Читать книгу Paying the Virgin's Price - Christine Merrill, Christine Merrill - Страница 7

The air of the Fourth Circle gaming hell was thick with the usual miasma of tobacco smoke and whisky, blended with the tang of sweat that Nathan Wardale had come to associate with failure. Another’s failure, fortunately for him. Nate stared over the cards in his hand at the nervous man on the other side of the green baize table. He was hardly more than a boy. And he was about to learn the first of manhood’s lessons.

The manchild cleared his throat. ‘If you could see your way clear…’

‘I could not,’ Nate responded without emotion, shuffling the cards. ‘If your purse is empty, then you had best leave the table.’

His opponent bristled. ‘Are you implying that my word is not good?’

‘I am implying nothing of the kind. Experience has taught me never to accept an IOU. If you have nothing of value upon your person, then play is done.’

‘It is most unfair of you to stop when I am losing.’ Though he had just come of age, the young man was also a marquis. He was used to getting his own way, especially from one so obviously common as Nate.

Nate shrugged in response. ‘On the contrary. It is most unfair of you to expect me to treat a promise of payment as a stake in the game. While I do not doubt that you would make good, I have found that gentlemen behave rashly when their backs are to the wall. Later, they regret what they have promised in the heat of play.’

The boy sneered as though what other men might do meant nothing to him. ‘And what do you expect of me, then? Bet my signet against the next hand?’

‘If you wish.’

‘It is entailed.’

‘Then you are finished playing.’

The other’s chin jutted out in defiance. ‘I will say when I am finished.’He pulled the ring from his finger and tossed it onto the table. ‘This is easily worth all that you have in front of you. One more hand.’

‘Very well.’ Nate yawned and dealt the cards. And a short time later, when the play had gone the way he knew it would, he scooped the ring forward and into his purse, along with the rest of his winnings.

‘But, you cannot,’ the young noble stammered. ‘It is not mine.’

‘Then why did you bet it?’ Nate looked at him, unblinking.

‘I thought I could win.’

‘And I have proven to you that you could not. It is a good thing for both of us that you were willing to trade such a small thing. It is only a symbol of your family’s honour. Easily replaced, I am sure. I will add it to the collection of similar items that have come into my possession from people like you, who would not listen to reason.’

The boy watched the purse vanishing into Nate’s pocket as though he were watching his future disappear. ‘But what am I to tell my father?’

‘That is none of my concern. If it were me, I’d tell him that he has a fool for a son.’

The boy slammed his fist against the table so hard that Nate feared something must break, then he sprang to his feet, doing his feeble best to loom threateningly. Nate could see that his opponent was wavering on the edge of issuing a challenge, so he prepared to signal the toughs that the owner, Dante Jones, kept ready to eject angry losers. But as Nate stared up into the young man’s eyes, he watched the other’s expression change as he weighed the possibility that Nate might be as successful at duelling as he was at playing cards.

Then the boy stood down and walked away from the table without another word.

Nate let out his breath slowly, so as not to call attention to it. He could feel the weight of the signet in his pocket, but it would not do to examine the thing while here. It would appear that he was gloating over the fallen. And though the infamous gambler Nate Dale had many faults, he did not gloat.

He was quite sure that he had taken a similar ring from the boy’s father, not two years ago. The current ring was not a true part of the entail, but a duplicate, made to hide the loss of the original. The real ring was in a box on Nate’s bed chamber dresser. It was just one small part of a collection of grisly trophies to remind him what men might do when the gambling fever was upon them and they were convinced that their luck was about to turn.

He wondered what that feeling was like, for he had never had it. It had been years since there had been a doubt in his mind on the subject of table luck. There had been bad hands, of course. And even bad days. But things always came right again before he felt the sting of loss. He had but to remain calm and wait for the tide to turn. To all and sundry, he was known as the luckiest man in England.

So it was with cards or dice. And as for the rest of his life? He had learned to content himself with the fact that it was unlikely to get any worse.

