Eleven

Jamie had an assignation with the lovely Lady Beaton at her theatre box before going to play cards. A good comedy should cheer him up, and Lady Beaton was his favorite type of woman: mature, no nonsense, sure of herself and what she wanted. She was a lady who’d survived a difficult marriage and was intent on enjoying the fruits of her widowhood. She had no interest in remarrying and looked only for congenial company and physical satisfaction. Pleasingly plump, of cheerful temperament, with a bawdy sense of humor and a genuine talent for friendship, she was the closest thing to a friend Jamie had besides Sullivan. Unfortunately, her box was empty, though her footman was waiting with a letter. Her elderly mother, it seemed, had taken ill, and she had rushed to her countryseat to be with her.

He looked about the theatre. The pit was full. Lords and ladies, orange girls and apprentices, shopkeepers and laborers, crowded elbow to elbow to see Dryden’s latest oeuvre. He was debating enjoying the box and staying to watch the play—it wouldn’t hurt to be seen there, still of interest and still in London—when a rustle of skirts and a possessive hand on his arm caused him to turn his head.

“Jamie dear, you’ve been abandoned! How very sad! Has the widow found herself a new toy and left you standing all alone?”

His lips twisted in annoyance. It wouldn’t have mattered to him if she had. Their relationship was not exclusive. They both enjoyed other lovers. The thing that set Mary Beaton apart was that they were also good friends. “Good evening, Caro. Are you out taking your husband for a walk?”

Lady Caroline Ware had been a merchant’s wife before catching the eye of Lord Ware. He’d made her a widow and then made her his wife, and soon after, she’d made him a cuckold. They had a brood of six children, though it was widely rumored none of them were his. Lord Ware doted on his commanding wife, and if she wished to accessorize with lovers, he chose to indulge her. It kept her happy and was cheaper than keeping her in jewels, and he consoled himself with numerous diversions of his own.

Temperamental and controlling, she was the kind of woman Jamie tried to avoid, but he’d made the mistake of sharing a brief sexual encounter with her and she’d been determined to bring him to heel ever since. Certain of her charms, ruthless in her pursuits, and vicious when crossed, Jamie’s lack of interest was a challenge and an affront, and having trapped and cornered him, she was determined not to let him go. She clung to his arm, whispering comments he couldn’t hear above the catcalls, whistles, and running commentary from the unruly crowd. After the theatre, she followed as he joined a crowd of well-heeled rogues and reprobates heading to a gathering hosted by the Duke of Buckingham.

Best friend and cousin of kings, a congenital devotee of the game of thrones, Buckingham—or Bucks, as his friends called him—may well have been mad, or at least so highly bred one was hard-pressed to tell the difference. His father had been a favorite of Charles I, and some said much of the family’s influence came from the intimate services his jaded and calculating sire had provided for the smitten James I. An accomplished musician and singer, a sparkling wit and unsurpassed mimic, he was a natural entertainer who could be counted on to charm or provoke.

When his illicit connection with the Countess of Shrewsbury led to a duel in which her husband, the earl, was fatally wounded, Bucks had outraged the court by installing the widow in his house alongside his wife. Even so, rumor had it that living with both wife and mistress hadn’t stopped him from enjoying a dalliance with one of the foremost male actors of the day. Whatever his faults—and they were many—he was good-humored, good-natured, and far too powerful for any king to arbitrarily spite or smite. He did what he would and favored whom he pleased. Jamie amused him—his discernment in matters of horseflesh and women impressed him, and he’d taken him into his circle years ago. It was one of the reasons Jamie was still accepted on the fringes of the court and not banished to the country or the continent.

When the party retired to the rooftop banquet room to indulge in music, wit, and wine, Jamie settled in the salon for a night of playing cards. Pouting, Lady Caroline followed him. Coming to stand behind him, she rested her hands on his shoulders and bent over to whisper in his ear.

“Surely there are other games you’d rather play tonight, my lord?” she teased, trailing her fingers along the nape of his neck and rumpling his hair.

He pulled away in annoyance. “Enough, Caro! Can’t you see I’m occupied? Go find yourself a pretty boy somewhere and leave me in peace.”

“I don’t want a pretty boy. I want a big, bad man.”

Her tongue flicked and darted in his ear and he stifled the urge to swat her as if she were a bothersome fly. She took the seat next to him and he sighed and picked up his cards. The cloying smell of countless burning candles, unwashed bodies, and sweet perfume was almost overpowering. He closed his eyes. The hum of muted conversation whirled around him, punctuated by the sound of clinking glasses, harsh laughter, and the roll and rattle of dice. He didn’t feel comfortable in the room or in his skin.

