Chapter 5

Splendor hesitated in the dark of Mrs. Hanney’s half landing. She’d sooner remove her eye teeth and distribute them among the deserving poor on a silver platter than hear her footsteps echo all the way to the bottom of the uncarpeted stairs. Not only did she not possess a pair of pliers—never mind the silver platter—if that Stillmore skunk had pulled the bell rope ten minutes ago, she wouldn’t be wearing the gown she’d got for a snip at Madame Renare’s because no one liked the quilted sleeves.

It was all the proof she needed that that carriage, rumbling

along at a discreet distance behind her all the way home from the tournament, was his. He may have spared her earlier. Obviously it was the limit of his graciousness. Now he meant to catch her red-handed, as herself.

She had to go down these stairs. Mrs. Hanney had a nose the size of the Tower of London. Already Splendor sensed the woman wasn’t satisfied with the story that Nathan was her brother, Topaz, her sister, Gabe her visiting clergyman, herself a lady who had fallen on hard times, as if she smelled the fact that two members of Starkadder’s gang had rooms on her first floor. If she now got wind of Splendor and the chess tournament, Splendor’s next room would be in Newgate and not on the first floor either.

She grasped the banister. Papa had been a great one for standing his ground beneath tables and window ledges while the bailiffs hammered on their door. Never bolt till the lock is sprung was his motto. Look at how things had turned around for her this morning. Maybe they would again?

The one saving grace when veils were not an option and Stillmore meant to catch her red-handed? Last week someone had thrown a brick through the fanlight, and the planking Mrs. Hanney had nailed up meant Splendor could face the earl without fear of him seeing her face. The hallway was almost in total darkness. As it was, as she glided down the last few steps, she could barely discern him seated on the spindle chair outside the sitting room door, so why should he discern how closely she resembled Nathan?

Even better? She was used to not seeing the nose in front of her face with these spectacles. Just the same she advanced slowly in case she fell headfirst over a chair.

“Your Grace. What an honor.”

Horror was the word her tongue hovered over. If she’d nothing to hide she’d surely offer him her hand to kiss? After what had happened when her shoulders brushed his back this morning, it seemed politic to keep her hand fisted in her skirts, though. After all, he wasn’t unhandsome.

Despite the gloom, she could see Mrs. Hanney standing like a frog-footed statue across the passageway to the back hall. It was vital Splendor get him somewhere private. The sitting room was never lit either. Mrs. Hanney spent the money on gin. Splendor cleared her throat.

“Would you … Would you care for … for some tea?”

“Tea?”

The chair creaked as he shot to his immaculately booted, until she’d singed them earlier, feet. Surely he didn’t think she was about to offer him something else? Like? Like drink, for instance? Her throat dried but she went on.

“Yes. Tea, Your Grace. Please don’t sound so surprised. However it may seem and whatever may be more to your taste, we have nothing stronger here,” she lied. With Mrs. Hanney standing there too.

Before she could stop him, he didn’t just reach for her hand, he dragged it to his lips, almost yanking her off her feet.

“Let’s just dispense with all the damned formalities, shall we? Hmm?”

Her heart lurched. Despite all her pains, he knew. It was why he’d shot a tree trunk this morning at the very last, and with such cool deliberation, it had taken every ounce of her self-determination not to faint among the crows cawing overhead. Now he deliberately pulled her close in order to tell her that if she didn’t withdraw from the tournament, he’d set the law upon her. For that matter, there might even be men waiting outside ready to drag her before the magistrates. She could tell them about the illegal duel, but they’d probably pat him on the back. He was an English earl, a species so powerful they squashed women like her as easily as flies, and she, like a damn fool, had just taken her guard down. What on earth did she want to go thinking he wasn’t unhandsome for? He was an odious toad who just happened to be more handsome than other odious toads. Where were her feelings for Gabe? The light who lived across the way? Well?

“The formalities, Your Grace?” She offered her best smile largely for Mrs. Hanney’s benefit. Certainly it wasn’t for her own. “And what are they?”

