19. Johan at the Tables #2
The Dutchman’s gaze flicked about the room to spy out the lady but saw no one.
He took the glass, swirling the ruby liquid as if to appreciate its bouquet.
He lifted it to his nose and gave Miles a meaningful look over the rim.
“A gracious gesture,” he said, and set the glass down untouched, showing himself more captured by his next win.
“Ten!” he stated aloud before rolling out two fives.
Lilith shifted her focus to Miles, whose nervousness and similar refusal of a drink, piqued her interest. She leaned back from the wall, her mind at work, tapping a finger against her lips.
Johan’s first roll was unremarkable—a modest win that drew only a polite hum of approval.
His second roll, a clean nine, was met with mild interest. But when he called an eleven and delivered it with casual precision, a few heads turned.
There was an unhurried elegance to his play, an air of inevitability about each throw.
He did not crow over his victories, nor clutch at his wagers like a desperate man chasing fortune.
No, he played with the idle amusement of a gentleman passing the time, his wins seeming almost incidental.
Yet, for all his nonchalance, his precision was uncanny.
He never sought outrageous stakes to mark himself a fool or a cheat.
Instead, he worked within the natural ebb and flow of the game, reading the table’s mood.
He knew when to press his advantage and when to feign uncertainty.
His hand lingered over the dice just long enough to suggest hesitation before he called his throw with effortless conviction.
The dice left his fingers with practiced ease—never snatched, never rushed. Johan did not trust the whims of fortune, but he trusted the weight of his dice, the flick of his wrist, and the balance between force and release.
And so, the wins continued. Not an impossible streak—he lost a round here, let a bet slip there—but each setback was merely a pause before another thrown eleven or a neatly delivered nine.
The pile of winnings before him grew, not in an outrageous tower but in measured gains, stacked with absentminded tidiness as though he had no particular concern for them.
Laurence Fiske, by contrast, had begun the evening in boisterous spirits and was now looking rather peaked.
By the ninth roll, he had taken to twisting his signet ring.
By the eleventh, his cravat was in evident distress.
When Johan’s next throw, another eleven, swept the last of his wagered coin into the Dutchman’s hands, he let out a hollow laugh and sat down, muttering something about devilish luck.
Johan’s lips curved as Lilith matched his stake, and he drew another tidy pile of coins toward him.
He leaned back in his chair, stretching as the croupier reset the table.
The men who had been jostling for a view now exchanged glances.
Some looked to their purses, calculating the risks of stepping forward.
Others murmured about his extraordinary skill.
Then, at the far end of the room, a door swung open, and a hush fell over the table.
A woman stepped into the lamplight, and the crowd parted with the deference afforded to queens and executioners.
“Madam Bittermann,” someone whispered.
Lilith Bittermann moved unhurriedly, a weighted purple velvet bag swinging from her fingers. Her shrewd eyes swept over the table before settling on the mystery winner. A joyless smile curved her lips.
“It seems I have arrived just in time,” she said, her voice low and smooth. “Shall the house take up your wager, sir, since my guests appear unwilling?”
Johan rose from his seat and bowed, the picture of courtly manners. “Madam,” he said, “I should be delighted to risk my fortune upon the honor of your house.”
“Excellent,” Lilith replied. With a flick of her fingers, she dismissed the croupier and took his place at the table. The metallic rattle of her bag suggested it contained a wealth of sovereigns. She loosened the drawstrings and let them spill onto the felt with a rich clink of gold.
“Shall we continue, Mr.—?”
“von Falkenstein,” Johan supplied.
Lilith’s smile deepened. “So, Mein Herr ,” she replied in German, “let us see if your luck holds.”
Johan pushed a collection of coins forward, declared eleven as his main, and rattled the dice in the cup before throwing.
A six and a five landed with a satisfying finality.
The crowd exhaled in unison.
Johan grinned as Lilith equaled his wager, pulling another stack of coins toward himself. He had been right, of course—he usually was. But he was under no illusion that his fortune would remain unchallenged. Lilith Bittermann had not come to watch him win. She was there to ensure he lost.
And he very much doubted she intended to leave that to chance.
“How fascinating,” Lilith’s hand hovered over the dice. Picking them up, her fingers lingered on the cool surface, her thumb brushing the edges. “You seem to have a remarkable affinity for these particular dice.”
“Do I?” Johan asked, his voice all innocence. “Perhaps fortune is simply kind to me.”
“Perhaps,” Lilith said, setting the dice back on the table. But there was a glint in her eyes now—sharp, watchful, and unrelenting.
Meanwhile, as Johan’s victories drew curious onlookers from the card rooms like moths to a flame, Alex made a show of rising with the crowd—only to detach himself discreetly.
A murmured excuse, an artful pivot, and he vanished through a curtained doorway, swallowed by the house’s labyrinthine depths.
The general uproar over Johan’s success covered his retreat as thoroughly as if he’d never been there at all.
Lord Sinclair’s movements were precise, his purpose singular.
The corridors beyond the main rooms were narrow and dimly lit, their twists and turns disorienting.
He counted steps and memorized hanging fabrics, a chipped sconce here, a faint wine stain there.
He paused at each closed door, listening for voices.
Based on Miles’ account, Lucinda had left him for somewhere upstairs.
When a flight was found behind two swags of damask, he paused for only a moment before taking the steps quietly two at a time.
At the gaming table, Johan’s laugh rang out again as he raked in another pile of winnings.
Standing sentinel near the throng, Miles fought down a rising tide of unease.
His brother’s absence fretted him, but he schooled his features to betray nothing.
The crowd around the Hazard table had grown thick, their energy feeding on his unerring luck.
Even Miles found himself caught up in the spectacle, though his stomach churned with unease.
“Your cousin plays a bold hand, Mr. Sinclair,“ remarked a nearby dandy with awe.
He offered a halfhearted smile. “Boldness favors the brave,“ he replied. Then whispered over Johan’s shoulder “You’re enjoying yourself too much.”
Johan flicked him a glance. “That’s the point, my dear cousin.”
A footman appeared at Lilith’s elbow bearing a glass of claret on a silver tray, to which she gave him a supercilious glare. Then she caught the servant’s glance—not deference, but calculation—and the corner of her mouth twitched. Ah-ha. A ploy.
“To your bold play, von Falkenstein,” she purred, raising the glass in a slow, deliberate arc.
The gentlemen clustered around the table lurched into motion, lifting their drinks with varying degrees of coordination.
But when Lilith did not drink—merely held her glass aloft in silent challenge—the room’s collective gaze swung to Johan, as though the very laws of society now demanded his participation.
It was a masterstroke and a neat bit of theater.
Let him believe she and this wine-flushed chorus of admirers wished only to toast his triumph.
Her true ambition, of course, was to see every drop of that particular vintage down his throat.
“Ah, what is life without a little boldness, madam?” Johan claimed his glass, tilting it toward her with a smile that suggested he found the whole affair amusing. The assembled company, ever eager for an excuse to imbibe, drank with gusto—one overzealous soul nearly upending his cup entirely.
Lilith held Johan’s gaze, unwilling to drink until he did. Then, with a flicker of challenge in her eyes, she tossed it back in one smooth motion, while her wretched adversary put his untouched wine back down on the felt table. But Lilith was not yet done with her challenges.
“Continue, von Falkenstein. Let us see just how far your luck holds.”
“The pleasure will be mine, madam.”
Lilith couldn’t help but stare at him, her mind awhirl with schemes for this German, who had the touch of Midas.