Kasey Michaels (37 page)

“The game, as you call it, Mother, is already all but over, which was what I was going to say when you interrupted me,” Simon told her. “It has almost been
too
easy, as a matter of fact. We finish with him tonight, at White’s. As for the rest of it? I’ve already sent around a note to the Pulteney, inviting all three gentlemen to a small dinner party here tomorrow evening. After dinner I’ll take Sir Camber to my study and beg his permission to pay my addresses to his daughter. But that doesn’t mean you have to wait that long to discard those damned stays. Unless you’ve set your sights on the good squire, that is? After all, he is, as you’ve said,
tall
.”

“And robust,” Imogene added, giving out with a satisfied sigh. “Healthy.” She shook her head, frowning. “As to these stays? I don’t think I can keep to them much longer, not even for an
energetic
man.” She gave a wave of her hand—the one holding a square of toast heavily laden with strawberry jam. “But that’s neither here nor there, is it? I’m much too pleased with how everything is working out between you and Callie, which is precisely how I saw it working out the moment I first heard about the gel. You’re your father’s son, Simon, and she’ll never be able to say
you
aren’t, well,
tall
enough!”

Simon pushed back his chair and stood, refusing to believe he was blushing. “We never had this conversation, Mother,” he said, shaking his head. “And, if I’m very lucky, I’ll be able to forget it.” He walked around the table and pressed a kiss against the woman’s forehead. “Now, why don’t you just go upstairs, have Kathleen take off those stays, and have yourself a long nap. You look exhausted, and we’ve got a dinner party tomorrow night, remember?”

She took hold of his neckcloth, holding him at eye level. “And an announcement to make?”

“And an announcement to make,” Simon agreed, smiling. “Just don’t tell Callie, all right? I’d like to be able to tell her something without her first learning it on her own.”

“And she’s given up on destroying Filton with you, has she? Given you
carte blanche
to handle the thing without her help, even let her brother in on the fun while still keeping her shut out, locked up safely here in Portland Place, being measured for gowns after weeks of having me to contend with, all the time thinking she was going to help you rout Filton? And all for love of you?” Imogene asked, releasing her son’s neckcloth in order to pick up another piece of bacon. “Now why do I find that so difficult to believe?”

His smile faded slowly as he watched his mother’s jaws working, munching on the thick strip of bacon.

Simon remembered Callie’s determination, how she’d held a pistol on him, how she’d gone after Noel Kinsey in the middle of the street, in the middle of the afternoon.

He knew how passionately she felt about bringing the man down, punishing him.

Simon knew how angry she’d been when she’d found out he had tricked her, had made her think she was a part of his plan when he’d really meant to cut her out, keep her safe.

He’d seen the almost-hungry look in her eyes, when she’d asked how Justyn had done last night, now that he was a part of the plan.

And he believed she would be content to sit back while two men she loved took on Filton on their own, without trying to help them, protect them?

Was he bloody insane?

“I’m an idiot, aren’t I, Imogene?”

“Oh, most assuredly, darling,” his mother answered smoothly as she swallowed the bacon and then liberated a piece of toast from the pile in the middle of the table. “Better not to let this drag out a moment longer. Get Filton gone tonight, son, as you’ve boasted you will. Or she’ll do it for you. Hurry along now, time’s a-wasting!”

What Simon didn’t hear as he rapidly strode out of the room, a man with a mission, was Imogene’s quiet: “There’s a good son. Go off to worry and chase your tail, boy, and it serves you right, teach you to try to hoodwink your poor old mother into staying out of your way. Old?
Ha
! Not me!”

Callie believed she was being forced to endure the longest, most depressing day of her life. Hours and hours had been filled with fittings for her ball gown, and another visit from a scissors-wielding Madame Yolanda. She’d had to endure an hour-long quizzing from the viscountess on the life and times of one Squire Plum. She’d been closeted with Lester nearly forever, attempting to convince that badly rattled young man that the lovable but rather volatile Imogene was
not
about, overnight, to become his stepmother.

