Dangerous Obsession

by Natasha Peters

  Then the evening was over. The card game broke up and the players came into the drawing room. I heard Seth’s unmistakable tread and the tap of his cane. He came over to the piano and told me that it was time to go. Franz stood up and greeted him.

  “Is this your friend?” he asked me. I blushed slightly and nodded. “You are a very lucky man, Monsieur,” he told Seth. “Your ward has a great musical ability. I would teach her myself if I were going to stay in Paris for any length of time.”

  “That’s very kind of you, Monsieur Liszt,” Seth said. “Fortunately Rhawnie has other abilities as well.”

  I hurried out of the room to get my wrap. I could hear the men laughing. Damn him, I thought, why does he have to be so crude? I said as much to him as we drove back to the Rue de Montmorency.

  He gave a dry little laugh and said, “There isn’t a man in Europe who appreciates the finer things in life more than Franz Liszt. He’s the biggest womanizer on the continent. You may be sure that whatever lessons he wants to give you wouldn’t be musical.”

  “You’re making this up,” I said angrily. “I don’t believe you!”

  “No?” He laughed. “If you could read I’d show you stories in the newspapers. As it is you’ll have to depend on gossip for your information. Ask anyone. François. He’s known Liszt for years. And procured for him.”

  “Oh, brute!” I turned my back on him. “Someday I shall learn to read, just you wait and see. If you cared about me, you would teach me!”

  “No, I wouldn’t,” Seth laughed. “I like you better ignorant. Beautiful and ignorant.” He leaned over and kissed my shoulder. A shudder of delight ran through me. “Don’t be angry, Rhawnie. Doesn’t it give you a good feeling to know that you’ve conquered the most famous pianist in Europe?”

  “Have I really?” I cocked my head. “Think of that. And he said I had a beautiful voice! Do you think he meant it?”

  “No, I think he was just trying to seduce you.” He grinned as I flounced angrily and then he said in a slightly different tone, “Tell me, Rhawnie, how did you know which cards I should play?”

  I shrugged “I just knew, that’s all. I had a feeling. Did you win?”

  “Yes. On all of them. Not only once but twice. How did you do it? Gypsy magic again? Did you have a vision?”

  “No, no vision. I think I must have been lucky, that’s all. Such a silly game. The card has to win or lose, isn’t that right? That means that half the deck is a winning half and the other other half loses. I had—how do you call it?— good odds.”

  “You catch on quickly,” Seth said. The carriage was slowing. When we got inside the house I started up the stairs to bed. But Seth called me back.

  “Come in here a minute.” I followed him into the small salon near the dining room that he used as a card room when his friends came. The evening had turned chilly, and he lit a fire and poured us each a little brandy. I remembered that he hadn’t drunk very much that night. He’d had his fill the week before. “Now sit down,“ he said. I obeyed. He brought out two decks of cards. “We’re going to try a little experiment. Choose four cards. One from each suit will do. Put them face up on the table in front of you.”

  I did as he said. He started to deal two piles. All four of my cards turned up on my pile.

  We repeated the procedure twice more. Both times my cards won. Seth tried cutting the deck before he dealt. And once he used a fresh deck at the last minute, trying to defeat my intuition, I suppose. But still I won.

  “Amazing.” He blew out his breath and sat back in his chair. “How do you do it?”

  “I’m not doing anything,” I said sleepily. “Can’t we go to bed now?”

  “Not yet. I want to try something else.” He chose four cards from his deck and placed them on the table, face down. “What are they? Tell me.”

  I gaped at him. “How am I supposed to know what they are? I don’t read minds!”

  “Shut up and concentrate. What are they? I’ll tell you this much: there’s one card from each suit.”

  I sighed deeply and closed my eyes. He waited silently. Then I said, “The eight of clubs. The two of diamonds— no, hearts. The ten of spades.” I frowned and rubbed my temples. “And the ten of diamonds.”

  He flipped the cards over. They were all there, the ones I had named.

  “Damn.” He finished his drink and stood up to pour himself another. “Do you think you could do that again?” He chose four more cards. I identified half of them and then gave up. “Too many pictures,” I said wearily, resting my head in my hands. “They are all the same.”

