Читать книгу How To Marry a Rake - Deb Marlowe - Страница 10

Mae Halford’s laugh was a nearly palpable thing. It was a bedroom laugh, intimate and husky. It belonged in the dark, in moments of contented teasing and happy repletion. Out of place in a ballroom, it kept catching Stephen by surprise, destroying his concentration and tempting him to turn his head.

The Earl of Ryeton, on the other hand, laughed like a donkey.

Between the two of them, they had Stephen feeling like a damned puppet on a string, his head bobbing from one side of the room to the other, his attention reluctantly bouncing between the man who could help him achieve his dream and the woman he feared could wreck it.

It was time to get stern with himself. He had to focus on the task—or the man—at hand. He’d done more than a bit of research on the earl. Ryeton was practically a legend in racing, widely acknowledged to own the deepest stables in the kingdom. But beyond his racing credentials, Stephen had discovered only that the earl gambled at the drop of a hat, had a contentious relationship with his countess and kept a mistress of long standing here in Newmarket.

He hadn’t heard of the braying laugh before tonight. Or that the man could be so damned elusive.

Perhaps it was Landry’s assertion of snobbery that explained the earl’s reticence. Perhaps he didn’t approve of the Manning family’s reputation or even of Stephen’s own colourful past. Whatever the case, Stephen was drawing desperately close to the conclusion that the man was trying to avoid him.

The ballroom was crowded, but the two of them were moving in the same circles. Mae’s father was here, too, and he was just one more object to throw into this delicate balancing act. This was more of a circus than a ball, what with Stephen subtly chasing Ryeton, delicately avoiding Barty Halford, and shivering each time Mae’s throaty chuckle floated past.

If there was one bright spot in this difficult evening, it was the enjoyably single-minded nature of the conversations. In this end of the room, there was only one subject of interest. Horses and racing were what had brought them all together. The air was replete with references to bloodlines, time trials and handicaps. Pratchett’s name was on everyone’s lips and Stephen felt a stab of longing every time he heard it.

This was his chance. Not for nothing had Stephen lounged for hours with his brother Leo in Welbourne’s stable offices. Just for this moment had he fought exhaustion and stayed awake after a long day’s labour at Fincote, devouring the Racing Calendar and the Stud Book. He entered into the debates with fervour, insight and authority and held his own with these men of the turf.

He saw surprise on some faces—and a grudging respect on others—and his spirits soared. That look meant everything to him. He craved it. He might be a man grown, with burdens and responsibilities and goals, but the shameful truth was that there was still a remnant of the young man he used to be inside him—the one always searching for an audience. Earning a bit of esteem from these men soothed that bit of his past and at the same time promised security to the people of Fincote who were his future.

Now if only he could find the chance to inspire it in the Earl of Ryeton. He made a surreptitious half-turn, trying to search out the earl’s whereabouts, but his gaze fell on Mae Halford instead.

And held there.

She had left her chair and was moving gingerly about the ballroom. He seemed to have been almost unnaturally aware of her all evening. It felt ridiculous—as if time had somehow swapped their roles and now he was the one with the fixation. He told himself that he was only being wary. That it was only that laugh, so much more adult, more aware somehow, than the girlish giggle he remembered. But there was more to it than that.

At least fifty other ladies flitted throughout the ballroom; Mae managed to outshine them all. The others shone in the bright light of the chandeliers, their jewelled gowns and soft skin showing to advantage. But it was as if a thousand little lamps were lit inside Mae. She glowed from within—and it took an extreme force of will to look away.

He expended the effort. Lord Toswick was calling him. His host clapped him on the shoulder as Stephen stepped over to join his group.

‘We’re discussing the growing difficulties with the legs,’ Toswick informed him. ‘Seems like more and more of them have gone crooked.’

A leg, or black leg, was a professional gambler, a man who ‘made a book’ by taking bets on all the horses in a race. Legs flocked to every major race, and racing men flocked to lay down their money with them.

