Col moved the white pawns exactly as Miss Smythe had moved them, and then advanced the black opposing pawns, mimicking his own moves.
The old man gave a low whistle and leaned forward, his hands on his knees. “You weren’t interested in winning, were you?”
Col hung his head. “I had no idea what I was doing.”
“Had you ever played before?”
“Years ago, I played every night.”
“And you never got better?”
“No. I couldn’t keep my mind on learning chess.” He raised his eyes to meet those of the old chess master. “I was more interested in what came after the game.”
4
APRIL 6, 1826
ST. JOHN’S WOOD VILLA, LONDON
Charlotte spread out Mr. Colwyn’s journal pages on the counterpane of her large, comfortable bed on the top floor of her St. John’s Wood villa. Her house companions, who’d spent the night curled next to her, sat on the comfortable stuffed settee near the large window overlooking the thickly wooded street. They sipped slowly at their tea and read pages from the journal. Both of their faces were still flushed from the warmth of the night they’d spent with her, sprawled in each other’s arms. Both still had sleep-tousled hair.
The two of them served officially as Charlotte’s lady’s maids, offering the outside world an explanation for why three single women lived together without benefit of family or husbands. Actually, her two friends were the only tethers that held together Charlotte’s sanity.
Her only other servants, the butler, footman, and cook, owed their allegiance to Captain Goodrum. They served Charlotte faithfully and never engaged in frivolous gossip with neighboring servants, or at the Abbey Tavern.
Margot, cross-legged on the settee, spoke first. “All of these pages are filled with words of love written by a man so smitten, he appears to be unable to see what this woman is doing to him.” She shoved her unfettered mahogany curls back behind her ears.
Gabrielle rose to her knees next to Margot, leaned in, and peered over the other woman’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t call him a man. Why, this poor child couldn’t have been much more than fifteen or sixteen when he penned this nonsense.” She rucked up her sensible fine linen night shift to lean closer, revealing long, slender arches and toes as well as the dimpled backside of a knee. She snatched one of the pages out of her friend’s hand and joined Charlotte on the bed.
“Why do you always do that?” Gabrielle grumbled half-heartedly.
The room became silent for a few moments while they pored over Col’s journal pages.
Charlotte spoke first. “He was trying to learn to play chess while this horrible woman seduced him. Poor baby.”
“I don’t think he suffered that mightily.” Margot adjusted her half reading spectacles and peered warily above them.
“No,” Gabrielle added. “Did you read the description of how she…?”
Charlotte interrupted what she was about to say by holding out her hand. “Why did I bring you two into this puzzle? I might have known better…” She trailed off after reading a few more lines on the pages she held up to the morning light streaming through the window of her tree shaded aerie. “Oh, my God.”
“What?” Her friends nearly shouted in unison.
“Listen to this…” Charlotte began to read aloud from one of her pages.
“Tonight, my life changed forever. Maria is mine now. I don’t know how this will end, but I must find a way to support us so that she can leave her husband. My father left me a bit of money, but it’s not enough, and I don’t come into my inheritance until I’m twenty-one. Maria remains childless after many years. Surely he’ll grant her freedom so that he can get an heir on another.
“From the beginning, we’ve shared pleasurable love play, but I’ve always had to be careful not to spend inside her. Until tonight, I never thought she’d allow me to claim her.
“The first time I saw her, it was autumn at Cambridge. The day was crisp with promise of golden days to come, but underlaid with a whiff of death in the dried leaves bowling along with the wind across the triangle. We’d played a rough game against Oxford and I’d gotten a fearsome knock to my right knee. I couldn’t keep up with the other lads, so I’d told them to go ahead to the inn, and I’d limp along to catch up later.
“She walked directly toward me along the path, and at first I thought she was looking for someone especially, the way her head tilted this way and that, with an occasional furtive glance behind. She wore a long, dark crimson redingote and a jaunty matching hat with a feather, all in the same deep color of blood when it rushes from the body. Her cheeks flushed a similar shade from the cold, lashing wind.
“When I asked her whom she sought, she said she sought me. She led me back to her rooms at the very inn where my friends were celebrating noisily in the tavern beneath our room. When I offered to bathe so as not to offend, she laughed, the sly little laugh I would come to know better than my own. She said she wanted me off the field, still sweaty and fresh from the fierce game I’d just played.
“When I tried to take her as I would any of the willing women in the village, she shook her head and smiled. For the rest of that afternoon, and long into the night, until late the next morning, she kept me in that tiny room, teaching me all the ways to please a woman without getting her with child. She was married, she said, to a jealous nobleman who would have both of us killed if he knew of the pleasures we’d shared that day.
“She said we could never meet again, but over the next two years she came for me anyway, many times. On some occasions we’d walk into town. She brought me footman’s livery to wear, and I’d carry her packages, pretending to be her servant. One day I saw Sythe, who was in town with his mother. He recognized me, but said nothing. The next time we were in our rooms, he and the rest of my friends tried to make me see reason.
