Page 84 of My Own True Duchess
“She’s not an heiress, Grey.”
Do-re-mi. “My brilliant sibling states the obvious. She also already has a title.”
But does she have your heart? “Bad enough Ash has charged me with keeping an eye on Lady Della Haddonfield. Now you’re mooning after an unsuitable lady too. Why is it, when surrounded by such nonsense, I’m the one who’s accused of foolishness?”
Do-re-mi-fa. “Because if anybody is well suited to running an honest, profitable, well-respected gaming establishment, it’s Jonathan Tresham. The very fact that you lurk under the stairs, looking askance at all and sundry while you yourself appear suspicious, is likely to start talk. You’ve said your piece to Tresham, now leave it to him to take action if action is needed.”
Do-re-mi-fa-so.
“The G string is flat,” Sycamore said. “You are so determined to view your brothers as a burden that you can’t see what a problem it is for Tresham to have no brothers, nobody to guard his back. He hasn’t any sisters either.”
Sycamore let that observation vibrate in the air like a plucked note, because he was nearly certain he’d spoken in error. Della Haddonfield had the same cast to her features as Tresham, the same dark hair, the same widow’s peak. She moved as he did, a cross between a saunter and a prowl, and she had taken to the tables with a natural aptitude for numbers.
“If Ash hasn’t told you, then you didn’t hear this from me,” Grey said, “but Lady Della and Tresham share a bond of blood. Hush for a moment, please.”
He fiddled with the G string, winding it too sharp, then easing it down a halftone.
“You’ll break it, cranking it like that.”
“Sycamore, is there no topic about which you admit ignorance? Are you an expert on every God’s blessed subject?”
“Despite having six brothers who do know every God’s blessed thing, I’m not quite up to their weight yet. For example, I’m only now learning how to cheat.”
Grey sat back, the tuning key in his hand. “Must I beat you? A gentleman does not cheat.”
“You left beating me to Thorne and Oak, for the most part. Valerian and Ash pulled them off of me, and Willow tattled to you when they got out of hand. I’m learning to cheat because gentlemen do cheat. They mark cards, they use spotters, stacked decks, hidden cards, sleight of hand, and more.”
Grey tossed the tuning key onto the desk. “Never tell me you’ve observed that unscrupulous behavior at The Coventry?”
Sycamore rose and headed for the door. “Have I, or have I not, spent the last twenty minutes explaining to you that I smell a rat at The Coventry, but I haven’t hunted the rodent down yet? Somebody has marked the cards twice now, to no apparent end. Tresham is haunting the place, so he must have taken my warning to heart, but the problem remains. Lipscomb loses even when he’s sober, for example.”
Do-re-me-fa-so-la. “Lipscomb is seldom sober.”
“While I have eschewed inebriation of late. You should offer for Lady Canmore.”
Grey strummed the lower registers of the harp, setting a wonderfully resonant minor arpeggio adrift in the office.
“I will not bequeath to my son the sort of mess Papa left for us, Cam. Willow is married. Ash is besotted. I’ll marry well or not at all.”
Do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti. He twiddled the tuning peg this way and that.
“Papa was happy, Grey. He whiled away many a pleasant year in his greenhouses and gardens. He knew every tree in the home wood and every tenant’s dog’s name. When was the last time you were happy?”
“I’m happy right now. If you didn’t learn to cheat at The Coventry, then where did you cross paths with all the scurrilous knaves wielding their dirty tricks?”
Do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-ti-ti…
“Where else? At that great bastion of learning and sophistication, to which all the best families send their young men for an education unmatched anywhere in the world.”
“You’re learning to cheat at university?”
“I’d rather learn to not be cheated. Be careful not to break the strings, Grey. That’s a very pretty instrument, but like you, it has some age on it.”
“Stay away from The Coventry, Cam. Whatever is going on there is not your problem.”
Which statement all but confirmed that Grey too had felt the sour note in the club’s air.
“Ask the countess if you can court her. Ladies aren’t as concerned with money as they are with happiness. I like that about them.”
