Playing the Rake's Game Read online

  ‘Ahhhh,’ Gridley exhaled as they stepped inside the library with its smells of leather and books. ‘Albert and I spent hours in this room. His collection is excellent. He took a regular shipment of books that came every three months.’ He smiled fondly at Ren. ‘But these aren’t the books I came to discuss. I came to discuss the accounts. Have you looked at them?’ He ran a hand over the spines in a casual gesture. But Ren had Gridley’s measure. Everything about the man was a facade designed to conceal the evil within.

  ‘No, not yet. I imagine Emma and I will sit down and do a thorough rendering of them once the harvest is settled,’ Ren said honestly. ‘I don’t have reason to think I’ll find anything amiss, however.’

  ‘I think that depends on your definition of “amiss”, old chap.’ Gridley faced him, his eyes friendly, tinged with the slightest hint of pity. Really, the man was a master at dissembling. ‘We’ve all been losing money, the whole plantocracy. The hurricane four years ago was a costly disaster, which we might have survived if the Crown hadn’t gone and abolished slavery and instituted this mixed-up apprentice system which is bleeding us dry with wages. All of it taken together has created something of an economic depression for us. Sugarland is no exception no matter what Emma tells you.’

  Gridley was eyeing him, watching for a reaction. He was expecting shock, outrage. Ren was careful to show him neither, although inside he was starting to reel. Phrases like ‘losing money’ ‘bleeding us dry’ and ‘economic depression’ were digging a pit in his stomach. There was no need to panic yet, he told himself. ‘It can’t be that bad. You seem prosperous enough.’ Ren smiled affably. ‘I’ve seen the boots you wear, the opulence of your fine home. Those are not the signs of a man suffering hardship.’

  Gridley met his smile with a patient one of his own. ‘I suppose the quarterly cheque sent to your bank account didn’t look desperate either.’

  Ren tensed. He’d only received one quarterly cheque, the one issued after Cousin Merrimore’s passing. It had looked fairly healthy. It had arrived after news of the will reached him. That cheque had been the deciding factor in his decision to come, to use the plantation as the bulwark that would stabilise his family’s failing finances. He did not want to be told the cheque was a fraud.

  He wasn’t concerned about the money. It had been real enough when he’d spent it. However, Ren feared what that cheque represented wasn’t. He’d been lured here under false pretences of prosperity. The feeling he’d experienced upon arrival of having been Trojan Horsed, resurfaced. His sisters, Teddy, his mother, were all counting on him, on this.

  Consider the source. What does Gridley gain if you panic? The realisation carried a calming quality with it. Anything out of Gridley’s mouth was highly suspect.

  ‘Albert wouldn’t tell you, although I insisted he should,’ Gridley went on. ‘Albert wanted to make sure you received the full share. I told him it would give you the wrong impression.’

  Ren found Gridley’s knowledge of his cousin’s finances almost as disturbing as the news. ‘I appreciate the insight.’ Ren studied a shelf of books, gathering his thoughts.

  ‘Of course, the cartel is an opportunity to turn things around,’ Gridley offered in consoling tones. ‘We’re all in the depression together, we all might as well be in the success, too. This time next year, things could change if we all come together. It’s true plantation prices are plummeting. There was a fellow in another parish who sold last year, a mere pittance really. It doesn’t help that we’re not the only ones growing cane any more. Now the Americans have crops and the other islands in the West Indies have turned to cane. But a cartel that can corner the market and control the supply can balance those scales.’

  Ren nodded absently. In theory, Gridley spoke the truth. The venture was economically sound. It was the ethics of it that bothered him. He’d be throwing his lot in with people who treated their workers like slaves, people who for all intents and purposes, behaved as if slavery had not been abolished. There would be blood on any of the money he made through them. Yet, if he didn’t take this opportunity, who would save his family? Who would help his sisters make matches worthy of them? Who would give his mother the comfort of her own home in her widowhood, or send Teddy to school? ‘As I said, I haven’t looked over the books.’

