Lord Ashford's Wager by Marjorie Farrell

can get.”
    “I’ll be back with more money tomorrow, my lord.”
    “And John.” John looked expectantly at his employer. “Thank you for believing in me.”
    * * * *
    The morning went excruciatingly slowly after John left. Here and there in the corners were groups of men with dice or tattered decks of cards. Tony could have joined them, but had no desire to. Whatever fire had fueled his obsession was banked for now, perhaps completely extinguished by the humiliation of asking Claudia for more money and then the realization that in some way, his gambling might have led to her death. Perhaps Jim had seen the rest of the money in the desk drawer. Perhaps someone else had known he had asked her for a loan… There was no logic to his feeling of guilt. He hadn’t loved Claudia the way she deserved to be loved, he had involved her in his financial difficulties, he had disappointed her, and she was dead. Had he not been frequenting St. James Street, maybe none of this would have happened. At any rate, he couldn’t imagine ever wagering on anything again, even for a penny a point on a game of whist.
    He had paid the turnkey for a room, and at last, in early afternoon, he was given a small cubicle off the main quadrangle. It wasn’t much, but it was a hundred times better than living in the middle of a crowd of felons. The pallet was relatively clean and comfortable and there was a small deal table and chair and even a chamberpot. Granted, the pot didn’t look as if it had ever been scrubbed, but it was empty and gave him privacy.
    “Candles and plate cost half a guinea, my lord,” said the turnkey as Tony inspected the three candleholders, which held only stubs. “A lantern is more.”
    Tony handed over the money with an unamused laugh. “You do well for yourself. Does the prison supply anything but bread and gruel?”
    “Not much, my lord, not much,” replied the man with a grin, and left Tony to himself.
    He spent what felt like hours going over the past months since Ned’s death. What could he have done differently? He wasn’t his brother, that was certain. He hadn’t been raised to the title, nor had he the temperament for the responsibilities. It now appeared ludicrous to him, however, that he had thought a few good nights at the tables would resolve all his problems. But at the time, the slow, methodical, painful way Ned had chosen had seemed the ridiculous solution. He had been twisting and turning his signet ring while he sat there remembering, and now he pulled it off and looked at it. “I don’t deserve this, Ned,” he whispered. “You should have lived and I been the one to die in Spain. God got it all wrong, Ned, all wrong. But I swear,” declared Tony, pushing the ring back on his finger, “that I will do better. But, oh, God, I wish you were here to help me.” It seemed to Tony that his brother was very close at that moment, watching, listening, and the sense of his presence and the kaleidoscope of memories that was going through his head broke through, at long last, the barrier he had erected against his grief. He turned his head to the wall, and burying his face in his pillow, wept from a place so deep that he thought he might retch his insides out. He cried for Ned, gone away too early, for his mother and Charlotte, and finally for Claudia, his good friend. And then, at long last, he slept.
     

Chapter 16
     
    He was shaken awake a few hours later by the gatesman. “Wake up, my lord. You have another visitor.”
    “What?” mumbled Tony, sitting up and rubbing his swollen eyes.
    “But you don’t look half ready to see this one, guv. I can send a basin of water and a towel for ten shillings, hif you wish.”
    “Is my valet back?”
    “Oh, no. This time it is a young woman. Or a lady, I should say. She calls herself Lady Joanna Barrand.”
    “Joanna! She shouldn’t be here. Send her away immediately.”
    “I told her as how this was no place for a gentlewoman. But she did bring an