CHAPTER NINETEEN
Charles sat at the table, calculating rapidly. This hadn’t been how today was supposed to go, but aside from the very real complication of Verity being here and in danger, the situation was close to how he and Adam had planned it. They were in a place where Eastwick felt safe, they were sideways to the door so had a good chance of forcing an exit should it become necessary, and Eastwick was already underestimating Charles’s skill.
How long did he have? Eastwick’s manner regarding the necessity for finance had been urgent. Had he been referring to the Hart Street brothel fire when he said the gentleman he owed money to had made his displeasure known? If so, Eastwick himself was playing for high stakes. A creditor who thought nothing of firing a building with the residents still inside was not likely to show mercy to a man who defaulted on payment.
So, two tasks. Firstly, Charles had to win the game and have the right to remove himself and Verity, however difficult that last step was going to be in practice. Secondly, he had to arrest Eastwick for deceiving the maids with false promises of marriage and selling them to the brothel. And thirdly, he supposed, he had to get the man to Bow Street.
This was going to be an interesting afternoon.
He did have one slender advantage. Eastwick wasn’t the only man to make use of street urchins. As they’d arrived and been man-handled through the alley, young Thomas, the coal merchant’s son had pelted away in the opposite direction. The longer Charles took over the game, the more time Thomas would have to find Fitz or explain to Mr Tweedie or, as a last resort, go to Bow Street itself to say he’d seen them abducted.
As he’d been thinking and helping Verity to fashion a makeshift bandage, he’d studied the cards from the previous game that had been thrown face-down on the table. He was in no doubt that the pack would be marked in some way. This was not a den designed to leave money with its clients. He was equally in no doubt that Eastwick would call for a new pack before they started. However, since making individual plates for the backs of cards was expensive, he’d bet all Eastwick’s new packs were printed to the same design.
A gambling den and Eastwick was rattled. Those thoughts also nibbled at Charles’s reasoning. Would his opponent go all out for the kill straight away or, as he was on his home ground, would he follow a card-sharp’s customary practice of drawing the victim in gradually and make him think he was winning, before dragging him deeper until the waters closed over his head? In this particular case Eastwick didn’t need to, but if he was on edge and not thinking straight, habit might prevail.
“New cards,” said Eastwick. He broke the seal with deliberation and met Charles’s eyes. “Ready, Congreve?”
“Ready,” said Charles.
Charles had learned to play piquet at his grandfather’s knee, and had taught Julia when his older brothers refused to play with him. It only took two hands for him to identify the markings on the backs of the cards. He could do nothing about the cards in the talon, but he kept his own fan of cards as narrow as possible so his opponent did not get a chance to con them.
He won the first hand easily, declared carte blanche on the second before Eastwick could score a repique, then settled down to decide on the cards he would exchange in the third hand.
In a way it annoyed him that the cards were marked. When piquet was played properly, it was a reasonably simple matter to deduce where each card lay. Charles had realised from the outset that Eastwick was an experienced player. He shouldn’t need to cheat. Was he lazy, perhaps? Had he been cheating for so long that his intellect was blunted? In short, without markings to rely on, might his discard process be rusty?
Beside him, Verity pressed a hand to her side. If she had cracked a whip, Charles’s resolve couldn’t have crystallised any faster. What was he thinking? This wasn’t an ordinary game. He didn’t have the luxury of treating it as an intellectual exercise. He was playing for her life!
Brain and fingers working smoothly in concert, Charles knew his best chance was to unsettle Eastwick and fool him into miscalculating. He was already hiding the tops of his cards and arranging them haphazardly in his hand rather than organising them by suit. Now he would vary the pace as well. He began to play faster. Eastwick retaliated by playing slower until the onlookers started chaffing him by making bets on when his next card would be laid down. Provoked, he made a mistake and Charles took the hand.
At the end of the first rubber, Charles was the winner by a narrow margin. He didn’t trouble to hide how relieved he was. Eastwick might read strung-nerves into his demeanour and hopefully surprise at his own luck. That was all to the good. The more his opponent misjudged his skill the better. Now, should he go all out to win the second rubber, or could he afford to take it easier?
