“He had better not be,” Mae said flatly.
“He isn’t,” Vix assured her.
“No, no, nothing like that,” Hannah said, turning fully around and giving in to the amusement bubbling under her tongue. “It is very silly. Vix, I’m not sure Mr. Aster would forgive me if I told you.”
Mae scoffed. “That only means that you must.”
“Well, first you must understand that Mr. Aster is blessed with a sort of preternatural good luck,” Hannah said, opening her hands toward the others as she explained. “Ember furiously explained to me once that she has never seen someone win so many times in a row without cheating, and that she would know if he was cheating because she herself is a cheater.”
“Why didn’t we invite Ember today?” Mae wondered idly.
“Anyway,” Hannah continued, “I suppose the other gamblers don’t take kindly to someone with that kind of luck, and men in their cups who repeatedly lose large sums of money to the same person, especially when that person seems rather disillusioned by their good fortune, may be inspired to violence.”
“Oh, no!” Rosalind breathed.
Vix tilted her head, intrigued. “Oh?”
“Yes, and from what I understand, Mr. Aster feels resentful about the number of times Mr. Reed has prevented confrontations from actually reaching him,” Hannah said, giggling despite herself and shaking her head. “I do not know if it is because he wishes to try his hand at fighting or if it is because his pride is wounded at not being able to talk down his opponent, but he is very testy about it every time Mr. Reed dispatches a would-be assailant.”
“He doesn’t like being rescued?” Rosalind asked, sounding truly baffled.
“Isthatwhat Mr. Reed’s job is?” Mae said overtop of her. “Really?”
Vix turned back to the mirror thoughtfully as she listened to them chatter behind her, turning over this bit of information in her mind.
Preternatural good luck, was it? A talent for cards? An appetite for conflict?
That was worth considering.
“So what did you actually get up to, then?” Mae asked, drawing her attention back. “When you went to his house?”
“Oh,” said Vix, blinking. “Oh, I met his butler. Or manservant. A sort of competent assistant of all trades. German fellow called Zeller. He showed me some of the rooms on the ground floor and assisted me with a few matters of scheduling and particulars that I required. He seems very capable.”
“The butler?” Rosalind repeated, frowning. “What about your intended?”
Vix laughed. “He spent most of the time trying to elbow Roland out of the way and frowning every time I acknowledged anyone but him. It was almost charming, really.”
“Almost, hm?” Hannah asked, a knowing smile on her face. “I told you he was amusing.”
Vix did not reply, instead stepping off the little pedestal as the modiste motioned to her that she had finished with the alterations for the wedding gown and they could move on to the next piece, a tea gown in violet lace, which would not require half so much fussing.
By the time she returned in the new gown, the conversation had mercifully moved back to other topics that did not require her toreflect on how amusing or charming or anything else she found Ambrose Aster.
Instead, she was able to recruit Rosalind for a trip to the draper the following day, ensure that Hannah would chase Teddy for advance payment to the tailor, and discuss which unwholesome books she and Mae would be reading next.
It was, all in all, a very productive afternoon.
CHAPTER 7
“Miss Beck has arrived, Herr Ambrose,” came Zeller’s unfailing monotone from the parlor door.
For the second time in recent history, Ambrose found himself frowning down at overly fancy stationery with dread blossoming in his chest, and this time, he didn’t have any time at all to sit and brood about it or elsewise go and fall asleep in a gambling den.
He blinked up at Zeller with a wrinkle of his brow, the weighted letter sagging in his fingers, and sighed. “Yes, all right,” he said with a shrug. “Might as well send her in.”
He glanced in the mirror over the fireplace and reached up to brush the hair out of his eyes. If she was going to find him standing there, half flayed by a letter, he should at least be presentable for the occasion.
He sighed and looked back down at the damned thing with a shake of his head, then realized Zeller was still loitering in the doorway, his gloved hands folded in front of him like he waswaiting for Ambrose to physically boost him back out into the entryway to let Vix into the parlor.
