Anne Barbour Read online

  Mina spoke apologetically to Mr. Eames, who was regarding Zoe as he might a human curiosity strayed from a neighborhood freak-show. “We Loversalls place considerable importance on true love,” she explained.

  Devon glanced from Nell to Mina. “Did you find your true love? I have been meaning to ask.”

  “I thought I had,” Mina replied. “Several times,”

  Most unbecoming conduct, Zoe reflected sullenly, as she took another turn around the room.

  Beau kept a cautious eye on his daughter’s perambulations. “How do you know about Abercorn’s by-blow, Eames?”

  George was uncomfortable speaking of by-blows in front of ladies. He reminded himself that the ladies were Loversalls. “Abercorn came to me for advice.”

  “Why should he do that?” demanded Zoe, distracted from her sulks.

  “Because I am a solicitor.” George awarded her the merest glance. “Eleanor is the result of a youthful indiscretion. Her mother died in childbirth. The elder Abercorn washed his hands of the business. Abercorn the younger placed the child with a foster family here in Town. I can make further inquiries if you like.”

  “I am beginning to develop a strong dislike for the elder Abercorn,” remarked Mina. “First he refuses to stand the reckoning and now he dumps his son’s bastard in my lap.”

  “She isn’t in your lap but mine,” Mr. Kincaid pointed out. “And Abercorn the younger is responsible for that. You can hardly blame the old man for encouraging his pup to grow up. Five thousand pounds is a significant sum.”

  “I can blame him for not encouraging his pup to grow up sooner,” Mina retorted. “Preferably before he ever darkened my door.”

  A distraction was due, decided Zoe, before her cousin took to ruminating further upon darkened doorways. She edged closer to the chair beneath which Grace was hiding, and stepped on the cat’s tail.

  Grace shot out into the room, drawing everyone’s attention. “Kitty!” cried Nell. She squirmed mightily in an attempt to descend from Devon’s lap.

  “Kitty it is,” agreed that gentleman, attempting to maintain his grip. “Why doesn’t Uncle Dev tell you the story of—”

  “No!” howled Nell, and kicked him. “Want Kitty!”

  “That may be,” interjected Mina, “but the kitty doesn’t want you. She is growing old, you see—”

  Nell saw that these strangers meant to thwart her. “Kitty!” she shrieked. “Kitty, kitty, kitty! Now!”

  Zoe clapped her hands over her ears. Really, the child might be even more spoilt than she was herself.

  The door opened. Samson entered. Trailing close behind him was a young girl wearing a plain dark-colored dress. She was thin and carroty-haired and freckled, and her brown eyes were saucer-wide.

  “Meg has ten brothers and sisters, all younger,” said Samson. “She allows as she wouldn’t mind temporarily exchanging the scullery for the nursery. Make your curtsey, girl.”

  Meg curtsied, awkwardly. She appeared terrified half out of her wits, perhaps because her prospective charge was shrieking loud enough to summon Beelzebub from hell. Mina said, “We are grateful to you, Meg. Come meet Nell.”

  Meg bobbed another curtsey, and edged closer. “Yes, mum.”

  Nell broke off howling to glare at this new person. Meg held out a sugarplum. Nell grabbed the sweet and popped it into her mouth.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  It was a quiet night at Moxley’s, save for the brief excitement when a brace of bosky young lordlings demanded entrance under the erroneous impression that within lay a house of civil reception where ladybirds eagerly awaited partners for the buttock ball; and the additional to-do when a luckless gamester attempted to cut off an ear and throw it on the table in lieu of funds.

  The rouge et noir table was doing a lackluster business, the pile of markers alarmingly small. Mina inspected the liquor buffet to insure it was well-stocked. Moxley’s functioned under the assumption that men played most recklessly when in their altitudes.

  Before they could play recklessly, they must first be present. Mina reminded herself that it was mid-week. Moxley’s was seldom busy in the middle of the week.

  She found Zoe at the E.O. table, surrounded by gentlemen, one of whom was attempting to explain the game. It was not, he said, difficult to understand. The circular table spun; the ball came to rest in a niche marked either E or O, or alternately in one of two bar holes, in which case the house won all the bets played on the opposite letter, and didn’t pay to that which it fell. The player had nineteen chances of winning, and one chance to break even on a bar, which was disregarded in figuring percentages.

