"Faro is my favorite game," he confided to his cousin as he allowed himself to be led from the room. "But vingt-et-un will do. Cousin, do you play cards?"

"Never," Lord Ragsdale replied firmly. "I hate cards. I thought tonight that you and I would discuss your coming matriculation at Brasenose. It's my college, you know." He looked at his cousin virtuously. "I went to some trouble to arrange your attendance at this juncture in the term, let me a.s.sure you."

He could tell that Robert was disappointed to leave the game, but to his relief, his cousin followed him into the private parlor. Lord Ragsdale poured two gla.s.ses of sherry, but Robert was pacing between the windows. "Do sit down, cousin," he advised. "We still have a half day's drive tomorrow, and you'll need all your const.i.tution to meet your grandmother. Come, come now. Here is dinner."

They ate in silence. Robert was no longer the attractive conversationalist of the afternoon, and Lord Ragsdale could only wonder at his cousin's restless air. Well, if I must exert myself, I must, he thought, as he launched into a description of Brasenose and its ill.u.s.trious traditions. Through it all, he harbored a very real suspicion that Robert's mind was elsewhere.

He was interrupted by a soft tap on the door. It was Emma, come to fetch the soup. "Let me help you," he insisted as she struggled with the heavy tray.

"I can manage," she replied, even as he took it away from her. "Truly I can."

He nodded, feeling oddly useful, even though it was only a dinner tray. "Well, perhaps you will allow me to redeem myself."

Emma looked at him quickly, and then looked away. "I don't mean to be trouble," she said softly as she opened the door for him.

He could think of no reply to such honesty so he made none, and was rewarded with a second frightened glance and a perceptible drawing away from him, even though they stood close together at the room's entrance. As he came through the doorway first, carrying the tray, he experienced the odd feeling that perhaps Emma Costello cared no more for the English than he loved the Irish. It was a leveling thought, and one that he had not considered before.

He left the tray, kissed his mother good night, and started for the door. He thought Sally was asleep, but she called to him, her voice hesitant, as though she, like Emma, wondered what he would think.

"Cousin, please. Please make sure that Robert does not play cards tonight," she urged.

He smiled at Sally, then bowed elaborately, winking at her on the way up.

"She means it, my lord" came Emma's distinct brogue. Her voice was firm, hard even, as though she spoke to a child, and not a bright one, either.

He stood in the doorway, his hand on the k.n.o.b. "I can't say that I care for your impertinence, Emma," he snapped.

"Then I apologize for it," she replied promptly. "But please, sir . . ."

He closed the door on whatever else she was going to haver on about and returned to the parlor to find it empty. His mind filled with odd disquiet, he hurried downstairs in time to prevent Robert from sitting at the gaming table.

"Come, lad, we're off to an early start in the morning, remember?" he said, nodding to the other gamesters. "You'll excuse us, I am sure."

"Really, cousin, I think that wasn't necessary," Robert protested as Lord Ragsdale followed him up the stairs. "I was only going to sit for one hand." He stopped on the stairs, and his voice took on a wheedling tone. "I promise to be in bed before you get to sleep if you let me go back down."

"No, and that's final," Lord Ragsdale insisted. His head was beginning to ache again, compounded by the uneasiness that grew on him as he regarded his cousin Robert. So you will be no trouble, he thought as he removed his clothes and pulled on his nightshirt. I think I begin to understand your parents' eagerness to get you out of America. How deep in gambling debt were you there? And why is this my problem now?

It was a subject to ruminate on. Tight-lipped, silent, Robert undressed and threw himself into bed alongside his cousin. He broke the long silence finally. "I think you are perfectly beastly to deny me one last game before I enroll at Brasenose."

"I think I am nothing of the sort, cousin," John replied. "Go to sleep."

He lay in silence then, wondering if Robert would respond. He stared at the ceiling, listening to Robert's breathing turn regular and deep. Relief settled over him, and he relaxed into the mattress. He hung on another half hour, listening to Robert, and then allowed sleep to claim him, too.

If he had been under oath in the a.s.sizes, he could not have told a jury what woke him up early that morning. One moment he was asleep, dreaming of nothing, and the next instant he was wideawake and sitting up in bed. The room was in total darkness and holding his own breath, he listened intently for Robert's breathing. Nothing.

Cautiously, he reached out his hand and felt the other pillow.

"My G.o.d," he said out loud as he fumbled for the candle, more alert than he had been in years.

