Rake's Wager, page 12
“No, sir,” Pratt said curtly. “Miss Penny wishes no such favor.”
Richard’s guess was that she was done favoring him as well, at least for now, nor was she pleased with being named the stakes, either. He hadn’t really expected it to be otherwise—what respectable woman would feel flattered by such a dubious honor?—but just the same, he would have liked having her here beside him for luck.
He’d also like having her there when he won. Not if, but when.
“Seven to five. Resume play, m’lord,” Walthrip said again, testy. “If it pleases you, m’lord.”
It did. Richard reached for the box with the dice, rattling them gently inside. He knew some men who whispered to the dice, singing little songs or rhymes to them, even adding a kiss or two to woo the ivory cubes into obedience. He’d stick to luck, and the odds. He drew back his arm, ready to throw.
“Not quite yet, Walthrip.” A thin gentleman in an extravagantly old-fashioned wig tapped his hand on the table, the heavy emerald ring he wore catching the lanterns’ light from overhead. “Enter me on the same terms, for the same wager with the house against the caster.”
Walthrip turned his head like an ancient tortoise. “That is a private wager, m’lord, between a gentleman and this house.”
“Except that the caster is no gentleman at all, but a base-born scoundrel from the offal heap.” The thin man smiled at Richard, and the rest of the room fell as silent as death itself. “I’m surprised the house accepted his wager in the first place.”
At once Richard was on his feet. “You should choose your words with more care, sir.”
“And you should mind your actions with your betters, Blackley.” With an exaggerated sigh, the man rubbed away a smudge on the face of his emerald. “You may have taken my nephew by surprise earlier, but you shall not do the same with me.”
“My Lord Ralcyn, Mr. Blackley, please,” Pratt said with a bow. Behind him two of the largest of the house’s guards now stood, adding teeth and muscle to Pratt’s polite request. “I must remind you that this is a gentlemen’s club, and that here we abide by the rules of society.”
Slowly Richard sat back down in his chair, his gaze never leaving the other man’s intentionally bored face. So the man was Bolton’s uncle, more sorrow to him. Lord Ralcyn: a name he hadn’t heard before, but he’d remember it now. Once again he swirled and shook the dice in the box, preparing his toss.
“I’ve not had my answer, Pratt,” interrupted Ralcyn again. “Or is my coin a shade too fine for this game?”
“In the case of a private wager with the bank, M’Lord,” Walthrip said, “the decision for your wager must come from the caster.”
“What, if he’s willing to share his little Penny?” Ralcyn’s laugh had no humor to it. “How is it to be, Blackley? I fancy winning the services of the chit, too. A gift for poor Bolton, to ease his humiliation. I’ll take your main, for the same stakes.”
“Done,” Richard said, his voice as sharp as his temper. “I am certain the ladies will put your twenty thousand to good use.”
“Seven to five for Mr. Blackley,” Walthrip intoned as Ralcyn pushed his markers across the table. “Five to seven for Lord Ralcyn.”
What in blazes had he done? He had broken his greatest rule of gaming, which was to be ruled by intellect, not by impulse or emotion. He’d let the other man goad him into a damned fool’s wager. He’d made Cassia the stake, and because of her, he’d made himself vulnerable, too.
What in blazes had he done?
Ralcyn yawned. “Before the cock crows, Blackley.”
Richard forced himself to focus on the box and the dice instead of Ralcyn. The odds still favored him. That hadn’t changed. Earlier luck had been with him, too, and there was no reason to believe it would abruptly abandon him now.
He needed a seven or eleven to win. A twelve, and he lost. A five, and Ralcyn was the winner.
The dice rolled to a stop, a pair of threes.
“Six, m’lord,” Walthrip said. “Seven to five.”
The men around the table groaned in sympathy as Richard scooped the dice back into the box to try again.
A four, and a six. “Ten, m’lord. Seven to five.”