  “That’s close enough.” He revealed the cards, all picture cards. “Damn,” he said again. “What else do you know, Gypsy? What else do you—see?”

  “Do you want me to tell your fortune, a gorgio?" I grinned. I stretched out my hand. “Cross my palm and I will tell all.”

  He laughed and reached across the table to take my hand. “I don’t want to know all. I just want to win at cards. You’re a genius, Rhawnie! I adore you!” He kissed my fingertips. My heart gave a queer little lurch. “What would you like as a reward for being such a good girl tonight? A diamond necklace? A sack of golden florins?”

  “I just want to go to bed,” I said wearily. “With you.”

  “You shall have your wish.” He came around the table and lifted me out of my chair and held me close. He caressed my face and ran his thumbs gently under my cheekbones. “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you, Gypsy? What else have you got in store for me, I wonder?” He kissed me sweetly, and then he hugged me tightly and threw back his head and laughed. “Ah, talk about luck! We’re going to win a fortune, you and I, Gypsy! And now to bed.”

  He helped me out of my gown and corset and tucked me in. Just before I closed my eyes I saw him smiling down at me warmly. Quite a change from the brute who had hit me just a few days ago. Then he turned down the lamps and lay beside me, holding me close, as if to protect his, suddenly valuable Gypsy from the terrors of the night.

  The next day he taught me how to bet.

  “Your ability will be wasted if you don’t know how to handle your money,” he told me. “If you put everything on your first four cards you’ll scare the competition off. You’re going to have to learn to play with them, to coax their money out of them easily without letting them know that they’re going to lose repeatedly, understand? Now. In faro you can bet on whether a given card is going to win or lose, and you can also bet on whether the winning card will be higher or lower than the loser. Ace is low, king high.” I chose four cards and he dealt a sample hand.

  “Why do you play cards for your living?” I asked him. “Have you always done this?”

  “No. What’s the difference how I earn my money, as long as I have enough to buy what I want.”

  “Your beautiful home and your clothes and your women,” I said softly. He gave me a sharp look. “Don’t be angry with me,” I smiled. “It’s so early in the day; too early to quarrel. I just like to know things.”

  “You don’t have to know anything,” he said brusquely. “Just be happy with what you get out of it. You see, your king is a winner—of course. And so is your jack of clubs. Now what are the odds on the jack being higher than any other card?”

  I screwed up my eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “There are fifty-two cards in the deck, thirteen in a suit. If the king is high that means that only two cards are higher than the jack, the queen and the king. Ten cards are lower, ace through ten. It’s a safe bet that the jack will be high, but you won’t find too many takers. So you copper your bet—you put a six-sided chip on it to indicate no bet— which means you want it to lose. Now look at your eight of hearts. Odds are that it will lose to the other card, right?” I thought hard. “No. More cards are lower. It has a good chance of winning.”

  “Three francs says it loses. Will you take my bet?”

  “How do I do that?”

  “Put three francs on the eight to win,
not the turn but as high card. The odds are in your favor, aren’t they?”

  “But I do not have three francs.”

  “Here.” He gave an exasperated sigh and tossed me a handful of coins. Then he dealt the hand. The eight lost on the turn—it appeared on his, the dealer’s pile. But it was higher than the six, which turned up on my pile.

  “Very confusing,” I remarked. “Have I lost my three francs?”

  “No, you’ve won three francs from me.”

  “But the eight lost!”

  “Yes, but it was still higher than the six, right? You can bet on that eight two different ways.”

  I gathered in my winnings, three francs, and said, “You know, I think I like this betting. It is as easy as stealing. What else can you bet on?”

  “Anything. Bet that it will rain tomorrow if you meet someone who says it won’t. Bet that the king will make a speech, or that Jules will serve mutton for lunch.”

  “But that’s no-bet,” I protested. “I know that Jules is making boeuf à la bourguignonne."

  “Ah, you have inside information that I don’t have. I might be stupid enough to take your bet and you would win. Not strictly honest. But most people who gamble aren’t honest.”