‘I heard the Blands were in town,’ someone said in hushed tones. The Bland brothers, and a few others like them, had become notorious for interfering with horses in order to affect the outcome of a race. Laming, opium balls, even poison had been used to nobble a favourite and ensure the leg a hefty income.

‘Lord Stephen has had some first-hand experience with just their sort,’ Toswick said with a laugh. ‘And he was barely out of leading strings.’

‘I was fifteen,’ protested Stephen. ‘Hardly a babe.’

‘Tell the story,’ Toswick urged.

The other gentlemen urged him on, so Stephen told the tale of how, disappointed at being left behind when his parents travelled to see the St Leger, he had run away to Doncaster on his own. While hiding in the stables he had uncovered a plot to maim the race favourite. He’d foiled the plan, reported it, and then won a small fortune betting on another horse altogether.

As it was rather late, and the champagne had been flowing freely all evening, the gentlemen all found this to be uproariously funny. Stephen’s hand was shook and he was congratulated all around, until a more officious voice broke in.

‘That was extremely well done of you, and at such a young age, too.’ It was the Earl of Ryeton, joining their group and shaking his head. ‘Surely something must be done about these blasted legs.’ He glanced down his nose. ‘Young Manning, is it not?’

Lord Toswick stepped in to make the introductions. Stephen’s heart accelerated and he sent the man a silent blessing for the opportunity.

‘Of course, I don’t mean to paint all the legs with the same brush,’ he told Ryeton. ‘Gambling has always been a large part of the sport.’ He nodded to the company around them. ‘Everyone here knows that racing would not be what it is today, if not for the betting.’

‘Yes, yes, and of course there are plenty of honest men making books.’ The earl appeared to be impatient with even a hint of disagreement. ‘It’s the crooked ones that are making things so damned difficult. Three separate incidents I’ve had in my stables over the past year. Two were caught in time, but I lost a very promising filly to poisoned feed.’ Ryeton’s colour had grown higher. ‘It’s a travesty, is what it is.’ He tossed back his drink and waved for another.

‘It does lend an ugly taint,’ Stephen agreed. ‘Cheating only breeds suspicion and distrust where we would hope for enthusiastic and healthy competition.’

‘Something must be done before things get even more out of hand. I’ve called a gathering of the Jockey Club stewards to discuss the issue. We need swift justice—and stern consequences. A precedent must be established.’ He gave a low laugh. ‘We cannot expect these people to govern themselves. They are not gentlemen.’

He glanced askance at Stephen. ‘The stewards meet early tomorrow. Perhaps if you are about …’ He paused. ‘Ah, but I’d forgotten. You are not a member of the Jockey Club, are you, Manning?’

‘That honour has not been mine.’ Not yet. ‘But I am hoping to find sponsorship for admittance to the Coffee Rooms,’ Stephen added smoothly. Acceptance as a member of the Jockey Club Rooms was the first step towards becoming a full member of racing’s elite body.

Ryeton hesitated, then nodded towards their host. ‘I’m assembling a group to ride out and watch the practice on the Heath tomorrow afternoon. I had just invited Toswick.’

Stephen grinned. ‘There’s scarcely a better moment, is there? To lean into the wind of a group of galloping thoroughbreds and feel the thunder of their passing beneath your feet?’

Ryeton nodded and triumph bloomed fiercely in Stephen’s chest. This was it; the earl was going to invite him along. Yes. He needed this. Fincote needed this. It was a small step, but a first one towards a bright future. For him and for the people who depended on him.

‘Perhaps you would care to—’

Something struck Stephen behind the knee and he stumbled forwards into Ryeton, cutting him off.

‘Perhaps, Manning, all that thunder and wind comes from your flapping jaw,’ someone said behind him.

‘What?’ Turning, Stephen suppressed a surge of irritation and a vision of Mae Halford’s mischievous grin. She always did have an exquisite sense of timing—and an uncanny ability to intervene in the most inopportune moments.

But of course it wasn’t Mae interfering. Instead, he found a gentleman hovering close, his handsome visage blighted by rough scars that traced a path along his jaw and climbed the right side of his face. He leaned heavily on a cane with one hand, held the other outstretched and grinned widely all over his face.

