Page 39

“Renovations,” she murmured. “We always strive to improve, milord.”

Pembroke seemed sour and aggrieved. “I was forced to play cards with my wife.”

Sander almost laughed behind the curtain; he kept it in his throat where it could do no harm. The room thickened with expensive coats and expensive silence.

Nagy spoke with the weight of paper. “I am here with gentlemen who have lost money under this roof. They wish the Den dissolved and have their lost fortunes returned.” Ah, that was his angle. Lost fortunes for risky wagers to be returned if the Den had broken the law against unlawful games to allow them. Sneaky but Mrs. Dove-Lyon will never allow it.

“Is that so?” Mrs. Dove-Lyon asked, light as a knife taken up. She did not turn to the patrons; she did not give them away. “Then set terms fit for gentlemen. If my player wins tonight, Lord Pembroke withdraws his question in the Commons and states publicly that the Lyon’s Den keeps to lawful skill—chess, not chance.”

Pembroke’s mouth thinned. “And if he loses?”

“Then I will not oppose your motion,” she said. “You may lay it before the House and invite Crown Street and Bow Street to ‘attend’—an inspection as tidy as tea.”

Nagy’s eyes gleamed. “With a staff list.”

Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s smile did not move. “With a magistrate to observe—and my books open—while my staff remain at their posts unless a court orders otherwise. Those are the terms. Do you accept?”

Pembroke glanced at the board, then gave one curt nod. “Agreed.”

“That is gambling,” Nagy snapped.

“So are the horse races at the Royal Ascot,” she returned, crisp as sugar breaking. “And last I checked, they do not fall under the Act lest the royal family not attend.” Not so openly, but they did enough in the dark.

A pause—the kind men mistake for concession until it closes on them. “Fine,” Nagy said.

“So you agree to a wager,” she said.

“Me?” His outrage pealed for show.

Sander’s mouth almost curved. He didn’t see it coming.

“The stakes are high,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said. He could hear her lay the terms on velvet as if she were setting out cake forks. “You win, and I give you all the names of my staff—no matter where they are from. You lose, and you promise never to disturb our peace again.”

Sander knew what Nagy did with names: turned them into lists that walked from Crown Street to the Custom House to Mark Lane—one seal, one whisper, and a berth barred, a kitchen shut, wages stripped; merit be damned—he wanted Jews to have no chances.

The gallery was bruised with murmurs. Sander’s hands stilled. All the names. Would she put the whole Den into his keeping? Into my mind. She had wagered rooms and reputations before, but never like this. She was not placing her establishment in his hands where it could be dropped; she was placing it in the one instrument he had honed past fear.

“I don’t know who of your staff are of the notorious kind.” Nagy’s cane clicked.

“So you don’t think you can tell a Jew from another? I thought they were so…” she clicked her tongue and Sander imagined she’d wave grandly, “discernible?”

Harrumph! “You have your player?” Nagy sputtered.

Mrs. Dove-Lyon let the silence run a heartbeat longer than comfort. “I do. He’s not hiding. He is challenging any twenty players of your choosing—blindly.”

Puck’s fingers tapped once against his sleeve. Blindly: they would call out boards and moves; he would hold twenty living positions in his head and break them one by one. Behind the curtain, he would be only forearms and voice. If I fail, I sail. If I win, I stay—and so does she. I get to hold her heart and watch her build her dream.

“Blindly?” Viscount Tisdale sounded delighted. Pembroke muttered something about tricks. The patrons leaned forward as one, hungry for a spectacle that would not stain their names.

Nagy’s breath altered; Sander could hear calculation scuffing through principles in search of profit. Mrs. Dove-Lyon had set the table. Sander tried for the first move the way a man feels for the step in the dark that will hold.

Bite, Nagy. Take the hook. Let me secure London with the only chance I have.

The velvet trembled as a hand poised to draw it back. The room waited. Would Nagy take the wager? Would he put his power on the board where Sander could touch it—and break it?

An hour later, Rosine knew the games were underway. Sander probably played the neat boards of black and white squares while the kitchen was a disaster. She’d needed to speak to Mrs. Dove-Lyon alone, and Puck had escorted her upstairs. Rain needled the windowpanes. Flour still ghosted her cuffs. Rosine set the covered plate on Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s desk and told herself she would not flinch first.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said. “Is it true then?” Leather creaked as she settled back; beeswax and ink edged the room, a thread of cold ash from the grate. She lifted a miniature caramel custard tarte, bit once, twice—eyes sharpening under the veil, no other movement at all.