as if he intended to object that there would be any doubt about that outcome. “There is always doubt, Ferrin. Your opponent might turn too soon. Your pistol might misfire. Allworthy—whichever cousin throws the glove—might be on the side of the angels that day. When I cast about for revenge, I want complete assurance that there can be but one end.”
“I believe you make me afraid, Wellsley.”
Wellsley threw down a card in the manner a man might toss the gauntlet. “Good.”
Chuckling, Ferrin turned over a card from one of the dummy decks, then laid his own card. “How many shepherdesses do you think are here tonight?”
“I counted six, one of them your sister Imogene. Will she be put out, do you think, that her costume is not at all original?”
“She is the only one carrying a crook with a blue bow. In her mind it is enough to set her apart from the rest of the flock. Besides, she is married and not set on making the same impression upon the guests as Wynetta. It is Netta’s debut, after all. Or nearly so. She made her come out at the Calumet affair a few weeks ago.”
“I danced a set with her, remember?”
Ferrin did not, but he didn’t say so. “Good of you. She was frantic she would go unnoticed.”
“Not possible. Your sister is quite lovely, a diamond really, though I suppose that’s escaped your notice.”
“Hardly. I admit that it surprises that you find her so.”
“I will not inquire what that means. It’s bound to be an uncomfortable conversation.”
Ferrin nodded. This evening his sister was Cleopatra. A black wig covered her cornsilk-colored hair, and she’d darkened her brows and lined her eyes. The effect was as dramatic as she was. Never shy about holding court whether she had admirers or only her family around her, Netta was immediately taken with her role as queen. It did not matter in the least if they were young bucks in togas, Corinthians wearing armor, or gentleman courtiers from two centuries past, she gathered them to her like children to a bake-shop window. Early in the evening he’d stood with his stepfather and watched her effortlessly charm her company. In contrast to Sir Geoffrey, who nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other, Ferrin was all admiration. The success of this sister, his stepsister really, meant that she would be off the marriage mart quickly and that he would have to suffer but a handful more of these occasions. Ian and Imogene, his stepfather’s twins, were both married four years ago at twenty. If Wynetta accepted a proposal this Season, then it was left only to Restell, another stepbrother, to succumb to leg-shackling. Unfortunately, Restell was not as interested in the state of marriage as he was in the state of his affairs. For reasons that Ferrin could not entirely comprehend, Restell was determined to pattern his own life after Ferrin’s, or rather what he imagined Ferrin’s life to be. As Ferrin was still unmarried at two and thirty, it occurred to him that Restell would require rescue and intervention for years to come if he was not to bankrupt the family with his gaming or be at the center of a scandal with his paramours.
Ferrin wondered if settling his stepfather’s four offspring in good marriages was merely preparation for what lay ahead. At twelve and eight, his half-sisters Hannah and Portia were already twice the handful that Wynetta had ever been—or was likely to be. For all that Netta could have trod the boards at Drury Lane with her penchant for dramatic sighs and asides, she still was possessed of a keen mind and a sensible disposition. Hannah and Portia were not. His youngest sisters were intelligent, he supposed, but hadn’t sense enough between them to find shelter in a rainstorm.
The fault for that lay at his own dear mother’s feet. Sir Geoffrey Gardner had always impressed as practical, if somewhat romantic. Ferrin’s mother, though, was a flibbertigibbet, and he could no longer ignore the signs that Hannah and Portia were strongly influenced by her. He was already calculating what it would cost in six years’ time, and four years after that, to see that these sisters found decent partners who could take them in hand but not abuse their generous though silly natures.
A bloody fortune, he thought.
“What’s that?” Wellsley asked, drawing another trick toward him. “Did you say something?”
“Did I?” Ferrin had not realized he might have spoken aloud.
“We’re not making a wager here, are we? I thought you said something about a fortune.”
“Can’t imagine what you heard.” Ferrin picked up his tumbler of whisky and sipped. “Your play. Go on.”
Wellsley’s dark glance drifted momentarily from his cards to a point past his friend’s shoulder. He did not allow his eyes to linger on the doorway but applied himself to choosing a card and schooling his features. He placed a seven of spades on the table.
“Aha! So it is true! Lady Arbuthnot did not mistake the matter when she said I would find you here!”
Ferrin was about to make his play when every hair at the back of his neck stood at attention. Many a grown man so neatly caught out by his mother might have dropped the card he was holding over the table, but Ferrin managed to slip it back into his hand and set all the cards down as though nothing untoward was taking place. It was no good reminding Wellsley that he’d agreed to give him fair warning of any family members approaching. This had been done of a purpose. The look he speared his friend communicated that it would have been kinder to allow him to face the Allworthy cousins at daybreak than to have his mother bear down on him unaware.
“Enjoy your revenge, Wellsley,” he said under his breath. He doubted he’d been heard. Wellsley was chuckling, in every way enjoying himself. With a last sour look in his friend’s direction, Ferrin got to his feet as his mother came to stand beside his chair. “Mother. How good you are to make your way round to the card room. You will perhaps join the play?”
Lady Marianna Gardner, the former Countess of Ferrin, and now the wife of Sir Geoffrey, regarded her eldest child as if he had the sense of a bag of hair. She had to look a considerable distance upward, as she was a diminutive woman and he stood half a foot taller than most of the men of her acquaintance. This never mattered, of course, as she had once suckled him at her breast before being persuaded to give him over to a wet nurse. The bond that had been forged on that occasion was still very much intact, at least in her mind. “Join the play?” she asked in hushed accents. “Can you really have made such an outrageous utterance?”
“He did,” Wellsley said. “I heard him.”
Her ladyship turned a gimlet eye on Mr. Wellsley. “And you will not repeat it, for I have no doubt that it is your unseemly influence at work here. Did I not recently say as much to your grandmother? You are a scapegrace, Mr. Wellsley. I have always thought it unfortunate that I like you so well, but there you have it. I cannot account for it myself.” Before that worthy could answer, her head swiveled sharply to her son. She was supremely unaware that Ferrin had to draw back to avoid being tickled by the long ostrich plume fixed in her turban.
“You do not mean to spend the whole of the evening in here, do you?” she asked pointedly. “It is not done. I cannot help but think you have forgotten you are the host.”
“I believe I have provided a great deal of the ready as well as the location,” Ferrin said dryly. “In every other way I am well out of it.”
“Oh, this is too bad of you. What will people say? And your sister is working so hard to make a success of the evening. It will surely be noticed that you occupied yourself playing cards. Nero fiddled while Rome
