So, this then was where Felicity ended up after he’d exiled her from London all those years ago. A frisson of guilt went through him, which he tried to swallow down. It was nothing to him, he reminded himself sternly, what that girl did with her life or where she chose to ply her trade. He’d forbidden her return to London and cast her from his life. A light punishment for her serious crime, he reasoned. That she ended up here, in this bleak northern town, losing at the hazard tables in a pitiful gaming hell, should not strike him with guilt at all.
Losing. Edward furrowed his brow in confusion. The Queen of Diamonds never lost; wasn’t that why he was here? At least she’d had the common sense to walk away after that final throw of the dice. His father had never shown such restraint, always thinking there were a few more guineas to be wagered from the Addington family fortune, another heirloom or two to be sold for a pittance to feed his insatiable habit.
Edward’s hands clenched. Feeling his anger build, he resolved to put his father from his mind. He brought himself back to the present and his current requirements. It still perturbed him that Felicity lost so spectacularly tonight. Perhaps she had grown desperate in her exile, and perhaps that desperation affected her skills. Edward sighed. That wouldn’t suit his current predicament at all. He needed Felicity at her most efficient. At her most ruthless. All tonight had shown him was that the Queen of Diamonds seemed to be losing her touch. Perhaps she wasn’t the person he needed after all …
‘Interesting woman, your friend.’ A gruff voice interrupted Edward’s thoughts. Irritated, he turned to find himself looking down upon a portly gentleman who reeked of strong wine. But he would not reply, why should he? He did not know this man and made a point of avoiding common drunkards.
Undeterred, the gentleman spoke on. ‘Damnable that a woman was even allowed in a gaming hell at all.’
Still Edward said nothing, merely sipping at his port.
‘But what a gambler! And pretty as a picture too. Give her this for me, will you? Tell her Mr Perry sends his congratulations.’
A velvet pouch was shoved into Edward’s hand. He looked at it warily.
‘What is it?’
‘Your friend’s winnings. She left before I could get them to her.’
‘You must be mistaken. She lost this evening.’ Edward handed the pouch back.
But Mr Perry shook his head, almost regretfully. ‘Yes, at the dice, damn her luck! But she and I made … well, we made a wager earlier this evening.’ He paused, as though slightly embarrassed. ‘We made a wager, and I lost.’
Edward watched as Mr Perry knocked back a large measure of whisky. ‘How unfortunate for you,’ he remarked drily.
‘Yes, well, I never could resist a pretty face. And the wager … it seemed so unlikely I would lose.’
For a moment, Edward was reminded violently of his father. Of a large man, his breath sour with spirits, recounting a bet turned bad with dismissive surprise.
He swallowed the memory down, shrugging. ‘You know what they say about fools and their money.’
If the offence was realised it was not acknowledged. Instead, the pouch was once more shoved into Edward’s hand.
‘I pay my debts. You see your lady friend gets that from me.’
Interested, Edward looked inside. It took all his willpower to stifle a gasp; there must have been two hundred guineas in the pouch.
‘All this for a wager?’ he asked in disbelief.
‘So you see, so you see.’ Mr Perry shrugged. ‘We played cards earlier, a few friendly rounds. Luck was with me and I took a few guineas from her.’ He stopped to take another swig of whisky.
Edward highly doubted this was really the case but waited to hear more.
‘After the cards, she suggested something impossible. I told her she was mad, but she was adamant that she was right. So, luck being on my side and all, I suggested we make a wager of it.’
‘What was the wager?’
‘Oh, stuff and nonsense really. She told me that she knew which gentleman would win the biggest stake tonight; I made a wager that he wouldn’t.’
‘And yet he won.’ An uneasy sense of apprehension settled in Edward’s stomach … he knew how this story ended. ‘She herself played him at the dice.’
‘Course he did! She planned it that way … cornered me nicely, didn’t she? Wagered that the most hapless man in Scarborough would take the biggest winnings tonight – an impossibility! – and then became the one to gamble with him and drive up his stake!’
‘She couldn’t lose,’ Edward said, more to himself than the bewildered Mr Perry.
‘No, she couldn’t,’ Mr Perry admitted. ‘That final throw of the dice … either way she was taking home a decent sum of money. A hundred guineas from him if she rolled high, and two hundred guineas from me if she rolled low. What a trick to play!’
This was the Queen of Diamonds Edward remembered. ‘Why on earth did you take such a wager?’ he asked, trying to ignore the deep sense of admiration he felt for Felicity’s cleverness.
At this Mr Perry grinned; it was a drunken smile of embarrassment.
‘Never could resist a pretty face! And I do like a woman who knows her clubs from her diamonds.’
Diamonds. At the sound of the word, Edward was reminded of why he was here, of what he needed. Pushing all admiration for Felicity aside, he pocketed her pouch of winnings and started for the door.
Felicity was clever, yes. But he needed to be smarter. He couldn’t allow himself to be won over by her intelligence. He’d admired her once before, and she’d turned on him like a snake in the grass.
Edward felt a surge of adrenaline.
Tomorrow be damned. He was going to see Felicity tonight.
Felicity Fox had fallen into duplicity by necessity. The youngest daughter of a Cornwall squire and his soft-spoken wife, she’d been born into a quiet world of middle-class gentility. This was a world of country living, of fresh air and open markets, of rolling Cornish fields dotted with the sheep her father’s tenants reared. Every spring she awoke to the smell of dew-covered grass stealing through her window, the salt-sea breeze ruffling the clean white muslin of her curtains. In the winter the crackle of a newly-laid fire burning in the hearth brought her from her bed, where she would eat her breakfast of fresh bacon and hot buttered rolls. It was a charmed existence; a childhood spent in the sheltered comfort of a good home and with the slavish devotion of a loving mother and indulgent father.
And now? She hardly recognised herself. And why should she, for very little remained of the thin and gangly little girl who’d climbed trees, made daisy chains and braided her horse’s tail. That child had been crushed by the untimely death of a mother and then a life of poverty in the back alleys of London. A new Felicity rose from the ashes of her broken childhood, a Felicity who stole, lied, and swindled her way into a night’s lodging and a decent meal. A girl who used her gaming skills to claw her way through London’s gaming hells, eventually becoming the Queen of Diamonds; infamous gambler, notorious beauty and – almost – diamond thief.
Lying in her cold bath, tired beyond sleep, she looked down at her body. The ice of the water made her skin white and blue and purple all at once; it reminded Felicity of her mother lying in her coffin, just before they’d buried her. Felicity bit her lip sharply, the physical pain pushing away the emotional pain that hurt so much more.