He stared around the room at the typical night’s crowd assembled there. Winners and losers, noise and bustle. A few widows who enjoyed games more intimate than faro. One of them gave him a come-hither look, and he responded with a distant smile and a shake of his head. What must that say of his state of mind if he had become too jaded to value her considerable charms over an evening spent at home alone? But the energy in the room seemed to sap his strength rather than restore it, and it was wearying beyond words to think that tomorrow night would be just the same as tonight.

At least tonight was over. Nate started to push away from the table, then felt a shadow fall across it. When he glanced up, another player was moving into the chair that had been vacated by the previous owner of Nate’s new ring. The stranger was dark of hair, eye, skin and mood. Though he was smiling, the expression on his face was every bit as foreboding as a storm cloud on the horizon. Perhaps it was from the pain of a recent injury, for he bore his left arm in a sling.

Nate barely bothered to look at the man’s face, turning all his attention to the shuffling of the deck in his hands. ‘Fancy a game?’

The stranger nodded, and sat.

Damn. Nate kissed goodbye to his plan for a warm drink by his own fireplace, and a chance to sketch a bit with pen and ink, thinking of nothing at all. Whenever he tried to limit his play, the hours grew even longer. It was as though fate knew his intentions and laughed at them. Certainly it was not the location that drew the pigeons to him. Suffolk Street was a long way from the comfort of White’s. The clientele at the Fourth Circle was a curious mix of true lowlifes, habitual gamblers, members of the aristocracy who were fallen from honour because of their gaming, and the curiosity seekers of the Ton.

And Nate. He was the curiosity they sought, known for his preternatural luck at games. They brought with them the idea that it was skill, and that his would prove inferior to theirs: the conviction that it was possible to beat the unbeatable. The naïve hope that their reputation would be made with their success. Others sought him out as a rite of passage. It seemed everyone in London had, at one time or other, lost his purse to the infamous Nathan Dale.

Nate wondered what category this man fell into, and decided either habitual gambler or local tough. Perhaps he was an actor. Although he carried himself with an air of nobility, his clothes were an odd mix of fashion and cast off, flamboyant enough to be laughable in a drawing room, though they suited him well. His blue velvet coat was well tailored, but unfashionably loose, and he wore a striped silk scarf in place of a cravat. There was a glint of silver peaking out from under the lace at his wrist. It was a bracelet or cuff of some kind: most unusual jewellery for a gentleman. He wore a thick gold hoop in his left ear.

Nate could feel the subtle shifting of attention in the room as the heads turned to follow him with interest. Depending on their natures, the men touched purses or weapons, as though to reassure themselves of their security. But from the females present, the man’s striking good looks and exotic costume drew a murmur of approval. It was irritating to notice that the widow who, just moments before, had been overcome with disappointment from Nate’s rejection, had more than recovered at the sight of the handsome stranger.

Nate looked across the table at him with the dispassionate eye of one who made his living by correctly judging his opponents. Gypsy, he decided. But a Gypsy with money, judging by the jewellery. And so the man was welcome at Nate’s table. He dealt the cards.

His opponent took them in silence, speaking only when necessary, losing the contents of his fat purse quickly and without emotion over a few hands of vingt et un. Such disinterested play made the game even more boring than the continual whining of the last man. The Gypsy made no effort to remove his jewellery after the last hand. It was some comfort, for it proved that he was not too lost to know when to quit.

And it was with relief that Nate watched the man reach into his pocket, as though searching for one last bank note or perhaps a sovereign that had become lodged in the coat lining and left for emergencies. ‘If you are without funds,’ Nate drawled, ‘then it is best we not continue. I should have warned you when we began that I will not accept a marker.’

‘I have something better than that, I am sure.’ The man’s continual smile was most disquieting. In Nate’s experience, losers were not supposed to be quite so jolly. ‘One more hand. I have something you will accept from me, because you have no choice.’And then, the Gypsy reached into the pocket of his coat, and dropped the thing onto the table.

A scarlet silk rope lay there like a snake, coiled upon itself. The end was carefully tied in a hangman’s noose.

