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Grumbling to himself, Mr. Grosse had no choice but to leave them, turning his eyes toward the heavens with a hearty sigh as he shut the door.
“Well, now.” Amariah sat in a muted rush of bombazine. “I cannot tell if Father has left us a prize, or only a puzzle.”
“A prize—a great prize!” Cassia paced back and forth across the carpet, unable to keep the enthusiasm from her voice. “He has given us not only a way to support ourselves, but also a way to continue his work! And think of living in London, the greatest city in the world!”
“What I’m thinking, Cassia, is how very much we must learn.” Amariah held up her hand, ticking off each ignorance on a new finger. “We have only visited London a few times, and know nothing of the city or its workings. We have no friends there, no one to turn to for advice or answers. We wouldn’t even know where to find a butcher or mantua maker. And we haven’t the faintest notion of how a gaming club such as this Whitaker’s operates, or how it generates its money.”
“We could learn, Amariah.” Bethany smiled eagerly. “We are not fools.”
Amariah glared at her for interrupting. “But we could turn into the greatest fools imaginable with this, Bethany. We don’t know the managers of this club, or whether Father’s trust in their abilities is well-founded. Even Mr. Grosse admitted that the club was no longer as profitable as it had been.”
Cassia swept her hand through the air as if to sweep away her sister’s objections, too. “Then we shall hire people who can improve it!”
“Where would we find such people, Cassia?” Amariah raised her hands. “Why, we don’t even know how to play the wicked games that would be supporting us and Father’s charities!”
“We can learn,” Cassia insisted. “Think of all the things that Father taught us, Latin and Greek and geography and mathematics and all the rest that girls weren’t supposed to be able to understand. We thought he was teasing when he’d said that knowledge would be our dowries, but perhaps he wasn’t teasing at all.”
Amariah looked back at the paper in her hands and frowned. “This would be vastly different from translating The Iliad for Father.”
“It would, and it wouldn’t,” Cassia said. “Consider how quick you are at ciphering and figuring numbers in your head. I’m certain you could learn the games and oversee the accounts.”
Bethany nodded, tapping her fingers on the arm of the chair with excitement. “From what I have read in the London papers, much of the success of catering to gentlemen is to give them a grand and comfortable place for their mischief. They can gamble anywhere, but they would return to our club if the food and drink are better than anywhere else.”
“Which it would be, Bethany, if you were overseeing the kitchen,” Cassia said, giving an excited little clap of her hands. “None of those fou-fou Frenchmen in Elverston’s kitchen can hold a candle to your cooking, and you know it.”
Amariah sighed—not exactly with resignation, not yet, but close. “And what role have you cut out for yourself, Cassia?”
Cassia raised her chin and smiled. She wasn’t nearly as useless as she’d feared at first. She’d only had to find her place.
“I would make the club beyond fashion,” she declared. “I would make it so original a place that everyone who wasn’t there would give their eyeteeth to be able to say they were. It wouldn’t be a hell once we’d done with it. “
“Cassia.” Amariah groaned. “And who knows more about setting the London fashion than three vicars’ daughters from Woodbury?”
“Three handsome daughters,” Cassia said, and as if on cue the three of them glanced across the room to the round looking glass over the fireplace. Even in mourning, with their eyes red from weeping and their copper-colored hair drawn severely back from their faces, they were a striking trio: Amariah the eldest and tallest, with the bearing of a duchess; sweet-faced Bethany in the middle; and Cassia herself, Father’s little popinjay, with her round cheeks and startled blue eyes.
“You can’t pretend we’re not handsome,” Cassia continued, “because we are, or at least handsome enough, thanks to us all having Father’s red hair with Mama’s face. Everyone says so. Wouldn’t we make you curious if you were a bored London beau?”
“Flirting with the squire’s sons at the Havertown Assembly isn’t the same as matching wits with London rakes,” Amariah said. “We could be terribly at sea, Cassia, and not in a good way, either.”
“Then the more proper we are, Amariah,” Cassia said, dipping her skirts in an excruciatingly correct curtsey, “the more mysterious and exotic we’ll seem to them, on account of being proper in a wicked world. And we could change the name, too, to make it our own. We could call it Penny House.”
