Page 5 of An Earl Like You
He was up by almost nine thousand pounds. Tonight he’d got into a table with some gentlemen and a few Cits, men of large fortune and no name. Hugh liked playing with that sort of fellow. They were pleased to sit down with an earl, and when they lost to him, they didn’t dare try to wriggle out of it. In addition, they were all in fine spirits tonight. One man kept calling for wine, and Hugh was fairly certain all three of them were three sheets to the wind.
Some might think it unsporting to play with a bunch of drunks, but Hugh knew better. They hadn’t been drunk when they invited him to join their table, and he hadn’t been the one to order the claret. None of them were green striplings, and since Hugh had heard their fortunes ranged from two hundred thousand pounds to well over half a million, he presumed they could afford to drink themselves stupid and lose a few thousand pounds. In fact, he was counting on it.
They had begun by playing simple five card loo. As long as one took a single trick, one didn’t lose. Hugh was good at remembering that point and bowing out at once if his hand was unpromising. He took some ribbing for this, but good-naturedly laughed it off. More than once he’d seen a young man—or, at Vega’s, a woman—heckled into playing too rashly, only to panic when he lost. Hugh was not at Vega’s to lose.
But after a while, five card loo, even for rich stakes, grew too tame for some of them. “We’re going in circles,” complained Robert Grenville, shuffling his cards. “No limit, chaps.”
“Unlimited!” William Harker, youngest son of Viscount Ellery, turned pale. He glanced nervously from side to side before pushing back his chair. “That’s too high for me.”
Grenville and another fellow, George Alderton, laughed. “Go on, then! Come back when you’ve grown a bit.” Harker was thirty if he were a day. His mouth thinned, but he got up, collected his markers, and left. Hugh admired that. A man had to know his limits.
As for himself, though... The stack of markers in front of him was comfortingly large. Over eight thousand eight hundred pounds, in carved ivory counters. He could double or triple it in unlimited loo. This was Edith’s dowry, sitting right in front of him.
Hugh stayed in the game.
Alderton, deep in his cups, missed taking a trick and had to pay the amount of the pot, which opened at a thousand pounds and quickly rose over three. Hugh accepted his share—almost eight hundred pounds—with a carefree wink and a ribald comment about Alderton, making them all shout with laughter. Another round and then another, when no one missed a trick. The pot reached eight thousand pounds, and Hugh reminded himself to be careful. He folded his next hand, a lackluster set of cards without trumps.
And then... it happened. He didn’t quite know how. The hand dealt him was solid; respectably high cards, two in the trump suit. He should have been guaranteed at least one trick. But one by one, each trick went to other players. Even his queen of trumps fell to the king. The hand ended, Grenville had taken it, and Hugh had nothing.
His heart made a strange echoing thud against his ribs. He’d lost. For a moment the room went dark and eerily quiet. He’d made a mistake, and cost himself everything he’d won tonight.
Alderton slapped the table. “A miss at last! Damn, I thought we’d never get him to stumble, chaps!”
Grenville sloshed more wine into his glass and raised it. “A toast to Hastings,” he said slyly. “And to his coin, which we’ll be glad to take.”
Somehow a smile came to Hugh’s face.Chin up and face forward.He shook his head as he pushed nearly his entire stack of counters toward the center of the table. Edith’s dowry, gone. “I should have had more of Alderton’s claret,” he said lightly. “Damned sobriety tripped me up.”
Grenville hiccupped with laughter, and Alderton tossed the bottle at him. Hugh caught it and made himself take a drink. The wine tasted like bile on his tongue. Tonight was ruined, but Hugh needed to be able to play with these men again, tomorrow or the night after. No one else could afford to lose the kind of money he needed to win. So he bowed and said farewell before walking away with the bottle still in his hand.
Damn. Damn itall. He wanted to throw the bloody bottle through a window. What had he done wrong? He wandered through the club as his mind replayed the last ruinous hand, trying to see where he’d erred, but there was nothing else he could have done. Someone else had held a card that beat every single one of his. God bloody damn it.
He let out his breath, careful not to display any sign of the furious turmoil inside him. All he’d needed was one more win. If it had been Grenville who lost, Grenville who held the queen instead of the king, there would be over thirteen thousand pounds in Hugh’s pocket at this moment, more than enough for Edith’s dowry. Instead he had markers worth barely twelve hundred, only two hundred more than he’d begun the night with and exponentially fewer than he needed.
“A hard loss,” said a voice behind him.
Hugh realized he’d been standing in the doorway of the main salon. He turned so he wasn’t blocking the way. “Your pardon, sir.”
“Quite all right.” The other man didn’t stride through. He stayed where he was, watching Hugh with an expression of interested sympathy. “Grenville’s a cunning bastard.”
“Is he?” Hugh managed a slight smile. “Very impressive, how he can be cunning and thoroughly foxed at the same time.”
“There’s the cunning—he doesn’t drink as much as it looks like.” The fellow nodded at the bottle Hugh still clutched. “Fancy a decent glass?”
“It’s the only thing I’ve won tonight.” He held it up and peered into it. “I might keep it.”
“As a fond memento of happy times?” His new companion took it from him and deposited it on the tray of a passing waiter. “George Alderton drinks horse piss. Join me for a proper drink, won’t you?” He waved one hand at the armchairs across the room, but there was an air of command to it.
Hugh straightened his shoulders, his guard up. “Forgive me, sir. I haven’t the pleasure of your acquaintance.”
“Cross,” said the fellow. “Edward Cross at your service, Lord Hastings.”
Hugh gave a bow in reply. Cross had something to say to him, had sought him out. That rarely boded well in his current circumstances.
Cross held out one arm again, a slight smile on his face. “Let’s have a drink.”
Chin up.Hugh nodded once and led the way. This salon was removed from the gaming tables, where patrons could order a meal or simply sink into an armchair to recover from a particularly taxing round of hazard. Like the rest of Vega’s, it looked more like a gentleman’s club than a gaming hell. Tonight it was mostly empty, perhaps because it was well past three in the morning.
Cross took the seat beside Hugh’s and told a loitering waiter to bring a bottle of French port and two glasses. Hugh stretched out his legs and folded his hands over his stomach, waiting to hear what Cross wanted from him.
