Let Me Be The One Read online

  North shook his head. He was still asking himself the same question. His glance shifted to Lady Battenburn, but she never looked in his direction. "What do you think of her plan?" he asked South.

  "To catch a thief?"

  He nodded.

  "With any other fortune-teller I would say it had no merit." South shrugged. "But with Madame one never knows. She's a clever sort, as I recall. If the Gentleman is really among us, he should be afraid."

  It occurred to Northam that perhaps fear was the real tool Louise meant to use to flush him out. Apparently Lady Battenburn intended to end her rout in a most memorable fashion. "Do you think she'll remember us?"

  South grinned. "Only if you ask to see her quim."

  North knew he should have expected the answer. It was the one he would have given if South had posed the same question. Still, he had to choke back his laughter, covering it with a hard cough that brought heads swiveling in his direction and gave South an excuse to slap him on the back.

  "Sorry," South said when Northam winced.

  "Don't pretend you didn't enjoy that."

  Southerton merely chuckled. He looked around, saw that Lady Powell was turning about in a manner that would put him squarely off her port bow. "Excuse me, old chum, but the Lady Powell is tacking in my direction. I'm off." He moved smoothly away from Northam and into the crush around Madame Fortuna's table.

  Out of the corner of his eye North saw the woman make a course adjustment. Poor Southerton. He was going to have to find himself another female. No other tactic was likely to divert Lady Powell's interest. As if Southerton could read his mind, North watched his friend slip one arm through Elizabeth's and lead her to the far perimeter of the eager onlookers. He noticed that Elizabeth did not hesitate to go with South. Sighing inaudibly as he watched their progress, he wondered if he would forever experience this odd little lurch in his heart. Elizabeth's words came back to him. But you should never trust me. It seemed that she meant to remind him.

  The guests gave Madame Fortuna a wide stage on which to perform. They clustered in the shape of a horseshoe around her table so that everyone might see. Lord Allen volunteered to go first. He slipped into the chair opposite Madame Fortuna and smiled carelessly as she shuffled and cut the tarot cards. When she asked him to choose one he did so with a flourish and gave it to her. She studied it for several long moments, considering its meaning in the context of the question posed by Lord and Lady Battenburn, and then fastened her dark eyes on Allen. Her thin lips were not set kindly and when she pointed her index finger at him his smile vanished abruptly.

  "A thief you are," she said. Years of smoking cheroots had lent her voice an authentic huskiness that she had only feigned in her younger days. She felt the guests lean toward her as she spoke. "But no gentleman. What you take has only the illusion of being freely given." She wagged the finger a little, cautioning him. "You have not mistaken me. You know of what I speak."

  "So does most everyone else," South whispered against Elizabeth's ear. "She's as good as said Allen's making free with someone's wife. If he doesn't get up now, she'll tell us the details. Don't think she won't."

  Elizabeth was relieved to see Lord Allen jump to his feet and hold out the chair for someone else to take a turn. He joked lightly with his rapt audience, but Elizabeth saw he never caught either Lord or Lady Heathering's eye. She also noticed no one was anxious to take up the chair. She certainly counted herself among the reluctant. Elizabeth knew Southerton's confidence in Madame Fortuna was not misplaced. Although she had no knowledge of his previous encounter with the fortune-teller twenty-two years earlier, she had little doubt that Louise had filled Madame's head with all manner of interesting tidbits about her guests. It only remained to be seen how judiciously they would be revealed. Madame's announcement to Lord Allen did not bode well for any of them.

  Mr. Rutherford cleared his throat and stepped to the forefront. "I don't mind having a go. It's not as if I have any secrets." He had to grab the chair to keep Allen from thrusting it at his chest. His friend's eagerness to be away was most palpable. Rutherford lifted the tails of his frock coat and made a show of sitting down.

