Chapter 1

"Damn!" spat Sir Everard.

Sir Everard Balfour, his swarthy face flushing an ugly dull red, his piggish eyes flashing with ill-concealed anger, threw down his fifth losing hand in a row and snarled in the general direction of his host. The irritated baronet snatched up his glass of port, drained it to the dregs and slammed it down with a crash. The delicate Italian crystal shattered into four distinct fragments on the baize-topped table, each slivered piece giving off silvery glints in the light from the branched candelabra overhead. So quickly did the portly baronet move that the smoke-filled air about the card table eddied upward, swirling about the dozens of candles, causing them to sputter and give off even more noxious fumes in the already uncomfortably dense atmosphere of the small room.

"Damme, Aragon, how do you continue to win, time after time?" Sir Everard whined sourly. A somber manservant shimmered into existence and began to silently clear away the broken glass fragments from the table, blotting at an almost invisible ruby stain with a snowy cloth.

Lord Andrew Aragon tossed his own cards down and gazed with a crooked grin at the disconsolate baronet, but said nothing to either of his guests. His lordship's brilliant azure eyes seemed almost black in the smoke-dimmed candlelight.

"It's that damned luck of the Aragons," said Charles Baron Renfrew, with a high-pitched inane giggle. "That old Spanish blood, ain't it, hey? The last time any Aragon failed at anything was the Armada, and even then Lord Andrew's ancestor was washed ashore and married into wealth the very next day."

"Nonsense, Charles," drawled Lord Andrew with a look of ill-concealed disdain towards Sir Everard. "It took at least a week for Don Francisco to marry, don't ye know."

Lord Andrew pushed back his chair and rose to his considerable height, his lanky body appearing even taller in the tight black pantaloons that had recently become the mode, a la that arbiter of fashion, Beau Brummel. His shirtfront was a profusion of snowy frills, with a high collar around which his neckcloth was bound. His tall Hessian boots had a mellow gold-tinted gleam in the firelight.

Lord Andrew sighed as he turned his back to his two guests and reached for a poker to encourage the dying fire. His lordship had regretted this private gathering for cards almost before it had begun. Sir Everard Balfour was not a pleasant person with whom to spend an evening at anything, much less something that involved any sort of gambling. Charles Baron Renfrew, while an acquaintance of Lord Andrew for some years, had a tendency to wear on the nerves of his friends after a while as well with his incessant laughter and ridiculous conversational tactics.

But the Prince had requested that Andrew entertain Sir Everard, and one did not say no to Prinny. After all, Prince George would be king one day -- if he didn't eat or drink himself to death before his mad father died. A very real possibility that, though it did seem to Lord Andrew at times that mad King George would live longer than his dissipated son and heir.

"And your blasted family has continued to get richer every reign, I'll warrant," grumbled Sir Everard, as he slurped expensive port from a fresh glass presented by Aragon's French manservant, Gaston.

Lord Andrew replaced the poker -- though the thought of using it to wipe the unpleasant expression from his guest's flat face was almost irresistible, and turned to face the others. He stretched his long arms across the green marble mantle. His lean face was saturnine, his azure eyes were fixed on some distant land. Reddish tints blazed from his chestnut hair as the fire sprang to renewed life.

"I take it you've had enough of cards for tonight, Sir Everard?" Lord Andrew said in a clear cool voice.

Sir Everard harrumphed. "I'm not out of cash yet, if that's what you mean to imply." The baronet puffed up like a discontented toad.

"Well, you may not be, Balfour, but that don't mean I ain't, damn it all," said Charles Renfrew with another piercing giggle. "And as my tradesmen and my thieving servants have emptied my pockets until the end of the quarter when my allowance arrives, I fear that I must stop for the evening."

"Your notes are always good with me, Charles," drawled Lord Andrew, with just the faintest possible emphasis on the 'your'. This obvious snub did not go unnoticed by Sir Everard. His stocky figure bristled up like a badger and his broad face suffused with choler as his sunken eyes glared at his elegant host.

But at the precise instant before an outburst seemed inevitable, Lord Andrew added with a short, curt nod, "And yours as well, of course, Sir Everard."

Sir Everard's toad-like figure deflated and an avaricious gleam showed for a moment in his colorless eye. A gambler, and not a very good one, Lord Andrew had heard that Balfour lived for nothing more than the next card game, the next toss of the dice, the next horse race or cockfight -- at all of which he invariably lost. But Balfour was apparently convinced, in the way of most gamblers, that one day his efforts would not be in vain and he would assume the vast fortune to which he aspired. A fortune that he had lost a dozen times over, it was said.

"Since the baron is determined to desert us, shall we have a bit of vingt-et-un?" Sir Everard suggested as he gathered the errant pasteboards into his sweaty hands.

Lord Andrew Aragon gave an inaudible sigh and promised himself to ignore Prinny's requests in the future. He could not be expected to always cater to his prince's desires. But he knew that he would. It was an Englishman's duty to defer to the wishes of his future king, after all. However much he disliked to do so.

"As you wish, Sir Everard," said his lordship, "but first, allow me to speed my parting guest. Charles, you are always welcome, you know. Do come again."

Copyright © 2002 K.G. McAbee