Mad About the Duke (25 page)

It was a staggering notion. More so than finding himself here in Seven Dials. But there it was. He'd do anything for her. He didn't know what was more frightening—the breadth of his desire for her or the depths to which he would descend to claim her hand.

For while Jack's plan had seemed a sound one in the cozy, refined surroundings of his palatial London town house, here in the heart, or rather depths, of Seven Dials, James was just as concerned about waking up like the poor fellow behind them.

Forget him,
he told himself.
Remember why you are here
.

Apparently Jack had, for he moved quite easily up to the door with nary a glance behind them. A great hulking figure stepped from the shadows and eyed them, his bulbous nose bent to one side and his beady eyes taking them in as if he were counting their
worth, from the top of their hats to the polish on their boots—or what was left of the polish after the trip through the alley.

Jack sidled closer to the man and slapped him on the shoulder. “Good to see you, Shingles.”

The man cocked his head. “Is that you, Mad Jack?”

“Aye, Shingles. 'Tis me.” Jack grinned. “How are the cards tonight?”

The man smiled and looked ready to give Jack a hearty hug of welcome, until Jack's question sunk in. Then his gaze narrowed and he backed up a bit, suddenly wary. “You ain't in dun territory, now, are you? Can't let you in if all you got are vouchers and promises that yer fancy brother will cover yer losses. Himself wants none of yer trouble.”

Jack laughed, reached inside his coat and pulled out a plump purse. When that didn't seem to impress Shingles, Jack gave it a shake and the
tinkle
of gold, good solid gold, turned out to be music to this man's discerning ears.

Still, Shingles wouldn't open the door. Not just yet. “What about 'im?” he said in a loud aside, nodding at James. “Looks a bit dodgy to me.”

“He's utterly dodgy,” Jack assured him. “As round the bend as they come.” Leaning forward, Jack continued in a conspiratorial manner, “He's also got plump pockets and no head for cards. So help me out a bit, aye, Shingles? Let us in.”

These sort of ignoble intentions Shingles could understand…and approve of. He winked at Jack and swung the door wide open. “Good to see you, sir. Been too long,” the man said as they passed inside. “But no trouble, mind you.” This he said to Jack, though he had his narrow gaze turned on James.

“I'm a changed man, Shingles,” Jack assured him.

At this, the doorman laughed as if he'd never heard such a thing.

“Why does everyone find that statement so demmed entertaining?” Jack asked after they'd left a bemused Shingles far behind.

“I have to admit that even to me, your claims of reform do ring a bit false,
Mad Jack,
” James teased. “That you even remember this place isn't to your credit.”

“Quite honestly, I wasn't too sure I'd recall how to find it,” Jack said. “Took hailing four different hackneys before one of them knew where this place was.”

They were walking down a long corridor that ended at a door at the far end. The muffled sound of voices and laughter and curses mingled with the odd stillness of the air.

“I thought you said that was the fifth hackney you hailed.”

“It was,” Jack told him, pausing at the door. “The fourth fellow refused to drive us here.”

And when his once madcap brother opened the door, James understood why.

 

“Elinor, you can't mean to accept Longford's invitation,” Minerva said. She blew on the hot cup of tea she held cradled in her hands, then glanced up. “I've been making some inquiries about the man, and I have some concerns about him.”

“Oh, good heavens,” Elinor exclaimed, looking up from her sewing. She was nearly done reworking the red velvet from Petticoat Lane and she wasn't about to be diverted. “You are starting to sound as much a merchant as St. Maur.”

Minerva's lips pursed together. If there was one thing the first Lady Standon could never be called, it was mercantile. The lady was regal and noble down to her bones. “I just think it would bode well to exercise some caution. Why is it Longford hasn't invited anyone else that we know to this party?”

“Whatever do you mean?” Elinor said, putting her sewing down. “Now you do sound as vexing as St. Maur.”

The lady drew a deep breath. “Have you seen any of the matrons pushing their daughters in Longford's direction—save the mushrooms, of course?”

