Page 13 of Enticing Odds
Matthew had won. And he’d likely cleaned out the faro bank. Beaten the house.
Blood rushed to his head, not unlike earlier upon his arrival at Euston Station when he’d finally realized that Harriet had waited twenty years for him. But this rush felt damned good. Exhilarating, even. Matthew looked up from the cards with a grin on his face. Lewiston slapped him on the back.
Charles Sharples was nearly purple. Matthew could see he was holding his breath, along with his rage.
“That’s me for the evening, gentlemen,” Matthew said, allowing himself the tiniest bit of smugness as he pushed back from the table.
“Now just one bleedin’ minute there, Mr. Doctor,” Sharples blew out, his face mellowing into a milder shade of puce at the expulsion of breath. “There’s something untoward about all this,” he said, angrier now.
“Is there?”
“You know damned well there is. Shouldn’t have trusted you, I knew. I knew it! I ought to have tossed you out like that miserable preacher. Fliss!” He was screaming now, pausing to bang his fist upon the table. The cards jumped, the stacks of coins tumbled. “Fliss! To me, lad, to me!”
Matthew rose to his feet and squared his shoulders. He suddenly felt as if he were not inhabiting his own body, but rather floating at a height near the ratty ceiling, watching this large and confident man brace himself.
Sharples stared at him, then stood up just in time for Fliss to crash into him.
“Sorry, Charles,” Fliss babbled hurriedly. “I was still sorting those others and, er, I ought to make mention—”
“Charlie!” Sharples, who Matthew now recalled was listed upon the exterior windows as the proprietor of the establishment, brought his hand down upon his other like an ax. “I told you, it’s Sharples or Charlie, never Charles!”
“Right, Charlie, I really ought to tell you that—”
“Not now, Fliss. Go and fetch the safe.”
The younger man’s eyes widened.
“What?”
“You heard me!” Sharples placed a meaty hand upon the lad’s shoulder and turned him roughly about. “Get on with it, then.Got ourselves awinner, don’t we?” He somehow made the word sound like an oath. “And you know what that means, lad.”
Fliss looked back over his shoulder, registering Matthew’s presence for the first time. “A winner?”
“Yes,” Sharples said through clenched teeth. “And you know what that means,” he repeated, slowly spitting out each word as if attempting to speak in a foreign tongue.
Matthew could still hear the bickering of the two couples who had been thrown outside, now only slightly muffled.
“But Charlie—”
“Upstairs!” Sharples bellowed.
“Right, right away. Sorry, so sorry,” Fliss said, glancing nervously at Matthew before scurrying off.
Sharples turned back to Matthew and smiled, as unsettling an expression as Matthew could recall seeing.
Idly Matthew wondered if he ought to make an attempt at polite conversation, to try to cut the tension that hung so thickly about the faro table. But that was something Dr. Collier would feel obliged to do, not this Matthew Collier. So he remained silent.
Soon Fliss returned carrying a small safe, his large, glassy eyes trained anxiously on Matthew.
The hairs on the back of Matthew’s neck stood up. Something felt wrong. He glanced to his left, realizing far too late that the other players had vacated their stools. He looked back over his shoulder. Two toughs had appeared behind him.
He swallowed. He’d come out in search of excitement, and he was apparently about to get his wish. He turned back to see Sharples smugly counting out notes.
“And there we are, one hundred and thirteen pounds.” He pushed the pile toward Matthew, still wearing that vicious smile. “Let it never be said that Charlie Sharples is not a man of his word.”
Matthew collected his winnings, doing his best not to appear hesitant, then glanced behind him again. The two stone-faced brutes hadn’t moved.
“After a fashion, I suppose,” he retorted, smoothing out his jacket as he looked back to Sharples. “What’s next, then? Do you set the dogs upon me now, or wait until I’ve left?”
