Spinster's Gambit (2 page)

He deposited the Musgrave chit back with her cluster of concerned looking friends and started back toward Daniel. His friend had been joined by his sister, a Miss Jacoline Holcombe Aspen had met multiple times before. The two siblings were smirking together beside the punch bowl, apparently sharing some private joke. He would be unwelcome, he thought, but approached them all the same. He knew the moment he withdrew to Vanderford’s billiards room he’d never get his courage up to come out again until the musicians had packed up and left with the rest of the party. 

“Aspen, you remember my sister Jacoline,” Daniel introduced, gesturing to her when Aspen neared them. Miss Holcombe was a tall dignified woman with chestnut hair that had yet to gray, although the lines around her eyes belied her age. She was one of the unfortunate women in society who was not beautiful and not rich enough to overcome it. Still, as a viscount’s sister it was odd that she’d remained unwed. 

“I do. A pleasure,” he said, bowing. The woman smiled back blandly, looking off over his right shoulder. Aspen opened his mouth to start a conversation, only to clamp it shut again, unsure what to say in front of an unfamiliar woman. Daniel smirked at him, understanding in his eyes. Aspen glared back. 

“Excuse me,” Miss Holcombe muttered, curtsying politely before stepping back and turning away from them.

I was rude,
Aspen thought, seeing Daniel wince again. Aspen turned to apologize to the spinster but Miss Holcombe had disappeared into the crowd. Aspen sighed, secretly grateful, and turned back to his friend. Daniel raised an eyebrow at him. 

“Have you noted the recent rise in dairy prices?” Aspen asked, hoping for a change of subject. Daniel frowned, looking interested. Most of the Holcombe lands were involved in the dairy industry. This could be good news for him. 

“Not at all,” he answered and Aspen nodded, pleased, and continued.

CHAPTER TWO

“You do realize you are going to ruin our reputation,” Daniel commented, his voice sounding from near Jac’s bed.

“It's that or marry the baron,” she replied seriously, pulling off her dress and wishing for a moment she could trust Sarah with this adventure. Still, as much as she had faith in her maid’s discretion, the fewer people who knew about this harebrained scheme the better. A pair of green breeches were tossed suddenly over her dressing screen and landed with an unceremonious flop over her velvet shoes. Jacoline huffed out a breath and folded the breeches onto the chair beside her. The petticoat, corset, and stockings came off after and Jac stood in her undergarments, staring at the breeches, realizing suddenly that there was no way the split legs could go on over her chemise. “Perhaps this is ill-thought,” she murmured, picking up the breeches to inspect them. They were beautifully made, the stitching so small and the thread so well dyed that the seam was almost invisible. There was a buttoned flap in the front that Jac didn’t want to think too hard about. 

“It's that or marry the baron,” Daniel replied, sounding amused. Jac swallowed, her heart starting to race.

“I am utterly bored with this life, Daniel,” she said, running a hand down the split fabric that was so entirely designed for a man. She stripped off her chemise quickly and threw it onto the growing pile of clothing she'd left on the floor, only to pull the tailored breeches over her legs.  “My word, these are less comfortable than a broken corset,” she complained, frowning at the tight feeling around her legs and hips.

“I wouldn't know,” Daniel called from behind the screen and Jac could practically hear his grin. They'd sent Sarah to buy new hair ribbons to keep her out of the house and Daniel had spirited in all the necessary garments. The breeches fit her height - a fact which certainly added to the mystery of her brother’s social life. Apparently he’d had the opportunity to steal a shorter man’s breeches in the two weeks since she’d thought up this ridiculous pastime. Jac pulled on the shirt, tailcoat, and waistcoat left folded over the dressing screen. They fit stiffly around her chest, weighing heavily on her shoulders. 

“What on earth would Father say? He’d turn in his grave to be sure,” Jac said, pausing for a moment as she considered how to fold the cuffs on her sleeves. 

