Page 71 of The Gift of Patience
A fresh deck of cards was brought out and Beckett began to shuffle. Layton took snuff agitatedly, as if to shore up his nerves for the next round.
Now was the time for talk if ever there would be.
“Why have I never played you before, my lord?” Singleton thankfully asked.
“I favour the hells over the respectable jaunts,” he droned.
“I confess to grief over the loss of Watier’s.” A well-known club that had recently closed, where the stakes had been outrageous under the guise of a gentlemen’s club. It had been Brummell’s weakness. Layton and Beckett took a pinch of snuff with a possessed look in their eyes that made Ashley feel decidedly unclean.
“What about your estate?” someone called from the back of the group that had gathered to watch.
Singleton waved a hand as if losing an estate mattered not, though he chewed harder on his cigar. “I will come about. I always do.”
Said every better gambler and profligate heir, Ashley thought cynically. Chum would be incensed if he heard his brother speaking so.
Apparently, Carew agreed because he handed it to him the next two games. Ashley didn’t know whether he cheated or not, but he was not sad to see the three men squirm in their seats and sweat as they realized they would lose.
When Carew tossed the winning card down, gathered their vowels, and made them a bow, they all looked as if they were about to be led to the gallows.
Ashley and Manners left shortly after Carew, feeling no closer to finding their man.
CHAPTER 18
Patience was hard-pressed not to giggle when they were shown into the drawing room. It was exactly as Aunt Rosemary had described, with Lady Fagge prostrate upon the chaise longue, with one daughter wafting smelling salts beneath her nose, and another plying a fan in her face. Her own hand was dabbing at the corners of her eyes with a lacy handkerchief.
But the woman’s son was dead, and even though Patience had not liked the man, she was sorry for what had happened to him. Sir Horace stood at their entrance, but did not speak. He looked as though he’d aged decades since she’d seen him a few days before.
“How kind of you to call, my lord. Forgive me for not rising, but I barely made it downstairs today,” Lady Fagge said, then proceeded into a frenzy of heavy breathing and dabbing her eyes.
“I quite understand. Lady Westwood sends her condolences.”
“That’s very kind of her to think of us at a time like this. I trust she delivered?”
Westwood was obviously smitten by the look on his face, but he tried to mask it. “She did, and they are both well, my lady. Is there anything we may do for you?”
“No one can bring my son back, my lord.” She began to wail, and the discomfort level in the room was unbearable. Sir Horace stood and waved for them to follow. Patience could have hugged the man because she had not really come to see Lady Fagge anyway.
“Lady Fagge is not herself,” he said by way of explanation once they had reached safety.
“Of course, and we are sorry to cause her distress. May I have a word with you?”
Sir Horace looked acutely uncomfortable at the prospect, but he could hardly refuse. Whether Westwood was asking as a friend or the magistrate.
He nodded, and led them into a small study.
Patience went along because where else was she to go?
“I am sorry to also distress you as well, but there are some questions I must ask before the inquest so I can rule properly. I know you wish to have the funeral soon, so this must be resolved.”
Sir Horace gave a reluctant nod.
“It seems your son was shot in the back. After speaking with the others involved, and where Rupert was positioned, they do not believe he was shot by accident.”
Patience was watching the man’s reactions closely. If it was possible for someone to look as pale as a ghost, then he did in that moment.
“How could they know that?” he muttered.
“He never turned around, and he was next to my brother,” Westwood said gently.
