“Perhaps, but that’s not the way it’s done.”
“Then where is the one card?”
“There isn’t a one card.” His voice sounded a little edgy.
“Why?”
“I—I don’t know.” He loosened his cravat and laid the suit of hearts on the table in a line, starting with the two card and
ending with the ace. He took a deep breath and started again. “The ace is higher than the king,
which is higher than the queen, which is higher than the jack.”
“What is a jack?” she asked.
He raised his brows and pointed to the card.
“No, that’s not what I mean. I know which card is the jack card, but I don’t know what a jack is in real life.”
He rubbed his hand down his face and sighed. “Real life, Miss Mace?”
“Why, yes.” Perhaps she needed to explain things a little more slowly. He seemed to be having trouble keeping up. “You see,
a king and a queen rule a country, so it makes sense they would be powerful cards, but there’s no such thing as a jack, is
there? Shouldn’t that card be a duke card?”
“What would the ace be?” He looked quite perplexed.
“That’s a good question.” She paused to think. “Who has more power than a king?”
“God?”
“Perhaps they
should
have a God card, but that might be sacrilegious, don’t you think?”
Mr. Straights was at a loss for words. Evidently, he had never stopped to question the logic of his cards.
“And wouldn’t it be easier if they put numbers on them so you wouldn’t have to count the little hearts and clovers every time
they give you a card?” she asked.
He sighed again. “I don’t know, Miss Mace. I didn’t invent the cards, I just play with them.”
“It seems to me whoever invented them could’ve done a much better job of it, like making each suit have its own color instead
of everything being red and black.”
He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of
his nose. “Perhaps you should invent a new deck with numbered pink butterflies and God cards.”
She smiled. “That would be delightful and would make more sense than black clovers that are called clubs and aces with only
one heart on them.”
There he went, grimacing again.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Straights. Do you have a headache?”
“Occasionally.”
“Oh.” She leaned back from the table and folded her hands on her lap. He didn’t seem to be enjoying their first lesson at
all. Maybe she shouldn’t have asked him so many questions he couldn’t answer. Men didn’t like that.
“I think that’s enough for today, Miss Mace,” he said, sounding far more tired than a man should at that hour of the morning.
She stood and smoothed down the front of her skirts. “I suppose it is. I need to go to the restaurant for lunch anyway.” She
walked to his door and peeked out to see if the deck was clear. “Until tomorrow, then?” she said back over her shoulder.
“I shall count the minutes.”
Dyer watched her slip out the door of his cabin, convinced his sanity had just been put to the ultimate test. He wasn’t sure
whether he’d passed or failed.
“God cards,” he muttered with a shake of his head as he scooped the deck off his table. He glanced down at the seven of spades
he held in his hand and had to admit, albeit reluctantly, that having numbers on the cards
would
make the game a little easier. “But it’ll be a cold day in Hell before I play with a deck that has pink butterflies . . .”
He sighed.
Now the woman had him talking to himself.
The
Magnolia Belle
left Baton Rouge promptly at dawn, though Lottie had to take Captain Woodruff’s word on that since she was asleep at the
time. A few hours after sunup, the deck was mostly deserted, except for the few passengers who took the opportunity to enjoy
the scenery as the
Belle
’s paddle wheel pushed the boat through the current of the mighty Mississippi. The thump, thump of the wheel hitting the water
sounded like a heartbeat, giving an odd sense of life to the large wooden vessel.
Lottie closed her eyes to enjoy the breeze and the rich fragrances of the river and the vegetation on its shores. The huge
smokestacks carried the thick black wood smoke of the
Belle
’s boilers high above the heads of those on deck, so none of the pungent odors interfered with the pleasures of their journey.
It was so peaceful at times like this she could almost forget the burden she carried. Almost.
“Beautiful morning, isn’t it, Lottie?” Newt’s voice brought her back to earth and its ugly realities.
She opened her eyes and smiled. “Yes, it’s quite lovely.”
He took a place beside her at the rail. “How did your lessons go with Dyer?”