He was the room's sole inhabitant. After the moment of panic pa.s.sed, his next thought was to return to sleep. Robert's spending habits were none of his concern. He had promised to accompany his mother and cousins to Oxford, and surely that charge did not involve wet-nursing a young man of some twenty years. His own mother had a.s.sured him that the cousins would be no trouble, and truly, they would not be if he lay down again and returned to sleep. Besides, he reasoned, half the world's troubles were caused by people too eager to meddle in others' affairs. So what if Robert gamed away all his money? How could that possibly concern him? He blew out the candle.

His eyes were closing again when an ugly thought tunneled through the fog of sleep. What if it is your money he is gaming, you idiot? He sat up again and lit the candle once more, holding it high as he looked around the room. Everything looked as he had left it. He glanced closer at his overcoat, slung over a chair back. He was certain he had placed it around the chair before taking off his clothes.

He was on his feet in a moment, pawing through his overcoat. His hands clutched his wallet, but it was much thinner than he re-membered. "d.a.m.n you, cousin," he swore as he opened it and found nothing beyond a couple directions and a toll chit.

Lord Ragsdale looked at Robert's dressing case. It had been rifled through, too, as if the owner were looking for something tucked away. He found a leather case containing a variety of legal papers that looked as though they had been crammed back inside in a hurry.

This is going to be a nasty scene, he thought as he shoved his nightshirt into his trousers and pulled on his boots. He didn't stop to look for his eye patch as he ran his fingers through his hair, then wrenched open the door.

To Lord Ragsdale's surprise, the innkeeper stood before him on the landing, breathing hard as though he had taken the flight of stairs two or three at a time.

"What on earth is the matter?" Lord Ragsdale said, wincing as 1 the landlord took one look at his ruined eye and gulped.

"My lord, you had better come downstairs at once. I don't think you'll like what's going on. I know I don't, but it's not something I can prevent."

"What can you be so lathered up about?" Lord Ragsdale said as he followed the man down the stairs. "I think my young cousin is spending my money, but that's my business. I intend to give him quite a scold, rest a.s.sured."

The landlord stopped on the stairs and looked him in the eye. "He's gone beyond your money, my lord, 'way beyond. Please hurry."

If anything, the taproom was more crowded than before, even though it was hours after midnight. The same group of gamesters sat at the table, with the addition of Robert and the waiting woman.

Lord Ragsdale barely noticed his cousin, who waved him a greeting and moved to pull up another chair. His eye went immediately to Emma Costello, who stood in her nightdress behind his cousin's chair. She was as pale as her flannel shift, her auburn hair flaming around her face, her eyes burning like coals into his own. She swallowed once, and he thought she would speak, but she said nothing and did nothing but stare at the opposite wall. Her face was wiped clean of any hope, or of any expression at all.

He wrenched his glance away from her and stared hard at the gaming table. There was a doc.u.ment on it, with a seal and ribbons, and folded in half as though it had just come out of the leather case upstairs. He looked at Emma again, and back at the doc.u.ment, and he was filled with more anger than he would have thought possible, considering that this whole affair was probably none of his business.

He was so angry he could not speak. The man sitting next to Robert nudged him. "Your draw, laddie," he said, and then grinned at Emma and smacked his lips.

"Touch that card, Robert, and I will thrash you until your backbone breaks through your skin."

My G.o.d, did I say that? Lord Ragsdale thought as he crossed the room in two steps and stood leaning over his cousin's chair.

To his further amazement, Robert merely looked at him and shrugged his shoulders. "Lord, cousin, I am in debt and nothing else will do but Emma. I have her papers here, and I can do as I like. It's legal. Everyone's agreed."

He turned back to the table and reached for the card. Lord Ragsdale slammed his fist down on his cousin's hand, shoved him out of the chair, and sat down in Robert's place, his face inches from his opponent. "I'll make you a better deal," he said, each word distinct in the suddenly silent room. He picked up the indenture papers. "Look here, did he show you how this indenture has less than eighteen months to run?"

The other men at the table crowded close. The smell of rum breath and tobacco made him want to flee the room, gagging, but he looked at each man in turn, hoping for a measure of intimidation from his unseeing eye. "How much was he going to ask for?"

"Two hundred pounds to settle up."

"Against an eighteen-month indenture?" Lord Ragsdale leaned back in his chair to escape the fumes, and laughed. "Well, I have . . ." He paused. Absolutely no money, he thought, as he stared daggers at his cousin.

