Chapter 8

Around three o'clock in the morning, Vander found himself at Boodle's, seated at a round table with five other men. The game was brag, and Vander was winning.

He could've been winning more if he'd sat at Lord Waplington's table. The earl, who was second cousin to his father, and around his father's age, was terrible at brag, or any form of cards, really.

But Waplington was one of those tiresome fellows who was always complimenting Vander for speaking English so well or trying to explain what a phaeton was (as if Vander didn't own two of them). Attempts to remind him that Vander had been born in London and had never set foot in India were, in Vander's experience, fruitless.

"You probably won't like this," Waplington had once said when the beefsteak Vander had ordered came out. "It's much less spicy than what you people are used to."

Vander tried to follow his mother's advice, which was, "We must ignore these idiots." His parents kept an Indian chef in addition to a French one, so he had grown up enjoying a variety of foods with actual flavor. But, having attended both Eton and Cambridge, he had eaten every joint of meat known to man, and even liked them, so long as they hadn't been boiled into oblivion.

When David was there, he could at least make a joke about it under his breath. "Waplington probably subsists on boiled ham."

"Boiled mutton," David would respond with a grin. "He finds ham terribly spicy."

But David wasn't here tonight, and Vander didn't think he had the strength to grimace through an evening at Lord Waplington's table without him. He had therefore ignored the open chair next to the earl and found another in the back of the card room.

Brag was a simple game. The players were dealt three cards each, and the only decision one had to make was whether to stay in or to fold. When he determined he was going to try his hand at earning a living at the gaming tables, Vander had spent an afternoon calculating the odds that any given hand would be the highest one dealt. He now knew, roughly, where he stood on each and every hand, and whether it was worth his while to play or to fold. He folded more frequently than the other men at the table, but his careful strategy was paying off—Vander now had more chips than any of his fellows.

He glanced around as the dealer swept up the last batch of cards. Being here without David was… different. Not as enjoyable, he had to acknowledge.

It wasn't merely that he missed his friend's company. Being here alone, he had more time to observe the other men in the room, and Vander was having trouble deciding where he fit in. There were the young bloods, loud and boisterous, experiencing London for the first time. That had been David and him five years ago, but looking at them now… they seemed so young. So immature. Vander realized that he no longer fit in with that group and that he never would again.

That left the older men, like Lord Brentwood, who was seated to his right. Brentwood was a solid player, perhaps not as technically precise as Vander, but with a good general sense of the odds, having played most every night for decades.

Vander supposed Brentwood was what he was aspiring to. He probably won more than he lost, and he was too sensible to ever lose his shirt. But, watching the earl, he seemed a bit… bored. He had looked pleased earlier when he drew a flush, but overall, Vander didn't get the sense that he was enjoying himself.

Then there was Frances Llewellyn. Frances was around Vander's age, maybe a year or two younger. He didn't know him well, as Frances had attended Oxford, while Vander had gone to Cambridge.

Llewellyn didn't play well at all. He didn't have a stoic bone in his body; whether his cards were good or bad, you could read it on his face. He didn't have a good grasp of the odds and would bet large sums on middling hands. With a better player, Vander would've assumed he was bluffing, but Frances Llewellyn couldn't bluff if his life depended on it. He'd had one lucky hand, so he was only down about twenty pounds, but as his losses slowly grew, he became increasingly ill at ease.

"There you are, gents," the dealer said, distributing another round of cards. Vander glanced at his hand and had to fight to keep his features neutral. He'd just been dealt a straight flush, in the form of the eight, nine, and ten of spades.

It was an extraordinarily good hand. Only a prial, three-of-a-kind, could beat a straight flush. Vander had spent last night going over the odds, which meant that he knew that there were 22,100 possible hands in the game of brag.

Out of those 22,100 possible hands, only seventy-two could beat the cards Vander had been dealt.

The odds that he would lose this hand were less than one percent.

Strictly speaking, they were 0.32579 percent.

Not that Vander would ever say as much. That was the sort of thing a quiz would say.

The dealer turned to Brentwood. "Your bet, my lord."