And all of this was made even worse by Simon’s absence. How dared he say he loved her, and kiss her, and then steer her off to bed with nothing more but a single, searing kiss to cling to, to dream about all the night long?

Where was he? What was he doing? Was he even now sitting across a table from Noel Kinsey, slowly draining his purse? Was Justyn with him? How smart was Noel Kinsey? Was he beginning to suspect a plot against him? Were Simon and Justyn in any danger?

Would the clock stay stuck on the hour of two for the remainder of eternity?

Oh, how she loved Simon.

How she worried about him and his grand plan.

Oh, how angry she was with him!

How she continued to worry, to feelhelpless, useless. Which made Caledonia Johnston long to tweak the determined spoilsport by doing a little “downfalling” of her own. If she only could figure out the
how
of it.

Which, of course—as night follows day, as tears come after laughter, as pride goeth before a fall (Callie could have driven to Ockham and applied to Miss Haverly for more trite sayings that foretold of doom and destruction)—meant that, when the earl of Filton unexpectedly showed up on the doorstep, Callie welcomed him with a broad smile and a full quiver of flirting tricks learned at the knee of the master. That would be Imogene, not Simon.

While Imogene was locked upstairs, Madame Yolanda working her miracles with the dye pots, Callie dragged an unwilling Kathleen into a far corner of the drawing room to act as chaperone, then sat down beside the earl of Filton and proceeded to bat her eyelashes, smile her most winning smiles, coo over and compliment his title, and drizzle compliments on the man’s vain head like sugar glazing poured over a hot bun.

She learned that the earl, who could turn a sarcastic phrase but nary a single intelligent one, was a slave to his own consequence, a man easily made to believe that he was the fairest of God’s creatures. In his own mind he was complete to a shade, totally irresistible, and—by the time he departed Portland Place—believed without question that he was only a single broad hint away from being accepted by Sir Camber. Sir Camber Johnston, who would doubtless fall on the man’s neck, eager to give his daughter—and her new fortune—over to this most clever, magnificent, infinitely superb, titled gentleman.

Not that it had been easy. For one thing, Noel Kinsey was not the most attractive man—at least not in Callie’s opinion. Although her brother was blond, and she had nothing against fair men, Filton was underbelly-of-a-fish pale, with the look of one who ventured into the sun only on his way home from spending his nights in gaming hells.

At no more than three-and-thirty, he was already going soft around the edges, running to fat, so that she found herself in very real fear for his waistcoat buttons when he bent over her hand (his kiss against her palm, she knew, should have warranted a slap, but she rewarded him with a giggle instead).

And, worst of all, he flushed a very uncomplimentary puce whenever he became earnest, which he did at least a half dozen times during their half-hour-long visit—each time he had to screw himself up to saying something that flattered her, rather than himself.

In fact, the only ease Callie found at all during their time together was when she would bring up the subject of Noel Kinsey. Noel Kinsey was one subject the self-satisfied man could expound upon at length—and did—on any subject from how well his form flattered his tailor to how distinguished had been his ancestors (all of whom were probably spinning like tops in their graves, listening to the pompous, foolish creature).

But, all in all, Callie considered the interview to be a grand success, and Noel Kinsey had gone away with a disgustingly chipper grin on his face and a lilt in his step, probably already composing an announcement of their betrothal to the newspapers. Simon didn’t know it yet, but she had sent him a dithering fool to gamble with at White’s, with his head most definitely occupied in counting his bride-to-be’s money, and it would be mere child’s play to empty his pockets to their linings.

She could hardly wait to tell Simon what she had done. Oh, yes, he’d be angry. At first. But it wasn’t as if she had gone out driving with the man. He’d come to her. And she’d helped Simon, she really had. She just needed to point this out to him quickly, that’s all—before he strangled her.

With that in mind, Callie corralled Simon the moment he reentered Portland Place an hour before dinner.