The gambler shrugged. "I can take your money as well as his," he offered.

"I don't have any," Lord Ragsdale said.

"Well, then, we play for the wench," said the gambler. "You can go back to bed."

I could, he thought. She is not my chattel. He looked at Robert. And you are not my problem. He started to get up, when he heard the smallest sound from the servant. He may even have imagined it, but suddenly he knew he could not leave her there to the mercy of these men, no matter how much he disliked her. He sat back down again.

"I have something better than that testy Irish wench." He leaned forward again, his voice conspiratorial. "Two horses out in the stable. One a chestnut and the other a bay. The chestnut won at Newport last season. That cuts the debt, and Emma goes back upstairs where she belongs."

My G.o.d, I am giving away the best two horses a man ever owned for an Irish bog-trotter who can't stand the sight of me, he

thought as he glared at the other men around the table.

The men looked at each other. The hostler by the bar spoke up. "I curried them two bits of bone and blood this afternoon, and he's right, lads." He stopped then and looked around, filled with the pride that comes from being the expert.

Lord Ragsdale stood up, ignoring his cousin, who still sat on the floor where he had pushed him. "Does that clear my cousin's debt, then? Two of the best horses in London, and I take back this paper."

The men nodded. "We'll call it even," the dealer said.

Even, my a.s.s, Lord Ragsdale thought as he watched his cousin get to his feet, sway a moment, and then reach for the paper.

Lord Ragsdale was quicker. He s.n.a.t.c.hed the doc.u.ment from Robert so fast that his cousin leaped back in surprise and toppled onto the floor again. "Robert, the only way you can get this paper back is to pay me the five thousand pounds you now owe me."

Emma gasped. Lord Ragsdale looked around in amazement of his own. I just bought a woman, he thought, as he took her hand and pulled her from the taproom-an Irish woman I don't like too well, and who doesn't like me at all.

She sank to her knees in the hall and covered her face with her hands. His first instinct was to leave her there and just go back to bed. He started up the stairs, then returned to kneel beside her in the pa.s.sageway.

"Don't cry, Emma," he said.

"I'm not crying," she murmured, even as the tears streamed down her cheeks and she savagely wiped them away.

"Thank goodness for that," he replied, keeping his tone light.

" 'Pon my word, Emma, I hope you are worth five thousand pounds."

Chapter 4.

1 wonder what has happened to the simplicity of a good night's sleep, Lord Ragsdale thought to himself as he fumed in his bed and watched morning gradually overtake the Norman and Saxon. Sleep was out of the question; the more he thought about the disaster of the night, the more put-upon he imagined himself.

Never mind that Robert Claridge lay on the floor of the room, noisily sleeping off a prodigious amount of rum. John Staples rose up on his elbow to give his cousin a particularly malevolent glare. The effort was wasted. Robert slumbered on, wrapped in peaceful sleep that he, Lord Ragsdale, could only wish for.

The nerve of his aunt and uncle Claridge, to foist such a problem off onto an English relative they had never met. Lord Ragsdale punched his pillow savagely, trying to find a spot without a lump, and considered that the whole affair must be yet another way for Americans to wreak vengeance on their late antagonists. I have done nothing to deserve this cousin, he reflected.

He thought of Emma Costello, standing so quiet as Robert prepared to sell her on the drawing of a card. He groaned and stuffed his pillow over his face, as if to shut out her calm face that seemed to stare at him still. He had never seen anyone so totally without hope, and yet so brave in the face of it. He removed the pillow and sat up, so he could stare daggers at his sleeping cousin.

"One thing is certain, Robert," he said, making no effort to lower his voice. "Only a truly wicked master would try what you tried. And I don't care if she is Irish. It was a low blow."

Beyond the smacking of his lips and a rude noise, Robert made no comment. Lord Ragsdale sighed and looked away toward the window, urging dawn to forget that it was February and appear sooner.

By seven o'clock, he was dressed and pacing the floor, stepping over Robert on each trip across the room, and resisting the urge, each time, to kick him. Finally, his baser instincts triumphed; he kicked Robert in the ribs with enough force to waken his cousin.

Or perhaps at that moment, Robert had decided to wake up on his own accord. He sat up, making no comment on ill-treatment, and regarded his cousin beatifically. "Ah, Cousin John," he said. "Did you sleep well?"

