Playing To Win

Playing to Win

Laurel Ames

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Acknowledgments

I owe many thanks to Mr. Edward W. Eckman and Dr. John P. Sokol for valuable research material and expert advice.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter One

London—September 1815

A low fog crept across the clearing, shrouding both men and horses from the knees down. The jingle of harness, and a snort, seemed overloud in the dark stillness. Tony Cairnbrooke’s seconds conferred with Lord Vonne’s men over the pistols. The horses steamed gently. It was damp and cold for this time of year.

“He’s agreed to twenty paces, Tony. One shot each.” Tony’s cousin Winwood looked serious for once.

“Is it light enough yet?” Tony asked numbly, his only concern at this point to get the affair over with. Dueling was so stupid.

“Give it another few minutes,” said Win, scanning the eastern horizon.

“What did Vonne say when you conveyed my apologies to him?” Tony asked tiredly.

“Tony, you made love to his wife. You can’t just apologize and expect that to be an end to it.”

“I know,” said Tony, shaking his head, “but I was drunk— Drunk! I must have been insane.” The only hatless man present, Tony ran an impatient hand through his damp brown hair.

“You can best Vonne. I’ve seen you shoot. You are sober now, aren’t you?” Winwood asked, in some concern.

“Very!”

Winwood left Tony alone and went to talk in whispers to the few other men clustered under the dripping trees. The rain had stopped, and Tony thought that once the fog lifted it might be a fine day...for someone else. It was amazing how fast the sky lightened, and one could say it was now daylight, rather than night, even without a sunrise.

Lord Vonne paced idly, as though this were an everyday matter to him. Indeed, it nearly was. He had fought three other men in the short time he had been married to Madeleine. His black goatee and mustache looked particularly sinister in the dim light.

Vonne caught Tony looking at him, and nodded in a businesslike way. Tony went to stand back-to-back with him. The count went quickly as the two men strode away from each other. But Tony needed no time to decide what to do. He had considered it all night.

When it was time, he turned, brought the pistol up deliberately beside his head and fired into the air. He was, after all, in the wrong.

Vonne waited, as though he had half expected this. He slowly took aim and fired. Tony did no more than sway for a moment, as though he had lost his footing. There was something warm below his collarbone. Strange that it should feel only as though someone had run into him. It was not what he had been expecting. There was an unpleasant roaring in his ears that would have blotted out all talk, if there had been any. Then he couldn’t see.

They all stood motionless, watching him. It seemed a long time. When he tried to take a step, he went down on his knees.

“He’s hit!” yelled Winwood, and ran to catch Tony as he fell forward.

* * *

The sun was streaming into the Barclay drawing room after a night of rain and morning of dreary clouds.

“I hear that young Cairnbrooke has been shot,” Lady Jane Stanley said to her young protégée Serafina Barclay.

“What a pity. I hope he survives,” said Sera, turning her attention from the sunshine to Lady Jane.

Her hazel eyes were quite lovely, Lady Jane thought. The child’s nose could be straighter, but she had a good figure and lovely hair, a delicate brown touched with auburn. All things considered, the nose was not all that noticeable.

“Why are you staring at me?” Sera asked, laughing at her older friend’s myopic regard. Lady Jane always reminded Sera of an inquisitive bird, especially because of the way the ringlets of hair danced above her ears when she cocked her head.

“You know him?”

“I’ve met him...at an assembly. He hardly gave me a second glance, of course. He had eyes only for Lady Vonne.”

“But, my dear, that is the woman he was shot over.”

“She seems such a cruel woman. You would think men would be smart enough to see through her. If she has a dozen lovers, she can’t possibly care about all of them.”

“Men may be smart where money is concerned and quite dense in other matters.” Lady Jane clapped her teacup down in its saucer decisively, causing Sera to look up in inquiry.

“One really feels for such a misguided boy.”

“He’s not a boy. He should have known better,” Sera said.

“Men do lose their heads sometimes, but I imagine Vonne’s bullet has driven all thoughts of Lady Vonne from Cairnbrooke’s head.”