His heart said to push ahead. He wanted to win the bet and get Verity out of this foul place. His head, however, pointed out the unlikelihood of their being allowed to walk free, bet or no bet. And what of the arrest? Unlike the more high-class clubs, this den was sprinkled with Eastwick’s own thugs. Unless Fitz by some miracle managed to arrange the dispatch of a couple of Bow Street Runners here, there was very little chance of them bringing off a second coup.
Deal by deal, the points crept up in Charles’s favour. The quality of his own play was spurring Eastwick to rekindle the skill he’d presumably had in his early days, before he relied on marked cards and games that were biased in the house’s favour. An unlucky deal on the penultimate hand gave Eastwick the chance to score heavily. So be it. If this rubber went against him, then the third would give him the extra time he needed to lull Eastwick’s suspicions and plan his final actions. It might even bring reinforcements. Across the room, Lieutenant Crisp had recovered. He might be ineffectual in the drawing room, but by the look in his eyes, he was itching to take down a few of what he clearly now saw as the enemy. That could be useful, provided the man was quick enough on the uptake to see where his help would do most good.
The last deal of the rubber. Outwardly languid, Eastwick’s eyes were taking note of every card he dealt, spreading the twos and threes in order to see the tiny details on the corner curlicues. Charles watched him stolidly, his attention sharpening as small beads of sweat broke out on his opponent’s brow. Eastwick laid down the talon. As his eyes fell on the back of the topmost card, his lips moved soundlessly in a curse.
Charles picked up his cards in silence. Just a glimpse showed him the reason for Eastwick’s despair. It was a well-nigh perfect hand. It only needed the addition of the Jack of clubs and the Ace of diamonds to give him a repique and a capot to boot. A flickering glance told him the top card on the talon was indeed the missing club honour. There was no way he could throw this hand. He exchanged his minor cards, watched Eastwick exchange his, and saw ruin sit down next to his enemy.
This was it. Charles didn’t have the leisure of another rubber to plan his moves. He was going to have to act the moment he won the bet. At his shoulder, he heard Adam take a long breath.
“Point of seven,” he said.
“Good,” replied Eastwick, his voice remote.
“Septième.”
“Good.”
“Quatorze of aces.”
A ripple went around the room.
Eastwick leaned back. “Good,” he said.
As Charles took trick after trick he tried to guess which way Eastwick would jump. He laid down the last one, claimed the rubber, the game and the win.
Led by Adam, the spectators stirred, claiming their own side-bets off each other. Adam himself stretched and ambled around the table.
It was time to act. “I made an interesting acquaintance the other day,” Charles said casually. “Two interesting acquaintances, to be accurate.”
“The devil you did,” replied Eastwick. His eyes flicked to a couple of people behind Charles.
Charles drew Verity closer to him. “Yes indeed. Two ladies who had been made homeless when their building in Hart Street was set on fire whilst they and their fellow residents were inside.”
He had Eastwick’s attention now, the charm long gone, his face a mask of calculation. “What of it?”
Charles’s words fell like an executioner’s blade. “Both of them had been lured to London with promises of marriage. Both of them had been sold into prostitution. The gentleman in both cases was you. I am arresting you for...”
Eastwick gave a feral cry and stood up at the exact moment when Adam pinioned his arms to his sides. “Smith,” he yelled, struggling to no avail.
Charles laughed at the vindictive punch with which Lieutenant Crisp felled the bully who had laid him out earlier. “I suggest, gentlemen,” he said, raising his voice to address the company, “that you all go back to your tables, or find yourselves elsewhere. Captain Eastwick, alias Mr Weston, alias Mr North, has a pressing appointment at Bow Street. Lieutenant Crisp, I wonder if you would be kind enough to relieve the captain of his pistol and a particularly nasty clasp-knife. It would not surprise me if there were other weapons on his person.”
All the time he was talking, he had kept Verity next to him. A desperate litany in his head was praying that Eastwick would stay in a state of shock for long enough to get him to the rotation house several streets away. Two handkerchiefs did to tie the man’s wrists together. Strong as he was, Adam couldn’t keep him immobile all the way there.
Eastwick twisted and cursed, but not as much as Charles had expected. Perhaps - with the bet lost and no hope of raising what he owed - being publicly committed for trial was the better option, because then he wouldn’t have to face his creditor.
