J.D.
Lottie read it three times before setting it down. She should not have been surprised. Cards had been the next wager, after all, and she had named it herself. But she had expected a lively gathering: a green baize table, a ring of smirking gentlemen, brandy, cigars, laughter, an audience before whom she might defeat him splendidly. Not Mr Deverell’s house, at night. Alone. She felt a thrill she had no business feeling, followed by a rising tide of suspicion. She would not allow herself to fall into that trap again.
Still, the wheels were already turning. She would not sit about like some tragic little ninny, wondering whether Jasper Deverell wanted her, or respected her, or meant anything at all by the way he looked at her. If he wished to play, they would play. If he wished to be wicked, she would be worse. And if Society had already decided Charlotte Tolliver was fast, reckless, and not to be trusted with her own virtue, she saw no compelling reason to move slowly.
Meeting him, however, would require leaving the house without attracting the notice of her siblings, her parents, or the staff. That required an ailment.
Sneaking out began, as such things often did in the Tolliver household, with a headache.
“Oh, heavens,” she declared that evening after supper, pressing a hand dramatically to her temple as she stood from the pianoforte. “I do believe I shall retire early. I feel quite unequal to company.”
Mari looked up from the armchair by the fire. “Is it the sort of headache that can be soothed with tea, or must we prepare the family for your imminent demise?”
“The sort that requires solitude and quiet.”
“You mean to sneak out,” Mari said under her breath as Lottie passed.
“Do youwantme to bite you?”
“Just remember to return with your dignity intact this time,” Mari murmured. “And perhaps with a clean forfeit victory. That will do wonders for the headache.”
“I loathe you,” Lottie muttered, and swept from the room, already calculating which window squeaked the least when opened.
At ten minutes past ten, she was fully dressed and tucked into a modest travelling cloak. She crept down the servants’ stairs, slipped through the back corridor, and let herself out by the tradesmen’s entrance with the ease of long practice.
By the time the Tolliver household set about extinguishing the lamps, Charlotte was already en route. The carriage Jasper had promised was waiting three streets away, drawn up beside the baker’s and driven by a coachman with a dubious moustache and no interest whatsoever in conversation.
She was shown into the house by a grim butler at precisely eleven o’clock.
Jasper Deverell was already waiting, of course, leaning far too casually against the newel post of the staircase, as though receiving young ladies in secret at such an hour were a perfectly ordinary part of his evening. He looked her over with a smile that was equal parts admiration and trouble.
“Right on time.”
“I am nothing if not punctual,” she replied, unfastening her cloak. “Though I confess I had expected a table, a fire, andperhaps a few bottles of port. Are we to play cardshere? With only the two of us?”
“Don’t be absurd,” he said, pushing off the post and offering his arm. “Of course we are not staying in.”
“Then where are we going?”
“Bellamy’s.”
She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“Bellamy’s,” he repeated, as if she’d misheard the first time. “The gentlemen’s club.”
She laughed aloud. “Only men are permitted at Bellamy’s, sir.”
“Precisely,” he said, with his familiar lopsided grin. “Which is why, tonight, you shall not be Miss Tolliver at all. You shall be my young second cousin from the country. No one shall recognise you, and no one shall question me.”
There was a pause, in which she stared at him as though he had suggested robbing the Bank of England, halfway betwixt horror and laughter. “You are utterly mad.”
“I know,” he replied cheerfully, already turning on his heel. “Now, come. Let us go to my rooms, Mr Tolliver. We’ve a great deal to do and very little time.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Do not be so coy,” he said over his shoulder. “I’ve had my hands beneath your skirts before, have I not?”
She bit her cheek and followed him upstairs with the expression of one who knew better and had decided to ignore it anyway.