  Zoe, who had stopped listening at ‘bar hole’, said, “Gracious! How interesting.”

  Mina grasped Zoe’s arm and drew her away, thereby disappointing the wolves who had been paying less attention to the cards than to the lamb in their midst. “You may also be interested to know that the player’s chances are nineteen in thirty-nine. It is the way of E.O. banks to frequently win. Macao more effectively relieves reckless gamesters of their fortunes than either whist or loo. To hazard goes the honors for the greatest amount won or lost in the shortest space of time.”

  Zoe tried to wriggle free. Mina gripped her harder. Zoe demanded, “Let me go!”

  They were the cynosure of all eyes, two Loversall females in one room together rousing more interest even than the low-cut necklines of the croupiers’ gowns, so much female magnificence being almost more than the senses could withstand. One Loversall was short, the other tall; the younger resembling an angel descended to earth and dressed in ivory silk moire with a tight bodice and elevated waist, small sleeves and froth of frills at the hem, courtesy (though the observers could not know it) of her notoriously nipfarthing father, who had been persuaded that a contessa should not appear in inferior garments, even incognita, the elder every bit as lovely but with something in her demeanor that suggested she might be deliciously flawed.

  The ladies were moreover at odds, thereby presenting an excellent opportunity to lay wagers as to whether they would descend to fisticuffs and if so, which would win.

  Zoe dimpled at the nearest gentleman. Mina propelled her into the chamber where a voluptuous dark-eyed brunette presided over Moxley’s faro bank.

  The players looked up from the table. Zoe lowered her lashes and allowed a becoming flush to delicately tinge her cheeks. The gentlemen were all so friendly, and eager to explain things to her, and if she had little interest in combinations and sequences, and even less understanding of the doctrine of probabilities as used in calculating odds, it did not prevent Zoe hanging on their lips.

  She didn’t understand why Cousin Wilhelmina must grip her elbow in so odious a manner, as if she hoped to prevent something shocking taking place. Zoe had done nothing shocking in a very long time, save to run away from Paolo, and that didn’t count because she’d been sorely provoked.

  “Are you afraid I’ll develop a taste for play? All I have to wager is myself, and Paolo has already done that.” Zoe eyed Mina’s gown of cotton muslin with its woven stripe pattern in graduated shades of yellow to brown. “You should have let me persuade my father to dress you also. I don’t mean Beau should dress you precisely — or undress you, either, unless he has already? I didn’t think he had; you are related, not that it would signify — but he would never suggest a gown so practical as to have detachable lower sleeves for day wear. Not that I mean to criticize! I daresay in your position you must consider such stuff.”

  Mina in that moment was considering strangling Zoe with her detached lower sleeves.

  She glimpsed George Eames, coming toward them. He was dressed for evening in black kerseymere trousers, white waistcoat, and a coat of superfine. Mina released Zoe’s elbow. “Have you brought us news?”

  Mr. Eames shook his head. “I have learned very little. Abercorn the elder has also left town. I did locate the woman who had the care of Nell. She isn’t especially eager to have the child returned.”

  Min
a sympathized. Nell’s disruptive abilities rivaled those of Romeo the goat, who was almost as terrified of her as was Grace the cat.

  “If you will excuse me, I have a previous engagement,” continued Mr. Eames. “I merely wanted to acquaint you with what I have — or haven’t — learned.”

  “You will continue to make inquiries?” asked Mina.

  “If you wish.”

  Mina watched him leave the room, reflecting unhappily on her five thousand pounds.

  Zoe watched him also. She wondered where Mr. Eames was going, and where he had been. Perhaps he had attended the theater. Perhaps he would now present himself at a ball, or a soiree.

  Why did Mr. Eames dislike her? Gentlemen did not generally dislike her on first sight. Were they previously acquainted? Could he have been among the legion of admirers once known as Zoe’s Zoo?

