The Dread Penny Society’s interest in Charles Thompson had been nothing more than the hope he would invest in the Barton School for Girls. Now it seemed he was involved in something much deeper. He, who had never before been associated with even casual gambling, had lost his fortune at the card tables. His home in Town was being let to what was said to be a cousin, whose guests’ comings and goings were odd by all accounts.
What had truly unnerved Hollis, however, was seeing someone he knew all too well entering that suspicious house: Alistair Headley.
The man spent more and more time with Randolph. Hollis was worried, and he felt in his gut he had reason to be.
Across from him in the carriage, Ana sat in uneasy silence, clutching her usual Saturday satchel and watching him with her brows low and her forehead creased in confused concern.
“I am not being very personable, am I?” He offered a quick smile of apology. “I’ve something to discuss with my brother, and I’m not looking forward to it.”
“Your topic is a difficult one?”
“Every topic is a difficult one with him.”
The morning light spilled through the carriage windows, illuminating her in a glow of gold. “You are very different from him in that respect. I find you quite easy to talk with.”
“Why is it, then, you told me so little of your father’s situation?”
Her gaze dropped to her hands. “Our family has passed through enough humiliations without making them even more widely known.”
“What, precisely, happened?” He wouldn’t press her to share but hoped she would. He knew the misery of carrying unseen burdens alone.
“Father made his fortune in trade, primarily shipping. He took on a partner as his business grew, but he didn’t realize that partner was stealing funds from the company. Then the man disappeared, leaving behind empty coffers and defrauded investors.”
A disaster by all accounts.
“We sold the things we had that were of any value,” she said. “That saved Father from debtors’ prison, but the damage to his reputation could not be undone. His partner was the fraudster, but Father was the one ruined by it.”
“I enjoyed our visit with him yesterday. Ganor said the same several times after we dropped you at Thurloe.”
“You were both very kind to him.” She clearly had expected something other than kindness, yet there was nothing personal in the underlying accusation.
“He has a quick wit and a sharp mind. It is a shame few people have the opportunity to enjoy his company.”
“His one-time ‘friends’ and associates turned on him when his fortunes fell. The things they said about him and to him were terrible. They exacted revenge in painful and personal ways.” The sadness in her expression spoke volumes. That revenge, Hollis would wager, had been exacted against her, as well.
Hollis reached across and took her hand. She had allowed him to do that several times of late. “If he will allow us to visit again, Ganor and I would enjoy doing so.”
“I hope you will.”
The carriage stopped in front of Randolph’s house. Hollis and Ana had made this trip several Saturdays in a row. Alighting and making their way to the music room was habit as much as anything now.
Eloise was waiting for them. She greeted them with enthusiasm. He’d known his little niece would love Ana. How could she not?
“I’ve practiced and practiced,” Eloise told her music teacher.
“I am pleased to hear that. Would you like to play for your uncle?”
Eloise nodded eagerly.
Hollis took her hand and walked with her to the pianoforte. “I have always enjoyed hearing you play, love.”
“No, you haven’t, silly. I used to pound on the keys and make Miss Dowling have megrims.”
Oh, sweet Eloise. So innocently entertaining.
She climbed onto the piano stool and, after smiling at him, plunked out a tune. She already played better than she had only a few short weeks earlier. And her joy as she played was contagious. Hollis glanced at Ana and saw tender pride in her expression.
Eloise finished her piece and spun on the stool to face him. “Did I play well, Uncle Hollis?”
“You played brilliantly.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. He turned to Ana and took her hand in his. He raised it to his lips. “Thank you.”
She blushed. “Thank you for recommending me for this position. I have loved it.”
“Hollis, do release the teacher’s hand,” Randolph said from the doorway. “She needs to be getting on with the lessons.”
Ana’s color deepened, but it no longer looked like a blush born of pleasure.
“Ignore him,” Hollis whispered. “It is what I prefer to do.”
“Except when you need to ‘discuss something’ with him,” she whispered, a glint in her eyes.
