Page 7 of A Sporting Chance (The Chances #8)

“R emind me again, why am I here?”

The crush was unbearable. No, if Leopold were honest with himself, it was not the crush of people that was unbearable, but the crush of their gazes, all following him around Mrs. Burton’s drawing room.

His brother grinned. “Because we are Chances, and we received an invitation, and it would look pretty poor on us if we only accepted invitations from dukes and marquesses, wouldn’t it?”

His brother Thomas, the new Duke of Cothrom, could be as kind and dutiful as he wanted, Leopold wanted to say, but why did that mean he had to accompany him?

As though his brother could read his mind, Thomas added, “And besides, Victoria can’t join me. She’s…indisposed. And I wanted company. I know hardly anyone here.”

Leopold repressed a smile as the two of them halted at the fireplace—mercifully unlit—and managed to find a small moment of quiet as the pianoforte started up in the other room.

As the droves of guests Mrs. Burton had thought fit to invite rushed over to see who was playing, they were afforded a moment together.

“She is…indisposed, is she?”

Thomas, his tall figure softened by his kind nature, which was always glimmering in his expression, glanced at him, cheeks slightly red. “Yes. Yes, indisposed. Why?”

Leopold was no fool. He knew precisely what ‘indisposed’ meant. He was about to have a niece or nephew. “No reason. I just—well. I had hoped to have a quiet evening, rather than be dragged out here to be paraded around.”

“Is that Lord Leopold— the Lord Leopold Chance?”

He groaned. At least, he allowed a groan to part his lips, but he managed to clamp it down almost immediately.

“Father would be proud,” his brother teased under his breath as the room started to fill up again, the crowds evidently unimpressed with the pianoforte playing.

Leopold snorted. “Father would not wish for the Chance name to be bandied about in the mouths of gossips, as well you know.”

Father. William Chance, the head of the Chance family, and a formidable man.

Not that he was frightening, not in any way.

If anything, Leopold would say his papa had softened the last few years.

He’d heard tales that in his youth, the young Dowager Duke of Cothrom had been truly formidable, keeping his three brothers in line by sheer force of will, which would have been a remarkable feat, indeed.

William Chance liked order, and respect, and respectability. He hated gossip and slander and any behavior that was likely to engender either.

It made being his son a tad difficult.

“I don’t want to be here,” Leopold muttered out of the corner of his mouth. “My shoulders ache and my back is stiff.”

“That is your own fault for spending all day with a bow in your hands,” his brother shot back, accepting a glass of wine from a harried-looking footman and sipping it. “A gentleman would have better things to do.”

Like make heirs , Leopold thought but did not say with a wry grin as he helped himself to his own glass of wine.

Well, his brother had a point. Gentlemen of their standing did not generally go about practicing their draw or flinging back their shoulder in an attempt to let an arrow fly an additional fifty yards.

It wasn’t that it wasn’t done—there was naught scandalous about it.

It was just… Well, it wasn’t done. No one wanted to do it.

No one except him.

“Besides, Mrs. Burton has been a splendid addition to Society,” Thomas added, his genial nature showing through even as the room continued to be filled. “I suppose I can keep you away from the card tables, if I need to?”

The question was delicately put, and Leopold could not fault his brother for asking it in the way he had.

He could certainly fault him for asking the question in the first place, however.

Leopold’s scowl was hopefully not too noticeable. “Thomas, I told you before, when I lost that money, I never intended to lose so much.”

“The problem is, Leopold, is that everyone in Town is talking about it,” his brother said unnecessarily.

“Yes, that’s the one, the card sharp—”

“—heard he swindled many a person out of—”

“—someone finally put him in his place—”

Leopold wished he could close his ears to the whispered gossip that surrounded them just as easily as he could shut his eyes, but it was impossible. It felt like every single person in Mrs. Burton’s drawing room—and there was a great number—was looking at him, pointing at him, talking about him.

“You take these things too much to heart,” murmured Thomas.

Leopold snorted. “You try telling that to Father.”

If only he could close his sensitivities to the memories of that conversation. Much of it had been scrubbed from his mind, the thought of it too difficult to bear, but snippets still forced their way through into his memory.

“—utter disgrace, destroying our good name… spent years to maintain our reputation and you destroy it in—”

“Look, all I ask is that you stay away from the card tables tonight.” Thomas had stepped close to him, so close that he could whisper in Leopold’s ear. The awkwardness with which he murmured spoke volumes.

