Chapter One
The first timeHenry’s life flashed before his eyes, he was thirteen, drenched and cold, shivering in the wilds of Scotland. That was the night he’d seen the witch—the night she’d cursed him and his friends, King and Rory.
Understandably, Henry didn’t like to think about that night or how the harmless—well, mostly harmless—prank the boys had executed turned out to be the worst decision of their lives. But who had known when they’d dared each other to steal a cask of whiskey that it would break, and the old hag it belonged to would turn out to be the sort of witch who cursed children?
Henry told himself he didn’t really believe in curses.
Until now. When his life flashed before his eyes again. This time, it wasn’t only his life but his money. He saw it all running through his fingers like water scooped from a basin.
Splash.A hundred pounds.
Splash!A thousand pounds.
Splash!An estate in Surrey.
Lately, the man holding a cup that caught the flood of blunt running like a waterfall through Henry’s fingers was the Marquess of Shrewsbury. Henry didn’t know the man well. Until recently, he’d only known the marquess tangentially. He’d been one of a number of gentlemen who stood on the edges of a gaming table and watched the play.
Then the marquess had started playing, and Henry wasn’t the sort to ever turn down a game of chance. He cheerfully took thirty pounds from the marquess and lost forty to him on this evening or that over the weeks and months. So goes life.
But then the games became longer and more serious, and before Henry knew what had happened, he’d lost his country estate to the man.
Not his ducal seat, he reminded himself, but the place he and his family had called home.
Somehow, that made it worse.
Most men would have put away the cards and dice and forsworn gambling for the rest of their lives after a loss like that.
Not Henry.
The Marquess of Shrewsbury, family name Malfort, sat across from him now, a man on the other side of fifty but who looked ten years younger. He was a gaunt man, with blond hair brushed back from his face in a style that reminded Henry of a hawk’s feathers. The marquess’s pale blue eyes were as sharp as his blade-straight nose. A tall man, the marquess was an inch or two taller than Henry, who was six feet with his hair flattened and six and a quarter if his valet was out and no one tamed his mop of brown waves.
Henry smiled at the marquess, but the other gentleman made no attempt to reciprocate. It was no surprise, given Henry’s winning streak. But even when Henry lost, he did so amiably. Yes, even when he’d lost Carlisle Hall, the country home of the Dukes of Carlisle for almost a century, he’d shaken hands and smiled at the scowling marquess. Henry knew he’d been a fool to wager it. Even as he’d been agreeing to the wager, in the back of his mind, a voice had cried,No, no, no! Don’t do it, Henry.
Henry had tried to listen. He always tried to listen to that voice. That voice was usually correct.
The problem was, Henry possessed another voice. And that voice was much louder than the first. It said,Play! Win! One more hand! One more throw! Just one more…
Henry was listening to that voice tonight, and he was winning!
He was deeply in debt and needed to win. Not just for himself but because his friend King was in dire financial straits and needed his help. Henry knew if the tables were turned, King would have given Henry the coat off his back.
Henry had promised to do the same—just as soon as he won enough blunt to keep his creditors at bay. He hadn’t mentioned to his friend that he’d lost Carlisle Hall. He put that awful night out of his mind. He didn’t want to remember how he’d lost again and again and the weight of his losses fell on him like the rubble of a fallen building. And there was the marquess, offering him a way out.
Henry should have listened to that little voice telling him not to wager Carlisle Hall.
But all of that was behind him now. He’d been playing hazard when he lost his estate, and tonight he was playing vingt-et-un. It was his thirtieth birthday and his luck had turned. Finally.
“You have the devil’s own luck,” Sir George Lowell had said, slapping Henry on the back after he’d won several hundred pounds. Henry looked at Shrewsbury, and the marquess didn’t smile but nodded and made a courtly gesture with his hand.
“Indeed, Your Grace,” Shrewsbury said, “you are unbeatable tonight. If you’ll excuse me—”
Let him go, said the small voice.
But Henry couldn’t let him go, and not just because he didn’t want the play to end. He never wanted the play to end. As soon as it ended, he felt the urge to play again. But tonight, he needed the marquess to keep playing. He had to win Carlisle Hall back.
“Wait!” Henry said, reaching out to grasp the marquess’s sleeve. It was a desperate move. Far beneath him. “Another hand.”
Shrewsbury freed his arm and extracted his purse from his coat. He shook it, but no coins clinked inside. “I have nothing to wager.”
