Page 98 of When the Marquess Was Mine
He sighed. “Everyone here is trying to ruin someone. They don’t usually announce it to me beforehand, however. Why are you here?”
Georgiana moved to the edge of her seat. “To beg, if necessary. The person we’re after... There aren’t many ways women can confront a man and triumph over him in this way, and your club is one of the few places in London where the sexes are admitted on equal terms. All I ask is one night only, as a visitor.”
He gave a tiny shake of his head.
“He is a criminal, but the government cannot or will not bring him to justice,” she said in increasing desperation. “If he suffers a large loss, he’ll no longer be able to flout the law. Mr. Dashwood, he’s trading inslaves—illegally and immorally, but there is no way to touch him other than this. He comes here with his filthy fortune, using the Vega Club to support his vile business and his evil self. The only way to stop him is to bankrupt him. Please, sir.”
For a long moment Mr. Dashwood stared at her, his face hard and inscrutable. “Very well,” he said abruptly. His expression had not changed. “You may have one night. Your Grace, I will readmit you for one month. Shall I extend the same to His Grace?”
“Yes,” said Sophie, looking just as astonished as Georgiana felt at this sudden approval. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me.” He opened the door in dismissal. “Aim well, and don’t miss,” he added as they walked past him.
“What did he mean?” Georgiana whispered as they hurried down the corridor toward the club lobby.
“He means that if we try to strike down Forester, we must succeed.”
“Of course we must!”
“Yes,” said Sophie, “but it won’t be simple. You know that, Georgiana?”
She thought of her brother, with his fury-bright eyes and stony heart. She remembered the silence of his servants, black and white, and the vague air of menace that shrouded Wakefield Manor. She thought of her inheritance, money left for her comfort and subsistence by her kind and loving papa, being used to snatch girls like Nadine from their homes and sell them into the living hell of slavery. Forester deserved to be ruined for his role, but Georgiana hoped it was deeply damaging to Alistair as well. “I know,” she said soberly, “but it’s worth the risk.”
They returned to Ware House. Lady Sidlow had given permission for her to spend a week there, Nadine in tow. Georgiana suspected the woman had sunk into a melancholy, after Alistair’s visit, but there was nothing she could do about that now.
A few questions had elicited the information that her brother intended to remain in town only a fortnight more, if that long. Selfishly, Georgiana wanted him to learn of his investment’s loss while in London. She wanted to see his face when he realized all was lost, that he still owed her twelve thousand pounds, and she burned to tell him she would be filing a suit to claim it, even if she must hound him for the next twenty years.
In the salon, Sophie set up a table with cards for practice. Rob came, slipping in through the servants’ entrance every time, and Lord Philip Lindeville, Sophie’s brother-in-law, joined them. He was assigned the role of Forester in their rehearsals.
“You always make me the villain,” he lamented to Sophie.
“It’s because you’re a better player than Jack,” she returned, naming her husband the duke, who was known to disapprove of gambling. She was shuffling the cards, sending them flying from one hand to the other. Georgiana was entranced. She’d known her friend supported herself at the gaming tables, but she’d not seen her at it since Sophie’s last year at Mrs. Upton’s, some six years ago.
Lord Philip laughed. “I’mmuchbetter than Jack!”
Georgiana knew how to play loo, of course, but she’d never played unlimited loo, where the amount at stake could quickly spiral into enormous sums. If a player failed to take a single trick in a hand, he got loo’d—forced to pay the pot an amount equal to the sum already in the pot. The amounts climbed with dizzying speed.
“I always avoided loo,” confided Sophie, “but if you want to stick someone with a staggering loss at cards, this is the way to do it.”
Rob, despite a generally careless demeanor while playing, won well over half of the time. Sophie won most of the rest, and Lord Philip managed to take a few pots as well. “I’d like to make clear that I am not trying very hard,” he would announce as Rob won yet another round, causing Sophie to snort with laughter.
Georgiana was far out of her depth. She enjoyed cards but she didn’t have Sophie’s head for numbers, or Rob’s instinct for the game. She thought she could beat Lord Philip from time to time, because he sometimes played carelessly, but deep down she knew she would have to leave the actual playing to her friends. It galled her that someone else would have to ruin Forester, and thus Alistair, but she reminded herself that the important point was that it happen, and who played the final, triumphant card did not matter.
The Duke of Ware came in at some point, watching in silence. Sophie told him their latest ideas, since he knew the gist of it already.
“Yes,” he said when she had finished. “I understand the difficulties. Nevertheless... is this the only way?”
Sophie put down her cards. “No, but it is the cleverest and quickest.”
Her husband nodded, his chin in his hand. “Except for the chance you’ll lose. If you lose, and he wins...”
Georgiana wet her lips. “We’ll have made it even more possible for him to support that abominable business.”
The duke looked at her with sympathy in his blue eyes. “Yes.”
“Well then,” said Sophie firmly, “we must not lose. I believe we can fill the table sufficiently that, between us, we shall manage it. Lord Westmorland is exceedingly good at loo.”
The duke glanced at Rob, and Georgiana thought it was not a happy glance. “That may be, but others...” His eyes traveled to her. “...are not as experienced.”
