A Gentleman’s Game (19 page)

“What was all that about?” Nathaniel asked, brows raised. “I come in to find you intimidating the servants out of secret letters.”

The paper crackled in her hand. “It’s an express. It arrived for me just a short while ago.”

She turned it over. The handwriting was familiar, and a sick swell of dread caught her. “Aunt Annie. She—something must be wrong at the Eight Bells.”

“Here, let’s find you a private room.” Nathaniel took her arm. With a quick word to Mobcap, he escorted Rosalind through the taproom into a private parlor and shut the door behind them.

This is where Sir William will sleep
, she thought dimly, hardly looking around. She cracked the seal and stared at the brief lines.

You are needed at home to protect Carys. Return at once.

Anweledig

Under her breath, she cursed.

“Bad news?” Nathaniel asked.

“I don’t know. Yes, maybe. I-I think I must return to the Eight Bells. Right away.”

“What is it? May I see?” When she handed over the paper, he skimmed it, then shook his head. “This doesn’t mean anything. Who is Ann-well-a…”

Damn
. She’d forgotten about the signature. “That’s Aunt Annie’s real name,” she blurted out. “It’s—it—something must have happened that she didn’t want to write in a letter.”

Something to do with Tranc, no doubt. No sooner could Rosalind leave than Aunt Annie could jerk on the strings knotting them. And Rosalind would be pulled back. She had to be, to save her sister—or whomever Tranc turned an eye to next—from the life she herself had lived.

Her throat was tight, so tight she could hardly speak. Secrets clutched at her like iron-banded scars. And they weren’t even her secrets, so she could never be free of them.

Sliding the paper from Nathaniel’s hands, she said, “I have to leave. Can you arrange a hack for me? I’ll have payment sent to you once I arrive.”

“Surely you needn’t go at once. Your sister has two parents and four brothers at home to see to her safety. You could reply—stay a few days, then go…” He looked puzzled, as though he couldn’t understand his own sentences.

“Nathaniel, it was an express. It can’t be put off.”

“Ah. An
express
. So if I pay a few shillings, I can get you to do whatever I want?” He smacked the plaster wall with the flat of his hand. “Damnation, Rosalind. I can do that. You work for me. I have an ungodly amount of money in my pocket, because you wouldn’t take any before. Take it now, and stay in Epsom.”

How tempting. How tempting it all was; every inch of him, from the flat of his hand now bracing him to the boots that had guided her somewhere private.

“Others have a claim on me too,” she said. “Do you really want to be nothing more than an employer who orders me about?”

He turned to the wall, his palm sliding down, flat. “No,” he said. “No, of course not. Not as an employer, then. As a…someone who wants you to stay. Let your Aunt Annie send her worries to someone else for a few days.”

“It’s not only a few days.” The words almost choked her. “I cannot come back.”

“To Epsom, you mean.”

She shook her head. Just a sliver, as though any greater movement would break her.

He was turned away still, but her silence was answer enough. “To me?”

“Yes.” Thin as a spiderweb, she sounded. But spiderwebs were strong too, and she steeled herself. “This must be the end. I—owe much loyalty to others, Nathaniel, and I’ve let myself forget that. I should not have…”

It would be too cruel to them both to finish the sentence.

Come to you. Kissed you. Allowed myself to fall for you.

I should not have permitted myself to love, because someone will be hurt. And it’s better it be me than someone else.

How terrible that at the moment she realized she could not have him, she came into the full understanding of her love. It was knife sharp and gleaming, a bladed pleasure like the throb of joy she had felt at being home. It cut at her heart.

Balling her right hand into a fist, she covered her mouth and permitted herself a silent sob.

And then her scars tugged, reminding her that her life was not her own.

Quietly, Nathaniel said, “Rosalind. Please. You could stay if you wanted to. You stayed the last time I asked you. Couldn’t you do the same again?”

“I can’t do the things I want to, Nathaniel. You know that.”

