hardening depending on whom she took in. Cornelia followed her gaze around the circle, noting the lesser nobility who flocked to her salon. After the late Earl’s cowardly retreat at the Battle of Saratoga, there were few in the ton willing to show the Daltmouths favour. This collection of people was the Dowager Countess’s answer to their snub, an attempt to create an alternate society of mushrooms and nobles of questionable lineage. Cornelia had counted on this cultivation when she’d left a card at the Dowager’s Mayfair town house yesterday morning. Her effort was rewarded when tonight’s invitation arrived with the Dowager’s gold engraved card.
Lady Daltmouth’s haughty, scrutinising look fell on Cornelia, dipping down the length of her sheer blue overdress. One sculpted brow rose a touch, but the lines of the Dowager’s face remained smooth. Like many of the other matrons, Cornelia imagined the older woman disapproved of her choice of dress so soon after the Comte’s passing. Let the Dowager think what she wanted, Cornelia refused to mourn the old dog.
Her silent judgement given, Lady Daltmouth turned to the poet and cut him off mid-sonnet.
‘I think you’ve extolled the virtues of your work enough for one evening, Mr Keans.’ She rose and crossed to Cornelia, sending the flock of ladies surrounding her scurrying out of her way. She stopped in front of the younger woman who offered a deep curtsy before rising.
‘Comtesse, I see you have a preference for French fashion,’ the Dowager announced.
So, it wasn’t the lack of black, but the tighter cut of Cornelia’s dress the Dowager disapproved of. ‘Oui, madame.’
The Dowager’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. ‘I hope you did not bring back too many other French customs such as papist beliefs.’
Cornelia looked down at the short woman, careful to keep her face free of any emotion. ‘No, my lady. I kept my Protestant faith. It wasn’t my beliefs which interested my late husband.’
A surprised gasp escaped from someone behind the Dowager, whose mouth twitched up in one corner. ‘I’m glad to hear it. Good evening, Comtesse.’
She swept past her and across the room in the direction of her son, who watched her pending approach with dread. His face drooped in relief when his mother passed him to speak to one of the many tall footmen stationed around the room. It was then Cornelia noticed the impressive height of the liveried young men. They were all exceptionally tall, almost as tall as Rafe, and scandalously handsome.
Well, well, well, it seemed Lady Daltmouth wasn’t such a strict Protestant after all.
Cornelia opened her fan, her amusement fading. It was time to focus on less appealing sights.
She sauntered into the Earl’s line of vision, offering him a coy smile when his eyes met hers. His face rumpled in confusion and he turned to look over first one shoulder and then the other.
She curtsied, tilting forward a touch to give him a better view of her chest and drive home her invitation. His piggy eyes flicked to her breasts with the same greed she remembered lighting up the Comte’s watery eyes from across many card tables. Despite the queasy roll of her stomach, she maintained the look of pleasure as he approached, his girth making him waddle more than walk.
‘Comtesse, we’re honoured to have you grace our little gathering,’ he gasped, winded with the exertion of crossing the room.
The hypocrite. He wouldn’t have deigned to speak to her if she was still the Honourable Cornelia Trofton.
‘It’s I who am honoured to be at such an intellectual gathering.’ She fluttered the fan over her breasts, drawing attention to them and the sensual painting. ‘You’re so clever to bring together so many intelligent men.’
‘Yes, of course.’ His thick fingers ruffled the lace of his cravat. ‘I’m quite the cultivator of the intellect and the arts. How I enjoy Mr Langello’s poetry.’
‘I believe Mr Langello is the composer,’ Cornelia corrected, lowering her fan a touch to reveal more of her décolletage.
‘Yes, of course,’ Lord Daltmouth said to her breasts. ‘It’s Mr Keans who writes poetry in praise of womanhood.’ His tongue slid over his large lower lip and she squelched the urge to slap the greedy look from his face.
‘I’m not very familiar with Mr Keans’s work. Please, tell me more about it.’ She lowered the fan another inch, slowly reeling him in.
While he blathered on about the poet, guilt blackened the edges of her triumph. Blackmail wasn’t her preferred game, but she had no choice. Another letter from Fanny had arrived today, demanding the tuition for Andrew’s school fees at once or she’d write to her brother in Barbados about sending Andrew there in the autumn. There wasn’t time to trust Andrew’s safety to the fickle chance of cards. If all went as planned, she’d soon have enough to keep him at school and away from the West Indies for good. She knew she shouldn’t take advantage of the Earl, but he was one of the few people with a relative in the register who could pay her demand without jeopardising his estate or his legacy. Besides, she would do anything to save Andrew. He was the only person who mattered to her now.
* * *
Rafe tapped the table and Lord Brixton laid another card on top of the first. After the disaster of the Dowager’s salon, he’d hoped to find more success in this hell.
So far, both events had proved disappointing.
‘Twenty-three. Tough luck Densmore.’ Lord Brixton scraped up Rafe’s cards, then moved on to deal an equally poor card to Lord Sewell.
Rafe narrowed his eyes at the young buck, noting the large diamond glittering in his cravat pin. The thought of losing at ving-et-un in front of this fop made his mouth burn more than the cheap wine the proprietress served.
A woman moving along the periphery of his vision caught his eye and he turned, thinking for a moment it was Cornelia. Expectation filled him before he realised it was only a molly searching for a new client among the players. She seemed young, though every soiled dove in this gaming den did, and with her blonde hair and small chest, she looked nothing like Cornelia. Only the way she stopped along the edge of the tables, observing everything and revealing nothing, reminded him of his former partner. He shifted in his chair, the weight of Cornelia’s absence from his side heavier than he wanted it to be.
Lord Brixton dealt himself another card. ‘Twenty-one. Looks like I win again.’
He collected the stacks of money from in front of each player, adding them to the large pile of notes and coins already piled in front of him.
Rafe took another swig of the hell’s sour wine, blanching at the swill. The only game he’d won in the past three months was the game of life when he’d escaped from a Parisian moneylender who’d threatened to kill him over a sizeable debt and sell his corpse to an anatomist. The rogues were not as civilised in Paris as they were in London. He smiled wryly as he remembered giving the greasy Frenchman the slip in Madame DuMonde’s. He’d even managed to collect his paltry winnings before sliding out through the ground-floor window of an obliging putain. His brief spate of luck ended when he’d returned to their lodgings to see Cornelia driving away in the Comte de Vane’s carriage.
He downed the rest of the bitter wine, then tossed the empty goblet to a passing server.
‘What do you say, Densmore? Up for another round?’ Brixton asked
