Because in the world he had been born into, blood was the only thing that mattered in defining a son and heir. With one step, he had made a measure of atonement for failing Kitty and at the same time struck a blow against everything his father stood for.
He stared unseeing at the green baize before him, his thoughts like a slap to the face or a shock of icy rainwater. A few hours ago he would have said it was Melanie who had entered their marriage under false pretenses. And yet in his own way he had been less than honest about his reasons for asking her to be his wife.
A moment later an unmistakable scent washed over him, and his wife draped herself over the back of his chair. “Nothing,” she murmured into his ear. “Of course we’re a bit early.” She glanced at the mother-of-pearl counters lying on the green baize cloth by his elbow. “Pity you aren’t fonder of games of chance, Charles. You could have made a second fortune.” She squeezed his shoulder as though in flirtation. “I’m going to circulate again.”
Her pendant swung against him. He remembered fastening it about her throat on their first anniversary. She’d been nursing Colin, then five months old. He turned his head and reached up to pull her closer, half for the illusion of dalliance, half so he could speak in a lower voice. “Be careful.”
“I’m armed, remember?” She had a pistol in her beaded reticule. He had one in the pocket beneath his coattails.
“I say, Fraser,” a voice called as Melanie moved away.
Charles looked up to see a tall man with untidy brown hair making his way toward him.
Melanie whisked herself off. Charles smiled and bowed to the inevitable. “Hullo, Bertie.”
Bertram Vance, Viscount Tilbury, came to a stop beside Charles’s chair. He was wearing an impeccably cut dark blue evening coat with an ash stain on one of the cuffs. “Must say, I wouldn’t have expected to find you in a place like this.” Bertram had always, from their days at Harrow, been superb at blundering into the middle of the wrong situation.
“Can’t spend all my hours in Westminster,” Charles said.
“Suppose not.” Bertram pulled up a spare chair and glanced at Charles’s winnings. “Doing rather well, aren’t you? Makes sense. You always were damnably good at figures and such. Suppose that comes in handy at the table. Maybe it explains my rotten luck, now that I think of it. Is your game finished? Care to have a drink with me?”
Charles hesitated, but he could keep an eye out for yellow waistcoats as well in Bertram’s company as at the faro bank, and it would keep Bertram from stumbling across Melanie. He cashed in his winnings and they moved to a table against the wall.
Bertram signaled to a passing waiter. “What are you drinking? Whisky? Scotsman to the core, aren’t you? Think I’ll stick to brandy.” He glanced round the room and spoke in a lowered voice. “I say, old boy, who was the dusky beauty you were talking to?”
Charles achieved a creditable look of embarrassment. “Oh, did you notice her?”
“Caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye. Very fetching. But I must say I never thought—not one to judge, of course. But if I were married to your wife—”
Charles drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “If you were married to my wife, you’d understand very well.”
Bertram’s brows drew together. “That way, is it? Always took you two to be unfashionably devoted, for all you don’t make a show of it.”
Charles could just glimpse the flash of Melanie’s scarf through the archway into the supper room. Her back was safely to them for the moment. “Devotion can prove tiresome, Bertie.” He sent a mental apology to Melanie as he spoke. Then he swallowed a mouthful of whisky to wash the bite of self-derision from his tongue.
Bertram stared into the brandy the waiter had brought him. “Wouldn’t know about that myself. Never tried it. Always rather wanted to, if I could find the right girl.”
Through the archway, Charles glimpsed his wife again. She was leaning seductively on another man’s arm. A dark-haired man wearing a yellow waistcoat.
Melanie had caught the gleam of yellow satin across the crystal and candlelight of the supper room. He was sitting alone at a table in the corner. She threaded her way toward him, warding off the attentions of a portly man with claret on his breath who managed to get his hand beneath the neck of her gown. When she was a half-dozen feet away, she collided with a waiter carrying a tray with a decanter of port and a half-dozen glasses. The glasses clattered. The decanter sloshed. The waiter staggered and clutched the tray. Her foot caught in the hem of her gown.
An old trick, but it worked. The man in the yellow waistcoat sprang to his feet and steadied her. “Thank you,” she said, making her voice go soft. She smiled up at him. He had coal-black hair that curled over his forehead and a face that retained a sort of youthful optimism, despite the lines of dissipation set into his features.
The man removed his hand, somewhat later than was necessary. “Always happy to oblige a lady. No damage to you? Or to your gown?”
“None, thanks to your quick thinking.” She let her scarf slither lower on her arms.
“Good, good.” He glared at the waiter. “Fetch the lady a glass of champagne, man. And a brandy for me.” He held out a chair. “Won’t you join me, Miss—?”
“West. Mary West.”
He swept her a bow. “James Morningham, at your service.”
Melanie sank into the proffered chair at an angle that gave him a good view of her decolletage. “You’re sure I’m not keeping you from the faro table or the roulette wheel?”
“On the contrary. There’s more than one sort of game to be played at Mannerling’s.”
“You look like a man who knows his way round”—she paused, just long enough to offer a suggestive hint—“a gaming table.”
“I’ve had some experience.” His voice was suggestive as well, but his eyes had a friendly, likeable sort of glint.
She leaned forward, her arm resting on the table. All the old instincts came back, though it was a long time since she’d played this particular game. Or perhaps that wasn’t true. She’d used much the same technique to charm a number of politicians and foreign diplomats; she’d merely employed the tactics less blatantly. “Do you come here often?” she asked.
“Fairly often.” He seated himself and stretched his legs out in front of him. “Shockingly shabby of your escort to neglect you for the tables.” He ran his gaze over her. “What can the man be thinking of?”
Melanie looked into his good-natured face and lied cheerfully. “Oh, no, I came alone.”
Morningham leaned back in his chair and gave her a lazy smile. “Did you now?”
The waiter returned with their drinks. Melanie took advantage of the pause to study Morningham. His fine yellow waistcoat was snagged in spots and one of the buttons did not quite match the others. His cravat was frayed about the edges, but the linen was spotless and well starched. He carried a few pounds more than were necessary, but the curling hair, the bright eyes, and the playful smile had an undoubted appeal. Fifteen years ago he must have been a very handsome man indeed. He fit Susan Trevennen’s description of Jemmy Moore to a nicety. One could see why Helen Trevennen would have turned her back on her father and Cornwall and run off to London with him. And one could see why she would have decided he would never give her what she wanted from life, and turned her back on him as well.
Out of the corner of her eye, Melanie saw a tall, vaguely familiar man talking to Charles. She shifted her chair so her face wasn’t visible through the archway. Perhaps it would be best to question Morningham directly before someone recognized her.
“What brought you to Mannerling’s?” Morningham asked.
Melanie took a sip of champagne. Dry and yeasty and chilled to perfection. Mannerling’s didn’t stint its guests. She smiled over the rim of the glass. “To tell the truth, Mr. Morningham, I was a bit duplicitous. I meant to seek you out.”
“Oh?” He looked flattered, not suspicious. Poor man. It was a wonder he’d lasted in the underworld as long as he had.
Melanie pushed her glass round on the crisp linen of the table. “I think you may know something about a friend of mine.” She looked up at him from beneath her darkened lashes. “Helen Trevennen.”
Morningham’s eyes went wide. He cast a quick glance round, like a trapped animal. Before she had time to