  Zoe had allowed each of her admirers to think she might misbehave a little bit with him, when in truth she hadn’t meant to misbehave at all, or at least not very much, for she had been saving the exploration of her baser nature for her own true love.

  If Mr. Eames had numbered among those misguided swains, Zoe supposed he might still be a little cross.

  She wondered idly if he might be persuaded to admire her again.

  Zoe nudged Mina. “Has Mr. Eames a wife?”

  Mina linked arms and steered her cousin on another perambulation of the gaming rooms. “He does not. But you must not annoy— That is, seek to engage Mr. Eames. He is enamored of a lady whose papa discounts his standing in the world. Sir Ian is excessively high in the instep. Lady Anne isn’t so top-lofty, but she is shy.”

  Lady Anne sounded dull as ditch-water, decided Zoe. To flirt with Mr. Eames would be to perform a public service, like the Good Samaritan assisting the poor traveller who had been left beaten, robbed, and half dead beside the road.

  And if Paolo learned of her flirtation, he would be very cross, which was no more than he deserved.

  She had been too long silent. Mina might be arriving at conclusions Zoe would rather she did not. “I have been wondering how I may best further my knowledge of the world. Or not my knowledge — Loversalls are born with knowledge — but the practical application thereof. It will require the assistance of a gentleman with vast experience. Such as Mr. Kincaid.”

  The minx meant to set her cap at Devon? Mina said, “Have you gone mad?”

  “Oho! You want him yourself.”

  “Don’t be absurd.”

  Zoe recognized a clanker when she heard one, and she believed she heard one now. “If you want Mr. Kincaid, why act like you do not?”

  Mina felt a now-familiar throbbing behind her right eyelid. “Devon Kincaid is a rakehell. A wise woman avoids rakehells. You of all people should know that.”

  Zoe did not dignify this comment with response. Naturally she knew about rakehells — how could she not when her own papa had been involved in various escapades and scandals since the moment she was born? Hitherto she had avoided rakehells, but now she thought: with whom better to have a grand affaire?

  If Paolo was made cross by a flirtation, a grand affaire would surely drive him to an apoplexy, oh lovely thought.

  Zoe did not share these ruminations. It was a foolish female who informed another of her romantical ambitions, consequently sparking competition where there hitherto was none.

  Mina had fallen silent, marshaling further arguments. Zoe, facing the door, was first to see the man dressed in black. He was of above average stature, lean and devastatingly handsome in a deliciously wicked way, with wavy black hair worn unfashionably long and eyes as dark as sin, austere features upon which dissipation had left its paradoxical stamp.

  He strolled into the room.

  “Santo cielo!” breathed Zoe.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Lord Quinton was a man of regular habits: he habitually drank and gamed and whored all night, then retired at dawn to sleep through the day until time to embark upon another bacchanal. He was a man of libertine propensities, a gambler and a wastrel who lived on his wits, who had corrupted countless women and thrice killed his man in a duel; a buck of the first head who had sampled every vice not once but many times, in every variation possible, and with such utter boredom as to make his fellow reprobates appear rank amateurs.

  Heads swiveled in his direction. People whispered as he passed. It amused Quin — as much as anything amused him — to be universally despaired of, envied and disliked. All this at a mere four-and-thirty. Just think how much he might accomplish before he stuck his spoon in the wall.

  Moxley’s wasn’t the sort of establishment Lord Quinton normally frequented. He was accustomed to more raffish company. However, Moxley’s was rapidly gaining a reputation as a place where one could lose a large amount of money in a short space of time. In the furtherance of his ambition to gamble away the entirety of his vast fortune, Quin would leave no stone unturned. The female employees were a nice touch.

  Too, he was curious about Mrs. Moxley, who was almost as beloved of the gossipmongers as he was himself. He spied her immediately he entered the supper room.

  He had forgotten how tall she was. Tall and lush and goddess-like with a bosom that beggared description; red-gold hair that, unbound, would tumble to her waist; sapphire eyes so unfathomable that one or another (or several) of her husbands had declared a desire to drown in their depths.

  She was in animated conversation with a younger woman who could only be a relative. Loversall women drew the gaze and held it, possessing an innate sensuality that made the beholders’ blood run warm.

