Eight

Vingt-et-un

Rather than escorting her to the ballroom as she’d expected, Philip steered Lady Messingham toward the French doors leading outside.

“I thought we were dancing.”

“Dancing is the least of my talents,” he replied, propelling her onto the open terrace. “You looked in need of rescue and ’twas the best excuse I could muster.”

“It’s lovely out here.” She inhaled deeply of the cool night air, taking in the cascading fountain that shimmered in moonlight enhanced by a hundred lit torches.

Oblivious to his surrounds, and in no mood for pleasantries, Philip demanded, “What are you doing here? Didn’t I warn you about the company of places like this? Its habitués are nothing more than rogues and harlots.”

His harsh words transformed her warm smile of gratitude into ice. “Think what you will, but the particular company I keep is only the highest. I was with the Prince of Wales, for goodness’ sake! Moreover, what right have you to demand an account of my actions? I am free to do as I wish. And with whomever I please.”

“Indeed, and you looked none too pleased with the choice you had made only a moment ago,” Philip replied testily. “Their conduct leaves much to be desired. Prince or not, the man is a vulgar buffoon, and his preferred companions can only claim gentility by virtue of rank. You despise the lot of them as much as I do. God save us if Freddie ever does obtain the crown.”

Acknowledging the truth of his claim, she dropped her defense. “I am thankful for the rescue, Philip. I admit their decorum diminished markedly with every bottle passed and every glass poured. I was, in truth, glad of escape.”

Lady Messingham regarded Philip as if puzzling out a great enigma. He, who so convincingly affected the manner of a reckless ne’er-do-well, was surprisingly sober. Moreover, Philip had incurred a prince’s displeasure in her defense. Even in his pique, she felt strangely protected rather than threatened by him.

“Why are you here, when I expressly advised you against it?” he asked.

Her mind worked to compose a plausible answer that was not an outright lie. “For the play,” she blurted with a slight flush. “I came for the play.”

“This is no place for a lady. I’ll call for your carriage.”

“I did not come in my own,” she said.

“I see.” He directed a scathing glance toward the ballroom.

“It’s not what you think.”

“That you encourage him one moment, and repel him the next? I believe I understand only too well.” He laughed mirthlessly, wondering if she’d only acted the damsel in distress to inspire Frederick’s jealousy, using Philip as part of an intricate ploy to fix the prince’s interest. Then again, hadn’t she emphatically repulsed Frederick when she practically had the heir to the throne at her feet?

Her rising color said that his biting words had indeed left their mark. “Do not make presumptions. He manipulated me, Philip. I had not intended to come here with him.”

“You don’t belong here. Especially with him.”

“There’s the question,” she remarked almost rhetorically. “I don’t seem to know where I belong.”

He studied the angles of her face, shadowed by moonlight. “At this moment?” His voice was low and husky in her ear. “I’d say with me.”

“Is your conceit boundless?” She tilted her face and discovered their lips only inches apart.

“You deny you want me?”

She opened her mouth to do exactly that, and then closed it with a perplexed frown. His lips twitched smugly. “We’ve both known it since that night in the carriage. I dare you to refute me.”

She couldn’t, in all honesty. Something pulled deeply within, tempting her to explore it, to learn precisely what lay between them. Giving in to the urge, she leaned into him with parted lips.

Philip didn’t hesitate. He claimed her mouth in a ravaging kiss that clearly bespoke his desire. She answered back instinctively, with an involuntary moan, but the sound of her own pleasure seemed to stir her back to her senses. She broke away with a gasp, regarding him with a look of mixed guilt and bewilderment. “That was a mistake,” she said.

Philip stifled a curse and raked his hair with a groan of frustration. In that fleeting kiss he had felt her reciprocal desire. There was nothing ambivalent about it, but in the same breath she kissed him, she once more rejected him.

“I’ll call you a hackney,” he said tersely.

“But I don’t wish to leave.”

“Are you already so infected with the fever?” he asked, his black eyes deeply probing.

“It’s complicated,” she said.

“Complicated? Are you saying you are in want of money?”

“It’s uncivil to ask such a thing.”

“You didn’t answer me.” He pressed. “Is that why you’re here?”

“If you insist on knowing, I had indeed hoped to win a few pounds. I have several new gowns on order and have shamefully overspent my allowance.” She laughed lightly, as if embarrassed to have revealed such a triviality.

“How much?” he asked and reached for his purse.

“Wh-what?”

“How much do you need? I will make you a loan.”

“I don’t need your money. Pray put away your purse. God knows what will be said, if anyone sees you hand me money!”

“I only meant to keep you from the tables. They are a dangerous place.”

“But not nearly so dangerous with you to guide me. Please, Philip,” she cajoled, “accompany me to the tables.”

He conceded with a scowl of displeasure. “If there is no dissuading you, it appears I have little choice.”

***

After their brief interlude on the terrace, Philip and Lady Messingham returned inside to the clattering dice, whirring wheels, press of bodies, and peals of bawdy laughter. As they navigated the rooms, Philip positioned himself deliberately to shelter her from the undesirables, but her attention was only for the tables.

As he guided her, Philip explained the basics of the games, warning her in particular against basset and faro.

“Why?” she asked.

“These are most dangerous and ruinous games, frequented by only the deepest and most unscrupulous players.”

