And from what she could glimpse from the doorway, Pratt had been right. The gentlemen stood two and three deep around the oval mahogany table, covered with green cloth marked in yellow. The low-hanging fixtures cast a bright light on the top of the table, and strange shadows that distorted the faces of the players. Mr. Walthrip presided behind a tall desk to one side, the only man who kept his silence. Everyone seemed to freeze and hold their breath as one while the dice clicked and rattled in the box in the caster’s hand. But as soon as the dice tumbled onto the green cloth, the men erupted, shouting and cheering and swearing and striking their fists on the top of the table so that even Cassia, who did not know the exact rules of the game, could tell who had won, and who had lost.
Then she saw Richard Blackley, leaning into the circle of light to toss a handful of pearly markers onto the table. All around him men exclaimed and pointed, making Cassia realize the wager must be sizable indeed. The dice danced from the box to the table, and two other piles of markers were pushed to join Blackley’s. Another roll, and the pile became a small, pearly mountain before him, while the other men applauded, or simply stared in uneasy awe.
The caster was losing, his luck as sour as Blackley’s was golden. The man’s face gleamed shiny with sweat, his collar tugged open, and this time he was holding the box in his hand so long that others began to protest. At last he tossed the dice, and as soon as they stopped, the long-handled rakes again shoved the markers toward Blackley’s mountain. He looked down at it and frowned, then turned toward Walthrip.
“I withdraw,” he said, loudly enough that everyone heard. “I am done for this night.”
“But you can’t!” cried the caster with obvious panic. “You’ve only begun! You must let luck turn, and give us try to win back what we’ve lost!”
“True, true,” another man beside him said, glaring at Blackley. “No gentlemen leaves the table when he has won so deep.”
“Hear, hear!” called the heavy-set man standing beside Cassia at the doorway. “It’s not honorable this way! A gentleman doesn’t quit when he’s ahead!”
But Blackley didn’t care. He bowed toward Walthrip, ignoring the others. “I believe the bank here gives its winnings to the poor, at the ladies’ request. You may add my winnings to that gift for the night.”
He stepped back from the table and away from the furor he’d just created, and sauntered through the crowd to the door as if every eye in the room and the hall outside weren’t watching him. He came through the door, and stopped before Cassia.
“You said you wouldn’t play,” she said, her chin high, challenging him back. “You said—”
“I lied,” he said. “But that was what you wanted of me, wasn’t it?”
Her fingers tightened around the blades of her fan. “You said you wouldn’t take luck for granted.”
“I like to think I soothed whatever feathers I ruffled with my offering to Bona Fortuna. Sufficiently generous, don’t you think?” From his pocket he drew one of the markers, a flat, narrow fish carved from mother-of-pearl, and pressed it lightly to his lips. “Good night, Miss Penny, until we meet again tomorrow evening.”
He smiled, and before she could stop him, he tucked the fish-shaped marker into the front of her gown, the mother-of-pearl cool and shockingly sleek against the skin of her breasts.
Then he turned, and was gone.
Chapter Four
B ethany poured more breakfast tea into Cassia’s cup as she read the newspaper over Amariah’s shoulder.
“That part about the decorations of the club is very fine, Cassia,” she said. “‘The club’s furnishings, arranged by Miss Cassia Penny, are most original and witty, and are sure to inspire much imitation in homes that pretend to set the fashion for the ton.’ That should make you proud, shouldn’t it? Imagine setting the fashion for the ton!”
But Cassia only sighed, her shoulders hunched with misery inside her calico wrapper, and dropped another spoonful of sugar into her tea with a glum plop. “Oh, yes, please find something to make poor dear Cassia proud about last night. Distract her from the discussion of that wretched pirate’s antics.”
“Overall, I think we did rather well nonetheless.” Amariah turned the page, scanning the columns for more news of the club’s opening. “To be sure, it seems to have been an uninspiring night for gossip and scandal, but we have made everyone talk of us.”
“Listen to this part,” Bethany said eagerly. “‘For the first gentlemen of London who are weary of the older refuges of amusement to be found in this city, the refinement of Penny House will offer a gracious new destination after an evening’s perambulations.’ I wish we could have that copied out and posted on the front door, the way they do at the theaters!”
Amariah frowned over her teacup. “We do not wish to be compared to the theaters, Bethany. White’s and Brook’s, and perhaps Almack’s—those should be our proper rivals.”
“Not our rivals, Amariah, but our inferiors. We mean to conquer, not rival.” Bethany set the teapot down in the center of the table, dropped back into her chair, and folded her arms over her chest. “Father always expected the best from us, and I do not see any reason for us to settle for less now.”
Amariah made a huffy, noncommittal sound in her throat, and turned back to the paper.
But Cassia felt too tired to be so feisty. It had been close to dawn before the last of the club’s guests had been ushered unsteadily out the door, and later still before she and her sisters had found their own beds. Even then she hadn’t slept, tossing and turning as she played over every word she’d exchanged with Richard Blackley.
Now it was nearly noon, with the sun streaming in through the windows of this third-floor parlor that was their sanctuary. Below them, the scullery maids were already busy tidying the public rooms, the kitchen staff was preparing the meats and pastries for the evening’s guests, and Pratt was meeting with Walthrip and the others to review last night’s gaming. Even the sisters’ gowns were being made ready, brushed clean and hanging to air so they’d be ready for another night of curt-seying and smiling and charming with a determined purpose—something that only Cassia had been unable to do last night.
Now she sat back in her chair and braced her hands on the edge of the table, tired of waiting for the reprimand that she knew was coming.
“I’ve seen the story in the paper, Amariah,” she began, “about me and Mr. Blackley and the hazard room and his—his attentions. I know how I very nearly ruined everything last night. You don’t have to pretend you’re keeping it from me.”
“Your evening, Cassia—” Amariah folded the paper and set it beside her plate, smiling with grim purpose. “I wish I could pretend it away. I did wish to make Penny House the talk of all London, but not precisely in this way.”
Bethany shoved back the drooping cuffs on her dressing gown, and leaned closer across the table. “Inspiring a rascally Caribbean planter to make outrageous wagers is one thing, Cassia. But then letting him stuff a marker down the front of your bodice, for all the polite world to see—oh, that was not well done.”
“He surprised me!” Cassia protested. “I never expected he’d venture such a thing!”
“We must not be surprised by anything the gentlemen do,” Amariah said, running her fingers along the creases of the newspaper. “That was what Pratt told us, and now we have seen the proof. Though I suppose much of this is my fault, Cassia, for letting the man stay.”
Cassia poked at the toast, working a hole through the crust. “At least he gave all his winnings to the bank.”
“Which of course we cannot keep,” Amariah said. “I had Pratt return Mr. Blackley’s money to him at the Clarendon early this morning.”
“You