Read Chapter 10: A Gamble at White's

The hackney lurched to a stop in the rain-slicked darkness of St. James’s Street, and Eleanor pressed her face to the cold glass. White’s glowed like a jewel box ahead of her, its famous bay window filled with the silhouettes of powdered wigs and dark coats. Men. Only men.

She glanced down at her borrowed costume—a plain brown coat several sizes too large, breeches that chafed against her thighs, and a slouch hat pulled low over her brow. The effect was hardly convincing up close. The cravat she’d tied with trembling fingers was crooked, and her hands were too small, too smooth, too *female*.

But close was not what she needed.

“Wait here,” she whispered to the driver, pressing an extra coin into his palm. “If I am not back within the hour, return to Lady Whitmore’s and tell her I am detained.”

The driver’s eyes narrowed, but the coin had done its work. He nodded once.

Eleanor slipped from the carriage and crossed the pavement, heart hammering against her ribs. The doorman at White’s regarded her with the flat, assessing stare of a man who had turned away hopefuls and fortune-seekers for decades.

“Lost, boy?” His voice was a low rumble.

Eleanor swallowed, pitching her voice lower. “I’m with”—she scrambled for a plausible name, a face she’d seen at the ball—“Mr. Grantham’s party. He asked me to fetch his betting book.”

The doorman’s brows knitted. “Grantham? You mean old Grantham?”

“Yes, sir. His grandson. From Lincolnshire.”

A flicker of doubt crossed the man’s face, but the name had been a gamble—and it seemed to pay off. Several older members were known to drag young relations along as shadows, if only to carry their coats and wagers.

“He’s in the card room,” the doorman said, stepping aside. “Don’t loiter in the halls.”

Eleanor bobbed a clumsy bow and slipped inside.

The air hit her like a wall—tobacco smoke, brandy, and the sharp musk of leather and sweat. Candles blazed in sconces along the walls, and the murmur of low voices punctuated by laughter and the clink of glasses filled the space. She kept her hat low, her shoulders hunched, and moved with the quick, unobtrusive step of a servant with an errand.

The betting book was her target. She had heard of it—a leather-bound volume where members wagered on everything from elections to which of them would die first. Vane was not a gambler by reputation; that was one of the few things she’d managed to learn without his knowing. A man who calculated his estate ledgers to the farthing. So why would he be here tonight?

She found the book room off the main hall. It was quieter here, the walls lined with other ledgers and registers, the betting book itself resting open on a central table.

Eleanor slid into the room on silent feet, thanked whatever luck was watching that no one else was present, and turned the pages.

The entries were scrawled in various hands—some elegant, some barely legible. Wagers on horses, on boxing matches, on the outcome of Parliamentary votes. Names she recognized from the scandal sheets and a few she’d met at the ball.

Then she saw it.

*Viscount Vane wagers five thousand guineas that Eclipse’s Heart wins the Newmarket summer sprint.*

Five thousand guineas.

Eleanor’s breath caught in her throat. Five thousand guineas was not a gentleman’s idle flutter. It was more than a year’s income for most estates. It was the sort of wager made by a desperate man with money he could not afford to lose—or a man who knew something no one else did.

She traced the entry with her finger, her mind racing. Vane had claimed the Ashworth debt weighed on him, but five thousand guineas was a sum that suggested either vast confidence or recklessness. Neither fit the careful, calculating man she had met across the negotiation table.

Unless he had other reasons.

“You there.”

Eleanor snapped the book shut and turned. A young man in a vivid blue coat stood in the doorway, a glass of claret in his hand. He was handsome in the way of men who knew it, with a lazy smile that suggested he found the world endlessly amusing.

“You’re not a member,” he said. “What are you doing with the betting book?”

Eleanor’s mind scrambled. “Mr. Grantham’s party. He sent me for his entry.”

“Grantham?” The young man’s smile sharpened knowingly. “I know Grantham. He wagered on the election, not the horses. What did you really come for?”

