Chapter Eleven

S even men sat down at the table to play for the right to marry "Lady Boudicca." That was what they all called her. Of them all, Ben was the only one who knew she was Dorcas Anderson. He was the only one who had become her friend, had met her son, had courted her, had asked her to marry him—albeit too late to avoid this game. He had to win.

They tossed a couple of dice to decide who would be the first dealer, and Amberley won. Each of them had a stack of tokens before them, and each token had been purchased from the Lyon's Den cashier for five pounds apiece.

The rules set by the Lyon's Den called for them to put down their wager before they looked at the two cards from the first deal. Then they could choose to forfeit the game, to stand—that is, stay with the cards they had—or to ask for another card. If they forfeited, they lost the tokens they had put down. If they asked for another card, they paid another sum and then had the same choice again. If they chose to stand, they needed to put in more tokens each time another player raised the stakes, but no longer took another card.

The aim of the game was to get as close to a score of twenty-one as possible, with each number card having the value shown, the ace and jack each counting as eleven, and the queen and king as ten.

In the first deal, Ben put in his first token and was dealt a nine and an eight. Seventeen. The dealer decided to double the wager for the next deal. Ben put down two counters and declared his intention to stand.

The hand—and the money on the table—went to one of the other players.

The game continued. With each hand, the dealership passed to the left. Ben, who had an excellent memory for cards, won some hands and lost others. The pile of tokens in front of him grew slowly, but so did that in front of Amberley and one of the other men.

Twice, Ben drew an ace and one of the court cards in the first deal. First, a queen gave him twenty-one, and then a jack, so he overshot the target and lost.

Caution was a good watchword for the game, and those without it were losing their stack of tokens, some rapidly.

Ben was aware on some level of the fifty or so men who gathered around to comment and to wager on the game, and of the women on the next floor who stood on a balcony overlooking the main gaming floor, doing the same as the men.

He could not spare any thoughts for them. They did not exist in the same world as he. Only his competitors and the cards were real. And his burning need to win the right to wed Dorcas. There. One man had bet his last two tokens, had lost and was out. Only five more competitors to beat.

Deal followed deal, hand after hand. His turn to deal came around and passed on, then came again. And again.

Another man dropped out, his last tokens gone. Four more competitors to go, and two of them had only a handful of tokens. The game continued.

Ben made twenty-one again. It was a good sign, he thought. Then in a single hand, the next two players passed in their last tokens and then lost the hand. For a moment, he relaxed enough to hear the cheers and jeers from those who had their money on one of the three who remained. Amberley was one of them. Ben did not know the other.

One of the Lyon's Den attendants collected the cards and replaced the pack they had been using. It was Ben's turn to deal. When he checked his cards, he had a nine and a one. Ten. At best, he would pick up an eleven, but he could win with any other high-score card. He doubled the bet for the next deal.

All three of them took one more card and then stood. By now, they were playing for three tokens a first deal, so there were twenty-seven tokens on the table. One hundred and thirty-five pounds. Ben turned over his three cards. A seven, a one, and a seven. Fifteen.

Amberley had sixteen. The other man, eighteen. The cards passed left for Amberley to deal with.

It is just one game, and you have more than two hundred tokens . Yes, but so did Amberley and the other man. And two of those remaining had to lose what was in front of them before one could walk away with all the money and, more importantly, the bride.

Then Amberley beckoned to the attending footman and had a quietly murmured word with him. The man brought him a large silver bowl, and he used his forearm to sweep the tokens in front of him into the bowl. "I am out," he said. "Thank you, gentlemen, for an excellent game. All the best to you both."

He walked off toward the barred window at the back of the den, behind which the cashier sat.

"Shall we raise the wager?" asked Ben of the remaining competitor.

"Ten tokens for the first deal," the man said, without hesitation.

At worst, Ben could be out in four games. Only if he lost all four games in a row, if each game went through three deals, and if the wager doubled with each deal. And he had not lost four games in a row since his first days of learning the game. "Done," he agreed.

He regretted it when fifty of his tokens ended up in the other man's pile. But he won them back and more in the next two games.

After that, honors shifted back and forth for game after game, but gradually, inexorably, Ben chipped away at the other man's pile of tokens. Until finally, the man, whose turn it was to deal, put the pack, squared off and neat, into the middle of the table, and swept his remaining thirty tokens into his hand.

"I am back to where I started, Lord Somerford. Congratulations, sir. On your win, and on your bride."

Ben had won! He stood up to receive congratulations and back slaps from onlookers and those competitors who had joined them. It didn't feel real yet. Had he really just competed in a game of cards to win a bride? And won? In all the throng of faces, there was only one he wanted to see. He looked up to the ladies' balcony where more faces clustered. Ladies cheered and waved.

