Virtue

16

"I don't know what to do now." Charlie looked up from the cards in his hand, his expression baffled.

Sebastian, standing behind Charlie at the table, glanced down at the young man's hand of cards and grinned as he felt his sister's surging impatience. Judith was a good teacher, but she was short on forbearance. She looked up and caught Sebastian's eye. Taking a deep breath, she struggled for patience. "Do you think you want another card, Charlie?"

"I don't know exactly." He frowned. Judith was trying to explain how one could reduce the element of chance at macao. "I have eighteen points."

"Then you don't want anything higher than a three," she explained carefully. "That means there are twelve possible cards."

"Ten," Charlie said. "I already hold an ace and a two."

"You're getting there," Sebastian approved. He thrust his hands into the pockets of his buckskin britches, watching the lesson with amusement.

"All right," Judith said, gesturing to the dummy hands on the table. "We've had five rounds, two hands have folded, three are still left. What does that tell you about the three left?"

Charlie frowned. "That they have mostly low cards?"

"Exactly," she said. "Therefore, your chances of drawing one of the ten low cards that you don't have are…?"

"Slim," he said with a grin of comprehension. "So I stay as I am."

"It's simple, isn't it?"

"I suppose so. What card would have been dealt me if I'd asked for one?"

Judith drew the top card from the depleted pack in front of her and slid it across to him. Charlie turned it over. It was a three.

"I never said it was an exact science." Judith smiled at his disconsolate expression.

"I always thought the fun with gaming was the risk."

"So it is, but doesn't it give you any satisfaction to overcome pure chance?"

Charlie looked puzzled. "Yes, it does, but it's not as thrilling as when luck smiles and I get a winning streak."

Sebastian gave a shout of laughter as his sister threw up her hands in frustration.

"Well, at least Marcus hasn't packed you off to Berkshire," she said, gathering up the cards.

"No," he agreed. "In fact, he's being deuced decent about things at the moment. I wanted to go to Repton with Giles Fotheringham for the hunting, and it was Marcus who said I needed a second hunter. He accompanied me to Tattersalls and helped me pick out a magnificent animal." He grinned slightly. "Of course, he said if he hadn't advised me, I'd have been seduced by a showy hack with no bottom, but that's just Marcus."

Judith laughed at Charlie's accurate imitation of his cousin's invariable bluntness and began to deal the cards again.

"I must love you and leave you," Sebastian said, bending to kiss his sister. "Are you going to the rout at Hartley House this evening?"

"Yes, the rest of the gaming school are going to try their wings for the first time. Cornelia and Isobel are going to play macao, at separate tables of course, and Sally's all set to try her hand at quinze."

"How're they doing?"

Judith chuckled. "Pretty well, on the whole. Cornelia has the most difficulty. It's strange, because she's so clever in so many other areas. She plays the pianoforte beautifully and composes her own music, you know. And reads Latin and Greek."

"Very bookish," Sebastian agreed. "And completely cow-handed."

"Oh, that's unkind." But Judith couldn't help smiling. "Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing how they do. They're all absolutely determined to succeed."

"Heaven preserve the husbands of London," Sebastian teased. "How will they ensure their wives' loyalty if they can't ensure their dependence?"

Judith grimaced. "That may be a quizzing observation, Sebastian, but it has an unpleasant ring of truth. If you could hear Isobels description of the humiliating performance…" Remembering Charlie's presence, she stopped abruptly. Such details were not for his tender ears.

Sebastian nodded in instant comprehension. "I take it back… I must be off. I promised to escort Harriet and her mother to the Botanic Gardens." He pulled a comical face.

"Whatever for? I'm sure Harriet would prefer to visit the lions at the Exchange."

"And so would I, but her revered mama does not consider it edifying, so the Botanic Gardens it is."

"Well, make sure you have a plentiful supply of sal volatile, in case Lady Moreton becomes overcome with excitement among the orchids."

"You are a disrespectful wretch," Sebastian declared.

"Yes, I'd noticed that myself," came Carrington's voice from the doorway. "How do you do, Sebastian?" He tossed his riding whip onto the sofa and Jrew off his gloves.

"Well enough, thank you." Sebastian grinned at his brother-in-law and picked up his hat from the side table. "Perhaps you could cure m'sister's lamentable tongue."

"Oh, I've tried, Sebastian, I've tried. It's a lost cause."

"I suppose it is. Pity, though."