He whirled, rounding on her. “I know nothing of the sort. You could stay now if you wanted to. You could look me in the eye.” He jerked her chin up, blue eyes hard. “You could answer my questions.”

He swallowed heavily, dropping his hand from her chin. “You…you could kiss me again, Rosalind. Or agree that I might court you. You could fall in love if you wanted to.” The muscles of his jaw went hard. “So I can only assume you don’t want to.”

She was a terrible liar, Aunt Annie had told her. And so Rosalind could not feign agreement with him. She could not bear to disagree either, to tell him all the things she wanted and had no means of having. At this moment, even sugared almonds and a crown of flowers were beyond her reach. A life with Nathaniel? She might as well wish to fly.

Already the fruitless wanting was painful, like being burned all over again.

“I could kiss you again,” she said. “If that would be enough.”

“Of course it won’t be enough.” He almost growled. “But I’ll take it.”

Closing the distance between them with a swoop, he fisted his hands in her hair, tumbling it and sending pins flying. She had expected a sweet good-bye kiss, a gentle farewell, but he pulled her into his arms like a starving man seeking a feast.

His lips covered hers; his tongue brushed against her own. One kiss became many, more—or maybe they were all the same because he never let go of her—and then her hands were on his shoulders, pulling him closer as her thighs clenched, belly heated.

Love is merely a madness
, she tried to remind herself. So said Rosalind from
As You Like It.
She was mad for him; this was mad, to kiss him in a private parlor while an express lay crumpled on the floor. Knowing she must leave. Any minute, she would have to leave. She should not let herself—let him—ah—

With every fall of her hair, every pin that dropped, she felt herself weakening. It would be so easy to beg him to take care of her. To become another of the milkmaids he handled with such grace and good humor.

But they were obstacles. She would not become that sort of thing. She had spent enough time flat on her belly as she healed. She deserved more—and so did he—than for her now to spend her life on her back, her mouth closed against every truth.

Once more wasn’t a lifetime, though. She was desperate not to leave him just yet. To have him touch her roughly as though he could not resist.

He ground her against him, pushing a knee between her legs. She was wet for him, wanting him.

“Take me,” she gasped, helpless against the pressure. A moment to forget herself now, a flood of passion to remember later.

“A kiss is all you offered me,” he said. “So that’s that. That’s good-bye.” He helped her to regain her feet as coolly as though a flame had been extinguished, though his nostrils flared with deep unsettled breaths.

“You think that was only a kiss?” She was reeling, ready to fall upon him again.

“Well.” His smile was bitter. “Close enough. Did you really trust me to do exactly as I said?”

“I always have.”

He shook his head.

This could not be the end, not quite yet. She seized for something to say. “My wager,” she blurted out. “Will you still stake my wager? I want to bet on Epigram. Whatever amount you think right.”

“None of this is right,” he said. “But I’ll place your bet. Come now, I’ll arrange a hack and servant to take you home.”

And so she might go. But her heart, she knew, would remain in his keeping.

She wouldn’t have need of it anymore.

“Rosie? Did you forget something?”

Mrs. Agate had bustled into the vestibule, an expression of welcome on her features. When she spotted Rosalind standing by the door, that expression altered into one of surprise.

For the first time, Rosalind disliked the jingling of the eight little bells that greeted everyone who passed through the doorway of her parents’ inn. Could she have slipped upstairs unseen and unheard, she would have done so.

Not that she had passed through the doorway quite yet. She struggled with her trunk, which bumped and threatened to topple as the contents shifted. A cold May drizzle had spattered the worn leather as she heaved it—with the help of her chaperone, the burly outrider Button—up the steps of the Eight Bells.

She’d sent him on his way before opening the door. Once he’d sworn to her that “Mr. Nathaniel said Sir William owed you wages, and those’d cover this journey.”

Thank God for that. She had spent all her ready coins days ago on a wreath of red flowers and on a lace fichu she’d never yet worn.

