Chapter 21
Charlotte Tolliver—or rather, Mr Charleston of Wiltshire—descended from the carriage.
Bellamy’s stood before her, all gaslight and glass, golden letters gleaming against the darkened sky. She adjusted the brim of Jasper’s beaver hat a little lower over her brow and drew the borrowed greatcoat closer to her chin.
“Remember,” Jasper murmured as they approached the entrance, “say as little as possible. Look indifferent to everything. And for the love of all things holy, do not curtsey.”
“I never curtsey,” Lottie muttered, though she had very nearly done so upon alighting from the carriage.
A liveried doorman regarded them with the weary suspicion of a man who had seen one too many drunkards attempt admittance. His eyes swept over Lottie, pausing a moment too long upon the ill-fitting coat, and narrowing at her moustache.
“Evening,” Jasper said breezily, offering a nod of effortless entitlement.
Lottie gave a solemn nod and added, in what she hoped was a masculine baritone, “Dreadful weather.”
Jasper coughed discreetly into his hand.
The man inclined his head and stepped aside.
Inside, the club was exactly as Lottie had imagined, and she drank it all in with poorly concealed fascination: ornate cornices, dark wood panelling, velvet armchairs, brandy bottles behind glass, and an air of cigar smoke, exclusivity, and vague disdain.
Gentlemen lounged in various states of idleness.
Lottie followed Jasper, resisting the urge to adjust her hair.
“Do I look sufficiently gentlemanly?” she whispered from the corner of her mouth.
Jasper’s mouth quirked. “You look like the third son of a Wiltshire baronet who has inherited two thousand a year and a dangerous confidence in his own opinions.”
“Marvellous. I knew the moustache gave me consequence.”
“Think bored thoughts. If anyone speaks to you, mention the price of Portuguese imports and nod gravely.”
“I know nothing of Portuguese imports.”
“Neither does anyone else.”
They passed several gentlemen who nodded at Jasper in recognition. None gave Lottie more than a passing glance, though one man’s monocle did pause upon her moustache.
She cleared her throat. “By Jove.”
Jasper snorted softly. “Very good. Now say ‘Indeed’ and ‘Quite right’ at random intervals and I daresay we shall survive.”
“Indeed,” she said solemnly.
At last, they reached the card room, where men bent low over green baize tables, chatting about stocks, horses, and other matters that seemed to require a great many grunts. Jasper selected a table near the window and drew out a chair with mock gallantry. “After you, Mr Charleston.”
She sat with as much masculine nonchalance as she could muster, which resulted in something like a duck attempting to perch on a candelabrum.
A footman approached. Jasper ordered whisky, and then the footman turned to Lottie.
She panicked. “Dreadful weather,” she announced again, her voice cracking at the end. Then, remembering she was meant to be ordering something, she added, “And I shall have a… brandy. Neat. With… with a twist.”
“A twist of what, sir?” the footman asked without expression.
Lottie blinked rapidly. “Fate?”
The footman bowed and departed with only the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth.
Jasper made a strangled sound. “Fate,” he whispered. “A twist of fate. You are going to get us thrown out.”
“I panicked,” Lottie hissed. She took a deep breath and adjusted her posture, trying to settle into a more masculine sprawl, which resulted in one boot sticking out at an alarming angle. “I have committed. I shall see it through.”
“And I,” said Jasper solemnly, “shall die happy knowing I once witnessed a gentleman order brandy with existential garnish.”
“If they bring me a lemon peel I shall consider it a victory.”
Moments later, the footman returned with whisky for Jasper and, to her mingled relief and terror, a generous brandy served straight. She accepted it with what she hoped was rakish gratitude, muttered, “Quite right,” and took a sip far too large.
It burnt like damnation and her eyes watered instantly.
“Careful,” Jasper said, grinning. “You’re about to give yourself away by weeping like a jilted governess.”
“I am quite fine,” she croaked, thumping her chest with what she hoped was a manly cough.
“Excellent. Now then… cards.”
Within minutes, Jasper had enticed two gentlemen to join them: Mr Everly, a portly fellow with an affection for waistcoats embroidered with stags, and Captain Graham, whose sideburns arrived five minutes before he did.
Jasper made introductions with artful vagueness.
“My cousin, Mr Charleston of Wiltshire. Keen on hounds, horses, and Latin verse.”
Mr Charleston received polite nods and exactly no further interest, which was a relief.
They took their seats and a fresh decanter of port arrived, along with a bowl of walnuts and a pair of nutcrackers.
Jasper, naturally, appointed himself banker.
“Usual rules,” he said smoothly, already shuffling the pack.
