The Wicked One

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Through the small window on the second floor of l’Hotel du Lac, the city of Vienna glittered. The flaws in the glass diffused the candle and torchlight, turning the pinpoints into spider-legged stars. After eight months Diane Benchley, the Countess of Cameron, had memorized the earthly constellations. That one would be the soiree of relocated British aristocrats at Herold Haus, while the even brighter cluster beyond meant that even at this hour the old Stephansdom church was occupied.

She should be there as well, she supposed, praying for…something. For the soul of the dead man the undertaker had removed from her apartment yesterday morning. For someone—anyone—to appear and rescue her from the same fate. For her burdens to be lifted and for her landlord to forget that the rent was due at the end of the week.

Absently she picked at the frayed arm of the chair, plucking stiff horse hairs from within and dropping them to the faded carpet. The church bell began chiming, and she stilled, listening. Twelve chimes. Midnight. Was it amusing or ironic or simply very sad that her only visitors in the past two days had been an undertaker and his assistant, and a very reluctant landlord? That the passing of the man with whom she’d shared a life and a bed for the past two years hadn’t even garnered a notice in the local newspaper? That people likely knew of the passing of the Earl of Cameron and simply didn’t care?

Well, not everyone would be unmoved. Her first task after the departure of her late husband’s remains had been to compose a letter to Anthony Benchley in order to inform him that his brother was deceased and that he’d just become the new Earl of Cameron. Huzzah for Anthony. The moment he received her missive he would begin visiting properties, determining which ones were entailed and which ones he needed to wait on the reading of the will before he could occupy or sell.

None of them were hers, of course; the few items that she’d brought with her to the marriage she’d already sold in order to keep a roof over her—and Frederick’s—head. Or rather, to repay whichever gambling debt her husband had incurred in order to keep them a step or two ahead of the dunners.

As she watched, the lights of the Stephansdom went out, though the party at Herold Haus evidently continued. She and Frederick had been invited a week ago; the English community in Vienna was small enough that to
not
receive an invitation would have been more significant.

Three weeks ago she’d turned twenty-one years old. Forty-eight hours ago she’d become a widow. And tomorrow she would have to take an official count of the one thing Frederick had left her. Debts. Bills from tailors, several shops that sold gloves and cravats and other accouterments, bills from grocers and inns and gentlemen’s clubs and the hotel where she presently resided. And the largest stack, notes from dozens of men containing only names and dates and pounds owed, and Frederick’s signature beneath.

Over the past two years she’d become accustomed to debt, and to the shrinking number of friends that accompanied it. She had a ledger book in the cabinet that detailed a spiral of debt Frederick—they—had incurred in London, the gap in days from the moment they’d left lovely old Adam House in the middle of the night and traveled all the way to Austria, and then the slow, persistent resumption of figures once Frederick had become acquainted with Vienna.

The numbness of the past few days, when she’d determined to ignore everything but the moment or two around her, began to shred. Panic tugged at her throat as the meaning of the mountain of debts seeped into her chest despite her best efforts to keep it at bay. Frederick was gone. What he’d left behind was more than enough to destroy her. They’d already had to flee England. She didn’t even have enough money left to flee Vienna. Nor did she have enough money to remain.

And of course no money meant no friends. In fact, she couldn’t name one acquaintance from whom Frederick hadn’t borrowed a sum and then failed to repay. One or two of them might consent to speak with her, but asking them for money would be both useless and would sever any remaining threads of friendship.

Slowly Diane stood, weariness vying with hopelessness to drag her down to the couch and the pile of blankets there. Her landlord had promised to replace her bed tomorrow, which was rather generous of him even taking into consideration the amount of weeping and hand-wringing she’d had to do in order to convince him to do so. Until then, she would remain on the couch and hope that sleep wasn’t as difficult to find as someone whom she didn’t owe more money than she could ever afford to repay.

Wits and wagering made fair companions, Oliver Warren reflected as he mentally counted the blunt remaining in his pockets, but that damned luck wouldn’t stay out of things. And luck had no regard for skill.

“Well, damn me,” le Compte d’Aquille said in a heavy French accent, dragging in a pile of coins, part of which would have paid for Oliver’s rooms for the next week. “It seems I cannot lose this evening.”

“I’ve never seen such luck,” Tomas DuChamps agreed, downing half a glass of port. “This is rather dismaying.”

Aquille laughed, clearly not familiar with the English rule of not celebrating overly much over the table when those with less fortunate hands remained. “It has even rendered the infamous Monsieur Warren speechless.”

“Not speechless,” Oliver countered, hiding his annoyed frown. He knew better than to wager more than he could afford to lose. Only the rumored incompetence of his companions had driven him to take the risk—well, that and the fact that he had ended up in Vienna with one hundred pounds left to his name and no other means to gain more. “Stunned by the idea that a Frenchman can play cards and win two consecutive hands without wetting himself.”

DuChamps snorted. “If I weren’t Belgian, I would take offense. And I have to agree to a certain amount of commiseration with your incredulity.”

“
Chien
,” d’Aquille stated without heat. “The quips of a loser do not pierce me. I think it is more likely that you English do not know how to play bouillotte.”

In truth bouillotte wasn’t a game he played often, but whatever Europe at large thought of Bonaparte, the clubs certainly liked French games. “Let’s wait and see if you’re still whistling that tune at the end of the night.”