"I fold." Brentwood's eyes met Vander's, and he knew instinctively that the earl had seen the surprise flash across his face when he saw his cards. He would have to be more careful in the future.

The betting came to Llewellyn, who was shifting in his seat, excitement palpable on his face. He obviously liked his hand, too. "Here," he said, shoving five chips into the pot.

It was rich for a starting bet, and the other men groaned. One by one, when play passed to them, they folded.

All save Vander, of course.

After Llewellyn ran out of chips, he tossed his pocket watch onto the pile.

"That's worth what, fifty pounds?" Vander asked.

Brentwood picked it up, examining it. "Thirty," he grunted.

Vander put in some more chips. By now Llewellyn's cheeks were red, and he had to wipe his palms on his trousers. "I'll stake my carriage," he said tightly.

Vander called for two hundred pounds' worth of chips, which were brought to him at once. Everyone knew he was good for it.

"And my team," Llewellyn added.

Vander removed his sapphire stickpin and tossed it into the pot.

Llewellyn's brow creased. "You don't want to fold?"

As the stakes grew richer, Vander had been contemplating just that. Although it wasn't likely, maybe Llewellyn had been dealt one of those seventy-two hands that would beat Vander's straight flush.

0.32579 percent, he reminded himself.

If he didn't have the guts to stay in at 0.32579 percent, he didn't have any business being here.

"No," Vander said, "but why don't we show?"

Llewellyn shook his head. "I've a thousand pounds cash in the bank," he said quickly. At Vander's surprised look, he added, "It's to pay for my commission. I'll be joining the Tenth Light Dragoons."

Vander winced. "Are you sure you want to stake that?"

"Yes," Llewellyn said tightly.

A crowd had begun to gather, as their table had by far the deepest play at the moment. "All right," Vander said. "But then we show."

Llewellyn nodded tightly. Vander requested more chips—a huge pile this time. The room had gone silent as everyone waited for the reveal.

Llewellyn flipped his cards over first. Vander held his breath as he leaned forward to see that Llewellyn had—

A pair of sixes?

Vander couldn't believe it. It wasn't that a pair of sixes was a bad hand. A pair of sixes would beat just over eighty percent of all other possible hands.

But you didn't bet the money you needed to buy your commission on a pair of sixes.

Beside him, Brentwood was shaking his head.

"Well?" Llewellyn said, and Vander realized he had left everyone in suspense. Feeling guilty, he flipped over his cards…

… and the room exploded. It wasn't every night someone drew a straight flush, and to see it happen on such a rich hand was the reason men came to Boodle's. People were slapping him on the back, congratulating him.

Vander tried to catch Llewellyn's eye across the table. His gaze was fixed on the tablecloth.

He should have felt elated. This was what he had come here to do, after all—see if he could make a living by gambling. And he had just earned over fifteen hundred pounds on one hand! It should have been a triumph.

But, watching Llewellyn blink rapidly, then wipe his nose with the heel of his hand… Vander knew the man was fighting back tears.

Money lost at the tables was a debt of honor. Absolutely no one would fault Vander for holding Llewellyn to his word, even though, so far as they knew, Vander was one of the richest men in London, a man who could afford to use ten-pound bank notes to light his cheroots, should he feel so inclined, while Llewellyn had possibly just ruined his life.

But it happened that Vander did need this money if he was going to get out from under his father's thumb. And so, he couldn't afford to punch Llewellyn in the shoulder, take his chips and his pocket watch, and tell him to keep the rest of it, and for the love of God, don't bet your commission money on a bloody pair of sixes.

"A round of drinks," Vander declared, his voice sounding hollow to his own ears. "A round of drinks for the room." Because this was what he was expected to do. He needed to be well-liked so people would keep playing with him. He wasn't worried about tonight. He'd been dealt a lucky hand, and it didn't take a genius to know that you don't fold on a straight flush.

But at some point, people would realize that he wasn't just a little bit lucky. The time to prepare for that day was now.

As the waiters scurried to open some more bottles, Vander watched Llewellyn slip from the room, shoulders slumped.

Vander's plan was a marvelous success.

So why, he wondered as he plucked a glass from a passing tray, wasn't he happy about it?