“Is everyone all right, Mama?”

“Yes, of course. We’d have written at once if that wasn’t so.”

Her mother’s smooth, confused expression proved to Rosalind exactly what she’d suspected: there was no emergency here. Only Aunt Annie, yanking on a lead line when Rosalind began to wander.

Or Aunt Annie, worried about Tranc. Not wanting to face him alone.

“You’ve brought your trunk with you, Rosie?” Mrs. Agate’s forehead furrowed.

Rosalind gave the simplest explanation for her return that she could think up. Thumping the end of her trunk to the floor, she said, “I’ve been let go.”

Every innkeeper, especially one who kept a well-frequented taproom, had spoken the phrase so often to lazy maids and dishonest grooms that there was no misunderstanding it. Mrs. Agate’s pleasant features changed yet again. Her eyes widened, and her mouth drooped. “Oh, Rosie. By your baronet?”

“Certainly not ‘my baronet’ now.”

“Did you—” Motherly delicacy and faith kept her from finishing the sentence.

“I was to receive some money from Nathaniel Chandler once we reached Epsom safely. Sir William disliked this private arrangement. He found it to be untrustworthy.” That was not the whole truth. But it wasn’t a lie either.

That had been the whole cursed problem from the start: Rosalind had sworn she wouldn’t lie. Not to Sir William and—she thought—not to anyone else. But she had, especially to herself.
You can tell Nathaniel about yourself without giving too much away. Especially not your heart. Why, secretaries don’t even have hearts.

You can take what you need and then leave.

Saying good-bye won’t hurt. You’re used to it.

But she wasn’t used to it. She was used to slipping away in secret, not to leaving after a kiss that rocked her senseless.

And she was certainly not used to falling in love.

“How much money, Rosie?” Mrs. Agate ventured.

To her mother, the money to pay off her debt would seem a fortune. Just as it had to her. “No money, Mama. I received nothing.”

“Then surely you did nothing wrong. Not if you were still doing your work properly. If you just explained to your baronet, maybe he—”

“The more I explained, the less good came of it.” The letter of reference, still sealed, was sharp in her bodice within her stays. The same place she had always stuffed her letters from or for Anweledig.

She’d had plenty of time on the way back from Epsom to work out the words that would convince her parents to let her stay. But they still cut, too sharply true to be easily spoken.

And it cut too to excise Nathaniel from her explanation.
I wanted to stay with him so badly, Mama, that I almost risked Carys’s safety.

Her mother knew nothing of Tranc. Of the debt held by Rosalind and the sainted Aunt Annie. And Mrs. Agate didn’t need to know about that. The top layer of honesty was enough. Bad enough. “I no longer work for a baronet. I am sorry, Mama. I know you were proud of that.”

“Oh, Rosie.” Mrs. Agate collected herself, drawing her plump little form up straight. “Did he give you a character at all?”

The reference, she meant. “Yes. Of sorts.”

“Then you’ll find a new post soon enough.” Her mother enfolded Rosalind in a quick embrace. One of transition rather than comfort, with no mother song. “Until you do, you must stay here.”

A shout came from the public room, and Mrs. Agate looked over her shoulder. “That Mr. Elton. Drunk off his feet every time he comes in. I’d best go see him out, since your father’s still out in the stables. You take your things on up to Carys’s room, all right? You can carry your own trunk up?”

These sounded like questions, but they weren’t really. Mrs. Agate was trundling away without waiting for an answer.

Rosalind heaved her trunk onto one end and dragged it. First toward the stairs, then up.
Bump. Shove. Thud. Bump. Shove. Thud.

Maybe if she made enough noise, one of her brothers would come help her.

But Mrs. Agate reappeared first. “Rosie!” She called from the edge of the public room, peering up at the stairs. “Carys isn’t in the same room you might remember. She uses the chamber you once did. So that’ll be nice, won’t it? Familiar?” Again, she was off before Rosalind could reply.

