The Game of Love (The Love Trilogy, #2) Read online

  He was a man of Promethean proportions, but although he was not in the least fat, there was nothing at all lean about him. Although an expert tailor had fashioned his correct evening wear, it would have taken a magician to make him resemble a gentleman of fashion. For even though he moved with a curiously easy grace for a man his size, he was his size, and so nothing in the style of the admired gentlemen of the day; nothing of a languid man of fashion, of a town, or, for that matter, country beau, either. There was simply too much of him, and every inch exhibited a vigorous and robust hardihood. Neither was his face anything in the acceptable style, but that wasn’t to say it was unhandsome. Clearly, it could be jovial or threatening or even oddly attractive, and all at its owner’s wish. He didn’t remotely resemble the footsore old man that had grumbled his way from their table earlier, but it was the same wise and amused hazel eyes that gave the game away.

  “I am impressed,” Lord Wyndham said, when he could.

  “And I am reeking of spirit gum. Julian, what did you do with the skin cream we bought in Paris? Fellow’s vain as a peacock, hides away anything to beautify himself with, not that it will do him the least good when he’s with me,” Arden Lyons confided loudly to Roxanne Cobb, as she, finally accepting the inevitable truth of his identity, sat back to stare at him with shock and delight.

  “A lot of padding…well”—he grinned as he explained to her—“perhaps not such a lot of padding, but a great deal of acting, and the will to appear to be different does the trick as well as the putty and paint, for it would never do for us to go about clandestine business in our usual fashion if we want to be discreet. We are, you may have noted, each singularly remarkable, although distinctly different in our manly beauty.”

  His guests stared and reflected on the truth even in the jest of that, for if the Viscount Hazelton resembled a young god, his companion was surely a Titan, or if described in mortal terms: one was a young Hercules to the other’s Adonis, for there was certainly something mythic, even fantastical about the pair. Of course, they’d always be memorable. But the giant gentleman didn’t give them time to reflect on it for long.

  “And, yes,” he said, leaning toward the blond young woman and gesturing with his fork toward the viscount, “you’ve guessed it, my dear. He’s actually seventy-five if he’s a day, bald as a day-old chick, and knock-kneed, to boot. Amazing what some spirit gum and padding will do, isn’t it?”

  Their meal was passed in joviality, all past accusations and suspicions laid to rest. The fair-haired young woman had two gallants to butter her up more than they did their bread, and the Baron Wyndham was receiving more information, he ruefully admitted, about men he’d mistaken for gentlemen before he’d lost several of his fortunes to them, than he’d ever imagined. They were all so in concert, so content with each other, that they were pleased to sit and chat long after they’d done with their meal.

  It was surprising when the Baron Wyndham stopped speaking in the midst of a story about a certain mad duke with a fondness for wagering on any horse with three white socks, to look up with an arrested expression to the doorway he’d been idly watching since he’d demolished his dinner. He’d seen dozens of persons entering and leaving from it as the night had gone on, and yet now he paused and smiled. But so did many another gentleman in the salon.

  A stout middle-aged couple, almost equal in height and girth, both overdressed in the latest fashions, as similar as any fraternal twins or long-married pair might be, stood there looking about eagerly. Between them, a vision that stopped most of the gentlemen who were not rabid gamesters in mid-wager stood shyly, protected on each side by the oddly matched couple. The young lady was all in white and her long golden hair lay neatly all in a coil on one of her white shoulders, reaching to just above the peek her demure but fashionable gown permitted at the rise of her shapely little uptilted breasts. Her long-lashed eyes were cast down past her divinely rounded form to her satin slippers, but not a few inveterate gamblers in the room wouldn’t have hesitated to wager a week’s wages on those lovely orbs being cornflower blue when they at last opened wide, for such a little beauty would have everything she ought. Behind her, a long Meg of a chaperone stood stiffly, white-faced and all in black, and glowering, it seemed, at every man in the room, but especially, if one were of a mind to tear one’s eyes from the little enchantress newly arrived in their midst to notice, at the Baron Wyndham.