“Penny House!” Bethany exclaimed with relish. “Oh, Cassia, I do like that!”
Amariah set the picture of the club back down on the desk, and pressed her palms to her cheeks.
“I cannot believe we are having such a conversation with poor Father scarcely gone,” she said softly. “London, and a gaming house named after ourselves, and whether to flirt or not with wicked men—oh, what would Father say to that?”
“He—he would call us his flock of silly geese,” Cassia said, her voice squeaking with a fresh rush of emotion. “And then he would tell us to go do what we believed was right and just, the way he would do for himself. The way he always did.”
Bethany came and stood between them, slipping her hands into theirs. Together they stared solemnly down at the picture of Whitaker’s, sitting on Father’s desk.
“We would be together in London,” Cassia said. “We wouldn’t have to go different ways. Father would have liked that, too.”
Bethany nodded. “If we go there and find that London doesn’t suit us, then we can still sell, as Mr. Grosse wishes.”
“But it will suit us,” Cassia said quickly. “And if it doesn’t, we’ll make it suit us.”
“Of course we will, Cassia, just like that. All London will bow at the feet of the Penny sisters.” Amariah sighed. “You know, I never did want to look after those dreadful Whiteside girls.”
Bethany looked up, her eyes bright with triumph. “And I do believe Lady Elverson will survive without hearing me play for her each night.”
Cassia gasped, not quite believing her sisters had agreed. “Then we will go? We’ll take Father’s legacy, and make it our own?”
“To London.” Finally Amariah smiled, and nodded. “It seems that, in his way, that is what Father wished us to do.”
“To London!” Cassia crowed, and raised their joined hands together. “To London, and to Penny House!”
Chapter Two
Four months later
London
R ichard Blackley leaned closer to the painting, inspecting the surface for cracks to better judge its age. He didn’t give a fig whether the painting was two hundred years old, or two weeks, nor would he recognize the difference, except for how high the auctioneer might try to run the bidding. He glanced back at the listing in the exhibition catalog: The Fortune Teller, Italian, Sixteenth Century.
That made him smile. The smirking old woman was a bawd if ever he’d seen one, taking the last coin that poor sot in the foreground had in his pocket, while he was busy gaping at the strumpet in the scarlet turban at the window. It was the strumpet he liked best, with her sloe-eyed, sleepy glance and creamy bare breasts. He knew just the place for her, in his dressing room at Greenwood, where she’d amuse him while he was shaved.
He drew a small star before the picture’s number in the catalog. Generally he didn’t care one way or the other about pictures, but this was one he didn’t want to let slip away. What was the use of being a rich man if he couldn’t buy himself a painting that made him smile?
“Excuse me, sir.” A young woman had eased her way through the crowd of other viewers here for the exhibition before the auction, and she now stood squeezed between Richard and the painting—his painting. “I didn’t mean to bump you.”
“Forgiven,” he said, lifting his hat to her as he smiled. It was easy to smile at her: she was a pretty little creature, with bright blue eyes and golden-red hair that her plain dark mourning bonnet seemed to highlight rather than mask. Whom did she grieve for, he wondered idly: a husband, parent, sibling? “Though to be honest, I hadn’t noticed that you’d bumped me at all.”
“Well, sir, I did,” she said, “so of course I had to apologize, to make things right. It would be rude of me not to.”
She stated it as simple fact, a fact that he wasn’t sure how to answer, but because she was such a pretty little creature, he wanted to. She wasn’t being forward, the way a demirep might be to attract his notice; in fact, if Richard was honest, she didn’t really seem interested in him at all. Instead her whole attention seemed focused on the painting before him, and to his dismay she was marking a circle around the same number in her catalog as he had in his.
“You are bidding on this picture, miss?” he asked. “You like it that much?”
“That is the reason one usually comes here to Christie’s Auction Rooms, isn’t it? To bid on the pictures one likes?” She darkened the circle around the listing for emphasis. “Last week I sold three dreary paintings of peasants with cows, and now I plan to reward myself by buying this one.”
“For yourself?” he asked, surprised. It didn’t seem like the kind of painting a young lady—she couldn’t be more than twenty—would choose for herself.