Simon listened to Callie as she told him what she had done, a small muscle in his left cheek beginning to throb noticeably halfway through her gleeful recitation. She talked faster, smiled more, and the tic doubled and redoubled its speed. And then, once she was done, he ran the rough side of his tongue up one side of her and down the other, calling her foolhardy, pigheaded, stubborn, reckless. And those were the nicest things he said!

“I hate you,” she told him, speaking through gritted teeth.

“No, you don’t,” he contradicted her, smiling for the first time since she’d waylaid him to tell him of her brilliance. “You love me. Why, you might even adore me.”

“Of course I do!” she responded—reasonably, she believed. “Why else do you think I hate you? Well, let me tell you, Simon Roxbury—I’ll never help you again!”

Simon was still laughing as she raced out of the room, throwing perhaps the first maidenly fit of her life. It was very lowering, this business of being in love, and Callie remained locked in her rooms for the remainder of the evening. She dined on lovely pheasant rather than brackish water and stale crusts and hoped Simon missed her so much he would come crawling to her, begging her forgiveness.

Instead, Lester showed up around eight, bearing a chessboard and the news that Simon, Justyn, Bones, and Armand had all gone out together yet again, on their way to play their own board game, called “Fleece the Filton.”

It was all very depressing. And annoying. Just the sort of annoying that, if she were of a mind for mischief, could lead Caledonia Johnston into one of her “mad starts.”

tries to gather it in spite of the thorns.

—Anonymous

Chapter Sixteen

“H
e’s as good as finished, then, isn’t he?” Annand commented as he sat at his ease in Simon’s study. “I can see why the fellow stuck to low gaming hells and fleecing green-as-grass youths from the country. He’s got the skills well enough for sharping, but not the brains. Only a fool would have continued playing last night, when it was obvious that he couldn’t possibly recoup his losses. But, then, he was desperate, and the four of us were the only ones willing to allow him to continue punting on tick.”

“It didn’t hurt that Callie all but threw herself at his head yesterday,” Justyn remarked as he stood in front of the mantel, sipping from a glass of claret. “Any time I thought he might be balking at playing another hand, all I had to do was mention her name, and her
fondness
for him, to have him scrawling his vowels for another hundred pounds. Why, he’s into me for over a thousand, and twice that to you, isn’t that right, Armand?”

“One thousand to you, two thousand to Armand, three thousand to Simon here, and fifty to me,” Bartholomew said, reading from a list he’d pulled from his waistcoat pocket. He raised his head and looked at Justyn. “That’s fifty pounds, not fifty thousand,” he clarified prudently. “I don’t gamble deep. Gambling’s a curse.”

“Here you go, Bones—add this to the lot. I’ve put the total at the bottom,” Simon said, opening the top drawer of his desk, pulling out a closely written sheet of names and amounts and pushing them toward his friend. “I’ve bought up every gambling marker Filton has had floating around the city for pennies on the pound—as it seems no one had any great hope of collecting on them once they heard what he owes us—and all of his tradesmen’s bills as well. Those I paid for outright, in full measure.”

Bartholomew gathered up the paper, scanning it, his expression confused. “These must total over ten thousand pounds! Why would you do that, Simon? We have him on the run. It would only take us another week, perhaps two, and we’d have had him on our own, without needing these.”

“Because I want it over, Bones,” Simon answered tersely as Armand began to chuckle. “Filton ogling Callie, my drawing room knee-deep in impecunious young bucks and aging roués. I simply want it
over
. Which it is, and has been from the moment, scarcely an hour ago, when I told Filton that I’ve sold all of his debts to a moneylender who deals in such matters. I also told Filton about Robert and James, just so that he’d know why he was being punished. The tradesmen all have their money, which is a good thing. We received a small pittance of winnings for our trouble—all of which has already been sent off to our charities, gentlemen, with my thanks to you. And Filton gets his own personal dun, a rather forceful, industrious fellow who will have him clapped up in the Fleet in a heartbeat—or worse—if the man hasn’t the sense to flee to the Continent.”