‘Grange?’ Stephen’s jaw dropped in shock. ‘Matthew Grange! What in blazes are you doing here, man?’ His eyes running over his friend, he reached out and grasped his hand.

‘I thought to hire myself out as a jockey.’ Matthew’s mouth twisted. ‘Idiot!’ he said fondly. ‘What do you think? I’m here for the races.’

Stephen still had not let go of his hand. ‘Of course. Hanstead Hall is so close—I’d hoped to stop for a visit after the racing. I hadn’t expected. It’s just so damned good to see you out and about.’ Recollecting himself, he pulled away. ‘I’m sorry, you shocked the good manners right out of me. Matthew, do you know the Earl of Ryeton?’ He turned. ‘Ryeton, if I may present an old friend …’

But the earl had taken a step back and was already engaged in conversation with some others. ‘Perhaps later,’ Stephen said, swallowing a wave of disappointment. He stared at Matthew again and a slow smile broke out over his face. ‘Damn, but you look a sight better than the last time I saw you.’

He’d met Matthew Grange on the first day of school, when he’d punched him in the nose for calling his father’s mistress a whore. Matthew had tripped him on his way down, and despite the fact that Grange had two years on him, they had been evenly matched. They’d beaten each other to a bloody pulp, Matthew had apologised and they’d been inseparable for years.

Until his friend bought a commission and went away to put Napoleon in his place. Matthew had barely got in on the end of the conflict, but he’d been at Waterloo. In fact, he’d been caught right next to a twelve-pounder when a mortar hit it. Burned by exploding gunpowder, scarred by molten metal, and with the addition of a load of shrapnel in his right leg, it had been nearly a year before he could be moved.

Matthew had continued to fight, struggling to heal at home, but heartbreakingly, had lost his leg last year.

‘I dare say cadavers have looked better than I did when last I saw you.’ Matthew laughed. ‘But I feel a damned sight better, I don’t mind telling you.’

‘And glad I am to hear it.’

‘What’s that I heard about the Jockey Club? Hoping to wiggle your way in?’

‘Hoping to earn my way in,’ Stephen corrected. Matthew already knew about Fincote. He took a minute to explain his hopes regarding Pratchett. ‘Ryeton’s champion is my best hope for a spectacular launch, but barring that sort of instant notoriety and success, membership in the Jockey Club is the next best way for me to establish Fincote as a racecourse of repute.’ He sighed. ‘It’s a significantly longer path, though.’

Matthew grinned. ‘You’re young yet, Manning.’

‘Were it only me I had to worry about, I’d have the patience of Job.’ Stephen had to work to hide his anxiety from his friend. ‘I know I wrote to you about the conditions I found at Fincote.’

But he hadn’t, really. Even if he’d been so inclined, there had been no way to put down on paper what he’d discovered or how it had made him feel. Why hadn’t he checked in on the estate when he’d first inherited it? He knew why, but still he’d cursed himself a thousand times for allowing Fincote’s people to become as helpless and hopeless as his mother had been.

‘I convinced them to go along with my plans,’ he continued. ‘They deserve to finally see some returns for their labours.’ He sighed. And then he returned Matthew’s grin as he scrubbed a hand through his hair. ‘But enough about me. This is a night for unexpected comings and goings.’

He glanced across the ballroom. Mae stood slim and tall in the corner, a bright candle amidst a crowd of sober-clad gentlemen. Let her shine her light on them—as long as she didn’t start aiming it at him again.

He glanced about. ‘But never tell me you’ve come alone? After the difficult time your mother has experienced, I would have thought she’d enjoy a spot of society.’

Matthew frowned. ‘You would think so, but she hasn’t thrown off her mourning yet.’

‘Not yet? But surely it’s been … yes, well over a year since your father passed on.’

‘True.’ Matthew sighed. He slapped his thigh where the extra length of his breeches was neatly pinned over the peg that replaced the rest of his leg. ‘But I vow, she’s mourning this leg of mine as deeply as she does my father.’ He sat silent a moment. ‘She’s convinced my life is over as well.’