“It’s my choice, yes, though I’m sure my sisters will find it amusing as well.” She leaned closer, studying the surface just as Richard himself had done. “I don’t believe it’s as old as they’re claiming—it’s likely a copy, and not even an Italian one—but the fortune teller in particular is very nicely done, I think.”
“They got that wrong in the catalog, too,” he said. “If that old crone’s a fortune teller, why, then I’ll—then I’ll—”
His words trailed off as he realized his mistake, the kind of mistake that true English gentlemen weren’t supposed to make when addressing English ladies.
“Then what else could she be?” The young woman’s eyes were as blue as the Caribbean itself, and just as ready to swallow him up. “The smiling soldier had just given her his payment, and now she’s holding his hand as she reads his palm, while the other woman watches. His future must be improving, for him to look so jolly. Good fortune overcoming bad. That, sir, is why I wish to buy this particular picture.”
She turned away from him and toward the next picture, and he joined her, unwilling to lose her yet.
“You speak as if from experience,” he said, happy to let her think what she wished about the old procuress in the painting. “About good luck and bad, that is.”
“There’s not a person on earth that’s not had experience with luck of both kinds.” She glanced at him sideways, up through her lashes, and without turning her head. “Unless, sir, you are among those who don’t believe in it?”
“If you mean sitting idle beside a stream and waiting for my luck to change, then, no, I do not,” he said. “But I do believe in seizing the opportunities that fate offers, and making them my own.”
She raised one arched brow, and laughed, a merry, bubbling sound that he instantly wished to hear again.
“That’s bold talk, sir,” she said, “quite worthy of Bonaparte himself.”
“It’s not empty talk,” he insisted, “nor was it meant to show sympathy to the French. It’s how I live my life.”
“I didn’t say your words were empty. I said they were bold, which is a very different thing altogether.” She moved to stand before the next painting, and Richard followed. Clever women like this one hadn’t existed on Barbados, or at least none in the society that had allowed him, too. “You must enjoy gambling.”
He frowned a little, not following her logic.
“I’ve become good at spotting gentleman gamesters, you see,” she explained with an inexplicable triumph in her voice, as if spotting gamesters were a required skill for young ladies, like singing and fine needlework. “If you’re as bold as you say, then you must be the sort of sporting gentleman who enjoys his games of chance.”
He shook his head, sorry to see her face fall. “Not dice, not pasteboard cards, and I’ve no wish to empty my pockets on account of some overrated nag, either.”
“Truly?” she said, disappointed. “You are not pretending otherwise?”
“I did when I was younger,” he said, to make her feel better, “but not for years. Now I’d rather find pleasure in playing for higher stakes than a handful of coins.”
“Indeed, sir.” Her voice turned frosty, her cheeks flushing. “How fine for you.”
He barely bit back an oath, realizing too late that she’d misunderstood him again. He’d meant the dangerous investments and other merchant ventures with high-risk profits that had become his specialty, while she’d thought the stakes were her and her charming little person—her virtue, as ladies liked to call it.
“Oh, blast, I didn’t intend it that way,” he said, taking her by the arm so she’d have to look at him, so she’d understand he meant her no harm “Here now, miss, listen to me. I’ve never had to rely on a wager for a woman’s company, and I’m not about to begin now.”
“No,” she said curtly, staring down at his fingers around her upper arm as if his touch had scalded her. “But then I don’t imagine any woman willingly shares your company, not for the sake of love or money.”
He sighed with impatience, wondering why in blazes she’d suddenly turned so priggish and prim. “Now that’s not what I—”
“Isn’t it, sir?” she said, the curving brim of her bonnet quivering with indignation. “I may be from the country, but I am not completely ignorant of the wickedness to be found in this city!”
Other people around them were beginning to turn with curiosity, and Richard lowered his voice to give them less to hear. “Listen to me, sweetheart, and stop speaking of things you know nothing of. You wouldn’t recognize wickedness if it tripped you in the street.”
“I am not your sweetheart, and I will thank you not to fancy I am.” She jerked her arm free of his hand. “Now leave me, sir, before I demonstrate exactly how much I know of your wickedness, and summon one of Mr. Christie’s guards to have you removed. Good day, sir.”
