Olivia Twist(28)
“None for me, thanks.”
The girl moved to the next gentleman at the round table, and Jack turned his attention to the pair of tens in his hand. He’d bluffed his way into a small fortune tonight, but it didn’t make up for what he’d lost the night before. Somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to care.
“I’m all in,” the portly man with heavy muttonchops announced as he pushed his little pile of coins and trinkets into the center of the table, and then puffed on a fat cigar.
Jack watched the bloke scratch the side of his meaty nose, his eyes shifting between the center of the table and the cards in his hand. Jack almost smiled. Some people simply shouldn’t attempt to bluff.
Through a thick haze of smoke, Jack watched the man next to him fiddle with his cards. The reddish-brown stains under his fingernails and the vague, rotten stench surrounding him pegged him as a butcher. After several glances between his cards and money, he folded.
Next was the old man. Jack had never traded with him, but judging by his mismatched clothing and the random baubles he wagered, Jack guessed he owned a pawnshop, and not a very successful one. He slapped his cards down. “I’m out too.”
Perfect. Jack pushed his pile into the center of the table. “I’m in. Show yer cards.”
Sweat popped out on the fat man’s forehead as he lowered his quivering hand. A pair of eights. Jack slapped his tens down and raked in his winnings.
“Aw! Ye blasted blighter! Me wife’s gonna kill me.”
“If you didn’t have a wife, you wouldn’t have that problem, now would you?” Jack muttered.
The portly man continued to sputter until a hand yanked him out of his seat by his collar. “You had yer turn,” the newcomer growled as he gave the stout man a push, sending him to his knees.
The new gent was barrel chested, his arms corded with the muscle of a dock worker. His dark, alert eyes darted to each player at the table before he sprawled in the newly vacated seat and pulled out an impressive wad of bills. “Deal me in.”
As the butcher dealt the cards, Jack watched the newcomer. His clothes were of average quality, clean but mended in spots. Incongruous with the roll of money he flaunted. Perhaps he played for a benefactor who didn’t wish to dirty his hands.
After several rounds, Jack was forced to abandon that conclusion. The newcomer played with a recklessness that a sponsor would not appreciate, almost as if money were not the object of this particular gent’s aim. Jack forced himself to focus. A gambler with no interest in money could only mean trouble.
Jack folded and watched the newcomer take the last of the pawnbroker’s earnings. Jack gathered the cards and shuffled the deck. “You out, old man?”
The pawnbroker shook his head and dug through his pockets, presumably searching for something to wager.
The cards distributed, Jack glanced at his hand. He hadn’t been around this much smoke in ages, and it was giving him a raging headache. Or, mayhap, it was his lack of sleep and food. But every time he thought to return home, to his soft feather bed, meals served like clockwork, and his responsibilities to Lois—which would include attending parties at her whim—something deep in his chest ached. It had taken him at least a full day to realize it was his heart. He’d let his blasted guard down with Olivia. He actually felt something for the girl.
He checked his pocket and noted the sad state of his funds. Lifting his free hand to his forehead, he squeezed his temples; but the moment his eyes closed, a honey-gold gaze stared at him in accusation, and the anger inside him sparked fresh. She was the one who had deceived him, not the other way around.
A sudden shift in the energy at the table yanked Jack’s attention back to the game.
The newcomer leaned forward, his body as taut as a fiddle string. The pawnbroker was in the process of setting something in the center of the table. An oval locket, engraved with an intricate filigree design, attached to a long, gold chain.
“Too rich for my blood.” The butcher threw down his cards. “I’m out.”
Jack’s gaze shifted from the necklace to the man across from him, who snatched the locket from the old pawnbroker. “Let me see that.”
Jack sat straighter in his chair as he watched the man click open the locket in his wide palm, his eyes narrowing in satisfaction.
“What’s your price, old man?” the newcomer demanded.
The pawnbroker blinked owlishly. “’Tis a wager.”
“Blast that. I’ll buy it outright. What’s your price?”
Understanding seemed to dawn on the old man’s face, a smile multiplying the wrinkles of his cheeks. “What’ll you pay, chap?”
Jack watched with renewed interest as the big man offered an amount that far outweighed the value of the piece, and demanded to know where the locket had been acquired. But before the pawnbroker could answer, Jack cut in. “I’d like to see the locket.”
The possibility of a bidding war caused the old man’s eyes to glow with triumph. Jack extended his open hand. Waiting. The big man glared, the necklace clutched in his fist, a muscle working in his jaw.
“The necklace was placed as a wager.” Jack leaned forward and met the man’s vulpine gaze, unblinking. “If you plan to take it off the table, I’ll have a look, or you’ll put it back in the pot.”
The man’s attention shifted to a blond gentleman near the bar nursing a mug of ale, and then he turned to Jack, the tension leaving his shoulders with a shrug. He reached across the table and let the necklace drop from his fist by slow degrees, the chain still clasped in his fingers.