  "Peacock," Madame said under her breath. She gathered the cards, shuffled them several times, then had Rutherford cut the deck and choose his card. It was from the Minor Arcana, that group of cards that represented the small dramas and concerns of living day to day. Here the Six of Pentacles, showing that magical sign stamped on a coin, reinforced so perfectly what the baroness had already told her about this man. "I see here that great wealth may be in your grasp. Your debts will be paid by the one you marry. Lest you think you made the better bargain, beware that she will also have her way." She glanced at him and caught his astonishment. "But you said you had no secrets. I thought, then, that everyone must know the extent of your debts and your need to marry well and quickly."

  Rutherford just managed to keep the chair upright as he came to his feet. His face was flushed. Lady Powell pointedly turned away when he glanced at her. Miss Caruthers stepped closer to her parents. Once word of his impoverished state became known among the ton he would have to cast his net so wide his wife was likely to be an American. It made his head ache to think on it.

  A half-dozen guests took their turn in the chair before Southerton boldly walked up to her. Not everyone who had come before her had had the same experience as Allen and Rutherford. Madame Fortuna predicted that shy Emily Farthingale would find a publisher for her novel. Since no one knew she had been penning one, it caused a favorable stir. Sir Arthur Armitage heard that he could expect a boy child in seven months. He leaped to his feet and found his lady, lifting her and his unborn heir several inches off the ground.

  There was also favorable news for Lord and Lady Meriwether as they took their turns in succession, and finally for Miss Stevens, who learned there would be an engagement soon.

  Even Lord Battenburn had cheerfully given in to his guests' cajoling and sat in the chair. Madame Fortuna actually laughed when she saw the card he chose. His was one from the Major Arcana, representing a powerful theme in his life and describing the forces that moved him. She tapped the Magician with her index finger."We are not so different, you and I," she said in her husky whisper. "Both of us are arrangers of fates, both of us fond of a twist in the tale. You play at cards yourself, my lord, though I think you have not been so fortunate to see in yours what I see in mine."

  Nodding, Battenburn had pulled a deck from inside his coat and spread the cards across the table. He flipped them back and forth expertly before asking her to choose one. She did so and showed it to the guests. It was the queen of hearts, and when he pulled it from the deck a minute later, after shuffling and cutting and fanning the cards open and closed, he announced that the queen signified her and the heart she had taken was his own. Battenburn had further amused his guests by kissing Madame Fortuna's crepe cheek. His performance made her appreciate his skill; after all, it was not the seven of clubs he had forced on her.

  When it was Southerton's turn, he spun the chair around and straddled it. His boyish grin was not lost on Madame Fortuna. "Rascal," she said, though there was no sting in her voice. She shuffled the cards carefully while he leaned forward. Rather than have him pick only one as she had had others do, she laid ten cards out in the ancient pattern of the Celtic Cross. "What do you see?" he asked when she fell silent. He felt a small prickle of alarm along his spine.

  "You have a friend here," she said finally.

  South had to strain to hear her. He doubted anyone else did. "Yes."

  "There is a threat."

  He frowned. "To my friend?"

  Madame Fortuna hesitated. "Yes. But not only—"

  Lady Powell called from the half-circle of spectators. "It is no good to us if you keep Southerton's reading to yourself. Tell us what the cards tell you." There was laughter, and murmurs of agreement. "Shall he be married before the year is out?"

  Obliging her audience, Madame Fortuna
pointed to the center of the cross where two cards were overlaid at a right angle to each other. She smiled and tapped it once, pulling South's attention to the Fool lying over the Lovers.

  Southerton nodded. It was not difficult to interpret her meaning. "She says we're not suited," he told Lady Powell. "But I am not inclined to believe her this time." He saw that Madame Fortuna meant to warn him differently so he stood. "I understand," he said quietly. "Completely."

  When South rose he did not return to Elizabeth, but went to Northam instead. He drew his friend back from the other guests while someone else stepped up to take a turn.

  North regarded Southerton with faint amusement. "I do not know how you accomplished it, but you have managed to alienate the affections of two women now. Lady Powell is so furious she's—"

  "Stuff it."

  Northam was immediately alert, the exact state in which South intended he should be. "What's happened?"

  "She says there is some threat."

  "Elizabeth said that?"

  "No. Madame Fortuna."

  North relaxed. Had Elizabeth given the warning he would have taken it seriously. He chuckled. "I doubt there is any need to worry. It is all part and parcel of her performance."