Her heart dropped. She needed to leave. She bowed again, backing toward the door. “My mistake, sir. I’ll see myself out.”

But the young man moved, blocking her path with an ease that was almost theatrical. “Not so fast. Either you’re a pickpocket, which is bold, or you’re something far more interesting.” He tilted his head, studying her face under the slouch hat. “You know, your collar is crooked, and your hands are too clean for a clerk. And you smell like lavender water.”

Eleanor’s cheeks burned. She had used too much of Lady Whitmore’s perfume to mask the smell of the hackney.

“Let me pass,” she said, letting her natural voice slip through. It was a gamble, but worse had already been risked.

The young man’s eyes widened, then lit with wicked delight. “A woman. At White’s. Oh, this is rich. This is the finest thing I’ve seen all season.” He stepped back but kept his body between her and the door. “Tell me who you are, and perhaps I’ll let you leave before one of the old goats notices something’s amiss.”

Before Eleanor could answer, footsteps sounded in the hall beyond. Heavy, measured, familiar.

“Lord Alistair,” came a dry voice from the doorway. “I wonder if you’ve seen the book. I left a wager in it I wish to amend.”

Vane.

He stood in the doorway, tall and lean in his black evening coat, his dark eyes moving from the young man—Alistair, apparently—to the figure cowering near the table. His gaze caught on Eleanor’s slouch hat, on the hand she had pressed against the betting book, and his expression shifted by degrees from polite inquiry to sharp, dangerous recognition.

“Leave us,” Vane said to Alistair. It was not a request.

Alistair hesitated, clearly savoring the scene. But the edge in Vane’s voice brooked no argument. He slipped past the viscount with a lingering, knowing glance at Eleanor, and the door clicked shut behind him.

Silence stretched between them like a held breath.

Vane crossed his arms. “You have five seconds to explain yourself, or I will escort you from this building myself, which will create a scandal of such enormous proportions that even your legal mind will not be able to litigate you out of it.”

Eleanor lifted her chin, pulling off the hat. Her hair tumbled loose around her shoulders and her jaw set in defiance. “You are wagering five thousand guineas on a horse race. That is not a calculated bet. That is the wager of a man who needs to win.” She paused, watching his face tighten. “What do you need the money for, Vane? What are you so desperate to hide?”

Vane’s jaw flexed. For a moment, something raw flickered behind his eyes—something that looked almost like fear. Then it was gone, replaced by the polished mask she had come to know.

“You mistake desperation for confidence,” he said coolly. “Eclipse’s Heart cannot lose. The wager is certain.”

“No bet is certain,” Eleanor countered. “You of all people should know that law and luck are different animals.”

“And you of all people should know better than to sneak into a gentleman’s club in a boy’s clothes.” He took a step closer. “Does Lady Whitmore know you’re here? Does your uncle? Or did you think to gather intelligence on me and simply hope not to be caught?”

Eleanor bristled. “I came for the truth. You and your family—there is more going on than a simple debt. I found a letter. From Francis Rathbone. It mentions a stone, and a debt of honor, and I think it is tied to this”—she pulled the emerald pendant from beneath her cravat—“and I intend to learn what it means.”

She had not meant to reveal so much. The words tumbled out in raw, careless confession—too blunt, too open. But she was tired of dancing around him, of reading between his careful lines.

Vane’s gaze dropped to the pendant, and something shifted behind his eyes. The mask cracked, just for a moment, and beneath it she glimpsed pain so sharp it stole her breath.

“You should not have come here,” he said quietly. “You should not have worn that.” His voice dropped to a near whisper. “Do you know what Francis Rathbone did? Do you know what your mother did?”

The question hung between them, heavy with implications Eleanor could not yet parse.

“No,” she admitted. “But I intend to find out.”

Vane stared at her for a long moment. Then he laughed—a low, humorless sound that sent a chill down her spine.

“Then you will be my guest at the races tomorrow,” he said. “And we will see if your clever little mind can turn my wager against me.”