Leopold did all he could to ensure his shoulders did not sag.

His brother did not trust him. He had known it, deep down, but to have it so clearly stated—albeit not with words—was disheartening.

He was Lord Leopold Chance. He had gained a great deal of money through playing cards—through skill, mark you!—and because he had lost a significant amount a month ago, the whole of Society wondered whether he had been cheating in the past.

Cheating. Him!

“I am not going to promise you any such thing,” he said aloud, keeping his voice level even as his anger rose. “And if you ask me again, I shall leave.”

Thomas swallowed. “Look, Father asked me to keep an eye on you.”

And that was when Leopold decided to leave.

Not because Mrs. Burton was of a much lower class than themselves, as were most of her guests. Some of Leopold’s closest friends from families without titles, and judging by the quality of the wine he had sipped, their hostess had spared no expense.

Not because he particularly had a desire to play cards in public, after all the gossip and murmurings about him.

But because his brother and father, two of the people in the world who should most trust him, who should believe him, did not.

“I’m leaving,” Leopold said quietly, placing his almost-untouched glass of wine on the mantelpiece.

His brother’s face fell. “No. Leopold, I didn’t mean—”

“If I cannot be trusted to attend a card party, I may as well be at home with Maude,” Leopold snapped, trying to bite down his ire and not doing a particularly good job. “I’ll see you later.”

His mind was reeling and his anger burning through him as Leopold pushed through the crowd, across the drawing room toward the hall, trying to ignore all the stares, the whispers, the way one gentleman even had the gall to point.

“Ooof!”

“Ouch—ow!”

Leopold reeled back from the person he had just barged into. “My apologies, I…I…”

Words did not appear to be forthcoming. This was most disconcerting, for two reasons.

Firstly, because he appeared to have completely winded the poor person who had accidentally stepped between himself and the door to the hall.

Secondly, because the person in question was none other than Miss Kathleen Andilet.

“You,” he whispered, unconsciously stepping closer to her and staring into her eyes.

“‘You’?” Miss Andilet whispered in turn, a hand clasped to her chest, her breaths shallow.

Leopold could do nothing but stare.

She was…

Well, he had known she was remarkably striking when he had first accosted her, accusing her of being a Peeping Tom.

“You’re the Peeping Tom. How intriguing to make your acquaintance.”

“Surely, I am a Peeping Thomasina?”

His stomach lurched.

He had not quite noticed…but here, in the low sunlight of the late afternoon, the crush of Mrs. Burton’s many guests, and the attire one expected a lady to wear at such an event…

Leopold swallowed. She was magnificent.

Not in a showy way. The more he looked at her, the more he realized that Miss Andilet could not be a showy young woman, as his mother would put it.

Her gown was simple, and the single gold necklace with a small pendant was neither fabulously jeweled nor probably that expensive.

Her hair was piled up upon her head with no feathers or adornments, but the curve of her neck and the swell of her heaving breasts as she caught her breath…

“Lord—Lord Leopold?” Miss Andilet whispered.

“Miss Andilet,” Leopold murmured, stepping toward her.

And then he halted.

Dear God, he was in the middle of someone else’s drawing room, stepping closer—far too close—to a woman he was not supposed to know. Damn, but I am thinking with my loins, not my head.

He didn’t know her. Not officially—they had never been introduced.

And surely, in a public venue such as this, at least, she had come with a chaperone. A chaperone who might be searching the crowds for their charge, spying this interaction this very moment.

Leopold turned wildly, his eyes searching for his brother. Perhaps Thomas had once met her. Perhaps he could come to their rescue.

“Ah, I see that you wish to make the acquaintance of our dear Miss Andilet!”

Never before had Leopold been more delighted to be borne down on by a hostess. He smiled weakly at the approaching apple-shaped Mrs. Burton and wondered whether he would ever escape this card party without creating a further scene of gossip.

“I do?” he said vaguely, before sharpness returned to his mind and voice. “I do, yes, thank you. If you would do the honors, Mrs. Burton.”

Mrs. Burton, a widow of notable stature whose husband had made a small fortune running tea from China, beamed as a curl of her gray hair danced across her dimpled cheek. She was clearly delighted to be doing the honors—a duke’s son, under her roof, requesting her assistance in a social situation!