“Will Vonne be prosecuted?” Sera asked as she tried to shake the mental image of Tony Cairnbrooke meeting with a bullet.

“I suppose that is what he is waiting about to find out. He’s sent his wife out of town, though. No one knows where.”

Sera chuckled. “How do you find out all this gossip?”

“I have a great many friends, dear, and I pay many calls. I am invited everywhere. That is why your father enlisted my aid in bringing you into the ton.”

“Yes, I know,” said Sera, with a sigh and a raised eyebrow. “Vonne is a victim, too, then.”

“What did you think of him?”

“Vonne? I’ve only seen him—”

“No, silly, young Cairnbrooke,” Lady Jane said impatiently.

“He’s handsome enough, with the most compelling blue eyes. Although last time I saw him—at the theater—he looked almost...tortured.”

“I suspect that is over losing his brother. At least that is what his mother says.”

“Belgium?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know. Are you one of her intimates? Please convey my sympathies.”

“Would you like to call on her with me, tomorrow?”

“They can scarcely want morning callers,” Sera reasoned, “with one son dead and the other...perhaps— What are you up to?” demanded Sera, suddenly suspicious. “You are plotting something. I can always tell.”

“Perhaps a call would seem a bit forward,” Lady Jane mused as she paced the floor, back and forth, in and out of the bars of sunlight, until she had Sera entranced. “But to invite them here to dine would be perfectly acceptable.”

“Who?” Sera demanded, snapping back to attention.

“The Cairnbrookes, of course, and Anthony. Haven’t you been listening?”

“Ah, I see. Another victim.”

“A prospective husband should not be referred to by a young lady past twenty as a victim.”

“I recommend you not make any plans yet,” said Sera, putting down her cup.

“Why not? You are not averse to him?”

“You don’t even know if the poor fellow will survive.”

“There is no reason to be so cold-blooded about it.”

“I’m a realist, Lady Jane. Besides, if this Anthony has so lately been enthralled enough with Lady Vonne as to die for her love, he is hardly likely to express an interest in me, no matter how much money Father has.”

“Don’t be so mercenary. It won’t be a question of money, in his case.”

Sera shrugged and poured herself more tea. The daughter of a banker, Sera was rather thick-skinned when it came to men. She had been courted so often these past three years for her father’s fortune, she had ceased to place much faith in any men, except those, such as her father’s friends, who were too old for her.

The most sickening feeling was that men pretended to like her. She could wish she was not acute enough to detect this, but it would be worse to be married to someone who lied in such an insidious way. Eventually she got rid of them, but it was not always easy. In Cairnbrooke’s case she did not look forward to the experience because she had a feeling she could like him.

* * *

The next day threatened rain, so Sera passed up her morning ride to pick up some items Marie, her French dresser, assured her were essential to her wardrobe. Marie was invaluable in this way. She took all the work out of dressing for society. She scouted the fashionable shops for just what would suit Sera.

“Mademoiselle has but to try it on to discover that it is perfect,” Marie said in the carriage.

This was almost always the case. Sera admitted to herself that she had no turn for fashion. When complimented on her elegant attire, she merely thanked people and took all the credit for Marie’s talents. Clothes scarcely concerned her, unless they were costumes for one of her beloved plays. Her father had interested her in the theater at a young age, going so far as to invite Armand Travesian, actor turned theater owner, into his circle of friends. Sera had been his devotee ever since, had had more than a hand in this season’s production, Lady Mellefleur’s Boudoir, and was even now putting the finishing touches on the script for next season. She was still mulling over the proper costuming for The Count Recounts when they arrived at the shop.

Today it was a hat to go with her pearl gray riding habit, just such a small one as she wanted, close-fitting, with a point dipping gently over the brow, and with a plume not large enough to carry the thing off her head when she cantered in the park.