Richard felt the sweat prickling along the back of his collar as he rolled again. He’d never sweat like this from gambling before, but then he’d never had to try to keep Cassia Penny from Bolton’s hands, either.
A three, and an eight. “Eleven, m’lord. Seven to five.”
Twenty-three more times he tossed the dice, and twenty-three more times they stopped at numbers that carried no weight. If it had been only a matter of the money, Richard would have laughed out loud.
“You’re cursed, Blackley,” Ralcyn growled. His forehead around the edges of his wig were damp, with little rivulets trickling through the white powder he’d dusted on his face. “Or is it just that your base-born hands don’t have the proper touch?”
“Nine, m’lord. Seven to five.”
When had a run ever gone this long? Maybe he was cursed. Maybe he’d be at this table for the rest of his mortal days, praying for the winning toss. What had happened to his deuced fine luck?
“Three, m’lord. Seven to five.”
A footman opened the door to bring in another bottle of port. The motion caught Richard’s eye, distracting him, and he looked up just before the door swung shut. The hall outside was full of people, faces pressing close to the door, craning to learn what was happening.
But Richard saw only one, her blue eyes wide, her face pale, her lips parted, a white cloth wrapped around her wrist. Did she know about Ralcyn’s wager? Did she know how fast he’d accepted it?
Without looking back to the table, Richard let the dice fall from the box.
A four and a three, for a seven.
“Seven, m’lord,” Walthrip said, his inflection exactly the same as it had been with every other toss. “Chance wins, m’lord.”
The room erupted, cheers and applause and oaths and men crowding around him to clap him on the back and shake his hand and tell him he had the very devil’s own luck. Yet all Richard felt was exhaustion sweeping over him as surely as an ocean wave, and if he hadn’t been standing with his arms on the table, bracing himself, he doubted he could have kept from toppling face forward onto the green cloth.
But there were no congratulations from across the table, where Ralcyn was standing. With his hands clasped behind his back, the older man’s face beneath his wig was so taut that it might have been carved from wood. He watched Walthrip rake away the fish-shaped counters that represented his twenty thousand, knowing he’d have to settle with the bank before he left that night. Richard might have won, but thanks to Ralcyn’s side wager, so had Penny House.
“A lucky throw, Blackley,” he said, biting off each word as if it had a bitter taste. “Any ape could have done it, given the time and the box in his paw.”
“That is the appeal of hazard, isn’t it?” Richard forced himself to stand upright, to collect his wits. His night, it seemed, wasn’t done yet. “The dice could just have easily fallen your way.”
“But they didn’t.” Ralcyn leaned over the table toward Richard, his eyes narrowed to slits. “You are not done with my family, Blackley. No one insults us as freely as you have, and walks away. Know that, and be ready.”
He turned on his heel and left without waiting for Richard’s reply. Richard didn’t care. He had no reply, and he was far to weary to think of one. He pushed his way through the well-wishers, into the hall.
Cassia was waiting, as he’d known she’d be. She gave a little toss of her head, shaking the loose curls back from her face. She looked exhausted, too, with bluish circles beneath her eyes, though she’d drawn her shoulders back and straight. He wondered how her wrist felt; he wondered what she thought of him now, having come so close to gambling her away.
“Well, now, Richard,” she said, as if they were standing alone and discussing the morning milk, instead of here with a curious crowd surging around them. “I suppose you’ve come to claim your stake.”
“Not now,” he said, his voice ragged and rough. “Not yet. For your sake, Cassia, I’ve made two enemies tonight. Please God there won’t be any more.”
Not trusting himself to say more, he turned toward the stairs, and left.
Chapter Eight
Luke stood at the taffrail, waving at the Three Sisters’ men bound for shore-leave as the dinghy pushed off from the ship. He wished he’d been able to say more of a proper farewell, for they’d been kind to him on the long voyage. They didn’t know it, of course, but this was the last he’d ever see of them.
