She began to lose her temper with his veiled intimidation. So he thought he would clean her out, did he?
Her glance took in that the empty place at the table backed up against a wall; there would be no one behind her. She deliberately tossed her head with the careless vanity he expected from her, retrieved her wrist, and slid past the politely standing Valencia to take her seat. Pleased with himself Felipe presented the two players she didn't know, the Bishop of Albi, who smiled at her to show two missing teeth, and Don Jaime da Silva, pleasantly hearty.
Widening her eyes Dolores told them, "I'm not very experienced with gambling, but I'll do my best not to hold up the play."
"But you are already," the Duchess complained, suddenly turning testy. "Come then, sirs, if you insist on inviting amateurs, wager up, wager up." Her hand, with its yellowed, dirt-embedded nails, hovered over her untidy heap of excellentes and silver reales.
In a belated afterthought Dolores fished the silk pouch from her pocket and was dashed to realize she hadn't nearly enough money in it to buy the time necessary to prepare her ambush of the offensive Perens. Diantre!
But Felipe hadn't taken his eyes off her. Red spots of color rode his pale cheeks. "Is there something that bothers you, my lady?"
"Well, perhaps I am not entirely prepared... I did not expect..."
"A signed note would be honored—"
"A—a—ah, my lord! We have determined we do not play with paper," the Duchess objected.
"Too easily abrogated in the confusion and danger of war," the slightly built Bishop explained softly, adding his smug, gapped smile.
Dolores bit the inside of her lip in vexation, but Felipe leaned forward and with too nonchalant an attitude indicated with his chin the brooch pinned on her bodice. "What about that? If you run out of funds you could wager with that bauble."
Dolores looked down at the beautiful brooch the Duke had presented her with, a tower wrought of gold laid against a crescent moon of diamonds, with a narrow band of diamonds at its base representing a moat and a teardrop-shaped pearl pendant below. She placed her hand over it defensively. "This is most valuable," she declared.
"That is no worry," Felipe countered smoothly. "When the time comes I promise you it will be most valuably matched."
"Don Felipe is a gentleman who always keeps his word," the old lady growled impatiently. "Let us then continue our business."
Dolores squared back her shoulders and gave Felipe a disdainful smile. Very well. Since the weasel was so anxious to skin her alive she was going to let him think he could. She drew a gold coin from her bag and tossed it into the center, the Duchess cackled and followed suit and so did the others and the game began, idle spectators collecting about them. From time to time Dolores pulled her lace-trimmed kerchief from where it was tucked in the flared sleeve which overlapped her wrist and dabbed it delicately at her nose.
Riba-bajo was simplicity itself, with each person dealt three cards, two hidden and one showing, the object being to match the random "high" or "low," called before the deal by the person to the dealer's left, with the numerical score of one's cards. Betting was done before each card was dealt. It was a swift game of chance, the only skill required being the ability to fool opponents into thinking one held a better hand than they and forcing them out. It was a perfect pastime for inveterate gamblers who didn't care to think— and for manipulators who didn't care to lose, especially since the ace of the spade suit counted either as double fourteen or as one.
Dolores kept up a constant murmur of comment to herself as she played, wriggled in her seat, tapped her nails on the stiffened parchment of the small, square, hand-painted cards. She was glad that Valencia had the annoying habit of humming under his breath and that Don Jaime's nervous foot tapping shook the table a little. She laughed, she groaned, she chattered brightly between deals about events on the trip, anything to be diverting. And she deliberately lost the first two games with very stupid bets. The Duchess looked at her with scorn, the Bishop with pity as he hauled in his winnings. Perens kept his gaze averted from her, but his hard mouth turned up slightly at the corners.
Doña Teresa shuffled and dealt. "Now that my lady de la Rocha has got her feet wet, let us open wider the spigot, so to speak," she wheezed, and raised her bet considerably.
Dolores began to feel hot. She needed to seem a witless player and a loser, but she also needed to stay with the game for a while, especially until she got the deal. The problem was she was going to run out of money. She'd have to win one of the better pots to stay alive. She prepared by nattering away to the disinterested gamblers about savages in Africa she'd heard used cards made of human skin....