“Oh, well . . .” She hesitated. “I found them enlightening.”
Newt chuckled. “Why do I get the feeling that if I asked Dyer the same question, I’d get a different answer?”
She knitted her brow. Newt had a rather uncanny way of getting to the heart of a matter. “He seemed a bit tired.”
“Before or after the lesson?” His teasing grin brought a smile to her lips.
“It’s not very gentlemanly of you to ask such a thing.”
“My apologies, fair lady.” He turned to look out at the river, then added as an afterthought, “You’re good for him.”
“I doubt he would agree with you.” She wasn’t sure where Newt came up with such a notion. Most of the time Dyer acted as though
she was a curse.
“Only because he doesn’t know you’re good for him yet.” He glanced at Lottie out of the corner of his eye. “Be patient with
him, Lottie. Don’t give up.”
“I think you’re giving that advice to the wrong person.”
Something over Lottie’s shoulder caught Newt’s attention. “Speak of the devil.” He nodded once in a greeting to someone behind
her. “We won’t be in Natchez for a few more hours. Now might be a good time to continue with those lessons.”
She turned around to see Dyer walking toward them on the deck. His suit was immaculate, and his white shirt was starched and
crisp against the tanned skin of his neck. He wore no vest, perhaps in deference to the heat of the day, but the lack of the
extra garment allowed the outline of his chest to show against the thin fabric of his shirt. She pulled her eyes, and mind,
away from his chest and glanced over to Newt, silently willing him to say something.
“I’ll leave you two to your lessons,” he said as he left her alone with Dyer. Not exactly what she’d hoped he’d say.
“I see you and Newt have become quite close.” Dyer’s
comment surprised her. It had a tone to it that, if she didn’t know better, she would swear was jealous.
“He’s a true gentleman.”
Dyer snorted. “Anytime you begin to think of a riverboat gambler as a gentleman, you are walking precariously close to trouble.”
She looked up at his profile while he stared out across the river. There was a rugged handsomeness about the man that never
failed to give her a start. “Does that go for you too?”
Slowly, he turned his face toward her, narrowing his gaze. “That, Miss Mace, goes double for me.”
He leaned close enough to her that she could smell the pleasant mix of shaving soap and bay rum from his morning toiletries.
Her heart pounded wildly as she watched his face for a clue as to what he was going to do next. He had leaned far too close
for it to be anything proper.
The corner of his mouth turned up. “How about some lessons?”
She didn’t miss the double entendre in his statement, but she wasn’t going to let his attempt to scare her away keep her from
her goals. She took a deep breath and raised her chin a notch.
“I think this is a fine time for another poker lesson, Mr. Straights.” She arched her brow. “I thought of several other questions
I needed to ask.” She didn’t allow herself to grin at the flash of panic she’d seen in his deep brown eyes, despite the fact
he had it coming.
Dyer pulled the deck of cards out of his bureau drawer, wondering again about his sanity. Newt was as fine a
man as Dyer knew, yet he had warned Lottie to stay clear of Newt when he should have encouraged her to get closer. If Newt
took her under his wing, perhaps Dyer could be free of the little minx once and for all.
“What am I going to learn today?” Lottie asked, reminding him that the minx in question was in his cabin . . . and the door
was closed. He pushed in the drawer to his bureau, forcing his mind away from the path it had started to take.
He dropped into a seat at the table and shuffled the deck. “I’m going to show you which hands beat what.” He dealt five hands
faceup on the table. “In poker, each hand consists of five cards. Different types of poker have different ways of getting
those five cards. In some games, the dealer gives every man—”
“Or woman,” she said.
“Or woman,” he conceded. “The dealer gives a card facedown, and then the next card is faceup, or different variations of that.”
“But if your card is faceup, everyone knows what you have.”
He nodded. “They know part of your hand, but not all of it. That’s what makes the game interesting.”
She frowned. “When do you place your bets?”
“That depends on the game too, but usually after each round of cards is dealt.” He motioned to one of the hands. “In this
game, this hand would’ve won because there is a pair of sevens, and none of the other hands have anything better.”