“Don’t be lookin’ so long in the face, Lukey-lad,” said the bosun at the rail beside him. “You don’t belong with that lot and their carousin’, not yet. Drinkin’ and whorin’ and spendin’ every last scrap of tin in their pockets—you’re too young for that nonsense.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Luke still watched the boat heading for shore, the scrap of a bawdy song drifting over the water.
The bosun patted his shoulder with kind commiseration. “You stay here with me tonight, Luke, safe and snug. Your time will come soon enough, but for now London’s no place for a little lad like you.”
But Luke was looking to the river’s shore, to the stone steps from the water that led to the city streets. Late tonight, in the middle of the last watch, he could slip over the side and swim to land with his few belongings and his pay tied around his waist. He’d do it without rippling the water, too, the way every good Martinique boy could do. No one on board the Three Sisters would notice he was gone until tomorrow, and Captain Rogers would judge it easier to replace him than to hunt for him in a city as vast as London.
Luke looked higher, to the rooftops and chimneys and church spires that seemed to go on and as far as the ocean had been wide. He’d never dreamed any city could be so vast, and without any friends or a place to start, he wasn’t sure exactly how he’d begin his search.
He knew so little of his father, only what Mama had told him and what Luke had learned for himself: his name, and that he was an Englishman, born in a town called Lancaster. That he’d been a sailor who’d won a sugar plantation on Barbados, and that he’d been lucky and grown rich. That he’d left the plantation in the hands of overseers, and sailed for London, where he wore a coat made of silver, and diamonds on the buckles of his shoes, and went to grand balls at the palace and danced with the queen.
And that because of Mama’s shame, he’d never known Luke existed.
He looked higher still until he found the North Star high and bright in the sky, the same star that had guided them night after night across the Atlantic. He smiled, oddly comforted. Captain Rogers had told him that as long as a sailor could find the North Star, he would never be lost. With the star to guide him, he’d always find his way.
And soon, very soon, Luke would find his father as well.
“You are certain you have everything you’ll need, Cassia?” Amariah crouched down beside the trunk, checking the lock one more time. “This does not look like nearly enough for a month.”
“It’s not as if I’ll need a new ball gown for every night, Amariah,” Cassia said. “This is not a pleasure junket. I am going to Greenwood Hall to work.”
She looked down with satisfaction at the trunk, hat box, and two smaller bags that were the sum of her luggage. With so little, not even Richard Blackley would think she was planning anything else but the toil he’d wagered on.
Amariah sighed, dusting her hands together as she rose. “I hope you will spare a few hours to forget London and enjoy yourself. It would be like being back in Woodbury, walking through the fields and beneath the trees.”
“You should be the one going instead of me.” Cassia took the sides of her skirts in her hands for a mock curtsey. “Lah, lah, my month in the country!”
Amariah laughed. “Isn’t that a play?”
“If it is, I expect it’s a farce.” Cassia glanced at the tall clock. “He’s already a half an hour past the time he promised, and you know how I hate to be kept waiting. I’ll have to break him of that habit if we’re to accomplish anything together.”
“I thought you were hired to refurbish the house, not the master,” Amariah said wryly. “You’ll want to leave a few rough edges for his wife to polish.”
“She will be perfectly welcome to all the rough edges she could ever want.” Restlessly Cassia crossed the hall again to peek out one of the long side windows by the door. No coach, no Richard, with the street empty and quiet so early in the morning. She hadn’t seen Richard for three days, not since the night of the infamous hazard game, and even then he’d spoken only a handful of barely civil words to her. All their traveling arrangements had been made between Pratt and Richard’s manservant Neuf.
“You’d think he would have shown his face by now,” she said, her irritation growing, “especially considering what he had to do to make me come with him.”
“I hear horses,” Amariah said, hurrying to the other window. “That must be Mr. Blackley.”
“It’s only a hack,” Cassia said. “Mr. Blackley would want a coach to drive clear to Greenwood, and— Oh, it is Mr. Blackley!”