He imagined for a moment the wild fragrance of the highlands and the faraway shriek of the eagle he’d watched from his perch on the mountain and wished himself far away, but the feel of Caroline’s foot rubbing his crotch brought him back to the room. Reaching under the table, he gripped her ankle and shoved it away. The woman was vulgar and obvious and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Despite her ample bosom and obvious charms he had no interest in her at all. She had claws. She wanted acolytes. She bored him.

“You can’t always have what you want, Caro. I’m not a boy, and I’m not in the mood to play with you. I’d rather play at cards.”

“Come now, Jamie,” she purred, leaning into him. “My husband is called away to Holland for several months at least. I’m to be left all alone!”

“How fortunate for you both,” he drawled, returning his attention to his hand.

She narrowed her eyes and glared, snapping her fan shut and shaking it like a furious little bee before taking a breath and calming herself. “Jamie, you’re incorrigible!… Jamie!” She tapped his shoulder with her fan, forcing him to attend her.

He sighed and pushed his cards away. “What, Caroline? Have I not made myself clear?”

“Lady Caroline, and your pretended lack of interest doesn’t fool me at all. I’ve seen you watching and you must know I watch you. They say you find yourself without adequate funds.” Her fingers brushed against his shoulder, feathering the hair beneath his ear.

“What else do they say?” he asked dryly.

“They say you’re more than adequate in other ways, a fact I can attest to. We both have needs, and happily, they seem to coincide. Why don’t we offer one another comfort, my dear? I sense we might be very good friends. You might visit me while my husband is away. You might even send your creditors my way should we become… close friends.”

“Am I to be your whore now, Caroline? How much am I worth?” he asked pleasantly.

“My husband gives me a generous allowance. You need friends, Jamie. I can be a very good friend… or a very bad enemy.”

He knew it to be true. It was said she’d made arrangements to have her servants slit the nose of a pretty young actress who’d dared to mock her in a recent play, and her latest lover had been set upon by thugs and nearly beaten to death just hours after leaving the theatre with a new conquest in tow. “I’ve seen you with your lovers, Caro. You require them to worship at your feet. That’s never been my inclination,” he said mildly.

“That’s why you find yourself in your current circumstances, Jamie, forced to gamble and cheat to earn your bread.” She drew her fingers across his cheek and reached under the table, squeezing him firmly through his breeches.

He caught her hand in a vice-like grip. “I prefer to choose my whores, Caro, not have them choose me. And I do not cheat. If you were a man, I’d have to call you out for that.”

“Bastard!” She slapped him hard, the sharp crack causing heads to rise and necks to crane.

“You are making a spectacle of us, Caroline,” Jamie said tiredly.

“Let them watch, you ingrate! You’re nothing here. Nothing and no one! People talk about you. They pity you. They say the king is done with you and you’ve nothing of your own. I could help you return to favor and to court, and I can also complete your ruin!”

“Have at it, madam,” he said with a shrug. “Though I daresay it’s easy enough done that it should hardly be crowed about as an accomplishment. Now if you’ll excuse me, this night has grown unbearably tedious. I believe I’ll impose upon my lord Buckingham’s hospitality and retire.” He shoved his cards away and rose from the table.

Unaccustomed to defeat, Lady Ware rose with him, changing her tactics with the speed and assurance of a top-notch general. “Jamie, don’t be like that,” she pleaded, her voice husky and contrite.

“Return to your husband, madam. He’s watching us from across the room. Perhaps he can find some use for you. I assure you I have none.” His voice was loud and clear and carried to all corners of the room.

Lady Caroline gasped, outraged. “You dare to refuse me?” she hissed. “You think yourself better than me? You, who were scorned by your own father and now by the king? You’re nothing but a penniless rogue. I’ll arrange it so you’ll not be received anywhere! You won’t even be able to play cards. And when you’ve lost what little you have left and come prettily begging my forgiveness, I will spit in your face!”

“Pray wait until then and avoid doing so now, madam,” Jamie said with a grimace of distaste as he wiped her spittle from his cheek.

“Careful man, watch your back and guard your vitals. ‘Hell hath no fury,’” a drunken Buckingham chortled, enjoying the entertainment and looking around for a servant. “Where is the wine? Bring us more wine!”

Caro was a vindictive bitch. It was a mistake to have made her an enemy, but one it was too late and too onerous to rectify. His luck having deserted him, Jamie retreated to one of Buckingham’s numerous guest chambers, throwing himself down and falling instantly asleep.

He woke to the sound of a piercing scream.

“Assault! Assault! I’ve been assaulted!”

Lady Caroline was lying in bed beside him, her nightgown torn, her hair a mess, one breast artfully exposed. She took a moment and took a breath and eyed him with a malicious sneer, before wailing again.

“Oh good Christ!” Jamie swore.

The door burst open as Lady Caroline’s porcine husband, jowls quivering in fury, rushed to the rescue surrounded by a bemused Buckingham and a motley assortment of lords and ladies.

