“Drive on,” he barked.
The coachman quickly obeyed, and soon they were en route once more to the club.
What bloody right did she have to make him choose? To show him what could be, and then ruthlessly steal it away? She could not judge him. He was a peer of the realm. She admitted to lying, to cheating. When he’d accepted Mr. Holliday’s gift, Zora had not been uppermost in Whit’s thoughts, but now that she was his, he would make use of his power to make her life a goddamn sodding paradise. If she’d let him.
Clearly, she wasn’t going to take anything from him. He cursed her pride and strength, even as he marveled at and admired it. Pride he had in abundance, being an earl, but strength ... That quality eluded him. At least, when it came to denying himself the pleasures of gambling. Or denying himself anything.
He’d been strong today, though. He had forced himself to sleep, to eat, to conduct matters of business, and to meet in the afternoon with Leo for coffee and intelligence. All this he had done and not gone to see Zora once, whilst his muscles and bones and heart demanded he do just that. To see her. Listen to her voice. Talk with her. And, God, to kiss her. Even as her kisses maddened him, she yet gave him a sense of peace and rightness he had not known ... perhaps ever.
The carriage slowed, then stopped. A liveried footman opened the carriage door and murmured, “Welcome, my lord.” If the servant was surprised to see Whit so early, he gave no indication, just as a well-trained servant kept counsel.
Saying nothing, Whit strode up the stairs and inside the club. He handed his cloak and hat to a waiting footman as the club’s manager walked up briskly, all smiles.
“Greetings, my lord. Are you here for supper? We’ve a lovely cold collation, or I am certain I can prevail upon our cook to prepare a special—”
“Hazard,” Whit said.
The manager did not blink. He smiled wider and unclasped his hands. “Right this way, my lord.”
Time lost its significance, as it always did when Whit immersed himself in the tide of gambling. He submerged in a deluge of odds and numbers, cards, dice, bet and losses. The dizzying, intoxicating kaleidoscope of probability that he now controlled. In his mind, the club itself vanished, the men in the club becoming fragments: hands, eyes, voices. Someone gave him a glass of wine. He supposed he drank it, because a moment later, the empty glass was taken. Perhaps he ate. He wasn’t certain. The mania had him. Nothing else mattered.
Two thoughts consumed him: to gamble, and to put Zora from his thoughts. One was easily accomplished. The other proved as tenacious as a rose’s thorn digging into the twitching, angry muscle of his heart.
I will level this club. I will raze London. It will be entirely mine. Then
I
shall make
you
choose, Lady Gypsy. Passion and prosperity with me. Or nothing at all.
“Jesus, Whit, you look like hell.” Bram’s sardonic voice barely cut through the haze of risk and odds.
Whit only grunted in response as he studied the cards in his hand. The game was Pope Joan, and permutations of probability swirled about the round staking board.
“How long has he been here?” That was Edmund, sounding concerned.
“Five hours, my lord,” said the club manager. “He goes from one game to another. We cannot prevail upon him to stop, not for a minute.”
“Come, Whit,” said John, even-tempered and sensible. “Lord Abeldale is hosting a rout. His gatherings are always amusing. There may be cards.”
“And willing women,” added Bram. “Not a Gypsy amongst them.”
Whit played his ace card, winning the contents of the Intrigue compartment in the staking board. He did not have many cards remaining, and he rearranged the odds to ensure that he would play his last card before any of the other players, thus winning the game.
“I don’t think he heard any of us,” Edmund said.
“Whit.” Bram took hold of Whit’s arm, but Whit shook him off without ever letting his eyes leave the card table.
“I heard you,” he growled. “Just don’t give a damn.”
The voices of his friends continued to rise and fall around him. He paid no attention. The game was everything. At some point, his friends left, knowing that only outright bodily force could pry him from the table. His eyes were hot and sticky. Smoke from pipes and cheroots filled the club, yet he barely blinked as he sank deeper into his mania.
This
he could control.
Here
was where Whit commanded everything. Even the uncertainty of fortune bent to his will. No man could resist such a lure, and neither did he.
A baron’s son bet and lost a prized racehorse to Whit. From a squire worth five thousand pounds a year he won a seaside cottage. Someone’s ruby stickpin now resided in Whit’s pocket, beside his pocket watch.
He knew an inanimate object could not feel or think, yet somehow he sensed disapproval emanating from the pocket watch—the manifestation of his father and grandfather. They would not have condoned his actions this night. He told himself he did not care.
After he had exhausted his interest in Pope Joan, the hazard table claimed him next. He had enough sense to deliberately lose his first and second casts, and, to make the display more convincing, bet decent-sized amounts. He was vaguely aware of the club manager sighing in relief before fading back to attend to other duties.
Once the manager had gone, Whit decided it was time to dig back into the business of winning. He wagered a smaller amount on his next cast.
“Eight,” he announced as he shook the dice in his hand.
The dice tumbled from his palm. Wanting to prolong the play, Whit adjusted the patterns of probability so that the dice came up reading seven, enabling him to cast again. So he did. He would need to cast a seven this time in order to win.
Clattering against each other like teeth, the ivory dice rolled. Whit delved into the protean eddies of probability. He manipulated chance, arranging it precisely as he needed.
The dice stopped their tumble. He reached for his winnings, but the man running the table coughed politely.
“Pardon, my lord,” he said, somewhat embarrassed. “But you cast a twelve. It is a throw-out.”
