A Masquerade in the Moonlight - By Kasey Michaels Page 0,97

table where Lord Chorley sat losing yet another hand to a weasel-like man whose most outstanding feature was one dark eyebrow that stretched across his forehead.

“Willie—I mean, William! Good to see you without the bandage. What on earth are you doing here?”

“I imagine I could ask you much the same question,” Laleham answered, still looking at Lord Chorley’s partner, who had quickly donned a leather visor that all but obscured his eyes and the eyebrow. “I would have thought you’d lost enough last night at Lady Jersey’s. If you believe you can tear yourself away from what I am convinced is an inspiring interlude, I would like a word with you.”

Lord Chorley looked from the earl, to his cards and back again.” Couldn’t it wait just a moment?”

Laleham peered over his lordship’s shoulder, then at the size of the pot sitting in the middle of the table. “Why? You’re hoarding kings again, Stinky.” He inclined his head to the visored gambler. “If you would do me the favor of showing his lordship your aces, my good man, I would much appreciate it.”

The gamester obligingly fanned his cards face up on the table and Lord Chorley groaned. “Only one ace, William, but four trumps! I could have sworn there were only two left out.” He threw down his cards and scraped back his chair, giving one last, longing look to the marker the gamester was pocketing. “That’s another hundred I owe him—curse the man and his unbelievable run of luck,” he complained, following Laleham to an unoccupied table in a far corner.

Laleham looked distastefully at the rough chair before he sat on it, his coattails carefully spread, then nodded his head, indicating that Lord Chorley might seat himself as well. “Luck, Stinky, has little to do with success. I imagine the fellow has been cheating you hollow. That, combined with your stunning inability to recognize the fact you’re hopeless at gaming, accounts for your losses. How deeply are you in to him?”

Lord Chorley evaded his eyes, picking at a hardened bit of food stuck to the tabletop. “No more than I can handle,” he said, then raised his eyes and added defiantly, “and no one will dun me as long as Prinny and I are such great chums. Brummell lives on nothing but tick, and no one bothers him.”

“Such confidence, Stinky. I commend you. However, if you were to fall afoul of moneylenders or unscrupulous gaming partners, the rest of London would be on you in a heartbeat, demanding to be paid what you owe them. Butchers. Chandlers. Vintners. Greengrocers. You do know that, don’t you?”

“So?” Lord Chorley summoned one of the servants with a wave of his hand and ordered a bottle. “It doesn’t matter to you, does it, William?”

Laleham wove his fingers together beneath the table, longing to reach across the scarred wood and choke the life out of the simpleton who dared to ask such an asinine question. But he wouldn’t lose his temper. He never lost his temper. It was unprofitable. “You’d have to rusticate, Stinky, out of the way of your creditors. You cannot have much influence on Prinny—stay close to him—if you’re in Surrey.”

The bottle and a single glass arrived, and Lord Chorley poured himself a liberal amount, then drank it down in one swallow. “I thought we were ready to move,” he said leaning forward and speaking quietly, conspiratorially, as if any one of the drink-befuddled loobies in the place was listening to him. “I don’t have to drop any more hints in Prinny’s ears about keeping our people in the ministries.”

Laleham shifted in his chair, feeling his buckskins sticking to something on the seat, then crooked a finger in Lord Chorley’s direction, urging him to come closer. “You can’t stick a knife in the man’s ribs from Surrey, Stinky, now can you? After all, we don’t want to wait until the people finally take it into their heads to do it for us. We’re none of us young men anymore, are we?”

“What! Are you saying that—”

“Shut up,” Laleham bit out from between necessarily clenched teeth. After all these years, it was still difficult to believe how thoroughly blockheaded Stinky was. Hadn’t he figured it out on his own?

Lord Chorley looked around fearfully, then lowered his voice to a whisper. “Murder, William. You’re talking about murder. No! He’s almost the king. You’re suggesting something very close to regicide! I thought we was just going to ship him off somewheres. I like him! Oh, no,”