For a moment, it looked no different from the one Nate had seen so many years ago—on the day they’d hanged his father.

Nate pushed away from the table so quickly that it tipped, sending the rope, drinks and stakes into a heap on the floor. The man across from him took no notice of the mess, but continued to stare at him with the same fixed expression and knowing smile, as though satisfied with the reaction he had received.

Nate stared back into the dark face, noting the lines in it, the shape of the eyes, and even the cold quirk in the smile. He knew that face—although coldness had not been there when last they’d spoken, nor the sharpness of the features, nor the hard set of the man’s shoulders.

But if he could imagine this man as the boy he’d once been? Nate said in a voice made hoarse by shock, ‘Stephen?’ He looked again into the cold face across the table. ‘Stephen Hebden. It is you, isn’t it?’

The man gave a nod and his smile disappeared, as though to remind Nate that any meeting between them would not be a happy one, no matter how close they had been as children. ‘I am Stephano Beshaley, now. And you call yourself Nate Dale, even though we both know you are Nathan Wardale.’

‘Nathan Wardale died in Boston, several years ago.’

‘Just as Stephen Hebden died in a fire when he was a child.’ The man across the table held out his hands in an expansive gesture. ‘And yet, here we are.’

Dead in a fire? It shamed him that he had given so little thought to what had become of his best childhood friend, after their fathers both died. But circumstances between the families had made the break between them sudden and complete.

Nate pushed the past aside, as he had so many times before. ‘Very well, then. Mr Beshaley. What brings you here, after all this time? It has been almost twenty years since we last saw each other.’

‘At my father’s funeral,’ Stephen prompted. ‘Do you remember Christopher Hebden, Lord Framlingham? He was the man your father murdered.’

Nate pretended to consider. ‘The name is familiar. Of course, my family was so busy that year, what with the trial and the hanging. But I do remember the funeral. It is a pity you could not return the favour and come to my father’s funeral as well.’ He waited to see if there would be a response from the man opposite him. Perhaps a small acknowledgement that Nate had suffered a loss as well. But there was none.

So he continued. ‘When the hanging was done, we had to wait until he was cut down, and pay to retrieve the body. With the title attainted, using the family plot was out of the question. He is in a small, unmarked grave in a country church where the vicar did not know of our disgrace. I rarely visit.’ He locked eyes with the man across the table, willing him to show some sign of sympathy, or at least understanding. But still, there was nothing.

‘That burial was an intimate gathering, for all our friends had abandoned us. Although there was crowd enough to see him kicking on the gibbet. I thought the whole town had turned out to see the peer swing. And then your mad Gypsy mother screamed curses out of the window and hanged herself in full view of everyone. It made for quite a show.’

And that had done it. For a moment, Stephen tensed as though ready to strike him, the rage blazing hot in his eyes. And Nate welcomed the chance to strike back at someone, anyone, and to finally release the child’s fury he had felt that day.

But then, Stephen settled back in his seat and his face grew cold and hard again. Despite that brief flare of temper at the direct insult to his mother, there was nothing left in his dark face to prove that the words had any lasting effect. If they had still been playing cards, Nate might have found him a worthy opponent, for it was impossible to tell what he might do next.

At last, Nate mastered his own anger again and broke the silence. ‘Why are you here, Stephen?’

‘To remind you of the past.’

He let out a bitter laugh. ‘Remind me?’ He spread his arms wide. ‘Look at my surroundings, old friend, as I do whenever I feel a need to remember. Are they not low enough? Was I born to this? The title is gone, the house, the lands. My family scattered to the four winds. At least you found a people again. Do you know how long it has been since I have seen my own mother? My sisters? Do you know what it is like to stand helpless as your father hangs?’

‘No better than to have him murdered, I suppose. And to know that somewhere, the murderer’s line continues.’

Nate laughed. ‘After all this time, is that the problem? I am as good as dead, I assure you. I have nothing left, and yet you would take more.’

Stephen snorted. ‘You have money.’