His eyes glinted like a wolf’s in the shadowed hall. “You know perfectly well what they are. Despite your tomfooled idiocy, you are anything but stupid, so why don’t you take that idiotic simper off your face?”

If only. But it was as frozen as her hand, a short inch from his sensuous, stubble-dusted lips.

“Your Grace, may I say how honored I am that you think so highly of my intelligence. Now, if you would just like to come in this room here and sit down, we can discuss this—”

“Sittin’ room’s not tidy, unless you want to do it yourself?” Mrs. Hanney muttered. “Although, I suppose I could do that for ten shillin’s extra, me lady? I could make the tea too, for another three? You’d need to bring some chairs though, ‘less you and your fancy man don’t mind sittin’ on the floor. Ain’t none in there. Burned them as firewood I did. Last winter, it were. We’re all very poor ‘ere, see? And your rent’s due.”

“But didn’t I already give you that last week?”

“Well, more’s accumulated for this week. That’s the thing with rent when you’re wantin’ that little bit extra.”

Splendor swallowed. Despite the way she’d glided down the stairs, despite the way she was dressed, no lady would live in a dump like this. Be blackmailed into paying extra for it either. Unless

she could somehow make the earl see that was why she wanted the ten thousand pounds, so she didn’t have to stay here?

“Let’s dispense with the discussion too, shall we?” Stillmore lowered his disconcerting eyelashes. Despite his damned arrogance and the scowling set of his face, their length raised prickles on more than her palms. “I came to see your cousin. But you’ve greeted me instead.”

“Cousin?” Mrs. Hanney’s ears pricked up.

“Oh, don’t either of you pretend you don’t know who he is unless you also have more than one who plays chess. I mean your cousin, Nathan,” Stillmore snarled.

“Oh …” She smiled—a difficult task with Mrs. Hanney staring like that. “That one?”

“He’s here, isn’t he?”

Was she mistaken in thinking he didn’t know how right he was? That he’d blasted that tree trunk out of the goodness of his heart? Stood quivering beneath the albatrossic weight of the pistol for several moments afterward, too, before striding from the field? That he really didn’t know she was her cousin? The one she’d said to Mrs. Hanney was her brother?

If Nathan was who he wanted to see, and Stillmore didn’t think they were one and the same, then she should fetch him. It was really very simple.

“Well. I … ”

She hesitated. If Stillmore exuded something less than a honeyed corn snake, perhaps she could fetch Nathan. If the whole of London didn’t damn him for an untrustworthy, ruthless, black-hearted bastard. If Mrs. Hanney wasn’t standing there, staring at nothing yet everything in the gloom of the hall, readying herself to witness the whole charade of Splendor going up the stairs and Nathan coming down, then up the rent further, she could fetch him. But how could she, given that they were both going to pounce? It was better to turn the tables. To smile too.

“And how would you know he is here, Your Grace? Unless you’ve been watching the house? Hmm? Well? Do you hear that, Mrs. Hanney? It is something that must surely concern even your good—”

“You can take it as read that I was watching,” he muttered.

“Then why ask to see me?”

“Not because you are interesting. So you can wipe that nauseating smirk off your face. I asked your landlady there to fetch him.”

“Indeed you did, sir.” Mrs. Hanney bobbed the faintest curtsy.

“And I knocked on the door and said, ‘Gentleman’s ‘ere to see you.’ Comin’s and goin’s here, you got no idea what one of them is goin’ to come down them stairs. Go up them, either. Cousin, brother—”

“Why? Why would you wish to see him?”

Splendor spoke calmly, but her ears clanged as if she’d been struck with a frying pan. This was finished if Mrs. Hanney didn’t shut up. Why hadn’t she just gone up the stairs? The woman didn’t understand Stillmore stalking her. She just understood what she could get out of the fact he was.

“Why do you think?”

“That is assuming you believe we ladies do think, Your Grace, that—”

“Because I was at Boodle’s this morning. And I wasn’t the only one.”

