The game began. Bunny, as she decided to designate the other gentleman, cut the cards and Firth rapped them when he slid them over. Mrs Fayres sat behind the Colonel and rested her elbow on her knee, watching with intent.
Tesara fanned the well-worn cards and almost cried, her first hand was that good. Just this one, she told herself. I just want to win one. She threw in a coin with enthusiasm. She saw instantly that Bunny had no sense of play, and Firth was either drunk or naturally silly, and so neither would bet. In short order, she had won.
“Oh, good!” she said, pulling in her winnings, despite Bunny’s glare. “You didn’t let me win, did you?”
Firth snorted and rolled her eyes. Bunny turned and muttered something at her. The Colonel watched her with narrowed eyes, and then lit a thin cigar, the acrid smoke making Tesara cough a little, though she tried to hide it. Mrs Fayres smiled enigmatically, but said nothing.
Two hands later Tesara had to hide her laughter. The Colonel had a better opinion of his skill than was entirely accurate, and Bunny and Firth were trying to cheat, but were so bad at it that they were terribly transparent. She could see the edge of a card slipping out under Bunny’s sleeve and was tempted to push it back in for him. If only I were playing against real gamblers, like Terk, she thought. This was like stealing candy from very large, spoiled, and drunken babies.
Eventually though, the world slipped away and her whole attention was absorbed by the table and the game. She had a vague awareness of people gathering around to watch, and she knew she needed to start making some obvious mistakes and lose soon, so that her reputation as a scatterbrain would be sealed, but she couldn’t bear to bring it to an end. One more hand, she kept telling herself, fanning the cards and making her bets. It was a rhythm, like dancing, and Mrs Fayres looked as if she were enjoying herself immensely. She had an amused half-smile on her face, and she often patted the Colonel on the shoulder when he won or in a commiserating way when he botched a hand. She clearly had experience humoring him. Tesara wondered how she could be amorous with the man, but then, as a mistress, no doubt she had other skills in that department. It’s not a job I would want, she thought.
The cold wet wind coming in from the garden caught her attention and she looked up, surprised out of her concentration.
“Who left the window open?” Firth shuddered with great exaggeration, and the Colonel muttered something about a careless hostess. The window banged back and forth, and voices exclaimed at the sound. The drapery billowed into the room.
“Where is a servant to take care of this?” snapped a silver-haired gentleman, resplendent in a midnight blue coat and fawn trousers.
There were no servants, and the doors to the hall had been closed. Tesara vaguely remembered that someone had complained about the noise coming from the dancing as the party had entered into full swing.
The window banged again, and everyone jumped.
“For the devil’s sake, won’t someone call a servant to close the damn window!” the gentleman cried.
“I’ll do it myself, if only to stop your complaining,” another gentleman said, and he marched over with the air of someone making a great sacrifice.
A figure came out from behind the drapes, and halted him in his tracks. Silence fell, a profound silence, broken only by the small gasps of women.
The figure was a young man with a red handkerchief over his face, and two large, silver-chased pistols cocked and aimed straight at the bold gentleman’s heart. The bandit gestured with the pistol ever so slightly and the bold gentleman fell back and sat down, fumbling behind himself for a spindly-legged chair. It was unnerving, the way the young man’s blue eyes peered through the eyeholes, as if he stood very far behind the mask.
“What –what do you want?” the gentleman stuttered. The bandit said nothing, only swept the room. Tesara saw Bunny furtively cover his stake and part of hers and pull it back toward him. She laid a hand on his wrist.
“Are you mad?” she whispered. “He’ll kill you. It’s just money. Leave it.”
As if he heard her, the bandit swept both pistols toward her. She felt as if her heart would stop. Then he went over to the bold gentleman and with no emotion or speech, he held one pistol straight at the man’s head. A woman began to sob. The bold gentleman grew very still. No one else moved.
The bandit looked straight at Tesara and jerked his head around the room. Tesara took the hint. She pushed to her feet and began to sweep up money from the table into her reticule. The coins were too heavy so she left them and gathered up the paper notes from her table and then the others, going from table to table.
When they saw what she was doing, people reacted according to their natures, some grabbing for their cash, and others pushing it at her.
“Make him go away, make him go away,” the woman sobbed, pushing her pile at Tesara. It included a glittering diamond hair clip. She bit her lip and left it behind when she grabbed the cash.
“Don’t worry,” she hushed her. The woman was Mrs Lupiere; her husband was the hapless gentleman with the gun to his head. Mrs Lupiere had snubbed Tesara on the Mile her first week home but Tesara couldn’t feel much anger at her. “If we all stay calm, nothing will happen.”
No one dared move for the door. The music and revelry continued on in the next gallery over, a world away while they were being robbed. Tesara hurriedly cleared the last