  But that gentleman only smiled widely, and rising, raised his glass to the persons in the doorway.

  They smiled back at him in turn, all save for the dour chaperone, and began to approach his table.

  “Ah, good, my daughter has arrived,” Lord Wyndham said comfortably, as proudly as any father in the land might do.

  “That little beauty?” the viscount asked softly and wonderingly of his friend Mr. Lyons, as they too rose to their feet.

  “No, no, he’d have lost her in a game of whist long since. It’s the duenna with eyes like thunder,” his friend replied absently.

  “A baron’s daughter a servant?” the blond young man hooted softly.

  “I’ve known viscounts’ sons to be coachmen,” Mr. Lyons replied easily as his friend smothered a laugh, before he added piously, “and my own papa, the sainted vicar, would’ve been shattered had he been unlucky enough to live to see his only begotten child a wicked gamester. No, she’s his chick, all right: they’ve both got clean, sharp lines, they’re fine etchings, the beauty’s all pastels, a watercolor—twelve to one on it, and a case of my favorite champagne besides.”

  “Done!” the viscount said for his ear only. “And I’ll enjoy every drop I drink of it, Arden, for I’ve got you at last, it’s cheese to chalk, and they’re nothing like.”

  The wager had been made impetuously, more in an attempt to confound his friend for once than out of absolute conviction, and so the viscount eyed the chaperone more carefully now after his sudden rash claim, for he wasn’t in the habit of noticing servants too closely, especially when they had deliciously nubile young charges in tow. It was true she was more youthful than she’d appeared at first stare; in fact, on closer inspection it was clear that she, too, was quite young. And her features, on second glance, could be seen to be as finely drawn as a cameo’s, although he’d seen few cameos with such full and tempting lips. She was, in fact, remarkable-looking, and could, he realized with growing interest the more he looked at her, be magnificent-looking, but then he couldn’t judge more, for she’d turned away. Yet she’d looked nothing like the Baron Wyndham, for she was tall, with large speaking eyes as dark and secret as a quarter-past midnight, and her bound hair was black as the night shadows behind her. Lord Wyndham was a small man with pale eyes, and what little of his thin hair remained had the dusty look light brown takes on with age. Satisfied with his wager then, the viscount stood back respectfully, waiting for the introductions and his rare moment of triumph to come.

  The middle-aged couple, soon discovered to be the “estimable Mr. and Mrs. Deems, from London,” were just as respectful in turn, equally awed by Mr. Lyons’ size and the viscount’s comeliness, before they were thrilled and gratified to monosyllables by the viscount’s title.

  “And here is lovely little Miss Deems, gentlemen,” the baron said teasingly as the tiny beauty in white dipped a curtsy to them. “If she were any more handsome, the Deemses would have to hire a dragon to guard her, and not just my own lovely daughter. And now, Viscount, Mr. Lyons, I’m pleased to make you known to this other beautiful lady, the Honorable…ah, I always will forget, won’t I? It’s still hard to admit to your growing up, I imagine. Forgive me, sweet…gentlemen—Mrs. Francesca Devlin, my daughter.”

  They made their bows to the golden-haired beauty, but when Francesca Devlin inclined her long black-draped body stiffly toward them, the viscount couldn’t repress a sigh.

  As soon as he was able, while the baron was smiling at Miss Deems and complimenting her parents on the child’s great good looks this night, the viscount remarked
resignedly to his friend, “Done and done in again, Arden. I doubt you still cast a shadow, because you have the devil’s own way about you, but you’ll have the champagne in the morning. You win.”

  But then he looked hard at Arden, because he didn’t celebrate his victory. Instead, he stood unusually silent, gazing thoughtfully at the dark-haired, dark-eyed chaperone. For he too had seen the fury in her eyes as they’d been introduced. And then had felt the scorn in the cold and withering glance she’d given them before she’d concealed all, and let the emotion leach out of those great dark eyes, to leave them bleak as her pale face had been when she’d deliberately turned her back on them.

