Page 25 of Hazard a Guest (Ladies’ Revenge Club #3)

J oe had tolerated a few rounds of circular conversation with Freddy after Ember’s departure this morning. They had consisted of approximately the same three lines:

“So this is about your father? Feeling like he is being forgotten?”

“What? No. He was a nasty old codger.”

“Then you don’t approve of Dom Raul?”

“I like Dom Raul.”

“Then this is about losing your mother?”

“No! But she was only ever married to my father.”

“So this is about your father?”

“No!”

And so on.

They had made it through teatime and Joe showing Freddy the delights of the conservatory with only minimal further outbursts.

“A … a Portuguese? What do you call a fellow from Portugal, anyhow?” one moment, then the next, “Will they even be married in English?!”

Joe suspected this was just a blow to Freddy’s sense of permanence, the way his own return from the very country under scrutiny had been, and so he’d attempted to point out, every time it was brought up, that Freddy himself would experience very little change from the marriage itself.

He wasn’t sure if it soothed Freddy, exactly, but it did, eventually, shut him up.

“So,” he said once he’d gotten past it, “Ember?”

And Joe had sighed, because that was worse.

“Is this how the Blackcove event always plays out, even without all the indigestion?” he’d asked in one of Freddy’s merciful pockets of silence. “Everyone just sleeps, eats, and gambles?”

“Depends on the weather,” Freddy had answered, sedated in this moment by the glass view over the grounds from the conservatory and several openly admiring glances at the sculpture of the first Lord Penrose.

“Sometimes there will be walks of the area, a trip down to the famous smuggling cove, a hunt or two. I mostly do the things you listed. What’s the point of anything else, after all? ”

“Freddy.”

And he’d gotten a full, toothed grin that still managed to somehow be sad.

Mercifully, for at least the one last night, there was no formal dinner before the games. Dinner proper would resume tomorrow, they were told repeatedly while being offered a “walking plate” and access to the foyer and ballroom ahead of the festivities.

It was far, far preferable.

“What do you think happened to him?” Freddy muttered, nodding toward a slender, mustachioed gentleman with a vibrant bruise coloring almost half of his face. “Looks like he got kicked by a horse.”

Joe shrugged, admittedly curious as well, and allowed Freddy to unravel into a thousand theories, studying each of the other guests for hints of violence.

What did surprise him was when Freddy found it.

“Beck,” he said with scandalized delight. “Look at his hand!”

Indeed, the patterns of scarring on Thaddeus Beck’s very large hand appeared to have a new bloom of recent damage, a bright streak of red cradled in an aura of bruising at his knuckles.

“Hm,” said Joe.

“That’s all?!” said Freddy, clearly exasperated. “But why ?!”

“Evening, lads!” came the sparkling voice of Ember Donnelly at precisely the right moment to end Freddy’s theatrics.

Tonight she wore midnight blue, a sparkle in her eyes that told Joe it had been a deliberate choice, a reminder of those dyed stays she hid under her clothes. He felt his face heat at the memory of it. She had Hannah Lazarus with her, still looking very much the prey animal amongst these predators.

The unfortunate tendency to dress debutantes in all white only made the girl glow more like a target on a shooting range, the steel notary seal gripped firmly between her pale hands.

“Evening,” said Freddy distractedly. “Beck punched a man!”

“Freddy!” Joe sighed.

“Did he really?” said Ember.

“Oh, no!” gasped Hannah. “Is Mr. Beck all right?”

The three of them all turned in confused fascination toward Hannah.

“Of course he’s all right,” Ember said first. “He’s built like a combination of any three of the men in attendance.”

“Not so much his victim,” said Freddy, nudging Ember with his elbow and nodding toward the mustachioed man.

“Ohhh,” said Hannah, her eyes widening to nearly the full breadth of her face.

Ember’s attention snapped to the other girl. “Oh?” she repeated, much sharper, and when Hannah met her gaze, she announced she would be right back and stormed off toward the bruised gentleman.

“Look at that,” said Freddy fondly, “he’s about to get punched again .”

“Who is that?” Joe demanded, only to receive shrugs from the other two as Ember rounded on the poor sod like a she-wolf about to pounce.

Sadly, the theater of the thing was interrupted by Lord Penrose, who chugged up to them, holding a glass of wine in each hand and seeming robbed of breath by the effort.

“Lord Bentley!” he said with an edge of cheer that he only ever seemed to have for Freddy, specifically. “Will you have some wine?”

“Oh,” said Freddy, blanching, “I …”

“Yes,” said Joe, taking the wine for him. “I’ll hold it for you, Freddy.”

“Oh,” Freddy said again, with significantly more ease, “thank you, Joe.”

In an endeavor to intercept any confusion from their host, Joe immediately leapt into a new turn of conversation. “Lord Penrose, our friend Lord Bentley was just telling me about the excursions you’ve offered in previous years. Is it true there is a smuggler’s cove attached to the property?”

Penrose brightened, immediately and effectively distracted. “Well, of course there is, my boy! How else would the house have gotten its name? Have you a taste for seeing it?”

“Oh, I do!” said Hannah, which clearly startled Penrose.

“You do?” he said, staring at her like he’d never seen her before as he released a delighted chuckle. “Do you really, my girl? I can’t promise any dashing privateers are still hiding within.”

