Rakes and Roses (Proper Romance Regency) Read online

  He winked, and she made a sound that was part gasp and part laughter. Such boldness would do him no favors in such high circles as that of Lord and Lady Gilmore, and yet that same boldness might just save her tonight.

  “I shall fetch Lady Townsend. Who shall I say has asked for her?”

  “Sabrina,” she said, then hurried to clarify. “Lady Sabrina.”

  Mr. Stillman raised his eyebrows, then nodded. “I shall do as you ask, Lady Sabrina.” He took her hand and raised it to his lips, keeping his eyes on hers. “And I hope that one day we might meet again under better circumstances.”

  Sabrina was appropriately offended by his suggestion—she was a married woman, soon to be a mother—and yet she felt a rush of validation. This man thought she was beautiful. This man was kind, even if he was obviously a rake. This man treated her with gentleness. They held each other’s eyes until she remembered to speak.

  “Lady Townsend,” she whispered, needing him to leave, needing to begin the process that would take her safely back to the party.

  Mr. Stillman lowered her hand and nodded. “Lady Townsend.”

  Six Years Later

  Harry Stillman swirled the set of dice within the cup and would have prayed if he were that sort of man. Instead, he rubbed the pad of his left thumb against the tip of his ring finger for luck, held his breath, and flung the dice, tracking them with his eyes as they tumbled across the brown velvet of the gaming table.

  The dice settled, both showing five dots—a total of ten.

  “Chance!” the men positioned around the table yelled.

  Harry sighed in relief as the setter gathered the dice and dropped them back in Harry’s cup.

  Harry moved his hand in a circle so the dice swirled and tumbled inside. Eight times counterclockwise, then six times clockwise because six was the number he’d called out for this round—the main. On his first roll, he had wanted to roll the main. Now that he was in the chance round, however, a six would lose everything he’d won back tonight, which was almost enough to hold Malcolm off another week.

  He finished his sixth clockwise circle, rubbed his thumb against his ring finger again, held his breath, and threw the dice.

  The crowd cheered, Harry could breathe again, and the setter added eighty pounds to the growing pile of winnings—enough for Malcolm’s payment plus nearly enough to catch up rent for Harry’s rooms. His landlord had threatened to lock him out if he did not settle his debt soon.

  The thin line of the setter’s mouth added to Harry’s triumph. The unhappier the house, the better things were for Harry.

  “Way to show the rest of us up, Stillman,” Ward said as he fell into the seat next to Harry, knocking him with his shoulder.

  Harry did not take his eyes off the setter.

  Ward placed a glass of warm scotch in front of Harry, who slung it back in one swallow. He wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt.

  Ten hours of going from one gaming hell to another in search of the right luck had left Harry’s once snowy-white shirt stained with ale down the front and soaked with sweat through the collar and under the arms. He had no idea where his cravat was.

  There had been a time when he cared about his presentation, but he could not remember how long ago that was. Probably back when he gambled for the thrill instead of to save his skin and drank for the looseness of it instead of to stave off the shakes or the disgust he felt at what he’d made of himself these last years. Life had become a day-to-day existence with the day’s quality defined by the winning or losing he’d done within that twenty-four-hour period.

  “You’re not even going to thank me for the drink?” Ward teased, though there was no mirth in his tone.

  “Thank you,” Harry said dryly, his eyes fixed on the dice as the setter picked them up again. It was bad luck to take your eyes off the dice. Harry held out his dice cup as his stomach growled. There was no time for something so irrelevant as food.

  He won the next round, and the next. Each win drew more people to the table in the dimly lit corner of the club. Harry never looked up, and his pile of winnings grew. Success should have lessened his anxiety, but it didn’t. Malcolm expected payment by noon tomorrow—or, rather, noon today. If Harry’s luck held and he could pay a double payment, he’d buy himself a full month to sell the western parcel that would pay off the principal of Malcolm’s loan.

