While luck is a key element of gambling,
Lady Luck is also best known for her caprice.
Lady Luck is also best known for her caprice.
Excerpt from my SIBA and TRR award nominated FORTUNE'S SON
She had staked only
twenty guineas and already had thirty. Her breathing quickened in anticipation
of the next turn of the cards. The tallière flipped
the nest two in quick succession, the three of spades and the four of hearts.
“Three wins, four loses.”
He dealt again, “Queen
wins. Knave loses.”
“You have won again, my
lady!” George cried.
“But it was so easy!”
Susannah gasped in delight, receiving resentful looks from anguished punters
groaning as the croupier swept to the bank any coins resting with a knave.
“You are exceeding lucky, my lady of hearts.
Do you wish pay or paroli?”
asked the tallière once
more.
Her breath hitched at the
decision. She turned to George, “Did you not say that with quinze-et-le-va, the payout is a full fifteen times my
stakes?”
“Indeed so, but now with
only two queens remaining in the deck, the odds do not favor you.”
“Nevertheless, Mr.
Selwyn, being a creature of caprice, I am resolved to follow my fancy.”
Heedlessly brushing aside all her reservations and every warning Philip had
ever spoken, Susannah wagered several more gold coins and crooked the second
corner of her card.
“You’ve bollocks of
brass, my lady!” George exclaimed, too lost in the moment to guard his speech.
Susannah, paid him no
heed, his voice had long since become little more than a buzz in her ears.
She’d stayed with her lucky queen and the impulse had paid off with seven
hundred guineas now on the table divided between the queen and the ace. Her
mind was a flurry of calculations. If her good fortune continued, she might
garner enough to live out her entire life, not just a woman of independent
means, but one of substantial wealth.
She held her breath, and
her hands clenched the table’s edge as the tallière turned over the next two
cards, the ace of spades, and the three of diamonds.
“Ace wins, three loses.”
“Good God!” Selwyn
slapped the table. “You’ve done it again! You’ve the devil’s own luck tonight!”
With her pulse drumming a
deafening tattoo in her ears, Susannah dumped the remains of her purse onto the
table, splitting it between the queen and the ace, the sum of her two wagers
now totaling nearly a thousand guineas.
Recalling his promise to
Philip, George was reluctantly moved to intervene with a staying hand. “Mayhap
you should consider the payout. I’ve yet to see anyone surpass
trente-et-le-va.”
With her eyes glimmering
and her voice breathless, she answered, “Did you not study Virgil, Mr. Selwyn?”
He looked chagrinned.
“I’m afraid I left my studies a bit precipitately.”
“Fortune favors the
bold,” she quipped over-brightly. She bent her card just as Philip’s ominous
warning came unbeckoned into her head - Luck
tires as surely as the player.
ABOUT EMERY LEE
"Lee brings the atmosphere of the Georgian era to life with lush descriptions that beg the reader to see, hear, feel and touch it all....with a lively cast of characters and surprising twists and turns that are reminiscent of Fielding’s Tom Jones or Defoe’s Moll Flanders."-RT BOOK REVIEWS
She is a member of the Historical Novel Society, Romance Writers of America, RWA , Georgia Romance Writers, and the group moderator for Goodreads Romantic Historical Fiction Lovers. http://authoremerylee.com
She also writes scorching hot historical romance as VICTORIA VANE http://authorvictoriavane.com
Hi Emery! Everyone FORTUNE"S SON is wonderful as is her alter ego Victoria Vane. Pick up your copies!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing Emery,love your stories!!
AprilR
Love the quote that fortune is bold...that makes for a right feisty heroine! Excerpt is great!
ReplyDeleteI admire you for all the research that must have gone into even writing this one scene. Did you have to play the game as you were writing it?
ReplyDeleteGreat excerpt, Emery! Love the card with your cover image. Very cool.
ReplyDeleteOk, now I have to get the book to see what the card is going to be! Reminds me of my not-so-sucessful attempt at playing the lottery. Somebody won it - alas, not me.
ReplyDelete