  “Ah, no, Julian, my boy,” Arden Lyons said slowly, still bemused, watching her as she glanced back once over her shoulder toward them, only to fix him with a look of unmistakable loathing before she took her charge’s arm to be sure she didn’t also dare a glance back at the two remarkable gentlemen studying them.

  “Wrong again,” he went on, but on a sigh. “It’s clear I’ve only just lost again.”

  The viscount looked at him quizzically.

  “The Beauty or the Dragon?” he asked.

  “Why, neither, I think now,” the large gentleman replied on a half-smile, recovering his usual poise and bantering manner. “After all, you know my prodigious charm, and I’ve just decided I’ve been fairly and truly challenged,” he explained unnecessarily, seeing he was already guiding his friend with him as he strolled past the glowering chaperone to the beautiful Miss Deems’ side.

  2

  The bedchamber was among the best that money could buy in France these days, because once it had been among the best that a gracious and noble host could have offered to his guests. A revolution had spared the great house and its contents only because a clever revolutionary had coveted and claimed it well before the mob had, and by the time they did, he’d already risen from their masses to become one of their leaders, and so as untouchable as its original lordly owner had once been. When his leader had fallen from his pedestal in turn, he’d at least been clever enough to retain his head in many ways. As a republican at heart, if not in practice, he wasn’t averse to opening his home to the public, at ridiculously high fees, for the purposes of play, and so had held on to it as well as his own cool head.

  It was a room redolent of roses. There were improbable blue and gold roses in the carpets, their buds everywhere upon the draperies; fanciful carved roses adorned the bedposts; tiny representations of them climbed up the walls on their stretched silk arbors, looped around the edges of the ceiling in intricate plasterwork, were strewn in the upholstery of all the fragile chairs, and echoes of them, outlined in gold embroidery thread, were embossed upon the white swags of the great bed’s canopy. The young girl whose head was emerging from the white nightdress she was being helped into was no less of a lovely and blooming wonder of nature, and her mama nodded in satisfaction as that perfect cheek blushed a more tender pink at the words she’d just heard.

  “Aye,” the stout lady said as she perched upon an edge of the high bed and watched her daughter’s maid brush out her golden hair, “depend on it, Cee-cee. Both of them were struck to the heart, but because they’re gents to their fingertips, and men of the world with it, you’d never know. Never a stare or a pinch, nor a stammer or a foolish brag, nor will either of them pour the butter-boat over your head, but they never took their eyes off you for a moment, nor did they ever leave your side, neither. I thought that Mrs. Cobb would bust,” she gloated, “when the viscount asked how long we were staying on, and then that lovely Mr. Lyons said ‘how fortuitous!’ since they was staying on for just that long too. As if they didn’t decide on it the moment they got an eyeful of you, my dear,” she chortled, swinging her short legs back and forth over the side of the bed as a girl might do at the thought.

  “Which of them do you like better, Mama?” the lovely girl asked, watching her mama’s reaction in the glass as her maid lovingly drew up her golden tresses and began to braid them for the night.

  “Early days,” her mother answered thoughtfully, “because the viscount’s a treat to look at, without doubt—but a girl might be foolish to wed a gent that beautiful, since the gentlemen age better than the ladies, and that’s a sad fact, and even get to be better-looking as they get older. Besides, who wants a husband who’ll outshine you in looks if you don’t take care even now? Still…he’s a pleasure to rest your eyes on, and a viscount to boot. And the large gentleman, that lovely Mr. Lyons,” she went on, ignoring a gasp emitted from the corner of the room, “a grand, big fellow, and, your father gave me to understand just before we left the gentlemen tonight, with a walloping big fortune to match. Well-connected as he is well-mannered, I’d wager. It’s never necessary to hold a title to be high in society. Just look at Mr. Brummell himself, a valet’s son, they say,” she sighed happily, thinking with pleasure of how far impudence could rise in this modern day. “And with such a husband, you’d never have to worry about being outshone, would you?” she continued enthusiastically. “Those big chaps are so protective, I’ve always had a soft spot for them, still—a viscount, and with such looks combined with yours, my dear, imagine the children.…”

  As Mrs. Deems grew silent, with a reflective smile at the happy choices she’d just described, her daughter grew pensive as well, and so both were a little startled by the vehemence in the voice which intruded on their reveries. Francesca Devlin leapt to her feet and gave a gasp that converted to a croak when she began to speak, and that in itself was odd, for Mrs. Devlin had the loveliest, most soothing deep and whispery voice in the usual way of things.

