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Playing To Win
Laurel Ames
Sera Had Always Loved a Challenge, But Tony Was Proving to be Difficult Even For Her Considerable Skills!Despite her bookish exterior, Sera Barclay was an imp with outrageous charm and depths undreamed of by London's stuffy ton. A woman who would risk anything for the sake of the husband who gave her his heart, and denied her everything else… .A man of particular honor and pride, Tony Cainbrooke's inherited debt kept him estranged from his wife. But his distance was getting harder and harder to maintain… for Sera's antics to bring them together grew more outrageous by the day!
Playing to Win
Laurel Ames
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Acknowledgments
I owe many thanks to Mr. Edward W. Eckman and Dr. John P. Sokol for valuable research material and expert advice.
Contents
Chapter One (#u3a0bad26-f8ea-52e0-a2d2-f0381ae560b5)
Chapter Two (#u9d707e62-eeed-5bc1-97dd-e4cb42b8947a)
Chapter Three (#ubaaca3da-9ea7-5ed1-ade6-14b951829442)
Chapter Four (#u009aa8ea-4fbf-5b02-b7e7-42ec74f0b5f0)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
London—September 1815
A low fog crept across the clearing, shrouding both men and horses from the knees down. The jingle of harness, and a snort, seemed overloud in the dark stillness. Tony Cairnbrooke’s seconds conferred with Lord Vonne’s men over the pistols. The horses steamed gently. It was damp and cold for this time of year.
“He’s agreed to twenty paces, Tony. One shot each.” Tony’s cousin Winwood looked serious for once.
“Is it light enough yet?” Tony asked numbly, his only concern at this point to get the affair over with. Dueling was so stupid.
“Give it another few minutes,” said Win, scanning the eastern horizon.
“What did Vonne say when you conveyed my apologies to him?” Tony asked tiredly.
“Tony, you made love to his wife. You can’t just apologize and expect that to be an end to it.”
“I know,” said Tony, shaking his head, “but I was drunk— Drunk! I must have been insane.” The only hatless man present, Tony ran an impatient hand through his damp brown hair.
“You can best Vonne. I’ve seen you shoot. You are sober now, aren’t you?” Winwood asked, in some concern.
“Very!”
Winwood left Tony alone and went to talk in whispers to the few other men clustered under the dripping trees. The rain had stopped, and Tony thought that once the fog lifted it might be a fine day...for someone else. It was amazing how fast the sky lightened, and one could say it was now daylight, rather than night, even without a sunrise.
Lord Vonne paced idly, as though this were an everyday matter to him. Indeed, it nearly was. He had fought three other men in the short time he had been married to Madeleine. His black goatee and mustache looked particularly sinister in the dim light.
Vonne caught Tony looking at him, and nodded in a businesslike way. Tony went to stand back-to-back with him. The count went quickly as the two men strode away from each other. But Tony needed no time to decide what to do. He had considered it all night.
When it was time, he turned, brought the pistol up deliberately beside his head and fired into the air. He was, after all, in the wrong.
Vonne waited, as though he had half expected this. He slowly took aim and fired. Tony did no more than sway for a moment, as though he had lost his footing. There was something warm below his collarbone. Strange that it should feel only as though someone had run into him. It was not what he had been expecting. There was an unpleasant roaring in his ears that would have blotted out all talk, if there had been any. Then he couldn’t see.
They all stood motionless, watching him. It seemed a long time. When he tried to take a step, he went down on his knees.
“He’s hit!” yelled Winwood, and ran to catch Tony as he fell forward.
* * *
The sun was streaming into the Barclay drawing room after a night of rain and morning of dreary clouds.
“I hear that young Cairnbrooke has been shot,” Lady Jane Stanley said to her young protégée Serafina Barclay.
“What a pity. I hope he survives,” said Sera, turning her attention from the sunshine to Lady Jane.
Her hazel eyes were quite lovely, Lady Jane thought. The child’s nose could be straighter, but she had a good figure and lovely hair, a delicate brown touched with auburn. All things considered, the nose was not all that noticeable.
“Why are you staring at me?” Sera asked, laughing at her older friend’s myopic regard. Lady Jane always reminded Sera of an inquisitive bird, especially because of the way the ringlets of hair danced above her ears when she cocked her head.
“You know him?”
“I’ve met him...at an assembly. He hardly gave me a second glance, of course. He had eyes only for Lady Vonne.”
“But, my dear, that is the woman he was shot over.”
“She seems such a cruel woman. You would think men would be smart enough to see through her. If she has a dozen lovers, she can’t possibly care about all of them.”
“Men may be smart where money is concerned and quite dense in other matters.” Lady Jane clapped her teacup down in its saucer decisively, causing Sera to look up in inquiry.
“One really feels for such a misguided boy.”
“He’s not a boy. He should have known better,” Sera said.
“Men do lose their heads sometimes, but I imagine Vonne’s bullet has driven all thoughts of Lady Vonne from Cairnbrooke’s head.”
“Will Vonne be prosecuted?” Sera asked as she tried to shake the mental image of Tony Cairnbrooke meeting with a bullet.
“I suppose that is what he is waiting about to find out. He’s sent his wife out of town, though. No one knows where.”
Sera chuckled. “How do you find out all this gossip?”
“I have a great many friends, dear, and I pay many calls. I am invited everywhere. That is why your father enlisted my aid in bringing you into the ton.”
