by Nicole Byrd
“Ah,” he said, brushing his lips over her cracked knuckles to soften his refusal, “knowledge and beauty. Too much for a weary adventurer.”
With one deft movement, he plucked the cheroot from its snug display and clenched it between his straight teeth. He left in its place one of his last remaining guineas. Her shoulders hunched in reaction to the warm coin against her skin and a gasp escaped her at his largesse.
“Allow me the privilege of just observing you and enjoying the anticipation.”
She sighed.
“Oh yes, milord. Whatever you wish.”
Gabriel had turned to walk deeper into the hell when she called after him.
“Just ask for Annie, should you be needing anything, milord. Anything,” she called after him, her knuckles pressed to her cheek.
But he had already forgotten. With an experienced eye, he observed the procession of little rooms which ran into one another. Faro, E.O., and hazard were all being played with varying degrees of enthusiasm. But in the back room, Gabriel found his game—whist. A number of young, foolish aristocrats with more money than sense sat eagerly at the tables. Their faces, so delighted at being out of the school room, showed every trick as clearly as if they were spreading their hands open on the tables before them. The serious gamesters lolled against their chairs in varying degrees of bored superiority, looking as if each maneuver was purely whim. But their eyes never missed a thing–always weighing, always calculating the odds. All to relieve the foolish of the burden of their wealth.
Tonight, Gabriel shared similar ambitions. Any twinge of shame he might have felt for the prey had long been tempered by his very necessary need for survival. A man walking into such a place as this deserved to face the consequences. Gabriel was long past any crisis of conscience.
Or so he thought.
“Why, I’ll be damned for a bastard of a whore. It’s Sinclair!”
Gabriel winced, recognizing the voice of drunken excess. And drunken excess had no discretion.
Pretending deafness, he turned and began to weave his way back to another room and another game. But a hand grasped his upper arm and exerted pressure to pull him around. Sighing to the inevitable, Gabriel turned.
“By God, it is you, you bastard!”
The handsome young man swaying in front of Gabriel in very expensive boots wore a smile of delight such as only the very drunk can assume. He looked as pleased at recognizing an old acquaintance as if he had rediscovered America.
Gabriel felt a moment of pleasure, tempered sharply by the need for caution; he shook the hand off his arm and bowed slightly.
“David.”
“Son of a bitch, I’m glad to see you.” David Lydford, Earl of Westbury, whose estates marched along side Gabriel’s one-time home, was ten years younger, but as a lad, he had had a severe case of hero worship for the older youth. David had followed after Gabriel through the fields of the home farm as they shot birds and waded through cold streams when they angled for trout. And Gabriel had, mostly, been patient with him, teaching him to cast a fly, showing him how to gentle a horse. Neither of them had had loving fathers, and they had found solace in each other’s company. David had followed, puppy-like, wherever Gabriel had led. Gabriel had thought about him at times, during his exile, wondering what had become of the lad. David’s lofty title had been thrust upon him at a very early age when his father had caught a fever of the lungs and died. David had once confided how his rake of a father had caught his sickness. The old roue had fallen ill after making love to his mistress in the garden fountain.
It seemed David had not forgotten their boyhood friendship, but he could hardly have chosen a worse time to announce their acquaintanceship to the world. They were beginning to draw stares.
Gabriel sighed. He could not ignore David. The boy had grown into a man of stature, only an inch shorter than Gabriel himself, with chestnut brown hair and blue-gray eyes.
“David, I would be much happier to see you if you were sober.”
David laughed raucously and pounded Gabriel’s shoulders in a bear hug. “Don’t tell me you’ve turned into a damned Puritan, you sotty ol’ bastard. I won’t believe it. Why, I learned everything I know from this man,” he told a disinterested passerby.
Gabriel grimaced slightly and tried to avoid the whisky fumes emanating form David’s mouth.
“I’ve never been prouder, I’m sure,” he said dryly. “And David, my legitimacy is not a subject to be bandied about a gaming hall. Please refrain.”
Much to his discomfiture, David grinned and hugged Gabriel again. Gabriel straightened his lapels.
