The dowager hadsettled herself into Trebly Hall as if it were her own house. She’d taken over the library and hired a secretary. Mr. Brown was a short and pudgy sort of fellow, but he could write like the wind and so was suited to the lady’s purposes.
The dowager had made it no secret that she fired off letters that were to pepper London and rain down on all of England. All were to know of Miss Knightsbridge’s innocence and the gentlemen of the pact’s guilt. Most of the letters read the same, hence the use of a secretary to copy them all out. Some the dowager wrote herself, in particular a rather scathing missive to Lady Montague filled with veiled threats of that lady losing her place in society.
Cassandra was pleased by the letter to Lady Montague, it amused her to think of how hard the lady would cough upon reading it. It, and all the other letters, gave her a sense of vindication, though she still resisted the dowager’s ploys to get her to London. Rather, she would carry on riding and shooting in Surrey, well away from the talkers.
The dowager was an energetic sort of person and Mr. Brown found his hours filled, beginning at nine in the morning. At eleven, he was sent to the kitchens to rest his writing hand and have tea and biscuits, while Cassandra joined the Dowager in the library for the same. Her father sometimes joined them, but mostly left them to themselves.
On just such a morning, the dowager said, “I suppose you both look forward to children and are terrified of what one must go through to bring them into the world. I remember the horror I experienced the first time I was with child, contemplating a person growing in my belly. Nobody ever talks about it, but there it is.”
Cassandra smiled, having become accustomed to the dowager bringing up subjects that nobody else in England would dare allude to. “Whatever my difficulties may turn out to be,” Cassandra said, “childbearing will not be one of them. I have decided I will never marry.”
“There now,” the dowager said, “make no such decision. If you are to be a spinster, so be it. However, I think you would find yourself unhappy with the state. Guns and horses will not be enough for a strong beating heart such as yours.”
Cassandra could not say if that were accurate or not. Shehadwondered how she should like the isolation of never marrying. Her father would not live forever and someday she would find herself quite alone in the house. Invitations would be few, nobody ever knew what to do with a spinster. And then, no children. She was not the least fearful of childbirth, she’d seen enough animals born in the barns and stables to be inured to the idea, and she’d often imagined being surrounded by her own. Still, after what she had been through, spinsterhood seemed the safest course.
Any mention of marriage, or of gentlemen in general, sent her thoughts racing in one direction. That she still could not entirely remove Lord Hampton from her mind felt the worst betrayal. He had no business there and she both loved him and hated him. She loved the lord that had lived on in her mind, her own creation of goodness with a handsome face. She hated the real lord, who’d so glibly changed her life. She would not risk her heart again. She would never allow herself to be vulnerable to another’s schemes. Trebly Hall was safety and that was where she would stay.
To waylay the Dowager in her talk of marriage, Cassandra said, “I know my father was in a debt to you in his youth, but I wonder what the circumstances were.”
The dowager laughed and said, “I see he has failed to expound upon the subject. Well, I suppose there is no harm in telling you, it is ancient history.”
Cassandra listened in fascination as the dowager told the story of a long-ago card game.
It had all begun at a house party at the Duke of Gravesley’s estate. As was often the case at such house parties, there were too many women and not enough gentlemen and so a few fellows nobody knew well were scrounged up. Gravesely brought in Mr. Shine, a gentleman known to both he and the Duke of Dembly through various business ventures.
Cassandra leaned forward. She knew the Duke of Gravesley to be Lord Lockwood’s father and the Duke of Dembly to be Lord Ashworth’s father. Cassandra thought back to Sybil’s tale of her father despising both the Lord’s fathers. Certainly, the circumstance must be connected.
She asked, “Was Lord Blanding there as well?”
“Indeed, he was a principal player in the drama,” the dowager said. “How did you know?”
“Just a guess,” she said.
The dowager continued with her tale.
All might have proceeded in the usual fashion of a house party if it had not been for the weather. It poured rain for days and the gentlemen, having no recourse to shooting, began to gamble their time away. At first, it was for small sums, but Mr. Shine kept pushing the bets ever higher.
The dowager, then the Duchess of Carlisle, had pressed her duke to withdraw. They playedvingt-et-un,a game too reliant on chance to risk great sums. Her husband, being older than the other players, was therefore equipped with more sense and did end his time at the table. The dowager had felt, initially, that her work was done. She’d rescued her husband and that was the entire realm of her responsibility.
But then, she could not ignore the play, and the stakes, and in particular a young viscount who was taking a drubbing. She saw all too clearly that he should withdraw from further play, and just as clearly that he would not. There is nothing so foolish as a baron or a viscount of tender years attempting to impress.
She began to watch the game more closely, and her sharp eyes picked up what others could not. Someone had very cleverly marked the cards. She had marched over to the card table and said, “Goodness, you all really ought to get a new set. These have been in the hands of children, I think. See here how the crown has one extra jewel on the right side, shaped very like a seven, and then there embedded in the crest, the smallest heart? Some little blighter has a fine hand and is fond of a good joke—I would guess that card is the seven of hearts.”
She need not have said more. Everybody at the table comprehended that the cards had been marked. Naturally, they all had their suspicions, and those suspicions were confirmed when, hours later, Mr. Shine departed the house under darkness and was never heard from again.
Mr. Shine had not got away entirely scot free. The dowager had felt he might abscond and had waylaid him before he did. She’d recovered the money the viscount had lost.
That should have been the end of it, but Lord Blanding got the idea that Gravesley and Dembly had known Mr. Shine was a card sharp, both of those gentleman’s estates being on shaky footing at the time. He began to give the vaguest hints that the three were in league.
The Dowager could see a storm coming and persuaded her husband that they ought to depart, rather than get swept into a feud. She’d also convinced him to bring along the young Viscount Trebly.
“Your father was quite spirited about it,” the Dowager said now. “He thought he ought to stay and see the thing through. I counseled that he’d better get in my carriage and he would thank me later.”
“And so he did thank you,” Cassandra said, “when he realized you had removed him from an argument that I believe still goes on to this day.”
“Just so,” the dowager said. “I understand that after we left there were various threats of duels. Fortunately, they all had a care for their own person and did not carry through with it. Lord Blanding left in a fury and I hear he still mentions the event from time to time.”
“Goodness,” Cassandra said. “It is so extraordinary to think of my father as being young and getting himself embroiled in such a situation.”
