Where Passion Leads (Berkeley-Faulkner #1)(7)

“White dresses, blond curls, hopeful girls with damp palms, scowling dowagers, simpering mamas. No, nothing caught my interest.”

“Really,” Colin said, addressing the earl, “one can hardly blame him.”

“Someone can,” Rand replied lazily, detaching himself from the scene and pausing at the doorway. “I have some affairs to take care of in London before I leave—”

“Why don’t you begin to establish some court connections while you’re there?” the earl suggested moodily.

“I’ll leave Colin to court the prince. He has a far greater aptitude for humoring the royal inanities than I.”

“Saint Lucifer!” Colin sputtered, brandy spraying over the paper. “Stones in the cotton?”

“Au revoir,” Rand said softly, grinning at his brother’s discomfiture before he disappeared from sight.

“Your brother has quicksilver in his veins,” the earl observed when he was gone. “No blood. No sense of family, no morals.”

“He has morals,” Colin corrected, lowering his quizzing glass and removing his attention from the empty doorway. His smile became tinged with saccharin, as if a sweet memory had suddenly turned sour. “His behavior is consistent with his own set of values, although from where he derived them I have no idea.”

“I can enlighten you. He behaves exactly like the bucks he runs with. A spoiled lot of carousers.” “But they do have their own particular set of ethics,” Colin said consideringly. “Ones I don’t agree with, to be sure. Their object is to ‘carouse,’ as you put it, whereas mine is to achieve perfection in the subtle arts of life, in everything from manners to tying a cravat—”

“In short, you care about the insignificant and scorn what is meaningful, while Rand and his crowd make it a point to scorn everything in general.” The earl harrumphed in displeasure before continuing. “Enjoy it while you may. When I go you won’t be able to afford such dandified luxuries on the allowance Rand will make for you.”

Colin lifted his eyebrows, peering down at his grandsire haughtily. “I have no doubt Rand will be generous.” “You will have to depend on that, won’t you?” the earl remarked acidly, and wiped the slack corners of his mouth with a handkerchief.

“It is an ironic situation,” Colin mused. “Considering that Rand cares not a whit for money—”

“And you worship it.”

“And you expect,” Colin said, “that when you pass on, your departed son’s offspring will provide a fine show, scrabbling for your leavings as you watch from above”—he paused delicately—”or below. I pity us all.” He pretended a yawn and left the room, searching in his sleeve for a snuffbox.

As soon as Rand arrived in London, he supped with his companions at the club, making last-minute plans to celebrate his journey to France. He relaxed in their company as he did at no other time, feeling free from constraints and cares, appearing almost boyish as he participated in the general merriment of the club. Every one of the aristocratic members of White’s, originally White’s Coffeehouse, were devoted to witticisms and gambling. The Earl of Chesterfield once wrote to his son that a member of a gaming club should be a cheat or he would soon be a beggar. Here at White’s the statement was often proved to be prophetic.

Rand enjoyed plying his luck at the tables, yet there was a fine edge to his character that guarded him from making such a pursuit an ingrained habit. It was not the loss of money that made him cautious, but rather the prospect of losing his control, and so he played faro and hazard with the attitude of a man who mocked himself. What he forbore to mention to the rest of the Berkeleys was that Colin had no such self-restraint and that his gambling could someday become something dangerous. Even though Colin had always enjoyed stupendous luck, it could someday vanish with the flick of a card. Huge losses at the tables caused many a tragic end for those who frequented the most popular clubs. Families were bankrupted, lives were ruined and ended, all amid intoxication, excitement, and merriment. “White’s,” Rand had quipped once, “will be the undoing of the English nobility.” His comment was still passed between the members of the club with delight.

On this particular night there was a mild commotion inside the club, stemming from the collapse of a man just outside the door. They carried him in and laid him out on a mahogany-framed couch, wagers flying thick and furious.

“Fifty guineas he dies.” “A hundred he lives.”

“A hundred he’s only drunk.”

“Don’t call a physician—that will affect the odds!” Rand shook his head in disgust and suggested laconically that more amusement was to be had in a disreputable tavern. Half-drunk already, a large group of club members offered to accompany him to the Rummer, once frequented by the recently self-exiled Beau Brummell, and they took off into the streets of London. “I say, have you heard that your brother’s luck is changing?” George Selwyn the Second remarked lei surely as they established a common pace.

Rand slid him a curious glance. “No, I hadn’t,” he replied with an offhandedness that contrasted greatly with the sudden narrowing of his eyes.

“He owes me close to a hundred pounds. Of course, I am not mentioning this as a point of concern, for it’s obvious that the Berkeleys can make good on their debts. I am—”