When the hack turned onto his parents’ road, Lady Roundtree’s extravagant coach-and-four was already waiting for Charlotte at the corner. Anthony instructed the jarvey to pull alongside.
“You’ll do splendidly,” he assured his wife as he handed her from one carriage to the other. “All that’s required is your mind.”
“I’ll try not to lose it on the way to Roundtree Manor,” she said wryly.
Anthony grinned. He doubted the baroness had enough brains to note the difference. “Just remember—no matter what price she offers, ask for double.”
After the coach-and-four drove away, the hack’s jarvey looked down from his perch “Be needing my services for anything else?”
Anthony reached into his pocket for a coin. “No, I—”
“There you are!” came a rough voice from behind Anthony’s shoulder. “We been waiting at your door for an hour.”
Full of dread, he turned to see the two ruffians who had confronted him at the Kitty and Cock Inn. He tipped his hat. “Good afternoon, gentlemen. How may I be of service?”
“You can give Gideon back his blunt.”
“I am making great strides toward that task.” Anthony hoped his cheerful smile masked the lie. “Didn’t you gentlemen say I was entitled to a fortnight’s grace period?”
“Was.” The first ruffian bared his jagged teeth. “Better hurry. You’ve less than a week to make good.”
“This oughta help motivate you.” The pockmarked ruffian shoved a folded document at Anthony’s chest.
He smoothed open the parchment as if it contained nothing more urgent than a request from his grandmother to visit her for tea.
It did not.
Fear gripped him when he saw the stamp on the bottom of the parchment. The document was a summons to surrender his money or his person four days hence. This was it. There was no way out.
“Superb,” he assured them. “Who doesn’t love an invitation? I shall be certain to note the date in my diary.”
“See that you do.” Pockmark’s eyes were cold.
Broken Tooth smirked. “You don’t want us to have to escort you there.”
An understatement. Anthony hoped his hands didn’t shake as he folded the parchment. Devil take it! He had to think of something.
Once the ruffians departed, the jarvey glanced down at Anthony with a far less congenial expression. “Got that farthing you owe me, mate?”
“Two of them.” He tossed up the coins and leaped back inside the cab. “Drive me to the Cloven Hoof, please.”
The jarvey sent him a doubtful glance. “The gaming hell?”
Anthony grimly gazed out the window. “The very one.”
He and Maxwell Gideon had once been friends. In fact, when Anthony had first discovered Gideon had become the owner of Anthony’s IOUs to save him from other gamblers’ wrath, he’d believed the man had done him a great favor. Certainly a friend would be more understanding of the vagaries of good fortune. Particularly a man who ran a vice parlor of his own.
But Anthony had been wrong. About everything.
Not just wrong… He had been foolhardy. Immature. Careless. But he wasn’t that man anymore. He was happy to take responsibility. Proud to, in fact.
He just needed more than four short days to do so.
The hack dropped him off at the Cloven Hoof’s main entrance. The nondescript building didn’t look like much from the outside, with its dark windows and old brick. But it was the one gaming establishment in London that still opened its doors to Anthony Fairfax.
He hoped.
Head held high and an easy smile plastered on his face, he strode up to the door and gave the coded knock.
To his immense relief, he recognized the enforcer who cracked open the door. “Vigo.”
The burly enforcer inclined his head. “Fairfax.”
“I’ve come to see Gideon.”
“Got an appointment?”
“Ask him.”
Vigo shut the door without further comment.
His nerves sizzling with unease, Anthony laced his hands behind his back to wait.
This would work. Six o’clock in the evening was far too early for the Cloven Hoof to be crowded. Gideon had to see him.
Whether Anthony could convince him to call off his hounds was another matter entirely.
The door swung open and Vigo motioned him inside. “He’s in the back.”
With a smile far more carefree than Anthony’s churning gut would indicate, he crossed the threshold into the gaming hell.
Low-hung chandeliers illuminated rows of worn tables surrounded by clumps of bright-eyed gentlemen. Dice clattered across hazard tables, followed by the whoops or cries of the spectators. Cards flew across felt green Faro tables before the banker gathered the chips. In every corner was a different game. A different opportunity to win big—or to lose it all.
Anthony’s blood sang from his proximity to the gaming tables.
“Fairfax,” Mr. York called out. “Knew you’d be back. Care to roll the dice with me?”
Anthony’s heart raced at the thought. Every particle of his body longed to do just that. Roll the dice. Play the cards. Make the wagers. But those days were done.
“Some other time,” he called back. “I’m just here to see Gideon.”
“Fairfax not gamble?” came a disbelieving cackle from a vingt-et-un table. “The end times are upon us.”
Anthony sent a quelling scowl in the direction of the voice, until he realized the speaker was Phineas Mapleton, an insufferable gossip not even worth the effort required to frown at him.
“If you’re not going to wager,” came a low voice in the opposite direction, “perhaps you’ll have a drink with us.”
Anthony turned to see the Duke of Lambley sharing a table with the penniless marquess Lord Hawkridge. Anthony had never pictured those two as friends. He supposed one never knew who the other guests were at Lambley’s infamous masquerade parties.
“I’ll stop once I’ve spoken to Gideon,” he promised, “but I can’t stay long. I’ve a wife to get home to now.”
“A what?” Whistles and good-natured ribbing filled the air. “What kind of woman would leg-shackle herself to you, Fairfax? You win her at the tables?”
“As it happens, the lady won me,” he hedged, correctly anticipating the wild laughter and thumps on his shoulder. He raised his voice. “Besides being able to sweep the floor with any of you, Mrs. Fairfax has made quite a name for herself in the arena of advice-giving. If you’ve a sibling or wife or parent in need of a good dose of common sense, my wife’s ability to convince featherbrains to make logical choices is second to none.”
“Explains you not gambling, I’d wager.” Mr. York grinned. “Lord knows you aren’t smart enough to walk away on your own.”
Anthony smiled back. “And here you stand, holding dice in your palm, further making your point.”
“Is she the one who helped Leticia Podmore hire her new governess?” Lord Hawkridge asked.
“The very one.” Anthony frowned in surprise. “How did you hear of that?”
The marquess pulled a face. “My aunt shares her book club. Apparently Mrs. Podmore was too busy boasting about her new governess to pay much attention to dissecting Radcliffe’s latest gothic novel.”
“Then you understand the level of skill and patience required of Mrs. Fairfax,” Anthony replied. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve an appointment to keep.”
Before anyone else could waylay him with talk of women or wagers, he strode to the rear office and stepped inside.
Gideon sat behind a large mahogany desk, reviewing a stack of paper. Inky black hair fell into equally dark eyes. An unfashionable hint of whiskers shadowed the line of his jaw.
He was at the gaming hell at least twelve hours a day, overseeing everything from each ha’penny in the till to the upkeep on the worn green baize of the Faro tables.