A Gentleman’s Game Read Online Free Page B

that the odds would pay off and that bookmakers would honor the wagers scribbled in their little notebooks.
    Such trust was a luxury for the wealthy. It was far too costly for those who could little afford to lose. At Rosalind’s father’s inn, travelers paid their expenses in advance.
    The block of salt was dry and scaly on her hands. “‘Trust Nathaniel,’” she murmured. “You said it in your father’s study.”
    “Exactly,” he said. “And I’ve got to make sure it’s a worthy thing to say, even if that means checking something I’ve checked before. Nothing’s too much trouble when the health of a horse depends on it.”
    He waved a salt brick at her. “You might as well call me Nathaniel. Since you’re going to be trusting me and all that delightful stuff.”
    “And you may call me Rosalind,” she said. Trust Rosalind , she wanted to add in echo of Nathaniel’s phrase.
    But the letter hidden in her bodice poked her through her shift, and she dared not say another word.

Three
    “Nathaniel. You’re dirty again.”
    At Sir William’s words, Rosalind looked up from the dazzling array of cutlery surrounding her dinner plate.
    Nathaniel had just entered the dining parlor, a gray-walled room as sprawling and unadorned as Sir William’s study. Nathaniel had exchanged his travel-worn clothes for elegant dinner garments, but his cream-colored waistcoat was splotched dark.
    “Wet, rather. Sorry about that,” he said easily as he pulled forth his chair. “Could have changed my attire again, but I didn’t want to be late for dinner.”
    “Did you encounter another milkmaid?” Rosalind could not resist asking.
    “Naturally.” He seated himself facing her across the broad table, which was covered with a cloth starched to such stiffness it could probably stand on end.
    Sir William served himself a heap of boiled asparagus over toast. “In the house? I long to hear this tale.”
    “She upset the water pump in the bathing room to get my attention. So that would make her a water maid, I suppose.”
    “A nymph?” Rosalind suggested. “A naiad?”
    Nathaniel snapped his fingers. “The very creature. You’ve seen her too, then.”
    “No wine for Nathaniel,” grunted Sir William when the footman approached to fill his glass. “He is hallucinating.”
    “Oh, surely a little wine for Nathaniel,” his son replied. “Half an inch?” He took the bottle from the footman and sloshed a careless amount into the goblet.
    Sir William frowned but held his peace. “Miss Agate was just about to tell me what the pair of you thought of Pale Marauder’s condition.”
    Was she? She had thought she was trying to pick the right fork. A girl raised in a coaching inn with a tavern was used to one size of fork for everything, and in her posts as governess for various households she’d never dined in company with the family.
    “You can tell us about Sheltie too, if you had time to check on her,” added Sir William.
    Nathaniel’s easy grin slipped. “Tell you. The two of you. Right. Sheltie has little strength, but I did get her to take some water. This was after you returned to the study, Miss Agate.”
    Yet he did not look at Rosalind. He regarded his father with lowered chin and unblinking eyes. Almost as though he were daring the baronet to take issue.
    This was not the first time Rosalind had seen tension flicker between father and son. Why was this? Of Sir William’s four grown offspring, Nathaniel was the only one who ever lived at Chandler Hall. Yet the two men were wary with each other. Like two horses that weren’t sure whether they were supposed to pull in tandem or race one another.
    And there was no trainer for them. There was only Rosalind.
    So she broke the weighty pause by picking up the stack of papers that had accompanied her almost everywhere within Chandler Hall—yes, even to meals—since the horses developed colic. Setting the stack down again with a flamboyant shuffle, she said, “You