  Most beholders’ blood, at any rate. Quin was exempt.

  He moved further into the room. Mrs. Moxley glanced up, saw him, and looked as shocked as if she had set eyes upon a ghost. She’d changed, he thought. Once she hadn’t worn dignity wrapped around her like a shroud.

  Would he now become the subject of her conversation? Lord Quinton was the sort of man mamas warned damsels against, it being generally agreed he was the greatest blackguard alive. There were additionally rumors he was pox’d.

  The latter was untrue. The former might well be correct. Quin approached the drink table. As he recalled the occasion, which wasn’t all that clearly, Mina had emptied a chamber pot over his head the last time they met.

  What was her last name then? Chickester? Ward? Memory eluded him, as memory frequently did, a circumstance for which Quin was more often grateful than not. He turned away from the table, a glass of burgundy in his hand, only to draw up sharply before he walked smack into the woman who stepped into his path.

  The woman who mere moments ago had been speaking with Mina. The top of her head reached barely to his chin.

  She dimpled at him. “Hello. I’m the Contessa— Ah, Prudence Loversall. That is, I am calling myself Prudence because I spent ten miserable years being prudent and chaste. Cousin Wilhelmina says if I have the sense of a gnat I’ll avoid you like the plague.”

  “You should listen to your cousin,” Quin replied.

  “Just because a person is older — and Cousin Wilhelmina is much older! — doesn’t mean she has a better understanding.” Boldly, Prudence — or, not-Prudence — clutched his arm. Though normally he would have, Quin did not shake her off, his responses rendered sluggish by ingestion of a large amount of that beverage commonly known as Strip-Me-Naked or Blue Ruin. Too, he was bemused by the notion of a prudent, chaste Loversall.

  He was additionally distracted by the notion of Mina Loversall grown old.

  “So you are the Black Baron!” his captor continued. “It is Fate that I should meet you now, when I have decided I must broaden my understanding of the world. I am seven-and-twenty, you see, and have not yet done anything depraved.”

  Quin raised his glass, and drank. Females frequently vied for his favors. He was amazed (if he could still be amazed) that so many were as bent on their destruction as he was himself.

  This female was still talking. “I am a married woman, so I am not entirely
without experience. Such as it was! A wife is not supposed to have cravings, I credit. I was vastly disappointed — but that is beside the point. You are a man who understands affaires de coeur, and grand passions, and worlds well lost for love.”

  If Mina Moxley was banked fires, her cousin was a pile of kindling in search of a match. Lord Quinton had no desire to burn his fingers. “No,” he said.

  She tilted her head. “Whyever not?”

  Quin was getting a headache. He really should refrain from combining burgundy with gin. “I prefer rigidly virtuous young women who are ripe to be debauched.”

  Her blue eyes widened. “Are you truly so wicked?”

  Quin reflected upon the orgies he’d attended. The whores he’d tumbled. The virgins he’d defiled.

  The men he’d killed.

  The young married woman he had seduced on a wager, who rather than face her cuckolded husband had hanged herself.

  He had won that wager. Others, he had lost. They all ran together in a blur of endless days and nights fuelled by opium and alcohol.

  He said, with rare sincerity, “I am.”

  “Excellent!” She dimpled at him and resumed her attack. “And I am rigidly virtuous. Or I was. If I am to go into a nunnery — or even if I’m not — I must first be despoiled. And if I am to be despoiled, I wish it to be by my own hand, or by a hand of my own choosing, and not by someone else.”

  Quin had no little experience with nunneries, but doubted those were the sort of establishment his accoster had in mind. There had been a certain abbess—

  He couldn’t recall which flesh-pot she had presided over. Lady, ladybird or laced mutton, he mused, it all came down to the same thing in the end. Across the room, Mina was speaking with a young dandy in salmon-colored moleskin trousers and a coat with collar raised so high behind it would have better become a horse.

  His companion cleared her throat. “I don’t think you perfectly grasp the situation. Loversall women cannot resist the call of passion. We give our all for love. Oh, pray don’t be difficult! I haven’t much time. It is most important that before Paolo finds me I am ruined.”