Page 60 of A Taste of Miss Honey

Mr Pultney threw down his own cards, glaring at Alveston, whose complexion was sliding from the reddish purple of fury to a sickly greenish white. Ben reached for Alveston’s hand before the man could snatch it away, revealing two more queens and a three.

He didn’t need to say anything. The entire table just stared at Alveston, who was only now realising how profoundly he had misjudged. His reputation, so pristine just moments ago, lay in tatters.

“She set me up!” he exclaimed, pointing at Izzy and glaring wildly about the room. “You saw the unnatural creature. When have you ever seen a woman play like that? Two tricons of seven? Impossible! She did it.”

Izzy blinked at him, gasping and laying a hand against her bosom, her heart beat so fast beneath her palm she feared she might cast up her accounts before everyone. What if they believed him?

“Me? But how? You were dealing the cards, Lord Alveston, and I assure you, I have no skill whatsoever. I was only lucky. Anyone can be lucky from time to time, can they not?” Izzy knew most of the men here would have no problem at all swallowing that chestnut. Naturally, a woman couldn’t have won by using skill and her wits. “You might also remember that my father is a vicar, he would not even approve me playing for money, let alone cheating!” she said, once again resorting to blinking wildly as if she might cry, feeling not an iota of shame for using her father’s vocation so boldly and lying through her teeth. She just had to make everyone believe it.

“I don’t know how, you sly bitch!” he said, slamming his fist down on the table so hard the glasses and coins chinked, the noise quite startling against the riveting silence his outburst had provoked. Alveston felt the weight of it too, looking around him as he felt the tide of accusation surging towards him. He swallowed, turning to Kimble as if the young man might be swayed to his side, but Kimble only looked increasingly disgusted.

“We have him,” Ben’s voice was low and triumphant, and Izzy turned to him in surprise. They’d proven him a cheat, but not a traitor. He gazed at her, admiration shining in his eyes. “I could kiss you,” he added, making her want to smile despite the gravity of the situation. What did he know? That victorious smile must mean he had proof. Yet Alveston was still bellowing and trying to implicate her.

“Think about it, man. Have you ever seen a woman play like that? I have not. She’s the cheat, I only know—”

Ben reached for Alveston, something she suspected he’d been longing to do but had held back to allow the man to dig his own grave. Now his hand fisted in Alveston’s cravat, threatening to choke him. “Hold your tongue, you devil. It does not surprise me that you behave so despicably, not when I now have the proof that you’re not only a vile cheat but a traitor to your country, that you sold information to the French to feather your own damned nest and to support your French relations during the war.”

Izzy gasped, as shocked as everyone at the accusation, even though she knew it must be true. She wondered if Ben really had proof, or if he was just using the opportunity to force a confrontation. It was a gamble, but if society now saw the man as a cheat, they’d not hesitate to label him a traitor. Once out in the open, it would be easier to unearth the facts.

If Izzy had thought Alveston pale before, now he turned a deathly shade, his skin like parchment, two high spots of colour blazing at his cheeks as he shoved at Ben, trying to force him to release his hold. “You’re the traitor, not I!” he exclaimed furiously, sounding like a petulant schoolboy. “He’s the one. He’s the one who stayed in France while we were at war! He’s the one whose father is a traitor to his country.”

Ben sneered at him, all the revulsion he felt writ large upon his handsome face. “Aye, my father is a traitor, and his contact for the information was you—the son of Marie-Thérèse de Rochefort. Your family’s property was seized during the Revolution and your mother fled to England, where she married Baron Alveston. Yet her brothers remained in France.”

Izzy looked around the room, realising that more people were hurrying in from the ballroom, aware that something dramatic was happening.

“My mother is Swiss!” Alveston raged, trying to disengage Ben’s grip on his cravat.

“Not according to the information I’ve been given,” Ben said calmly, his expression implacable. “And I have proof that your uncles are officers in the Grande Armée. Posts they took to avoid execution and posts they have thrived in thanks to the information you fed them. Indeed, they were so successful that the family’s estates, confiscated during the Revolution, were returned to them. Is that not so, my lord?”

Izzy did not know how much of this Ben could prove, and how much was guesswork, but it hardly mattered. Alveston was finished. The atmosphere in the room was explosive, with the men—many of whom who had fought in the war—staring at Alveston with loathing.

“It’s not true!” Alveston shouted, staring wildly around into the faces of people who had regarded him with respect until a few moments ago. He fought against Ben’s grip upon his cravat, and Ben let him go, there was nowhere for him to go now. “This devil is Boreas, you fools! He’s a notorious smuggler, wanted by the Revenue! He ought to hang for his crimes.”

“Me?” Ben said, staring at Alveston, his lip curling with disgust. “A smuggler? Have you run mad?”

It did seem ludicrous to see Benedict Midwinter in all his well-tailored finery, mingling with the great and the good, and to consider for even a moment that he could lead a double life as a low-born smuggler. Any shred of credibility that Alveston might have kept unravelled then as people sniggered and exclaimed—for shame! The lying blackguard. What a taradiddle.

Alveston heard them, heard their taunts, and became increasingly savage, snarling with anger. “He’s the traitor! Why can’t you see it, you brainless idiots? He remained in France during the war. You heard him, he admitted it.”

“He admitted his father was a traitor, and Ben is the one who brought the information that proved his sire’s duplicity to light,” Hartwell said, his expression hard and cold as he stared at Alveston.

Ben turned and stared at his friend, his shock evident. Hartwell’s lips twitched. “You’re not the only one with secrets. My father worked closely with the War Office, funding his own… er… unofficial agents. I told you, I know what you’ve been up to, and I made it my business to keep tabs on you while I was fighting in France, you slippery devil. I figured you might need a helping hand one of these days, not that you’d ever ask for one. But I didn’t know about him.”

Hartwell jerked his head at Alveston, who looked like as if he were drowning on dry land. “What’s say we go for a little walk, Alveston, and see if his grace has a snug little room, we can keep you in until we can figure out what to do with you?”

Alveston made as if he would run, but hands reached for him on all sides, holding him in place until Hartwell came and grasped his arm with one large hand. He made it look effortless. Turning to Pultney and Kimble, who were viewing the scene with open mouths, he smiled genially. “Gentlemen, care to help me escort this villain to a safe place until we can get word to my father? He’ll know what to do with the wretch.”

“Certainly!”

“At once, my lord!”

The two men scrambled around to Hartwell, eager to help and play their part in the unmasking of a man who appeared to be a French spy. Hartwell turned to Ben with an easy grin.

“Well done, old man. Why don’t you take the evening off and look after your Miss Honeywell, before some other fellow realises what a lucky dog you are?”

Ben gave a startled laugh and turned to stare at Izzy, who felt the sudden, absurd desire to cry for real. They’d done it. Even if they failed to prove Alveston was a traitor, he was finished in England. He’d never be able to hurt Ben again. Something remarkably like pride glowed in his eyes.

Izzy’s heart gave a little skip.

“That sounds like an excellent idea, Hartwell. One never knows what the wicked girl will do next.”