Page 12 of Enticing Odds
In the back room, dozens of people crowded inside a ramshackle gambling hall. A pair of men argued loudly in Polish, each with a painfully thin woman behind him; the women were glaring daggers at one another. Matthew scanned the room with purpose, searching for a true game of skill. Several men sat smoking and drinking in one corner. In another was a round table hosting hazard, the most desperate and ruinous of games. At least, that was what Uncle John had called it years ago while scolding Matthew for staking—and losing—his entire youthful fortune of marbles on a throw of the dice in a nearby alley.
He’d vowed to never leave anything to chance again after that.
Cards, though not entirely within one’s control, required a certain set of skills. Patience. Calculation. Restraint. Matthew’sheart thrummed as he sidled up to a table where three poor sods were playing faro and, judging by their long faces and slumped shoulders, losing. And yet they kept on, staking what they could scrape from their meager pockets. As with most faro banks, there was little doubt that this was not a square game. He glanced at the dealer’s box. Likely gaffed.
It would make it all the sweeter, then, to take the house for as much as he could manage. Matthew hated cheats.
He watched silently for two hands, noting every card as it was flipped and committing it to memory.
Suddenly the dealer looked up and regarded him suspiciously, his arms crossed.
“You there! No gospel grinders allowed,” he barked. “I threw one of your lot out the other night, but don’t think I’ll be as obliging tonight, as I’m in a mood, I am.”
The dealer was a large man with a bald head, dressed in shirtsleeves but with a surprisingly smart neckcloth and vest that strained over his ample middle. He set one hand possessively atop the dealing box, confirming Matthew’s suspicions of a rigged game.
“I’m not a missionary,” Matthew said calmly, stepping closer. “Not in the least.”
The dealer made a low rumbling noise. He glared at Matthew for a long moment, uncrossing his arms and planting them atop the rickety table.
“I give you my word,” Matthew said.
“Aw, let him play, Charles,” one of the men at the table admonished. “Don’t let’s cause a ruckus, now.”
“Don’t call me that,” the dealer snapped. “It’s Charlie. Charlie Sharples. Mr. Sharples to you, Lewiston. Don’t think I’ve forgotten that business back in February.” He stabbed a stubby finger in the dissenting player’s direction before turning his ire back toward Matthew, finger now wagging. “And you! I maybe daft, but I’m not stupid. What’re you about, up here in our business in your fine togs? And choose your words carefully, man.”
“I only mean to play,” Matthew said as he slowly lowered himself onto the empty stool at one end of the table. He held his hands out, palms up. “Nothing less, nothing more. I’m not a clergyman. I’m a simple doctor, that’s all.”
Mr. Sharples glanced at the assembled gamblers, then back to Matthew, his expression still hard. But after a moment he nodded his assent.
Matthew anted up.
“Alright then.” Sharples pushed a button on the dealer box; it spit out a card. “Doctor, eh? Well, any toff might be mistaken for a missionary.”
Matthew allowed himself an uncharacteristic smirk. If he’d heeded Aunt Albertine and Uncle John’s wishes, hewouldbe a rector, rotting away in some crumbling Midlands vicarage.
The game went on for several hands, the players placing their bets and, more often than not, losing. Matthew kept track of every card as it was played. Although he’d no way to prove the dealer’s box was gaffed, Matthew would stake his life on it. Faro could be ruinous for the house if played honestly; no gambler worth their salt expected anything but crooked play. After a short period of observation, he suspected the box was dealing seconds, and he formulated his strategy with that in mind.
The two men who had been arguing in Polish when he arrived started up again. Their female companions joined in this time, the cacophony rising with each exchange of shouts.
“Fliss!” Sharples called. “Get them out of here!”
Matthew watched as a sparse young man with flaxen hair and bright red cheeks took off in the direction of the altercation. More shouting commenced, with several languages battling tobe heard. Tables and chairs scraped across the dry, cracked floorboards.
Matthew took the opportunity to study the face-up cards. He’d been intentionally losing for nearly an hour. Now was the time to stake it all.
Charles Sharples regarded his bet with a raised eyebrow.
Anticipation swelled within Matthew like a wave, the sensation accompanied by memories both pleasant and decidedly not. The crack of rifles, the plink of a bloody bullet as he dropped it into a metal bowl. The overwhelming smell of sulfur. A raised tent flap. But also a heap of tokens, piled upon thetapis vertas he slid them from the center of the table. The hushed murmurs in the King’s Library at the British Museum as gentle light filtered in from the windows. The smell of a newly bound volume, the feel of his penknife slicing through each crisp page.
The sly smile of Lady Caplin, and the gentle floral scent that had clung to her, so clean and elegant.
Matthew frowned. Now what had made him think of her? But before he could further consider it, the game was in play. And this hand was consequential.
He leaned forward, focusing on the table. Charles Sharples pressed the button. And then—
“Bloody hell!” one of the gamblers groaned.
Lewiston, the man who had spoken up for him, began laughing uncontrollably, shaking his head in disbelief.