‘And a nice house,’ Nate added. ‘Two houses, actually. And horses and carriages. Possessions enough for any man. I gained it all at the cost of my honour. We are not gaming at Boodle’s, as our fathers did, Stephen. Because we are not welcome amongst gentlemen. A Gypsy bastard and a murderer’s son. Society wants none of us. We are in the gutter, where we belong.’

His opponent tensed at the word—bastard—but it was no less than the truth.

‘I am sorry that I am not suffering enough to satisfy you. If you wish, we can go out in the alley, and I will let you remedy the fact. If you mean to frighten me into losing with this?’ He looked down at the rope at his feet, and kicked it until it lay in front of his former friend. ‘I have the real rope that did the job. My family bought it to keep it out of the hands of the ghouls gathered round the gallows. There is nothing left for you to do that will frighten me. Since irony is not likely to prove fatal, I suggest that you cease playing games. We are no longer children. If you truly want me dead? Then be man enough to shoot me.’

For a moment, he thought that the taunting had finally hit home. For Stephano the Gypsy nodded and smiled, as though there were nothing he would like better than to kill Nate and put an end to the meeting. But then, he said, ‘I am afraid it is not that easy, Nathan Wardale.’

Nate cringed for a moment, and felt the old fear that someone might hear the name, and know him for the child of a murdering traitor. He might be cast out as unworthy, even from the Fourth Circle. And then where would he go? He recovered his poise and demanded, ‘What is it to be, then?’

‘That is not for me to decide. I am but an avatar in this. I bring you the rope. And now, fate will decide the method of your punishment.’

‘My punishment?’ Nate almost laughed. ‘For what? When the murder happened, I was ten years old. Hardly a criminal mastermind, I assure you.’

‘You are the son of the murderer.’

‘Then your coming here serves no purpose, Stephen. My word is no good for anything but wagering. But if it were, I would swear to you on it that my family is not to blame for what happened.’

‘Your father…’

‘Was hung for something he did not do. He swore on the stand that Kit Hebden was dying when he found him. He did not strike the blow that killed him. He said the same to me, my mother and my sisters. By the end, there was no reason for him to lie to us. It would have gained him nothing, nor given us any comfort. He was sentenced to die, and we were quite beyond comforting.’

For a moment, he thought he saw a flicker of emotion on the other man’s face that might indicate understanding, belief or some scrap of mercy. And then it was gone. ‘If it is true that you are blameless, then circumstances will prove that fact soon enough. And I will break the curse and set you free.’

He laughed. ‘It is a bit late to talk of freedom, Stephen. I have wealth, but no one to share it with. I have no friends. No one trusts me. No decent woman would want me. In the course of gaming, I have ruined many and caused men to do unspeakable things, convinced that one more hand will be all it takes to break me.

‘And now, you will set me free? Can you wipe out the memory of the things I have done? Will you go to the House of Lords and insist that they clear my family’s name? Can you get me my title? And my father, as well? Can you raise the dead, Gypsy? For I would like to see you try.’

Stephano the Gypsy spat upon the floor, and passed his hand before him as though warding off the suggestion. ‘Your father was a murderer who deserved what he got. And I mean to see that you accept your share of his punishment.’

Nate had learned to see his past as a single dark shadow that threw his empty life into sharper relief. But now that the shadow had become the foreground, the picture created was so ridiculous, he let out with the first honest laugh he’d had in ages. ‘My share of the punishment?’ He leaned forward and grinned into the face of the man who had once been Stephen Hebden, daring him to see the joke and laugh along. ‘Well I have news for you. You enriched me by a hundred pounds before you brought out the damned rope and began speaking nonsense. If this is a curse, then many would welcome it. But if you wish to see me punished? Then take my luck with you, and we will call it even.’

He pointed a finger at the rope on the floor. ‘But do not come here, pretending to make my life worse with vague threats and portents of doom. There is nothing coming that will make things worse than they already are.’

And then the Gypsy smiled with true satisfaction. ‘You think so, do you? We shall see, old friend. We shall see.’ And he rose from the chair and exited the room, leaving the silk noose on the floor behind him.