And there! He saw her. Off to one side, with her big brown eyes fixed on his. The noise faded around him and he saw no one else. There was only Dorcas. His bride. His love.

Dorcas had been permitted a few minutes with Ben after his win, and then Mrs. Dove-Lyon had interrupted to point out they were to be married in the morning and would therefore need to get a good night's sleep.

Dorcas had not gone to bed straightaway. She was too excited. Too worried about Kempbury's reaction. Too happy that Ben had won the game. Instead, she had lit all the lamps and candles the room provided and finished embroidering the tablecloth. In the end, she had to leave it almost finished, for her eyes were too heavy to stay open.

Maudie woke her in the morning to announce she would soon have company. "The upstairs ladies and all the other women who work here want to help you get ready, Mrs. Anderson, if that is acceptable to you, ma'am. And I am to look after Master Stephen and help him get dressed."

Dorcas assented and Maudie led Stephen off to the kitchen for his breakfast.

Before long, the third-floor ladies arrived, carrying a bathtub, and followed by a procession of maids and women attendants with buckets of hot water. They set up a dressing screen for her modesty, though Mrs. Dove-Lyon's own dresser insisted on coming behind it to dry Dorcas's hair.

She had been told not to concern herself about what she would wear. After she had dried herself, the ladies presented her with a complete set of undergarments, including an unutterably luxurious pair of stockings made of silk which made her feel like a queen.

She sat on a tuffet in front of the fire, with her hair spread to dry over the red silk gown they had also produced and finished the embroidery of the tablecloth. The others stood around chatting about weddings they had been to, with some bawdy comments that made her blush, even though she was a widow twice over. When the tablecloth was done, one of the ladies put it in the bag for her, and they promised to see that it was delivered.

After that, someone brought her a cup of hot chocolate, which was a luxury she was sure she would never take for granted. Once her hair was dry, Scarlett put it up in an elegant roll at the back, with curls teased out to frame her face, and then it was time for her to see her gown for the first time.

The third-floor ladies had once again cannibalized gowns of their own to create an afternoon dress of cream lace over a pale green chintz, with both bodice and hem lavishly decorated with mother-of-pearl spangles and tiny pink ribbon roses with painted green leaves. She couldn't help but compare it to her previous wedding dresses: the first a favorite but worn gown from her own limited wardrobe as the daughter of a vicar, the second a borrowed and slightly torn gown suitable for a battlefield wedding. This dress was not new, exactly, but it was perfectly made, fit her exactly, and was absolutely beautiful without any blemish.

They had furnished her with a woolen spencer jacket in the same green as the leaves, trimmed with pink ribbon piped around the hem, cuffs, and collar. The ensemble included a straw bonnet with ribbons of pink and green and a bunch of pink silk roses.

They had had a moment's panic over shoes and gloves, for Dorcas's feet and hands were smaller than any of theirs, and all the women who had gathered to dress her, both the third-floor ladies and the servants, rejected as inadequate her own worn and much-mended boots—still bearing scars from her time following the army—and the gloves she had crocheted herself and that were discolored from much wearing.

The alarmed discussion that ensued was interrupted by a knock on the door. It was Mrs. Dove-Lyon. "You look lovely, Mrs. Anderson," she said. And then she turned to the women clustered around her, her unlikely but well-appreciated group of attendants. "If I may borrow Mrs. Anderson for a moment, ladies, she has a visitor. Mrs. Anderson, Kempbury is here to see you. He swears he means you no harm, and he knows you are to wed the Earl of Somerford this morning, so I believe you can trust him not to do anything stupid. I think you should hear him out."

Dorcas swallowed the panic that tried to deluge her. "Tell Maudie to keep Stephen downstairs until I send for him," she said. "And ask one of your wolves to keep him safe for me." It was a command, not a request.

Mrs. Dove-Lyon treated it as Dorcas intended. "Of course. It shall be done."

She showed Dorcas into a small sitting room just outside the door of her private apartment. Before she stepped through the door, she took a deep breath. There was no reason to feel panic. Not anymore. She was no longer alone. She had the protection of Mrs. Dove-Lyon and her wolves, all the women from the third floor, and the men who had danced with her and dubbed her "Lady Boudicca", besides. And above all, she had Ben. No one could, or would, hurt her or Stephen again. Courage flooded her just as panic had submerged her only moments before. She straightened her shoulders and steeled her spine as she entered the room. Kempbury stood as she entered. "Thank you for seeing me," he said, with a polite bow.