“Rogue! Beast! Swine! How dare you assault my wife! I demand satisfaction, sir!”

“From me, sir? That’s never been one of my vices. Surely you should ask it of your wife, or perhaps my lord Buckingham might assist you.”

“Here now, Sinclair! I’ll manage my own assignations if you please,” Buckingham protested with a grin.

“How dare you, Sirrah!” Lord Ware blustered, shaking with what might have been anger or fear. “I’ve issued you a challenge! Are you a coward as well as a rapist?”

Jamie was sorely tempted to kill the man, if not for gross stupidity, then to put him out of his misery. It was pathetic. He was more afraid of losing face and being laughed at than certain death. Jamie had often reflected that Charles’s and James’s edicts against dueling had no effect for precisely that reason. If the British nobility were frightened of death, they wouldn’t duel. What terrified them was being humiliated. Rather than threaten the tower, exile, or execution for dueling, the king would do better to threaten a day in the stocks. The indignity of being put on such shameful display would deal a deathblow to the practice of dueling overnight.

In any case, he had little taste for murder. He leaned on his elbow and turned to Lady Ware, who trembled and sobbed beside him. “Madam, you aren’t worth dueling over, let alone killing a man. I beg you be gone. I’m fatigued and your wailing is disturbing my rest.”

There were gasps and titters from the crowd gathered at the door.

“You’re a coward, sir. A base, ignoble worm.” Unable to believe his luck, Lord Ware was not averse to milking it for all it was worth. “You’ll go down on your knees and apologize, and then I’ll have you horsewhipped, and only then will we call the matter quit.”

“You’re testing my patience. I will kill you should you insist upon it. Leave my room now. Before I change my mind.” Jamie leapt from the bed stark naked, causing a shriek from Lady Ware and a moan and several worried steps backward from her husband. Jamie grabbed a now truly frightened Lady Caroline by her shift and hauled her to her feet, then pushed her to the door. “Get… out!” He slammed the door in their faces, barred it with a chair, and climbed back into bed, wondering how he’d made such a mess of things. Desertion, disloyalty, now cowardice and rape—in the past year he’d been publicly accused of everything but cheating at cards.

* * *

Over the next several days, the story spread through London of Lord Carlyle’s brazen attack upon a sleeping Lady Ware, and his cowardly retreat when challenged by her husband. It was met for the most part by amused disbelief. Tales of the lady’s voracious appetite and her avid pursuit of the handsome but impoverished earl cast doubt on the first accusation, while Jamie’s notoriety as a duelist and Lord Ware’s reputation for bluster over action put the lie to the second, particularly as my lord Buckingham continued to welcome the earl into his home. But the lady was angry and vindictive, and the whispers wouldn’t stop.

“I don’t understand you at all, milord,” a worried Sullivan pressed Jamie. “You have such skill with women. Why would you choose to make an enemy of this one? She can only make trouble you surely don’t need. Why not go to her with presents and honeyed words? Apologize. Do you wish her to ruin what’s left of your reputation? It might not be too late to salvage the thing.”

“Will you act as my pimp, then? Shall I send you to her to beg her forgiveness and arrange an assignation?”

Sullivan blinked and blushed scarlet. “I… Is that what she wants, milord? Are you certain?”

“I forget you’re an innocent lamb far from home. I’m quite certain—though now she’ll expect me to grovel as well. You’ll forgive me, I pray, if I chose disgrace and genteel poverty over Lady Ware’s jeweled leash.”

“Of course, milord. No! I meant to say, I’m sure things will improve.”

But they didn’t, they only got worse. Charges of cowardice and assault leveled by a woman known for accommodating everyone from the linkboy to the royal brothers, while highly titillating gossip, was not enough to bar a fellow from the homes of those unsavory sorts who enjoyed gaming, drinking, and other forms of vice, so Lady Ware spread the rumor that Jamie Sinclair, Lord Carlyle and Earl of Carrick, cheated at cards.

The stories circulated slowly, rumor and innuendo piled upon truth and half-truth. “Did you hear? His father disowned him and left him no funds. He’s desperate for money, and in disgrace with the king… he’s a cheat… a cheat.” There were many who attested that he won far more often than an honest man should, and some who claimed Lady Ware had caught him at it herself. It was why he’d attacked her, coming to her room to threaten and intimidate. It was simply too much to ignore.

It didn’t take long. Within a week he was refused entry almost everywhere. Those who’d made arrangements to breed with his stud sent word they’d changed their minds. He was no longer welcome at the card tables of even the meanest homes or establishments. Unable to play, except with those who were as skilled and ruthless as he was, he sold paintings and furniture, draperies, tapestries, and silverware, trying to stave off selling his broodmares and stallion. Only those who circled the fringes—the disgraced, the unscrupulous, the untrustworthy, and, of course, Buckingham and his coterie of malcontents and rascals—had any welcome for him at all.