They purchased the hat and, upon inquiring after antique clothes, ostensibly for a masquerade, got Madame Lupy to admit that her predecessor had left a number of wigs in a trunk, with a ball gown made thirty years before but never so much as worn. Marie was careful not to exclaim too loudly over the find. Sera bought the lot and had it loaded into the carriage immediately.

“We’ll stop at the theater on the way home. Armand should be rehearsing actors for The Count.”

Sera’s coachman and footman thought nothing of delivering a trunk full of clothes to the Agora Theater. Only Marie knew that Sera’s involvement with Armand Travesian and his theater was less than respectable. But then, Sera had so little fun. In Marie’s opinion, it did no harm.

* * *

The Agora, on Stanhope Street, was not a new theater, but it was newly refurbished and renamed, thanks to Sera. It was tall and narrow, with two tiers of boxes between the pit and the balcony seats. The gold damask hangings between the boxes, and the newly recovered chairs, echoed the richness of the gilt scrollwork. Perhaps it was all paint and illusion, Sera thought as she made her way toward the stage, but the theater fairly glittered by candlelight.

The building gave up a fourth of its precious ground to the front portico and anteroom, above which were Travesian’s office and living apartment. There was no backstage to speak of. Behind the last scenery backdrop was the wall fronting on the next street. All the dressing rooms, and the prop room, were located in the rabbit warren under the raised stage.

Seating four hundred, it was not the smallest theater in the area by any means, but Travesian had frequently to fall back on Sera’s resources for costumes and even salaries when they had not enough patronage. That was mostly a matter of the past now. Since the opening of Lady Mellefleur’s Boudoir, the Agora had been paying its own way.

* * *

“We have to take out the sword fight,” Travesian complained to her in front of the two men who had been practicing on the stage.

“But the fight carries the scene. How can we do without it?”

“I cannot find an actor who can fence.”

“Nonsense. You can fence.”

“I’m too large for the role of DeVries. You could play it better than I could— Now there’s a thought....”

“Don’t be absurd. I have to prompt the actors. I can’t do everything myself.”

“I was joking,” Armand said, with his expansive smile.

“Sometimes it’s hard to tell,” Sera said petulantly. “What about a fencing master who can act?”

“Who do you think they are?” Armand pointed to the men on the stage, who shrugged and waited.

“The villain hasn’t many lines. Hire an actor for the count, and a fencing master for the villain, to make the count look good.”

“I suppose it’s worth a try. You two, wait here for me. Come back to the dressing rooms, Sera. There’s someone I want you to meet.” He led her to the cramped dressing rooms under the stage, which always seemed to her like the cabins on a sailing ship.

A handsome young man with hazel eyes looked up from a script he was studying.

“Count DeVries!” Sera said.

“If you think so, then we had better hire him.”

“Albert Brel,” said the man, with the faintest trace of an accent.

“This is Miss Serafina Barclay, one of my...patrons, but that is to be kept in the strictest confidence.”

“Of course,” said Brel, seeming surprised to be trusted with this secret.

“I’m pleased to meet you.” Sera seated herself and listened to Brel read a scene. He needed some work, but the script was new to him, and he would sound ever so much better onstage, rather than in the cramped dressing room. Sera approved Travesian’s choice on the spot and went contentedly home, feeling the morning had been well spent.

* * *

“And what are you studying today, child?” Barclay asked as he entered his library. The foolishly fond smile that he reserved for his only child masked an acute business mind, but matched his lack of adroitness when it came to women.

“Just the papers. Not much going on just now. Shall we go out to Gott Farm for a week?”

“I must have been neglecting you, if you are that bored with town.” Barclay pulled his waistcoat down over his slight paunch, and Sera smiled at this new habit of her father’s.

“I am never bored.”

“But you scarcely go out, except to the libraries or galleries.”

“Nonsense. I go to the theater several times a week.”

“Always to the Agora—the same play.”

“Travesian does it so nicely, though—I never tire of it. Wait until he tells you about next season’s production,” she teased. “I have asked him to dine with us Sunday.”

“I’m almost sorry I ever invited him here.”

“That’s not true. You find him entertaining, too.”

