The Dollar Prince's Wife (11 page)

‘Paying for Violet K. after another fashion,' was yet another unkind
bon mot
he started on its way around society.

Rainey, light of head as well as light of heart, decided that next time he played Grant he would go for broke, and make his fortune for good and all. It was obvious where the skill—and the luck—lay, and it was not with Apollo.

Cobie, who had been using Sir Ratcliffe's marked cards and other dubious ploys to lose money instead of win it, had decided on quite another conclusion for Rainey's little drama. He had, he thought, paid out enough rope and it was time to pull it in. Marked down as a fool at cards who was unlucky into the bargain, it would be easy to lead Rainey so far down the garden path that he would finally lose his way in the dark which it led to.

His mark had grown careless, and now, after a chaste little dinner party given by Sir Ratcliffe who was abjuring all such establishments as Madame's these days—it was too risky to visit them until the latest brouhaha had died down—Rainey, half cut and confident, had decided to go for Apollo's jugular, with Sir Ratcliffe's help.

‘Let's up the stakes we put into the pot,' he demanded when the cards were set out for poker, and the port was arranged alongside them. He named a figure which had Cobie raising internal eyebrows and deciding that, yes, tonight was the night of which he had spoken to Louis Fabian.

He appeared to drink heavily, with the accent on appeared, but remained virtually sober, coldly aware of all that was going on around him. His belief that he could use Sir Ratcliffe's cheating on his own behalf grew when the evening turned into early morning, and he allowed his luck to begin to change. When he drunkenly insisted that they raise the stakes in the pot yet again, he had Rainey, who saw financial salvation smiling at him, enthusiastically agreeing.

It didn't take long to break Rainey's heart and put another dent in Sir Ratcliffe's fortune. The other players in the game exclaimed at his good luck, which had, he announced tipsily, changed after weeks of non-success. They stayed on to stare when Cobie turned his cards over to win yet again—thanks to his ability to use Sir Ratcliffe's marked ones.

Cobie had had difficulty in refraining from telling Sir Ratcliffe that if he had carried out his clumsy cheating in a saloon in Arizona Territory he would have taken great pleasure in calling him out and shooting him down. Instead he had flattered the man he intended first to fleece at cards, and then to ruin socially, and was at present using to break Dinah's brother.

Rainey drank more and more as he lost more and more. Cobie's only fear was that he would be under the table before he could administer the
coup de grâce
, which he did at four in the morning with the sun shining through the curtains and the dawn chorus sounding outside.

Worse, Rainey had lost everything which he had taken from Cobie in over two months, and much more besides. He was ruined and knew it. But the luck must surely turn again—and soon.

After the damned Yankee had begun to gather up the cards and the pile of Rainey's IOUs, announcing ‘I've had enough, old fellow, call it a night, I mean, of course, a day,' Rainey leaned forward to say,

‘Damn you, Grant. You've won all night, your streak of luck can't last forever, and I'll prove it.'

Cobie's tipsy smile grew. ‘How?' he said pleasantly, and then, ‘I'm tired, old fellow, I meant it when I said let's call it a day.' He wanted no man to say that he had pushed Rainey into the final act of folly which he saw coming as
surely as the milk cart would arrive that morning at Sir Ratcliffe's kitchen doorway.

‘One more hand, jus' one more hand. Give a fellow a chance to win back his losses, Grant.'

Cobie appeared to ponder, then finally lifted his head to say, ‘True, Rainey, true, but I'm not taking any more of your IOUs, mind, if you lose.'

His victim leaned back, satisfied. ‘Shan't need to write any more, Grant. My turn now, you'll see. Your turn to deal, isn't it?'

‘Under the circumstances, since we were the only two left in at the end of the last hand, and I don't want to take any advantage of that, I propose that we all cut the cards for the honour of dealing, Rainey, how about that?'

Murmurs of approval at this sporting gesture greeted Cobie's words. Rainey graciously agreed. They cut, and Rainey, the last to do so, to his delight won, which wasn't surprising, Cobie thought, having rearranged the cards to Rainey's advantage.