“Course, I know that. Say!” David paused theatrically as a thought occurred to him.
Gabriel watched warily as David’s alcohol-blurred eyes brightened.
“I need you!”
“And I need to find a game, David. So if you’ll excuse me.” Gabriel tried to loosen his hold, but David held firm. “And David. Try to be discreet. I am not ready to announce my return as of yet.”
“But that’s what I need you for, Gabe.” David gestured to the table behind Gabriel. “I lost my partner, and if you don’t join me, I shall lose the very cloth that’s covering my arse.”
David laughed with drunken delight, seeming completely unconcerned about his losses.
Gabriel glanced over his shoulder toward the table to which David had pointed. Surprise and shock sent him spinning to face it.
Seated at the table and idly fingering the enormous pile of markers in front of him was the last man Gabriel wanted to see–the man whom Gabriel knew to be a cheat, a thief, and recently, a would-be murderer. It was the man who had lost his estate to Gabriel–Nathaniel Barrett.
Barrett and one of his ugly henchmen sat at the battered table. Knowing how Barrett operated, Gabriel glanced around and found two other eager helpers behind David. Damn it, he had just delivered himself right into Barrett’s dirty hands. He might as well have been bloody gift-wrapped.
“Why, Sinclair, of all the hells in London, you walk into mine.”
Accepting this bit of unlucky news with characteristic composure, Gabriel stepped closer to the table and his greatest enemy. He should have asked his new valet not just the location of the most promising hells, but who owned them. Not that Brickson would necessarily have known. With practiced nonchalance, Gabriel swept up the pack of cards that were on the table and began shuffling the thin sheets of cardboard.
“Oh no, Barrett. This is turning out to be my personal hell.”
If it were possible, Barrett’s expression got uglier.
“You best be polite, my lad. I could have my men toss you out in the alley and cut your throat for good measure.”
“No need, I assure you. I much prefer the refuse in here.”
Barrett’s man half rose out of his chair, but a motion from his employer had him sitting again.
“Got that, did you? You’re brighter than I gave you credit for.”
“Yes, yes. Glad we are all acquainted.” David had been swaying happily and chugging another drink he had snagged from a passing barmaid. “Gabriel, sit down and help me win back my self-respect.”
“Among other things.” Barrett said, his eyes glittering with satisfied malice.
Gabriel’s stomach turned over sickly as sudden comprehension came to him.
“What things?” he asked tersely.
“Only ten, fifteen . . .” David trailed off, squinting his eyes with uncertainty.
“Fifty,” Barrett said decisively.
“Fifty thousand pounds,” David finished blithely.
Gabriel jerked David up by his lapels and gave him a frustrated shake.
“You drunken idiot! You’ve been playing that deep with these characters?”
David pushed himself away and attempted an expression of offended hauteur. “What’s come over you, Sinclair? I often play this deep. I’ve seen you play even deeper.”
Gabriel wanted so much to go on shaking David that he ha
d to clench his hands to restrain himself. “Yes, but not with a man such as this, and not when I am the only thing standing between a sickly mother and ruin.”
The hauteur disappeared from David’s face. The young, proud features hardened into a mask of anger and hurt. Reminded of his responsibility, he seemed to feel it hanging heavy as a shroud.
“You would speak so to me, when I count you among my friends!”
“Oh, save your wounded sensibilities for later, you young fool.” Placing a hand on David’s shoulder, Gabriel shoved him down into a chair. “Right now, I’m the best friend you’ve got.”
With grim purpose, Gabriel pulled up another chair and sat across from David.
“Shall we play?”
Barrett nodded regally. “By all means. It would cap off my evening perfectly to retrieve what I was so reckless to lose before.”
And just like that, because of some damned shred of honor that Gabriel hadn’t been sure was still in him, he was risking his only chance at a future. Gabriel turned to look at David. You had better be worth it, he thought.
David reached out to grab another drink as it passed him on a tray.
“Oh no, you don’t.” Gabriel took the glass from David’s hand and then tossed it back himself.
“What the hell?” David exclaimed in disbelief.
