“Indeed, sir,” Bentley replied, without volunteering anything more.
Now Sinclair knew that something was awry. His debts, he suspected, had risen to the point where the board of governors had posted his name as being in arrears, and his club privileges had been suspended.
While the ladies were no doubt blissfully unaware of any problem—too busy marveling at the way the evening light came through the stained-glass oriel window—Sinclair knew that Rutherford and Frenchie must have guessed at the problem already. Rutherford looked ready to escort them all back to his coach, and on to the Athenaeum, where he belonged.
“Bentley, may I have a word?” Sinclair said, drawing the nervous servant aside. Once they were out of earshot, Sinclair said, “Have I been posted? Is that it?” and Bentley nodded.
“A bookkeeping mistake,” Sinclair said, regretfully shaking his head, “nothing more. I’ll straighten it out in the morning.”
“But sir, until then, I have been instructed—”
Sinclair put up a hand and Bentley immediately fell silent. Reaching into his pocket, Sinclair extracted a wad of bills, peeled off several, and handed them to Bentley. “Give this to Mr. Witherspoon in the morning, and have him put it toward my account. Will you do that?”
Bentley, without counting or even looking at the money, said, “I will, sir, of course.”
“Good man. For now, what my companions and I require is a cold supper and colder champagne. Can you have something served up in the stranger’s coffee-room?” Though hardly the most appealing room in the massive old club, it was the only place where women were permitted at all. Bentley said that he could arrange it, and Sinclair returned to his guests.
“Right this way,” he said, showing the ladies down a short corridor and into what was in fact an annex that the club had built to accommodate its growing membership. The room was untenanted at present, though a servant quickly appeared to draw the long, red velvet curtains and light the wall sconces. There was a vast, rough-hewn stone hearth at one end, surmounted by a stuffed elk’s head, and an array of worn leather seats, sofas, and oaken tables.
The ladies seated themselves in a small conversational grouping beneath the main chandelier, their tired feet resting on a faded Oriental rug.
“Shall we have a fire?” Sinclair asked his guests, but everyone declined.
“Good Lord, haven’t you sweltered enough today?” Rutherford said, taking the seat closest to Moira, who was still fanning her throat and shoulders with the Ascot program. “I’m praying for rain.”
A storm had been threatening the whole way back from the racecourse, but it had not yet broken. Sinclair, too, appreciated the cool of the room after the long, hot ride in the carriage.
A pair of servants bustled in, and soon one of the round tables was set for six, with yellow damask napery, glittering crystal, and a gleaming silver candelabrum. When everything was ready, Bentley nodded toward Sinclair, who seated Eleanor directly to his right, and Moira on his left. Frenchie and Dolly, who had at last removed her garden hat to reveal a cascade of black ringlets, completed the circle. She was a pretty girl, no more than twenty or twenty-one, but wore a rather heavy layer of makeup to conceal what appeared to be smallpox scars.
Once the champagne had been poured, Sinclair raised his fluted glass and declared, “To Nightingale’s Song—our noble steed and generous benefactor!”
“Why do you only share your losing hunches with me?” Frenchie said, winking at the memory of the pit-bull match, and Sinclair laughed.
“Perhaps my luck has changed,” he said, turning ever so slightly toward Eleanor.
“To luck, then,” Rutherford said, weary of all the words, and draining his glass all at once.
Eleanor had had champagne just once before in her life, when the town’s mayor had celebrated his election with the farmers and tradesmen, but she was sure that it was meant to be drunk slowly. She lifted the glass, and the cold froth of the bubbles almost made her sneeze. Even the glass was cold, and the wine, when she tasted it on her tongue, was sweet and surprising. She took only a sip, then gazed at the glass, with its bubbles rising, and it reminded her of the bubbles one would sometimes see under the thin ice that covered a stream. There was something very nearly mesmerizing about it, and when she took her eyes away, she saw that Sinclair was amused at her concentration.
“It’s for drinking,” he said, “not contemplation.”