Page 7 of Reforming Lord Ragsdale
He could tell that Robert was disappointed to leave the game, but to his relief, his cousin followed him into the private parlor. Lord Ragsdale poured two glasses of sherry, but Robert was pacing between the windows. “Do sit down, cousin,” Lord Ragsdale advised. “We still have a half day’s drive tomorrow, and you’ll need all your constitution to meet your grandmother. Come, come now. Here is dinner.”
They ate in silence. Robert was no longer the attractive conversationalist of the afternoon, and Lord Ragsdale could only wonder at his cousin’s restless air.Well, if I must exert myself, I must, he thought as he launched into a description of Brasenose and its illustrious traditions. Through it all, he harbored a very real suspicion that Robert’s mind was elsewhere.
He was interrupted by a soft tap on the door. It was Emma come to fetch the soup. “Let me help you,” he insisted as she struggled with the heavy tray.
“I can manage,” she replied, even as he took it away from her. “Truly I can.”
He nodded, feeling oddly useful, even though it was only a dinner tray. “Well, perhaps you will allow me to redeem myself.”
Emma looked at him quickly and then looked away. “I don’t mean to be trouble,” she said softly as she opened the door for him.
He could think of no reply to such honesty, so he made none and was rewarded with a second frightened glance and a perceptible drawing away from him, even though they stood close together at the room’s entrance. As he came through the doorway first, carrying the tray, he experienced the odd feeling that perhaps Emma Costello cared no more for the English than he loved the Irish. It was a leveling thought, and one that he had not considered before.
He left the tray, kissed his mother good night, and started for the door. He thought Sally was asleep, but she called to him, her voice hesitant, as though she, like Emma, wondered what he would think.
“Cousin, please. Please make sure that Robert does not play cards tonight,” she urged.
He smiled at Sally and then bowed elaborately, winking at her on the way up.
“She means it, my lord,” came Emma’s distinct brogue. Her voice was firm, hard even, as though she spoke to a child, and not a bright one either.
He stood in the doorway, his hand on the knob. “I can’t say that I care for your impertinence, Emma,” he snapped.
“Then I apologize for it,” she replied promptly. “But please, sir. . .”
He closed the door on whatever else she was going to haver on about and returned to the parlor to find it empty. His mind filled with odd disquiet, he hurried downstairs in time to prevent Robert from sitting at the gaming table.
“Come, lad, we’re off to an early start in the morning, remember?” he said, nodding to the other gamesters. “You’ll excuse us, I am sure.”
“Really, cousin, I think that wasn’t necessary,” Robert protested as Lord Ragsdale followed him up the stairs. “I was only going to sit for one hand.” He stopped on the stairs, and his voice took on a wheedling tone. “I promise to be in bed before you get to sleep if you let me go back down.”
“No, and that’s final,” Lord Ragsdale insisted. His headwas beginning to ache again, compounded by the uneasiness that grew on him as he regarded his cousin Robert.So you will be no trouble, he thought as he removed his clothes and pulled on his nightshirt.I think I begin to understand your parents’ eagerness to get you out of America. How deep in gambling debt were you there? And why is this my problem now?
It was a subject to ruminate on. Tight-lipped and silent, Robert undressed and threw himself into bed alongside his cousin. He broke the long silence finally. “I think you are perfectly beastly to deny me one last game before I enroll at Brasenose.”
“I think I am nothing of the sort, cousin,” John replied. “Go to sleep.”
He lay in silence then, wondering if Robert would respond. He stared at the ceiling, listening to Robert’s breathing turn regular and deep. Relief settled over him, and he relaxed into the mattress. He hung on another half hour, listening to Robert, and then allowed sleep to claim him too.
~
If he had been under oath in the assizes, he could not have told a jury what woke him up early that morning. One moment he was asleep, dreaming of nothing, and the next instant he was wide awake and sitting up in bed. The room was in total darkness. Holding his breath, Lord Ragsdale listened intently for Robert’s breathing. Nothing.
Cautiously, he reached out his hand and felt the other pillow. “I could strop that boy,” he said out loud as he fumbled for the candle, more alert than he had been in years.
He was the room’s sole inhabitant. After the moment of panic passed, his next thought was to return to sleep. Robert’s spending habits were none of his concern. He had promised to accompany his mother and cousins to Oxford, and surely that charge did not involve wet-nursing a young man of some twenty years. His own mother had assured him that the cousins would be no trouble, and truly, they wouldnot be if he lay down again and returned to sleep. Besides, he reasoned, half the world’s troubles were caused by people too eager to meddle in others’ affairs. So what if Robert gamed away all his money? How could that possibly concern him? He blew out the candle.
His eyes were closing again when an ugly thought tunneled through the fog of sleep.What if it is your money he is gaming, you idiot?He sat up again and lit the candle once more, holding it high as he looked around the room. Everything looked as he had left it. He glanced closer at his overcoat, slung over a chair back. He was certain he had placed it around the chair before taking off his clothes.
He was on his feet in a moment, pawing through his overcoat. His hands clutched his wallet, but it was much thinner than he remembered. He swore as he opened it and found nothing beyond a couple directions and a toll chit.
Lord Ragsdale looked at Robert’s dressing case. It had been rifled through too, as if the owner were looking for something tucked away. He found a leather case containing a variety of legal papers that looked as though they had been crammed back inside in a hurry.
This is going to be a nasty scene, he thought as he shoved his nightshirt into his trousers and pulled on his boots. He didn’t stop to look for his eye patch as he ran his fingers through his hair and wrenched open the door.
To Lord Ragsdale’s surprise, the innkeeper stood before him on the landing, breathing hard as though he had taken the flight of stairs two or three at a time.
“What on earth is the matter?” Lord Ragsdale said, wincing as the landlord took one look at his ruined eye and gulped.
