by Gaelen Foley
“You look thoroughly beautiful,” she assured him, and it was true.
“Humph.” His black chapeau-bras tucked flat beneath his arm, Alec was putting on his other white kid glove when he glanced up and watched her coming toward him.
The caress in his gaze reminded her of the fun he’d had, as well, lacing up her corset in back and rolling the white silk stockings slowly up her legs and ever so carefully fastening them to each garter belt.
“Don’t careen so speedily, my dear. You’ll throw yourself down the stairs. A lady glides.”
“You’ll catch me.”
“Maybe,” he drawled, his cobalt gaze softening. “Come here.”
She obeyed, and quite tenderly he adjusted the angle of her hat.
She frowned as he smiled at her in fond amusement. “It just keeps flopping.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re charming.” His pleasured gaze admired her, then he offered her his arm. “Shall we?”
She accepted with a blush, but still couldn’t stop smiling. It had been a close contest, for he had almost forbidden her to come. While getting dressed, they had argued in the bedchamber.
“I can’t take you with me to a gambling hell, Becky!” he had said while pulling on his trousers.
“Why not?”
“Respectable young ladies do not go into such places! Everyone will think you are my bit o’ muslin!”
“Your what?”
“My ladybird. Kept woman. Mistress!”
“Really?” she had marveled, not half as appalled as she ought to have been at the notion. Then she shrugged it off entirely. Did he not yet grasp that she cared less than a fig what other people thought? “No matter. You will protect me,” she had assured him cheerily.
“That’s not the point.” Alec had scowled. “Even married ladies only go to gambling hells when they’re escorted by their cavaliers servientes—and that, provided only that they have finished having babies. They’re usually women of a racy reputation to boot.”
“What about their husbands?”
“Husbands?”
“Why don’t their husbands take them to gambling hells?”
“Really, poppet.” His worldly chuckle informed her that her question had been hopelessly naive. “Don’t you know it is considered vulgar in the ton for a man and wife to be seen together overmuch? Besides, what man would bring the mother of his children to a gaming hell?”
“Vulgar for a man and wife to be seen having fun together?” She had stopped brushing her hair to squint at him in bafflement. “You aristocrats are so strange! Lace me up.” She had turned her back to make him do her stays.
“No.” He had captured her hands and wrapped his arms around her waist instead. “Call me sentimental, but I happen to like you sheltered. It’s refreshing.”
“Alec, you can’t leave me here by myself again!” She had spun around, clutching his lapels. “Don’t lock me in here all alone! Oh, please?”
“Such dramatics!” he had chided softly, but her pleas had finally won him over, except for one last, stern admonition: “Mind that you stay by my side at all times.”
“I will! Oh, bless you!” She had hugged him excitedly and kissed his face ten times. “I will, I promise.”
And so she was on her way to a gambling hell, posing as the ladybird of the captain of all London rakes. What Mama would’ve had to say about this, she did not care to entertain.
“Here,” Alec said as they walked outside, nodding to Mr. Walsh, who held the door for them. “I have something for you.” As the butler shut the door behind them, Alec reached into his waistcoat and pulled out their stash of money, handing her some. “Put this in your reticule,” he ordered.
“Do I get to play, too?” she asked, lighting up.
“No. That’s for you in case of emergency. If for any reason we become separated or if anything happens to me, should we meet those Cossacks again, you are to buy a stagecoach ticket immediately to the town of Carlisle. From there you will go west to Hawkscliffe Hall. My family will help you, and Mr. Walsh can vouch for you if there is any question of your veracity.”
His words brought back the ominous specter of danger that loomed over them, casting a shadow over Becky’s lighthearted mood. It was hard to absorb that this man whom she’d met scarcely twenty-four hours ago was willingly putting his life on the line for her.
“Don’t worry, nothing’s going to happen. Just in case,” he murmured as he put the coin-purse back into his pocket and then tucked her gloved hand in the crook of his arm. Patting it twice, he led her to his ducal brother’s borrowed town-coach and handed her up into the opulent vehicle.
A moment later they were off.
It was about nine o’clock when they strolled up to the large, black-clad porter stationed outside the door of the gambling hell.
“Ah, Lord Alec. Good evenin’, sir.”
“Hullo, Tom. Busy night?”
“Fairly so, sir. I’m sure they will all make room for you at the tables, ha! Good luck to you, sir.”
“Thanks, Tom. As you see, tonight I’ve brought my lucky charm.” He gave Becky a rowdy squeeze as she clung fast to the crook of his arm.
As the man opened the door for them with a grin, the noise from inside swelled and light spilled out onto the pavement. The porter tipped his hat politely to Becky as they passed him. “Miss.”
Her heart beat faster as Alec led her into the gambling hell. It was a disreputable place, with elegant players like Alec rubbing shoulders with rough characters who looked slightly criminal. Excitement was palpable in the air, and Becky responded to its contagion, glancing all around her at the gaudy, red-carpeted salons and the startling real Cyprians with their rouged mouths and plunging necklines. She swallowed hard, unable to shake the thought of Mrs. Whithorn’s scathing disapproval.
