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Brighton alone?"
    "I shan't. I shall be going to London and I shall have Ned Coachmen with me, so you see, I shall be perfectly safe."
    "London!" The housekeeper and the maid gasped in unison. None of the de Montmorencys, with the exception of Alexander's short-lived career at Oxford before he had been sent down, had traveled further than Norwich, not since 30
    Lady Alex's Gamble
    by Evelyn Richardson
    Alexandra's father had won Halewood at the gaming table and brought his young bride to settle into a quiet life in rural Norfolk. Even Alexander, rackety though he was, never ventured more than fifty miles from home, preferring to throw away his blunt at local race meetings and gaming tables. In fact, he was quite often heard to say that so much time spent traveling to the metropolis was so much time wasted away from those gaming tables.
    "London," Bessie reiterated, "but whatever for?" Mrs. Throckmorton, who was thankful that Bessie's role as Alex's personal servant allowed her to pose questions that her dignity as housekeeper prevented her from asking, awaited her mistress's reply as eagerly as the maid.
    "Well, someone must do something to raise such a sum. After all, Papa won this estate at the gaming table. It must be possible to win it back the same way. Towards the end before he died I began to beat him regularly, so I ought to be able to succeed as well as he." The determined note in her voice warned the others that it was useless to remonstrate. Indeed, as Mrs. Throckmorton recalled the many times she had seen just that resolute set to Miss Alexandra's jaw—riding her father's hunter at a tender age, daring Alexander to swim in the lake, rescuing a litter of baby rabbits—she knew that nothing would stop her from accomplishing what she had set out to do.
    "But ladies don't gamble, leastways not the way men do," Bessie protested, still unconvinced.
    "Ah, but I shan't be a lady. I shall be Alexander de Montmorency, Earl of Halewood," Alex replied reassuringly. 31
    Lady Alex's Gamble
    by Evelyn Richardson
    Somehow this failed to comfort her henchwomen, who stared at her in horror. "Come now, do not look so dismayed. Alexander is not known in London and I feel confident enough of my ability to pass myself off as him even in Norwich. All I need is the proper attire and voila!" Alex strode around the room in a perfect imitation of her brother's walk, right down to his air of braggadocio. Then, slumping over, she continued,
    "Why, I can even be Alexander as we more frequently see him." She swayed perilously, glancing blearily about her as the earl did when he was castaway.
    Her audience looked only slightly less anxious after this compelling performance. "Do not worry so," their mistress comforted them. "No one will have the least reason to suspect in the first place that I am not Alexander, and wearing his clothes, padded at the shoulders, I shall be Alexander de Montmorency, Earl of Halewood and hardened gamester." Alex straightened as tall as she could, tilted her head, and leered at them so rakishly that even Mrs. Throckmorton could not suppress a smile.
    "But your hair, my lady," Bessie wailed.
    "Will have to be cut." Alex dismissed the thick auburn tresses as cavalierly as though they were not her chief glory.
    "Oh no!" The maid gasped.
    "What is vanity when our livelihood is at stake," Alex exclaimed airily. "Besides, there is no one to admire them anyway and everyone at Halewood can just remember what they used to look like."
    More was the pity, the maid thought to herself. It was a crying shame that a lady as striking as her mistress was kept 32
    Lady Alex's Gamble
    by Evelyn Richardson
    buried in the country when by rights she should have been in London in her own clothes, winning admiration, instead of dressed in her brother's clothes trying to retrieve the money he had lost. While it was true that Lady Alexandra was not what was ordinarily considered beautiful, her attractions being quite out of the common way,