Mrs Havartá looked as if she were close to telling Mr Havartá what he could do with his arm. However, she rose with dignity and placed her hand on her husband’s sleeve, allowing herself to be led away.
“I believe that’s an excellent idea,” said Mr Scarlanti, and one by one the other ladies got up and left Tesara standing by the table.
She gave a rueful smile. One hundred guilders. Not exactly a triumph. But then again, in these salons, the social aspects of gaming were more important than the game itself. The wagers were merely the price of admission.
“Hardly worth the effort,” came another voice from behind her. She turned. It was Mr Terk, the professional gambler she first met at Jone’s salon. A shiver ran down her spine. He regarded her through the smoke of his thin cheroot.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” she said, ice in her voice.
He shrugged. “Only the best salons for me. What about you, little bandit girl? You’re not the thing, as they say.”
She bit back a grin at the upper-crust slang in his dockside accent. “No, I am not at all the thing.”
He came closer, taking her arm. His hard hand closed around her wrist, but he made it look as if it were a simple, respectful clasp.
“I can find you a better table with better stakes far more suited to your talent.”
She looked him straight in the eye, steady. “I’m an innocent merchant’s daughter, Mr Terk. I do hope that isn’t a euphemism.”
He snorted a laugh. “No. Cards only. That stake won’t cut it though. You’ll need a marker.”
Now the shiver was one of excitement. This was in her nature. She had to gamble. What had Mirandine said? She was a natural. “Where is this table of yours?”
Chapter Forty-Seven
It turned out to be in the Scarlantis’ smoking room. Oh, Tesara thought. She had been innocent. While the society gamers played at low-stakes games in the main salon, the real gamers were in the back room, with men like Terk invited in for a true challenge. No wonder she wasn’t going to make any more money than ten guilders at a time. This was where the money was.
Terk ushered her into the smoking and billiard room. She was not the only woman, though by far the youngest. The other women were as far from merchant wives as could be, although as far as Tesara’s inexperienced eye could tell, none were actually soiled doves. Mistresses though, some gaudy, some elegant, rough voiced or quiet, all striking. One woman met her curious eye with a smile. Tesara drew in her breath with a tiny hitch. She didn’t know what was the most striking – the woman’s dark good looks, her smooth, slicked-back hair coiled in a bun under her ear, tiny diamond hairpins sparkling like crystals of fire against the black background – or the fact that she wore trousers and a black coat like a gentleman’s. The white of her shirt molded itself to her bust, and the cutaway long coat emphasized her figure. Her trousers ended over a gentleman’s pointed shoes.
The mysterious woman raised an eyebrow at Tesara’s entrance, and Tesara felt an extraordinary sense of having met someone who recognized her and approved. She flushed and nodded back, and then Terk led her to her seat.
There were some of the merchants she remembered from her parents’ house on the Crescent, as well as a few of the more well-to-do sea captains. She sat down at the table, stripping off her little gloves. Once again, people took a look at her crooked fingers but she didn’t let it bother her.
There were no introductions. The game began.
She lost track of time, so absorbed in the game now that she didn’t have to pretend to be a terrible player. Her focus narrowed to her table only. There was no conversation, no laughter, only the sound of bets and cards, the chink of coins and the whisper of paper drafts and markers. The level of play took all of her concentration.
She won and lost and won some more, the pile in front of her steadily growing in height. She paid off the markers that Terk had staked for her. He grunted as she passed over the winnings, but made no other comment. She had an inkling that he was as absorbed in the game as she was, a kindred spirit. She was minded of Jone’s comment about how gambling wasn’t a sin if one didn’t take it seriously. Then I’m a bad sinner, she thought, because I take this as seriously as life and death.
“Call,” Terk said in his gruff voice and she laid down her cards, a winning hand. There was a murmur around the table, a shift in balance. She felt powerful, vindicated.
“Well, well, well,” someone drawled. She looked up, and as she did her elbow knocked over the wineglass at her elbow. It barely registered, though wine splashed along her old silk dress.
Trune.
The Guildmaster and some of his high-ranking Guild cronies stood over the table. Tesara put her hands in her lap to hide the trembling. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Terk glance between them.
“Interesting,” Trune went on, as he took in the table, the pile of winnings in front of Tesara, and her own self, the erstwhile housemaid snooping in his study and now gambling in his friend’s billiards room. She calculated her possibilities.
Grab her winnings, tip over the table, run. She wouldn’t get far.
Use her powers. She felt the answering energy well up in her fingertips again, swelling them with electricity. That was her ace though, and she didn’t want to squander the card.
Brazen it out. Trune still knew where she lived, and would take it out on her family, but if she brought the attack to him in public, he
