A Masquerade in the Moonlight - By Kasey Michaels Page 0,84

answered, settling himself for the short ride that, if Lady Jersey’s ball was going to be as crowded as most balls, would take at least two hours. “He’s losing now, boyo, just as you said he would. Losing more in one turn of a card than I’ll see in my lifetime. Near the end today he started scribbling his vowels, gambling with money he doesn’t have. Tell me, Tommie, how does any one man, even an Englisher, get so thoroughly stupid?”

Thomas smiled broadly, silently congratulating Marguerite for her unerring assessment of Lord Chorley’s weak character. “He can’t help it, Paddy. All the man’s ducks were laying for a while, and he’s convinced they will again, if only he can hold on until his luck turns. Only it won’t. Our friend of the frayed cuffs and the fuzzed cards will make sure of that. I wonder what Marguerite plans for his lordship once his pockets are completely to let, for she’s the one who’ll be holding those IOU’s, you know. We Irish may have invented the practice of scribbling our vowels for debts, but the English have taken to it like fish to water.”

The coach, that had been moving along slowly but steadily, halted as they came near the square, to join the long line of vehicles that made a three-block procession to Lady Jersey’s front door. Dooley shook his head. “She baits Mappleton with a few diamonds and a much too willing young woman, sets a sharper on Chorley, and God only knows about this business with Totton—and you think it’s funny? Don’t it all make you wonder what she might have planned for you? You’re even talking about marrying the girl.”

Thomas pulled a cheroot from his pocket and stuck it, unlit, between his teeth. “Ah, Paddy, I know,” he said, grinning again. “Isn’t love grand?”

CHAPTER 12

Those who’ll play with cats must expect to be scratched.

— Miguel de Cervantes

The first words Thomas heard upon entering the overheated ballroom were about “that Balfour chit. Doesn’t her chaperone have a ha’p’orth of sense, letting her wear rubies? Running with old men to make up for her lack of dowry is bad enough—but this puts the gel beyond the pale. Rubies! Mark me, next she’ll be rouging her lips.”

Thomas was amused. The woman he had overheard couldn’t hold a candle to his Marguerite—as could none of the other females clogging the ballroom with their ruffles and flounces and overpowering scents. No wonder Marguerite was never found in the company of women—they most probably bored her half to death. She didn’t have time to waste in idle gossip or worrying about what other people would say. She was too busy running her private war against the men who believed themselves to be her beaux.

“Paddy,” Thomas said when he had scanned the room and spied Marguerite sitting alone with her nervously smiling chaperone, her chin high as if she knew very well people were talking about her but didn’t care so much as a jot what anyone thought, “why don’t you take yourself off to the card room and see if Chorley is as busy losing what’s left of his fortune this evening as he was this afternoon? And don’t bother to look for me. I won’t join you for several hours—four at the least.”

Dooley was looking around the violet-bunting-hung chamber with open disgust. “Four hours? You’re going to leave me propping up a wall in this place for four hours?”

“Or more.” Thomas reached into his pocket, drew out a wad of bills, and handed it to his friend. “Here you go, Paddy—that is, if you want to gamble with these Englishmen.”

“Does a fish swim?” Paddy asked, grabbing at the money Donovan had so lately won from the honorable Julian Quist. He pocketed it, then looked at Thomas. “Well? What are you waiting for? Take yourself off, boyo—I’ve got business to attend to in the other room.”

Thomas nodded, idly waving Dooley on his way, for he had just caught sight of Lord Mappleton and the demurely dressed Miss Rollins. The young woman was thin as a rail and almost a full head taller than his lordship, and there was something about her—something faintly familiar in the tilt of her head—that he knew would bother him until he’d figured it out. But he wouldn’t figure it out this evening, for he had something far more important on his mind than Georgianna Rollins.

He had taken no more than a half dozen steps toward Marguerite when he felt