Jamie eyed Buckingham now. Aging, ill, and waning in influence, he was still charismatic, sitting at the table telling another ribald story. He’d brought a handsome new pet Jamie didn’t recognize, as well as Sidney, Lauderdale, Sir Albert Scopes, and Musgrave, who’d been in perpetual disgrace since reputedly seducing James’s second daughter Anne. Several buxom actresses and an orange girl from the king’s theatre, all in various states of disarray, had joined them as well. Jamie had one ensconced on his lap, eating grapes and rubbing against him like a cat. Booted feet upon the table, he tried to peer over her mountainous breasts to see his cards, assessing his opponents at the same time.

Pragmatic men whose main loyalties were to themselves and increasing their estates, they’d backed the wrong play, and like Jamie, were in disgrace and generally considered dangerous to know. When King James had come to the throne, they’d scrambled to retain their influence. Hoping to prevent a Catholic renaissance that would have threatened their power and resulted in the kind of absolute monarchy the English had come to abhor, they’d backed Monmouth. Not to the extent of being caught naked with their arses and tarses waving in the wind when the stripling would-be king had been tried and executed as a rebel, but enough to be tainted and tarnished, and pushed, at least for now, to the farthest edges of society and the court.

Suspect himself, Jamie knew it did him little good to associate with them, but damned if he wasn’t already tarred with that brush, and a fellow had to have someone to play cards with. He found it deliciously ironic that men he’d spied upon for Charles were now his only friends. He put down his cards and reached for some grapes, inadvertently dropping one down his half-naked thespian’s wide-open bodice. “Your pardon, my dear,” he whispered in her ear. “Shall I fetch it for you?”

She giggled and nodded, purring as his deft fingers began tugging at her ribbons and loosing her stays.

“Why have you yet to desert me, George?” he asked Buckingham curiously as he went about his task. “Such touching constancy is most unlike you.”

“Birds of a feather, my dear. I’m a cheat too, don’t you know, and you’re one of the few amusements I have left.” His sally was greeted by a roar of laughter. “Besides, there’s no better time to play cards with a man than when his luck has deserted him. You need to marry, Jamie. A rich country bride. A little money will sort you out. I have a distant cousin of some sort. Not terribly well bred, a bit of the merchant in her, but beggars can’t be choosers. She’s bad tempered, pox-marked, and ugly as sin, but she’s rich as Croesus and she’d consider herself lucky to have you.”

“I thank you, George, but as I’ve told you several times, I’m already shackled.”

“So you jumped the broomstick with some ignorant Scots savage. You’re not the first randy fellow to be trapped in such a coil. Damned foolish of you not to have taken care of it straightaway, though. Still, it’s not too late. Pay her off, make her disappear, arrange an accident, get on with it. If she can’t be found, who’s to say she’s not dead? Bribe a witness or two and declare yourself a widower. There are ways around these things, my boy, and I promise you, my sweet but ugly cousin and her noisome kin will be glad enough to call her countess they’ll not be asking any questions.”

“The priest who married me might.”

“Bah! He might also eat a piece of bad fish and die. Outside of the palace, being a Catholic’s not good for one’s health. It’s not left you in the pink, now has it? Come and visit me at my country estate. At least take a look at the girl.”

“You truly are a cold-blooded creature, aren’t you, George?”

“As I said, Sinclair, birds of a feather.”

Jamie shrugged, disinterestedly retrieving the grape, sliding it slowly up the girl’s midriff and popping it into her mouth, looking up quizzically as Sullivan stepped determinedly into the room.

“Yes, Sullivan? What is it? Spit it out.” The man was clearly agitated about something.

“It seems… ah… er… there’s a lady… here to see you, milord.”

“Eh? What lady? Blast it, man! Tell her to decamp! Tell her I’m not at home. Better yet, tell her I’m busy with liquor, strumpets, and cards, and have no wish to be disturbed.”

“Odds fish, Sinclair! Surely you’re not so badly burnt you’ve forgotten a pretty bird can be entertaining. You there, fellow! Bring her in.”

Sullivan regarded Buckingham with distaste and turned to Jamie.

“Don’t turn your back on me, man! Your servants are impertinent, Sinclair!”

“Aye George, I’ve often remarked on it, but I don’t pay them well enough to object. You heard me, Sullivan. Send the jade on her way.”

“I do not feel that would be appropriate, milord, as the lady appears to be your—”

The door swung open and a tall, handsome, tawny-haired Amazon, richly gowned and jeweled, stepped into the room.

“Good evening, English.”

“Good Lord! Speak of the devil! I seem to have conjured the girl herself! Good evening, Catherine. Gentlemen… please… allow me to introduce my wife.”