“Let him fret about it while you learn to spar. It's only the once, and then you can retire to your horrid spinsterhood and all its conventional embroidering with at least one good memory for it,” Daniel replied. Jac laughed and bundled her gown out of the way to sit down on the dressing chair. She pulled on the stockings that stopped at her knee and buckled the breeches over them, hoping her heart would slow before it pounded its way out of her chest. Daniel had provided her with a man's boots, though how he'd found such small ones she had no idea. Despite their small size, the shoes gaped badly behind her heels. Jac pushed herself up, feeling about as properly dressed as she would standing bare to the world on Kensington Square.   

“Is it appropriate for me to come out?” she asked, glancing over her body and praying she hadn't somehow forgotten something. 

“Are you, in all sincerity, attempting to be proper at this juncture?” Daniel laughed. “You’ve gotten this far. I’ve already stolen Henry Charington’s breeches, how do you expect me to return them?”

Jac blushed at the thought and groaned, glaring at the plaster ceiling.

“I am going to need to see you in breeches eventually. I can hardly escort you blindfolded,” he added. Jac squeezed her eyes shut, feeling like a ninny. She had to come out. She could not live the rest of her life alone knowing she’d followed all of society’s rules and been forgone nonetheless.

“Very well,” she agreed, doing her best to sound confident. She opened her eyes and stepped out from behind the dressing screen. Daniel was leaning against one of her bedposts. He glanced over her outfit, his grin slowly widening into something fit for an asylum.

“There, you look just like a very unfortunately formed man,” he said, gesturing casually to her dressing table as if he performed such pranks on a daily basis. Jac shot him a look as she crossed to the table and sat down. The cloth between her legs bunched and Jac shifted uncomfortably, trying to straighten it before she glanced up at her dressing mirror. She looked rather spectacularly ridiculous; a prim woman's face poking out from above a man's waistcoat.

I have gone utterly mad.
 

“So you've given up pretending to warn me away from all this, then?” she asked, picking up the wig he'd brought her and turning it around in her hands, trying to figure it out. “No one wears these anymore,” she added, frowning. 

“No man has hair beyond his shoulder blades either. You’ll just look like a dandy compensating for something. What's the worst that could happen?” He grabbed the wig from her hands and set it over her tightly pinned hair. Jac covered her eyes and groaned again, thinking about getting caught. “Honestly, Jac, people see what they expect to see. They do not go about lifting the waistcoats of effeminate men to double check, and certainly not the effeminate cousins of titled viscounts. You are perfectly safe,” he insisted, reaching for her pile of hair pins. Jac met his eyes in the mirror.

“How do you know how to do this?” she asked and he simply grinned at her, the same idiotic smile he'd had since before Eton. Jac missed seeing it. There’d been too much time between when he’d left for school and when he’d returned. She’d grown too old without him, too reserved. Jac pulled the pile of pins closer and he started on setting the wig. At the end of the day, she thought, running her fingers over the cravat pin Daniel had set on the dressing table, she doubted anything would come of this. She would have one day of foolishness and they’d be done. Daniel handed her a black hat and stepped away from the table, his eyes sparkling with mischief. 

Minutes later they were sneaking through the hallway and down the stairs. Daniel led the way and sent every passing servant on a fool's errand. He bid her to stand at the corner of the neighbor's house, got a carriage pulled around and picked her up like a passing friend. All and all, Jac thought, Daniel seemed far too practiced at sneaking women out of their house. Still, he spent the entirety of the drive grinning out of the side window, looking pleased with himself. Jac spent it staring at her split breeches and barely keeping herself from biting all of the nails off of her hands. 

“Oh my Lord,” Jac muttered, closing her eyes as the carriage started to slow to a stop, no doubt outside of Daniel's favored club. She felt utterly ridiculous. “May we go home?”

“Of course, but only after I teach you a bit,” Daniel replied, heartlessly pushing the door open and alighting from the carriage without a backward glance. Jac waited for a moment, blinking when the coachman did nothing more than wait for her. 

Of course,
she thought belatedly, calling herself a ninny and rushing out of her seat, trying to make up for lost time. She smacked her head in her rush, knocking her hat askew, and checked it idly as she stepped down from the coach unassisted. It wasn't a particularly easy task in ill-fitting shoes and the coachman looked at her askance before settling back into his normal vacant stare.

Thank the Lord for good servants,
she thought, doing her best to stride up to Daniel without letting her hips swing.