“Why, Lord Penrose.” The girl blinked with far more guile than Joe would have believed she contained. “You’re the only dashing privateer we’ll need.”

“Oh!” said Penrose, chortling. “Oh ho ho.”

Joe endeavored not to roll his eyes, looking over his shoulder in search of Ember.

Sadly, he had missed whatever interaction had just occurred between the lady and the bruised man, but he looked green on his unbruised half and she looked very pleased with herself, marching back toward them, curls trembling, her blue skirts swinging like a tolling church bell.

“Ah!” she said as she reached them, taking the glass of wine from Joe’s hand. “You’ve brought me wine. Thank you, Lord Penrose.”

And Joe fell in love all over again.

Later, once the tables were thrumming in earnest, Joe made a point of passing near the bruised man.

He still didn’t know exactly what the gent had done, but the fact that Ember seemed supportive of his injury was enough for Joe to feel a twinge of satisfaction that the man also appeared to be freshly divested of one of his back teeth.

He didn’t support violence, of course.

Of course not.

All the same, perhaps the tooth was better off now.

He stopped for a time to observe Ember winning a large pot, applauding with the rest of the gathered audience when she clapped her hands together in delight.

“What’s her club called?” a man was asking another. “Bridget’s?”

“Brigid’s Forge,” Joe corrected. “St. James Wood.”

When she joined him after leaving the table, she did so with exuberance, taking his arm and bouncing on her toes with a little fit of elation at her recent performance. “Did you see that?” she asked excitedly. “He thought he had me.”

“They always do,” said Joe, looking down at her with a little grin, “don’t they?”

“Indeed,” she agreed, tittering.

They walked toward the refreshment table together, her hands threaded through his elbow. Joe felt as though everyone in the room was watching, though he supposed it was unlikely they had any audience at all. Still, it felt conspicuous. It felt so extremely visible.

“This color,” he said as they reached the champagne glasses, touching the sleeve of her midnight-blue gown. “I love it. It looks very well on you.”

“Does it?” she replied with no small tone of mischief. “Shame it’s not the color I’m wearing tonight.”

He blinked, attempting not to freeze immediately in his tracks as she giggled, stepping ahead of him to retrieve the glasses. She handed him one and raised her brows. “Look at you,” she tutted, “accepting booze. And here I thought you were such a nice Quaker boy.”

“Did you think that?” he returned softly, unable to hide his smile as she slowly shook her head no.

“Did you get any mail today?” she asked him, finding a place on the wall to lean against while they watched the games. “I have a packet of things to get through. Something from Jones, something from Millie. I haven’t had a moment to breathe.”

“Nothing for me,” said Joe with a shrug, “but I was only in London for a day before I had to leave again. I probably won’t get anything new from Cain until I get back.”

She sighed softly. “At least you didn’t have to contend with a marriage announcement from Dom Raul’s side. Freddy would have smelled it on you the instant it reached your hand. Is he … is he quite all right, by the way? Obviously, he’s fine, but …”

“He’ll be all right,” said Joe. “I’m keeping an eye on him.”

“Aye,” said Ember, sipping from her glass. “So am I.”

They stood in silence for a bit, both of them finding their attention settling over Thaddeus Beck, who was apparently dominating the vingt-et-un table with a quiet precision that belied the blood on his knuckles. One by one, each of his contenders ran dry, slinking away in defeat.

Ember released a little sigh of disgust but did not look away. Her eyes flicked from him only once, over to Miss Lazarus standing near her father, gazing at Beck with something in her wide, young eyes that looked uncomfortably like worship.

“Oh,” said Joe. “Oh dear.”

“Hm?” said Ember, looking up at him for a moment and then back to the scene he’d just witnessed. “Oh, that. It’s nothing.”

“Is it not?” Joe asked her, not because of the blood on Beck’s knuckles and not because of the tightness of Ember’s tone, but because he recognized that look on Hannah’s face.

That was how he’d felt, once. That was how he’d felt every time he was in a room with Ember Donnelly.

It made him look at Beck again, this time for longer, this time with consideration.

Ember had told him that the only difference between Beck and herself was luck and timing. Was that true? Was Beck just Ember as a man? A very, very large man?

He frowned and turned back to regard the way she was watching him: with distaste, like an enemy.

Why had Beck punched that fellow?

The only thing that made sense, the only reason that would fit, was the one standing in that corner, wide-eyed and breathless, watching him like he had descended from Olympus directly to play in these rooms tonight.

“Stop it,” she muttered, tossing him a look out of the corner of her eye. “Stop that.”

“All right,” he said, but only because she had asked. He didn’t add for now .

“If I go play with him, he’ll leave,” she said with irritation, tapping her fingernail against the champagne flute. “Even when I get close enough to watch, he pisses off somewhere else. What’s he hiding?”

Joe didn’t know. He thought he could have guessed, a few moments ago, but now he wasn’t sure at all.

“Have you tried asking him?” he said, looking over at her. “Might be easier than trying to pin him to a table.”

“Oh, Joe,” she said with a sigh, knocking back the remainder of her drink and handing him the empty glass. “Of course not. You’re the only one I want to pin to a table.”

She was already gone again before he’d processed her words, though she did throw one last look over her shoulder, obviously enjoying the way she’d rooted him to the spot, a glass of wine in each hand and pink in his cheeks, just like blasted Lord Penrose.