  “Huh. So gamblers are like Gypsies. And I can bet on horses!”

  “Certainly. Horses, cocks, oxen. You can bet on men: wrestling, boxing, foot racing, hurling rocks or spears or logs. Don’t Gypsies bet?”

  "Why should they? For a Gypsy all of life is a gamble!" He was crazy. He made me play with him all that day, until midnight. Jules had to serve our lunch in the card room, and we played as we ate. Late in the afternoon I became so tired and dizzy from looking at cards that I threw a deck in his face and ran out of the room. Seth dragged me back. I protested loudly, but he kissed me until I was limp.

  “But I don’t want to play any more,” I said in a small voice.

  “You want to learn how to make your fortune, don’t you? You have a gift, Rhawnie. If you use it properly you can have anything you want in the world. Anything.”

  “But I don’t want anything,” I said despairingly. Except you, said a small voice inside me. I was startled. I didn’t want him! But I leaned hard against him and said beseechingly, “Couldn’t we stop for a little while? Please?” I put my arms around his neck and kissed him softly. I could feel his determination to continue ebbing away. “Please?”

  “You’re very hard to resist,” he said.

  “It is intentional.”

  "I know.” He laughed and swatted my rump. “Get back to the card table, wench.”

  I glared at him. "I don’t want to! I hate cards! I hate you! I will never play, ever! You want me to cheat these people to make you rich, but why should I? What will I get out of it, eh? Tell me that much!”

  "Exactly half,” he said. “From now on, everything I win will be split two ways. Half for you and half for me. We’re partners, Rhawnie.”

  “Partners?” I sat down heavily. “You mean I will be rich? You will give me money? When? When will you play again?”

  “On the night of your debut. Maybe. But not before.”

  “You are evil,” I said sullenly. “You think you can make me do anything. You think I am your puppet!”

  He gave me a bemused look. “You’re right, Rhawnie. That’s exactly what you are. My puppet.”

  He taught me how to deal from the bottom of the deck, how to stack the deck, how to palm a card and hide it up my sleeve.

  “You won’t need these tricks if you play in good company,” he said. “But you have to know them so you can spot them.”

  I learned those tricks quickly, with a speed that astounded him. “Simple, like Gypsy tricks,” I told him. “When I was four I could slip a dozen eggs into my blouse in ten seconds. I was even learning how to pick pockets—but the Grandfather took me away.” I sighed regretfully.

  “And you learned how to palm whole chickens and loaves of bread,” Seth grinned.

  “So?” I lifted my chin. "A girl has to live, doesn’t she?”

  He worked very hard for the next week, taking one day off to go to the races at Longchamps. I won a packet on the very first race. “But not because of any special feelings,” I told Seth. “Only because I could see that of all the horses on the track this one was the fastest and the best. Could not everyone see that?”

  Seth, who had backed a loser, did not answer.

  He coached me carefully, creating imaginary situations, describing partners and dealers, teaching me how to read a card player’s face even if I couldn’t read his mind. He told me that a losing man will often bet more heavily—and more foolishly—than a winner. He described the faro game with my uncle Alexei in Moscow.

  “He wanted to bet his house. I told him I wasn’t interested. I said that I never bet on anything that was too big to take to bed. And so he bet me one virgin.” He grinned at me. ‘‘I would have saved myself a lot of trouble if I’d refused his bet.”

  I shook my head. “I would have met you anyway. It was fate.”

  He cheated shamelessly and scolded me when I failed to catch him. I cheated and crowed happily when he failed to catch me. Finally he declared that I was ready. We would go to Albert de Blazon’s gambling hall on the Rue des Fleurs near the site of the old Bastille. The place was currently fashionable and scores of rich Parisians and visitors from all parts of the world went nightly to indulge their passion for gaming. Seth said that there I could match wits with the best players in Paris. And I would win.

  I wore a gown of pearl-gray satin with short puffed sleeves, black gloves and black ornaments, including an enormous black bow in my hair. I wore my hair loose, in masses of golden ringlets that framed my face.

