Chapter Ten

 

“Deuce!” Serena laid her cards out and clapped her hands. Her luck had held firm at the tables at Pellbrooks card party and she was secretly pleased. She’d meant to honestly and fairly lose a small fortune if the night required it, but instead some mischievous god of luck had alighted on her shoulder and she was basking in the sensation. She was also enjoying the cocoon of feminine respectability at her table. Harriet was still too unwell to accompany her and so Serena had improvised to ensure that there was no opportunity for aspersions to be cast on her character. Ursula was tentative in her wagers but Lady Hodge-Clarence added her gravitas to every hand if not any witty conversation.

Ursula’s sister-in-law, a Mrs. Foxwood, tossed her cards down with an ungracious sigh. “If it were a game of skill, I should have a chance of winning! But this is a devil’s snare!”

“Temperance!” Ursula chided her archly. “Not fifteen minutes ago you were boring me to tears with your excitement over this activity. I find it interesting that your enthusiasm wanes with your purse.”

Temperance pressed her lips together so tightly they disappeared. “An unkind observation is hardly a comfort.”

Serena smiled. “Perhaps the comfort is that luck is a fickle friend and may just as quickly delight you, Mrs. Foxwood, if you stay the course?” Serena leaned over slightly, “My beginner’s luck is the first to fade.”

Temperance was unconvinced. She folded her arms, a humorless pout overtaking her already unattractive features. “Easy to smile when one is apparently the easy victor, but I am inclined to think there are better ways to spend an evening than this sinful pursuit.”

Serena put her cards down gently. “What hobbies and entertainments do you prefer, Mrs. Foxwood?”

“God, if you think I’m going to abandon cards for embroidery,” Ursula said crisply, “you have lost the last of your grip on reality, woman.”

Temperance’s pout solidified into a genuine snit complete with tear-filled eyes and Serena finally decided that it was time to intervene. “The smoke has begun to irritate my throat, ladies. Would you like to accompany me, Temperance? On a walk about the house toward the terraces?”

Temperance managed a curt nod and stood from the table, then in a rush to escape Ursula’s censure, sailed off without waiting for Serena. Serena smiled at the awkward shock on Lady Hodge-Clarence’s face and made her own hurried pursuit of her unlikely new companion.

“Mrs. Foxwood,” Serena hailed her softly. “If you don’t slow down, the other guests will think we are playing chase.”

Temperance obeyed but not cheerfully. “I hate card parties.”

“So I guessed.”

Serena followed Temperance as she withdrew to the other side of the salon away from the crowded tables.

Mrs. Foxwood turned without warning to stop for conversation and Serena had to avert herself from stumbling into the woman. “Lady Wellcott. Who are you precisely?”

“Pardon?” The question was so abrupt, Serena gasped at it.

“One hears…such vague tales in London. You appear out of nowhere a few years ago with a pedigree and no history. Your fortunes must be exaggerated as you appear to have no family and certainly, no husband. I should think you a courtesan to kings the way you present yourself with your elegant attire and striking sense of fashion but—Ursula refers to you like some kind of inviolate pillar of moral standing and several friends and acquaintances seem to be under the impression that you are an angel above reproach. They speak of you in raptured tones that make me wonder how a woman earns that kind of regard.” Temperance’s scrutiny was emotionless and unfaltering. “You are a mystery, Lady Wellcott.”

“Am I?” Serena blinked. “My goodness, I had no idea!”

“Did you not?” Temperance said evenly. “Yet, I still long to hear your answer.”

“My answer to…” Serena took a slow soft breath to regain her mental footing. Temperance wasn’t the first but it had been a while since she’d been so openly challenged. “I apologize, Mrs. Foxwood, but did you mean to ask me if I were a saint or a—“ Serena swallowed as if the giving voice to the very word were abhorrent to her, “Courtesan?”

“Are you?”

“I am neither!” Serena stiffened her spine, giving righteous indignation full rein, deliberately not lowering her voice. “But I am most assuredly not a whore! And I will sue anyone for slander who would have it otherwise! How dare you repeat such a thing!”

“What is this?” Lady Pellbrooks stood from her game to cross the room. “Ladies, what discord has poisoned your evening?”

Temperance’s stance changed instantly, as the withering gaze of her sister-in-law and her hostess combined to make her rethink her candor. “I meant…only to learn more of…Lady Wellcott.”

“Mrs. Foxwood thinks me too well dressed or elegantly appointed to be a well-bred lady of quality,” Serena said more quietly, allowing an open show of her injured spirit to sell her vantage point and turning to her hostess to kiss her cheek and begin her retreat. “Thank you for including me in this lovely evening, Lady Pellbrooks, but I have no desire to disrupt the proceedings by sparking unwarranted curiosity and speculation by simply wearing the wrong jewels.”

Mrs. Foxwood’s pout returned. “Foolish theatrics over nothing, if you ask me.”

“No one asked you, Mrs. Foxwood!” Lady Hodge-Clarence was not pleased as she sailed up. “Temperance, tell me you have not insulted the esteemed Lady Wellcott!”

“I have not.” Mrs. Foxwood could only cling to what ground she had left. “I merely asked about her family connections and social standing and it was interpreted as a call to war.”

“What’s this?” A male voice entered the fray and the women shifted in surprise.

Serena’s expression was calm but there was nothing welcome in the Earl of Trent’s arrival at the party in this moment in time. Chaos was a drug to him, and she could only pray that he wouldn’t take grim striking pleasure in adding to it with a dash of his own.

“Lady Wellcott! Have I arrived late only to miss a good brawl?” Geoffrey teased.

