Playing To Win

“You have been so busy getting married and moving about, you have been neglecting me,” he complained as he hugged her and kissed her cheek.

“How is your wretched play coming?” she asked as she sat in a chair, leaving him with Lady Amanda on the sofa.

“Tolerably. It could use a woman’s touch. We are having a bit of trouble with the costumes.”

“I will bring Marie to you. She will soon put things right.”

“Armand tells me you have an interest in the theater.”

Sera did not know quite how to interpret this. She did indeed own half of the Agora—it was an arrangement not even her father knew about—but she did not think Armand would be so indiscreet as to say so.

“We should all take an interest in good theater, ma’am, if we expect there to be any,” Sera countered.

“The world of the theater must be so exciting,” Lady Amanda gushed. “What is your favorite role? You are an actor yourself, are you not, Armand?”

“It’s so difficult to say. I must in my lifetime have played fifty leads.”

“Which one does he do the best?” Lady Amanda appealed to Sera, who had poured herself a cup of tea.

“Without question, the role he plays best of all is that of Armand Travesian,” she said with a twinkle. “The others are pale shadows compared to the force of that character.”

“A compliment?” Travesian asked.

“I’m sure you will twist it into one if it is not,” Sera said blithely.

“You are in rare form today, dear Sera, and, if I may say so, nearly as lovely with that bloom in your cheeks as Lady Amanda.”

Lady Amanda blushed becomingly, and Sera smiled at Travesian. No other man could bring out the best in a woman as he could.

Lady Amanda sobered herself. “I am not so flustered as to forget that you are an actor, sir, and such compliments trip easily from your tongue,” said Lady Amanda with mock dignity.

“Not so, dear ma’am. I am a very constant fellow. Ask this lady, who knows me well.”

“True,” Sera said with a wink. “He has been forever telling me how much he loves me.”

Lady Amanda giggled.

“That is a fatherly-brotherly love, not the mature affection that I feel for—”

Tony entered just then, and Sera hastened to make introductions. Armand did not stay long under Tony’s withering gaze, but Tony’s mother scarcely noticed this. Lady Amanda saw Travesian to the door, then tripped up the stairs, humming to herself.

“Who is that fellow, anyway?”

“A friend of my father’s. I have known him since I was fifteen.”

“That is no excuse for inviting him here.”

“He only paid a morning call. If you have decided to dislike him on two minutes’ acquaintance, I certainly will not invite him to dinner.”

“I didn’t say I disliked him.”

“No, but you showed it. A man with a less generous nature would have been offended.”

“I don’t think a man like Travesian can be offended.”

“I wonder if you may be right,” Sera said, quite unexpectedly. She could feel a fight brewing, and she saw no point in it, for she could see Armand any time she wanted to at the Agora. “Now that I think of it, I have seen him turn the most blatant of insults into a joke. I believe I learned the trick of it from him.”

This called to Tony’s mind Sera’s besting of Madeleine in Brighton, and his own more recent encounter with the woman. His simple greeting had gone beyond what he had intended, and he could now see how someone might have interpreted it as dalliance, just as he might have misinterpreted Sera’s laughter at Travesian’s wit.

“You don’t particularly like him, then?” Tony asked uncertainly.

“I respect him for what he is good at, producing plays. I will not invite him here, if you have no taste for such joviality. Many people see it as forced. But you have to remember, he was an actor once himself. He tends to overplay every scene.”

“If he calls, I suppose there is nothing you can do about that,” Tony conceded.

“It would be rude to deny I am home, and it probably would not work. Besides, your mother likes him, and he makes her laugh. I see little enough of that from her. If Armand wants to entertain her by playing the clown, I think we should let him.”

“How did your father ever come to know him?” asked Tony, by now completely mollified.

“He backed one of his plays—quite successfully, I might add.” Sera toyed with the idea of telling Tony she had done the same, time and again, and had now more than a monetary interest in Travesian’s latest production. But having once calmed Tony, she could not bear to throw him into another fit of annoyance. She liked him too well when he was in a good mood.

She almost put aside completely her plan to make him very angry indeed. All would have come to naught, anyway, if Jeffers had got at Tony before she took Satin out again. As it turned out, Tony went out after dinner, as usual, not saying where. She imagined him meeting Lady Vonne somewhere, dancing with her, even going to bed with her. Such irrational dreams haunted her through the night, long after she had heard Tony come in and go to bed. Where did he go at night, if not to be with Lady Vonne? If it were an innocent pastime, why did he not tell her what it was?

By morning, she was so angry with herself for letting such mistrustful thoughts plague her, she needed to fight something other than shadows. She determined to take Satin out and not worry whether Tony saw her or not. She put on her riding habit and, undeterred by finding Chadwick still absent, commanded Jeffers to saddle Satin for her.

“Perhaps Lord Cairnbrooke will ride with you today,” Jeffers said hopefully.

“No chance. He came in late. I don’t think he will even be up before noon.” Sera looked wistfully at Tony’s bedroom window as she said this and waited for them to bring out the horses. If she wanted noise enough to wake the soundest sleeper, she got it without even asking. Satin whinnied at sight of her and, when Jeffers handed her up, danced around the small courtyard, his metal shoes ringing as they struck the cobbles, to the endangerment of the undergroom, Dillon.

A window was thrown up, and Tony, his head delightfully tousled, squinted down at the scene. “What the devil?” he asked, trying to clear his vision of his docile wife mounted on the most dangerous-looking horse he had ever seen.

“Good morning, Tony,” Sera called.

“Where the devil did that horse come from?” Tony sputtered.

“I just bought him,” Sera said, letting the pawing Satin rear a little. It was enough of a display to make Tony bump his head on the window frame.

Then she gave Satin his head, and they burst into the street, with Jeffers looking hopelessly back at his employer. Tony yelled for Stewart and began to throw on his riding clothes. “Don’t help me! Go tell that groom to saddle my horse. I think my wife has gone mad. I know Jeffers has. Move!”

By the time Tony clattered down the stairs, his horse was saddled and the undergroom was biting his lip at how Lady Cairnbrooke had bested her husband. For his money, she was as game a rider as any woman he had ever seen, and should have been trusted with Tansy in the first place. He passed up breakfast to wait in the stables for the outcome of the morning’s ride.

* * *

Sera kept Satin to a canter through the streets, for safety’s sake, but let him have a good long gallop through Saint James’s Park. Two gentlemen out exercising their mounts thought they were witnessing a runaway, and actually started in pursuit of her, since she had such a lead on her groom. But as she came to the line of trees, Sera pulled Satin down to a canter and kept him circling while she waited for Jeffers. The men did not know what to do with themselves then, but could not resist the temptation of meeting such a dashing beauty.

“I don’t believe we have met—William Falcrest,” the older man said to Sera, tipping his hat.

“And I’m Clive Falcrest. Isn’t that Kurtland’s horse?”