“Yes,” Jason joked, but when her face fell he quickly said, “No, of course not, ma’am.”
“Exactly my point!” Charity applauded as Stephen walked around the table for his next shot. “But whenever I think of loyalty and friendship among gentlemen, do you know who immediately comes to mind?”
“No, who?” Clayton said, while he watched Stephen line up his next shot and aim.
“Nicholas DuVille and Langford!”
The cue ball slid sideways off of Stephen’s cue stick and rolled to the side of the table, where it gently nudged the ball he’d intended to aim at. That ball slowly headed for the pocket, hovered at the edge, and finally dropped in. “That wasn’t skill, that was blind luck,” Jason told him. Trying to change the subject, he added, “Did you ever stop to calculate how many times you win a game with luck instead of skill? I’ve meant to do that.”
Ignoring Wakefield’s attempt to divert the topic, Charity forged ahead, carefully directing her animated conversation to Jason Fielding and Clayton Westmoreland and avoiding a glance at the earl as he walked around the table for his next shot. “Why, if Nicholas hadn’t been such a loyal friend of Langford’s, he would have sent Sheridan Bromleigh straight back home the day she ran away and landed on his doorstep, crying her heart out, but did he do that? No indeed, he did not!”
She glanced at the mirror on the opposite wall and saw Stephen Westmoreland arrested in the act of shooting, his eyes narrowed to slits, his gaze levelled on the back of her head. “Sheridan begged for the truth about why Langford wanted to marry her, and even though it wasn’t poor Nicholas’s responsibility to tell her everything and break her heart, he did it! It would have been so much easier to lie to her, or send her home to ask Langford, but he took it upon himself to help his dear friend and fellow man.”
“Exactly what,” Stephen asked in a low, savage voice as he slowly straightened without having taken his shot, “did my friend DuVille tell Sheridan?”
Charity looked around at him, her face a miracle of startled, vapid innocence. “Why, the truth, of course. She realized she wasn’t Charise Lancaster anymore, so Nicholas told her about Burleton’s death and how responsible you felt for it. That is why you pretended to be Sheridan’s fiancé, after all.”
Three silent men were staring at her in various states of shock and anger, and Charity looked brightly at each of them. “And of course, being a romantic girl, Sheridan still wanted to think—to believe—that you might have had some other reason for asking her to marry you, but dear Nicholas had to tell her, very firmly, that you’d only proposed after you got word of Mr. Lancaster’s unfortunate death—out of pity, as it were. Which was dreadfully distressing to the poor girl, but Nicholas did what needed to be done, out of unselfishness and loyalty to his own sex.”
Stephen slammed the cue stick into the rack on the wall. “That son of a bitch!” he said softly as he strode swiftly out of the room.
Startled by the use of profanity in front of her but not by his departure, Charity looked at Jason Fielding. “Where do you suppose Langford is going?” she asked, hiding her smile behind a blank frown.
Jason Fielding slowly withdrew his gaze from the doorway through which the earl had departed, then he glanced at Clayton Westmoreland and said, “Where would you say he’s going?”
“I would say,” the duke replied dryly, “that he is going to have a ‘talk’ with an old ‘friend.’?”
“How nice!” Charity said brightly. “Would either of you consider letting me play billiards with you, now that Langford is gone? I’m certain I could learn the rules.”
The Duke of Claymore studied her in amused silence for a very long moment, so long in fact that Charity felt a little uneasy. “Why don’t we play chess instead? I have a feeling that strategy is your particular forte.”
Charity considered that for a moment and wagged her head. “I think you’re quite right.”
58
Although the Season had wound to a close, the exclusive gaming rooms at White’s were not lacking for wealthy occupants willing to wager enormous sums of money on the turn of a card or spin of the wheel. The oldest and most elegant of the clubs on St. James’s Street, White’s was far noisier than The Strathmore, and brightly lit, but not without its own hallowed traditions. At the front, looking out upon the street, was a wide bow window in which Beau Brummell had once held court with his friends the Duke of Argyll, Lords Sefton, Alvanley, and Worcester, and, on occasion, the then Prince Regent.