Whit’s gaze moved from the dice to the man’s reddening face, then back again. He blinked to clear his eyes. Yet the markings on the dice did not change. Two sixes. Not the three and four he needed. The numbers he had guaranteed would turn up in his cast.
Whit stood dumbstruck, frozen in place, reaching out foolishly for a prize that was not his.
He had lost.
Something flickered in the window’s glass. A gleam. Zora thought at first it was only the reflection of a candle. No. The light actually
grew
. Was something on fire?
She spun around, then stepped back, knocking into the wall behind her. Her lips parted, but no sound came out. Instead, she could only gape.
Silver light appeared as an orb as big as a billiard ball, hovering inches above the floor. Above the droplet of blood Zora had spilled earlier. As Zora stared, the orb of light grew larger, lengthened. No heat came from it, but its radiance filled the room, chasing shadows that lurked in corners.
Zora gulped. Was this more of
Wafodu guero
’s dark magic? She had to defend herself, but how? Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the cutting shard of pottery. It was no match for the Devil’s power, yet she needed some sense of protection, no matter how illusory.
The light steadily increased in size until it was almost as tall as Zora. She squinted, shielding her eyes, as a person’s figure coalesced within it. The light gathered, took shape, until it formed ...
A woman.
Zora actually found herself taking a step closer to get a better look, even as her mind shouted that she must be cautious. Yet she could not contain her curiosity.
The woman wore one of those long, draped tunics Zora had seen on ancient statues and figures adorning fountains in public squares. Some of her dark brown hair was piled up in an elaborate style, a kind of fillet holding it back and up, while the rest hung in waves over her shoulders and down her back. She was beautiful, as elegant and lovely as those statues, and her gray eyes seemed to peer deep into time as she scanned the room.
The woman was also completely translucent. Zora could see right through her to the wall.
A
bavol-engro
. A ghost.
Zora recited old Romani incantations against evil, incantations she never believed in nor tried to memorize. Now she wished she had paid more attention when her grandmother had attempted to instruct her in Romani lore—back when Zora did not give credence to things such as magic and evil. She knew differently now, yet too late. All she could recall were jumbled phrases, shreds of belief she tried to use as shelter. To no avail. The ghost did not disappear, did not even flicker. She continued to hover just above the ground as she stared at Zora.
“Go from here, spirit.” Zora attempted a command, but her voice shook as much as her knees.
To her shock, the ghost answered.
“She can see me?” Her voice held a strange accent, a little like the Italian commedia actors the Rom sometimes met in their travels. The ghost at first sounded as though she were a great distance away, but, as she spoke, her words grew stronger.
Zora could only nod.
“And ... she hears my voice?”
“Y-yes.”
The ghost held up her own arm and stared at its gleaming translucency. “She sees. And I have form.” Lowering her arm, she drifted toward Zora. Her eyes beseeched as much as her outstretched hand. “Touch. So long. It has been so long since I felt another’s warmth.”
Zora skittered away as the ghost floated toward her. When the spirit passed through the solid form of a chair, she stopped in her progress and stared down in shock.
“Form, but no substance.” She whirled away from the chair, pressing her knuckles into her eyes. “The punishment, it does not cease. Punished for my transgressions.”
Zora did not know what to believe or what to trust.
Wafodu guero
was a liar, a trickster. This mad spectral woman could be one more of his ruses to lead her down dark paths. Whit had been taken in, but Zora needed to remain wary, for his sake as well as her own.
“Transgressions?” she asked guardedly.
“Pride. And greed,” answered the spirit, distracted. She suddenly grew agitated once more, spinning back toward Zora. “Am I too late?”
“I don’t know.” Zora could hardly believe she conversed with a ghost, if that’s truly what this creature was. “Too late for what?”
“Too late for what, she asks. Does she not know? I do not believe she knows. She must.” The spirit’s lovely face grew stern. “To defeat the beast that has been set loose upon an unsuspecting world.”
Wafodu guero
, Zora thought. “He is your master.”
The ghost gave a riotous laugh before choking it back. “Not my master. No.
I
sought to be mistress over
him
.”
“Who are you?” Zora demanded.
“Names? What are names? Alone, who has a name? Once, others called me Valeria Livia Corva.” Her voice grew wry. “Other names, too. When they thought I did not hear, but I heard. Yes, and marked them well. Wicked woman. Priestess of Hecate. Worshipper of the dark forces and chaos.”
Zora’s head spun as she tried to puzzle out what she saw, what she heard. Truly this spirit—if that’s what she was—had lost her mind. “This makes no sense to me.”
“We are of a kind, her and I. Am I here? Do we converse? Is
she
real? My memory, my ... sanity, it is a liquid thing.” The ghost pressed transparent hands to her temples. “I remember. . . the prison being opened, and I was free. But so was he. And there were men. The ones who had freed us. The girl was there. And then ... she summoned me. Yet”—she glanced around, her eyes attempting to focus—“I know not this place.”
“This is the home of one of those men. We’re far from where this all began. How did you come to be trapped with the Devil?” Zora would ferret out the truth, if it existed.
“The Devil,” the spirit repeated, her mouth twisting. “So that is what he is called now. I have my name. Valeria Livia Corva. He has his names, his faces, all different. They were different then, when I knew him.”
“A long time ago,” Zora guessed.
The spirit gazed about her, uncertain. “I do not know
when
we are. Once, I lived. A woman of flesh and appetite. Many appetites. Food. Men.” She smiled at some wicked memory. “All of them mine. Anything for a daughter of Rome here in Anglia, this cold, cold outpost of the Empire. Worshipping my own gods. The dark gods of the natives.”