In his dreams, Nate was at Newgate, again, surrounded by angry giants. They laughed and the sound was hollow and cruel, seeming to echo off the stone walls around him. He pushed through the crowd. But it was difficult, for he was so small and they did not wish to part for him. They had arrived early, to get a good view.

And he had come late, for he’d had to sneak from home. Mother had said it was no place for the family. That father had not wished it. But was Nathan not the man of the family, now? It was his responsibility to be there, at the end. So he had forced his way through the mob to the front, and had seen his father, head bowed, being led to the gallows.

He called out to him, and William Wardale raised his head, searching for the origin of the cry. His eyes were so bleak, and Nathan was sure he must be lonely. There was no friend left who would stand by him at the end. He looked down at Nathan with such love, and such relief, and reached out a hand to him, as though it could be possible to gather him close, one last time. And then, his hand dropped to his side, and a shudder went through him, for he knew what Nathan did not. While he was glad that his last sight on earth would be his son, he had known what it would mean to a child.

The hangman bound his father’s hands, and the Ordinary led him through a farce of meaningless prayer. And all around Nathan, the people were shouting, jostling each other and swearing at those who would not remove their hats so that the men in the back could see. Vendors were hawking broadsides, but he did not have the penny to buy one. So he picked a wrinkled paper from the ground before him, to see the lurid cartoon of his father, and his supposed confession.

It was lies. Every word of it. Father would never have done the things he was accused of. And even if he had, he would not have told the rest of the world the truth on the final day, after lying to Nathan, over and over. But even if it was lies, there were tears of shame pricking behind his eyelids as he read.

The hangman was placing the hood now, and a woman began to scream. He hoped it was his mother, come to take him home before he saw any more. His coming had been a mistake: there was nothing he could do and he did not want to see what was about to happen.

But it was a strange, dark-skinned woman leaning out of a window above the gallows. She was screaming in triumph, not fear, and her face had the beauty of a vengeful goddess as she stared down at the bound man and the laughing crowd.

And at him. She had found Nathan in the crowd, and stared at him as though she knew him. And then, she had shouted, in a voice so clear that the rabble had hushed to catch her words.

I call guilt to eat you alive and poison your hearts’ blood. The children will pay for the sins of their fathers, till my justice destroys the wicked.

She pointed at him as she spoke of children. And smiled. The adult Nathan screamed to the child to look away. The woman was mad. He should not mind her. And he should run from this place. If he did not, it would be too late.

And then, there was a thump, and his father’s body dropped as the floor under him disappeared. As he fell, so did the woman in the window, dangling from the silk scarf that was wrapped about her neck.

In his child’s mind, Nathan thought that the worst was over. But since then, the adult Nathan had seen enough in the Navy to understand what happened to a hanged man if there was no one to pull on his legs and help him to an easier death.

The kicking had begun. His father, and the garish puppet of a woman hanging from the window above him.

It had seemed like hours before the bodies stilled, the crowds had begun to part, and his mother had come for him.

When Nate woke, the bedclothes were wet with sweat and tears. And there was the Gypsy’s silk rope on the dresser beside him. Why had he bothered to pick the thing up and bring it home with him? The gesture was macabre, and meant to upset him. He had been foolish to play along. And Stephen Hebden had managed to raise the old nightmare to plague him.

But Stephen was not Stephen any more. His old friend was long gone. The man who had visited him was an enemy. A stranger. A Gypsy who was as angry and full of tricks as his mother had been. He must never forget that fact, or Stephano Beshaley and his curse would taint his present, just as the man’s mother had marked his childhood.

He might not be able to prevent the dreams, but during the day he would keep his mind clear of emotion, just as he did when he was at the gaming tables. His waking life would be no different, because of the Gypsy’s visit. At one time or another, Nate had endured public disgrace, loss, starvation and physical hardship. There was little left that could move him to fear, anger or joy. He’d held a hangman’s noose when he was still a child. The colourful rope on the night-stand—and its accompanying nightmare—did not compare to the horror of that day.

But his mind wandered to the people Stephen might search out when his plans for Nate failed. His sisters, perhaps?