Sodom and Gomorrah, indeed, and her golden-haired guardian angel was leading her ever deeper into temptation.
Perhaps her uneasiness showed in her face, for Alec apparently sensed it. He gave her gloved hand another comforting pat where it rested on his arm.
“Relax, sweet. You’re quite safe,” he murmured, then gave a droll sigh. “For myself, on the other hand, I’m quite sure I’ll be going to hell for bringing you here, if there was still any debate on the matter.”
Becky just looked at him. There was no way she would have allowed him to come without her, considering all that she had at stake in his success. For all his generosity, she had yet to be solidly convinced that his risky plan would work. Also, given his aristocratic tendency toward extravagance, and her need to conserve their funds, she intended to watch him like a hawk; perhaps it was wrong to doubt him, however slightly, but all things considered, she had made a private decision not to let her hero get carried away at his second favorite pastime.
He gave her a wink, then tugged her onward.
She was glad she had left the floppy-feathered hat in the carriage. She already felt self-conscious enough. As they sauntered through the smoky, noisy place where countless games were in progress, she was aware of the many people who stopped and looked at them as they walked past.
“What a beautiful pair,” she heard someone say.
“She must be new.”
“Wasn’t he here the other night?”
Hearing the murmurs, feeling their scrutiny, Becky stayed close to him, but the sighing, staring females who ogled Alec as he walked by made her scowl.
“This way, sweet.” When he placed his hand in the small of her back, she quivered slightly, but Alec’s gaze was fixed on the cluster of crowded gaming tables ahead. A painted placard hanging from the ceiling proclaimed the mysterious message: DEALER STANDS ON ALL 17’S.
Alec was glancing from one table to the other. “There.” He nodded toward the first table on the left. “That’s the one we want. Minimum wager’s only a fiver.”
“But you said we’d start with a hundred,” she whispered.
“Yes, but first we’ve got to b
uy in.”
Becky looked at him in question.
“Trust me. I’ve done this before.” He caressed her while they waited for one of the seven stools at the “fiver” table to be vacated.
“So, this is vingt-et-un,” she murmured, standing on tiptoe in an effort to see past the crowd around the table.
“Right. The object is to reach a total of twenty-one points without going over. Face cards are worth ten points, aces either one or eleven. In simplest terms, each player bets against the house on whether he or the dealer will have the better hand.”
“Ah,” she said sagely.
Alec chuckled at her mystified stare. “Hand’s over. That fellow’s leaving. Here we go.”
She could sense his excitement rising as he moved forward and sat down on the stool that one of the gamblers, shaking his head over what Becky surmised was a defeat, had abandoned. As she came over to stand by Alec’s shoulder, he smoothly produced a hundred guineas.
He put the money on the green baize table, and the dealer, a wizened old man, took it all. “Good evening, sir.”
Alec nodded. A moment later the dealer slid a few stacks of chips toward Alec.
“The red’s worth five guineas each, the white’s worth one,” he explained in a murmur. She looked on with rising interest while Alec exchanged a cordial smile with his fellow players.
“Gentlemen, lay your bets, please,” the ancient dealer rasped.
Becky glanced around the table, noting that seven white circles about the size of a saucer were painted on the green velvet surface of the table, one in front of every player. Inside this circle, each player placed his chips.
“Don’t touch anything,” he told her in a low voice. “Once we put our wager in this circle—it’s called the betting box—no one’s allowed to touch it until the hand is over. Also, don’t touch the cards.”
“I won’t,” she quickly agreed.
Alec placed two red chips inside his betting box for an initial wager of ten guineas. When all of the other players had laid their bets as well, the dealer doled out the cards. Starting at his left, he made one pass around the table, laying all cards faceup; he dealt Alec a three and Becky noted that the dealer’s own card was an eight.
“Do the suits matter?”
“No.” Alec’s anticipatory stare remained fixed on the dealer, who was making another pass around the table, handing out a second card to all the players. Again the cards were dealt faceup.
Alec got another three.
“Is that good?” Becky whispered.
“Could be,” he said, then nodded toward the dealer as the old man placed his own second card face down. “You see? Now none of us knows what the dealer’s got in his hand. He’s got that eight, but his second card could be anything. That’s where the fun comes in.” He glanced around at the other players’ hands as he spoke.
“Fun? This is nerve-racking.”
“No one’s been dealt vingt-et-un,” he commented under his breath.
“What happens next?”
“Each player takes his turn. You’ll see.”
She peered over his shoulder at the gamblers to his right who began taking their turns in succession. Her curious stare drew an answering leer from a sweaty fellow across the table whose scruffy jaw was badly in need of a shave. He lifted his flask in Becky’s direction and toasted her with a harsh gulp of blue ruin.
Alec sent the man an icy look and pulled Becky onto his knee.
When his turn came around, he put another two red chips in the betting box and tapped the table casually with his fingertip. The dealer gave him a third card.
“A three again!” Becky exclaimed, then hastily stifled herself.
So, he had nine and he wanted twenty one. Two more red chips went into the betting box; again he summoned another card with a tap of his finger. This time it was a five.
Five plus nine: They were up to fourteen.