“Court cards count ten. An ace may stand as one or eleven. Make vingt-un—twenty-one—or as near to it as one may without exceeding. If you go over, you forfeit your stake to me. By Bellamy’s custom, a tie favours the bank.
” He smiled with such angelic innocence that Lottie immediately distrusted him. “Life, alas, is not fair.”
Lottie mimicked the others, placing a half-crown before her. Enough to be respectable, but not enough to arouse suspicion.
Jasper dealt the cards: two to each player, laid upwards upon the table, while his own remained face-down before him.
Her first hand made nineteen. Captain Graham went over. Mr Everly stood at seventeen. Jasper revealed eighteen and paid Lottie her winnings with a small nod.
“Nicely done, Charleston. Beginner’s luck?”
“Quite,” Lottie said, deepening her voice. “Dreadful weather.”
Captain Graham squinted at her across the table with his brows drawn. “Have we met before?”
Lottie panicked for one breath, then coughed theatrically into her fist. “Unlikely,” she rasped. “Spent last winter in Wiltshire. Rain and livestock. No one much to meet but sheep.”
She looked up to see Jasper biting his lip so hard it was a wonder it did not bleed.
“Shall we raise the stakes?” he said quickly. “A crown for the next hand, if we dare?”
“Let’s make it interesting,” said Captain Graham.
The next hand came swiftly. Lottie drew nineteen again and won, then won again, and somewhere between her brandy, her third glass of port and her fourth solemn utterance of “dreadful weather,” Mr Charleston of Wiltshire became, if not natural, then at least dangerously convincing.
She lounged back in her chair. She tapped two fingers against the table.
She squinted at her cards as though they contained matters of state.
Once, when Captain Graham asked whether she hunted, she gave a grave nod and said, “Tragic business. Foxes.”
Then, as swiftly as fortune had smiled, she turned her face away. A fifteen became twenty-three. A promising eighteen was beaten neatly by Jasper’s nineteen. Loss, loss, loss. The coins before her dwindled with humiliating speed, while Jasper had the audacity to look delighted.
She was about to place her last crown upon the table when she heard the worst possible thing.
“Langley!” someone called from another table. “Good to see you, old chap!”
Lottie went rigid, for across the room, Theo had just removed his gloves and was laughing at something said by the gentleman beside him. And beside him—oh no. Even at a distance, the Duke of Morleigh stood tall and disapproving.
Jasper glanced up from the table, and his eyes widened.
“Deverell!” Theo called, catching sight of him. “Why am I not surprised to find you losing money somewhere?”
“Langley,” Jasper returned, all lazy charm. “Morleigh. How dreadful to be so predictable.”
Theo crossed towards them, Morleigh following.
Lottie lowered her chin and prayed to every saint she had ever neglected.
Theo clapped Jasper on the shoulder. “Room for two more?”
Lottie’s eyes snapped to Jasper. Do not dare, she mouthed.
Jasper gave the smallest helpless lift of one shoulder: half apology, half we-are-already-doomed. “Always,” he said smoothly. “Vingt-un.”
Morleigh’s eyes lingered on Lottie for one dreadful second. “And your companion?”
Jasper’s smile deepened to something between wicked and panicked. “Gentlemen, may I present my young cousin, Mr Charleston. Of Wiltshire.”
Lottie managed what she hoped was a manly nod. “Dreadful weather.”
Theo frowned and Morleigh narrowed his eyes. Then, with dreadful slowness, the duke’s brows lifted, which, upon Morleigh’s face, was very nearly a shriek.
Lottie panicked. “Dreadful business,” she rasped, though no one had named any business at all.
Theo looked from Lottie to Jasper, then back again. He opened his mouth, then shut it quickly.
Jasper sprang into action. “Mr Charleston is a promising young gentleman who has only just come up to Town and is—ah—taking in the local colour.”
Theo gave a strangled sound that might have been a cough or a laugh, or a dying pheasant. “Indeed?” he said, fixing his eyes upon Lottie with a brightness that did not bode well. “From Wiltshire, is it?”
Lottie nodded stiffly. “Born and raised. Nothing but mud and sheep.”
“I can imagine,” said Theo.
Morleigh gave Jasper a sidelong look. “Interesting relations you have, Deverell.”
Lottie reached for her brandy in desperation and took a gulp so aggressive she feared it might carry away half her moustache.
Captain Graham looked between them all, plainly irritated by the interruption. “Well? Are you joining the table or not?”
Theo lowered himself into a chair at once. “We shall observe the next hand. I always enjoy watching Deverell lose at cards.”
