Chapter Twenty-Four
“Don’t react,” Ian warned Diana.
He’d already considered and dismissed the idea of placing his body between her and the other players; he didn’t want to remind his competitors of how easily they could get inside his head if they threatened her.
“Why is Jared here?” Her voice rose an octave. “How did he get here?”
“One of the famiglie must have tracked him down and threatened him. They brought him here to rattle me.”
“But you won’t let them,” she insisted, her fists balled in her skirts.
Her belief in him—fresh on the heels of their argument—made him want to pry her hands open and kiss each one of her fingers and every inch of her exposed skin.
“Jared’s going to want a word with me. Please, Diana. I need you to go with the duke.”
As Sunderland approached, Diana gave a faint growl and said, “I will find you. Don’t do anything unwise.”
He only had the brush of her hand at his cheek before he and Sunderland swapped scarlet-dressed women like they were partners in a reel.
As the imposter threaded her gloved arm through his, Ian drew a deep breath and walked toward the spot at the bar where Jared stood. Ian could tell from his unfocused glare and the wobbly way his brother was holding his whisky glass that Jared was already foxed.
“Keep quiet and stand behind me,” he ordered the Diana stand-in.
The woman made a low harumph noise in the back of her throat that was eerily Diana-like.
“I’d say it’s lovely to see you,” Jared slurred as he greeted them. “But we’ve never been the kind of family to exchange endearments.”
“No, but I’m glad that you’ve recovered,” Ian offered.
“Liar. You couldn’t wait to escape with that traitorous bitch cowering behind—”
Ian’s hand grasped his brother’s thumb and forced it into a suspended angle. “One more insult and I snap this.”
“Savage mongrel,” Jared spat. “You belong with this lot of bloody lowlifes.”
Ian kept his pressure on Jared’s hand, his voice lethal and low. “Whatever it is you’re planning to do here, forget it. The famiglie must know about Polly and Johnny. If you try to interfere, they’ll come after your woman and your child.”
“Why do you think I’m here?”
Slowly, Ian released his hand.
Jared shook it off and downed his whisky. “You think I chased after this? I didn’t know about any of this madness until I tried to sell the emeralds. The old man never mentioned a word to me.” He jutted a trembling finger at Ian. “But you knew.”
“Why else do you think Father left me nothing in his will?” Ian’s steady voice belied his roiling anger. “He wanted you and the business to be clear of it all. The emeralds were in my life long before you knew I existed. The necklace is my legacy to defend.”
“Never met anyone who acted like they possessed a bigger set of bollocks than you.” His brother jutted his chin toward where Titus sat at the table.
“The night before you ran off with my blushing bride, that bastard drugged me and forced me to sign over the papers to the docks. He gave me a forged contract for Diana’s properties as a consolation gift.
Everything would have worked its way out if you hadn’t interfered.
But you did. So they dragged me here to make sure you play nicely. ”
Ian had spent his first years in England terrified of the hate in Jared’s eyes whenever he looked at him or his mother. A strange tightness would form in his chest and migrate down into his stomach, and he often couldn’t eat for days.
Jared still regarded him with that same loathing. They’d never shared a moment of brotherly camaraderie between them. Ian doubted they ever would.
But Jared had loved their father. And he wouldn’t have let the business he built slip through his fingers so easily.
“Why are you here, Jared? What else did they offer you for the docks?”
After a beat, Jared said, “If you lose, I walk away with the money to clear my debts and take Polly and Johnny far away from this depravity.”
Ian pitied how readily his brother believed the lie. “You truly think that will happen if Titus or Costa win?”
Shaking out his cuffs, Jared gave him a dismissive glance. “I won’t bother wishing you luck.”
“I won’t need it,” Ian drawled.
The players prowled around the oval-shaped table as they sized up the piles of chips and each other. Titus and Costa exchanged a cold nod, which made Ian slightly less anxious. It truly would be every player for themselves around the table.
Alberti had taught him how to play baccarat as soon as he’d learned to count.
His mother and father had also played with him.
Father had bristled whenever Ian remarked his mother was a better player.
But he’d properly lost his sense of humor when Ian had almost been sent down from Harrow for organizing an underground card game.
The tongue-lashing hadn’t stopped him from seeking illicit gaming hells to sharpen his skills. He rarely lost, and even more rarely, became caught up in the emotion of chasing a win.