“So a pair wins?”
He shrugged. “Usually, in a game like Draw, a pair will win, but there are other hands much better than that.” He laid out
examples of different winning combinations
of cards. “Three of a kind beats two of a kind, and of course four of a kind is better than either of those—”
“Wait.” She glanced up at him, pulling her lower lip between her teeth for a second. “Would you wait here for just a moment?”
Dyer nodded but didn’t have the chance to ask her why before she darted from his cabin. With any luck at all, she’d realized
this was more complicated than she’d thought and changed her mind. He shook his head. More than likely she had a list of questions
she had forgotten and was simply going to retrieve it.
He took the opportunity to lay out samples of the winning hands, starting from the highest to the lowest, and had just finished
placing them on the table when she returned, carrying several sheets of paper. She set a bottle of ink beside them on the
table and dipped in her pen.
“Would you start again, please? What is the highest hand?”
“That would be the royal flush . . .”
She wrote down everything he explained to her, stopping only to fill her pen, and when he finished, she had two pages of notes.
She hadn’t asked a single question, a realization that both pleased and frightened him. When all the questions she’d stored
finally erupted, it could no doubt cost a man his life.
He looked at her nervously from the corner of his eye. “Any questions?”
“No,” she answered, then blew on the paper to dry the ink.
He raised his brows, knowing full well she had at least a million questions, and her lack of asking them was probably just
a female scheme to catch him off guard. He
should insist she ask them, but then again, why look a gift horse in the mouth?
“Memorize that over the next few days; then you’ll be ready for your next lesson.”
“I’ll be ready by tomorrow.” She gathered up her papers and ink and headed to the door, stopping for a moment to add, “Thank
you.”
“You thank me now, but you’ll be cursing me by the time you lose everything you have.”
“Your confidence in me is overwhelming.”
He shrugged. “Just reality, Miss Mace. Men like me make their fortunes off of people like you.”
“It wouldn’t do for you to beat me, Mr. Straights. If I don’t win, you don’t get your payment.”
She left the cabin before he had a chance to respond— not that he had anything in particular to say anyway. She had no more
chance of winning that tournament than a pig had of singing “Dixie.” Which brought him to another unfortunate realization:
he was teaching her poker for nothing except the mildly entertaining aspect of their lessons.
Entertaining?
Damn, if that wasn’t proof of his failing sanity, nothing was.
The good folk of Natchez came aboard as good folk were prone to do when a riverboat as grand as the
Magnolia Belle
came to town. Dyer watched from the third-floor or Texas deck, as it was called, as the women in their fancy bustled gowns
and the men in their fine suits and hats strolled up the gangplank to the first deck. Some would go to the restaurant for
their evening meal, but many would head straight to the gaming room on the second level.
He searched the faces of the men who came aboard, all the while cursing himself for being a fool. He didn’t even know the
name of the man he sought, only a brief description, but sooner or later his luck would change. It had to.
The crushed economy of the post war South had forced many to move from their homes, and the bustling cities on the Mississippi
continually brought new people to their ports. Eventually he would find someone who knew who the bastard was and where he
could be found. In the meantime, Dyer had other work to do.
The gaming salon filled quickly as evening settled on the Mississippi. Dyer picked his marks by the clothes they wore and
the way they carried themselves as they walked into the room. Cocky dandies attempting to impress young ladies were usually
the easiest to help fill his wallet, and there appeared to be several on the
Belle
this evening.
Dyer walked over to one of the tables, smiling his least intimidating smile. “May I join you gentlemen?”
A young man with more money than sense removed the cheroot from his mouth and grinned. “If you’re sure you have enough to
play at this table, suh.”
The lady standing behind him giggled and waved her fan prettily under her nose, a reaction that caused the young man’s cockiness
to raise a degree or two.
“I think I can manage,” Dyer said, making a mental note to thank the young woman when he was through fleecing her gentleman
friend. His desire to impress her would make Dyer’s job much easier.