“Graceful,” Daniel commented, glancing back at the coach.

“Thank you ever so much,” Jac replied, doing her best to hide her blush as she matched his pace toward the closest building. It was a large, brick establishment with no decoration and few windows. The walkway was icy and ill tended. Daniel leapt up the two front steps, apparently unconcerned. Jac glanced around the area, confused, until she saw the large sign hanging above the door, marked
Henry Angelo’s Fencing Academy. 

“Might want to deepen your voice a notch,” Daniel warned. 

“Thank you so much,” she tried again, doing her best to ignore the coachman no doubt eavesdropping behind her.

“Too low, you sound like you're trying,” Daniel whispered, knocking on the painted blue door.

“I am trying,” Jac replied, less deeply.

“It occurs to me that we may have wanted to practice this before we -”

The door opened, revealing an average-looking man with black hair and spectacles. He eyed Jac speculatively for a moment before his gaze flicked to Daniel and lit up with recognition. 

“Good morning, my lord!” the man said, stepping aside to invite them into a small stone vestibule. “His Grace is in the practice room on your right, I believe. Shall I inform him of your arrival?” 

Jac turned wide eyes on Daniel, who was suddenly staring at the man, his mouth agape.

Remembering that little detail about a fully-fledged duke waiting for him today?
Jac thought, wanting to kick her brother even as she watched him collect himself.  

“No thank you. I will be training my cousin today but I shall inform His Grace myself,” Daniel replied, taking off his thin gloves and replacing them with an almost identical pair from his pocket. He left his hat on the vestibule’s side table and Jac followed suit. 

“Of course, my lord,” the host said and disappeared through a side door. Jac glanced around the empty marble room, feeling lost.

The Duke of Aspen
Jac thought, remembering Daniel once talking about sparring with the man. Apparently the duke was a skilled fencing partner, though Jac still did not see how Daniel could describe the man as good company. 

“Relax,” Daniel muttered, only to straighten when the Duke of Aspen, Richard Caraway, joined the room. He was a tall man with an aquiline nose and wavy brown hair that seemed to spill everywhere from the top of his head. He'd have been one of the most sought-after bachelors of their time, despite his rudeness, if it weren't for the scars.

They wrapped up the left side of his neck, bubbly and ill-colored, over his face and into his hair, disrupting his hairline. Even his nose was damaged though less so. It was as if the devil had grabbed onto the left side of his face and torn it straight off, leaving nothing but uneven leather behind. He’d had the wounds since he’d returned to England nearly a decade past, though Jac did not know the particulars; she’d been trapped in Abingdon tending to her ailing father and worrying for Daniel. She’d heard the gossip, certainly, stories of scandalous diseases and horrible accidents, but it seemed no one knew the exact truth of the matter. 

The duke glanced at her, curiosity flashing over his face before he turned back to Daniel, apparently dismissing her.

“No need,” he said, striding further into the room. “I heard it all.” 

“Aspen, may I present my cousin, Sir Jack Holcombe. Jack, His Grace the Duke of Aspen,” Daniel introduced, politely drawing the duke's attention back to her.

Jac started to curtsy and had to fake a coughing fit to cover and turn it into a bow. She stood, doubting the fit had helped at all, to see the duke rising from his own bow, hopefully having missed her awkwardness. Daniel had stuffed a fist halfway into his mouth but was still failing to contain his laughter. He sounded like he was choking.

“Well met, Your Grace,” Jac said, keeping her voice low, trying to sound like Daniel meeting another man.

“Likewise,” the duke replied, blinking at her curiously before glancing back to Daniel, who had mostly composed himself. The duke raised his eyebrows, apparently unimpressed. So he hadn't somehow missed the curtsy-coughing-fit-bow, Jac thought, wishing she could turn around and run back to their carriage.

“Oddly enough, my uncle managed to neglect part of Jack's upbringing. Now that he's come to visit the sights of London I've offered to remedy that and instruct him in fencing,” Daniel lied. “I'm afraid I will have to refrain from sparring today.”

The duke smiled politely.

“I will drill, then,” he replied and started to strip off his waistcoat as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Jac felt herself gaping and snapped her eyes away, another blush coursing up her face.

~~//~~