“Usual rules,” he said smoothly, already shuffling the pack. “Court cards count ten. An ace may stand as one or eleven. Make vingt-un—twenty-one—or as near to it as one may without exceeding. If you go over, you forfeit your stake to me. By Bellamy’s custom, a tie favours the bank.” He smiled with such angelic innocence that Lottie immediately distrusted him. “Life, alas, is not fair.”
Lottie mimicked the others, placing a half-crown before her. Enough to be respectable, but not enough to arouse suspicion.
Jasper dealt the cards: two to each player, laid upwards upon the table, while his own remained face-down before him.
Her first hand made nineteen. Captain Graham went over. Mr Everly stood at seventeen. Jasper revealed eighteen and paid Lottie her winnings with a small nod.
“Nicely done, Charleston. Beginner’s luck?”
“Quite,” Lottie said, deepening her voice. “Dreadful weather.”
Captain Graham squinted at her across the table with his brows drawn. “Have we met before?”
Lottie panicked for one breath, then coughed theatrically into her fist. “Unlikely,” she rasped. “Spent last winter in Wiltshire. Rain and livestock. No one much to meet but sheep.”
She looked up to see Jasper biting his lip so hard it was a wonder it did not bleed.
“Shall we raise the stakes?” he said quickly. “A crown for the next hand, if we dare?”
“Let’s make it interesting,” said Captain Graham.
The next hand came swiftly. Lottie drew nineteen again and won, then won again, and somewhere between her brandy, her third glass of port and her fourth solemn utterance of “dreadful weather,” Mr Charleston of Wiltshire became, if not natural, then at least dangerously convincing. She lounged back in her chair. She tapped two fingers against the table. She squinted at her cards as though they contained matters of state. Once, when Captain Graham asked whether she hunted, she gave a grave nod and said, “Tragic business. Foxes.”
Then, as swiftly as fortune had smiled, she turned her face away. A fifteen became twenty-three. A promising eighteen was beaten neatly by Jasper’s nineteen. Loss, loss, loss. The coins before her dwindled with humiliating speed, while Jasper had the audacity to look delighted.
She was about to place her last crown upon the table when she heard the worst possible thing.
“Langley!” someone called from another table. “Good to see you, old chap!”
Lottie went rigid, for across the room, Theo had just removed his gloves and was laughing at something said by the gentleman beside him. And beside him—oh no. Even at a distance, the Duke of Morleigh stood tall and disapproving.
Jasper glanced up from the table, and his eyes widened.
“Deverell!” Theo called, catching sight of him. “Why am I not surprised to find you losing money somewhere?”
“Langley,” Jasper returned, all lazy charm. “Morleigh. How dreadful to be so predictable.”
Theo crossed towards them, Morleigh following.
Lottie lowered her chin and prayed to every saint she had ever neglected.
Theo clapped Jasper on the shoulder. “Room for two more?”
Lottie’s eyes snapped to Jasper.Do not dare, she mouthed.
Jasper gave the smallest helpless lift of one shoulder: half apology, halfwe-are-already-doomed. “Always,” he said smoothly. “Vingt-un.”
Morleigh’s eyes lingered on Lottie for one dreadful second. “And your companion?”
Jasper’s smile deepened to something between wicked and panicked. “Gentlemen, may I present my young cousin, Mr Charleston. Of Wiltshire.”
Lottie managed what she hoped was a manly nod. “Dreadful weather.”
Theo frowned and Morleigh narrowed his eyes. Then, with dreadful slowness, the duke’s brows lifted, which, upon Morleigh’s face, was very nearly a shriek.
Lottie panicked. “Dreadful business,” she rasped, though no one had named any business at all.
Theo looked from Lottie to Jasper, then back again. He opened his mouth, then shut it quickly.
