Page 89 of My Own True Duchess
“Not the insult part, but I read it between the lines. Cousin Fabianus sent me a bank draft, Bea, and asked that I consult him on the settlements with Jonathan—consult him, not defer to his wishes or allow him to handle the negotiations. I believe he was honestly mortified at his own behavior.”
Bea rose. “You’re saying we’ve misjudged Penweather?”
“I hope so. I’m removing to Hampshire for an indefinite visit within a fortnight. You are welcome to come with me, though I warn you that traveling with Seraphina and Diana will try your patience to the utmost.”
Even being in the same house with the girls had become a tribulation. They bickered constantly, and Diana longed for peaches-rhymes-with-beseeches at least three times a day.
Theo had taken peaches into violent dislike, when she wasn’t longing for them in a creamy compote.
“I’ll send some cordial along to Hampshire with you,” Bea said, “but I’ll leave the rusticating to you and the viscount. If he’s disagreeable, you will come back to Town straightaway, Theo.”
Bea took the stool by the harp, making a pretty picture. Theo hadn’t truly expected the countess to welcome a jaunt into the shires, not while a certain earl was still in Town.
“His lordship sent an astonishingly large bank draft, Bea.” As much as Jonathan had paid for matchmaking services. Theo considered refunding Jonathan’s money, but he’d argue, and then she’d have to see him again, and then she might lose her resolve altogether.
“I can have Aunt Fred invest it for you,” Bea said, resting the harp against her shoulder. “Whatever you do, you will accept that bank draft, Theo. It’s not like you own a lucrative gaming hell.”
Did Jonathan? He’d said The Coventry was in difficulties, though he’d also said it made him a fair bit of coin.
“I’d be too worried about being raided by the authorities, assuming I could overcome all of my other reservations.”
Bea plucked a minor chord. “Tresham likely pays a king’s ransom to ensure his club isn’t raided. Either that, or having dukes and earls hanging from the rafters keeps the more ambitious reformers from bothering him.” She turned the chord into a slow arpeggio, the notes halting and sad.
“But if The Coventry’s reputation should suffer due to rumors of cheating and the like?” Theo asked. “Arrests would be more likely?”
“You aren’t engaged to him, Theo,” Bea said, tilting the harp upright. “Tresham can be arrested, and that’s no concern of yours, but yes. If the rumors regarding crooked tables, reckless play, and other problems are true, then the authorities are more likely to interfere. Find me a cheerful tune, please. I’m at home to callers, and my only guest has informed me she’s abandoning me for the company of some doddering sheep farmer.”
“Penweather will never be doddering. He will be dignified until his dying day.” Jonathan would be dignified as well, but not… not priggish. Not stuffy. He would not leave a widow to muddle on in penury when a wealthy relation should have seen to her finances. “I cannot abide the idea that Mr. Tresham’s club is an object of talk.”
“Then you’d best leave Town soon, for if the rumors are reaching my ears—a shy, retiring widow of limited means—they will soon be more than rumors.”
Bea was about as shy and retiring as Wellington in pursuit of the French, though Theo’s need to quit London was growing by the hour.
“Promise me something,” Bea said, resuming her place beside Theo on the piano bench. “I am fanciful, I know, but I’m concerned for you, Theo. Promise me you aren’t decamping to Hampshire to bear Tresham a child out of wedlock. You’d be that stoic, that principled. I know you can’t marry a man who makes his living off of gambling, but I also know you aren’t thinking clearly right now.”
Theo slipped the cover back over the keyboard, for no cheerful tunes came to mind.
“No child, Bea. Thank all the merciful powers, there’s not to be a child.”
Theo was so relieved to report that recent revelation that she had to use the dusty handkerchief to blot her tears while Bea fetched two bottles of cordial.
Chapter Seventeen
* * *
“The scheme victimizes men with titles,” Jonathan said, keeping his voice down. “Not every time, but often enough that I consider it a pattern.”
Sycamore Dorning turned over another card. “Lipscomb, Henries, Lord Welfaring, Lord Hamberton… I am loath to admit you might be correct, though I’ve sat here night after night and not seen the connections.”
Across the room, three dealers were presiding over tables of vingt-et-un, a game that already favored the house by virtue of the dealer winning all ties. That Moira had further skewed the odds by cheating enraged Jonathan. His ire kept him at the club hour after hour, studying the play, moving from table to table, and spying on his own staff.
“If I know who the victims are, I’m more likely to spot the method,” Jonathan said. “Though we’re attracting fewer and fewer titles among our patrons.”
“Who exactly is we, Tresham?” Dorning laid cards out in a long row, sometimes stacking cards atop each other, sometimes arranging them side by side.
We was Jonathan and perhaps a borrowed hound from the ducal residence. We did not include Moira, half the staff, Dorning, or the patrons themselves. We could not even include Frannie until the club had been put to rights.
Very little of which mattered, except that we certainly would not include Theodosia Haviland even when The Coventry was returned to sound footing.