“The Greeks of whom you spoke?”

“Ah! My prior admonitions did not fall on completely deaf ears. You just chose to ignore me.”

She refused to take the bait. “I wished to play, but I had deplorable luck at the E-O table earlier.”

“That comes as no surprise. E-O requires no skill and is little better than a lottery, and the payoff, even when one wins, is negligible.”

“Then what should I play? I am determined not to depart with an empty purse.”

“Every gamester’s most famous last words,” he chuckled.

They had approached a table where the banker was in the process of dealing out a single card to each of four players who, in turn, examined his card and placed a wager in front of it.

“What is this solemn game?” They stopped to observe the play. “Does the punter place his stake on just one card?”

“Not quite, my lady. The game is called vingt-et-un. Although there is considerable luck involved, it also requires a certain skill.”

“Indeed? Will you teach me?”

His nod directed her toward the table, where he silently encouraged her to observe the play.

The dealer looked at his own card without placing a stake and then dealt a second card to each player again, and finally back to himself.

He then turned to the first player on the left. “Carte?”

The gentleman frowned in irresolution but then replied, “Content.”

The dealer proceeded to the next player who nodded. “Carte.”

The card, a deuce, was dealt face upwards.

“Encore,” spoke the player, and a nine appeared. “Crevé,” said the punter with a grimace, throwing his remaining cards face down in the middle of the table. The croupier swiftly swept the wager to the bank.

“Crevé?” she looked to Philip for explanation.

“Crevé,” Philip translated, “is burst. The object of the game is to achieve a perfect vingt-et-un, or twenty-one, without going over. The player erred by anticipating a low card but overdrew and broke.”

The game proceeded with the next two players holding with the cards dealt them.

“At this point the dealer will reveal his own hand and may hold or draw as he sees fit.”

“I see. It appears a simple enough game.”

“There is a certain strategy,” Philip explained. “The banker will generally draw if he holds anything below sixteen, but in this case three players have failed to draw additional cards, leading one to surmise that each holds at least sixteen. This could motivate the dealer to play more aggressively.”

The dealer tuned over his own pair of nines.

“Eighteen,” she said. “The dealer will stand?”

“He must. Any sensible man would,” Philip said as the remaining players each showed their hands, revealing twenty, seventeen, and eighteen respectively.

“Twenty wins, seventeen loses, and eighteen loses,” Philip said.

“But the last is a tie,” she exclaimed.

“Ties go to the dealer. There is nary a game that doesn’t present some advantages to the house,” he said. “But there are ways a savvy player may overcome his disadvantage and even increase his odds to win.”

Her eyes took on an excited gleam. “How, Philip?”

“By close observation of the cards played and the number of additional cards dealt, one may deduce if there is yet a high percentage of ten-cards and aces in the remaining deck, which can be good for the player and bad for the dealer.”

“How can you tell?”

“The key is to look for extremes in play. A player with a ten-card or ace will generally take a second card and forego a third. Thus, when a number of players stand on their dealt hand, it is a disadvantage to increase your wager. However, when there is a noticeable dearth of high value cards, the advantage is for the player to increase the wager. While this is no guarantee, it is playing to your best possible advantage.”

***

They spend the remainder of the night at vingt-et-un. With Philip a constant presence at her side, she quickly learned the strategies of the game, how to split pairs, when to receive a card, and when to rest. His hawk-like stare took in every movement, every card, and every nuance of the dealer’s expression. With his subtle cues, she doubled her wagers when the odds best favored her, and began to win.

She had come with a purse of fifty pounds, and having lost more than half at the E-O wheel, sat down to the cards with only twenty. After two hours of play, her accumulated winnings now neared seventy-five pounds. Bound to leave with one hundred in her purse, she would have stayed until the table closed had not Philip intervened.

“You’ve lost the last three hands, my lady.”

“When I next double down, I shall win it all back.”

“You’ve grown overconfident. Recklessness follows, and ruin inevitably ensues. It is time to leave the table.”

“But everyone loses a hand or two. My luck will surely come back around.”

“Luck, my lady, tires just as surely as the player. It is time to quit.”

“Surely. Right after this game.” She signaled the dealer, but Philip stayed his hand.

“The lady no longer plays.”

“What do you think you’re doing?” she hissed, as he forcibly lifted her from the chair.

“Protecting you from yourself.”

She glared. “Perhaps I only require protection from you!”

Philip replied with a low, ironic chuckle, “That may prove truer than you know.”

***

She was infuriated when Philip had curtailed her play by manhandling her at the gaming tables, and outraged when he bundled her unceremoniously into a hackney, but with the light of day came the remorseful acknowledgement that he had indeed protected her from her own uncontrolled impulses. Had he not intervened, she might well have continued losing.

As it stood, she’d departed Belsize House with seventy-five pounds in her pocket, half again what she had brought with her, but unfortunately not enough. At least it was sufficient to pay her servants’ back wages, and more important, the evening had proven that her plan was not as outlandish as Jane had implied.

If she could win twenty-five pounds in a single night with minimal tutelage, how much more might she gain if Philip were to take her truly under his wing?

Although he had preached a very pretty sermon about the evils of the tables, she remained undeterred. On the contrary, she was more convinced that she could soon come about, if he would only cooperate. The wrinkle, to her growing consternation, was that Philip was not so easily led.