He did the same, laughing to himself when they began to play at the sight of Rainey's artless and visible pleasure at the hand he had given him. Who wouldn't be pleased if they had been dealt a Running Flush, King High—a hand which was an almost certain winner? The end was as predictable as the beginning had been.

The other players, Sir Ratcliffe included, fell out one by one. His face one grin Rainey, having continually raised the stakes, finally called on Cobie to show his cards, his last contribution to the pot being a piece of paper on which, his money having run out, he had promised to forfeit Borough Hall and the estate surrounding it if he lost—which he was certain he wouldn't.

Cobie turned his cards over, to reveal that he held a
Royal Flush, Ace High, the only hand which could beat Rainey's. Rainey stared at them as though if he did so they would dissolve into a more suitable combination.

‘I've lost,' he whispered.

Cobie gave a giant yawn.

‘So it would seem. My luck held to the end tonight. All my bluffing came off for once.'

Had he been speaking the truth he would have said that the hardest thing he had done since he had arrived in England had been to lose so consistently when winning would have been so much easier. Until this evening he had played honestly and with the utmost care to avoid any chance of being accused of cheating when the time came for him to win.

Like his unacknowledged uncle Alan, and his grandfather Tom, whom he so greatly resembled, Cobie had no compunction over cheating cheaters, and using their cheating to his own advantage, as he had just succeeded in doing. If Dinah were to be saved, then foolish Rainey must be his victim as well as the guilty Sir Ratcliffe—whose losses had also been huge. Also, like Rainey, he had no chance of recouping them.

He scooped up Rainey's paper. Rainey, his face now ashen, said, ‘I'm ruined, Grant. You've ruined me. What the hell am I going to do now? All that paper—I can't pay any of it. And the Hall. It's our home, been in the family for generations. What the hell am I going to do now?'

The last phrase became a litany which he continued to repeat.

Cobie looked at his winnings and appeared to think deeply. He asked Sir Ratcliffe, ‘Is there anywhere that Rainey and I can be alone? We ought to settle this before I leave. Better so.'

Sir Ratcliffe agreed. The news would be all around London by the next evening, and he was not sure how happy he was that Rainey had been ruined in his drawing room, and by a Yankee who had been losing for weeks.

‘My study's next door. Use that.'

‘Right. Is that agreeable to you, Rainey?'

‘Anything. Anything's agreeable. No, I mean nothing is. But yes. I'll talk to you, though what good that will do, I don't know.'

‘Privately.' Cobie was firm and half-pushed Rainey, whose losses had temporarily sobered him, into Sir Ratcliffe's study.

Once they were alone, Rainey said feverishly, ‘Damn it, Grant. I can't pay you any of that—the money-lenders have given me up—and if you take the Hall, I've nothing left. I must have been mad. Oh, God, it's a debt of honour and I can't renege.'

‘Nor would I ask you to.'

Cobie was brisk, sweet reasonableness rode on his shoulders. ‘I've no wish to break you, Rainey, far from it. I am well aware that even before tonight ruin and bankruptcy stared you in the face. I can only suppose that that is why you gambled so wildly in an attempt to recoup your losses. What I'd like to do is to offer you a permanent way out of your troubles. Will you listen to me?'

‘Anything, Grant, anything. Though what
you
can have to propose to me, I can't imagine.'

‘No? Take a seat, and I'll tell you,' which he proceeded to do, at some length. Rainey sat there, nodding agreement at the end of each sentence. Finally he said fervently, ‘If that's what you want, Grant, then I'll guarantee you that that's what I'll do, or my name isn't Gerald Freville!'

 

There was a conservatory at the back of the Kenilworths' home in Piccadilly and Dinah had been helping the gardener to plant out seedlings, an occupation which Violet only grumblingly allowed.

She had heard Rainey arrive some time earlier, and was pleased to avoid him. He never seemed happy about her these days. Like Violet, he considered her a millstone around the family's neck. She retied the strings of her brown Holland apron which had worked loose, and tugged back an errant strand of hair. She wished that she could look for once as spectacularly neat and tidy as Violet always did.

