Tavistock was too wet behind the ears to know when he’d been insulted.
He took another parsimonious sip of his drink. “Step-mama will confine me to the family seat until I’m twenty-one if I continue to lose.”
“No,” William said, “she won’t. If I were you, I’d show her bloody ladyship what’s what. She ain’t your guardian, and she’s dependent on you for her blunt.”
Tavistock peered at William over his drink. “You have met my step-mother? She’s the redhead who eats testicules frits de chasseur de fortune for breakfast and drinks the blood of encroaching mushrooms for a restorative tonic. Her funds are her own, and they are ample.”
“Apply the back of your hand to her ladyship’s disrespectful mouth,” William said, “and she’ll decamp for a dower property. What you spend is between you and your guardians. They know you’ll come into your money soon enough, so they won’t gainsay you.”
“Fried balls of fortune hunter,” Portly translated, “or something like that. Quite colorful.”
“You propose that I raise a hand to my step-mother?” Tavistock asked.
“The sooner, the better,” William said. “Put her in her place, and she’ll be much happier for it. Women respect a man who exercises his authority with confidence.”
“He’s been married a week,” Portly said, winking at the boy. “Renowned expert on the happy female, that’s Chastain.”
Tavistock looked from Portly to Chastain. “A gentleman does not raise his hand to the fairer sex. I know bugger all about cards, but I know that much.” He made this pronouncement with the touching dignity of the very young male.
“We will leave management of your step-mother to you,” William said, “but you must trust me that our strategy with the cards cannot fail. You will have your quarterly allowance back twice over, but you must find the nerve to stay the course, Tavistock.”
Tavistock was six feet tall if he was an inch, but he’d yet to fill out. He was all elbows and knees, blushes and curious silences. A lamb waiting to be fleeced, in other words.
“I should ask Sycamore Dorning for some pointers,” Tavistock said.
William burst out laughing, despite the idea having significant merit. “Sycamore Dorning? He is so hesitant to pick up a hand of cards he wouldn’t even participate in a tournament that includes dowagers and beldames. Portly, have you ever heard such nonsense?”
Portly, who had admittedly spent the past three evenings partnering Clarice, was a bit slow with his lines.
“Dorning might know something about cards,” Portly said, “might, but he knows more about how to manipulate customers into leaving their money at his tables.”
“Precisely,” Tavistock said, striking his palm on the arm of the chair. “And I need to stop leaving my money at Lady Wentwhistle’s tables, so who better to ask—?”
William held up a hand. “Have you ever been to that nasty little establishment Dorning owns?”
“Not yet, but the fellows say the Coventry is all the crack. Even better than when Tresham owned it.”
“Tresham won’t turn it over to the Dornings,” William said, lowering his voice. “Word is, he don’t trust ’em. They’re jumped-up farmers who happened to bumble into a title a few centuries back. They’re peddling soaps and sachets now, probably to keep the Coventry afloat.”
That was an inspired bit of conjecture, if William did say so himself.
“The Dornings have an earldom,” Tavistock countered. “If they are jumped-up farmers, what does that make you, Chastain?”
So the pup had teeth? “I know better than to trade on centuries-old trappings, Tavistock. The Coventry passes around free champagne from the stroke of midnight. Consider that the patrons have already spent several hours swilling wine at their fancy suppers, washing down their club dinners with port, or imbibing for the duration of a performance at Drury Lane. How carefully do you think those customers are watching their cards by the time they sit down at the Coventry tables?”
Tavistock’s fair features showed equal parts fascination and horror. “You’re saying The Coventry is dirty?”
“I would never speculate in such a direction except in strictest confidence to my closest friends,” William replied. “Let it suffice in present company to say I have frequented the Coventry less and less as I see more and more there that disappoints me.”
“Step-mama gambles there,” Tavistock said, rising on a yawn. “She promised to take me if I comported myself well during this house party.”
“My dear boy,” William said, collecting Tavistock’s abandoned drink, “I will take you there when next you’re in Town, if you truly want to go. I can’t think why you would, though.”
“Run along to bed,” Portly said, gesturing with his drink. “You must be sharp for tomorrow’s play.”
Tavistock bowed his good-night like the proper young dunce he was, and William took the chair the marquess had vacated.
“Poor little angel,” William said, smirking at his brandy. “What would he think of those fine establishments that let a man apply his firm hand, the birch rod, or a riding crop to the bare posterior of a cheerfully willing female?”
Portly crossed his legs at the ankle and slouched down in his chair. “He’d think the silly reasons for which a man will give up his coin are without limit. Telling him to slap his step-mother was vile, Chastain.”
“That was inspired. The woman don’t know her place by half. He won’t do it. He’ll dream of it, though. I might dream of it. Redheads tend to need firm guidance.”
“You are drunk. Tavistock is right to be worried.”
William brought the decanter over from the sideboard. “Now, now. Don’t be nasty, though partnering Clarice would put any man out of sorts. I do appreciate your sacrifice, Portly, and of course Tavistock is worried. I want him worried. The ones who worry are the easiest to pluck. Look at Lady Della. Quaking in her slippers, she was, and she damned near got me out of parson’s mousetrap.”
Portly held up his glass. “To Lady Della’s slippers, then. What have you got on Tavistock?”
“This one is easy. Mrs. Tremont’s brother is a backdoor usher, if you get my drift. Likes to sail the windward passage with handsome young lads. I’ll tell him Tavistock is of the same persuasion, and when he accosts Tavistock for a little backgammon, I’ll come upon them in flagrante delicate.”
“Delicto.”
“I’ll have evidence against them both.”
Portly was quiet for so long, William thought he might have the rest of the decanter for himself.“Chastain, you are the wicked brother I never had, and I say this with all good will: You are losing a necessary sense of caution. It’s one thing to cadge a few coppers from a dowager who has been indiscreet in her pleasures.”
Portly scrubbed a hand over his face before continuing. “Sodomy, on the other hand, is a hanging felony, and Tavistock, despite his tender years, is a marquess. The Dornings run the most popular gaming establishment London has ever seen, and they are related by marriage to the earls of both Bellefonte and Grampion, the Kettering fortune, and the Pepper mercantile empire.”