"Would you two stop talking about me as if I weren't here?" Judith demanded in half-laughing indignation.

"I'm away." Sebastian blew his sister a kiss and went to the door.

"Oh, there's something I need to discuss with you, Sebastian," Marcus said. "But I can see you're in a hurry."

"Orchids await him," Judith murmured as the door closed behind her brother.

"What?"

"Orchids. He's gone to dance attendance on Lady Moreton."

"Good God, why?"

"Because he intends her for his mother-in-law."

"Hell and the devil," Marcus said. "The daughter's a considerable heiress, of course."

"What has that to do with it?" Judith demanded, bristling.

"Why, only that all sane young men with barely a feather to fly with are on the lookout for heiresses," Marcus responded casually. "What are you playing, Charlie?" He strolled over to the card table.

Charlie didn't immediately reply. He could see Judith's face and he was wondering why Marcus hadn't noticed the reaction his words were causing.

Judith said stiffly, "You know nothing about Sebastian's circumstances."

"No, but 1 assume he supports himself at the tables. I doubt the Moretons will look kindly upon his suit." Marcus turned to pick up the sherry decanter from the pier table.

"Well, I trust you'll be in for a surprise."

"I'd be happy to believe it, but you must face facts,}udith." He poured sherry, blithely indifferent to the effect he was having on his wife. "People like the Moretons would look kindly on an impoverished suitor only if he brought a significant title."

"I see," Judith said icily, and firmly closed her lips. Rapidly, she finished dealing the cards.

"So what are you playing?" Marcus inquired again, casually sipping sherry.

"Macao," Charlie said, eager to change the subject. Judith was looking very dangerous, and he could detect the slightest tremor in the long white fingers. "You see, I'm not very good at gaming-" he began.

"No, you're abominable," Marcus agreed, interrupting. "A baby could beat you… which is why you're

in the trouble you're in," he added. "I'd have thought you'd do better to find some other way of amusing your-self."

"But once I learn how to win, I won't have any debts," Charlie explained eagerly. "So Judith's teaching me."

"She's what" Marcus exclaimed, his cheerful insouciance gone. Sebastian had been in the room too, and the memory of another macao table in a ballroom in Brussels filled his mind and chased away all rational thought. How could he ever have thought he could bury the past? "And just how is she teaching you to win?"

On top of the insult to Sebastian-insults Marcus didn't even seem aware of-this was too much. Judith knew quite well what he was implying, and the last shreds of control over her volcanic temper were severed.

"Well, there's a little trick I know," she declared, the lynx eyes ablaze. "It involves nicking the right-hand corner of the knaves… it's almost impossible to detect if one does it aright; and then there's-"

The goad found its mark. Marcus exploded, his expression livid. "That'll do!"

With an incoherent mumble Charlie leaped to his feet and hastily left the room, closing the door behind him.

"I will not have you interfering in my family concerns," Marcus stated. "I've already told you that Charlie is my business, and I will not have him influenced by your dubious ethics, your views, your practices-"

"How dare you!" Judith sprang up from the table in violent interruption. "How could you imagine I would teach Charlie to be a cardsharp?"

"From what I know of you, very easily," Marcus snapped. "You forget I know full well how you go about winning."

Judith was now as pale as she'd been flushed with anger a minute before. "You are unjust," she stated flatly. "First you accuse my brother of fortune hunting, and then you accuse me of the ultimate unscrupulousness. I wish to God we'd never met." The words were spoken before she had a chance to monitor them, and there they lay, like stones on the air between them.

For a moment Marcus was silent. The hiss and crackle of the fire in the hearth was the only sound in the room. Then he said, "Do you?" His eyes were fixed on her face with an almost aching intensity.

"Don't you?" Her voice was now flat, the fire had died in her eyes, and for some reason she was crying inside. But her face showed no emotion.

"Sometimes… when… sometimes," he said slowly. When he found himself loving her and then he'd remember her trickery, the use to which she could put her beauty and her passion-that was when he wished they'd never met. And that knowledge was never far from the surface, however hard he tried to bury it.

He went out of the room, closing the door quietly.

Judith stood in the middle of the room, the tears now coursing soundlessly down her cheeks. If they'd never met, she would have been spared this hurt. But if they'd never met, she would have missed…

She drew out her handkerchief and blew her nose. Soon enough she would be free to leave him. Soon enough he'd be free of his conniving trickster wife. Only why did such thoughts make her so miserable?