A gong sounded from somewhere behind the bar, and the murmuring voices of the spectators dwindled.
As Ian took his seat at the table, the Diana imposter melted back into the circle of onlookers behind him.
He lounged back in his chair with a cocky slouch and surveyed the four corners of the room to locate his Diana.
Eventually, he found her among the spectators next to the curtained pillars on the second floor.
The sight of her on Sunderland’s arm lessened Ian’s disquiet fractionally.
He closed his eyes for a fleeting moment and imagined her eyes on him.
He pictured her bow-shaped mouth wearing the soft smile that hid the depths of her passion and determination.
If he failed to win tonight, and Sunderland didn’t keep his promise to protect her, he vowed his ghost would haunt the duke until the end of his days.
“Good evening, signoras e signori. Tonight, Il Gioco is chemin-de-fer,” the hotel manager announced.
“We deal with six decks of cards.” He showed six sealed boxes of cards to the players.
“Signori, you have six rounds of play, allowing each punter to serve as banker twice. Punters may bet their hand against any of the other players. The hand with a total closest to nine wins the round. Whoever claims the most rounds claims the game.”
A collective coo among the spectators underscored the seriousness of the rules.
“If the players are all assembled, let us begin,” the manager continued. “The punter in possession of the emerald necklace may choose to serve as banker in the first or the last round.”
Titus withdrew the necklace with a cocky smile and dropped it in the center of the table. “I choose to go first.”
“Very good, signore. What do you set for the opening bank?”
“Twenty thousand pounds.”
The crowd murmured at the staggering sum. Ian met the eyes of the Tarka capo, and he tilted his head to confirm Ian should match Titus’s bet.
The hotel manager rapped on the felt-topped table and opened each sealed deck of cards with a silver penknife.
Like the other men, Ian scrutinized the decks laid out in a row on the table.
Three of the decks had the standard red printed design found in any shop in Italy.
The rest boasted a black-and-white pattern of concentric starbursts surrounded by a block print of lines and dots that was as familiar to Ian as the ink tattooed on his chest.
Alberti had taught him to play cards with a deck exactly like the ones before him.
The old man had shown him how to make a set with the knave, the king, and the queen.
And then he’d instructed Ian in the hidden language of deciphering how to detect those character cards while the cards lay face down.
As Titus shuffled the decks together with a dramatic flourish and called for them to place their bets, hope gained a threshold in Ian’s heart.
Tucked behind the velvet drapes on the balcony, Diana detested her relegation to the role of surveillance. Her assignment was to monitor for signs of the Stags, but it was a struggle to drag her eyes from Ian.
She was carefully assessing how she might subtly wriggle free of Sunderland’s persistent hold on her arm when the duke murmured, “The decks are what we expected.”
“Meaning no one tampered with them?”
“Still a possibility. But thankfully, the black cards on the table are a Florentine set printed by Domenico Alberti.”
Diana pursed her lips together. Ian had failed to mention that the man who’d looked after him and his mother was also a legendary card designer. “Doesn’t that put the Tarka at an unfair advantage?”
“Half of the Continent plays with Alberti decks. Ian isn’t the only one who knows how to edge sort the face cards—tell them apart by the designs on the back, which are set marginally differently to the numbered cards,” Sunderland explained.
“It’s more valuable for chemin-de-fer, since the face cards hold no value. ”
“Is that how you win, Your Grace? By cheating?”
“It’s simply playing an advantage,” Sunderland said tightly. “And I don’t hold with cheating. Implies one lacks intellect. Or a spine.”
“Lying is cheating the truth. And I know you’re an expert liar.” Diana laced her tone with sweetness so it wouldn’t draw attention from the people standing by her.
“Pot and kettle,” the duke lobbed back mildly. “And if you have some frustration with Holt you’re working out on me—”
“While I don’t appreciate the two of you conspiring behind my back, I was referring to your other past crimes.”
He shook his head and widened his eyes in feigned confusion. “Whatever could that be?”
Amelia never said what had transpired at Lady Rosewood’s ball during their debut season, when Diana had found Amelia quietly crying on a bench within the hedge maze.
Just before she’d come upon her, Sunderland had fled past as if a pack of hounds had chased after him.
He’d been Ashton then, the lowly third son of the duke.