“Yes, I know,” said Sera, with a sigh and a raised eyebrow. “Vonne is a victim, too, then.”
“What did you think of him?”
“Vonne? I’ve only seen him—”
“No, silly, young Cairnbrooke,” Lady Jane said impatiently.
“He’s handsome enough, with the most compelling blue eyes. Although last time I saw him—at the theater—he looked almost...tortured.”
“I suspect that is over losing his brother. At least that is what his mother says.”
“Belgium?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know. Are you one of her intimates? Please convey my sympathies.”
“Would you like to call on her with me, tomorrow?”
“They can scarcely want morning callers,” Sera reasoned, “with one son dead and the other...perhaps— What are you up to?” demanded Sera, suddenly suspicious. “You are plotting something. I can always tell.”
“Perhaps a call would seem a bit forward,” Lady Jane mused as she paced the floor, back and forth, in and out of the bars of sunlight, until she had Sera entranced. “But to invite them here to dine would be perfectly acceptable.”
“Who?” Sera demanded, snapping back to attention.
“The Cairnbrookes, of course, and Anthony. Haven’t you been listening?”
“Ah, I see. Another victim.”
“A prospective husband should not be referred to by a young lady past twenty as a victim.”
“I recommend you not make any plans yet,” said Sera, putting down her cup.
“Why not? You are not averse to him?”
“You don’t even know if the poor fellow will survive.”
“There is no reason to be so cold-blooded about it.”
“I’m a realist, Lady Jane. Besides, if this Anthony has so lately been enthralled enough with Lady Vonne as to die for her love, he is hardly likely to express an interest in me, no matter how much money Father has.”
“Don’t be so mercenary. It won’t be a question of money, in his case.”
Sera shrugged and poured herself more tea. The daughter of a banker, Sera was rather thick-skinned when it came to men. She had been courted so often these past three years for her father’s fortune, she had ceased to place much faith in any men, except those, such as her father’s friends, who were too old for her.
The most sickening feeling was that men pretended to like her. She could wish she was not acute enough to detect this, but it would be worse to be married to someone who lied in such an insidious way. Eventually she got rid of them, but it was not always easy. In Cairnbrooke’s case she did not look forward to the experience because she had a feeling she could like him.
* * *
The next day threatened rain, so Sera passed up her morning ride to pick up some items Marie, her French dresser, assured her were essential to her wardrobe. Marie was invaluable in this way. She took all the work out of dressing for society. She scouted the fashionable shops for just what would suit Sera.
“Mademoiselle has but to try it on to discover that it is perfect,” Marie said in the carriage.
This was almost always the case. Sera admitted to herself that she had no turn for fashion. When complimented on her elegant attire, she merely thanked people and took all the credit for Marie’s talents. Clothes scarcely concerned her, unless they were costumes for one of her beloved plays. Her father had interested her in the theater at a young age, going so far as to invite Armand Travesian, actor turned theater owner, into his circle of friends. Sera had been his devotee ever since, had had more than a hand in this season’s production, Lady Mellefleur’s Boudoir, and was even now putting the finishing touches on the script for next season. She was still mulling over the proper costuming for The Count Recounts when they arrived at the shop.
Today it was a hat to go with her pearl gray riding habit, just such a small one as she wanted, close-fitting, with a point dipping gently over the brow, and with a plume not large enough to carry the thing off her head when she cantered in the park.
They purchased the hat and, upon inquiring after antique clothes, ostensibly for a masquerade, got Madame Lupy to admit that her predecessor had left a number of wigs in a trunk, with a ball gown made thirty years before but never so much as worn. Marie was careful not to exclaim too loudly over the find. Sera bought the lot and had it loaded into the carriage immediately.
“We’ll stop at the theater on the way home. Armand should be rehearsing actors for The Count.”
Sera’s coachman and footman thought nothing of delivering a trunk full of clothes to the Agora Theater. Only Marie knew that Sera’s involvement with Armand Travesian and his theater was less than respectable. But then, Sera had so little fun. In Marie’s opinion, it did no harm.
* * *
The Agora, on Stanhope Street, was not a new theater, but it was newly refurbished and renamed, thanks to Sera. It was tall and narrow, with two tiers of boxes between the pit and the balcony seats. The gold damask hangings between the boxes, and the newly recovered chairs, echoed the richness of the gilt scrollwork. Perhaps it was all paint and illusion, Sera thought as she made her way toward the stage, but the theater fairly glittered by candlelight.
The building gave up a fourth of its precious ground to the front portico and anteroom, above which were Travesian’s office and living apartment. There was no backstage to speak of. Behind the last scenery backdrop was the wall fronting on the next street. All the dressing rooms, and the prop room, were located in the rabbit warren under the raised stage.
Seating four hundred, it was not the smallest theater in the area by any means, but Travesian had frequently to fall back on Sera’s resources for costumes and even salaries when they had not enough patronage. That was mostly a matter of the past now. Since the opening of Lady Mellefleur’s Boudoir, the Agora had been paying its own way.
* * *
“We have to take out the sword fight,” Travesian complained to her in front of the two men who had been practicing on the stage.
“But the fight carries the scene. How can we do without it?”
“I cannot find an actor who can fence.”
“Nonsense. You can fence.”
“I’m too large for the role of DeVries. You could play it better than I could— Now there’s a thought....”
“Don’t be absurd. I have to prompt the actors. I can’t do everything myself.”
“I was joking,” Armand said, with his expansive smile.