  Southerton was less sure. "How can you forget that she predicted the deaths of your father and brother?"

  "I haven't forgotten, but as I've told you before, she never said anything so straightforward as that. It was more of a feeling I got from her. Anyway, it was years and years after I saw her that they died." Northam remembered how much he had taken his brief exchange with Madame Fortuna to heart. Days and weeks, even months could pass and he would not think of what she had said to him; then it would come back and he would live long minutes and hours in absolute dread of the passing of his brother and father. It was a horrible manner in which to finish out his childhood. For a long time he actually considered trying to find her and make her recant her exchange with him, just to give him some peace of mind. "She is harmless," he told South. "It is a parlor amusement, nothing more."

  "She knew I had a friend."

  One of North's brows kicked up. "Oh? And did she give you a name?"

  "You are not amusing."

  North's laughter was low. Through a narrow gap in the spectators he saw that Lady Powell was being pinned back in her chair by the fortuneteller. He could not hear what was being said to her, but by the titters in the crowd they were taking some pleasure in her discomfort. He wondered at their lack of empathy when there was little doubt they would also find themselves facing Madame Fortuna. "Have done, South. It can give you nothing but worry to take her words too seriously."

  Southerton considered the truth of that. "She showed me two other cards," he said quietly. "Lovers and a fool. What do you make of that?"

  "Just what you told the salivating crowd. You and Lady Powell do not suit. It would seem Madame Fortuna knows it as well and is trying to warn you off."

  In other circumstances Southerton would have laughed. Now his gray eyes simply narrowed. "That's just it, North. Your handmaiden comment aside, the romance with Lady Powell is in her mind, not mine, and we have certainly never been lovers."

  North frowned. "What are you saying?"

  "I don't think Madame meant the cards for me. They were a message for you." Southerton would not have been surprised if his friend had landed him a facer. He was at the very least prepared for a verbal blow, something that would land low and hard. When Northam made no reply but looked instead to Elizabeth, South knew he was the one who had hit the mark. "What does it mean, North?"

  Northam shook his head, though he suspected strongly that he was the fool in question. Elizabeth had been standing off to the side of the guests ever since Southerton had deserted her. Her complexion was pale and her eyes were rather too large for her face. Far from enjoying the amusement Lady Battenburn had arranged for them, she looked as if she were going to be ill.

  And well she might, he thought uncharitably. Elizabeth Penrose carried more secrets than Wellington's couriers at the height of the war. Which one, he wondered, did she most fear would be exposed?

  North shifted his weight from one foot to the other, quelling the urge to go to her side. In spite of the fact that his presence would not be welcomed, it was still difficult to stay away. If there was some way he could spare her the agony of sitting in front of Madame, he would do it. Nothing occurred to him. Lord and Lady Battenburn had seemed to intend that everyone should participate, and North considered, not for the first time, that they were perhaps more serious about catching the Gentleman Thief than Louise's lighthearted introduction indicated.

  "Return to Lady Elizabeth," he said, "while I take my turn with Madame. Be prepared to hear that I copied from your paper on the geography exam in our second year at Hambrick."

  "You did? But I was a very poor student of geography."

  "I know. I was resisting Grandfather's efforts to make a scholar out of me."

  Southerton's shout of laughter brought a dozen heads around. He disarmed their censure with an apologetic grin. "Very well." He touched North's elbow, his features set with concern again. "But have a care, will you? I can't help thinking Madame Fortuna knows more than we do."

  North was certain of it, though how much of the fortuneteller's prescience was real and how much had some other source was still a question in his mind. "Go!" He gave Southerton a small push forward when he saw Elizabeth was moving determinedly through the guests. "Stop her at least until I have had my chance."

  South navigated through the throng with the agility and grace of a skiff, tacking first one way, then the other, until he was at Elizabeth's side. Once arrived, he glanced over at North and received a grateful acknowledgment for his efforts. Accepting no protest from Elizabeth, he linked arms with her and drew her back from the front line of onlookers.

  "I was prepared to go next," she told him, her jaw set.