"You have five minutes, Your Grace," she told him, coldly, imperiously. "I have an important engagement today."

"Your wedding to the Earl of Somerford," he acknowledged.

She inclined her head in agreement.

"Mrs. Anderson, you do not have to marry if you do not wish to." The words left him in a burst.

She opened her mouth to reply, but he held up a hand. "Please, of your kindness, hear me out. I know you were pushed into your second marriage because my family failed you. I fear that my rash words about a warrant are precipitating this third marriage." He sighed. "I intended a warrant to rescue you. You were being held in a gambling den and brothel. I was not being permitted to see you. Somerford tells me I was being an idiot."

Ben had been to see Kempbury again?

The man appeared to recognize her fears. "I went to see him this morning. I mean you no harm, Mrs. Anderson. Nor young Master Seward, my nephew. I am reliably informed you are a wonderful mother, and I deeply regret ever believing anything my half-brother and stepmother said against you. I do not intend to challenge your guardianship and custody of your son."

Dorcas sat down on the nearby settee, her relief turning her knees to jelly.

"I would not normally take Augustus's word that the winter was cold, and the sun rose in the east," the duke added. "I can only offer my most profound apologies for ignoring you in the past. It is no wonder you did not trust my intentions."

This was all true. If the duke expected a polite demur from Dorcas, he could think again. Still, some comment was called for. "Thank you."

Kempbury waited for a moment and then said, "So you do not need to marry Somerford unless you wish to do so."

"I wish to do so," Dorcas said, and her heart echoed the sentiment. "It is true that I asked Mrs. Dove-Lyon to find me a husband because I was afraid of what you might do and of what else Lord Augustus might think to do. It was only after I had agreed that I discovered Lord Somerford loves me, and since I love him, I was very grateful he won last night's game. I am very grateful. I know him from our army days. He was a superb officer—one who commanded not just the obedience of his men but their respect. Even their love. He is a good man, an honorable man, and I know he will be a wonderful father to my son who will love Ben as well as I love him." She lifted her chin, feeling proud of the man she had chosen to marry. "He is waiting for me now. If you will excuse me?"

Dorcas thought about how she was especially grateful to Mrs. Dove-Lyon. She had promised to never tell anyone that she had given her last token to the Widow of Whitehall in return for a guarantee that Ben would win.

The duke sighed. "Love. Lord Somerford said the same. He is a very fortunate man then, Mrs. Anderson. I envy him and wish you both the very best. May I be permitted to stay in touch? I would like to know my nephew."

Could this change of attitude be trusted? Dorcas was cautious, but the man seemed sincere. In any case, what could he do once she was married to Ben? "It would be good for Stephen to have some family," she commented. And that was certainly true but put her in mind of something she wished to know. "Do you know why Lord Augustus tried to have me arrested?" she asked.

"I think I can guess," Kempbury said. "Your son is next in line to the dukedom, Mrs. Anderson. Augustus knew I had begun to make inquiries about the lady my brother Vespasian married, and that I had begun to suspect that he and his mother lied to me."

Dorcas could read between the lines. "He thought to remove both me, as proof positive of his perfidy, and my son as a rival. Prisons are notoriously hard on women and children."

The duke bowed. "Indeed. You need have no further concerns about Augustus, Mrs. Anderson. He is on his way to Australia as we speak. I have promised him an allowance as long as he never again attempts to return to the United Kingdom. It will be enough to live on if he neither gambles nor drinks."

Augustus will not be able to give up either. He is in for a miserable time, then. Good.

A knock on the door was preceded by Mrs. Dove-Lyon's entry. "Mrs. Anderson, you need to finish preparing to leave for the church."

Impulsively, Dorcas turned to Kempbury. "Your Grace, would you, as representative of my son's family, like to attend my wedding?"

Kempbury smiled, and it changed his face from austere to stunningly handsome. "It would be my pleasure, ma'am. Saint Paul's Covent Garden, I believe? I shall be waiting."

By the time Dorcas had returned to her room, someone must have told Mrs. Dove-Lyon about the shoe dilemma, for she appeared with a pair of slippers and gloves left behind by a delicate and small lady from an Asian country who'd dubbed herself as the Abacus Woman; she had, Dorcas had been told with awe, left to marry a wealthy earl's son. Both were a little tight, but much better quality than anything Dorcas had. Better still, the slippers were green, and the gloves, cream.

When Dorcas saw her reflection in the mirror two of the women had held for her, she was stunned. She had been transformed into a lady—an attractive lady, at that. She hoped Ben would think so.

Maudie brought Stephen in, neatly dressed in his best church clothes. "You look pretty, Mama," Stephen said.