“I can't say that I have,” Elinor admitted. “You don't think he's inclined as…” Elinor didn't finish, for she knew her friend knew exactly what she meant.

Inclined like Edward and Philip were.

Elinor and Minerva had been married to two of the
ton
's worst rotters and had seen firsthand what such inclinations could do to a man.

And to a marriage.

Instinctively, Elinor shook her head. “No, I can't believe it. He seems so—” She didn't want to believe the worst of Longford. He was her last chance to thwart Lord Lewis.

Not necessarily,
a small voice whispered up from her heart.
There is Mr. St. Maur.

No, that wouldn't do, she told herself. If St. Maur dared to confront Lord Lewis, her stepfather would unleash a wrath of vindictiveness down upon him. He'd take delight in ruining St. Maur—leaving him with no business and no connections. Even if it were all lies and fabrications, the damage would be done.

No, Elinor could never see her proud, honorable solicitor brought low. Not for her sake. Not even for Tia's.

 

James clenched his teeth together to keep from gaping at the hedonistic interior of the gaming hell Jack had brought him to. He'd heard of such places, but the real thing and what he'd imagined in his own staid existence were a far cry from each other.

The interior seemed a mix of gaudy splendor—most likely spoils from debts owed to the establishment's purveyor—and downright shabby. It blended together in a cacophony of colors and styles, as did the patrons. From brightly plumed ladies, to dandies in bright waistcoats, to those down on their luck and down to their last brown worsted coat, minus a few buttons. Cigar smoke hung in a cloud at the ceiling, while the sickly sweet odor of brandy and rum ran just as thickly through the room.

There was a pause in the gaming as the crowded room surveyed the new arrivals with the same calculating manner that Shingles had displayed. And then the moment passed and all attention was back on the tables, the cards in play and the ones clenched before anxious players. The roulette wheel spun anew, and the raucous party went on as if nothing had ever been amiss.

“Are you sure about this?” Jack asked as they made their way through the room, taking their own measure of the games at hand, as well as the crowd. He nodded slightly at a table at the far end of the room, where Lord Lewis sat with a half dozen of his rumpot acquaintances, as well as a couple of professional gamesters—the sort of fellows who took their play very seriously. Dangerously so.

Then Jack came to a halt. “Demmit,” he muttered. “They're playing loo.”

Loo
? James glanced over and smiled slightly. “Yes,
they are.” For the first time since he'd stepped out of the hackney, he felt his luck change.

He took a quick, measured glance over at the game in hand. The pool on the table was still modest, but with loo it could quickly get out of control. The game ruined many a man as the stakes climbed ever higher with each hand. And with the growing stakes, tempers also rose—making for a deadly combination.

Jack shook his head and turned toward the roulette wheels. “Perhaps we should wait until they start playing something a little more—”

“No, loo it is,” James insisted, his gaze now fixed on the players.

“Remember our plan. I don't think you realize—,” Jack began, catching hold of his brother's arm and stopping him.

James indulged his brother with a smile. “The plan just changed.”

“Good God, man, do you know who is over at that table?” Jack said, holding him fast. “That's Captain Reddick.”

“Truly?” James said. “Which one?”

“Which one?” Jack gasped, as if he couldn't believe there wasn't a man in London who didn't know Reddick by sight, let alone go looking to play cards with him.

But James was hardly ruffled by this knowledge; in fact, something came alive in him. Whether it had been the dangerous drive through the Dials, this illicit company, or just the thrill of the hunt to take down Lewis, he didn't know—but he suddenly found it utterly exhilarating.

Rather like how he felt in Elinor's company.

Never, until Clifton had leveled him with that facer, had he understood what it meant to be a Tre
mont. Not that he wasn't one—certainly he had the surname—but never the notoriety that came with being a member of his notorious family. He'd been a sort of disappointment to his father and the extended family—whose antics it had always been James's responsibility to clean up and repair—for he'd never stepped over that passionate line that made him truly a Tremont.