“As Henry VIII, not always as a dinner guest.”

“But he can enliven the dullest party.”

“Precisely!” Her father began pacing, hands behind his back. “You should not be throwing dull dinner parties for me. You should be going to balls and routs and whatever those other things are.” He fluttered an impatient hand. “You should be meeting people your own age.”

“But I do go to balls and parties with Lady Jane, and I meet a great many people my own age.”

“You do?”

“You know it is insulting of you to be so transparent, Father, dear. You are leading up to something. I can tell. And it must be disagreeable, or you wouldn’t be at it so long.”

“I do underestimate you. I hope what I have in mind will not be disagreeable. A dinner party for some...friends of mine.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so? You know I love to entertain your friends. Who is it? Mr. Southey, or Lord Grenville perhaps?”

“No...no, I don’t think that would do,” Barclay said after a moment’s thought. “Why did you—?”

“There are one or two questions I would like to ask them.”

“I thought so. Just such a dull evening as I have been complaining of. No, this will be Lord and Lady Cairnbrooke—and their son, Anthony, to make up even numbers. Lady Jane will be here.”

“Oh.” Sera feigned surprise. “Who else?”

“No one else,” her father said innocently.

“Perhaps I will ask Armand,” she teased, then took pity on him when she saw his terrified look. “Come now, Father, let us leave off with this jousting. This is one of Lady Jane’s arrangements, isn’t it?”

“Well, she did suggest the meeting—and the whole point of her taking you about is to find you a suitable husband.”

“Yes, I know, and poor Cairnbrooke is probably still so weak from his wound he can’t evade the trap.”

“I’m quite sure he comes willingly.”

“Which is why his parents are bringing him, his mother for moral support, while his father holds the gun to his head.”

“It is not like that at all, I assure you.”

Sera sent him one of her penetrating looks.

“All right, I suppose that is a pretty accurate picture, but do you mind so much?”

Sera chuckled. “You are incorrigible. Is there nothing you won’t do to get rid of me?”

“This time it will be different. He’s not marrying for money, but to put a stop to all this talk about him and the Vonnes. It is an excellent family. You will have a title. I have spoken to his father...that is...” Barclay had the grace to look embarrassed.

“Just how far have the arrangements gone?”

“What do you mean? The details of the meal I—”

“I mean, have you only drafted the marriage settlements, or has his mother already written the announcement for The Post?”

“Well,” he said with a paternal smile, “the first is pretty well taken care of, not the second—not to my knowledge, anyway.”

“I suppose I have to marry someday. I just always assumed it would be another dull banker or lawyer, not such a romantic figure as Cairnbrooke.”

“You’re making fun of him. You always make fun of the ton.”

“Well, they do such stupid things sometimes, and other than supporting playwrights and artists, I’m not sure what use some of them are. Although they do sometimes surprise me.”

“You will find Lord Cairnbrooke to be a man of excellent good sense.”

“I’m sure, which is why he wants to rid himself of a troublesome son almost as much as you want rid of me.”

“The truth of the matter is, they want to put an end to the talk as soon as may be.”

“Before he is well enough to be bothersome again, you mean?”

“They feel marriage, especially with a sensible girl, will settle him down, give him responsibilities, an interest in life.” Barclay resumed his methodical pacing.

“But what if he doesn’t care for me?”

“I can’t see why he wouldn’t. You are pretty enough. No one would know to look at you how bookish you are.”

“Why, thank you,” Sera said, with a prim smile.

“Well, you know what I mean.”

Sera laughed her rich laugh. “Very well. I will do it for Lady Jane.”

“I don’t understand.” Her father stopped in front of the desk.

“It’s been obvious to me for some time that she will never marry you until I am settled. She is afraid of interfering in your household.”

“You little fox. I should have known we could not keep that from you.” He lifted her chin up with a finger. “So I will go from one cat’s paw to another. Just as you like.”

“What night shall I invite them for?”

“Saturday next—but I’ve already taken care of that.”

“Father! What if I had refused?”

