“Thank you, Jack,” Clara smirked at Jack’s contrite face. “I think your advice to Rook of ‘go gentle’, worked wonders.”
The gentlemen laughed, and good cheer seemed to have been restored. Clara made her excuses, thanking the gentlemen for their support tonight and made her way to bed. She was exhausted, but she doubted she would sleep.
Jack took Clara’s seat at the chess table.
“She took your rook,” he idly pointed out, looking at Clara’s pile of captured pieces gathered before him.
“Don’t Jack,” Rook bit out tightly. The man himself raised an eyebrow in query. “Jack, I know what you are doing, but I am quite happy with my life as it is, thank you.”
“I thought,” Jack mused twisting the rook in his fingers. “That you were becoming a little…jaded lately. She’s a lovely girl, Rook – a diamond.”
“Give her a month, and she’ll bore me. They always do eventually. And then we’ll be miserable together for eternity. Remember Hardwicke?”
“Hardly the same thing Rook. I came over because I caught a glimpse of you from the side. You looked like you were going to ravish her, here and now.”
“Throttle her you mean. She beat me.”
Jack chuckled. “Tell yourself that all you want, old boy. But don’t wait too long. Diamonds get snatched up.” With that parting shot, Jack got up and left to chat to the pretty widow from the previous night.
Rook was left staring at the chess piece that Jack had left in the centre of the table. He snatched it up, and stuffed it in his waistcoat pocket, not giving himself leave to wonder why.
He looked around the near empty room: they had been playing for longer than he’d thought.
The two young girls that Clara had been talking with earlier were still there, and one of them was dark, so he made his way over, banishing Clara from his mind. The chess piece dug at his chest.
ΦΦΦ
