Proof by Seduction (Carhart #1)(78)

The words he needed to say stuck in his throat, but he choked them out.

“I need you.” There. He’d said it. There was no use hiding it any longer. He needed her for everything, and she…Well, she didn’t need him for anything. He looked away. “Ned needs you. You were right.” His hands clenched with the effort of his admission. “I can’t do this. I need you to—to—”

To what? To work a miracle? To intervene?

“I need you to put things back the way they were.”

She said nothing, but turned to find a cloak and bonnet. She had to succeed; Gareth had no other plans for his cousin. And if she couldn’t help, then Ned was doomed—doomed to spiral downward without any hope of redemption.

It wasn’t only Ned who needed redemption.

“Just come,” he said. “Be Madame Esmerelda again. Conjure spirits. Tell fortunes. I don’t care what you tell him, so long as you make this stop.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

DESPITE THE FACT that Gareth had referred to the gaming establishment as a hell, the room Jenny entered struck her as a far cry from brimstone and burning pitch. A fire burned in the room, but it was of the cozy, coal-burning variety, separated from the rest of the room by a mundane brass screen. There was an occasional orange glow when someone puffed a cigar. But for a hell, there was a distinct paucity of smoke and ashes. It wasn’t even sulfurous.

There were neither imps nor devils. No demonic overlords; the denizens here were mere sinners, every one.

If this was hell, hell was red velvet upholstery. It was the acridity of rancid tobacco and the sharp scent of spilled gin. It was the clink of coins and the dull murmur—in voices accented with those distinctive lazy drawls that bespoke wealth and years of education—of gentlemen engaging in the damnably honorable task of losing fortunes and pretending not to care.

Despite the warmth of the room, Jenny shivered. She understood why sailors gambled, why clerks scraping together their pitiful quarterly incomes wagered. After all, when you had little to lose, a chance win could change a life.

But these men had everything—wealth, property and family connections. A handful of the coins these men tossed around would solve all Jenny’s problems.

Ned slouched in a corner, surrounded by men she supposed must call themselves his friends. The sullen slump of his shoulders told her everything she needed to know. After two years of his acquaintance, she knew the ups and downs of his moods rather well. There was that jocular, irrepressible Ned that she normally knew. And then there was the fellow she’d first met. Dour. Quiet. Depressed.

Ned picked up his cards from the green baize before him. He stared at them dolefully and blew out his breath. He seemed oblivious to the gentlemen on either side of him; he certainly didn’t look across the room to see where Jenny and Gareth stood, framed in the doorway.

Gareth shifted uneasily. “He doesn’t listen to me. He must know he’s destroying his place in society. He will be ostracized for the rest of his life if he persists in this sort of callous behavior. And you haven’t heard Ware speak of his daughter. Do you have any idea what a duke is willing to do on behalf of his only child?”

Jenny interrupted Gareth’s explanation with an upraised hand. “I know Ned when he’s like this. He’s almost past despair. Of course he won’t listen to you—he can’t feel anything right now.”

“Can you stop it?”

“I did once.” But she hadn’t. Madame Esmerelda had.

Gareth clenched his fists. Then he looked at her. “Do it again. Please.”

She could bring Madame Esmerelda back. She could earn a livelihood. She’d have her independence and Gareth, too. Madame Esmerelda had done the impossible before. She could beguile Ned out of this mood. A soft smile; a whisper of hope in his ear. A few spoken words, and Ned would be as ensnared by her as always. All she had to say was that the past week had been a test, that he’d been meant to endure this misery for some fateful reason.

But what path was there through Madame Esmerelda’s fraudulent ways for Jenny Keeble? Jenny was a simple girl with complex wants. Independence. Love. Respect. Family. A few hundred pounds.

Who am I, that I deserve these things?

She was a fraud, a charlatan and a cheat.

“First,” Gareth mused, “we’ll have to get rid of his friends.” He scuffed his boot against the floor. “I doubt I could manage that. They don’t listen.”

“That part,” Jenny said, flipping her palm up, “is easy. Pen knife.”

“Pardon?”

“Your penknife. I need it. Give it over.”

He didn’t ask questions. Gareth fished in his pocket and retrieved the slim, polished blade Ned had once used to eviscerate an orange. She snatched the weapon from his fingers and marched on the gaming table.

Ned was still unaware of his surroundings. He rested his forehead on one hand, elbow propped against the table. The fingers of his other hand listlessly grasped his cards. He didn’t look up when Jenny stopped in front of the table, although all his friends did. He didn’t even flick a glance in her direction when she put one hand on her hip.

But he jumped when she grabbed his cards from his loose grip. The look that painted his face was sheer, unadulterated shock.

“You gentlemen must be blind.” Jenny waved Ned’s cards at them. “These cards are marked.”