No one seemed to have good cards on the next deal, the betting was small. Dolores dabbed at her nose, then re-tucked her kerchief. She was about out of money.
"Have you an ague of the head, my child?" the Bishop inquired pleasantly, drawing up more coins from his embroidered purse.
"It rained so heavily through most of our trip, Your Grace. Even the Queen, whose health is always so robust, Lord be thanked, suffered a bad croup."
"Tsk, tsk," the prelate clucked, but he was much more interested in what cards were coming his way.
Dolores kept glancing at Perens, as if she were trying to read from his face how good his cards were. She was glad to see he obliged her show of naivete and passed a false expression across his features, as if his hand were not outstanding. She knew he was too good a player to show such giveaway reactions and she allowed herself an interior laugh. Tucking away her kerchief she bet the last of her money on a low call, with a two showing before her. When the last card was dealt and she showed her hand she had won, with a four. Don Jaime grabbed a goblet of wine from a passing lackey's tray to help him mourn his near miss with a five. Felipe flicked Dolores a coldly amused look. "You seem to be learning to play this game, doña. How clever of you," he rasped softly.
"Women are good at playing games, my lord. That is all we are allowed to do," she sniffed.
She'd won twenty-four gold excellentes and eight reales, enough to buy herself three new gowns, but she was only beginning. It was going to take at least several deals to palm the cards she needed and slip them up her sleeve via the handkerchief, a glass-smooth, lightning-quick sleight-of-hand she helped cover by clucking at her cards, giggling, smiling seductively at the men, keeping her opponents' attention off balance with chatter about the games she'd played during her convent years. She lost several times again, showing not much better gambling luck than before.
She received the deal finally, fumbled the shuffle (and, as if it were invisible, the powerful ace of spades disappeared into the curve of her palm). With the deck in hand she wiggled around on her stool, carried away by excitement (a king, minutely marked in the middle of the deck by her little finger, found its way to the top of the pile and in a second joined the ace) and then awkwardly tried to deal as fast as the others had with an embarrassed laugh (giving herself undetected two cards together, one of which joined the others in the same place where she had kept the two aces that had won her the excellentes).
She did nothing more unusual on this deal and Don Felipe took the stakes. Now she had only two excellentes on the table before her. Shrugging ruefully she turned up her hands to signify she was out and then placed them on the table edge to lever herself up from the narrow space.
"I will not let you go from us empty-handed, Baroness. Surely another few deals will bring back your luck?" Don Felipe stayed her from rising by putting a hand over hers. She repressed an urge to jerk away. "Have you not the courage to lay your brooch on the table then, doña?" he challenged her.
"This brooch is worth over a thousand ducats," Dolores told him, frowning.
"Yes. I know that." His chilly stare was steady.
Valencia yawned. "Well. You can count me out, I haven't that much about me. In fact, does anyone?" He looked around the table and shrugged. No one did, and the Duchess made no move to remember the
rings on her fingers. Dolores started to get up, but Felipe kept her hand pinned down.
"Wait. I do. This should make it worth your while and more." The Count of Perens rose and unbuckled the dagger belt around his waist, which brought all eyes and those of the casual onlookers standing behind them to the magnificent buckle securing the belt, a large, heavy fastening of gold with a wide silver tongue, paved all around with large, colored gemstones inlaid to spell G U Z on top, M A N on bottom. He drew the dagger, used the sharp blade to slit the leather strap and free the buckle, and then held the buckle out to her. "Here is another Guzman piece, my lady. Surely you will find it worthy a wager for yours. Two games out of three."
But Dolores's attention clung to what he'd said. "Another...?"
Felipe continued favoring her with his insolent smile. "The brooch you wear. It is strangely identical with an heirloom jewel inherited by my father from his dear mother. Of course, it could not be such. Just a slip of the tongue, doña..."
But there were murmurings among the onlookers, a laugh, several giggles, and Don Jaime grinned.