  "Were you? Then I am not sorry. It is rather less amusing to be in the fish bowl than watching the fish. Do you think Lady Battenburn intended it so?"

  "I cannot possibly know Louise's intentions."

  "Odd. I had come to think of you as her confidante."

  Elizabeth's tone was deliberately cool. "Then you mistook the matter." She withdrew her arm from Southerton's and stood on tiptoe, craning her head above Lord Heathering's broad shoulder to see who had taken her place at the table. Her heart hammered in her chest. Northam. She gripped Southerton's arm, this time twisting as much of his sleeve as she could get between her fingers.

  Southerton looked down at the fist clenched in the tight woolen fabric of his frock coat. "Lady Elizabeth?" He said her name quietly and made no mention of the fact that she was badly creasing the material. He almost recoiled from the accusation in her eyes when she raised her face to his.

  "You planned this," she said tightly.

  South did not pretend not to know what she meant. "It was inevitable that North should take a turn," he whispered. "What difference can it make if he goes before you?"

  All the difference, she wanted to say. But she could not explain that to Southerton. With some effort she unclenched her fingers from South's sleeve and let her hand fall to her side. "I want to see," she said. "Take me to the front."

  Southerton had no good reason for not complying except that it went against his instincts. Short of holding Elizabeth in place himself, which would surely cause a stir, he really had no choice but to assist her. He tapped Lord Heathering on the shoulder and bid him make a place for them. In short order he and Elizabeth were standing on the inner edge of the onlookers.

  Now that he was sitting so close to Madame Fortuna, Northam saw that his first impression had not been entirely correct. The fortune-teller had aged. The creases at the corner of her mouth and eyes were deeper. There was a permanent furrow above her brows. Liver spots dotted the back of her hands. She seemed shorter, but he allowed that it might only be that he had grown taller and straighter, while her postur
e was inclined forward, her slight shoulders hunched.

  He smiled faintly as she shuffled the cards. After so many years and all the differences time had brought to his own features, North did not think it possible that she could remember him. He was, after all, but one of thousands she had seen over the years. Still, he had to temper his own sense of perverse humor. He was very much of a mind to ask her if he might see her quim. The subsequent uproar would effectively put a period to this amusement and make him a pariah in all but the most libertine of circles. He chuckled to himself as he considered there might be no unwelcome consequences to posing the question after all.

  "Something amuses you?" Madame Fortuna inquired sharply.

  Northam cleared his throat. "No, Madame."

  "Your throat is parched. May we have some libation here?" She waved imperiously to Lord Battenburn. "Peach brandy, perhaps."

  North blinked at her. "Peach brandy?"

  Madame Fortuna's features did not change in the least. "Why, yes. You like the taste of a peach, do you not, my lord?" She paused as a footman brought a tray with a decanter and two glasses to the table. Putting down her cards, she waved the servant away and elected to pour the drinks herself. "You will see," she said, handing one of the small snifters to Northam, "if it doesn't do the trick."

  North felt his fingers tingle as she passed the glass to him. At first he thought her hand had brushed his, but then he realized they were holding the snifter in two different places, she by the bowl, he at the stem.

  "Just so," she said quietly. "It is as it ever was." Her dark eyes bore into his, communicating quite clearly that he was not alone in the memory of their earlier encounter. Since that afternoon at the fair, more than a score of years in the past, Bess Bowles had been in anticipation of a second encounter. She knew neither where nor when, just that it would happen. "Only you," she told him. "It is only with you."

  Northam frowned. "I don't understand."

  Laughter cackled from her. She knocked back the peach brandy with the same careless appreciation she had for her gin. "Neither do I." For weeks after the fair she had lived in alarm of being visited again by the second sight. When it never came to her she was almost able to convince herself that she had imagined it. Almost. Sometimes there would be a tingling, a fine tremor that would move from her fingertips to her spine and trip lightly all the way down her back. When she put questions to the people who raised that sensation she inevitably discovered there was some connection to the man sitting across from her now. She could not explain it. She wasn't even certain that she believed it. Yet she could not deny the experience.