Mary Balogh: Red Rose

But it was pointless, anyway, to wish for delicate eyes and brows, wavy hair, a shorter stature, and a more svelte figure. What good would beauty do her when there would always be the one great defect? Nothing could ever change that. Uncle Lawrence had understood. He had never forced her to socialize. On the few occasions when she had been forced into company, he must have noticed as well as she the reactions of strangers: distaste, embarrassment, pity. He was quite willing to let her stay at home with her books, her painting, and her music, or to ride freely around the estate on her mare, Flossie.

By what right did this Edward Marsh, the new Earl of Raymore, order her to come to his residence in London? She was two and twenty years old and no direct relation of his. She resented her dependence on him. The only complaint she had ever had against Uncle Lawrence had come after his death. She had never understood why she, as well as Sylvia, had been put under the guardianship of his nephew and heir until her marriage. He had known that she would never marry.

“Youare very quiet, Ros, and you are not even looking out the window," Sylvia said in exasperation. "Do look. We are about to enter the outskirts of the city. Oh, it is so easy to imagine why people used to expect the streets to be paved with gold, is it not?"

Rosalind obligingly turned her attention to the window, but both girls were soon exclaiming in dismay overthe dirty streets and the ragged, grimy people that crowded them.

That child is crying," Sylvia said, pointing at an emaciated little ragamuffin who was rubbing both fists against his eyes. "Oh, do you think I should call Ben to stop and give the boy some pennies?"

"I think not," Rosalind decided. "There are so many others, Sylvie." She looked, troubled, into her cousin's tearstained face and lowered her eyes to the hands in her lap until Sylvia began exclaiming with more cheerfulness at the buildings and conveyances of a more fashionable part of London. She gazed with every bit as much curiosity as the other girl at the imposing mansion in Grosvenor Square at which Ben the coachman, slowed the carriage.

"This be her," Ben was saying to the gawking footman, who had to be prodded in the ribs before he remembered that it was his duty to jump down from the box and knock on the large oak front door facing onto the cobbled courtyard.

Even in the middle of the afternoon there were two games in progress in the card room at Watier's Club. Both groups of players were silently intent upon their hands. The few spectators were hushed too, all of them standing around the table that was farthest from the windows. Here young Darnley was in too deep. Everyone knew that the comfortable competence left him by his father a mere two years ago had been all but dissipated on reckless living. If he did not cut his losses soon, some of them felt, he would be living in dun territory before the summer was over.

The young lord sat forward, his manner careless and relaxed. The only key to his true state of mind was his flushed cheeks and his eyes, which darted constantly from his own hand to the cards held by his companions, as if he could divine what they held if he only looked often enough.

The object of Darnley's most penetrating glances was the man opposite. He sat with a look of cool boredom, one well-manicured hand holding his cards, the other toying with the crystal glass on the table, which held an inch of brandy still. His eyes never once strayed from his cards, not even to glance at the pile of bank notes and vouchers that lay neatly stacked before him.

Finally he laid down his cards and spread them so that all could see. Only then did he lift ice-blue eyes to the young man across the table. But his face was expressionless. All three of his fellow players threw their own cards onto the table, two of them with a resigned shrug, Darnley with an involuntary exclamation of annoyance.

"Luck ith with you today, Raymore," he said casually. "Mutht leave now. Appointment to dwive Lady Awabella Matthewth in the park. Muthn't be late. Will call tomowwow to pay my debt, dear fellow."

The sixth Earl of Raymore looked steadily and cynically at Darnley. "I shall be at home over the luncheon hour," he said, "though, of course, you may always see my secretary if I am not at home. Sheldon's door is always open."

Darnley bowed stiffly and left the room with his head held high. The onlookers drifted away, some of them to the other table, where the play was still in progress, others to another room.

Not entirely fair, Edward, to rub it in quite like that," the player to Raymore's left said quietly. "You know very well that Darnley will not call on you tomorrow. He don't have the blunt."

Then he should admit as much, Henry," Raymore said with a careless shrug as he tapped the vouchers and bank notes into a neater pile before him. "He should have asked for more time."

"Come now," Sir Henry Martel replied with an un- ¦It]laugh, "you must allow a man some way to save his dignity. It takes some courage to admit to having played:*-vond one's means, especially in this club. Have a heart, man."

Raymore regarded his friend coolly. "If he chooses to gamble when he has not the means, he should be man enough to take his losses," he said. "I have no sympathy. Do not try to make a bleeding heart of me, Henry."

His friend laughed outright. "I should know better than to try, should I not," he said, "with you, who have no mercy and compassion on any man, least of all yourself? Why have we been friends these ten years, Edward? I am sure I cannot fathom the reason."

"Originally it was because I never competed with you for all the prettiest girls," Raymore answered dryly, "and later it was habit, I suppose, though perhaps you think that my title has added something to your consequence in the last year? There was a suggestion of a smile about his mouth.

Sir Henry clapped his friend on the back and rose to his feet. "You have penetrated my darkest secret," he said with a hearty laugh. "And, indeed, my friend, I owe you lifelong devotion for having introduced me to Elise when you did not wish to partner her yourself for a dance. Come, let me buy you a drink before I go home. I must not linger long. Elise has only two weeks to go before her time and becomes nervous if I am from home too long. Though what she expects me to do if I am there when the pain begins, I have no idea. Perhaps it will be a comfort to her to know that I will be downstairs in the drawing room wearing a path in the carpet." He laughed again.

The Earl of Raymore rose to his feet and followed his friend across the room. He kept his voice low in deference to the serious game that had now attracted several spectators at the table close to the windows.

"I'm damned if I would ever do so much for any woman," he said. "Why get so excited when they are performing the only function for which they are of any use?"

"I say, Edward," Sir Henry said rather sharply as he seated himself in a deep leather chair in a lounge that adjoined the card room, "coming a trifle offensive, my boy. Anyway, you seem to find at least one other use for the fair sex, or was that your maiden aunt you were driving in the park yesterday afternoon?"

"I was talking about wives," his friend replied. "Mistresses, of course, have a different function. And I admit that it can be quite pleasurable if the female will just keep her infernal mouth shut."

The delectable one in the park did not?" Sir Henry asked, grinning.

“W ediscussed bonnets for all of one hour," Raymore said, raising one eyebrow in his friend's direction. "Pardon me, weexchanged views on parasols for perhaps ten minutes of that time. To relieve the monotony, you see. Her elocution lessons slipped once or twice, too. Pure cockney beneath the veneer, Henry." Sir Henry laughed. "But good in bed, Edward?" Mm, quite a shapely armful," the earl agreed. "But one cannot quite wipe out memories of the featherbrain attached to the body, except perhaps at moments of the deepest involvement. There is a delicious little redheaded beauty at Covent Garden. New this week, bel ieve.Probably not under anyone's protection yet."