  Another round started as Ward returned with another drink. Harry ignored this one, his stomach burning and his head pounding. The smoke in the room was thick enough to choke on.

  “Can we call it a night, Stillman? It’s nearly three o’clock in the morning.”

  “Not yet.”

  Ward leaned in and lowered his voice. “Every round is a new risk. You’re farther ahead than you’ve been in months.”

  “Bad luck!” Harry turned to scowl at his friend. One never talked about losing when at the tables. It was almost as bad as having a woman stand on your left side. Thankfully, the light-skirts who ran pretty fingers down a man’s arm and laughed at jokes that were not funny thinned out considerably after one o’clock in the morning. However, women had not served as a distraction for him for months now.

  Harry ran a hand through his hair, which felt as grimy as his skin, willing his heart to slow. He began to swirl the cup—his main was nine this round, so he needed to swirl the cup eight times counterclockwise—eight was his universally lucky number—and nine times clockwise.

  “. . . Stillman’s got a fortune waiting if he’d just find himself a wife.”

  “Shut your mouth!” Harry yelled, snapping his head toward Ward, who sat backward in his chair, elbows propped on the table.

  Ward raised his eyebrows. “I was just telling these blokes that I don’t know why you spend so much time here when you’ve a fortune just waiting to be—”

  “Stop!” Harry barked as his heart sped up even more. It had been a mistake to tell Ward about Uncle Elliott’s gracious offer—an inheritance if Harry married a genteel bride—but Harry had been too drunk to be wise the night it had come out. Harry was too drunk to be wise most nights. He was not too drunk tonight, however, to keep Ward from revealing private information.

  “Why should I not tell your friends?” Ward challenged, his eyes bleary with drink but also anger. He wanted to leave.

  If only Harry could.

  “Afraid the rest of us will be jealous of your opportunity?” Ward pressed. He was trying to pick a fight, likely thinking it would force Harry out of the hall, but he did not understand that Harry needed to stay. Ward was as much a gambler as Harry was, but he had better income and more understanding parents. Harry’s parents were dead, Uncle Elliott had cut him off more than a year ago, and he’d burned through his quarterly profits—such as they were—within weeks of the last payment.

  “I shall ask you to keep my business private, Mr. Ward,” Harry said through his teeth.

  Harry tried to focus his attention on the game, but his thoughts had been jumbled by Ward’s reminder of the world outside this club. There was no doubt in Harry’s mind that Uncle Elliott’s “bribe” that he settled upon his nieces and nephews when they made a good marriage had mostly been directed at Harry—Uncle Elliott had never liked Harry very much. Two of Harry’s cousins—Peter and Timothy—had already saddled themselves with wives, but Harry had no plans to do the same.

  Harry had inherited his father’s estate, which meant he could make his own way. However, Uncle Elliott was no longer paying Harry’s debts now that he’d presented an opportunity that he believed would turn Harry into a respectable gentleman.

  Harry had seen his uncle only once since his explanation and presentation of the “marriage inheritance” plan almost a year ago. Harry had lost nearly five hundred pounds the night before and had been in the depths of misery, so many of the details had been lost on him.

  He’d been able to sell fifty acres of his land soon after meeting with Uncle Elliott, however, which paid off his debts and allowed h
im to live well through the fall and winter off the remaining profits and improved luck at the tables.

  In January, he’d received his profits for the last quarter of the previous year and been surprised at the decreased revenue. The fields had not produced well, his solicitor had explained, and there were concerns about the old steward’s ability to manage. Two tenants had moved to a neighboring estate due to unfinished repairs Harry had neglected for three years. The solicitor had suggested Harry spend some time at the estate setting things right and improving profitability, but Harry had been sure that the faster way to make up for the lost profits was at the tables.

  Not long after that meeting, however, his good luck had begun to change. Instead of the slow increases between losses, he began leaving the clubs with lighter pockets than he’d entered with. His anxiety about that led to more drinking, which reduced his luck even more. He took greater risks, which led to bigger wins for a while, but bigger losses in the end.