“I see. Boodle’s?” Once again she glanced at the sitting room door. “Well? Are you sure you wouldn’t at least like to discuss this fact of where you were and what you saw in the priv—”

“There is nothing to discuss except for the fact that I know that little skunk—”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Can take Chiltren.”

Only with the greatest of difficulties did she overlook, little and skunk for take Chiltren.

“My cousin can what, Your Grace?”

“Take Chiltren. Are you so cloth-eared you didn’t hear?”

“Yes. I did hear. I was merely astonished to hear you say it. I didn’t think you rated his playing.”

“I don’t. Not when he plays like that.”

Was it possible he had no idea of how offensive he sounded? Unlike her?

“Well, he’s not the only one playing like that.”

He shrugged. “Of course, I accept he was probably nervous.”

Of course Nathan was nervous, and he could take Chiltren. He just hadn’t managed earlier. For reasons that could be laid entirely

at this man’s door. So now the game had gone to extra time, something that had never happened to her before.

“That is so very gracious of you, Your Grace. You don’t think the duel he’d just been obliged to fight was in any way responsible for his lack of judgment? Being accused of cheating by a great man such as yourself—”

“If you cheat, you take the consequences. You asked me not to shoot him, and I refrained.”

“Not because I begged you. On that, I’d stake my—I mean …“

“I can also tell you here and now, Chiltren is easily taken. He’s an amateur where chess is concerned. Barely knows the difference between a rook and a queen. Today he was lucky. And tomorrow he will be lucky again if that damned whippersnapper doesn’t change his game.” The low-throated growl wasn’t just feral, it reminded her of prowling wolves, padding in circles, biding their time. There was something horribly caressing about it, however, especially where the fine sinews of her skin were concerned.

“I see. Well, that’s kind of you—“

“You weren’t there so you wouldn’t know just how badly he needs to do that.”

But she had been there. Didn’t he know she was Nathan? Or didn’t he care? And was she making a mistake letting him rattle her with his talk of amateurs and how hopeless she plainly was? She was good at smiling, remember?

“Yes. Well, thank you so much for telling me, Your Grace. You may be sure I will pass the message on to Nathan who is—is—”

“Lyin’ down, Your Lordship. Mornin’ was taxin’ for him if you ask me.”

Splendor wasn’t asking, and she was sure the earl wasn’t either. Splendor would have to fork out a fortune for this later. Still if that was all she’d to do and all Stillmore had come to say and it let her out of this nicely, did it matter?

“I’m quite sure His Grace isn’t asking, Mrs. Hanney. But we will speak of it later. Yes, Your Grace, Nathan is…” Deliberately she broke off, pretending to consider what Nathan was, as if it were of no interest to her. “A little indisposed, it is true, but I will be sure to pass on your good wishes and tell him what you think of his playing. I’m certain your remarks will speed his recovery.”

“I really don’t care what the blasted blazes Nathan is doing. Don’t you understand? What I care about is him winning tomorrow.”

He grasped her arm, and her heart skipped more than a beat. It skipped four bars’ worth. A whole line of music. Maybe it skipped the page, the symphony? He knew who she was—exactly who she was—that Nathan did not exist, and she was the damn fool who thought she could continue with the charade.

“I see. Well, I will be sure to pass on your good wishes. Now, if you don’t mind—”

“That’s providing I have any. Good wishes are not why I’m here.”

Why almost didn’t bear thinking about if he knew she was lying. Was her mind really that low? When she was betrothed to Gabe and the man was a rake? She passed her tongue over her lips.

“You may be sure I will let him know. Then he will decide his next move.”

“Do you seriously think he has one? Somehow I don’t. That is why you will tell him something from me.”

“Really?” She lowered her gaze. While her heart felt like lead boots in that instant, she set her jaw. “What?”

That if he didn’t beat Chiltren as she should have, he’d go straight to the magistrates, and he’d tell. It must be. After all, why would he proposition her? Unless he was offering to help? Then where would she be? Knocked out in round two. That’s where. Her next move wouldn’t be accepting. He let go of her arm. “That I am at his disposal.”