Familiar indeed. This had been the way of her childhood: a parent or older brother swooping in with quick words about something that needed doing or correcting. And then off again; there was always more work than time or hands to do it.

Bump. Shove. Thud.
She made her way up the remaining stairs to the first floor, then dragged her trunk to the back stairs and bumped it up to the top story of the Eight Bells. The family chambers were the least desirable in the building, small and plain and high up. Rosalind’s brothers had crammed themselves three and four to a room. Rosalind had always shared a chamber with a maid or two, while the younger children like Carys slept in little bunks in a room not much larger than a pantry.

Now three of her brothers had grown away from the inn. There were no more small children. The sleeping pantry was locked, probably used now to store bedding.

Carys had left her chamber not only unlocked, but also untidy. The bed in which Rosalind had slept a decade before was unmade, its sheets and coverlet tumbled. The wardrobe door hung open, as did two of the drawers of a tallboy between the room’s two beds.

Across the top of the plain wooden tallboy were scattered glass vials of scent, all nearly empty. Jars of cosmetics that were—Rosalind checked—yes, also almost used up. Necklaces with broken clasps. A brooch missing its pin and one of its paste gems. Carys must persuade the lady’s maids of the Eight Bells to give up their mistress’s exhausted trinkets. An eager, pretty face was difficult to deny.

Sharing a room with Carys, Rosalind could make sure that nothing happened to her carefree sister.
Better me than someone else
.

Rosalind smoothed the unmade bed’s sheets and coverlet into place, then shifted her trunk to the end of the second bed. She wished she could change into one of her own gowns, now that she had her things with her. But she couldn’t reach the buttons of this one. Even trying would enrage the tight skin of her right arm and back and set up an uncomfortable ache in her elbow.

That was that, then. She was settled back at the Eight Bells.

For now.

The room now neatened, she shut the door behind her and descended the stairs. First, she needed to find Aunt Annie. And then, until and if she found another post, she needed to find something of use to do.

Some task that would help her forget all she’d left behind—not only in Epsom, but year after year. If such a task existed in the world.

* * *

Ten days until the Derby, and Nathaniel took Dill’s place on watch that night so the servant could pursue the arrogant barmaid at the King’s Waggon.

It didn’t help. All Nathaniel did was stare into darkness, remembering how Rosalind hadn’t even looked back over her shoulder when she climbed into the hackney in Button’s company.

He wanted her to stay with him of her own accord. But he just wasn’t that important to her. And so he did the thing he was good at, which in this case was saying good-bye with a smile and pretending like it was fine, completely fine, to see the person to whom he’d hoped to prove himself worthwhile cast him aside.

If Sheltie had been here in the cozy brick stables of the King’s Waggon, he’d have settled into straw beside her and leaned against her warm swayback. Instead, he kept a hand on his pistol and listened for other sounds besides the shifting of animals and Lombard’s snoring.

Nine days until the Derby, and their jockeys arrived in Epsom to exercise the horses. Nathaniel spent the day on a training course, eyes bleary as he watched horses move over the long sweep of green. He glanced at his pocket watch, about which a second hand swept, but was unable to keep numbers in his mind to time the fast-moving animals.

Eight days. Another night watch.

Seven, and more exercising. Button returned from his journey to the Eight Bells with a shrug and an assurance that Miss Agate had arrived safely. No, he bore no note from her.

Nathaniel’s throat felt dry—the sort of dry that only a sharp, biting liquor could ease. He gritted his teeth and went back to work.

Six days until the Derby; again, the training course. Five, again. And four, and three. Keeping watch on the jockeys, Daley and Pring, as well as over the horses. Pale Marauder and Epigram looked stronger and fitter every day.

Nathaniel supposed he ought to be pleased. He’d manage it someday when he allowed himself to have feelings again.