“I knew I could rely on your good judgment. You have never failed me.”

Sera tried to go back to her perusal of The Times after her father left her, but she found her thoughts interrupted by the memory of a pair of laughing blue eyes that looked like they were lit from within. She knew an uneasy sympathy for this Tony, since she had an inkling of what had driven him to such stupid extremes, but she did not think it would work. If it came to making a push to fascinate him, she could not. Such artifices would cause her to laugh at herself the way she sometimes laughed at other women.

* * *

“Would you like to look over this draft of the marriage settlements? Quite handsome of Barclay, I assure you, but he can afford it.” Lord Cairnbrooke polished off his brandy and raised the paper to close scrutiny again as he sat with Tony in his dim study.

“No, I’m sure they’re fine. You are good at that sort of thing, Father,” Tony said in a lackluster way from the other armchair.

Lord Cairnbrooke eyed him suspiciously, but could detect no insult in the remark. He smiled and rubbed his hands together. “Where is your mother?” he demanded rhetorically. “Amanda!” he shouted, without leaving the room or even getting up. “We are going to be late!”

Tony winced and leaned his head back on the chair pillow.

“Here, drink this,” his father commanded, putting a glass of brandy in his hand. “No one will expect you to make her an offer tonight. Simply get acquainted, and make yourself pleasing to her. I have no doubts on that score. If the girl proves impossible, of course, we can still bow out of it.”

“Oh, she’s not impossible. In fact, she’s a good deal more respectable than any of us. If anything, she may be too straitlaced to suit you.”

“Good Lord—not a bluestocking, I hope.”

“No...no,” Tony mused, trying to call up Serafina’s face. “I remember she has quite a nice smile, when she can spare it, and the loveliest hair.”

“I didn’t know you were even acquainted with her. That is well done of you.”

“Unfortunately, she has most likely seen me make a fool of myself on more than one occasion, so that is no advantage to me.”

“Don’t let it prey on your mind— Amanda!” Lord Cairnbrooke shouted again, without even turning his head.

Tony jumped, and the door opened to admit a footman. “Lady Cairnbrooke has been waiting in the carriage, sir.”

“Just like her not to tell us.” Cairnbrooke solicitously helped his son out of the chair, but drew a grunt of surprise from him by clapping him on the shoulder.

* * *

Tony was looking very handsome, Sera thought, in spite of a slight pallor and his arm still being in a sling. The dinner was excellent; the conversation was a compromise. Not for the first time in her career as a hostess, Sera had to bridge the gaps between guests with divergent interests. Her father would have talked of nothing but finance, Lord Cairnbrooke of nothing but horses and the hunt. In politics they might have found common ground, but she decided not to risk it. Besides, that would let out Lady Amanda and Lady Jane, and poor Tony, who seemed to have scant interest in anything. Small wonder. He looked to be turning a little feverish, and it took all his effort to eat one-handed without a disaster.

Under his father’s menacing scrutiny, Tony made one sally at polite conversation and then subsided.

“Is that Belgium lace, my dear?” Lady Amanda asked.

“Yes, it’s very nearly the only thing I brought back with me,” Sera answered.

“You were in Belgium? When?” Tony asked, with a spark of interest.

“In the spring,” Sera said hesitantly, not wanting to remind him. “We thought it was safe to take a house there for the season. I had no idea it would get so exciting.”

“I should never have left you there just to come back and tend to business,” Barclay said with regret.

“But I chose to stay. None of us took Napoleon very seriously then.”

“You were trapped there, during the battle?” Tony asked eagerly.

“No. I suppose I could have left at any time, but I did not want to. The suspense was terrible. I wanted to know the worst as soon as possible. Fortunately, we won, but—”

“The cost was dear,” Tony said, looking away.

“Yes, my maid was scandalized when I ripped up my muslin dresses for bandages,” she said lightly, trying to divert his thoughts from his brother.

“You what?” asked Lady Amanda and Lady Jane in unison.

“We couldn’t sacrifice the sheets. We needed those for the wounded.”