  He’d taken his first loan from Malcolm in March, and the principal had steadily built through the spring until he’d had to sell another forty acres in order to pay Malcolm in full. He had been determined not to borrow again but somehow, he had.

  He’d written to Uncle Elliott two weeks ago, desperate, but received a brief response—Uncle Elliott was sorry for the difficulty but had already laid open a course of success for Harry, which was all the assistance he would give.

  Having a rich and titled uncle had bought Harry a great deal of latitude with lenders in the past, and if it got out that Lord Howardsford was no longer a resource for securing Harry’s debts, he might find doors closed to him.

  Ward cleared his throat and coughed twice—a signal the old friends had developed for when one recognized the need to get out of a poor situation. But Harry was on a roll, quite literally.

  He’d already begun the process to sell a full hundred acres of his land in order to pay off Malcolm for good. The sale would put his estate in serious jeopardy of being able to support itself, let alone support him living in London, but he’d promised himself that after all was settled, he would spend a year addressing the needs of his estate. Harry was not so far gone that he did not recognize he had a problem with gaming and drink. They ran him like a mill, and he would be crushed if he did not find a way off the wheel.

  He just needed one big win—either at the tables or through this newest sale of land—and he could get himself out of debt and out of London.

  “Your roll,” the setter said, drawing Harry’s attention back to the game.

  Harry stared at the cup, which was still but for some tremor in his hand. He couldn’t remember where in his count he’d stopped swirling. He swallowed the burst of panic that rose in his throat. To not execute the precise routine would be bad luck, but he couldn’t turn out the dice to start over because the dice touching the table would count as his roll.

  “Come on, man,” Ward whined. “Can we please bring this night to an end?”

  “Your roll, Mr. Stillman,” the setter said again, drumming his fingers on the other side of the table.

  Harry had bet his entire winnings on the last three rolls and was nearly to fifteen hundred pounds. If he won this round and doubled his winnings, he could pay almost every debt he’d accrued and get out of London by the end of the month. Escape. Redemption. Freedom.

  Everyone was watching him, convincing Harry that he must have finished the counterclockwise rolls. He began the clockwise rolls, but his breathing was short and his vision tunneled. This was all wrong. Harry touched his thumb and ring finger together before holding his breath and throwing the dice. All sound disappeared as though he were underwater.

  The dice seemed to roll longer than usual, one of them hitting the side of the sunken table before stopping. A five—and a . . . six.

  A wave of sound returned, a mix of gasps and groans that roared like a thunderstorm in his ears.

  Eleven?

  That can’t be right, Harry thought. He stared. He recounted. He couldn’t breathe.

  The setter used his stick to pull the enormous pile of money from Harry’s side of the table.

  Harry jumped to his feet and reached across the table to pull the stick from the man’s hand. “No!”

  He threw the stick to the side and lunged for the pile of coin and paper claims. He needed three hundred pounds to make the week’s payment and secure his rooms for the rest of the month. He had to get out with at least that much.

  The setter lunged forward, but Harry knelt on the table and elbowed the man in the face, sending him to the floor. Harry desperately grabbed handfuls of coin, intending to stuff them into his boots, if necessary.

  Someone grabbed Harry from behind, pulling him from the table. The money scattered from his fingers, the tinkling of coins sounding like discordant chords on a pianoforte as Harry landed hard on the floor.

  The setter’s booming voice overpowered the din. “All patrons will stand where they are and raise their hands overhead or have your skulls caved in by the protectors of this club!”

  The crack of a club against a man’s skull reverberated through the room a moment before the man fell unconscious to the floor, his limp hands releasing the coins he’d been fisting. Every other man froze, rose to their feet, and lifted their hands over their heads as commanded.

  Except Harry.

  Already on the floor, he rolled to his stomach and reached for a scattering of coin an arm’s-length away. A man kicked his arm out of the way, and the hall’s protectors grabbed him under each arm and dragged him toward the door before he could make another attempt.

