Page 92 of A Gentleman's Wager
“I was hoping to discuss that ditty of mine. You did promise to give it a proper hearing.”
Had he promised that? Perhaps he had.
“I’ll wait for you downstairs, shall I? In your study, perhaps?” Charles tugged upon his waistcoat and the bottom button came off in his hand. He squinted irritably at it, then stuffed it into a pocket. “You are coming, Lucerne, are you not?”
“I’ll be right there.”
He closed his eyes once Charles was gone. It was pure luck that he hadn’t arrived sooner. If he had… Lucerne’s heart pounded as though it meant to break free of his chest. What was to say he hadn’t seen them? Christ he’d acted like a fool.
His gaze landed on the pool of semen splattered across the tabletop. Charles had been staring right at it, and he might play the bumbling fool, but he was smart enough to put clues together and create a plausible narrative.
“Shit!”
Lucerne pulled out his silk handkerchief and wiped away the evidence. What a sodding mess.
-51-
Bella
Bella determined to keep a wide berth of Vaughan following his explosive outburst, anticipating some form of payback. As it turned out, the marquis proved rather easier to avoid than anticipated. For several days he eschewed the company of the other members of the house party entirely. When he did condescend to join them once again, he and Bella fell into a curious sort of dance, like two identical poles of a magnet: the presence of one repelled the other. Ergo, Bella would enter a room, and Pennerley would instantly turn aside, perhaps making some pithy remark to whoever was present, and then leave before she had a chance to make an equally pithy reply. If she were present first, he would instantly find a reason to be elsewhere, and if they did ever come close to exchanging words, then Lucerne would suddenly materialise between them and whisk Pennerley off somewhere on some matter of urgency on some distant portion of the estate.
The longer this strange waltz continued, the more it began to irk Bella. Soon enough, rather than attempting to avoid Vaughan, she deliberately sought interactions. She would tiptoe into conversations and look for ways of cornering him to force an exchange of words. Sadly, he always seemed to be one step ahead, and inevitably eluded her. The man had preternatural senses.
Louisa, if she had been of a mind to engage with such things—she mostly drifted about looking wan and largely silent—would likely have told Bella she was acting foolishly. Who the devil deliberately strove to taunt a tiger? Yet, it peeved Bella more to be ignored after such intimacy, than to be verbally maligned.
It was not even as if she desired Vaughan’s attention, but she couldn’t quite shake the itch of him, like their interactions had planted a burr beneath her skin that no amount of scratching could remove.
She had tried, once or twice, to engage Lucerne on the matter, but he refused to be drawn, saying only that the marquis was a law unto himself. At least he did not try to pretend Vaughan’s avoidance of her was in her head.
They were gathered in the drawing room this afternoon. An unexpected sootfall in the cosy upper parlour the previous day having made it unusable until the walls could be washed, and the carpets and furnishings beaten. The light outside had already begun to fade to a bronze glow. Charles sat dozing by the fireplace, while Louisa lingered by the French doors gazing into the middle distance with her much neglected embroidery across her lap. She’d hadn’t sewn a stitch since their return from Richmond. In fact, her needle wasn’t even threaded. The waistcoat, embroidered into playful scenes around the buttonholes and pockets, had been intended as a gift for Wakefield. It was the only item associated with him her friend had not cast into the hearth flames two nights earlier. Bella had stood by and watched love notes and pressed flowers curl and disintegrate into ash. Louisa’s eyes had remained entirely dry.
“Won’t you join us closer to the fire, Lou? It’s awful draughty over there.”
The wind was up again. Right on cue, a howling gust rattled the aged window latches, causing the drapes to billow.
“We thought we might play Shades.”
Charles looked up from his repose. He had a sherry glass balanced on his belly. “I thought it was to be Snapdragon.”
“Charades,” Lucerne confirmed. “We agreed that none of us cared to risk our fingers just to win a raisin.”
In Lucerne’s case it was likely his coat cuffs he was concerned for rather than his fingertips.
“It was Shades,” Bella reiterated. “I have paper and charcoal all ready. Or perhaps you have a game you’ve brought from London you might teach us, Lucerne?”
Lucerne considered, fingers steepled and his eyes hooded. He was as immaculately turned out as if he were expected at a London soiree, but even though his presence lifted her spirits each time she gazed at him, even Bella acknowledged that the last few days had etched a web of lines across his brow. “I’m afraid I can’t think of anything suitable that won’t involve tearing about the house, and I think we all agreed that we weren’t in the mood for that.”
Bella moved to sit by him on the gilt-legged settee. She leaned in close to his ear, blocking her face from the room with her fan. “Does that mean you know a game or two that is wholly unsuitable? Perhaps, something we might play in private?”
Pleasingly, she raised a smile. Lucerne brought his lips down level with her ear. “I thought ofLe Baiser à la Capucine, but it is not—”
“A Kiss… Kissing in an Alcove?” Bella translated. Her French had never been great, which she acknowledged was entirely her own fault. Rote learning French nouns and masculine and feminine forms simply couldn’t compete with a wild gallop across the moors or sneaking into the grounds of Lauwine to while away a few hours in her willow cave. Strangely enough both of those locations had also been distinctly lacking in handsome Frenchmen looking to converse with wily maidens—the one thing that might have prompted her learning. “Did we not play that already?”
“That was Grope Cock, which I recall you enjoyed, but is definitely not suitable in our current company.”
“Do you play it a lot with Vaughan?” she asked, unable to keep the marquis from her thoughts. She’d let the two of them make love to her, and no matter how ardently Lucerne pleased her, she couldn’t get that night out of her head, nor the idea of what the two men did together when alone.
“Bella, don’t,” he said, failing to hide the nip of exasperation in his voice. His eyes took on a hunted look. “Whatever it is you believe you know about us, I assure you, you’re mistaken.” He stood and held his drink aloft. “Shades it is. I’ll sit first.” He moved to a footstool.
