Lady Alex's Gamble

243 Pages·2010·1.17 MB·English

by  Richardson Evelyn

Lady Alex's Gamble
by Evelyn Richardson Belgrave House www.belgravehouse.com
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Lady Alex's Gamble
by Evelyn Richardson CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
3
Lady Alex's Gamble
by Evelyn Richardson Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
4
Lady Alex's Gamble
by Evelyn Richardson
LADY ALEX'S GAMBLE
Evelyn Richardson
Chapter 1
The rain drummed ceaselessly against the window, as it had for days, its
incessant rhythm broken only by intermittent gusts of wind that rattled the
leaded window-panes, forcing the lady watching by the bed to clutch the paisley
shawl even more tightly around her shoulders. The man on the bed stirred and
moaned and the lady bent over to apply a damp cloth to his sweating brow.
He was a handsome young man with dark auburn hair, finely penciled dark
brows, a broad forehead, patrician nose, and generous mouth, but the puffy skin
around his eyes and lines of dissipation running from nose to mouth spoke of a
dissolute life that was beginning to rob him both of his looks and his youth.
He moaned again and twisted his head from side to side under the damp cloth.
"Damn you, Alexander, be still," the lady muttered fiercely. "I must do this to
cool the fever." She dipped the cloth in the basin of water, wrung it out, and
applied it again to his forehead. "For if you die, I shall murder you," she added
rather illogically. It was just like Alexander to land them in the basket, she
thought angrily to herself. And it was just like him too to leave her, his long-
suffering twin, to sort it all out.
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With the exception of a complexion unmarred by the effects of drink, late nights,
and an unhealthy predilection for every other son of debauchery. Lady
Alexandra de Montmorency was the spitting image of the man in the bed. She
had the same thick dark auburn hair, delicately arched brows over eyes of such
deep green as to be almost emerald. It was an interesting face rather than a
beautiful one, the high-bridged nose and generous mouth giving it far too much
character to be acceptable in a society where pale blond beauties with retroussé
noses and simpering rosebud lips were all the rage. However, no one who had
seen Alexandra de Montmorency was likely ever to forget her. Like her brother,
whose six-foot form lay sweating under the covers, she was tall and long-limbed,
but slender, and she moved with what in a man would have been called athletic
grace. Such assurance in movement and bearing could be a trifle unnerving in a
woman and had been known to intimidate the shorter, less confident men she had
encountered at the rare assembly she attended in Norwich. But in truth
Alexandra did not care. Since her father's death, she had had her hands too full
of more important things to waste her time on balls and other such frippery
affairs. And truth to say, one man was already causing her enough headaches to
keep her from wishing to waste her time worrying about the impressions,
negative or otherwise, that she might be making on any others.
Alexander de Montmorency, Earl of Halewood, had come into his inheritance a
scant four years ago, but in that short time he had managed to gamble it into
nonexistence. At first 6
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by Evelyn Richardson
his twin sister had not been aware of his ruinous propensities, but of late, she had
begun to sense that the gay and reckless lad she had grown up with had
somehow changed. The generous, fun-loving nature of youth had slowly
disappeared, to be replaced by a wildness and a desperation. As a boy Alexander
had always included his friends and family in one lark after another; now he
seemed heedless of their very existence. More and more frequently he returned
home drunk and angry, to apologize briefly—if he apologized at all—before
going off again.
Alexandra could never say precisely when the change had come about. Certainly
he had gotten in with a bad set of fellows at university, where he had begun to
gamble so much that he was forever at odds with his father over money. The old
earl, who had enjoyed a riotous and misspent youth of his own, had not been so
upset at the gambling as he had been unable to understand how any son of his
could lose so consistently at games of chance.
"It is not that he does not have a head for faro," her father used to complain to
Alexandra, "it's that he does not have a head for anything—whist, piquet, loo,
macao, or even hazard—not that one needs much head for that. I cannot
understand it, a child of mine ... "—and he would shake his head in genuine
perplexity.
Certainly their mother's death, three years before their father's, had not been the
cause of Alexander's decline, but it had increased its velocity. The countess had
exercised the same steadying influence over her eldest son as she had over his
father. Gentle and beautiful, she had run the household so 7
Lady Alex's Gamble
by Evelyn Richardson
smoothly and easily that no one was aware of the organization and hard work
that had gone into it. Unfailingly kind, she never criticized, but set such an