They pushed through the doorway, through the alley that was blessedly unguarded and Charles called down further blessings on the coal merchant’s son’s head. Not only was the boy’s father in the street outside with his cart, some three or four of the other men Charles had helped over the years had added themselves to the crowd of onlookers. There were also several hackney cabs, the drivers peering across the heads of the small throng. The news had evidently spread faster than fire in a tinder-dry summer.
Afterwards, he admitted he lost concentration for a few crucial seconds. The strain of keeping up the facade, of playing a game of piquet on which his and Verity’s lives depended, had taken effect. As they pushed through the crowd to the cart, Eastwick staggered in front of him and went down.
“It’s a trick,” Charles shouted at once. “Stay back.”
But it wasn’t. As people drew away from the fallen man like ripples retreating from a thrown pebble, a pool of red was seen to stain Eastwick’s clothing. Verity gasped and ran to him. She bent her head to his, laying her hand on his chest, then looked up at Charles, stricken. “He... he is dead.”
Verity didn’t know what made her do it. Kitty’s husband was a loathsome man, selfish and unprincipled, but the sight of him sprawled unmoving in the road had propelled her forward. She laid a tentative hand on his waistcoat and bent her cheek to his mouth to see if she could detect a breath.
Simon Eastwick’s laboured whisper shuddered into her soul. “Kit’s book. Get him.”
She jerked away in shock and saw his eyes glaze. She almost felt his life-force depart. “He... he is dead,” she said, scrambling to her feet and backing away. The gash in her side made her gasp in pain. She put a hand to it and then instinctively looked down at the blood seeping from Eastwick’s back on to the ground.
That could have been me. A great wave of nausea roiled through her. She staggered and fell blindly into Charles’s arms. He held her close: safe, warm, solid and comforting.
“Hush,” he said. “I’ve got you.” Then he raised his voice. “God knows he’s no loss, but who did it? Did anyone see?”
Never let me go. Take me home and never let me go. The thought was so loud in her head she must surely have said it aloud. Then she heard Captain Eastwick’s final words again.
Kit’s book. Get him.
“We have to find Kitty,” she breathed into Charles’s coat.
He gave no outward sign of having heard, but said, “Adam, I must take Verity back to Grosvenor Street. Will you take charge here? Tell the authorities I’ll answer any questions they have later.”
“I’ll do it,” said Lieutenant Crisp. “My men will help. Get Mrs Congreve away. This is no place for a lady.” He started to direct the bystanders, filling out his uniform with the natural authority that had been so absent in the drawing room or at the card table.
Mrs Congreve. Verity swallowed. That was another coil to unravel.
They pushed through the crowd to the hackney cabs.
“Oh, Mr Grimes, is that you?” Verity recognised the patient horse nearest her.
“It is, miss. Missus, I should say. Wish you joy, sir. Grosvenor Street, is it?”
“I’ll join you once I’ve given the lad here a hand,” said Adam to Charles.
Within seconds they were alone and on their way. “What did he say?” asked Charles.
That was the miraculous thing about Charles. She never had to explain. “Just four words. Kit’s book. Get him. I’m scared, Charles.” The hackney juddered over a loose cobble and she cried out in pain again.
Charles cursed himself for not cushioning her. “How bad is it?” He looked down at where her hand was pressed to her side and the bloodstain on her gown.
“I don’t know. I haven’t dared to look. I pressed your pad against it and hoped it would suffice. It felt like a line of fire at first. That’s what comes of being vain and wearing short stays. If I’d worn long ones, nothing would have got through. I think it was just a slice with the blade, not driven in like... like...” She faltered, seeing that seeping pool of blood again.
He pulled her close to his chest. “Hush, love, don’t think of it. Or if you do, think of it with relief.”
“Relief?”
“Relief that your sister is now free of a bad marriage. Also relief that I am not facing the gallows for his murder. I assure you if I could have got to him without compromising your safety I would have hit him so hard, life would have been extinct within moments.”
She had never heard him sound so deadly. Paradoxically, her heart swelled with love for him. “Charles?” she said softly.
He made an inarticulate sound and pressed a hard kiss on her forehead. “God help me, no one is ever going to lay a hand on you again.”
Which was all very satisfactory but, “You do not need to sound quite so grim about it,” she said.
He gave an exasperated sigh. “Verity, you are...”
“Yours,” she said simply, then glanced through the window. “We are here.”
“So we are. Later.” And this time he did kiss her lips - just once and swiftly - before opening the carriage door and helping her carefully out.