Knave's Wager

She would not be weakened by that slow, affectionate smile. “I’ve never believed you could have a high opinion of women,” she said. “If you had, you wouldn’t make a habit of using and discarding them.’’

“Such habits reflect the frailty of my own character. Therefore, I should be the object of contempt.”

“It’s always the women despised in these cases for their frailty.”

“That’s what Society says, and Society is composed merely of human beings, as fallible as ourselves.”

“It’s hardly necessary for Society to point out my error. No one need remind me I’ve been false to my betrothed— twice—or that I ought—” She stopped herself.

Too late.

“I see,” he said. “You’re in torments because conscience tells you to break off your engagement, while self-preservation warns you’d better not.”

“I have no intention of sacrificing my entire future because of a few foolish moments,” she answered frigidly, drawing her hand away. That sounded mercenary, she knew. Very well, then. Let him think her so. She had rather that than his pity.

He was silent a moment, studying her flushed face.

“Odd,” he said. “I persist in seeing your betrothal as the sacrifice. Why did you accept him, Lilith?”

“I know you have a low opinion of Thomas. Try to understand that others may not share it.”

“I’m trying to understand you,” he answered gently. “Your conscience demands you pay a debt you don’t owe me. The same conscience insists you marry a man you believe you’ve played false. The one I may ascribe to pride. The other? The better I know you, the more difficult it is to understand.”

She turned a bit away from him. “You don’t know me.”

“Not well, perhaps. I know what all the world does—that you’re a model of breeding and deportment. But I know also that you’re astonishingly well-informed. Also, you have an eye for the ridiculous and thus a proper appreciation of raw wit.” He paused, then added more somberly, “And I know you’re in pain. I can’t be the cause of all your trouble. You were suffering before you met me.”

He touched her shoulder lightly, to turn her back to him again. ‘You don’t want me for a lover... and I suppose I must accept that.”

“Yes, I wish you would.’’

“May I be a friend, then?”

“A friend?” she echoed, incredulous.

“Yes. To tell your troubles to. Why should you not, when I know so many already? By now you must be aware I don’t repeat all I know.”

“I know you can be inscrutable when it pleases you.”

“Also sympathetic. However, we must draw the line at your crying upon my shoulder or into my neckcloth. No matter how great the emotion, there is no excuse for wrinkling fabric. Not to mention the proximity of... well, we won’t mention it.” All the same, his eye fell upon her somber riding hat.

She remembered how, a few days before, his fingers had lovingly stroked her hair. Though at the moment she wanted solace, she was wary of that species of comforting.

“I don’t think we can be friends,” she said. “Not, at least, the confiding sort.”

He seemed to be studying her face still, though he answered lightly enough. “Very well. Let us be the gossiping sort, then. What do you make of Lady Fevis’s extraordinary behaviour?”

Lady Fevis’s rout was that evening.

Routs are intended to be crushes. Always there must be more people than square feet to accommodate them. This one was a suffocation.

Cecily had elected to go with Anne Qeveson and her mama to a small card party. Cecily, her aunt reflected as yet another person trod upon her toes, had better sense than to go to a gathering the sole purpose of which was to make everybody hot, tired, bruised, and—since refreshments were rarely provided—hungry and thirsty as well.

Lilith stood next her betrothed. He was reviewing with Lord Gaines the Grand Duchess’s latest machinations on behalf of Princess Caroline. The two men had been talking nearly half an hour, and Thomas was just getting his steam up.

Lilith was very weary with standing in one place listening to the same opinions she’d heard two dozen times before. The air was stale and heavy with clashing perfumes. She would have liked to step away, to try to find a cooler, less crowded spot, if such was to be found. Around her on all sides was an impenetrable mass of bodies—some, she noted, in grievous want of soap and water.

She interrupted Thomas to remind him they hadn’t yet danced.

“Yes, my dear,” he said. ‘Certainly. In a moment.” Then he turned back to Lord Gaines.

Lilith gazed about her in despair. She was looking longingly down at the staircase they’d scaled with such difficulty when her gaze fell upon a head of crisply curling hair, black as midnight. Lord Brandon looked up at that moment. The boredom left his green eyes, and he smiled.

It had taken Lilith and Thomas twenty minutes to move from the first landing to the first floor. Lord Brandon covered the distance in one tenth the time. In another minute, he was at her side.

“Mrs. Davenant looks ready to faint, Bexley,” said the marquess. “Shall I hew a path for her to an open window?”

“Oh, yes—That is... are you ill, my dear? Only too happy, of course, if my lord Gaines would—”

Lord Brandon assu

red the baronet there was no need to interrupt government business. “I must seek out our hostess in any case,” he said. “I daresay she’s chosen an airier spot.” The preoccupied Thomas managed a nod before plunging back into his debate.

They found Lady Fevis by a window embrasure at the far end of the corridor.

She appeared very embarrassed, and very young, as they came upon her. “I did not mean to hide from the company,” she explained, “but I needed a breath of air, and this is the only place where any is to be found.”

“If you will share it with Mrs. Davenant, she will be much obliged,” said Lord Brandon.

“Oh, of course. I do beg your pardon, Mrs. Davenant. I know these affairs are supposed to be shocking squeezes, but this is altogether unbearable—and all because I was—”

At which point, she swooned.

Brandon caught her, lifted her easily in his arms, and carried her to the nearest room. Lilith meanwhile got the attention of a servant and, adjuring him to complete discretion—lest the entire crowd bear down upon his mistress at once—ordered water and sal volatile.

Lady Fevis came to before the remedies arrived, but Lilith made her sip the water and lie still while Lord Brandon went in search of her husband.

They returned a few minutes later. Lord Fevis rushed to his wife, fell to his knees before her, clasped her hands, and cried, “My poor darling! Oh, such an idiot I’ve been. The woman was nothing to me, I promise, nothing. Oh, but Clarissa, my dearest, why did you not tell me?”

The marquess was already escorting Lilith from the room. He closed the door upon the reunited couple.

“She ought to have told him, you know,” he said as he led her back to the secluded embrasure. “A man has a right to know he’s going to be a papa.”

“How did you know?” Lilith asked, astonished. “She could not have told you such a thing when you danced with her.”

“When I danced with her? When was that?”

Lilith looked up at him. His green eyes glittered wickedly.

“I had no idea my actions were under such close scrutiny,” he said. “I must exercise more caution in future.”