Historical Romance – The Best Of The Year. Кэрол Мортимер

him.’

      Madeline felt the colour drain from her cheeks in shock. How could he say such cruel things to her?

      ‘Why do you not divorce me?’ she asked, her throat tight with misery. ‘You could marry again and get yourself a legitimate heir.’

      ‘Maybe I shall,’ Lethbridge said. ‘God knows, I am sick of your pale face and your complaints. Yet I may need you again to persuade Rochdale to my way of thinking. Behave yourself and do as I tell you and I may give you your father’s notes and your freedom.’

      Madeline watched as he walked from the bedchamber. What did he want of her now? She had cheapened herself by flirting with the marquis and she knew that Rochdale would not be denied a second time. She’d imagined he would be angry and refuse her husband’s invitation to dine, but he had accepted and sent her a message. Was it some kind of a veiled threat?

      Was he imagining that he could seduce her under her husband’s nose—perhaps with Lethbridge’s permission?

      What did her husband want from the marquis? He had always been possessive and jealous, but now it was almost as if he were prepared to give her to Rochdale—but in exchange for what?

      Madeline shuddered. She had felt sick and ashamed after that encounter in the garden. He had meant to force himself on her, she was certain, and might have succeeded if Hallam had not arrived in time.

      She would not allow it to happen. Madeline knew that her husband still held the biggest part of her father’s debt to him and nothing would make him part with it. He’d promised to give it to her if the marquis accepted his invitation, but now he wanted more from her. It was always the same; he would never keep his promises whatever she did.

      She would not give him what he asked of her. The very idea of allowing the marquis to paw at and kiss her made her feel ill. Was Lethbridge trying to humiliate her, because she had been cold to him—or was there a deeper reason for his hints?

      * * *

      Lethbridge was a cheat. Hallam was as certain as he could be without proof that the count had been systematically robbing his friends at the card table, perhaps for months or even years. He was not certain whether Lethbridge marked the pack or kept important cards tucked into the frills at the ends of his sleeves. He was almost certain that he’d seen a card disappear into the count’s sleeve, but he’d also noticed him stroking the corner of a card as if feeling for a mark, though he could not have sworn to either at this stage.

      What was certain was that the count was very careful if he was cheating. He usually lost the first couple of hands and then began to win steadily throughout the evening. He was said to have the devil’s own luck, but it seemed no one suspected him of cheating—though Hallam had seen someone else watching him closely at the table.

      He decided to seek Captain Mainwaring out and ask him his opinion. After searching various coffeehouses and clubs, Hallam ran his friend to earth at Cribbs’s Parlour, where he had been watching a bout between one of the professionals hired to help the gentlemen learn the science of the game.

      ‘I had begun to think you had gone out of town,’ he said. ‘Lunch with me at my club, Mainwaring? I want to ask your opinion of something.’

      ‘Delighted. I’ve been wanting to see you. I heard a rumour I think may interest you, Hal.’

      Hallam waited as his friend watched the bout conclude, paid a small gambling debt, and then they left together, strolling through the chilly streets towards White’s, where they could be sure of a decent meal.

      ‘You’re interested in Lethbridge, aren’t you?’ Captain Mainwaring said as they began to walk. ‘Mind telling me why? I have my own reasons for being interested.’

      ‘He is a bully and a brute and mistreats his wife,’ Hallam replied. ‘If you will keep this to yourself—I intend to do my utmost to set her free of him.’

      ‘That will not be easy. Lethbridge is a jealous man, which was why I was surprised to see her flirting with Rochdale the other evening—until I heard a whisper concerning a certain evening at the card table...’

      ‘What happened?’ Hallam raised one eyebrow. ‘I do not follow you?’

      ‘Lethbridge lost a great deal of money to the marquis—several thousand pounds, I understand.’

      ‘But he can stand the nonsense.’ Hallam frowned. ‘He is very wealthy, I imagine?’

      ‘He was certainly wealthy even a year or so back, but I’ve heard whispers that he has lost money in other ways...investments that turned bad. And he had a long run of bad luck at the tables, until it miraculously turned.’

      ‘Miraculously? You think there is a reason for his change of luck?’

      ‘Lethbridge is a cheat.’

      ‘Yes, perhaps but can you be certain? On the face of things, he appears to be a gentlemen of unblemished character.’

      ‘Hardly that, Hal. He is known to haunt certain vice dens of the worst kind, besides being a cheat and perhaps more.’

      ‘What do you mean more?’ Hallam asked. ‘I knew he was a bully and I suspected him of being a cheat—do you know how he does it?’

      ‘I think he must mark the cards very lightly, because he never wins at the first or second hand, which means he must need time to mark a few cards.’

      ‘Yes, I thought it might be that—a pinprick or something no one would notice unless they looked for it.’

      ‘Yes, I dare say.’ Captain Mainwaring frowned. ‘I believe him to be responsible for the death of my young cousin Roger some years back. The lad came into his fortune at eighteen and his only guardian was his mother, who could deny him nothing. Imagine the result when he found himself let loose on the town with money to burn. I was fighting in Spain at the time, but his mother tells me Roger played too deep and was found with a pistol to his head in his lodgings.’

      ‘My God! You suspect Lethbridge of fleecing him at the tables?’

      ‘He and a few others, I dare say—but I do not believe Roger killed himself. He was badly dipped, but the estate was intact. He could have recovered with some careful management—and a magnificent diamond parure was missing, which he’d taken from the bank. As far we know it did not form part of any wager he made, though he may have sold it to pay his debt.’

      ‘You think he was murdered?’

      ‘Yes, I do.’ Captain Mainwaring frowned. ‘I do not think it was merely robbery—there must have been another reason, perhaps a fear of blackmail. Something that Lethbridge feared to have known.’

      ‘What leads you to believe so?’

      ‘Because of something I discovered in my cousin’s things.’ Captain Mainwaring frowned. ‘I discovered it only a few weeks ago. Roger’s mother asked me to sort out her son’s personal possessions, because she could not bring herself to do it. Everything had lain untouched for four years...and I found a letter addressed to Lethbridge. It was the letter of a young man with more passion than sense—and it threatened to reveal a secret. But it had never been sent.’

      ‘A secret?’

      ‘The secret was that Lethbridge was a cheat. It was written just before Lethbridge married, and spoke of “the means you used to force that sweet lady to wed you”—which suggested some sort of coercion on the count’s part. When you told me she had been forced to wed him I knew that I must be correct in my assumptions.’

      Hallam stared at him in horror. ‘So he cheated Sir Matthew at the card tables and then blackmailed him into allowing Maddie to marry him. He is a worse rogue than I imagined.’

      ‘A cheat, a blackmailer and a murderer,’ Captain Mainwaring agreed, looking grim. ‘We need say nothing of his other vices, for he is not the only one to have such secrets—but cheating at cards and blackmail are surpassed only by murder.’