me. Go on.”
“I think my way in would be through the gambler in the group, Harris Phelps. He’s the most reckless, and the most stupid. He’s taken to wearing a scarlet waistcoat and always wagering on the red, saying it’s his lucky color.”
“Damn,” Jacko muttered. “Sounds like we’re being beaten by an idiot. That stick in your craw as much as it does mine, Cap’n?”
“On the contrary, Jacko. It’s always comforting to know you’re smarter than your enemy, as long as you don’t make the mistake of becoming overconfident. Always remember that even idiots are successful at times, if only by accident. Go on, Jack. I imagine you plan to get close with this Phelps person, and through him, with the others?”
“I intend to lose a lot of money playing at cards with Phelps, yes,” Jack said, and Eleanor bit her bottom lip, smiling at the cleverness of the idea. Lose some money, bemoan his shrinking pockets, wish for a huge turn of luck…and then appeal to his new friend for some way to increase his fortune.
“You’re that sure Phelps is your man? That you’d put your own money on the line?”
“Yes, Ainsley, I am, and I’ve already begun doing just that. I won’t always lose, either, not once I’ve firmly hooked our fish. Which, if I’m lucky, should be quickly enough to have only a two-or three-week interruption of our runs.”
“You’ve always been a dab hand with the cards, I’ll give you that.”
“You gave him a lot more than a dab of your money, Jacko, as I recall the thing,” Ainsley said, and Eleanor pretended not to hear Jacko’s low string of curses.
She remembered when they met Jack Eastwood, and how. A gambler, that was Jack, a gentleman of breeding but little fortune, living on his wits. But that had all changed the day, two years past, when he’d ridden up to Becket Hall with Billy slung facedown across his saddle after rescuing him from a pub in Appledore, where a deep-drinking Billy had the bad sense to accuse a man of cheating when he had no friends present to guard his back. Jack had stepped in, saved the sailor from a knife in the gullet, although both he and Billy had suffered several wounds.
During his weeks of recuperation at Becket Hall, Jack had done more than strip Jacko of five thousand pounds as they’d passed time playing at cards. He also had gained Ainsley’s thanks for the rescue of one of his oldest friends, Ainsley’s trust and, with that trust, a future.
And never once in that month or in the two years since had he said more than “Good morning, Miss Becket,” or “Good evening, Miss Becket,” to Eleanor.
She cocked her head toward the doorway, listening as Jack explained more of his plan. “I’m going to get even closer to Phelps, who will bring me closer to the others, close enough that I can find ways to bring them down, each one of them. But I may need that initial entrée into a wider society, as well. I discussed this with your son-in-law as we crossed the Channel tonight, and he’s agreed to give me a letter of introduction to his friend Lady Beresford. I’m now a gentleman who has spent much of his time these past years on his plantations in the West Indies, happily visiting my homeland.”
“That should be enough to gain you at least a few invitations. Chance could help you there, too, except that he and Julia plan to remain at his estate with the children until the end of summer, now that he’s left the War Office,” Ainsley said. “All right. What else? You have the look of a man who isn’t quite finished saying what he needs to say.”
“No,” Jack said, “that’s about it. The rest is just details I’ll need to handle on my own.”
“Such as?”
“I’m thinking I may need a wife.”
Eleanor clapped her hands over her mouth, hoping no one had heard her short, startled gasp. Then, once back under control, she stepped closer, anxious to hear what else Jack might say.
“Wives go a long way in making a man appear respectable. It’s not enough that I play the rich, amiable fool. I believe I need a wife, as well. Most especially a wife who listens with both ears to other men’s wives. Hiring an actress to play the part is chancy, but also worth the risk, I believe. Phelps’s wife, for one, has a tongue that runs on wheels. Ask her the right questions, and I may get answers that will help me.”
“I can see you believe this Harris Phelps to be the weakest link,” Ainsley said. “Who are the other two?”
“Sir Gilbert Eccles is one. But the fellow who most interests me is the strongest of the lot. If he’s not the head of the Red Men, then he is very close. Rawley Maddox, Earl of Chelfham.”
Before Eleanor could clap her hands to her mouth again, someone did it for her, and she was pulled back against the tall, rangy body of Odette, the one woman in the Becket household who knew every secret, the voodoo priestess who had come to England with the Beckets so many years ago.
“Ears that listen at the wrong doors hear things they should not hear,” Odette whispered to Eleanor. “Come away, child.”
“But Odette—you heard? The Earl of Chelfham.”
“I heard. You want nothing to do with this man. You decided. We all decided.”
“I know,” Eleanor whispered fiercely as she looked toward the half-open door. “But this is…this is like fate. And I only want to see. Is it so wrong to want to see?”
“You want the man, ma petite,” Odette told her, stroking Eleanor’s hair with one long-fingered hand. “He’s the temptation you don’t want to resist.”
“You mean Jack?” Eleanor sighed, realizing protest was useless. “There’s no future in lying to you, is there, Odette? You see everything.”
The woman’s face lost its smile. “Not everything, little one. Never enough. But I do know your papa won’t approve.”
Eleanor wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. “I know. But this is my decision to make, Odette, my chance. If I don’t take my chance, I’ll have the rest of my life to regret it. Years and years to sit by myself with my embroidery, my paints, my music. Sit and watch everyone else live their lives, while mine just slowly, quietly runs out, like sand slipping through an hourglass. Don’t you see? I have to do this.”
“Born a maiden, not prepared to die a maiden. Yes, I see.”
“No,” Eleanor whispered fiercely, then sighed. “Yes, yes, that, too. And why not? I’ve tried being a paragon, and it’s lonely, Odette. It’s a lonely life. I want to hold more than other people’s children. That’s a dream, only a dream. But the earl, Odette? He’s real. How can I hear what I just heard, and walk away?”
Odette looked at her for a long time, and Eleanor returned that gaze as steadily as she could, until the older woman sighed, shook her head. “I’ll be ordering more candles, I suppose. A bonfire of candles burning for you Beckets.”
Eleanor impulsively hugged the woman, neither of them comfortable with such physical displays of affection. Yet Odette put her arms around Eleanor’s shoulders and held her tightly for a moment before pushing her away, using the pad of her thumb to trace the sign of the cross on Eleanor’s forehead. When it came to asking for divine help, Odette did not limit herself to calling only on the good loa.
“Thank
