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“Two hundred,” Tony mumbled.
“Couldn’t you see they were out to fleece the lamb?”
Tony inwardly cringed at the pun, but her anger began to rise. “Surely you’re not suggesting I was cheated?”
“No, I’m not suggesting, you gullible young fool, I’m telling you flat! His Highness is in debt to his eyebrows, the beauteous Georgiana can’t even tally her gambling debts! Tell me, Tony, when you add two and two together are your wits too addled to come up with four?”
Savage took a deck of cards from the drawer of a cherrywood wine table and began to shuffle them. “Christ, that’s why I never play faro. You never get to touch the cards and all too often the cards are trimmed or roughened to hold together in the brace box. A crooked box and a clever dealer can impoverish a prince.”
Savage rifled the deck. “Pay attention. Anyone with a degree of smoothness in handling cards can be taught a ‘blind’ shuffle in five minutes. This puts the desired cards at the bottom of the deck. It’s all a matter of ‘stocking’ and ‘culling.’ The one single artifice that gives you the greatest advantage is bottom dealing. Damn it all, boy, I don’t want those men you were with last night corrupting you!”
In light of how he was now urging her to learn how to cheat. Tony saw the dark humor of it. “Obviously you prefer to corrupt me yourself!”
“I am merely educating you. If you learn all the tricks, you will be able to detect cheating. Whether or not you play on the level is a decision you can make for yourself,” Savage said coldly.
Tony picked up the deck of cards, determined to master the blind shuffle. “Are you finished reading the riot act?”
“I’ve only just begun. I don’t care a pinch of bat shit that you spew your guts up every night, but I do care that you are drinking to the point where you have no control over your own actions.”
“You forbid me to see my friends now. I suppose?” Tony challenged.
“You’re missing the point. I want you to be able to handle yourself in any company or any situation from the card room to the bedroom, from the glittering court to a dark alley”
Some of the wind went out of Tony’s sails as she recalled the plans that had been made for the evening. She glanced at Savage and said, “How the hell do I get out of going to the Turkish baths in Covent Garden? For six guineas you get to bathe, sup, and sleep with a fashionable harlot.”
“I can think of more corrupt ways to spend your time.” Savage warned lightly.
“I’ll just bet you can,” Tony retorted angrily.
Savage shrugged. “Tell them you’re going to the theater with me … the engagement slipped your mind.”
Tony felt vastly relieved. There was something else she had enthusiastically agreed to be part of when she was half sotted, but she didn’t dare breath a word of it to Savage. She searched her mind for a safe subject. Demonstrating her finesse with the cards, her long, slim fingers shuffled the deck, cut it, then proceeded to lay out four aces, followed by all the face cards. “I’m a quick study. When are you going to start teaching me how to make money?”
“So you can lose it all in some gaming hell?” Savage asked dryly.
“Don’t be daft, from now on I shall win consistently. How about South Sea shares? Everyone and his mistress are buying them.”
“That’s precisely the reason you will not. They’re inflated beyond their value.” Savage’s eyes were forbidding as Arctic seas. You did not disobey this man’s orders.
Tony shrugged. “Well, as I told you, the only unwritten law I know is that I cannot dip into my principle.”
His voice came to her like silk as he demanded with exquisite sarcasm, “How in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost can you increase your interest without spending your principle?”
“I—I don’t know,” Tony stammered.
“Risk is the name of the game. The higher the risk, the higher the return. I’ll offer you a deal made in Heaven. Take every copper you have to your name and buy a cargo for the Indies. Then with the fat profits, buy a cargo to fetch back to England. Use one of my ships; just over eight weeks in each direction. In four to five months with the right cargo you can quadruple your money held in trust by Watson and Goldman.”
“But the risk—ships go down every day of the year. I’d lose everything.”
“I’ll even insure you, seeing I’m on intimate terms with the vessel and the crew.”
Tony was overwhelmed by his generosity. “That’s very noble of you. Why would you do such a thing?”
“Believe it or not, I care about you.” Savage hesitated for a moment, then added lightly, “Think of me as a father.”
Antonia thought of him often and in many capacities, but the last thing she ever wanted from him was a fatherly relationship.
“We shall continue your lessons this evening,” Savage said lightly, dismissing her.