Stephen’s jaw tightened against a surge of resentment. He’d felt this before, on behalf of his friend. Matthew’s mother’s sentiments reminded him painfully—and infuriatingly—of his own mother’s maudlin excuses. Weak, defeatist drivel. It put his back up and made his gorge rise.

But Matthew’s face had hardened. He looked up at Stephen with a glower. ‘I’m here to prove her wrong.’

Stephen relaxed. ‘She couldn’t possibly be more wrong.’ He grinned to lighten the mood. ‘Does she know how frightful a dancer you always were?’ He gestured to his friend’s elaborately carved peg. ‘Surely you can do as well with that contraption as you ever did on your own two feet.’

Matthew gave a startled chuckle. After a moment it turned into a genuinely rueful laugh. ‘No, this is the perfect excuse to give up dancing.’ He eyed Stephen’s blond hair, cut far shorter now than when he’d been living a fashionable life in London. ‘But I still have my wits about me and a damned good head of hair above them. Surely there’s a young lady or two who won’t mind sitting out a set.’ He sighed. ‘Or there’s always the card room.’

‘You forget where we are. It’s Newmarket, man! And you’re as good a judge of horseflesh as any man I’ve ever met. You could talk of nothing else for the entire week and still be thought a sparkling conversationalist.’ He clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Now, let’s introduce you around.’

* * *

For the next hour Stephen stayed at Matthew’s side, presenting him to all and sundry. It was no easy task. Never in all of his life had he had to work so hard to maintain an air of complacent good humour. For while a few grasped his friend’s scarred hand in easy welcome, it was clear that many others were uncomfortable with, even scornful of, his deformities.

Stephen wanted to berate every fool who allowed his revulsion to show on his face and he wanted to shake the idiot woman who flatly refused to offer her hand, but fortunately Matthew was in a jovial temper—and he wasn’t above a self-deprecating joke or two. Together with Stephen’s hearty laughter and calm acceptance, they managed to quickly soothe most of the discomfort they encountered.

But Stephen was beginning to feel stretched too thin. He felt like a juggler with too many balls in the air. He was happy to work to secure Matthew’s acceptance, of course, but at the same time he was watching for an opportunity to re-engage Ryeton. The earl had been about to include him in his party tomorrow. He wanted to give the man the chance to finish the invitation and he wanted to accept it with alacrity.

And he wanted to forget Mae Halford’s presence. She certainly appeared to have forgotten his. It was almost unnerving, in fact. He could scarcely recall a time when he’d been in the same room as Mae and had not been the centre of her formidable attention. He told himself firmly that he was glad of it.

Yet suddenly she was looking up, as if the weight of his regard had been a tap on her shoulder. Their gazes met. The ghost of a smile crossed her face.

Stephen pivoted away. Matthew was engaged in conversation with a wide-eyed young miss. To hide his confusion he looked about for Ryeton.

There. The earl and Toswick stood talking just a few feet away. Ryeton met his eye, but quickly averted his gaze, as Stephen had just done to Mae.

Something scuttled down Stephen’s spine. A warning, perhaps. But he was determined and a little desperate. ‘Come,’ he interrupted Matthew. He smiled an apology at the girl. ‘I must introduce you to the man who is set to fleece us all. I believe the lucky devil’s got a favourite in every damned race. We’ll all end up indebted to him by the end of the week.’ He took a step towards the two men.

And then it happened—one of those moments that can occur naturally in any crowd. The orchestra wound to a finish. Conversations paused as guests lightly applauded, and the Earl of Ryeton’s words rang out unusually loud over the quiet moment.

‘What is he thinking? This is a ball, for God’s sake. It’s the height of poor taste for that man to expose the rest of us to his disgusting abnormalities. And has Manning run mad? To squire the cripple about in good company?’

Toswick whispered urgently, trying to shush the earl, but Ryeton paid him no mind and suddenly that donkey’s laugh hung in the air. ‘The man’s lucky he wasn’t born a horse. Were he one of my nags I’d have him shot.’

