ma’am. My name is Crosse.”
She stared at him as he all but shoved Mrs. Briggs out of the way to stroll toward her and bow.
“I remember your face, sir, though not your name.”
“We met last at a most pleasant party. I recalled you mentioning this village as your home, and I was just saying to this good woman that I would have liked to pay my respects before I departed. And you walked through the door. It must be fate.”
Deborah chose not to help him, but merely stood still waiting to hear what he had to say. While Mrs. Briggs gazed avidly from one to the other.
“Dare I hope you might join me in a cup of coffee, Mrs. Halland?”
“I have five minutes before I am expected elsewhere. Mrs. Briggs, might I trouble you for another bottle of your best sherry?”
“Oh, of course, ma’am, and I’ll send in another cup if you are joining the gentleman.”
Mrs. Briggs hurried off, and Barden bowed, ushering her into the coffee room. Deborah’s strange sense of mingled wrongness and familiarity suddenly made sense. The last time she had come here to buy sherry, she had drunk coffee with Christopher and left engaged to marry him.
Now, she sat with a stranger who had ruined her reputation on what she could only imagine was a whim.
“Please state your business, sir. I have little time to spend here.”
“Now you are the great Mrs. Halland of Gosmere Hall?” he mocked.
“Any greatness stems from my husband,” she retorted. “Your business, sir.”
“Well, that is rather more complicated by your recent marriage. I am only glad my letter found you.”
“I am not. I don’t appreciate threats.”
Barden smiled and sat back, waiting while Mrs. Briggs trotted in with an extra cup and saucer.
“I left the bottle on the table in the hall for you to collect on your way out,” she said cheerfully.
“Thank you,” Deborah said to her retreating back. “You were saying, sir?”
“Yes.” Barden poured two cups of coffee, leaving her to help herself to sugar and milk. She didn’t. Nor did she touch the cup. “The threats you did not appreciate were made only to ensure you would meet me. I had no intention of hurting you or your family.”
“Beyond what you have already done,” Deborah said indignantly. “I am aware it was you who tricked us into that house and you who circulated the vile stories against us.”
“Then, you know what I am capable of,” he replied without shame. “But I can also be magnanimous. It is my intention to offer a public recantation by the paper concerned, a withdrawal of your name from the list.”
She looked at him in surprise. “All of our names?”
His smile thinned. “Two have burned their boats, you might say. There is still hope for you and the last lady.”
“Explain,” she said impatiently when he fell silent.
He drank his coffee and replaced the cup in the saucer. “Perhaps you recall a card game in Connaught Place.”
“I remember a few.”
“This one, you did not play, but I did. You brought me wine, just as I dropped a card.”
She remembered the incident. He had pushed his chair back so quickly that it had bumped into her. He hadn’t even noticed in his hurry to pick up the card—a ten of diamonds, which had somehow become an ace when he laid it on the table.
“You cheated,” she said with relish.
“A small adjustment to which I was more than entitled. As you obviously agree, since you seem to have said nothing about it.”
She shrugged impatiently. “My care was only for the princess. She had already lost.”
“A pragmatic lady,” he said, apparently amused. “Perhaps I should have cultivated you after all,”
“No,” she said flatly. “What is the point of this reminiscence?”
“That regardless of right or wrong, we have both committed what are considered crimes in the eyes of the world. I came to say only that if you maintain your silence about mine, I can spread the word of your innocence. A quid pro quo.”
She stared at him, frowning. “You have gone to a lot of trouble when I never said anything in the first place.”
“But you knew. As I rise in the world, I don’t wish anything to leap up and bring me down again at the wrong moment.”
Deborah’s heart skipped a beat. Could it really be as simple as that? Whatever grudges he had against the others, before her now was just a weak, unscrupulous man covering his back.
“To me,” she said, thinking furiously, “cheating at games