Maggie MacKeever Read Online Free PDF

eye to the peep hole. Coffey waited in the small foyer, one arm gripped by the porter and the other by a footman, neither of whom seemed interested in what he had to say, which had to do with his determination to try his luck at hazard, and their inexplicable refusal to admit him to the hell. What, demanded Coffey, was wrong with his blunt? Granted, he’d possessed more coin when he set out this evening, before he’d tried to catch the smiles of fortune by risking a few pounds he could ill afford to lose. Curious, was it not, how a man started out placing a few cautious wagers and wound up punting recklessly on the spin of the ball, tossing money on the table in competition with his companions as if the lot of them were caught up in some passing lunacy?
    Quin closed the aperture. Generally euphoric when intoxicated, Coffey wanted always to be intoxicated, on one substance or another, or preferably several substances at once. From all appearances this evening he was not yet drunk as an emperor, or even drunk as a lord, which was ten times less; but instead merely drunk as a wheelbarrow, and not even David’s sow.
    David had been a Welshman who possessed an alehouse, a tippling wife, and an especially fine sow. The wife had lain down to sleep herself sober in the sty, where she was observed by company, who declared her the drunkest sow they had ever beheld.
    How he knew all this, Quin couldn’t imagine. If indeed he did know it. He might not be as sober as he’d thought.
    He opened the iron-sheeted door and entered the foyer, which boasted wainscoted walls and a checkered tile floor, and not a single chair or bench where a caller might comfortably cool his heels. Coffey burst into renewed complaints on sight of him. His nose was still slightly swollen, and there was noticeable bruising around one eye.
    “Enough,” said Quin. “Release him.” The servants obeyed.
    Coffey straightened his sleeves, adjusted his lapels. “That French trollop lured me into the hallway, and not the other way around. Whose word are you going to take, hers or mine?”
    Quin placed himself, casually but firmly, in front of the green baize door. “Neither, I think. You’re not barred because of Liliane.”
    Coffey’s pale gaze narrowed. “What, then?”
    Quin leaned against the door jamb. During his frequent forays into the less savory sections of London, he had rubbed shoulders with countless chevaliers d’industrie and Greeks and therefore recognized the breed. “This is an honest house. No false dice, no marked decks. No such tricks as the Dribble or the Long Gallery or the Stamp. No lambs damp behind the ears waiting to be fleeced.”
    “You accuse me of being a Captain Sharp?”
    “I accuse you of nothing. But if you think me a pigeon for your plucking, you have feathers in your head.”
    Coffey looked less cast away than he had mere moments past. “You’ll regret this, Quin.”
    The footman stepped forward. The porter opened the door. With a last furious glower, Coffey stepped out into the night. Rather than returning to the gaming rooms, Quin made his way to the private portion of the house.
    His valet was waiting in the hallway, nodding in a chair set outside the bedroom door. Wibbert was a thin brown-haired man of some sixty years, with a slight paunch and a receding hairline. Quin grasped his shoulder. “Why are you sitting out here in the hall? You should be in bed.”
    Wibbert jerked awake. “Oh, sir. I mean, my lord! I meant to tell you that—”
    “Tell me tomorrow. When did I become so harsh a master that you feel you must sit up half the night?”
    “Oh no, my lord! Not harsh! But—”
    “Wibbert. Are you trying to make me cross?”
    The valet wrung his hands together “No, my lord! Not cross! Very well, I’ll go! But pray remember you said—”
    Impatiently, Quin gestured. With one last anxious glance, Wibbert scurried away. Quin entered his bedroom, shrugging out of his snug-fitting coat.
    The curtains had