In Debt To The Earl

‘What? And stop in at St Clement Danes on your way back up the Strand to pray for a miracle?’ James asked.

Nick flushed. ‘No. I was going to come to you and...and ask for advice. But I didn’t find Hensleigh and I ran into my attackers on the way back.’

‘My advice would have been to stay out of gaming hells in the first place,’ James said. ‘However, that’s done. Why the hell didn’t you stop when the play got too deep?’ A question for the ages, that one.

He watched as Nick swallowed. ‘I... I thought I could win it all back. You...you see, I did win at first. Quite a lot. And then—’

‘And then you lost a bit. Not much, but a bit,’ James said. It was a familiar story.

‘Yes,’ Nick said. ‘And I won it back quite quickly, but then—’

‘Then you really started losing,’ James finished for him. ‘Haven’t you played enough salmon in your time to know when you’re being played?’

‘Apparently not.’ Nick fiddled with the bedclothes. ‘What do I do now? I can’t pay this debt and even if I could, I wouldn’t be able to pay for my lodgings, or eat, or—’

‘Precisely,’ James said. ‘Did you enjoy it?’

‘What?’

‘The cards. The play. The excitement.’ He needed to know if he was going to be wasting his money. He’d bail Nick out this first time, regardless, but if the boy was a bred-in-the-bone gamester, he needed to know. As things stood, Nick’s father, William, was his heir, with Nick next in line.

‘Oh.’ Nick grimaced. ‘No. Not much.’

‘Really?’ Was the boy just giving the answer he must know his cousin wanted?

‘Well, winning was fun,’ Nick admitted.

‘Winning is supposed to be fun,’ James said.

‘Yes, but I have more fun, say, steeplechasing,’ Nick said. ‘Even if I don’t win, the ride is fun.’

‘And gaming isn’t?’

Nick shook his head. And winced. ‘No. I felt sick most of the time.’

Relief flooded James. ‘Come down this summer and we’ll race. There’s a colt you can try out for me. He’s not up to my weight.’

‘If the pater ever lets me off the leash again,’ Nick said. ‘I’ll have to write to him. Tell him what I’ve done and—’

‘I’ll sort it out,’ James said. ‘No need to upset your parents.’ William and Susan were good people, but the boy would never hear the last of it and he suspected Nick had learned his lesson. Learned it the hard way, but at least he had learned it. Many never did. Also, William couldn’t afford to settle a debt like this. James could.

‘What? No!’ This time Nick did sit up, swearing at the pain. ‘Curse it, James!’ he went on, when James had helped him back against the pillows. ‘I wanted advice, not your money!’

‘If I didn’t believe that, you wouldn’t be getting either,’ James said. ‘Listen, you aren’t the first youngster to make a fool of himself in London, and—’ he grimaced slightly at the memory ‘—I don’t suppose I was either.’

‘You?’ Nick sounded as though he could as easily have believed St Paul’s had heaved itself up off its foundations and walked away on chicken legs.

James reminded himself that his cousin was nineteen. ‘I wasn’t born staid and respectable,’ he said. Far from it.

Nick flushed to the roots of his hair. ‘I didn’t mean that! It just seems unlikely that you could have done something this stupid.’

He’d been a great deal more stupid. ‘Believe it or not, you don’t have a monopoly on idiocy,’ he said. ‘But that’s beside the point. The point is that someone bailed me out and never let me repay her.’

Nick stared. ‘Her? Who?’

James cleared his throat. ‘What I’m saying is that I’ll sort this out and consider that I’ve done something towards clearing an old obligation.’ He was fairly sure Elizabeth would see it that way.

‘Now I feel like a worm as well as an idiot,’ Nick muttered. ‘I will pay you back, whether you like it or not.’

‘Fine,’ said James, knowing better than to tell the idiot boy that the money didn’t matter. If it mattered to Nick, so much the better. ‘Now, you’d better tell me who and where I have to pay. And while we’re at it you can furnish me with Captain Hensleigh’s direction.’

Nick blew out a breath. ‘I don’t know it, but you’ll find the Cockpit easily enough.’

‘The Cockpit? Is that the hell?’ James asked.

Nick nodded. ‘Yes. It’s in an old cellar. Used to have cocking there, apparently. He’s there most nights.’ He frowned. ‘You don’t need him, though. Fellow called Kilby bought the vowels. One of his bullies let the name slip, but they said to ask at the Maid and Magpie tavern with the money.’

Paget’s return with coffee gave James a moment to think. He sat down on a chair by the bed and sipped. The first thing was to pay off the debt. Before Nick got another beating from this Kilby’s enforcers. After that...

James’s jaw hardened. Then he’d go after Captain Hensleigh.

‘James?’

He looked at Nick. ‘Hmm?’

‘You aren’t planning something stupid, are you?’

‘No.’ The lie came easily. ‘I was thinking that your parents are due in town soon.’ He ignored Nick’s groan. ‘You can go out to my place at Chiswick for a couple of weeks until you look less like something the cat coughed up and that rib has a chance to heal.’

Nick smiled weakly. ‘Nice try. And you don’t think Mama will just pop down for a visit? Chiswick isn’t that far out of town.’

James shrugged. ‘Not if I hint to your father that you took a woman with you.’

Nick sank even further into the pillows and James noted with some amusement that under his bruises the boy was blushing. ‘Damn it, James! They’ll think I’m in the petticoat line!’

James suppressed a grin. ‘Aren’t you? Well, it’s your choice. Do you prefer your mama clucking over you like a hen with one chick?’

Nick groaned. ‘All right, all right. I take your point. Thank you.’

‘You can go in my carriage when the doctor says you can travel,’ James said, sipping his coffee. ‘This is excellent, by the way. Do you think Paget might confide his secret to my cook?’

Chapter One (#ulink_e818bfd8-4f8c-511b-8f6c-2414051e5dce)

Three weeks later

James blinked across the table at his opponent. ‘I make that a thousand pounds, Hensleigh. Time to settle up, don’t you think?’ He spoke with extra precision, as if without care his speech might have slurred. With seeming clumsiness, he knocked his glass of burgundy. ‘Oops,’ he said absently.

Hensleigh smiled broadly as he righted the glass. ‘Oh, come now, Cambourne! I’m no faint heart. The merest reverse! You must give me at least a chance to recoup my losses. Double or nothing on the next hand? Winner take all?’