Chapter Nine
The children had, according to their agreement, been relatively quiet for fifteen minutes and no longer. Slowly their volume had crept up and up and up again, until the chaos had once more hit a fever pitch.
Lord Lockhart did not appear to have noticed. Nor had he noticed that the time had gone well past the quarter of an hour he ought to have stayed.
Grace had moved to the floor, clearing the clutter of the tea that had since grown quite cold to one side in order to give herself a level surface for her playing cards.
Lord Lockhart had only been attempting to follow the quick, fluid motions of her hands as she flipped through the cards, demonstrating how easily she could make an ace located at the bottom of the deck reappear at the top as if by magic.
She had expected him to be offended by the suggestion of cheating. Affronted by the casual assault upon his honor that she would even suggest such a thing. Instead, he was riveted by her mastery of the cards.
“You don’t need to win,” she said as she performed a swift false shuffle, then revealed that the order of the cards had remained unchanged.
“You only need to be the distraction for me. Convince your uncle that there is more sport to be had in cards than in billiards. Perhaps even that he might win money from you. The salon on the ground floor would be perfect, if you can manage it. It’s well away from the stairs, and I won’t need to pass it in order to get up them. ”
“Cheating is not…something I would ever consider beneath normal circumstances,” he said slowly, though his eyes had not left the swift movements of her hands.
“I had thought as much,” she said wryly. “You don’t seem the sort.”
“To cheat?”
“Even to bend the rules,” she said. “Much less to break them entirely.”
“Do you? Bend the rules, I mean to say.”
“When it suits me. Probably less often than some people would like to believe. But more often than probably I should.” She laid out a selection of cards before her. “For example,” she said. “You should never wager against me, because I do cheat. And I always win.”
Lord Lockhart scrubbed a half-smile away from his lips. “Even against your family?”
“You must be joking. Especially against my family.” She turned the cards over to reveal two kings, with the queen of hearts laid between them.
“But I don’t require money, so I largely restrict my cheating to family gatherings, where everybody expects me to cheat, anyway.
” She paused a moment, considered—clarified.
“Except just once, when I fleeced Lady Evanstone out of twenty quid because she said something just awful about Charity in my hearing.”
And he did laugh this time. “I should be horrified,” he said. “But Lady Evanstone is just—”
“Wretched?”
“Cruel,” he said. “I’m not certain I have ever heard her say anything kind of anyone.
She was one of those who shunned my mother at the beginning of her marriage.
” He sank a bit in his seat, dragged one gloved hand through the immaculately-combed locks of his dark hair.
“Her son must have taken after her, for when we were children, he loved nothing better than to remind me that I had been born into a title by the skin of my teeth.” A sigh, heavy and poignant. “I suppose he was wrong, there.”
The injustice of it was infuriating. For all the loveless Ton marriages and countless affairs that abounded, how was it fair that this man, who had been the product of a love match which had been made legal only days too late should be considered illegitimate?
He was his father’s son. He ought to have been the heir. Only chance had made it otherwise.
Grace was going to have to teach him to manipulate chance to his favor. She gestured to the cards laid out before her. “This is called find the lady,” she said. “The queen, of course, is the lady.”
“I’ve seen this before,” Lord Lockhart said. “A street game?”
“Of a sort. It works best, of course, when you’ve got an accomplice.”
“An accomplice?”
“Someone who is in on the swindle; used to bait the hook, so to speak,” she said.
“Mama used to be mine. She was very beautiful, so she naturally attracted attention. We’d play a few hands as though we were strangers, which I would of course allow Mama to win.
Then she would walk away with her winnings to put some distance between us and let the onlookers pour in, ready to try their own luck.
In actuality, I fleeced them of everything they were willing to wager.
Here, I’ll show you how it works.” She flipped the cards one at a time, setting them face down once more. “There. Can you find her?”
“But you haven’t moved them,” he said, his brows drawn in confusion. “She’s in the middle.”
Grace bit the inside of her cheek to suppress a smile. “Would you wager ten pounds on it?”
“Of course. Who wouldn’t?”
Anyone with an ounce of self-preservation. With the edge of her fingernail, Grace flipped the middle card, revealing a king.
