Page 7 of The Fortune Hunter’s Gamble

“Leighton Buzzard,” Mr. Eatwell said, making a small bow. He peered at Foster, his brows beetling. “Government man?”

“In the office of Lord Grenville, yes.” Foster wasn’t an undersecretary but one of the agents the Foreign Secretary, Grenville, called upon from time to time. Foster and Rowden had been friends from their days at Worcester College, where Foster had made a better showing of himself than Rowden had. This explained why Foster was now a trusted man rising in an important government office, and Rowden was running a club where he was occasionally called upon to perform shady activities when it was necessary for the government to conduct unofficial business.

The men sat. Rowden shuffled the deck. One of the Albion’s footmen laid the board with its picture of a full suit of spades upon the table, then set down the dealing box they called a shoe.

“I shall be the banker, if there are no objections, and Will our casekeep.” Young Will unfolded the abacus-like device that kept track of cards dealt. Rowden dealt out the chips, or checks. “Gentlemen, place your bets.”

The Squire scratched beneath his wig, sweating. “I’ve lost a great deal of blunt already. I don’t know what Mrs. Eatwell will say.”

Rowden shrugged. “Did I mistake your backbone? You’re welcome to decline. Bosley will collect your vowels before you leave the house and send you on your merry way.”

The Squire gulped and fumbled with his counter. Rowden hoped the man, with his sweaty fingers, wouldn’t feel the thread that was attached to that particular check. The other end of the thread was anchored beneath the shoe, and only Rowden knew it was there.

“Bets begin at three hundred pounds,” he said in his bland voice.

Foster raised his brows, but he knew he could run as deep a debt as he needed against the house and Rowden would not collect. Foster had a taste for the game, and he also needed Rowden’s goodwill.

Eatwell moaned and pressed the check to his forehead. “Lord God, deliver me.”

“Your bet, sir,” Rowden prompted him.

Divine intervention had nothing to do with Eatwell’s predicament. His own foolishness had led him here, and now Rowden was going to deliver him, at great irritation and personal expense. Again he quelled the urge to turn the overfed squire out of his establishment. He would make this play as short as he possibly could; he was losing his tolerance for foolishness. Was it age, or was he simply growing into a choleric, short-tempered man like his uncle?

Thoughts of the Baron soured Rowden’s mood even more. “Shall we begin?”

The Squire, with a small whimper, laid his check on the Queen of Spades. Foster placed his chip, and Rowden drew the first card from the shoe, the card that would be burned off and set aside. The next two cards would play, one the banker’s card and one the player’s. For the first card, players lost to the bank; for the second, the bank paid out a winning bet. If Rowden drew a pair, the bank won half the stakes.

Faro was one of the easiest games to rig, which was why Rowden chose it. This shoe, for example, was gaffed with a small mirror that allowed Rowden to see the face of the next card, while the players could not. This was no easy feat in the dim lighting of the room, but Bosley, who knew the setup, had conveniently lit a wall sconce behind Rowden’s head. Will, as the casekeep, could be directed to miss logging a card if Rowden so instructed him, which would confuse player bets. And then there was the string.

The first card was a King. Deftly Rowden drew two cards from the shoe and switched them in his hand. Eatwell, with the expression of a man who had taken ipecac, watched the turn of Rowden’s right wrist and so did not notice when Rowden, with his left hand, pulled the string to move the Squire’s check to the King.

“Why, Eatwell,” Rowden said, his voice without expression, “your luck has turned already.”

“Eh?” The Squire regarded the layout with confusion. “But I thought— By my lights, I could have sworn…”

“Shall I have the boy bring more candles?” Rowden pressed.

“No, no, I bet the King! Three hundred pounds, you say?” Eatwell couldn’t hold his hands out fast enough as Rowden settled the bet.

Foster moved his check, the Squire staked again, and so it went on. Some plays Rowden couldn’t manipulate, but he ensured that Eatwell won more draws than he lost, and as his confidence increased, so did his bets. This would be done quickly, and Rowden could attend to his real business of the evening.

He turned his attention to Foster. “This treaty with Naples and Austria,” he said. “Is it holding?”

Foster glanced at Eatwell, but the Squire was preoccupied with the game. His gaze then rested on Will, who was watching Rowden’s hands with great interest.

“He’s loyal,” Rowden said. Will was the son of a woman who had bought her freedom upon the death of her aristocratic mistress, and of a man who had freed himself of enslavement by the simple means of vanishing into the busy London docks one day. The father was currently serving in the British Navy, pursuing Napoleon’s fleet across the Mediterranean under the command of Rear Admiral Nelson, and his mother was a cook in the Albion’s kitchens.

Will was a bright boy, quick and smart, and he also knew that if by chance anyone came by inquiring after his father, no one at the Albion would profess the least knowledge of the man’s existence, much less his whereabouts.

“The treaty is holding,” Foster said, keeping his voice low. “Neither Naples nor Austria is happy about the way the French have failed to keep to the borders they themselves agreed to. The Treaty of Campo Formio⁠—”

“I recall the terms.” Rowden drew the next two cards, which resulted in another winning bet for Eatwell. “You forget I was there.”

After the Treaty of Leoben last spring dissolved the First Coalition, Britain had been left alone to fight the expansive aims of the French Directory. Austria’s loss of the Netherlands and most of Venice in the Treaty of Campo Formio was of keen interest to the British government, which is why Rowden had been dispatched as an observer.

“The Congress of Rastatt is dragging on,” Foster reported, which was not new information to Rowden. “Still squabbling about how to compensate the German princes whose land along the Rhine the French stole. I don’t suppose⁠—”

“I’ll agree to languish in Rastatt the next few months? No,” Rowden said, drawing two more cards. “Splendid town. Terrible food. Nobody cares how many marks some hereditary prince wants for his crumbling castle. If you want me in the Batavian Republic to test support for a return to Orangist rule, I’ll consider. I like Dutch food.”