The milliner shook his head. “A right awful business, that. The watch came yesterday morning to drag him to debtors’ prison. I knew it was bad, but I didn’t realize it was that bad.”
The blood drained from John’s face. The tailor was in debtors’ prison because Walter had run up debts and John hadn’t paid them. “The tailor’s family?”
The milliner was a big man with a grizzled beard and a thick, corded neck. He looked more like a boxer than a man who worked with fabric, but despite his gruff appearance, tears welled as he spoke. “They took the wife and those two sweet little girls too. There was no one else they could stay with, and she couldn’t afford the rent on her own. Curse every lord who thinks he’s above paying his bills.”
Johnwas a man who hadn’t paid his bill. He’d yet to work out a solution to his brother’s mess and now a good, hardworking man and his family were paying the price.
“Thank you for your time,” he said, though his throat strained to say the words.
News of the tailor’s incarceration had reached all the vendors on Bond Street. His intention had been to ask them each for a week’s grace before paying his next installment and to use that money to bankroll a high stakes game, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it now.
He gave them what cash he had and worthless promises that he would square away his debts soon. In the past, the vendors had responded well to John’s assurances, but as he went door-to-door this morning splitting those paltry food savings among a dozen creditors, John’s reception was less than cordial. Hell, it bordered on ice cold. Every time he spoke to a vendor he wondered:Is this the next person to go to jail for my brother’s offenses?
True, Walter’s debts—though sizable—weren’t large enough to be the sole cause of Mr. Crabnaught’s incarceration. The tailor likely had many other debtors. But that fact couldn’t deflect the weight of what John now knew he needed to do.
After making the rounds of tailors and bookmakers and gun shops, he sat at his desk, reached into the top drawer, and pulled out that blasted betrothal contract. He would give himself a week to come up with the money he needed. He would even involve Charlotte if he must, despite his instincts to the contrary. But if his debts weren’t clear in seven days, he would have Luella’s father seek a special license and would be married to her immediately after.
A week was longer than he wanted to see a family in prison. But prison, as awful as it was, was better than the streets, which was where they would be until he could make good, however he had to do it.
***
Charlotte’s heart rate skittered as the wheels of the hackney she’d hired bounced over an uneven gravel road. As far as Edward knew, she was going to the Haversham ball. As far as Fiona knew, she was attending the Lester musicale. She’d told Simmons she was heading to Vauxhall with Henrietta and her husband.
If they discovered she wasn’t at one event, they would assume she was at another and that communication lines had simply been crossed.
She turned the calling card over and over in her hands. She’d worried at it so much that the corners had curled and her nails had left notches along the edges. She wished John were there to calm her nerves. She was used to walking into any situation with confidence, but this was something different, and his company would have been soothing. His experience would have been useful because, in all honesty, she had no idea what she was doing. The world she was stepping into was so far from the ballrooms of Mayfair.
She’d visited Madame Bernier that morning, a modiste whose dresses could be found on opera singers and rich widows—never on a respectable young woman. Charlotte had paid a duke’s ransom to have another client’s almost-finished dress nipped and tucked to fit her instead, with another two dresses on the way—all three deep jewel colors with low necklines and skirts that clung to her body.
She didn’t know what to expect from the club she was about to visit, but she thought it was highly unlikely that women present, if there were any women present, would wear prim, white dresses and decolletage-covering fichus.
The cab pulled to a stop. She took a deep, fortifying breath, tied a domino mask to her face, and pushed open the carriage door.
The area was surprisingly full of life. There was a tavern on the corner with flaring lights and blaring music and men leaning against the outside walls, laughing, joking, and smoking cigars. Men and women of all ages and nationalities walked past her, paying her little attention, so engrossed were they in their own conversation. A young boy, tall and lanky but still a child, slowed his run just long enough to doff a cap so worn that patches of it caught the lamplight like a puddle on pavement. He gave a cheeky wink as he passed.
No one looked embarrassed to be here. She had expected a gambling den to be dark and hidden, somewhere men went in secret. That was clearly not the case. There was a big sign above the door. Light blazed from the windows, and the doors were wide open, inviting passersby to enter.
She swallowed and tightened her grip around her reticule, the weight of the gold inside heightening her nerves. She had taken her most elaborate necklace, along with a few pieces no one would notice missing, to a pawnbroker, who had looked at her askance when she entered his premises and then promised to hold them for twenty-four hours before they were put for sale.
If she had the luck she needed, she’d be able to retrieve them tomorrow before anyone noticed they were missing. That is, assuming that she could still win at cards without John’s help. She had sent him a letter via her maid, telling him where she’d gone. Perhaps he would change his mind once he realized she was going to do this with or without his help.
She tugged on the edge of her elbow-length gloves, smoothing out the wrinkles. She brushed down the bodice of her oversized coat. Looking left to make sure she wasn’t about to be run down by a carriage, she crossed the street, her mouth going dry.
The man at the door in garish livery gave her a speculative look as she approached. She reached up to make sure that her mask was still firmly in place. It might make her stand out in the crowd, but that was preferable to being recognized. If her brother had lost a fortune here, there was every chance other men of thetonwould be inside.
“Welcome to The Lucky Honeypot, my lady.”
Could he tell that she was titled, or did he say that to all women?
“I’m here to play,” she said, faking both confidence and an American accent. Better those inside think her a wealthy American heiress than a woman of the English aristocracy.
The butler inclined his head and stood aside so she could enter. Charlotte gasped at the sight in front of her. It was every bit as opulent as a ballroom or a London theater. The chandeliers hanging from the ceiling were ablaze with hundreds of candles. Plush oriental carpets, the kind one saw in a duke’s receiving room, helped to section off different parts of the room where men sat around tables playing games that were both familiar—whist and loo—and unknown to her, games with dice and wheels and spinning balls.
“Excuse me, ma’am.” A gentleman entering after her brushed past. Charlotte’s cheeks flushed as she realized she was still standing at the entrance, blocking the path.
She stepped to the side where a footman was waiting to take her coat. She held it closed fast at the throat. As it was, it covered her from neck to toe, the only way she’d been able to leave Wildeforde House in a dress that would give her brother and her butler an apoplexy if they saw it. The moment she removed it, she would reveal more to these strangers than she ever had before. It was tempting to leave, to turn around and flee from a situation that was so far beyond anything she’d ever experienced. But then her gaze fell on the former soldier, Private Gray, who had been William’s friend and was now watching the room with an eagle eye.
If she didn’t do this, William could be hurt. That was all the impetus needed for her to remove her coat and hand it to the footman, trying to appear unaffected by the appreciative gazes of the men in the room. The deep red dress with a neckline that only just covered her nipples had felt scandalous in the shop that afternoon. Now it felt positively on fire.