“Only tea for you, my friend. You’ve drunk just enough to be dangerous.”
David sputtered indignantly, but Gabriel ignored him and turned to face his nemesis.
Barrett lolled easily in his chair as he watched closely the interplay between Gabriel and David. His fleshy lips curved into a smile. “It seems Fate has decided we shall have another game, Sinclair.”
Gabriel meet his gaze squarely. “Not Fate, Barrett. But rather you, taking advantage of a schoolboy who should be drinking milk and not the swill you serve.”
Barrett picked up the deck of cards and sent them flying between his fingers. “He entered on his own power and imbibed on his own as well. He is the Earl of Westbury and has no nursemaid with him.”
David, who had been studying the cards flash past him with fascinated absorption, raised his head and said proudly, “Hell, no! Evaded them. Very cunning, you know.”
“Who is cunning, David?” Gabriel asked with waning patience.
“I am, of course. I lost the annoying brutes. Don’t need them bloody hanging about me. Am man enough myself.”
It did not surprise Gabriel in the least that David’s smothering mother had hired guards for her only son. And of course, it had only driven him to further excesses.
“Yes, indeed, Westbury,” Barrett said soothingly. “Grown men do not need nursemaids following them about and telling them what to do.” He pushed his glass of whisky—untouched— toward David. David reached eagerly for it but Gabriel swept it aside, adding the glass’s contents to the already sticky floor.
“That’s right, Earls don’t need nursemaids, Sinclair.” David grimaced at Gabriel. “You know, I’m beginning to forget why I ever liked you.”
“Because I never could resist a hopeless case,” Gabriel drawled. “Lucky for you.”
“This is all vastly entertaining,” Barrett said, rolling his narrow eyes. “But am I going to win back what is rightfully mine or not? I doubt you have enough blunt to match David’s losses–and my winnings–in this game, else.”
“It appears I must play with my old friend here. But one game only, winner take all. And you will not recover what is now mine.” Slowly, reluctantly, Gabriel reached inside his pocket and pulled out the note, the deed, that Barrett had lost to him weeks ago. He had never been without it. Swallowing the lump in his throat, Gabriel dropped it to the table.
Barrett and his henchman glanced at each other and laughed as if sharing a prime joke. The evil sound sent a cold shiver up Gabriel’s spine and into the base of his neck. Barrett sat up to the table and began dealing from the deck. Barrett dealt thirteen cards to each player and turned up the last for trump.
Barrett, his henchman and David all picked up their hands. Gabriel alone, leaning back in his chair, made no move to pick up his hand.
Barrett raised a furry brow. “Planning on joining us, Sinclair?”
Gabriel raised a finger in the direction of the doorway. Annie scuttled up to Gabriel, short skirts twitching.
“Yes, milord?” she asked breathlessly.
“A light, please, Annie.” Annie lit the cheroot swiftly, all eagerness. Gabriel puffed contentedly.
“Ah, the hands of a woman. So soothing, so clever, so . . . agile.” He grinned at her through the blue haze of the cheroot. Annie smiled back, revealing her rotted teeth.
“Annie!” Barrett barked, “Fetch me a drink and a cheroot.”
Annie didn’t turn her head but kept gazing longingly at Gabriel. “Get it yer own damn self.”
Barrett drew back his hand but stilled at Gabriel’s softly spoken words.
“I’d think hard before striking a lady in my presence.”
“I don’t need to. Do I, Annie?” Barrett lowered his arm, running a hand over his oily hair and then resting it in a fist on the table.
Uncertain, Annie turned to Barrett.
“Annie knows who provides the means to care for her old granny, don’t you, dear?” he continued. “And she knows who can remove those means.”
The light which had shone briefly in Annie’s eyes dulled. Quickly, she fetched what he had demanded and then faded into the corner shadows.
Barrett lit his cheroot and sighed appreciably. “Now, back to our game.”
“I’d be perfectly acceptable to that,” Gabriel began. Barrett nodded with a grunt. “Providing we use an unmarked deck.”
