A Gentleman’s Game by Theresa Romain Page A

sheet of blank foolscap from the stack before Rosalind. “Very commendable, of course.”
    Right. If only she felt commendable as she watched the swift movements of his hands, folding the rectangle of paper at odd angles. Those hands had fixed a water pump; they had soothed skittish and ill animals. He was quick with his hands, a sort of quickness that intrigued Rosalind. Could those hands soothe her own worries? Would he touch her if she asked?
    She wanted to ask, so desperately that she could taste the shape of the impossible words on her tongue.
    He made another fold. The result was a sort of flattened paper pyramid.
    What had Rosalind’s hands done that was good? For every horse she had helped, she had sent a prying letter.
    She balled her hands into fists and stuffed them beneath the tabletop. The question she allowed herself was hardly urgent, though she’d wondered about it for some time. “Nathaniel. Why has Sir Jubal entrusted Epigram’s care to your father?”
    “And to us now?” His grin was a quick flash before he returned his attention to the…whatever he was making. “Everyone knows of Sir Jubal’s dream to follow a victory in the Two Thousand Guineas with a triumph in the Derby. He has only a small stable, and he’s too frail to travel himself. So he trusted his… Well, I’m not sure Sir William is his friend. Doesn’t that seem like too warm a word? Like puppy or chocolate . I can’t imagine my father with either of those.”
    With a pointed toss, he sent the flat pyramid-like thing gliding across the room.
    “What is that?” Rosalind asked.
    “I don’t know. Just something I made, wondering if it would work.” He stood still, poised like his gliding pyramid just before it was thrown. He was ready to leave, maybe. He would leave for now. Unless she gave him a reason to stay.
    “Fly it again,” she said. “I want to see it fly.”
    This time, when he gifted her with a smile, she returned it—yet she felt she had kept it too.
    And after all, there was more than one way to pay a debt. The information for Tranc was in exchange for Rosalind’s medical expenses, which had piled and grown with interest over the past decade. Aunt Annie had paid them to save Rosalind’s life, then turned the debt over to Tranc.
    But what if Rosalind paid the expenses with coin instead of stolen papers?
    “I have a suggestion.” Her throat caught on the words.
    A paper pyramid winged across the room and smacked into the wall. “What is that?”
    “I will go with you to Epsom, and I will be as helpful as possible. And as long as the horses reach Epsom safely, I will write glowing letters of your progress and conduct to Sir William all along the way.”
    He slid across the glass-smooth floor and scooped up his fallen paper. “I’m hardly going to argue with a suggestion like that. It sounds ideal. But you sound nervous, so there must be more to come that will not be ideal. What do you have in mind?”
    She took a deep breath. “I want one hundred fifty pounds.”
    He tripped, catching himself heavily against a shelf. “Say that once more.”
    It was even more difficult to say the second time, but she kept her voice steady. “I need one hundred fifty pounds.”
    “That is what you need? And I thought you needed only to carry out your work.”
    He drew closer, and for the first time, Rosalind was heartsore at the way he looked at her. With suspicion.
    She lifted her chin, thinking of her sister Carys. If Rosalind did not pay off her debt, Tranc would take Carys into his employment, making another Agate his puppet. And Carys was far too pretty, too whole, to lose her future through someone else’s failure.
    “One hundred fifty pounds.” This third time, as she thought of her sister—only six years old the last time they had met, but now a young woman of sixteen—the words came more easily. One hundred fifty pounds. This time it sounded like a real sum rather than an impossibility.
    Nathaniel was