Page 94 of Enticing Odds
Caplin stood firm. “It’s my mother. I ought to seek her out, if she’s truly in danger as Dr. Collier says.”
“Fine. But you,” Rickard stabbed a finger at the young viscount, unaffected by the boy’s aristocratic airs, “you’re responsible for this one, understand?” He jerked his thumb toward Middlemiss behind him.
Rickard looked to Matthew, who turned to address the boys.
“You’ll have to ask around… it ought to look like any other business, but it’ll be uncommonly busy for the hour. People standing about on the street and the like.” Matthew drew a shaky breath. “Don’t engage with Mr. Sharples or any of his associates… just fetch Lady Caplin and withdraw. Come find Mr. Rickard or myself if you must.”
Caplin nodded, his face serious. Middlemiss yawned into the back of his hand.
Matthew frowned. From the dark circles under his eyes to his jumpy, agitated movements, the youth looked haggard and pressed in the manner of a man forty years his senior.
“Don’t you sleep, lad?” he said, momentarily caught up in this puzzle of a case.
“If only,” Middlemiss said. “Usually I’m struck with an attack of such violence that I can’t stop coughing and wheezing. Sometimes it seems I can scarcely breathe.”
“And what’s your doctor’s recommended course of treatment?” Matthew raised an eyebrow.
“Er…” Middlemiss glanced sidelong at Viscount Caplin before admitting, in a lower tone, “Beef tea enema.”
Caplin sputtered out a low guffaw.
Matthew sighed again.
“When we’re done for the evening, please remind me. I’ll prescribe you a far more effective treatment.”
Middlemiss nodded.
There was a time when Matthew had bemoaned his mundane, run-of-the-mill existence, his days consisting of tending to patients and reading his journals. It had seemed the onlything that could bring him to life was the thrill of gaming, the excitement of beating the house in illegal low houses and scraping away with his ill-gotten gains.
But now he knew that a normal life could be more than bearable, especially if one got to experience the excitement of Lady Caplin’s cunning smile and mischievous dimples, of her rich toffee eyes. Of the soothing low purr of her voice, acceding to his darkest desires, his most indecent wishes. And she hadn’t barred him from her home, not yet anyway. Perhaps, if all went to plan, perhaps if they arrived in time…
Matthew placed a hand on his chest, feeling the crinkle of the legal papers folded and stowed safely within his jacket’s interior pocket.
Perhaps she still needed him.
With a nod to Caplin and Middlemiss, he and Rickard turned and began their search.
“Oh dear, I’ve lost again,” Cressida said, affecting a lilting, girlish cadence. “I was so sure the three would be the winning card,” she sighed.
“It’s alright, ma’am, makes it all the better when you do win, in my estimation,” the gambler to her right offered in a sympathetic tone.
“And does one ever win?” Cressida said—very prettily in her own opinion—making sure to sigh and bat her eyelashes.
“Oh, you’re bound to, ma’am, I’ve no doubt.”
“Pah,” the dealer scoffed. “As if you ever do, Lewiston. And it’s not ‘ma’am,’ is it though? It ought to be ‘my lady,’ by rights.”
The scrappy man with the lined face, Lewiston, fell to one side on his stool, his eyes bulging.
You monstrous simpleton. Cressida directed her unspoken words to the dealer even as she smiled sweetly at him.
“Why, we’ve nothing less than a bona fide viscountess in our midst, don’t we, lads?” the dealer boomed, making a sweeping gesture with his arms.
The entire room, which had only just been filled with laughter and the sounds of several animated conversations, hushed all at once.
Cressida preened, keeping the same insipid, treacly smile pasted on her face even as she silently cursed the man. She hated this, acting the fool. But if she were to get the best of him, this Charles Sharples, she must play the game. So act the fool she did, from the moment she entered the dingy establishment.
The gambling rooms were a bizarre hotchpotch, from the mismatched chairs and poorly repaired tables to the makeshift bar in the corner, hastily assembled from boards of lumber placed atop a pair of sawhorses, much in the same way that festivals would be set up in the countryside, albeit lacking the charm of a homespun tablecloth and a jar of wildflowers. A few women in shabby dress sat here and there; one youngish mother tended to a pair of sleepy-looking small children, wearing a flat, resigned look of sorrow on her face. The men hanging about were either stooped and put-upon, or fearsome and angry.