Even a Gypsy could not stoop so low as to hurt innocent girls. Beshaley’s mother had stared directly at Nate as she’d said her curse. And he’d felt marked by the words, as if touched by a brand. Surely he was meant to pay the whole debt. Helena and Rosalind would be safe.

They had to be. How would the Gypsy even find them? When last Nate had seen them, they were tending their failing mother, waiting for him to come home. But he had lost them in the throng of strangers that was working-class London and had searched for them without success. Mother must have died, never knowing what had become of him, for she had been very sick, even before he’d disappeared. Helena and Rosalind were as lost to him as if they had never been born. It made him ache to think on it. But he could take some consolation in the fact that it would leave them safe from harassment.

Then who else would the Gypsy turn to, once he had failed with the Wardales? Did Nate owe Lord Narborough and his family a word of warning?

His own sense of injustice argued that he owed them nothing at all. They had heard about the curse as well. But they viewed it as little more than a joke. It had not scarred their lives as it had his. There was no sign that Marcus Carlow had been touched by fear. Nate should think of him as the Viscount Stanegate now that he had grown into his title. From the occasional mention of him in The Times, he had become just the man his father had hoped. Upright, respectable and honest. The sort of man that all their fathers had expected their sons to be.

If there was fault to be found, it did not lie with Marc or his siblings. It was their father who should bear the blame. Lord Narborough had claimed to be a friend of his father, but shut his doors to the Wardale family when they had needed help.

And Narborough had been the one to pin the blame on Father, when the murder had occurred. He had wasted no time in seeing to his apprehension and imprisonment.

It had gone so quickly. Too quick, he suspected. It was almost as though Narborough had seen the need for a scapegoat, and chosen William Wardale. Nate was sure, with all his heart, that his father was not a murderer. But someone had done the crime. And if there was a man alive who knew the truth, then it was most likely to be George Carlow. The murder had been committed just outside his study, after all. And he had been the one who called the loudest for a hurried trial and a timely hanging. Suppose his father had blundered on to the scene just after George Carlow had struck the fatal blow?

Nathan tried to muster some glee that the Gypsy would visit them next. The Carlow family was due for a fall. But he could find no pleasure in it. While he was sure that the senior Carlow was a miserable old sinner, the Gypsy had called for the punishment of the next generation. Would it be fair to see the curse fall upon Marc or his good-natured brother Hal? And what of their sisters, Honoria and Verity?

Nate thought again of his own two sisters, hiding their identities from the shame of association with the Wardale name. Even if George Carlow had been the true murderer, did the Carlow girls deserve to be treated as his sisters had? If Stephano Beshaley removed the protection of the older brothers, then brought about the downfall of the family, what would become of them?

Even if justice for Lord Narborough was deserved and forthcoming, could it not be delayed awhile? The girls were infants when he’d seen them last. They must be near old enough to make matches for themselves. If it was possible to stall the Gypsy, even for a month or two, then they would be safely out of the house and with families of their own, when retribution came.

It went against his grain, but Marc Carlow deserved some warning of what was coming, so that he could watch out for his sisters. They had all played together as children, and been good friends—until after the trial, when their prig of a father had forbidden further association.

Stephen had been there as well, of course. Once, they had been as alike as brothers. He forced the thoughts out of his head. With nostalgia would come sympathy and regret. And after that:weakness and fear. He could not afford to feel for the man who wished his destruction. Stephen Hebden had died in a foundling-home fire. And Stephano Beshaley was a bastard Gypsy changeling, who had turned on them the minute he had a chance.

And the man who had once been Nathan Wardale would not let himself be ruled by curses and grudges and superstitious nonsense any more than he had already. The Carlows would be no more happy to see him than he would be to go to them. But he did not wish them a visit from the Gypsy, now that Stephano had taken it into his head to resurrect the past and deliver vengeance where none was deserved.

Nate dressed carefully, as anyone might when visiting the heir to an earldom, and tucked the length of silk rope and its accusing knot into the pocket of his coat.