Lord Lockhart sat bolt upright, earning himself a hiss from Tansy. “How did you do that?” he asked, enthralled. “It was supposed to be the queen—I’d swear to it.”
“So would everyone else who’s been similarly deceived,” she said as she flipped the cards over once more, hiding the faces. Lightly, she added, “Don’t ever wager against me. You’re certain to lose.”
“But you didn’t even move them,” he protested, and Grace allowed herself a bit of private delight for having fooled him so easily. “Do it again,” he said, leaning forward to rest his hands upon his knees. “I’ll catch it this time.”
No, he wouldn’t. Nobody had ever caught her at such card tricks. But there was something so deliciously satisfying in gulling someone who knew they were being taken and still couldn’t quite work out how. “All right,” she said, hovering her fingers over the cards. “Find the—”
“It’s hardly a fair game if you haven’t put the queen back first,” Lord Lockhart admonished.
It never had been a fair game; Lord Lockhart simply did not know precisely how unfair it had been.
“What do you mean? She’s already back.” Grace flipped the center card again, revealing the queen of hearts back in her spot.
“And look—this time she’s brought her sisters with her.
” Turning the two cards on either side, Grace exposed the queen of diamonds and the queen of clubs.
Lord Lockhart blew out a breath. “That’s incredible,” he said. “How did you do it?”
“Sleight of hand,” she said. “And palming cards. It’s a common swindle played in the streets, meant to lure the unsuspecting into making wagers they’re certain they can’t lose.
I’ve been doing it since my hands were big enough to conceal the cards.
” She held up one hand to reveal a few cards bent slightly to fit into the cup of her palm.
“If you’re skilled enough, quick enough, your mark will never notice.
The lady shows up upon the table only when I want her to do so, and I can make her disappear and reappear whenever I wish.
And should someone catch on I can simply—” In a fluid motion she lifted her hand, showing him only an empty palm for a moment, only to turn her hand around and reveal the cards now caught between the clasp of her fingers, held against the back of her hand.
“You want me to distract a roomful of gentlemen with a game of find the lady?” he asked.
“No; that would require a degree of showmanship far beyond that which you could learn in an afternoon,” she said. “But you could learn a passable false shuffle, and how to deal from the bottom of the deck. How to palm cards and to tuck them into your sleeve to shake loose when you need them.”
“I don’t think I could ever manage to be half so good as you are,” he said. “Certainly not so quickly.”
“You don’t need to be as good as I am.” Grace collected the cards once again and stacked them into a neat pile.
“I have to be good because everyone expects me to cheat. I must fool their minds every bit as much as their eyes. But no one will be expecting it of you.” Honest, ethical, and morally upright as he was, no one would suspect him of concealing cards, or of dealing from the bottom of the deck.
“People largely see what they expect to see,” she said as she leaned forward to hand the deck across the table to him.
“You have them half-fooled already. Now you need only to mislead their eyes. And no one will be watching particularly closely, so long as you lose when you need to.”
“Ah,” he said. “Like with find the lady.”
“Exactly. Bait your uncle with a few of your own losses—honest or otherwise—and he’ll never know you’re pulling the wool over his eyes when you begin winning.
You don’t have to win every hand. You only need to keep the gentlemen occupied while I sneak about.
” Grace gave a little shrug and rested her arms upon the table.
“If you’re cunning about it, you might even be able to win back some of what he extorted from your mother and put him at a disadvantage. ”
The corner of his mouth twisted in a wry grin. “I suspect that if I began to win too much, he’d grow suspicious. We are attempting to divert suspicion, are we not?”
Grace gave a little shrug. “Then deal a winning hand to someone else instead. There’s no rule amongst thieves that says you must win every hand yourself. Supposing your uncle does grow suspicious, simply make some other player your unwitting accomplice.”
“That’s diabolical. Could I, really?”
“I assure you, if another fellow who was once down several pounds were to find himself suddenly with a lucky hand indeed, he’s hardly likely to complain of it. You’ll want to take off your gloves.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your gloves,” Grace said. “Gentlemen don’t play in them, do they?”