“Yes,” Morleigh said mildly, pulling up a chair from another table. “I’ve a particular fondness for watching him get thrashed.”
Lottie’s spine snapped straight. Of course they had come to tower and glower and ruin everything. Men always did adore appearing at precisely the moment they were least wanted. Well, she would not be frightened from the table like a child with jam on her cuffs.
“Oh, no need for that,” Jasper cut in. “Actually, I believe we were just wrapping up. The hour grows late, and poor Mr Charleston must return to—er—his sheep.”
“My sheep are hearty,” Lottie said with brandy-born defiance.
Jasper shot her a look that said, quite clearly, you little menace.
Captain Graham looked pleased. “One more hand, then.”
“Absolutely not,” Jasper said, smiling too tightly. “It would be irresponsible to continue gambling when the hour has become disreputable.”
“I say one last hand,” Lottie declared in her deepest voice.
Jasper stared at her, and she watched with satisfaction as Morleigh closed his eyes.
“Very well,” Jasper said at last, in the tone of a man accepting execution with grace. “One last hand. Double stakes.”
They placed their coins upon the table. Lottie dropped her final crown down with what she hoped was masculine unconcern and what was, in truth, the reckless flourish of a woman with nothing left to lose.
Her cards were dealt.
“Sixteen,” Jasper said.
“A card,” Lottie replied confidently.
He gave her one—a five. “Twenty-one.”
For one glorious second, Lottie forgot herself enough to smile.
Captain Graham declined another card. Mr Everly, after much theatrical anguish, took one and went over. Only Jasper remained.
He turned his cards. An ace and a queen.
“Vingt-un,” he said with a dimpled grin.
Lottie stared at him.
“Banker takes the tie,” he said, gathering the coins into his palm. “House rules.”
Lottie's smile dropped, and for a moment, she almost shrieked exactly where he could put his cheating house rules. Instead, she sat back, crossed her arms, and said in Mr Charleston’s lowest possible voice, “I say.”
Jasper stood abruptly, sweeping his winnings into his pocket. “Right. Back to the sheepfold with you, Charleston. Gentlemen.” He offered a shallow bow. “As ever, a delight.”
Lottie shot to her feet too quickly, and the room lurched. She caught the edge of the table with one hand and sent the walnuts flying with the other.
“I say,” she muttered again, because it had served her well once and she saw no reason to abandon it.
Jasper reached for her arm. “Easy, Charleston. Time to go—come along!”
But before he could whisk her away, Theo rose and stepped directly into his path. One hand came down upon Jasper’s shoulder with the ease of old friendship, but his fingers tightened with considerably less of it.
“You are my closest friend,” Theo said very softly, so that Captain Graham and Mr Everly could not hear, “which is the only reason I am not presently inviting you outside and rearranging your features in a manner your mother would find distressing.”
“Generous of you,” Jasper murmured.
“Charlotte,” Theo continued, the name barely audible, “is now my sister by marriage. This places me in the awkward position of being obliged to ensure no further idiocy occurs, even when the idiocy has been arranged by a man I once respected.”
“Once?” Jasper said faintly. “How swiftly I fall.”
“You and I shall speak later,” Theo said. “Privately.”
“Naturally. I look forward to the lecture,” Jasper said lightly, though his eyes flicked, with far less humour, to Morleigh.
The duke had not moved, which was somehow worse. He stood beside the chair with his jaw set and his eyes fixed upon Jasper as though deciding whether murder would be socially inconvenient. At last, Morleigh rose. “Mr Charleston.”
And Lottie—curse her upbringing, curse her instincts, curse the bloody Tolliver name—began to curtsey, catching herself halfway. What emerged was a stuttering dip of the knees that nearly knocked over a side table.
Jasper made a strangled sound, and Theo’s hand snapped to her shoulder like a hawk diving for a field mouse.
“We are leaving,” he said tightly. “Now.”
Lottie jerked back from his hand on her shoulder at once. “Do not manhandle me, sir!” Realising she had perhaps overdone it, she thrust out her chest and added in Mr Charleston’s deepest voice, “A gentleman objects to being seized.”
“A gentleman also knows when to leave,” Theo said through his teeth, seizing her arm more firmly and steering her away.
“I demand satisfaction!” Lottie announced, stumbling once and recovering with a manly cough.
“You demand your bed,” Theo hissed.
“And water,” Morleigh added.
“And,” Jasper called after her, clearly unable to help himself, “the small matter of what you owe me, Charleston.”
Lottie stopped dead, turned with magnificent drunken outrage, and pointed at him. “Damnation!”
Then Theo hauled her out before she could think of anything worse.