.” Mountrose bowed. “But what brings you here? Not your usual haunt, I would have thought.”
Sanderson shrugged. “Oh, I like to patrol the borders, see what’s doing.” He swung his walking stick idlly toward Miss Smith. “She’s new.”
“Eh?” Mountrose glance about. “Oh. The Wallace girl. Yes, she is rather.”
“What’s her line?”
Mountrose chuckled bitterly. “Nothing I’d recommend to any friend I wished to keep.”
Sanderson let a smile flicker briefly across his face.
At the roulette table, the crowd cheered, and Miss Smith bounced up and down on her toes.
She also laid both her prettily gloved hands on the shoulder of the broad man nearest her.
Sanderson and Mountrose watched as the man turned and poured a stream of coins into Miss Smith’s open hands.
“She’s the sort that makes herself the confidant of some likely gentleman,” said Mountrose.
“Then, she lets him know there’s an opportunity she’s been told about.
It’s a chance to make some real money, and get out of the life she’s living, and so on.
Only, poor innocent that she is, she doesn’t know if she can trust the gentleman, and it’s her whole savings. …”
“And her new confidential friend offers to look into the opportunity for her?” suggested Sanderson.
“Just so,” agreed Mountrose. “And she thanks him profusely and gives him all the particulars. She even goes with him to meet the gentleman who is proposing this ‘opportunity.’ The next thing you know, he’s sunk all his money into the scheme, whatever it may be this week.”
Sanderson shook his head. The capacity of his fellow gentlemen to delude themselves when presented with a pretty face and fetching manners never ceased to amaze.
“Any word as to what the scheme is this week?”
“Sanderson, weren’t you listening? You can’t trust—”
“Oh, Mountrose, you know better. I never trust anyone. I’m simply curious.”
Mountrose narrowed his eyes, indicating he did not entirely believe this statement. But Sanderson returned his suspicious gaze coolly, and in the end Mountrose just sighed.
“I could not say for certain, but I think it has something to do with the horses.”