  Gridley had taken up residence in a chair. ‘I’m not sure at this point that looking over the books even matters. You need the money and even if you didn’t, the rest of us do. Joining the cartel is the neighbourly thing to do. It would be selfish to hold the rest of us back.’ Ren heard the threat. If he wasn’t for them, he was against them.

  Gridley studied his nails in another pose of feigned casualness. ‘Miles is thinking of selling as it is. I’d hate to lose him. We’ve all been through a lot together, we’re like family out here.’

  A weird sort of family full of covetousness and lust, Ren thought. Family didn’t make comments about one another that bordered on lecherous. He and Gridley must disagree about what family denoted.

  ‘I know Emma doesn’t want any part of it and I know that’s why you’re hesitating.’ Gridley adopted a tone somewhere between a well-meaning older brother and a wise uncle. Ren thought it sounded condescending. ‘She’s got her delicious claws into you, there’s no shame in admitting it. You’re not the first man who has succumbed to her charms. You should ask her about Thompson Hunt some time.’ Ren didn’t want to hear about Thompson Hunt. Gridley’s words were uncomfortably close to his own ruminations this morning.

  ‘Don’t play the offended gentleman with me, Dryden. Your defence of her honour does you credit, but she gave away her virtue long before you. She knows how to bring a man around to her point of view.’ He held up a hand to stall Ren’s burgeoning protest. ‘You seem like an ambitious, smart man, Dryden. Think about it. Seeing the books would naturally be one of the first things a man like yourself would do in a venture like this. Don’t make any more excuses. Yes, there was harvesting, but now it’s over. She knows it’s just a matter of time before you ask to see the accounts unless she can distract you, make you forget.’

  Gridley paused. ‘Face the truth, Dryden, regardless of what she’s indicated, she doesn’t want you here. Why would she? You threaten her autonomy. Where else on this earth can she be the mistress of her destiny, own property, have a man’s life? She has two choices. She can send you packing or she can find some way to emasculate you and render your fifty-one per cent impotent.’ Ren wondered if Gridley’s crass references were deliberately sexual. The man seemed to have a one-track mind where sex and Emma were intertwined.

  Gridley looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Is she that good? Is she worth social castration? Because I assure you, that is exactly what will happen if you throw your lot in with her.’

  ‘And yet you seem quite eager to marry her,’ Ren ground out, fighting the urge to plant Gridley a facer for the umpteenth time that morning. If he’d had his way, Gridley’s face would be black and blue and his mouth short a few teeth.

  ‘I’d marry her to tame her, to control her,’ Gridley answered. ‘She’s impulsive, wild and she will ruin the district if she’s not brought to heel.’ Something hot and lurid leapt in his eyes.

  ‘I think you should leave.’ Ren stood up.

  Gridley rose and held out his hands, palms up. ‘Remember, Dryden, I’m merely the messenger. Sex is her weapon. You look at the books, you talk to Emma. When you’ve seen the facts, you will come to the right decision.’ He tapped his skull with his forefinger. ‘Just make sure you’re thinking with the right head when you do.’

  Gridley was as audacious as they came. He probably should have taken a swing at the bastard anyway for marching in here, thinking he could dictate terms, thinking he could insult Emma, thinking he could insult Ren’s own masculinity. There were so many reasons. But hitting Gridley for any of them accomplished nothing. The niggling worry that had tak
en up residence in his brain had become full bloom. What if Gridley was right?

  One did not hit a man because he was right. An opinion wasn’t necessarily wrong just because he didn’t like the man who held it. Ren’s mind reeled with what ifs. What if Emma had been using the attraction between them for her benefit? It wasn’t as if he hadn’t wondered that himself. What if she was miraculously able to fake such pleasure time and again? What if she was distracting him from seeing the truth of the accounts? What if Sugarland was indeed foundering in economic seas as Gridley suggested? He would be betrayed on all fronts. The few bites of breakfast sat like a rock in his stomach.