  Harry fought like a man drowning. “That is my money!” he roared, kicking and twisting in an attempt to escape the restraining hands of men twice his size. He cursed and screamed and threatened until he was thrown head over end into the alley behind the discreetly marked door of the club. The air was knocked from his lungs, and he groaned in pain and frustration, his face pressed to the wet and dirty cobbles.

  “No entry for sixty days, Stillman!”

  The door banged shut as Harry rolled onto his side, his entire body throbbing. After catching his breath, he tried to stand, but the arm that the guard had kicked buckled when he put weight on it, and his feet slipped in the oily refuse of the alley. He fell onto his back, unable to muster the energy to make another attempt. He pressed his hands against his aching side as an unexpected wave of emotion gripped him.

  What am I going to do? He choked down a sob. If he didn’t pay today’s interest payment, he would default on his loan to Malcolm, which would require the principal be paid in full, plus a penalty, within two weeks. The western portion of his land could not sell that quickly, or for enough to cover the debt, which would continue to rise by ten pounds every day.

  Dear God, he wailed in his mind but could not finish. Why would God hear the desperate pleas of a pathetic man like him?

  “Is that all, Lady Sabrina?”

  Sabrina smiled at her lady’s maid’s reflection in the mirror of her dressing table. “Yes, thank you, Molly. I am sorry for having been so late tonight.”

  “Not at all,” Molly said. “You remember that I’m spending the day with my mother tomorrow?”

  “Clara confirmed she would be available, should I need assistance.” Clara was the girl of all work for the three apartments in the building. She was not as skilled as Molly, but Molly’s mother was failing in health almost by the week now.

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Of course, and do take your mother some of the coal from the bucket when you go.”

  “That is very generous of you, ma’am.”

  Sabrina nodded, keeping to herself that helping Molly in small ways helped assuage Sabrina’s guilt at the disparity of their circumstances. Molly was the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman just as Sabrina was; their mothers had both been mistresses, an arrangement that was as unjust as it was immoral.

  Molly and her mother had been discarded and sent to a
different part of the country where they had no family or prospects. Her mother had gone into service, and when Molly was thirteen, she had done the same.

  Sabrina and her mother, on the other hand, had been financially supported by the Old Duke from the start, though the intimate relationship between Sabrina’s parents had ended when the duke had married a year following Sabrina’s birth.

  Sabrina and her mother had lived in a comfortable house in London, had servants and dresses and even a tutor for Sabrina when she outgrew the governess. When Mama had died near Sabrina’s tenth birthday, Sabrina had been publicly recognized as the Old Duke’s natural daughter and brought into the household.

  Only a duke could get away with such a thing, and though there were plenty of whispers about how “that ought not to be done,” Sabrina was eventually accepted. Never as one of the Old Duke’s legitimate children, but above what most children born on the wrong side of the blanket would ever know.

  Molly served as a continual reminder to Sabrina of how much grace she’d been given—grace, followed by a miracle Sabrina reminded herself of each time she was tempted to feel sorry for herself.

  The miracle was that Richard had died—just like that. One minute he was cheering on a horse at Epsom Downs, and the next minute, he’d fallen against the rail. She’d been told he was dead by the time he hit the ground, his heart having given way.

  She’d lost the baby a month earlier, and so Richard had died without an heir or entailments. Sabrina had therefore inherited all of the Carlisle holdings. She now lived an absolutely independent life, free from control of any man. There were very few women who would ever know the freedom she had been given, and she tried every day to live up to her privileges and share her good fortune in ways that gave others the sort of second chance she’d been given.

  The door clicked closed behind Molly, and Sabrina moved to the window. It was a quarter moon tonight, the crisp sharpness of the outline making the night look like black ink against bright white paper. Sabrina was grateful for her life, her freedom, and her opportunities, and yet was she happy?