Until now.

And if he was being honest, it hadn't been Clifton's punch that had changed his life, his outlook. No, it had been the first moment he'd spied Elinor coming through the door and into his heart.

“I can beat him,” James told his brother, his chest tightening with a daring he'd never known. “I'll take him down easily.”

“Beat Reddick? You're mad. You should be more concerned about him calling you out or just shooting you. He's got a fierce temper, and if he even suspects you're cheating—”

“Cheating?” James was completely affronted. “I don't need to cheat.”
Not at loo.

“Well, you'll need to learn if you are going to win, and that isn't the table to be practicing at.”

“Lewis doesn't seem to be unnerved by the company, why should I?”

“Because Lewis is on his last legs. He's willing to take any risk to get out of dun territory, something you don't need to do,” Jack told him, catching him by the arm and holding him fast. “You can't go over there and play in that sort of company and expect to win.”

“I can win at loo,” James asserted.

“What makes you think you can beat those fellows? That table is filled with sharps and men who
have been playing loo—and surviving it—for longer than I've been coming down here.”

James chuckled and winked at his brother. “Jack, while you spent your youth carousing and running wild about Town, I spent my time home in the country, with only Aunt Josephine and her cronies for company—”

“You can hardly compare penny stakes with a bunch of old hens to—”

James shook off his brother's grasp and looked him in the eye. “Jack, you aren't listening.
Aunt Josephine
taught me how to play loo.”

His words sunk in slowly, then Jack's eyes widened. “No.”

“Yes,” James told him.

“But that doesn't mean—,” Jack said, glancing back at the table of sharps.

“Jack, she hasn't played a hand with me in years. Won't even consider it.” James paused, his eyes narrowed. “Because I beat her.”

Jack shook his head. “You? Beat Aunt Josephine?”

For Jack, like every Tremont, knew exactly what that meant.

Aunt Josephine. One of the most nefarious of all the Tremonts. She'd made a runaway marriage to a spy. Managed her own network of espionage for the Foreign Office from her house, Thistleton Park. Even faked her own death. And that had all been after she'd turned fifty. As a blazing young debutante her excessively infamous ways had forced her outraged family to cut her off (another time-honored Tremont family mark of distinction) after she had ruined not one but several earls and a menagerie of lesser noblemen out of their fortunes by beating them handily at cards. Instead of being
cowed by her banishment, she'd simply picked up her winnings and taken to the Continent for a long and extended Grand Tour—much to the relief of the gambling set of London.

The set who played loo, to be precise.

“Good God, man!” Jack gasped. “You could have had the run of London.”

“I never needed to,” James told him.
Until now.

Jack was still muttering something about Aunt Josephine under his breath while James sauntered over to the table. “May I, gentlemen?”

The men at the table were dividing up the current pool and staking a new one. All eyes turned toward James. The examination began and ended when he tossed a heavy purse down on the table. Everyone nodded in agreement, everyone save Lewis.

“I know you,” he said as he gathered up the cards and began to shuffle them. “You've been sniffing around my stepdaughter. St. Maur, isn't it?”

James inclined his head. “As for your stepdaughter, she has a mind of her own.”

Lewis guffawed rudely. “That she does. Arrogant chit. Never did know what was good for her.” Then he glanced greedily at the purse on the table. Whatever insult he'd suffered at James's hands, he was too much a coward to call him out.

But ruining a man over cards…

He stilled for a moment and studied James. “Not thinking of going after the gel for the dowry? 'Cause the fool amounts being bandied about Town aren't true. Got that from Hollindrake himself. Told him straight out that she is still mine to see to and I'm certainly not going to see mine getting bartered off without my having a say in it.”

Which by “say,” James knew meant “cut.”

“Never fear, my lord,” he told the ruddy-faced baron. “I have no designs on your stepdaughter's dowry. I have enough troubles of my own without adding to them by taking a wife.”

This brought out a round of rough laughter from the other players.