Barrett glared at him over the tops of his hand. But he did not deny the cards were marked. With a snap of his fingers, a new deck was brought to the table. With insulting condescension, he broke the seal.
Barrett sucked in a deep draw and released the smoke in Gabriel’s face. “Happy?”
“Almost,” Gabriel drawled.
“What now?” Barrett snapped.
“Your men.” With a flick of his cheroot, Gabriel indicated the men positioned behind him and David.
“What about them?” Barrett asked through clenched, yellowed teeth.
Gabriel spoke precisely, clipping the words. “Move them.”
A jerk of Barrett’s head accomplished the movement of the large men.
“Before they go,” Gabriel added, “they can take the mirror with them.”
Barrett nodded tersely. The men removed the large, tilting mirror that had been hanging on the wall behind them.
“Anything else?” Barrett asked, his voice heavy with hate.
Gabriel shook his head, chiding him with mocking amazement. “Really, Barrett. Can’t your efforts be more imaginative? Those tricks are positively elementary.”
Barrett looked steadily at him. A droplet of sweat trickled down his pale forehead before being absorbed by the heavy brow. Underneath, Barrett’s dark brown eyes were shuttered, revealing little. But Gabriel knew in Barrett’s mind, he was dying a particularly violent death. “Let’s begin.” Gabriel grabbed the deck before Barrett’s beefy hand could claim it. “I’ll deal, if you don’t mind.”
With practiced ease, Gabriel’s long, brown fingers dealt each player a new hand. He flipped over the last card. It was the deuce of spades.
“Trump,” Gabriel declared as he added it to his hand. “Spades.”
He gathered up his hand and glanced at Barrett who was alternately glaring at his cards and Gabriel. His death was getting more and more violent.
Gabriel assessed his hand and considered the trump card. Spades. Spades were used for digging. For digging graves. Gabriel met Barrett’s evil gaze.
How appropriate.
The burly man on his left put down a queen of hearts. David threw down a jack. God, he was drunk.
“Don’t waste your face cards,” Gabriel snapped.
David bli
nked, his expression unfazed.
Barrett threw down a trey, Gabriel added a six of hearts, and Barrett’s man scooped up the trick.
He continued to dominate the game for two more tricks. David was now frowning, but Gabriel’s own expression was calm. In David’s inebriated state, he might have forgotten that in whist, no points were given for the first six tricks taken; with the seventh trick, Gabriel would worry.
On the fifth trick, the thug threw down a six of clubs, David was either too drunk to try for the trick or else had a lousy hand; he put down a four. Barrett, his expression triumphant, placed a King of clubs on the table. Gabriel lay down a five, and keep his expression even.
“Cards not going your way, eh, Sinclair?” Barrett taunted.
“The game’s not over yet,” Gabriel answered, his voice quiet. “David, try to pay attention.”
David yawned and hardly seemed to notice when Barrett took the next trick.
“Skill will tell, Sinclair,” Barrett pointed out, his tone arrogant.
“Skill did tell, the last time we played,” Gabriel noted, but he felt a coldness inside him; David was in no shape to help his partner, and if Gabriel lost the estate back to Barrett, after all he had been through–no, he refused to think of defeat. The game was not over yet, and it was not too late to turn it all around.
Gabriel looked to his hand and prayed to that fickle goddess of luck who had smiled upon him so many times before. And in his mind, he kept careful count of the cards that had been already played, trying as well to gauge from the pattern of play what the other players were likely to hold. Gabriel had never sunk to tricks of mirrors or even to the signals he was sure that Barrett and his hired hand were covertly sending back and forth. He relied on his keen memory, his knowledge of strategy, and his understanding of his opponents.
Barrett, he knew quite well. He also knew his method of play–and how much he relied on trickery. So the next time Barrett’s henchman reached up to scratch his ear or his nose or his chin, Gabriel lifted his glass of wine a little too fast and splashed the man.
“ ’ey, watch it,” the man snarled, but he never finished his signal, and Barrett looked nonplused. It was Barrett’s lead, and he hesitated, but his partner was wiping his face with a grimy kerchief and seemed to have forgotten to signal his employer which suit to lead.