“No,” Serena said as she tried to smile. “You are too clever to miss anything, your lordship. Please, enjoy the tables and do your best to show a touch of mercy to those poor gentlemen who haven’t yet experienced your gaming skills, but I will take my leave.”

Geoffrey’s brow furrowed. “You must stay, Lady Wellcott.”

“Yes…” Lady Pellbrooks was making every effort to save the merry atmosphere of the night. “I’m sure Mrs. Foxwood was about to apologize for her…”

Ursula cleared her throat. “For her early departure and wretched luck. Come, Temperance. I have a headache and you will graciously accompany me.” Lady Hodge-Clarence gripped her sister-in-law’s elbow. “We look forward to seeing you at the concert next week, Lady Pellbrooks. Don’t we, Mrs. Foxwood?”

Temperance nodded, a woman temporarily cowed into obedience. “Yes. We count the hours.”

The two women left and Serena’s watched in sympathy, aware that if Mrs. Foxwood weren’t regretting her words that she would before she escaped Lady Hodge-Clarence’s carriage.

For which I am sorry, Temperance, but this may be the least of your troubles.

“I should return to my game.” Lady Pellbrooks stepped back. “Let me direct you to my husband’s table, Lord Trent. He will be so pleased to see you, and the Marquis of—“

“Do not trouble yourself, Lady Pellbrooks.” The earl smiled, waving her offer away. “I am never shy and will make my own way, have no fear. But with your permission, I will petition Lady Wellcott to linger for a while.”

Lady Pellbrooks left them with a smile, her party’s atmosphere restored.

She allowed the earl to pull her aside but only so far as private conversation required. Serena was without Harriet and was not about to risk the loss of an audience if she needed one. “I will not stay long.”

“Come on, duchess, you can’t let a pinched little ferret like Foxwood send you running!” Geoffrey chided. “She’s nothing.”

Serena shook her head. “She is not nothing. She is a woman with a good reputation, related solidly either by marriage or by blood to no less than three Peers of the Realm and if my memory serves, I think she is on the musical advisory committee for Westminster’s boys choir or some such. I am surprised at you, your lordship, for dismissing such a dangerous creature.” She smiled mischievously. “You are a brave soul.”

“Ha! I am your knight in shining armor!”

“Truly.” Serena sighed. “But for me, retreat is the better part of valor in this instance.”

“Nonsense. You were victorious,” Geoffrey protested. “Come play cards.”

“I am not the victor.” Serena looked at him, swallowing the bile that rose in her throat. Here was the man that invoked her bastardy when it suited him, or called her duchess when it pleased him, but she was the one who walked the narrow ledge between nobility and scandal. “A married woman of any station will always take precedence over me and I will always suffer their scrutiny.” She sighed again, forcing a merrier smile onto her face. “It is your fault for spoiling me, Lord Trent. I think too much of myself to suffer fools lightly.”

“That is as it should be,” he said. His eyes grew alight with pride. “You are exactly as I would have you.”

Serena looked away, determined to deflect the direction of his thoughts or diffuse any flirtation. “And where is Sir Tillman? Are you going to teach him how to empty your friends’ pockets?”

“He is—“

“Here,” Adam supplied as he approached. “Wishing it were billiards but I am prepared to hold my own.”

The earl’s mood instantly changed. “Billiards! Billiards excludes the participation of the ladies and is hardly a game for good company.” He crossed his arms defensively. “What a notion!”

The muscle in Adam’s jaw ticked but he said nothing.

“It is a gentleman’s game, Lord Trent. Come, sir, be kind.” She smiled at Adam, genuinely pleased to see him again. “I can see the appeal of billiards to an engineering mind.”

“I enjoy a weekly night of it at the club despite my uncle’s protests.” Adam nodded. “But I should have been more sensitive, uncle. At your age, the strain of it is likely too much for your back.”

Geoffrey’s mouth fell open in protest but Serena spoke before poor Lady Pellbrooks was alerted to yet another battle in her grand drawing room. “Oh, no, you don’t! Sir Tillman, your uncle is too wise to rise to that bait but no more quarrels. I have already caused too much of a stir this evening and have no wish to be banished from any future gatherings.”

“Your presence will be missed.” Adam looked down into her eyes and it was easy to smile back.

“I should wish you both luck tonight before I go then. A lady should know to take her leave when she is not at her best, and when her chaperones have deserted her. Good night, friends.”

She departed before another round of explanations or apologies would be required and left Pellbrooks with her head held high.

 

“Damn. There goes my only chance at decent conversation,” Adam sighed.

Lord Trent shook his head. “I will do my utmost to not take that insult personally, boy. Though I agree, she should have stayed to improve my evening—not yours. I love it better when she spits in their eyes than when she plays the delicate lady.”

Adam’s attention immediately shifted back to his uncle. “You love nothing. Let’s play cards.”

“God! When did you become such a ball of black tar?” Lord Trent began to lead them into the room. “I should tell you that before you came in the lady accidentally admitted something I have long suspected.”

“And what was that?” Adam asked.

“That she secretly longs to be married!” Trent whispered confidentially. “But then what woman doesn’t? It is just as I said. Smoke and mirrors and all pretense when behind it all, every woman no matter how proud they appear longs to be tucked safely into a man’s protection.”

Adam’s disbelief was so stark he could taste it. “Who would have guessed at such a thing?”

“And I’ll have you know that I love…a great many things, you dullard!”

Adam held his tongue.

You do love a great many things, Uncle.

But people are not things, are they?

He glanced back at the room’s entrance where she had gone, a growing sense of some missed opportunity, some lost moment in time. Uncle Geoffrey’s nonsensical claim about Serena confessing some secret wish to wed was pure delusion but it unsettled his nerves.

He is perhaps hearing what he wants to hear.

And that is never a good sign.