The Wager

“However,” the younger gentleman continued, “a full house does not beat four of a kind,” and he coolly laid down a fourth three.

Carstairs fell back in his chair as if he had been dealt a physical blow.

“Buck up, old man,” Desmond said, pulling the winnings across the table, including the scrap of paper and the sepia-toned photograph. “Here’s a little something to get you home.” He selected the heavy coin that had been Mr. Phillips’s last bet and tossed it across the table to the other man. “I would not want to discourage you from letting me win more money from you the next time. Ah, but this—” he picked up the picture and studied it gloatingly “—on this I will expect full payment.”

“Of course,” Carstairs said. “We are at your convenience.”

“What is that?” Mr. Phillips asked curiously, nodding toward Desmond and the picture he held.

“I thought we determined not to play for notes of debenture,” Abbot said reproachfully.

“Indeed we did. But Mr. Carstairs did not offer me a promissory note. It seems he has given me title to his ward, a Miss Marianne Trenton.”

The other two gentlemen laughed as Desmond took up his cigar again with a broad wink.

Chapter One (#ulink_385dd685-5dba-55c3-aa02-aef3d18af27e)

The night was warm for so early in the summer. The windows were open, inviting every passing breath of fresh air to enter, but they were few and far between and often merely flirted with the window shade.

A young girl sat on the end of the bed, fully dressed.

The ensemble she wore was too warm for the season and too complete for the hour, so it was not surprising if little droplets of sweat had gathered on her brow. But, in fact, the perspiration was there, and running down her back in hot, lazy rivulets, for another reason.

Marianne was waiting for her uncle Horace. His temper was usually vile, but he became violent if he lost at cards. And unfortunately, more often than not, when Horace Carstairs gambled he lost.

The man was not actually her uncle. After the death of her parents the previous year, her father to a hunting accident and her mother three months later to an influenza that found her in a weakened condition owing to her grief, the girl had been assigned by the court to Mr. Carstairs, whose misfortune it had been to be bequeathed some monies in her father’s will to clear an outstanding debt.

“I cannot take the girl,” Carstairs had objected. “I am unmarried. Surely you would not burden an old bachelor like myself with such a responsibility?”

But the court reminded Mr. Carstairs that with the girl a ward of the state, it could, in fact, dispose of her and her modest legacy as it saw fit. Carstairs might have objected further, but the judge agreed to pay him, as guardian, an annual stipend out of the girl’s inheritance.

Mr. Carstairs pursued various ventures in order to make money—some, but not all of them, legal—and being no more an astute businessman than he was a clever card player, he often found himself in need of extra cash. The payment the judge named appeared very attractive to him just then.

Thus it was that Marianne Trenton, so recently part of a loving home and family, had her grief compounded by suddenly becoming the ward of a man she did not know and soon found detestable.

Her schooling had been haphazard, and at the death of her parents, her formal education ended abruptly. But Marianne, alone and largely unnoticed in Mr. Carstairs’s house, became an avaricious reader—almost exclusively of the penny dreadfuls she was able to purchase with the small allowance her “uncle” afforded her.

Tonight, though, as she waited for her guardian, she was too distracted and tense to concentrate on her latest novel, Leonore, Jeune Fille. And when she finally heard Uncle Horace’s key grating in the lock, she jumped in alarm.

Fearfully she listened to her uncle’s progress through the house. She could hear him hanging his overcoat on the tree by the front door. He paused by the table in the foyer to look through the mail. She thought he might turn into the sitting room to read the paper, but after a pause, during which she could imagine him scanning the headlines, his footsteps continued to the stairs.

The heavy clump of shod feet on the risers sounded as if they were produced by a large man. Though relatively tall, Mr. Carstairs was not heavyset, but lean and lanky. His shoulders were narrow, his face, with its pursed lips, pinched nose and close-set eyes, long and thin. Yet his slow, heavy steps up the stairwell seemed almost to shake the house with their weight.

Marianne stiffened, the book in her hands entirely forgotten. If all had gone well tonight Uncle Horace would continue down the hall to his room, and she could finally undress and go to bed. But if he had lost, he would kick the door open and would be upon her before she could assume a position of defense. The amount of abuse she would suffer—the shouts of rage, the blows to her face and bodywould depend on the size of his losses.

His steps neared her door and slowed. Her green eyes opened wide; her breathing grew shallow and almost stopped. “Go on, go on,” she whispered, as he stopped and turned to her door. She sucked in her breath and held it, waiting for his boot to hit the thin panel that separated them.

Instead, there was a soft tap at her door.

Surprised, she released the breath she had been holding. “Come in,” she said.

The door opened slowly. Uncle Horace peeked carefully around the corner, for all the world as if he were making sure she was decent. Such a concern had never suggested itself to him before.

“You are still up,” he said.

“I am,” she replied.

“You were unable to sleep?”

“No, I was waiting…” Her voice trailed away to silence.

“Waiting? For me? I am touched, Marianne.”

She did not reply.

“I have been reviewing our situation here,” he continued when the brief pause indicated the girl was not going to speak. “You know that I am ill suited to raise a young woman, and I suspect you have not been happy here, alone so often, with no young people for companions, no chance to socialize. You are of an age when you should be socializing.”

The girl shifted her feet uncomfortably, one toe nudging the book she had dropped when Carstairs knocked. She had pictured herself of late in situations similar to the ones Leonore, the young heroine, encountered.

“I suppose—” she began.

But the man cut her off. “Perhaps it is time we looked into a new position for you. Something with broader perspectives.” He had half turned, his voice casual, as if he were speaking the thoughts as they occurred to him, but now he peered at her from the side, studying her face.

“Another position? You sound as if I should be seeking employment. Am I seeking employment, Uncle Horace?” she asked.

“No, no. I misspoke. You misunderstood. But another house, a broader acquaintance, that is what I am suggesting.”

“I am to visit someone? An old friend of mine, perhaps?” she said.

“Not exactly,” Carstairs said, hedging.

“Then what, exactly?”

“Not an old friend of yours. A gentleman of my acquaintance. You will be leaving at the end of the week.”

“Leaving?” If Marianne sounded more surprised than saddened by Carstairs’s announcement, it was due to the fact that leaving this house had been her fondest wish since the day she had entered.

“A coach will be by to collect you on Friday morning. You must be prepared to leave by then.”

“A coach? Where am I to go?” Marianne asked, making every effort to understand the frightening man who was her guardian.

“The gentleman has a private estate outside of Reading. I believe he intends for you to stay there.”

“I am to leave London?”

“It is not far,” Carstairs told her. “And you will doubtless be returning in a few weeks.”

Horace Carstairs was embarrassed to admit that until tonight he had never seen the possibilities Marianne presented. She was a fresh young girl, as far as he knew, a virgin. When Desmond was finished with her, Carstairs could sell her services again.