He laughed and escorted her to the dance floor. "Your husband doesn't accompany you?"
"Alas, no," she said with a mock sigh. "A regimental dinner claimed his attention."
"How fortunate." A smile touched his lips and Judith felt clammy. "I don't see your brother here either."
"Oh, I daresay he'll be along later," she said. "He was to dine with friends."
"We have an agreement to meet at the card table," the earl told her, still smiling. "We're engaged in battle."
"Oh, yes, Sebastian told me. A duel of piquet." She laughed. "Sebastian is determined to win tonight, Bernard, I should warn you. He says he lost out of hand last night and must recoup his losses if he's not to be completely rolled up." She laughed, as if at the absurdity of such an idea, and Gracemere allowed an answering chuckle to escape him.
"I'm most eager to give him his revenge. Dare I hope that his lovely sister will stand at my side?"
"Well, as to that, sir, it might seem disloyal in me to appear to favor my brother's adversary," she said archly. "But I shall maintain an impartial interest. I confess I derive much pleasure from watching two such accomplished players in combat." She leaned forward and said almost guiltily, "But I do believe, Bernard, that you have the edge."
"Now it's you who are guilty of flattery, ma'am," Gracemere said in barely concealed mockery. Fortunately, Judith appeared not to hear the mockery.
"But you did win last night," she pointed out very seriously. "However, perhaps the cards weren't running in Sebastian's favor. It does make a difference, after all."
"Oh, of course it does," he agreed. "All the difference in the world, my dear Judith. Let's hope luck smiles upon your brother tonight… just to even things up, you understand."
"Yes, of course." The music stopped and the earl was obliged to relinquish her to a new partner… but not without reminding her of her promise to be in the card room later. Judith agreed, all smiles, and then took her place in the set. So far so good.
When Sebastian arrived, he was all smiling good humor, greeting friends and acquaintances, obliging his hostess by dancing with several unfortunate ladies who were without partners, imbibing liberally of champagne, and generally behaving like any other young blood.
To his relief and Harriet's not-so-secret chagrin, Harriet had not received an invitation to the ball. It was her first Season and she was too young and unknown to move invariably in the first circles. Once Sebastian declared his suit and her engagement to the Marquis of Carrington's brother-in-law was known, that would change, as Letitia told her, but this was small comfort to Harriet, spending the evening in dutiful attendance upon her mama.
It was after midnight when Sebastian and Gracemere met in the card room. Judith was watching for the moment when they both disappeared from the dance floor. It had been agreed that she wouldn't make her own appearance at the table until after they'd been playing for a while, by which time Sebastian would have established a winning pattern and they assumed that Gracemere would be ready to resort to marked cards.
For nearly an hour she continued to dance, to smile, to talk. She ate supper, sipped champagne, and forced herself not to think of what was happening in the card room. If it was going according to plan, Bernard Melville would by now be wondering what was happening to him.
At one o'clock she made her way to the gaming room. Immediately it was dear that something unusual was happening. Although there were people playing at the hazard, faro, macao, and basset tables, there was a distracted air in the room. Eyes were flickering to a small table in an alcove, where two men played piquet.
Judith crossed the room. "I've come to keep my promise, my lord," she said gaily.
Gracemere looked up from his cards and she recognized the look in his eye. It was the haunted feverishness of a man in captivity to the cards. "Your brother's luck has turned, it would seem," he said, clearing his throat.
Judith saw the pile of rouleaux at her brother's elbow. The earl was not yet resorting to vowels, then. She took up her place, casually, behind the earl's chair.
Gracemere was confusedly aware that the man he was playing with was not the man he thought he knew. Davenport's face was utterly impassive, he was silent most of the time, and when he spoke it was with staccato precision. The only part of his body he seemed to move were his long white hands on the cards.
Initially, the earl put his losses down to an uneven fall of the cards. When first he thought there must be more to it than that, he dismissed the idea. He'd played often enough with Sebastian Davenport to know what quality of player he was. True, occasionally he had won, sometimes puzzlingly, but even poor gamesters had occasional successes. As Gracemere's losses mounted, the ridiculousness of it all struck him powerfully. He increased the stakes, knowing that everything would go back to normal in a minute-it always did. All he needed was to win one game when the stakes were really high, and he would recoup his losses in one fell swoop. With that knowledge in mind, he played his first marked card. His sleight-of-hand was so expert that Judith missed it the first time and he won heavily.
Sebastian was unmoved, merely pushing across a substantial pile of rouleaux. Judith gave an excited little cry, saying in an exaggerated whisper, "Oh, well done, sir."
Gracemere didn't seem to hear her. He increased the stakes yet again. By now people were drifting toward the table, attracted by the tension. It was warm and Judith opened her fan.
Gracemere began to have a dreadful sense of topsyturvy familiarity. This scene had happened before but there was an essential difference. He was not winning. He played with a dogged concentration, writing vowels now much as his adversary had done the previous evening. He played his marked cards, and yet he still didn't win. At one point, he looked wildly across the small table at his opponent as he played a heart that would spoil a repique. But Davenport seemed prepared and played his own ten, keeping his point advantage. How could it be happening? There was no explanation, except that his adversary had changed from a conceited greenhorn to a card player of awesome skill. And not just skill-it would take a magician to withstand the earl's special cards.
He glanced up at the woman, gently fanning herself at his shoulder. She smiled reassuringly at him, as if she didn't understand what was happening to him… as if she simply thought her brother was having a run of good luck for once.
He was a gamester. He knew he needed only one win. If he staked everything he had left, then he could recoup everything and bring his opponent to the ground.
George Devereux had at the last wagered the family estates in Yorkshire. Bernard Melville drew another sheet of paper and wrote his stake, the estate he had won from George Devereux, pushing it across the table to his adversary. Sebastian glanced at it, then swept his own winnings, rouleaux and vowels, together with his own IOU to match his opponent's extraordinary stake, into a pile at the side of the table. He put his hand in his pocket and deliberately drew out an elaborately carved signet ring. This last game he played for his father. His eyes flicked upward to his sister, who nodded infinitesimally in acknowledgment, before he slipped the ring onto his finger, shook back the ruffles on his shirt-sleeves, and broke a new pack of cards, beginning to deal.
Agnes Barret stared at the ring on Sebastian Davenport's finger. Her world seemed to turn on its axis, a slow roll into a nightmare of disbelief. She wanted to scream some kind of a warning to Bernard, so powerful was her sense of the danger embodied in that ring, but no sound would emerge from her throat. Her eyes were riveted on it: the Devereux family ring. She tore her eyes from Sebastian's long slender fingers and gazed at his sister. For a second Judith's golden brown eyes met Agnes's gaze, and the shock of her own recognition stunned Agnes with its primitive, vital force. And she wondered with a horrified desperation why she hadn't known it before… why some instinctive maternal essence had failed to recognize the children she hadn't seen since their babyhood.