  Ren drew a deep breath. He’d never know if he sat in the library sulking. He needed to see those books. Ren made his way to the office, half expecting to see Emma materialise on the stairs, but there was no sign of her. He was glad she had not been present for the interview with Gridley. The beginnings of a self-satisfied smile played on his lips. She was sleeping late because of him, because he’d kept her up half the night and then some; further proof that she felt something for him at least, further proof that Gridley wasn’t entirely correct about the nature of their relationship.

  In the office, Ren found the books behind a glass cabinet, each one neatly labelled by year. There was something reassuring, solid, about seeing decades of ledgers. Ren ran his hand over the spines. A place that lasted this long, that had passed from owner to owner through centuries even, couldn’t be in dire straits. He found the ledgers from 1831 to present and pulled them out, deciding he would test Gridley’s supposition that things had started to fail after the hurricane.

  Ren seated himself behind the desk, opened the first ledger and began to read. He recognised his mistake right away. He needed to go back a few more years and see what the norm was before the hurricane. He went to the cabinet and pulled out the three years preceding 1831.

  Those were good years. There was hope in the stories told by the columns and balances. But there was another story, too. The plantation did not diversify. It relied almost exclusively on cane for its export profits.

  Ren sat back in his chair, absently rubbing at his temples. He’d file that bit of information away for another time. When it came to business, putting all of one’s eggs in a single basket was not solid practice. It worried him that Sugarland had done so, especially if Gridley was right. It worried him, too, that the cartel was seeking to do the same thing. A monopoly might provide short-term financial solutions, but it wouldn’t solve long-term problems. There would be other hurricanes, there would be other places establishing their own sugar-cane trade.

  Ren reluctantly reached for the post-1831 ledgers. He suspected he’d read the good news. Now it was time for the bad, if Gridley was to be believed. He opened the first book.

  * * *

  An hour later he pushed the ledgers aside, fighting panic along with the facts. The money he’d thought Sugarland had was a myth. What would happen to his family now? Sarah and Annalise, Teddy and his mother, were all counting on him, on something that had never been.

  The great adventure had failed before it had really begun. The ledgers told the whole story. By 1834, the downward pattern was clear. Gridley had been right. The pit in Ren’s stomach clenched in sickening realisation. Ren reached for the bell pull. He had to confront Emma. If Gridley was right about the economics, what else was he right about?

  A footman came right away. ‘Tell Miss Ward I’d like to speak with her in the office immediately.’ His voice sounded hollow even to himself. He’d been Trojan Horsed after all. The next question was how deep did the deception go? Had everything been a lie?

  Chapter Seventeen

  Emma answered the summons with no small amount of trepidation. She wanted to be angry. She wanted to rail: how dare he act with such presumption! How dare he think a night in her bed meant she was at his beck and call. It would be easier to be angry over the summons, but it would also be a lie.

  She wasn’t angry, she was nervous. What did Ren want? Hattie had told her Gridley had been here early. She’d opted for the coward’s way out and let Ren handle him. Had Ren called for her as a result of Gridley’s visit? What kind of vile rumour had Gridley let loose this time? Or had Ren called her for another reason? The thought of that reason set butterflies fluttering in her stomach in girlish anticipation. Perhaps that reason had to do with last night? The night had been erotic and beautiful and, heaven help her, it had meant something to her despite her vow to the contrary. Had it meant something to him, too?

  Emma pressed a hand to her stomach, trying to still her nerves as she made her way down the hall toward the office. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. She wasn’t supposed to have fallen for her own ploy. She was to have been neutral and calculating, treating the sexual attraction between her and Ren with cool detachment. He was supposed to have been the one who was seduced.

  Emma pushed open the office door and all thoughts of seduction fled at the sight of the ledgers spread open before him. This was not about Gridley or last night, but something else altogether.

  Ren looked up at her entrance, his jaw tight, his skin ashen beneath his tan. ‘Sugarland is losing money.’ It was part accusation, part questioning disbelief.

  He knew! Her stomach tightened. Yet another of her secrets was up. Would he blame her for it? Would he opt to use this as proof of her inability to run the place? Or use it as proof to force her into the cartel? Emma fought the urge to give any outward show of dismay.