Time stopped. All around them men stilled and ladies gasped. Stephen halted in midstep, caught up in a torrent of icy-cold shock and heated fury. For the fraction of a second, he reached for his usual control, scoured his brain for a jaunty bit of humour that might salvage this horrifying moment. But then he saw the flush of anger and embarrassment spread across Matthew’s face. He thought of the incredible courage it had taken for his friend to show up and act as if his life and his body had not been shattered—and he saw the moment Ryeton realised what had happened, right before his nose tilted up and his expression settled into a belligerent scowl.

This was it, then, one of those moments by which a man defined himself and shaped the course of his life. Stephen allowed himself the briefest sliver of a moment in which to mourn his lost opportunities, to prepare himself for an added burn of guilt, before he embraced the wrath surging through his veins and entered the fray.

‘I dare say you would, Ryeton,’ he ground out. ‘But what if the case were reversed? Surely it would be better to be shot for a heroic warhorse than a dim-witted, braying ass.’

‘Excuse me?’ Ryeton turned his reddened face to their host. ‘What did he say to me?’

Toswick only sputtered helplessly.

‘You heard me, my lord. Feeling better about yourself, are you, for having judged a man by the bits he is missing?’ Stephen’s fury raged through him, opening wounds he’d thought long buried. Suddenly every mocking slur cast against his unorthodox family, every whispered taunt about his sad and lonely mother stung him again, releasing their venom into his veins. ‘It’s obvious, though, that he’s not the only one here missing a few vital pieces. And were I forced to choose between your affliction and his, I’d gladly give up my leg and the use of my hand if it meant I could keep my honour and integrity.’

Another round of gasps went up from the crowd. Ryeton, nearly purple with fury, thrust his glass at Toswick. ‘I shall find a great deal of pleasure in making you regret those words.’ Ryeton’s voice took an unexpected turn to a higher octave at the end of his threat.

Stephen might have laughed if he hadn’t understood just how many ways it could come true. He took a menacing step towards the man. ‘You are welcome to consider whom you would like as your second. I believe we were in the process of arranging to meet in any case, it would be just as well to make it a dawn appointment.’

‘No.’ Matthew’s voice rang out this time, the authority inherent in his tone a direct contrast to Ryeton’s bleating. ‘It’s my infirmities he mocks, and did I think him worth it, it would be me meeting him at dawn.’ He gave Ryeton a hard stare. ‘And though I may have only one good hand left, my lord, I’ve killed more than a few Frenchmen with it. I doubt I’d have any trouble dispatching you.’

He paused and swept a steely look across the gawking guests. ‘But I don’t find him worth the trouble. He’s entitled to his opinion. Whatever he thinks of my “abnormalities”, I know I obtained them on a field of honour, defending my fellows and my country, and my king.’

Matthew might have said more, but he was interrupted by a softly uttered, ‘Oh, bravo!’ from the chit he’d been talking with. He coloured once more and looked to Stephen.

‘Let’s go,’ Stephen said shortly. He gave Ryeton a last glare before gesturing to the crowd knotted around them. A path opened up, and he waited for his friend to set out before him.

But the evening held one last shock. Stephen stared as several footmen burst into the ballroom. Two pulled up just inside the door, but one had his head down and a dogged expression on his face. Guests shrieked, scattering before him. Drawing closer, Stephen saw the reason behind it all. Fleet as a frisky colt, a boy dodged and darted just ahead of the man—a grime-spattered boy who, cap in hand, caught sight of the cleared aisle and pelted down the centre of it. He skidded to a stop at the sight of the earl.

‘Lord Ryeton,’ he wheezed. He bent over to catch his breath. ‘There’s trouble in the stables. ‘Tis Pratchett, my lord!’

The crowd began to murmur. All the buzzing, gossiping people who had begun to turn away surged forwards again, eager to catch a glimpse of the new commotion.

Stephen noted that the high colour had drained from Ryeton’s face. ‘Well?’ he barked at the child. ‘Spit it out, boy! Pratchett, you say? What’s amiss with my best horse?’

‘He’s been stolen, my lord!’ He sucked in a breath. ‘Pratchett’s gone!’