Dolores saw black. She'd no idea the Duke had given her a Guzman family treasure, nor, she thought, had anyone else at Court suspected such until now. The Duke was insensitive, his son a cad. All the joy was out of owning the lovely piece. She almost pricked her finger in her fumbling haste to undo it. She tossed it on the cloth, next to his buckle, and then looked around boldly at the other players. "But why should we cut these fine companions from our game, eh, my lord? Why not let them bet with us to share in what money comes along with the stakes?" She shoved her last two excellentes beside the brooch.
Don Jaime banged the table with his fist. "Excellent idea, my lady, you are a most noble gamestress. What say you, Perens?"
Felipe hesitated a tiny second, looking at Dolores with a flicker of suspicion brought on by the sudden strength in her voice. But logic ruled. He shrugged and his expression became normal. "By all means..." And with a stiff little bow he acknowledged the toothlessly grinning Doña Teresa and took his seat. The old lady tossed out a ducat and the others followed with equivalent sums.
All around them the large hall reverberated with the sounds of music and chatter and laughter, even the deep barking of the King's hounds being teased with tidbits—a loud hum and swirl from which their own small corner seemed suddenly blanketed. On the cut of the deck Dolores won the deal. The interested idlers looking over their shoulders went quiet.
She was now controlling the game, no matter what happened, but she won the first game honestly, to some encouraging finger-snapping from her gallants. She felt the sweat trickle between her breasts and dampen the velvet bodice beneath her armpits. Her face felt moist. It was so hot in the crowded hall. At the same time she was exhilarated, delighted to know she hadn't lost her light-fingered dexterity, praying she was going to stitch the hateful Felipe's ears to his head. The giggle of a naughty child bubbled up inside of her.
She did not have to try to lose the second game, her cards were terrible. But she saw Felipe's hard mouth split into a smile as he handed her the shuffled deck, and so bright was the accompanying glitter of his eyes that she was taken aback for a second. He was such a scoundrel, it was not impossible that he had slipped a card from the deck too. Carefully smiling back with the silly confidence that had marked all her bad bets, she crushed her tiny bout with panic by remembering that after all she had the ace of spades. She pulled out her kerchief to pat her damp face and then picked up the deck to deal the third and last game.
"High," he rapped out. She dealt him the first card off the top for his open card. It was a high ace, as she had suspected it would be from his momentary indulgence in gloating. There was an excited murmur all around. "Cielo, Don Felipe, you have made the call well," she said, keeping up her patter.
Her own open card turned out to be a three, but that was all right, anything would do. She was glad for the Duchess of Dimonales's usual distracting antics, for when that worthy wasn't clapping her claws at another chance to bet she was hawking and spitting on the straw-strewn plank floor. As everyone began to sense Dolores a loser, the other players shoved more gold into the pot, betting with Don Felipe. Surprisingly, the usually canny Duchess bet with her, but Dolores had no time to wonder why.
Dolores dealt the last cards, then put down the deck, tucked her kerchief away, consulted her cards, and looked at Felipe.
His pale face glistened, and she could see a dark sweat stain on his velvet doublet when he raised his arm. Slowly he put down his two hidden cards face up on the table. First an ace, then another ace, added to the one already on the cloth, forty-two points. A gasp went up and muffled cries of excitement. Valencia laughed. Don Jaime's grin couldn't have been wider. But Doña Teresa hissed out, "Silencio! The play is not over," and for sympathy as much as courtesy all eyes turned to Dolores, who was showing only a three.
Her pulse was pounding in her temples like a hammer. She forced herself to a dignified demeanor, but she wanted to jump up and down with triumph. Raising her eyes from Felipe's almost unbeatable three aces, she kept up her pretense by smiling a little unsteadily at him. His mocking sneer was out in the open now. Relishing the drama she laid down one card next to her three, a king. The onlookers stirred. The Count of Perens's expression did not change, there was no way she could top his score.
Except one. To the wild beating of her heart she laid down next to the king the double-scored ace of spades, and her total was forty-four. She sat back, still smiling, but now there was a wicked sparkle in her eyes. Up went a universal gasp immediately turning into stunned cries and shouts of glee, and then all about her clapping and finger-snapping and congratulations.