The Kenilworths' butler put his head around the glass door. ‘Your brother would like to see you in his Lordship's study, Lady Dinah. At once, he said.'

See Rainey at once! Here! What in the world could he think that she had done now? She almost ran down the corridor to find Rainey sitting at Lord Kenilworth's desk—and where was he?—looking serious, quite a departure for him, she thought unkindly.

What did surprise her was that Violet was present, even more magnificently dressed than usual, and with an expression on her face which could only be interpreted as baleful. What on earth could be the matter that both of her persecutors should be confronting her together?

Rainey waved her to a chair in the manner of one dealing with a recalcitrant servant. He was holding a piece of paper in his right hand. Before he began to speak he looked aggrievedly at her gardening apron which she had not thought to remove.

‘My dear Dinah,' he began portentously. ‘I've had a communication from Mr Jacobus Grant, or Mr Cobie Grant as he is more commonly known.'

He paused. Dinah was fascinated by his pomposity. It was so unlike him. His manner was usually flighty and feckless to a degree, even though he was now nearly forty, that for him to behave as though he were an elder statesman was so out of character that she suppressed a desire to giggle.

She made no attempt to reply to this remarkable piece of news, only wondered inwardly what a message from Mr Grant could conceivably have to do with her.

Disturbed by her silence, Rainey began again, Violet throwing him an impatient glance.

‘In it he asks me if he may have my permission for him to ask you for your hand in marriage. Most proper of him, seeing that I am your guardian, of course.'

Dinah stared at him. She felt herself growing white. Was she hearing aright? Was she dreaming? Had she run mad?

‘Cobie Grant wants to marry
me
?' she said incredulously. ‘You must be joking. I certainly don't want to marry
him
of all people. No, not at all…'

Unable to think of anything more useful to say in the face of this extraordinary proposal prevented her from adding anything further to this downright refusal.

Astonishingly Rainey was going white, too. Shock that she was refusing Apollo, she supposed—which seemed a bit of an extreme response.

‘Come, Dinah,' he said severely. ‘You haven't even given the matter proper thought. This is a most serious offer, I assure you. A magnificent offer. Grant is one of the richest people on earth.'

‘Well, I
am
being serious,' Dinah said, her face flooding with colour. ‘I don't want to marry anyone yet. Least of all him. For all his riches I wouldn't have him if he were the last man in the world.'

It was Rainey's turn to flush crimson.

‘Why ever not?' he demanded belligerently. ‘You can't surely be objecting to the fact that he is as rich as Croesus. He's what passes for an aristocrat in America, as your sister has often said, and I understand that all the women in society are wild about him. They seem to think that he's an uncommonly handsome man—eh, Violet? You should count yourself lucky to have attracted such a splendid offer—not dismiss it out of hand.'

Dinah looked at the floor before replying. ‘Well, Rainey, I'm sorry. What you say may be the truth. I suppose that I ought to be flattered, but I'm not. I can't imagine why he should want to marry me of all people. It's not so long ago that he was barely civil to me—you know that, Violet.'

‘Yes.' Violet's face and speech were both ugly. ‘Nor can
I
understand why he wants to marry
you.
But he does—and Rain-ey is right. You'd be a fool to refuse him.'

No, I can't be hearing this! Dinah was dazed. It's not very long since Violet could barely allow me to speak to him, or have anything to do with him, and now she's urging me to marry him! On top of
that
remarkable
volte-face
she and Rainey are in agreement over this, which is a miracle in itself since they've always previously agreed never to agree about anything. There's something odd going on here.

What if I told her I particularly don't want him because he's been her lover!

Her treacherous memory supplied her with a picture of Mr Grant in the library on the day when she had first met him, laughing at her over the guitar. Would she have agreed to marry him then?

‘He frightens me,' she said, suddenly, and truthfully,
making a judgement which came out of nowhere, but which she knew to be true, all the same.

‘Frightens you!' they both said at once, Violet adding, ‘What a child you are!'

‘He's dangerous,' Dinah said stubbornly. ‘Can neither of you see that?'

Was it her imagination, or did Rainey look away?