The city was beginning to fill now, the wide streets cluttered by everything from shining carriages and new-fangled velocipedes to rough-wheeled boards on which lamed former soldiers rolled along. Innkeepers were shoving in guests four and six to a room. Many of Epsom’s homes let rooms to race-day visitors. Some people slept on the pavement or in the street. Tents popped up like wild mushrooms all over the green sweep of the Downs.

Sir William’s private parlor-turned-bedchamber remained inviolate. Graciously, the baronet offered to let Nathaniel share his space.

“I’ll sleep in the stable,” was Nathaniel’s reply. Though he left his trunk in Sir William’s room under the baronet’s lock and key.

There was little else for Nathaniel to do besides keep watch at night or walk to the track during the day. Ordering the servants? Done by Sir William. Arranging care for the carriage horses? Ditto, ditto. All the milkmaids of travel were shackled and sent away, and Nathaniel had too little to do.

Why had he been foolish enough to think a trip to Epsom would accomplish something? It was an ending. An end, probably, to Sir Jubal’s hopes of a double champion; an end to this stolen time with Rosalind. An end to Nathaniel’s hope of regaining Sir William’s trust.

Even if a horse ran his heart out, anything could keep him from winning. A careless jockey, a false stride, a collision. Victory was unlikely at the best of times.

Potential was so sweet compared to reality.

And on every corner, in every inn, were bottles. Tankards. Flasks. Wine and gin and ale and brandy and God only knew what else. Buoying the raucousness of the ever-growing crowd. Tempting him with their jewellike wink.

The day before the Derby, he could bear it no more. He fumbled through the taproom of the King’s Waggon, squinting to hide the sight of the bottles and glasses that held forgetting. Probably he looked drunk, but drunkenness was common enough today, and it raised no notice. A shoulder slammed into the door of the private parlor, and he reached for the handle.

Unlocked. Oh glorious day.

Of course, the reason it was unlocked was because Sir William was inside it. Nathaniel’s eyelids sprung open as soon as he realized. “Beg pardon, Father.”

“Not at all. Join me.” Sir William’s brief surprise had vanished in a flicker.

He had transformed the parlor into a tolerable bedchamber. Sofa and table were pushed to one side, and a pallet of mattress and sheets had been made up on the floor. His trunk and Nathaniel’s were tucked into the corners. Through the middle of the room, the wood floor was smooth and clear. The inevitable path for the wheeled chair.

“I was just about to have brandy.” The baronet sounded doubtful. The small bottle on the room’s table was still sealed and the tumbler empty.

One sealed bottle. That was fine. Nathaniel was used to the ritual of brandy. “One-half inch,” he said. “Do you want me to pour it out?”

“No, no. I will.” The wooden wheels made a sleek ticking sound as they rolled over the floor. Sir William eased himself into place before the table. His hand reached for the bottle—then stopped. “Did you know, Nathaniel, that I don’t like brandy?”

“Ah…no. Why do you drink it every day?”

Cheering and shouting leaked beneath the door. Edged around the lace-edged draperies hung at the window. Racegoers, happy as drunken lords.

Sir William’s voice cut low beneath those sounds. “Because I cannot do without any drink at all. And it is too easy to take more than one ought. The brandy reminds me of that.”

Nathaniel’s chin drew back. For a moment he could only stare. “You…you have it too. This craving for drink.”

“I have it too. I wish you had inherited anything else from me.” Sir William’s palms were flat on the table, ready to push himself away.

The brandy was a daily test, not a daily reward. “How long do you have to test yourself with it?”

“Every day. Forever. Until I know without question I would pass.”

“Huh.”

As usual, there was no place to sit in the chamber. The cut-velvet sofa was almost hidden beneath the decorative detritus of the room, plus an unrolled shaving kit.

So Nathaniel perched on the edge of the table, one boot braced on the floor, half expecting his father to say
Off. Off the table
as he always did in his study.

Instead, he was the one to speak. “I hated you for leaving us.”