example of love and charity that people could not help but follow her lead, while
her sense of humor and her delight in life had kept her from seeming
sanctimonious. She had been universally loved and her eldest son had adored
her.
Alexandra sighed. Perhaps if she had been more like her mother her twin would
have remained the passionate, but essentially good-hearted youth he had been.
But it was no use repining. Certainly she had always longed to be as good and
beautiful as the Countess of Halewood, but somehow Alexandra had fallen into
scrapes as often as her brother had. As a child she had been as adventurous as he,
and with her twin to support and encourage her in every whim, she had gone
from one escapade to another. Then too, she did not possess her mother's gentle
nature, being more like her father: loving and kind, but passionate and unwilling
to live a life that tamely accepted everything without questioning or
understanding it fully.
And without a doubt she had done her share of questioning her twin's behavior
after her father died. Alexandra had not hesitated, as he gallivanted off to this
race meeting and that mill, to point out that fences needed mending or the
tenants'
cottages wanted repairing. She had not meant to nag, but her brother had seemed
to live as though the entire estate existed for nothing more than to finance his
mania for betting on anything and everything. Alexander would often exclaim
testily, "Oh come off it, Alex. I am the Earl of Halewood, not 8
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by Evelyn Richardson
you. Nor are you my mother." She had been aware she was making a bad job of
it, but she had not known how else to go about it other than to pester him when
there was no money for the servants' wages or household expenses. For a while
things had improved when Alexander, whose temper had been deteriorating
rapidly, seemed to take a turn for the better. He had set about at last to pay the
servants and attend to the immediate necessities. She'd soon found out, however,
the real reason for his renewed optimism. One night he came to her bedchamber;
it was so rare that he consulted anyone about anything, so rare that he was even
home before midnight that she had been quite astonished. When she happened to
look up and see him lingering awkwardly in the doorway, the book she had been
reading had slid to the floor with a bang.
"Alex," he began carefully, tentatively, "may I come in?"
"Why of course."
He sat down heavily on a chair in front of the fire and stared into the flames for a
moment before glancing up with a half-guilty, half-pleading smile. "I have been
rather, er, ah ... rather unfortunate," he began, looking so much like the old
Alexander who had just gotten into some scrape or other that she could not help
but smile in return. She had missed him, the fun-loving Alexander of her
childhood. "You never wear Mother's diamonds, do you?"
"Why no," she replied, mystified as to what he thought she'd do with them, when
he knew she hardly ever went to assemblies, and certainly wasn't about to have a
Season at her age.
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"Good. May I borrow them?"
"Borrow them?" she had asked stupidly, not even trying to imagine what her
brother would do with the elaborate necklace, matching bracelets, and earrings.
"Well, you see, as I say, I have been rather unfortunate lately and I, er, need to
raise a little wind so I thought perhaps I could take them to Goldfarb in Norwich
and he could give me something to help me out of my, er, difficulties."
"You must have been very unfortunate indeed," she had responded dryly.
Alexander flushed. His twin sister always made him feel inadequate. She sat
there looking at him coolly as though he had been the fool, but he had not.
Nimrod could not have failed to win. Alexander knew the horse's owner and had
talked to the lads who exercised it. That horse had been the sure thing that was
going to win him back his gaming debts. How was he to guess it would wind up
close enough to another horse in the race so as to be kicked up in such a freakish
way that it came in last? It was not Alexander's fault, merely the last in a run of
unbelievably bad luck that had plagued him lately. Alexandra had no right to
look at him so scornfully. He might not have as much in the cock-loft as his
clever twin did, but he was not half-witted.
"Just how unfortunate were you?" his sister probed.
"Oh, nothing serious," he assured her airily. "It's only a question of a few
thousand pounds."
"How many thousand?" Alexandra was not going to make this easy for him.
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"Well, about ten," he admitted unhappily.
"Ten! You lost ten thousand pounds in a card game!" Even Alexandra's iron self-
control deserted her at the mention of a sum that could have kept the household
running for several years.
Her brother hunched his shoulder defensively. "There's no need to shout, Alex.
Plenty of fellows drop that and more in an evening. I am not so stupid as all that.
This was on a horse—a sure thing. I know the owner and the trainer..."
"And you thought that with one large bet and an enormous amount of luck you
would be able to win back enough to pay off your other debts. I see." And she