One of the two gentlemen in her life was pleased. "Thank you, Stephen. You look smart yourself."

He was neatly dressed in his best jacket and knickerbockers. His face had been scrubbed until it was pink and glowing, and his hair had been combed down slick with only a few stray hairs poking up from his cowlick. His tie had come undone, but he still appeared to be as close to his status as the nephew of a duke as Dorcas had ever managed to make him. Even if his Sunday garments had been made from fabric scraps she'd purchased from a modiste who occasionally employed her for particularly complex embroidery projects.

He stretched out his foot and admired his shoes. "I have buckles," he told her.

So, he did! "They are very handsome, Stephen," she told him, casting a glance at Mrs. Dove-Lyon, who shook her head.

Dorcas peered at the shoes and realized they were the ones she had bought from a barrow a month ago. They had lacked a fastening, and she had added ribbons.

"Mr. Titan fixed them for him," said Maudie.

"Very handsome of him," said Stephen, and giggled.

He went off happily with Maudie to walk the short distance to the church with Titan, and Dorcas waited with Mrs. Dove-Lyon for the carriage. "Thank you for giving me Ben as my husband," Dorcas said.

The lady was veiled as usual, so her expression could not be seen. However, amusement colored her reply. "Who is to say I did anything, Mrs. Anderson?"

"Your sense of honor," Dorcas retorted, keeping her voice low so even Mrs. Dove-Lyon's faithful servants, all of whom would have died for their employer, did not hear her. "You accepted my final token." Besides, on her way down to fetch her dinner tray last night, she had seen a man leaving Mrs. Dove-Lyon's office, and had heard him say, "Leave it with me."

He had been the final person in the last hand with which Ben won the game, and her.

"The carriage is here," said Mrs. Dove-Lyon.

Now that the wedding was nearly upon her, Dorcas was a riot of nerves, and full of questions about her future—about their future—that she had not had the opportunity to ask.

She had had a mere five minutes with Ben after the game ended last night and had not seen him at all today. She would be with him in a few minutes, for the carriage did not have far to go. What would he think of her gown and pelisse? She had never worn anything half so lovely.

The carriage was slowing. They had arrived! A footman assisted Mrs. Dove-Lyon to alight, then Dorcas. But it was not the footman who offered her a hand to help her down.

Dorcas looked up into the eyes of the Duke of Kempbury.

"Your Grace," Mrs. Dove-Lyon said indignantly. "Unhand Mrs. Anderson!"

"I intend no harm to Mrs. Anderson," said the duke, his tone aristocratic and impatient.

Stephen, who was waiting there with Maudie, reacted to the tone, calling out, with an edge of panic in his voice. "Mama!"

She had to go to her child. Dorcas took a deep breath and stepped down, using the duke's hand for balance. "Thank you, Your Grace. You can let me go now."

He held on. "Mrs. Anderson, just one more word."

"Mama!"

Maudie was holding Stephen back and he was struggling to get to her. "You have frightened my son, Your Grace. Release me so I can go to him."

The glance he cast at Stephen was flustered, and he dropped her hand, but he followed her as she hurried to Stephen and crouched to speak with him. "Mama is well, Stephen. We are going into the church now. Lord Somerford will be there. You like Lord Somerford, do you not?"

Stephen nodded. "You are going to marry him, and he will be my new papa," he announced. "Maudie told me." He glared at the duke with an expression not unlike one Ves often used when put out or disdainful. Served the man right, she supposed, for at this moment there could be no doubt as to the little boy's parentage. "I like Lord Somerford."

The duke cleared his throat. "I am glad for you, Mrs. Anderson. I wondered if I might… That is, you said I was a representative of your husband's family, and I thought…"

Dorcas guessed that the Duke of Kempbury was seldom at a loss for words and was not enjoying the experience. "What did you think, Your Grace?"

"If you do not have anyone to give you away… That is… If you would like… I have not treated you well, and I have no right to demand, but…" He trailed off with what Dorcas was certain was unaccustomed hesitancy.

She picked Stephen up while she considered the duke's request. "As if I was Ves's property. Which is how the law regards it, I suppose. If Noah had not been raised in an orphanage, I suppose his family might also consider it their responsibility to hand me over to my next keeper."

The duke winced but was wise enough not to answer.

"Yes," she decided. "Yes, Your Grace. You may give me away. Come along, then." And she led a most unlikely procession up the steps of the church. Kempbury had offered his arm to Mrs. Dove-Lyon, and the wolves gathered Maudie up in their midst and followed behind.

Once she stepped into the church, she forgot about them all, for Ben was there, smiling at her.