"Lord, Lord, Thy ways are wondrous to behold," the little Bishop sighed over his lost money and gazed skyward.
"I love you, dear pretty lady," Doña Teresa shrieked, bobbing up and knocking her huge, old-fashioned hennin askew on the chin of an overhanging spectator. The old one raked the gold over to her and began to divide the money between Dolores and herself. The buckle and the brooch were left on the red brocade to glint in the bright light of the dozens of fat candles in the chandelier above.
Perens's abrasive personality had made him more enemies than friends at Court; he had never been well liked. He had learned to hold his emotions close to him. The first open-mouthed shock passed from his face in an instant, to be displaced by fury which was swiftly overlaid by his usual pale steeliness, and even Dolores had to admire the will it took for such poised recovery, for the jewel-studded buckle was no small loss. The Count of Perens, she suspected, would never allow a woman to think she had discomfited him. He stood up slowly and leaned over to casually riffle her winning cards with a long forefinger, which didn't bother her since the lower cards for which she'd substituted the king and ace she'd slipped safely back in the deck, along with the two in case he'd called "low." Then he stared into her eyes, and the malevolence that struck her made her almost sorry she had taken him on.
"Very well, doña, you have won," he conceded stonily. He indicated the buckle. "That is a keepsake I would rather not part with. I will send my valet to you tomorrow with the money to buy it back. That is, if you will permit?"
"Of course, my lord," Dolores nodded, in spite of herself unable to keep a certain preening from her voice. The fine gentleman tried to outcheat her? Weasel!
Pale-lashed lids blinked over his baleful stare. "Then I bid you good night, doña." He swept the money before him into his purse. "Doña Teresa? Gentlemen? Your Grace?" With a tilt of his head to the other gamers, Felipe spun about and pushed past the spectators to stride away, immediately joined on either side by two twittering, sympathetic ladies, who were eager to console him.
The people around began to lose interest and drift off. Dolores noticed the young Viscount of Mirabel quietly waiting for her off to one side, admiration and doglike devotion in his attitude. She rose, hastily sweeping the brooch, buckle, and coins into her kerchief. Now th
at it was over she wondered how smart it had been to have publicly bested the Duke's son, even just in a game of chance. Don Enrique seemed unaware of Felipe's dislike for her, and she had always felt it was best not to call the Duke's attention to this. Hoping Felipe would continue, for whatever reasons he had, to keep his feelings to himself, she made her apologies to the disappointed other three players for not giving them a chance to win something back and even though she'd been playing only twenty minutes, she claimed fatigue because it was true.
Tying up the corners of the kerchief she looked around to decide which way she would go, and consternation fell upon her like a disoriented flutter of wings, for even at a distance she could see the accusation in the pair of vivid blue eyes boring into hers. There was Francho, standing to her right, visible now that some others had drifted away. Virgin help her! How long had he been watching? She saw his head move back and forth in a barely perceptible but definite gesture of disapproval, and his cynically quirked eyebrow didn't help. His lips were pressed together in what could be taken for utter disgust. "The gusano!" she thought with guilty defiance. "Instead of judging me he should be impressed. That was a flashy bit of finger work, anybody would say." But she dropped her eyes quickly for this was not how she had thought she would meet him again.
Slipping the heavy kerchief into her pocket she bid the players and some new bettors who had joined them good night and then, with head held high, nose atilt, and an unnaturally brilliant smile, she glided off to the peace of her bed, in the opposite direction from the one person in the room who knew how ill gotten her gains were. She would just pretend he didn't exist.
Francho watched her go, and the mirth he'd been straining to hold in sputtered out of him. He threw back his head and laughed. What a skinning she'd given Perens. He sobered after a moment, though. He had absolutely no sympathy for her victim, of course, but what bothered him was why Dolores seemed willing to stick her hand in the wasp's nest of Felipe's personality. His laughter turned into an annoyed sigh. She had no idea of what she was about. He'd have to keep an eye out to see she didn't get stung too badly.
Hart, Mallory Dorn Page 29