While the other three men at the table laughed and called for more drinks, Oliver palmed a discarded ace and slipped it up his sleeve. The damned Frenchman, the Belgian, and even the other Englishman present could afford to lose tonight. He couldn’t. They hadn’t been cut off by bloody stiff-arsed uncles and forced either to flee their homes or join the army just to be able to eat.

“It’s your deal, Warren,” the third man, Humphrey Jonas, said, shoving more discarded cards in his direction. “The insults are damned amusing, but I’m here to play cards.”

“Hear, hear,” DuChamps agreed, tossing his ante into the center of the table.

Oliver returned the ace to the bottom of the deck, dealt two cards to each player, then went around once more, slipping the ace into his own trio of cards. It was so simple; and whatever pang of regret he felt at influencing luck in his favor could go bugger itself. It was only fair, really, when he was to let because someone had done the same to him. And the Duke of Greaves had been a friend, damn him. A good friend.

He turned up the next card, placing the
retourné
on the table in front of him. An ace. Well, now that fickle little bitch called luck seemed to have moved to his side of the room. It was about damned time. With only twenty cards in the deck, the odds of three of a kind were fairly good. Three aces, however, were difficult to beat. Particularly when his third card was a king. Being careful not to wager too aggressively, he cajoled and baited until nearly eighty quid lay on the table.

When all the players had called, they turned over their hands. “Simple Brélan,” DuChamps said, showing three nines and the common ace.

“Brelan favori,”
Oliver returned. “King high.”

Jonas cursed, tossing his trio of fives onto the table. Oliver turned his attention to Aquille. A four of a kind would beat him, and he didn’t have enough blunt remaining to stay in the game for another hand. Finally the Frenchman dropped his cards onto the table. “You have my fourth king,” he said, showing a trio of the royals.

Thank God
. With a nod, Oliver swept up the blunt. Now that he’d begun it—and more importantly, gotten away with it—he needed to continue. If he could win enough tonight to put his feet back on the ground, to ensure that with more judicious play later he would be able to continue to feed himself and put a roof over his head, he need never sink this far into the mud again.

Every five or six hands, just to be sure he didn’t over-extend his odds of winning, he tilted the game to his favor. And by the end of the evening his one hundred quid had become nearly two thousand pounds. When Jonas grunted and pushed away from the table, Oliver let out a breath. Whoever claimed that cheating was easier than straight play was a liar.

“Gentlemen,” Humphrey rumbled, finishing off a glass of brandy, “I am to let. And a certain opera singer has done with warbling to the public for the evening and will be ready to sing for me.”

He stuck his hand out, and Oliver shook it. “You’re more pleasant than I remember you being in London,” Oliver commented with a brief smile.

“You have fewer Englishmen to compare me with here,” Jonas returned.

“Speaking of which, are you going to Lady Darham’s luncheon tomorrow? Nearly every Mayfair aristocrat in Vienna will be there.”

“Then I can hardly abstain, can I?” He wasn’t particularly excited to attend, but with several old friendships gone, he could stand to form a few new ones. And perhaps some of them might have some good gossip. He missed knowing what everyone else was up to. It was like attempting to play a chess game with no pieces. And from the far side of the Atlantic Ocean.

D’Aquille nodded as well, gathering the few coins left in front of him into one hand and dumping them into his pocket. “I say good night now, as well. A good evening,
mes amis
.”

As the others left the table, Oliver stood and collected his own winnings. He wouldn’t say he felt triumphant by any means, but considering he’d just ensured his ability to live for the next six months or a year, he could admit to a certain…satisfaction. Sending DuChamps a nod, he turned from the table.

“I hope it was worth it, Warren,” the Belgian said in a low voice, idly shuffling the cards.

Oliver stopped. “Beg pardon?”

“Suffice it to say that I will not be sitting at a table with you again. I am not so drunk, nor so foolish, as to be rendered blind and senseless.”

“I—”

”I’m finished with this conversation. Take your money and leave. And do not approach me again.”

Shit
. If DuChamps ever spoke of his obvious suspicions, Oliver would never sit at anyone’s table again. If he admitted to anything, or denied anything, he could well be stepping into a morass from which there would be no escape. Ever. Slowly he faced DuChamps. “If you require anything from me,
monsieur,
I request that you inform me now.”

Pale blue eyes regarded him. “I require nothing from you but your absence. One of us, at least, is a gentleman. Good evening.”

Oliver nodded. “Good evening.”

So in his attempt to gain a measure of freedom and independence, he’d handed his fate over to someone else. Perhaps he needed to be kinder to Luck; if Humphrey Jonas had been the one to realize he’d been cheating, everyone in London would have heard the tale by the end of next week. Instead it had been Tomas DuChamps. However annoyed Oliver was by the circumstance, he
had
been lucky. DuChamps had a greater sense of nobility and gentlemanly behavior than anyone else he’d yet encountered in Vienna.

Apparently the city attracted dissatisfied ex-patriots who hadn’t been able to remain in England and at the same time hadn’t been able to settle elsewhere in Europe because of Bonaparte’s various tantrums. Vienna had been handed a rather large share of ill luck, itself. Perhaps they belonged together.