“Pity me, Ana. I’m about to suffer greatly.”
She smiled. He released her hand and crossed to his brother.
When he was far enough from the instrument to not be overheard if he kept his voice low, Hollis asked, “Do you have a moment, Randolph?”
“I had hoped to slip out for a moment, see to a bit of business.”
“This is important. We can talk in your library or here in the corridor, wherever you prefer to discuss your close association with a known inveterate gambler.”
Randolph’s expression grew immediately strained. “Library.”
Hollis motioned for him to lead the way.
They walked in silence to the room their father had once ruled from. He had been a hard and difficult man to live with in addition to being a selfish wastrel.
Randolph snapped the door shut behind them. “Inveterate gambler?”
“You know as well as I do who I am referring to and why.”
“Alistair does gamble,” Randolph said, “but I don’t engage in games of chance as often as he, neither do I participate in games with the high stakes he does.”
Hollis could have throttled him. “After all the lectures you have given me about our family reputation and your backbreaking efforts to restore the Darby fortune and name . . . you are gambling?”
“That is rich coming from the person who gambled his way through Eton.”
Hollis forced a calming breath. “I never had the neediness for it you did. That Father did. That Grandfather did.”
“I have done more to refill the family coffers in the last three weeks than I have in the last three years,” Randolph said. “I have always been skilled with cards.”
“Every Darby who ever lived was skilled with cards,” Hollis drawled. “And far too many are slaves to them. Alistair Headley is known to frequent dens where that enslavement will be used against you in devastating ways.”
Randolph’s face twisted in a pointedly patient expression. “I don’t go with him to those places. I’m not a fool.”
“If you are gambling with what little financial stability you have, you are precisely that.”
Randolph paced away angrily. “I am not in over my head, Hollis. I only play with other gentlemen, only low-stakes games, and only now and then. I have turned down most of Alistair’s invitations to various card games. I am being responsible.”
Oddly enough, Hollis believed him. He seemed entirely in earnest. “Did you ever play with George Thompson?”
Wariness touched the lines of Randolph’s face.
“Thompson had to retrench due to gambling debts,” Hollis said. “He was a responsible sort, not a known gambler like those in our family. I couldn’t imagine him following Headley to one of the copper dens he’s been spotted at, nor undertaking games with enormous stakes. Yet, he’s ruined.”
Randolph swallowed thickly. “I’m more careful than he was.”
“Does Cora know?”
Tension seized Randolph’s posture. “Are you threatening to tell her?”
“No.” Hollis shook his head. “But Society is a small circle. She will hear it from someone eventually, and I don’t know that she will be comforted by how ‘careful’ you’ve been. Games of chance are what started our family down this road sixty years ago.”
“Don’t lecture me,” Randolph said. “Everyone assumes the Darby estate pays you like a good younger son, but I know that’s not true.”
“Have you spotted me at any of these games you frequent?”
Randolph pointedly didn’t answer.
“Have I come to you even once in my entire life begging for funds?”
Again, no answer.
“Have I embarrassed you in public? Sullied the family name? Caused whispers beyond the idle gossip Society indulges in no matter the circumspect nature of a person’s life?”
Begrudgingly, Randolph said, “No.”
“Then save your posturing, Randolph. I gambled in school like you did. I was better at it, yet you’ll not see me at a card table. I have too much respect for our mother’s pain to cavalierly take up the cause of it for my own gain.” He reached for the library door. “And I care too much about my sister-in-law and my niece and nephew to stand back and watch them suffer the way Mother did—the way we did. I’ll keep an eye on things.”
“Do you fancy yourself a spy?” Randolph scoffed.
“I fancy myself a great many things, none of which you should underestimate.”
With that, he left, snapping the door behind him and trudging all the way out of the house. Returning on foot to his rented flat would take the better part of an hour, but he knew his frustration would benefit from the exertion.
Randolph was a fool.
Hollis refused to see his family destroyed by one again.