Page 29 of A Game of Scandal

Perry.

The name hit me like a bullet. All of a sudden I was back in that library, the first time I’d heard Ash speak. “I don’t want Perry to die.”

Peregrine Archer was Ash’s brother. I was sure of it. In fact, I’d bet money that the letter Ash received had been informing him of his brother’s death. My eyes flew to his face now, but his expression remained neutral. I wondered how Laing had known about it beforehand. And was it only a coincidence that he was bringing it up here and now?

“I certainly didn’t mean to spring the news on you, gentlemen,” Laing said. “My understanding was that Lord Archer had been ill for quite some time. He sustained an injury, I believe.”

“Attacked in the street!” Johnson exploded. “Shot by a common criminal!”

“Oh, goodness,” Laing murmured. “How terrible.”

“A reminder to us all to be on our guard,” Ash’s voice broke in, his tone bland. “Crime is ever-present in this city. Still, let us remember there is a lady present.”

“Yes.” Horatio still sounded upset. “Quite right. It’s a damned shame is what it is, but there, as Ash says, it’s a dangerous world. A dangerous world.”

He shook his head, and in a much more subdued mood, we returned to our game.

It seemed I was not the only one to be distracted by this information, and Laing had no trouble at all in winning the next two hands. My mind was spinning as I tried to piece together what I knew and to see how it all added up. Did Laing know that Ash was Perry’s brother? Had he brought up his death to rattle him? Why? But Ash hadn’t seemed rattled, so perhaps Laing had no idea of the connection at all. Perhaps he’d mentioned the news to shake the other three men… He had certainly been more successful there.

Attacked in the street. Shot by a common criminal…

A thought occurred to me then. Could Laing be connected to Peregrine Archer’s death? Or was I seeing connections where there were none? There were too many possibilities, too many unanswered questions, and it was no good filling the blanks with useless conjecture.

I pushed the thoughts aside. Right now, I had one thing to concentrate on – winning this game. Whatever Laing was planning, he wouldn’t use that pile of money in the middle of the table to do it. I sat up straight in my chair and felt determination course through me. It was time to end this.

Covington was the first out. He seemed fully recovered from the shock about Perry, and merely shrugged, stretched like a cat in his seat, pouring himself another huge glass of brandy, seemingly bored by the entire experience.

Johnson fell next, trying to bluff on a pair of fours, getting sloppy as the pressure intensified. He cursed, low and wicked under his breath, while Horatio blustered once more about there being a lady present. I couldn’t care less about the language. It was close now, the end of this fraught game – I could feel it. A bead of sweat ran down my spine, as I fought to keep myself steady.

We played on for a while – how long I don’t know. It could have been thirty minutes; it could have been hours. My focus narrowed down so far that I felt as if the only thing that remained was the numbers. I was getting tired, I realized. The wine and the late hour crowded in on me. I felt my mind lagging the same way a runner might at the end of a long race, desperately fighting to hold back the exhaustion long enough to cross the finish line.

Finally, after a particularly frenzied round of betting, I beat Horatio, who had, I knew, been certain he held the winning cards.

“Well played, my dear,” he said, but I noticed that his face was pale and his eyes lingered a long moment on the stack of bank notes that were now in front of my place at the table. I felt guilty, but reminded myself that everyone at the game tonight had plenty of money to lose. The main thing was to stop Laing from winning it – and in that mission I was unfortunately far from done. A small fortune sat before us that could easily be used for nefarious purposes. I resisted the urge to wipe my damp palms on my skirts. There could be no signs of weakness.

Now, it was only Laing and I left. It all came down to this. As far as I could tell, he hadn’t been cheating. He hadn’t needed to – he played impeccably and seemed to have no tells whatsoever. Still, I had a sense of him now. I’d spent the evening collecting an endless stream of information, each piece of numerical data forming a fuller picture. I knew which hands he favoured, the likelihood that he would draw or stay. I had been paying close attention.

And there were always patterns if you looked hard enough for them.

We battled on, hand after hand, as the night drew on.

And then, like the loosening of a knot inside me, I knew the precise moment that I had him.

I looked down at the pile of money in front of us, at the not-so-small fortune, and my voice was utterly calm when I spoke.

“Call,” I said.

There was a beat, and then Laing fanned his cards out on the table.

“King-high flush,” Ash announced, and I thought for the first time that tension had crept into his voice. It was a very strong hand.

I allowed myself a moment, a dizzying moment of lightness, and then I laid my own cards down. Three sixes and two queens.

“A full hand,” Ash managed, sounding slightly winded. “Sixes over queens, the lady takes the pot.”

My eyes raised and I looked straight into Laing’s face. I had been expecting anger, frustration, disappointment, but what I saw instead surprised me – a look of greedy excitement that chilled me to the bone.

And it was directed straight at me.