Cousin John could only stare in amazement at his relative, and open his mouth once or twice like a fish hooked and tossed onto the sh.o.r.e. Lord Ragsdale looked down at Robert, certain in his heart of hearts that if he murdered his cousin on the spot, no jury of twelve men just and true would ever convict him. He sat down on the bed and glared at his relative.

"Don't you remember anything of last night?" he began, and then stopped. The conversation sounded familiar to his ears, and he almost smiled in spite of himself. That h.o.a.ry question, probably asked since caveman days, was the preamble to many a morning's argument when his father was still alive. This will never do, he thought as he stared hard at his cousin. "Robert, you are a certifiable b.a.s.t.a.r.d," he stated firmly. "You have been through your money, and my money; you nearly sold your servant to a man I wouldn't trust a" saint with, and forced me to give up five thousand pounds worth of horse to redeem her and to keep you from a knife in the ribs and a trip to the river, I don't doubt."

Robert burped, winced, and sat up. "All that happened last night?" he said as he clutched his head with both hands.

"It did. We happen to be dead broke now, and if my mother doesn't have any yellow dogs on her person, we will be making beds and cleaning the p.i.s.soir to pay for our lodging!" Lord Rags-dale gave an unpleasant laugh. "Or rather, you will be doing that and we will watch!"

He regarded his cousin a moment more, then stood up. "Wash your face and come to the parlor. I think you and Sally owe the Staples branch of the family some enlightenment."

He slammed the door behind him, and was rewarded with a groan from Robert. Lord Ragsdale smiled in satisfaction and resisted the desire to slam the door again. Lord, life was suddenly full of exertions, he thought to himself as he rapped lightly on his mother's door.

The inmates were dressed already, and two out of three were regarding him with some anxiety. Sally Claridge was easily the more agitated of the two. She gave a start when he came in, and he wondered for a second if he had forgotten to put on his eye patch. No, it was carefully in place. As he watched, Sally's face turned bright red as she reached for her handkerchief and began to sob. The marquess groaned.

"Sally, it is much too early for tears," he a.s.sured her. Sally sobbed louder into the already soaking sc.r.a.p of lace in her hand. In desperation, he gestured to Emma. "Tell her that nothing was ever solved with tears," he pleaded.

"I have always found tears to be singularly valueless," she agreed, and handed her mistress a more substantial rag. "Dry up, now, miss, or your eyes will swell and you will look quite twenty."

Lord Ragsdale smiled in spite of himself, charmed-if against his will-by the lilt of Emma's brogue, and her common sense. Lord Ragsdale was grateful. One woman in tears would suffice, especially before breakfast. He regarded his mother, who smiled back at him from her seat by the window.

"Troubles, John?" she asked, her voice hearty enough to make him suspect that she was enjoying this domestic tempest.

"You needn't appear so cheerful, Mama," he insisted. "I think my cousins are a great lot of trouble."

Sally burst into louder tears, edging on the hysterical. He felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck and his temper shorten perceptibly. He looked to Emma Costello for help, and to his amazement, she glared back at him.

"Must you make a situation more difficult, Lord Ragsdale?" she asked.

No servant had ever addressed him like that. Hot words rose to his lips, but to his further astonishment, he stopped them. She was absolutely right; there was no sense in tossing another log onto the blaze. He bit his tongue, glared back, and turned his attention to his mother again.

It may have been his imagination, but Lady Ragsdale seemed to be enjoying the whole affair. "You needn't take such pleasure in all this," he snapped, coming as close to pouting as he cared to admit. "It may put some sand in your eye when I tell you that Beau Rascal in the other room gambled away all my money, too. My dear, unless you have some pounds sterling tucked some-where to pay the innkeeper, we're going to have a hard time avoiding the constable. Oh, Sally, cut line!" he ordered, when his cousin increased the volume of her misery.

Lady Ragsdale blew a kiss to her sorely tried niece. "John, dear, you know I always travel with cash. I have enough to pay our receipt here."

"Well, thank the Lord for one piece of good news this morning. Now if you Could only produce enough for me to reclaim my j horses."

"That I cannot do," she said, and gave her head a sorrowful wag.

He sighed, the martyr again. "Mama, they were prime goers," he began, then stopped himself, because it sounded like he was whining.

"I'm sure they were, my dear," she agreed as she reached out to clasp his hand. "But I want you to tell me something, son."

"What?" he asked in irritation when she continued to look at him.

"Tell me if all this will matter in even a week or two."

"Of course it will!" he shot back.

"Why?" she asked softly.