Andy's Story

Chapter Seven - An Unwanted Engagement

His brown eyes scanned the room for his quarry, the haze of the smoke impeding his view from his seat in the comfy wing backed chair at Whites that he favoured. Wentworth had been playing for high stakes ever since the night he had played against Black, sometimes he would win big, mostly he lost heavily and it was Hastings belief that nothing was as it looked. For how else would he have spotted him that night he played against Black?

He had also heard that Wentworth was trying to palm off his sister and her dowry to anyone willing to play for high stakes. Only fortune hunters and lowlifes would place a wager on a bride, for what man in his right mind would do such a thing? Unless it was to save a Lady from such a fate.

It was an unusual method to get ones sister a fiancé. It was also a way to lose her trust forever.

Again he scanned the smoked filled room but to his dismay he couldn't see the man anywhere. Finishing his drink, he placed the empty glass on the table next to his chair and left Whites heading for the less reputable gambling hells in the city. Surely he would find his quarry at one of those.

And he did.

Hastings finally ran him to ground at the Monkey's Head.

As he entered the salon where the gambling was underway Hastings cast a quick eye around the room and noted the greenhorns and a few he hadn't expected to see. Underwood and Foyley amongst them. The question of what they were doing there flitted through his mind before he spotted his quarry. He was playing a game of piquet and the pile of vowels Hastings could see in front of the other player didn't look good for Wentworth.

Was Wentworth playing to lose? Giving the other gentlemen a false sense of security? 

Hastings watched the game covertly as he wondered the establishment. It was as he was scanning the room from under his half closed eyes for the umpteenth time that he noted that he was not the only one watching Wentworth's game.

Hastings noted a pair of ice blue eyes in the back watching from the dark.

Blackmoor.

Keeping one eye on the game and one on Blackmoor, Hastings wondered over to the table that Underwood and Foyley were occupying.

"Do your lovely wives know where you are?" He asked as both men looked up at him.

"Do they know where we are? Ha! Hardly Hastings. If they knew we would never be allowed out the house again. They think that we are at Whites. Don't tell on us old fellow, we are not doing anything wrong." Foyley answered him.

Taking the spare seat facing Wentworth, Hastings asked to join a game. "By the by I noticed your surveillance, what's your interest?"

  A game of Ecarte was started, Hastings keeping one eye on Wentworth as he played.  

"A favour to a friend." Foyley replied. "What's yours? We noted you watching him too."

"I want to know what his game is. Every time I see him something seems off about what he's up to. He plays a game, either winning big of losing a fortune but somehow can do it all again the following night. Either he's wealthier than we know or he's mortgaged to the hilt, and in the pocket of the money lenders that can afford his kind of loses. I would not bet either theory."

"What of the rumour that he is working for Whitehall? Anything in that?" Underwood asked, as he won the trick.

"I have not heard anything, if he is and the rumours are correct then Whitehall must be paying the bill. I would not be able to get a straight answer out of them if I asked, not if Wentworth was actively working on a case that they don't want me to know about." Hastings replied. "But what interest could Whitehall possibly have with the like of whom Wentworth has been playing against? Black's rotten to the core and after his sister, he almost had her too."