This place was high end, exclusive. I thought that that would work in my favor. To be quite honest, I thought that if someone did recognize me as the Baroness of Belshire, that would be a good thing. Maybe they would have mercy on me when I made my ludicrous request. The poor widow who was broke because her husband had lost all their money doing exactly this.
This networking thing had never been so difficult before. My husband had been well-connected, and I had taken advantage of that. Still though, I wished I never had to do this. I wished that I never had to still, still be cleaning up after the messes that he made.
The plan was simple enough on the face of it. Find one person just one, talk to them long enough to get them to like me, leverage any useful connections and then tell him that I happened to have a few thousand pounds worth of chips for them if they were interested.
And then what if they asked me why I had them?
At that point, I could either lie or tell them the truth. I would have much preferred lying, but I could hardly think of a believable tale at the moment. Nobody just had casino chips lying around. Nobody just had a degenerate gambling addict for a husband like I did. And if they did, God bless them. I hoped that they never ended up in the same situation that I was in. I would probably have to come clean if I did end up finding someone who would take the chips off of me about the Baron and being close to financial ruin. I was dreading it.
Running around in my husband's old circles, they could tell just by looking at you, just by hearing you speak, whether or not you were good enough to be around them. I did not want them to treat me like the Baron's poor, impoverished widow, even though that was what I was. I would tell the story to anyone who would buy the chips. I needed the money more than I needed my pride. A windfall of cash would keep the estate running for at least another few months, giving me time to figure out what to do then. If this didn't work, I would have to finally admit defeat and call my parents. A chill ran through me thinking about that. That was the absolute last resort. I had come all the way to London for this. I was not leaving before I had some cash for these chips.
I scanned the room for a likely target.
All the usual suspects were present. Rich guy number one with a much younger wife. Rich guy number two with a much younger wife. Rich guy number three who was yet to divorce his starter wife for his future much younger wife, but surely already cheating on her. My eyes wandered to the poker table.
Oh, hello, who was that?
A young looking guy with messy blond hair locked eyes with me.
Hang on.
No, it couldn't be. I froze. It was. My heart was already racing a mile a minute, now it felt like it would jump out of my mouth.
It was him.
Oh my God. What were the chances? I had a feeling that I would run into at least one familiar face, but not one that I wanted to see. That might have been an overstatement. It wasn’t that I wanted to see him, it was just that he was... we had history. Funny that the first time we had met had been in a casino. After the casino, we had gone up to his presidential suite and well... a lot of things had changed since then. That night had completely changed the course of my life.
He would do it right? He would buy the chips from me if I told him what was going on, wouldn't he? He already knew a little bit about my situation. Maybe he even knew that the Baron was dead. The night we slept together was one of my fondest memories. It bonded us. I could tell him this if no one else. I smiled at him. His face slowly softened, and he returned it. I started walking up to the table and took the empty seat one person away from him.
We started playing.
Aren’t you going to say something to him, I thought. Well, yeah, I was going to but it was much easier said than done. He was there the night that my husband put me up in a card game. There was nothing more humiliating than that. He had seen me at my lowest and not judged me for it. That was what I thought coming in but now, I couldn't imagine admitting to him the real reason why I was here. I stayed with Russell even after he did what he did to me. I stayed and eventually outlived him. What the hell did that say about me? I should have gotten rid of my degenerate, drunken, gambling husband as soon as he offered me up in a card game, but I didn't. I have never felt as much shame over my decision as I did right then, about to ask the man who won me in a card game to help me financially.
And then there was the secret. This was a bad idea from the start. I shouldn’t have walked into a casino again expecting things to go my way. I had terrible luck in places like this and I was about to see the worst of it.
Of course, I lost the game. Good thing I hadn’t bet that much. I sighed and shrugged, trying to look gracious as I gave up the equivalent of one of our monthly bills. “I sho
uld have known.”
“Are you playing again?” he asked me. I looked at him. I was studiously avoiding eye contact the whole game. Now that he had initiated, I felt like it was almost an invitation. Of course, his voice after all these years sent prickles over my skin. The good kind.
“I should have learned my lesson from the first time. I'm rubbish at poker.”
“I reckon anyone can learn.”
“It's just not my game.”
“Then what is your game?” he asked. I smiled at him. He still had that knack to make me feel comfortable, even in the most uncomfortable, ridiculous circumstances.
“Hearts,” I said.
He frowned suddenly looking around at the table, and then he stood up.
“Would you like to join me for a drink?” he asked. Oh, so suddenly? I stood. Any excuse to get out of there.
“Yeah, I'd love that.”
Amazing. He wasn't even going to make me work for it. With any luck, this was going to be easier than I thought.