  Seth looked wonderful in evening dress. Diamond studs glittered on his shirt front. And his cufflinks were real gold coins from ancient Rome. He said that they were a gift from an Italian marquesa whom he had bested at cards.

  “And at love?” I wondered.

  “Of course,” he said smiling. We arrived at the Chez Albert. “Are you nervous?” he asked.

  “Oh, no. I am excited. I suppose you will be very angry if I lose?”

  “You won’t lose. And if you bet foolishly, it won’t matter. It’s your first time out. You’re here to learn, and you can learn fastest by matching your skills against the best.”

  “But you are the best. Or so you tell me.”

  “See that you believe it, always,” he said. “A kiss for luck.” He kissed me tenderly before we went inside. A sweet wave of happiness rippled through me.

  Monsieur Albert de Blazon was a Spaniard or Portuguese who had started his career in Paris as a waiter and run dice games on the side. His elegant salon was strictly illegal, but a flow of payments into the right bureaucratic pockets assured its continued existence, and the flow of rich patrons to his tables assured his continued success and wealth. The games at Chez Albert were faro, roulette, dice, baccarat, and twenty-one. Seth promised me that he would teach me all of them, but first I had to show him that I had mastered faro.

  There were few woman present other than the beautifully dressed courtesans who plied their trade among the wealthy patrons. Seth told me that Albert took half of whatever they made. Partners, I thought ruefully. A suite of lushly appointed rooms upstairs was reserved for their use, to insure that a client would return to play after a relaxing interlude in the arms of one of those lovelies. The highly-born ladies in the place were mostly old dames whose passion for cards had long ago supplanted their passion for anything else. Odette Mornay was there. When she saw Seth and me enter the main salon, her pencilled brows went up and she turned away quickly.

  “Spiteful old bitch,” Seth said. “Just don’t play with her. She cheats like the devil and she’s good at it.”

  He led me past the roulette wheels and dice tables to a quieter room at the back where the faro tables were located. He found an empty chair at a table where three bankers and a cabinet minister were enjoying
play. I smiled brightly at the players and the dealer, and took my place behind Seth’s chair. Our plan was to let Seth start play and then to relinquish his place to me when we felt that I was relaxed enough to handle it.

  I watched the men make their bets. Seth was a different man when he gambled, alert, involved, excited—the way he had been at the Delacroix Ball, when he was in pursuit of a quarry. Winning was the only thing that mattered to him. I guessed that he would play for pebbles or buttons of matchsticks—it wouldn’t matter what the stakes were, as long as he won.

  The top of the faro table bore printed representations of all the cards in the deck, one picture for each card. There were two of these set-ups, one in front of the dealer. Bets were made by placing chips on the cards of one’s choice. The dealer dealt his cards from a small wooden box that insured against stacking or peeling a card off the bottom of the deck.

  “Any suggestions?” Seth asked in a whisper after he had lost on his first bets.

  “Queens of clubs. Ten of spades. Five of hearts. King of diamonds.”

  He nodded and made his bets. His cards won. He reached up and pressed my hand and I squeezed his shoulder. After a few more deals he excused himself and asked me if I would like to sit in for him. I said 1 would, if he didn’t mind my losing. He gave me a quick kiss and left me a large stack of chips.

  As I took my chair I smiled at the dealer, a handsome young man in his twenties.

  “Mademoiselle’s first time at the faro table?” he asked with a grin.

  “Yes, Monsieur. Do you have any advice for a beginner?”

  “Yes,” growled one of the other players, “don’t start.”

  “It’s all right,” said another, “Seth Garrett is buying her chips. Doesn’t matter to me if she loses everything.”

  “My advice is don’t shed tears if the cards don’t fall right,” the dealer said. “ Very well, Mademoiselle, make your bets.”

  I put twenty francs each on the king of hearts, the jack of diamonds, the ten of clubs and the five of spades. I knew the ten would lose. The others won, easily offsetting my twenty-franc loss. I raked in my winnings as my opponents cried beginner’s luck. They all bet against me on the next round. I won on all four cards that time, and I doubled my winnings because of their bets.