He left the hackney waiting at the curb and came bounding up the steps so fast that Cassia barely had time to duck away from the window and retreat to her pile of dunnage while she waited for a footman to come answer the door. It was one thing for Richard to see that she’d been ready and kept waiting for him, but quite another for him to think that she’d been so eager for his arrival that she’d been watching for him at the window like an anxious schoolgirl.
“Good day, ladies,” he said brusquely, entering before the footman had opened the door all the way. He was dressed for travel, in a gray coat and dark breeches that wouldn’t show the soil of the road. “You are ready to leave, then?”
“Not alone in a hack, I’m not,” Cassia said, “not without servants to keep things proper, the way you promised, and not all the way to Greenwood.”
He frowned. “I wouldn’t do that. I left Neuf to oversee loading the coach at the Clarendon, and came to fetch you,” he said, testy. “We won’t be together long enough for you to be ruined, not even by me.”
“Oh, Cassia, I’m so glad I didn’t miss you!” Bethany rushed into the hall, followed by a boy carrying an enormous wicker hamper. “I know how dreadful the food can be in the stage inns, and so I’ve fixed you a few things for your journey.”
Richard stared down at the hamper, and then to Cassia’s trunk and other belongings. “You are taking all of this with you?”
“Yes,” Cassia said indignantly. “And that’s precious little for a lady for a month.”
“Is it?” He snorted with disbelief. “I’ve seen women sail for a new life in America with less dunnage than this.”
“If you wish me to come with you, Mr. Blackley,” Cassia said, “then this comes with me.”
He sighed again, and nodded for the footman to carry her belongings out to the hack. “It still seems like a great lot of foolishness to haul about the countryside.”
“It’s not foolishness,” Cassia said. “And if you had ever traveled with a lady before, you would realize that I have been the model of restraint.”
She turned back toward her sisters to say her farewell, tears stinging her eyes. She had never in her life been separated from her sisters, and the reality of the parting struck her hard. She didn’t try to speak because she didn’t want to weep before Richard, and contented herself with embracing them each in turn.
“Take care, Cassia,” whispered Amariah. “I know things will go well for you, but if ever you need us, you know we’ll come as soon as we can.”
“Don’t cry, silly duck.” Bethany held her close, her hair and clothes redolent with the fragrances of the meat pies she’d been baking. “You’re doing a grand thing for Penny House, and then you’ll be back before you know it. And if anything’s amiss, Greenwood’s not so far from London.”
“Nothing—nothing will be amiss,” Cassia said with a shaky gulp. “And I will make you proud.”
She sniffed again and tried to smile one last time at her sisters. Her belongings had been carried out from the hall, including the hamper of food, and Richard was standing in the open door.
“You are ready, Miss Penny?” he asked again, as if he were the one who’d been standing here waiting for a good half an hour. “Can we go now?”
“Yes,” she said, sailing past him through the door. “We can, and we will, even though you were the one who was late, not I.”
She didn’t wait for him, climbing into the hackney with the footman to hand her in, and squeezing herself into the far corner so that not even her skirts would touch Richard.
This wasn’t easy. While most of her belongings had been strapped to the roof beside the driver, Bethany’s hamper was squeezed in at her feet and another smaller bag beside her knees. It made for a very small space, and Richard was a large man who seemed to have grown larger as he settled beside her. He tapped on the roof, and the driver drew away into the street.
“No more tears?” he asked warily, watching her as if she might explode or combust or manifest some other disastrous natural occurrence. “It’s not as if you’re being transported, you know. The wager and these consequences were your choice.”
“I know,” she said, the words wavering up and down as she saw the last of Penny House. “I won’t go back on my word.”
“That’s something, I suppose.” He folded his arms across his chest, the only place left to put them. “But all that folderol with your sisters—you make me feel as if I were about to clap you in irons and haul you away.”
“I couldn’t help it.” She sniffed again, wishing she could pull out her handkerchief without reinforcing his notion of her as a useless, blubbering ninny. “Farewells of any sort affect me.”