She gave an angry final twitch of her black skirts as she cut her way through the crowd, as fast and as far from him as she could get herself.
And that was fine with Richard. If ever he’d needed another reminder that London ladies would be difficult, then this red-haired chit had given it to him. He’d thought at first she’d be different, and speak plain, but without warning she’d become just as self-righteous and sharp-tongued as all the rest in this city. Finding one who wasn’t would be his greatest challenge so far.
But he was willing to take his time. He’d decided that, even before his ship had rounded Needham Point and left the last of Barbados behind him. He had made his fortune, and he had bought his fine bespoke clothes and his carriage and horses and an ancient, grand country house awaited him. Now all he needed was a high-bred lady-bride to complete the transformation, and make the world see that Dick Blackley, collier’s boy, had become Richard Blackley, gentleman.
He glanced one last time toward where the young woman in mourning had disappeared. He was sorry she hadn’t turned out to be his match; he’d liked her looks and her spirit, before she’d gone and turned so sour over nothing.
And he’d be damned before he’d let her steal his painting away from him.
The auctioneer had made his way to the podium and stood testing his gavel against the palm of his hand, while his assistant was ringing the bell to signal the beginning of the auction. Most people hurried to find seats on the long benches, while a few others lingered for a final glimpse of the paintings hung and stacked along the walls. A footman carried the first painting, a murky landscape, to the front of the room, taking care to balance the ornate gold frame on the tall easel for all to see.
Richard didn’t sit, choosing instead to stand along the wall where he could keep one eye on his old bawd. He crossed his arms over his chest and tipped his hat over one eye, leaning against the wall as he prepared for a long wait before his painting would be called. He glanced across the benches, but saw no sign of the red-haired woman in mourning. Perhaps he’d chased her off; perhaps she’d never had a real interest in the painting.
Slowly the sun slid across the skylights overhead as the auctioneer droned on, cracking his gavel to seal each transaction as the footman switched paintings. At last the footman lifted The Fortune Teller onto the easel, and Richard stood away from the wall and straightened his hat.
“Next is an Italian painting in oils from the sixteenth century entitled The Fortune Teller,” the auctioneer announced. “Opening with a reserve of five pounds for this very fine work by an old master whose name is lost to time, but not the product of his genius. Five pounds to start, then, who’ll give five pounds?”
Richard raised his hand just enough for the auctioneer to notice. He could see it hung in his dressing room at Greenwood already.
“Five pounds to the tall gentleman at the wall, a pittance for a work of this quality, of this sensibility, of this—”
“Seven pounds!”
“Seven pounds to the lady in mourning!” the auctioneer called. “The lady knows her art, gentlemen, benefit from her knowledge and—”
“Nine pounds.” Richard had spotted her now, sitting on the far end of one of the benches, with all but the brim of her black bonnet hidden by a fat man in a gray coat.
“Nine to the tall gentleman at the wall, will anyone give me—”
“Fifteen!” The young woman hopped to her feet, her program rolled into a tight scroll in her black-gloved hands.
Excitement rippled through the crowd; no one had expected any serious bidding for this particular lot of paintings, especially not between a gentleman and a lady.
“Fifteen to the lady with a connoisseur’s eye for an old master, fifteen to—”
“Twenty.”
The woman turned and glared at Richard. When he nodded and smiled, she twitched her head back toward the front, refusing to acknowledge him.
“Twenty-five,” she said, her voice ringing clear and loud in the auction room. She wasn’t afraid to make a spectacle of herself, and Richard liked that. What a pity she’d learn soon enough that his pockets were deeper than she’d ever dreamed.
“Twenty-five to the lady!” the auctioneer crowed with near delirious fervor. “Twenty-five for—”
“Fifty,” Richard said, and the audience gasped.
“Fifty-five!” the woman cried, tossing her head for good measure.
Richard smiled. She did have spirit, he’d grant her that.
“Fifty-five to the lady!” His round face flushed with excitement, the auctioneer peered expectantly at Richard over his spectacles. The room was nearly silent, the audience holding its breath together. “Fifty-five for this most excellent work, fifty-five for—”
“One hundred,” Richard said. “Even.”
The crowd exploded, whistling, swearing, applauding, cheering. The auctioneer turned back to the girl.