More famous than its bow window, however, was White’s Betting Book, into which distinguished members had, for many years, entered wagers on events ranging from the solemn to the sordid to the silly. Included among the entries were wagers on the outcome of a war, the likely date of the death of a relative with a fortune to bequeath, the predicted winners in contests for ladies’ hands, and even the outcome of a forthcoming race between two prime pigs owned by two of the club’s members.
At a table near the back of one of the card rooms, William Baskerville was playing whist with the Duke of Stanhope and Nicholas DuVille. In the spirit of good-fellowship, those three gentlemen had permitted two very young gentlemen from excellent families to join them. Both young men were Corinthians of the first stare, obsessed with sporting and eager to make a name for themselves in town by excelling at the manly vices of gaming and drinking. Talk at the table was slow and desultory; betting was fast and heavy. “Speaking of crack-whips,” said one of the young gentlemen, who’d been speaking of little else, “I haven’t seen Langford at Hyde Park all week.”
William Baskerville provided the answer to that as he counted out his chips. “His nephew’s birthday, I believe. Duchess of Claymore is giving a small party to celebrate the occasion. Lovely woman, the duchess,” he added. “I tell Claymore that every time I see him.” Glancing at Nicholas DuVille who was seated on his left, he said, “You were friendly with her grace in France, before she came home to England, I believe?”
Nicki nodded without looking up from his cards, then he automatically added a proviso to forestall any gossip. “I count myself fortunate to be on friendly terms with all the Westmoreland family.”
One of the youths who’d been drinking heavily heard that with some surprise and then demonstrated his lack of polish—as well as his inability to hold his drink—by verbalizing it: “You don’t say! Gossip had it that you and Langford nearly came to fisticuffs at Almack’s over some red-haired girl you both fancied.”
Baskerville snorted at such a thought. “My dear young fellow, when you’ve more experience in town, you’ll learn to separate rubbish from truth, and to do that, you need to be better acquainted with the individuals involved. Now, I heard the same story, but I also know DuVille and Langford, so / knew the whole story was pure faradiddle. Knew it the moment I heard it.”
“As did I!” the more sober of the young men announced.
“A lamentable bit of nonsense,” Nicki confirmed, when everyone seemed to wait for his response, “that will soon be forgotten.”
“Knew it was,” said Miss Charity’s brother, the distinguished Duke of Stanhope, as he shoved chips into the growing heap at the center of the table. “Doesn’t surprise me in the least to discover you and Langford are the best of friends. Both of you are the most amiable of men.”
“No doubt about it,” the sober young man said to Nicki with a mischievous grin, “but if you and Langford were ever to come to blows, I’d want to be there!”
“Why is that?” the Duke of Stanhope inquired.
“Because I’ve seen Langford and DuVille box at Gentleman Jackson’s. Not with each other, of course, but they’re the best I’ve ever seen with their fists. A fight between them would have lured even me to Almack’s.”
“And me!” exclaimed his companion with a hiccup.
Baskerville was appalled by their youthful misconception of civilized manhood, and he felt obliged to point out their gross lack of understanding. “Langford and DuVille woul
d never stoop to settling matters with their fists, my good fellow! That’s the difference between you hotheaded young pups and gentlemen like DuVille and Langford and the rest of us. You ought to study the excellent manners of your elders, acquire some of their town polish, don’t you know. Rather than admiring DuVille’s skill with his fists, you’d be wise to imitate his excellent address and his way with a neckcloth.”
“Thank you, Baskerville,” idly murmured Nicki because Baskerville seemed to be waiting for some sort of affirmative response.
“Welcome, DuVille. I speak only the truth. As to Langford,” Baskerville continued, waiting for his turn to bet, “you couldn’t have a finer example of refinement and gentlemanly arts. Fisticuffs to settle a disagreement, indeed!” he scoffed. “Why, the very thought of it is offensive to any civilized man.”
“Ludicrous to even discuss it,” the Duke of Stanhope agreed, studying the faces of the other players before he decided whether to wager on his rather poor hand of cards.
“My apologies, sirs, if—” the sober one of the young pair began, but he broke off abruptly. “Thought you said Langford was rusticating,” he said in a bewildered tone that implied there was evidence at hand that proved otherwise.