  “Mrs. Deems!” the dark-haired chaperone cried, “I beg of you, don’t even think of it! After all,” she said, in as much of a quieter tone as she could manage despite her agitation, because she became aware of the sudden amazed quiet that had fallen over the room at her impulsive cry as mother and daughter Deems stared at her. Even the maid had left off her work, and stood, three hanks of Cecily’s hair suspended in her hands, stopped in mid-braid by surprise.

  “I mean,” Francesca Devlin went on in her more normal husky tones, “you hardly know the gentlemen. Indeed, you scarcely know if they are true gentlemen at all. After all,” she said in an appeal to Mrs. Deems’ home wisdom, since that lady only looked at her oddly, “fine feathers do not make fine birds, and you’ve only just met them, and in a gaming house at that, and abroad as well. Pray don’t consider either one as Cee-cee’s future husband after only such a brief acquaintance,” she begged, and then, realizing that she was being more than presumptuous by Mrs. Deems’ growing truculent stare, she concluded more softly and a little desperately, “for Cee-cee can have her pick of the gentlemen, here and at home, you know.”

  “No, that she cannot, Mrs. Devlin,” Mrs. Deems said indulgently, finally understanding and so relenting after being just a touch annoyed at the chaperone’s interference, and after exchanging a knowing look with her daughter, she went on in kindly fashion, as though lecturing a child, “for we tried and we couldn’t get a toe into anywhere fashionable in London, you know, even with Cee-cee’s looks and Mr. Deems’ money. We got invitations, but to trumpery masquerades and public entertainments; we met gentlemen, but they were scramblers or old jades or younger sons with no prospects or no sense, who’d do Cee-cee a favor by marrying so that she could settle their debts and feel honored to do so again and again. No, no, my dear, we’re here to ensure Cee-cee’s future, and we shall, my Sunday bonnet to your shilling on it. The best of Britain is in France this Season, and society here is freer. We’ll catch us a worthy gent, never fear, and one that will suit Cee-cee, Mr. Deems, and myself, at that. Cecily Deems will wed into fashion, and never doubt it. Mr. Deems is a canny gent, as clever with reading people as he is with making money,” she chuckled. “And,” she added comfortably before the chaperone could speak again, as she clearly wished to do, “remember, your own dear papa introduced us, didn’t he?”

  The dark-hair
ed chaperone became very still. Nodding triumphantly as she climbed down from the bed to kiss her daughter good night, Mrs. Deems added, “Thanks for your concern, Mrs. Devlin, but you were a young lady of fashion, and so you wouldn’t know what it’s like to be on the outside looking in. But never fear, we’ll get Cee-cee on the inside, and sooner than you think.”

  And why not? she thought as she bade the governess good night too and went off to her own rooms for the night with everything in train to marry off her exquisite, well-dowered little daughter as she deserved at last: Cee-cee rigged out in the latest fashions and looking like an angel, reservations at the best hotels, a baron’s daughter for a chaperone, and the baron himself to lend them countenance. He might be a gamester, true, and down on his luck at the moment, so far down that his widowed daughter had to work for her fare back home. But the true gentry were sometimes wild, after all. And they’d been lucky to find the baron and his daughter when they had. For though the baron’s fortunes rose and fell, his title and his address remained of the finest. And his daughter, poor thing, if she’d nothing else left, had her manners and breeding. And just look, after only one week of employing Mrs. Devlin, it had already netted them an introduction to two fine eligible gentlemen from her father.