  ‘Sugar prices have dropped.’ Emma decided to play it coolly. She would let him come to her with whatever had provoked this sudden desire to look in the books. She took a seat in a chair and arranged her skirts. Show no fear! It was the number-one rule of engagement with any man looking to get the upper hand.

  ‘I can see that. Based on these numbers Gridley’s cartel seems a good idea.’ Ren’s tone was cool as well, his blue eyes shrewd as they studied her, his demeanour distant. It was hard to believe this was the same man who’d been so passionately alive in her bed last night, who’d cried her name at climax, who had teased her so sinfully with his body.

  The man behind the desk was detached and businesslike as he went on. ‘But, of course, there are ethical, personal reasons why we can no longer pursue a cartel arrangement with Gridley no matter how much profit it offers. We will not do business with a murderer.’

  Emma met his gaze calmly. Inside, she was a roiling mess of emotions. She hadn’t lost him yet. He was still saying ‘we’, and he was aligning himself with her on the position of Gridley. Whatever Gridley had come to say, it had not swayed Ren into betraying her. She held Ren’s gaze and went on the offensive.

  ‘What prompted this sudden look at the accounts? I have to say it isn’t the usual response after a night of rabid lovemaking.’ She let her eyes flirt a bit, her gaze lingering on his mouth. Perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to mix a little business with pleasure and strengthen the lure that currently bound him to her.

  ‘Arthur Gridley paid me a call this morning before I was even out of bed.’ Gridley had put Ren up to this? It was the worst prompt Emma could think of. She’d far rather have had the peek into the accounts prompted by his own curiosity. If Gridley had made the suggestion, it no doubt came with a personal commentary as well. She could imagine how Gridley would have shaped his case. But Gridley’s arguments were for naught. Ren had already indicated as much, which meant Gridley hadn’t provoked the ashen pallor beneath his tan.

  ‘You should have sent for me. I would have met with him as well. If we are to be partners, we need to show a united front. Clearly, Gridley called for you, thinking we are not united.’ Blame and misdirection were usually standard tools for launching an offensive. But Ren was quick to respond, not in the least stymied by her shift.

  ‘Partners?’ The anger rose in Ren’s carefully controlled voice. ‘You hid this from me. You led
me to believe Sugarland was doing well.’ He made a sweeping gesture towards the open ledgers in front of him. Emma’s heart sank. This was about money. Well, now at least she knew.

  ‘Omissions seem to be a habit for you. These ledgers are not all you haven’t mentioned. You didn’t tell me about the cartel and your efforts to resist it. I had to learn that from Gridley. You didn’t tell me there isn’t really a choice when it comes to that cartel. Despite our ethical reservations about doing business with a murderer, lack of participation in the cartel will make life unbearable for us, if not downright dangerous.’

  Ren had risen, ticking off on his long fingers the list of her omissions.

  ‘You’re upset...’ Emma began, hoping to placate him. His face was positively thunderous and she was reminded of the power of his presence. Ren’s hand slammed the page of an open ledger in a forceful movement. She jumped, startled by the sound.

  ‘Damn right I’m upset. I’ve travelled halfway around the world to discover I’ve not inherited a plantation, I’ve inherited a viper’s nest!’ He moved around the desk, halting in front of her, his height accentuated from where she sat, forcing her to look up. ‘Everywhere I look, you’re at the heart of it, Emma—you and Arthur Gridley with your schemes and secret histories.’

  Oh, no, she was losing him. He might as well have stabbed her with a knife if he was going to compare her to the likes of Gridley. Emma felt herself pale with real, desperate fear.

  He narrowed his eyes, twin cobalt flames burning into her. ‘Tell me, did you seduce me? I asked you last night, but you didn’t give me a straight answer. Is this the reason why? Did you hope once I had a taste of your charms I’d not care what I found in the ledgers or anywhere else?’

  ‘That is the outside of enough!’ Emma rose swiftly, her hand making hard contact against his cheek with a resounding slap. ‘I will not allow you to stand in this room and call me a whore when you know what I’ve been through, what I’ve had to fight. A woman has far fewer weapons at her disposal than a man.’