The future of Templemore was too important.
The earl sat back against the embroidered cushions, closing his eyes, suddenly exhausted. His skin was stretched thin across his high cheekbones. He groped for the wine and drank a greedy mouthful, sitting back with a sigh.
Henry stood abruptly, leaving his glass of wine untouched.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said. “I will go and fulfill your commission at once.”
“You’re a good boy, Henry.” The earl had opened his eyes again. They were weary, shadowed by all the unhappiness he had experienced. “I will see that you do not lose out when my granddaughter inherits.”
Henry felt a violent wave of antipathy. “I want nothing from you, sir. I have my own estate and my engineering projects—”
The earl dismissed them with a lordly wave. “Such matters are not work for a gentleman.”
“They are work for a penniless gentleman,” Henry corrected.
The earl laughed, that dry rattle again. “Marry an heiress and all your difficulties will be solved. Lady Antonia Gristwood—”
“Will not wish to throw herself away on me, my lord,” Henry said matter-of-factly.
“Perhaps a cit’s daughter would not be so choosy. You still have the title.”
How flattering. But it did rather sum up Henry’s prospects now. “I’ve no desire to wed, sir,” Henry said. The heiresses would melt away swiftly enough when they heard of his reversal of fortune. In their own way they were as fickle as his mistress.
The earl seemed not to have heard. His chin had sunk to his chest and he looked as though he was lost in thought. Henry wondered whether his godfather was still lost in the past. The earl, Henry thought, had a remarkable talent for alienating members of his family: first his wife, whom he had married for her money and betrayed before the ink was dry on the marriage lines, then his daughter, then his godson. He hoped to high heaven that if Margery Mallon was indeed the earl’s granddaughter he would not devastate her life, as well.
He swallowed the bitter taste in his mouth, bowed stiffly to the earl and went out. The hall was empty although the air trembled and the door of the Red Saloon was still swinging closed, a sure sign that Lady Wardeaux had indeed been eavesdropping. Henry did not want to have to confront his mother and her ruined hopes yet again.
Nor did he wish to see Lord Templemore’s younger sister, Lady Emily, endlessly reading the tarot cards and reassuring him that his fortunes would turn again.
They would turn because Henry would make them turn.
He had grown up at Templemore. He had been told from childhood that he would inherit the title and land and that he had to learn to be a good master. He had done more than that. He had taken the estate to his heart and he loved every last brick and blade of grass there. It would hurt to give them up, but he had suffered reversals in his life before. He had overcome them all.
The tap of his boots echoed on the black marble floor of the hall. He paused by the door of the library to study the John Hoppner portrait of four-year-old Marguerite Catherine Rose Saint-Pierre, painted just before she had vanished from her grandfather’s life.
The window in the dome far above his head scattered light like jewels on the tiles of the floor and illuminated the painting with a soft glow. Marguerite had been a pretty child, small, delicate, with golden-brown hair. She gazed solemnly out at him from her gilt frame, watching him with Margery Mallon’s clear gray eyes.
The earl had summoned him with such haste that he had not had time to change out of his riding clothes. He strode out to the stable, calling for a fresh horse to take him back to London.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Knight of Swords: A tall dark-haired man with a great deal of charm and wit
IT WAS SEVEN O’CLOCK on a beautiful spring evening. Warmth still shimmered in the air, and the sky over London was turning a deep indigo-blue. The sun was dipping behind the elegant facades of the houses in Bedford Street and the shadows lengthened among the trees in the square.
It was Margery’s evening off. She came up the area steps, tying her bonnet beneath her chin as she walked. She stopped dead when she found the gentleman she had danced with at the ball the previous night loitering at the top. He gave every appearance of waiting for her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her tone deliberately sharp. She had come down to earth since her encounter with him and had been berating herself for being a silly little fool whose head was stuffed with romantic nonsense. She was a lady’s maid, not Cinderella.
Even so, her heart tripped a beat, because his smile—the wicked smile that curled his firm mouth and slipped into his dark eyes—was so much more potent in real life than it had been in her dreams and memories.
“Good evening to you, too,” he said. “Are you pleased to see me?”
“Of course not,” Margery said. She put as much disdain into her tone as she could muster, knowing even as she did so that she was betrayed by the shaking of her fingers on the ribbons of her bonnet and the hot color that burned in her cheeks.
Damnation. Surely she had learned enough over the years to know how to deal with a rake. She had acted as maid to any number of scandalous women who had perfected the art of flirtation. She should meet this insolent gentleman’s arrogance with a pert confidence of her own. Yet she could not. She was tongue-tied.
She started to walk. “Why would I be pleased to see you?” she asked over her shoulder. “I barely know you.”
“Henry Ward, at your service.” He sketched a bow. It had an edge of mockery. “Now you know me.”
“I know your name,” Margery corrected. “I have no ambition to learn more.”
He laughed. It was a laugh that said he knew she was lying. He was right, of course, though she was damned if she was going to admit it. She quickened her pace. He matched it with minimum effort.
“Wait,” he said. “I’d like to speak with you.” He hesitated. “Please.”
It was the please that stopped her. She was not accustomed to courtesy from the aristocracy but by the time she had realized her mistake she was standing still and he was holding her hand. She had no idea how either of these things had occurred, only that his charm was clearly very dangerous to her.
“Miss Mallon—”
Margery snatched her hand back. “That reminds me. When we met in the brothel you addressed me as Miss Mallon. How did you know my name?”
She saw a flash of expression in his eyes that she could not read. Then it was gone; he shrugged lightly.
“I forget,” he said. “Perhaps Mrs. Tong mentioned your name.”
Margery shook her head. She knew that was not true. “No,” she said, refusing to be deflected. “She did not.”
Henry looked at her. His gaze was clear and open,