The other men around the table seemed to be holding their breaths as they watched him, but Alec, without a flicker of emotion on his face, placed another pair of red chips in the betting box and sought a fifth card.
Oh, please be a seven. They now had thirty guineas on this wager.
The dealer gave Alec his fifth and final card—a six.
Becky stared at it, crestfallen. They were short. They had only made twenty.
Then she heard one of the other men say to Alec, “Nicely done, sir,” and she noticed the twinkle in his blue eyes as he amiably answered, “We’ll see.”
“I thought we wanted twenty-one,” she whispered, turning to him.
“Yes, but we haven’t gone over, and a five-card trick beats everything but vingt-et-un.”
“Oh!”
As the other men took their turns, some fell short of twenty-one or even the twenty that Alec had gotten. Others went over—the term was going ‘bust,’ as Becky soon learned—and from these, the dealer immediately confiscated the chips they had wagered on the hand.
At last, in the final step of the game, the dealer revealed his facedown card—a ten, giving him a total of eighteen. He had to pay even money to one man who had slipped in with a nineteen, but Alec’s five-card trick was a win that paid two to one.
“There you are, sir, well done, my lord,” the dealer murmured, shoving two green chips and two more red ones toward Alec.
Becky stared at her rescuer in amazement. “You just won sixty pounds!”
He cast her an ever so slight, private smile. She realized he was jubilant within, though as cool as steel outwardly, like a proper gambler.
“I like this,” she whispered, settling more comfortably onto his lap.
Alec nodded. “Everybody likes winning. They say it is an aphrodisiac,” he murmured in her ear.
“What’s that?” she asked innocently.
His laugh was low and very wicked. “I’ll tell you later.”
The dealer swept up all the cards and slid them under the bottom of the deck.
“Shouldn’t he shuffle?” she inquired, but Alec was nuzzling the curve of her neck.
“Not until someone gets vingt-et-un. I like your hair like this,” he purred, his warm breath tickling her earlobe. “It’s very pretty.” She had worn her hair pulled back from her face with a pair of combs, the back lifted off her neck, hanging in bouncy ringlets. Alec’s lips explored while some of the players left the table and new ones took their places. Becky glanced nervously at them, biting her lip against the sizzling desire that he sent searing through her veins. “You look so innocent in pink. It just makes me want to debauch you. I love your neck.”
“Behave, you scoundrel,” she chided in a breathy whisper. “You need to concentrate.”
“You are my muse, cherie. You inspire me.”
“How much are those green chips worth?”
“Twenty-five.” With that, he nudged one of the green chips into the betting box.
It was a steeper bet than they had started with last time, but Becky willed herself to trust him. The dealer again distributed two cards to all seven players, leaving his own second draw facedown. His faceup card was a four.
Alec had received a pair of sevens and was staring at them with a look of brooding intensity. “Are you superstitious, my girl?”
“A little, I suppose.”
“Then give me a kiss for luck.” He leaned his cheek toward her.
She smiled and obliged him, pressing a lingering kiss to his clean-shaved cheek.
Armed with her kiss, Alec slowly put the other green chip in the betting box and tapped the green tabletop twice. He stared at the dealer with a look of idle nonchalance, but sitting half on his lap, Becky could feel the tension thrumming through his body.
Cries of amazement erupted around the table before the third seven even hit the green velvet.
“A royale!”
“Damn me!”
“Ain’t seen one of those in months!”
Alec exhaled slowly through his mouth.
&nb
sp; “Three sevens, that’s twenty-one!” she said, turning to him in excitement.
“You weren’t fooling. You are lucky.” He looked a little dazed as he glanced at her. “That kiss worked better than you know.”
“A royale trumps everything, little missy,” the middle-aged bald man beside Alec told her. “That’s why it pays three to one!”
Her jaw dropped as she whipped around to face her rescuer again. “Alec! You just won a hundred and fifty pounds!”
The man beside them bought Alec a bumper.
As word of his “royale” traveled rapidly throughout the gaming hell, people began gathering around the table to watch him play; but Becky was a bit superstitious, and Alec’s winning streak sent gooseflesh rising on her skin, as though someone had stepped on her grave. These sums were getting awfully large. She could barely believe he had won in one hand almost all that it cost to run the farm for a year. She swallowed hard, glancing nervously at the other players. Many of them were leaving the game, but Alec showed no sign of quitting anytime soon.
Maybe he should, she thought. Why press their luck?
She was elated with his success, of course, and realized they still had far to go, but frankly, she was beginning to feel a trifle unnerved. As the stools again changed ownership and the dealer added the used cards once more to the bottom of the deck, she turned hesitantly to him.
“Perhaps we ought to quit while we’re ahead.”
“What, quit now?”
She nodded uneasily.
“Hell, no,” he whispered. “Not a chance.”
“Alec.”
He ignored her, his gaze riveted on the card box. Now that she noticed it, the fevered look in his eyes rather scared her. It bolstered her decision to leave.
“I want to go now, Alec. I mean it. Let’s get out of here before we lose all that you just gained.”
He shook his head. “Soon. Not yet.”
“Why risk it? You’ve won over two hundred guineas in less than twenty minutes—”