about her to listen to her countrymen? Or sober because he wanted to make love to her in that state, as he’d promised last night?
Her heart pounded at the thought.
They crossed into the main salon, and Anya looked around with interest. This half of the Tricorn was more opulent than the private apartments, as luxurious and tastefully decorated as Haye’s. As ornate as her own residences back in Russia. Wolff nodded to a couple of acquaintances. Despite the early hour—it was only around nine o’clock—the place was already busy.
Guests gossiped and tried their hand at games of chance at the green baize tables. Anya had forgotten what it was like to be in such a crowd. She’d missed it: the laughter, the heightened sense of excitement that went along with the rattle of dice and the swish of cards. People drinking and enjoying themselves. It was a sight to gladden the heart.
She stayed close to Wolff, intensely aware of him beside her, of the occasional brush of their bodies as the crowd jostled them together.
They made a slow traverse of the room, and she listened in to the various conversations as they passed. The topics were the same as any salon in St. Petersburg or Paris; people seeking power and influence, jockeying for position. Bragging—who knew what, who owned what. The women they passed were elegant and animated, cheering their escorts with rouged lips and painted cheeks.
Wolff greeted several people, shaking hands and patting shoulders, while never relinquishing his grip on her arm. He didn’t introduce her to anyone, and the men slid knowing glances at her exposed skin and drew their own conclusions. Clearly it was not unusual to encounter a woman on Wolff’s arm.
They ended up at the far end of the room near a quartet of musicians, and Anya smiled as he turned his deaf ear to them.
“I think you would make an excellent diplomat,” she said. “You make everyone comfortable enough to spill their secrets.”
“That’s the aim. To gather information.”
“You enjoy your work for Bow Street?”
“Yes. It feels like I’m doing something useful. My older brother, Geoffrey, has a seat in the House of Lords, but making laws holds no interest for me. Government moves too slowly for my taste. I prefer situations that yield more immediate results.”
Anya nodded. She understood that. Justice was sometimes best served outside the strict parameters of the law. “What games are played here?”
“Faro. Cribbage. Ecarte, loo, whist, vingt-et-un, piquet. Rouge et noir. Whatever the clients want.”
“Do people try to cheat?”
He gave a dry chuckle. “All the time. Cardinal Mazarin used to call it ‘making the most of the game,’ I believe, but we don’t tolerate it here in any form. We employ those who know what to look for.”
“Such as?”
“Someone with an accomplice who looks at their opponent’s cards over their shoulder and sends a signal to give an advantage. Last month a chap tried to use the reflection in a silver snuff box to sneak a look at the cards as they were dealt. There are numerous other ways: weighted dice, marked cards.”
“How do they mark cards?”
“You make a tiny scratch with your fingernail so you know which one is a queen, for example. Or you give it a ‘wire edge’ by scraping the side to make it rough. You can get cards that have been cut so there’s a slight difference in size or dimensions so one is singled out—that’s called biseauté. Some are convex or concave in the middle, but only by the smallest amount.”
“That’s amazing.”
“Some cheats rub certain cards with soap to make them slick, or with resin to make them sticky, so they’re identifiable when being dealt or handled. I’ve seen cards pricked with a pin so they have a tiny hole. The raised bump is indistinct to the naked eye, but you can feel it with your fingertips.”
Anya shook her head in wonder. “Goodness! And do clubs ever cheat their guests?”
“Sometimes. You can tip the odds in the house’s favor by having roulette wheels with black segments slightly wider than the whites, to increase the chances of the ball falling into them. Or you can slip some coins beneath one leg of the table to tilt it and make it favor certain numbers. But we never resort to underhand tactics like that here. Anyone with a basic understanding of mathematics would realize we don’t need to cheat. The bank holds the advantage in any game of chance, thanks to the laws of averages. We