Hester Waring's Marriage by Paula Marshall

immediately.
    â€˜Excellent. I am glad to hear it. I shall be exceeding happy to report to the Board that I find your performance most satisfactory, Miss Waring.’
    â€˜Thank you, Mr Dilhorne. I should not like to think of you being haunted, either by overset children—or anything else.’
    Bravo, Miss Waring, was his internal response. His provocation had brought colour to her cheeks, a sparkle to her eye and her whole body vibrated with a combination of amusement and indignation. Judging by her expression, her opinion of Mr Tom Dilhorne would have been interesting if made aloud.
    He bowed to her, she bowed back and ordered the little boys to bow to him, and the little girls to curtsy.
    â€˜Splendid, very well done,’ was his comment to this. ‘You are obviously teaching them their manners as well as Mother Goose. I regret that I must leave you after so short a time, Miss Waring, but I have, alas, a meeting to attend. I remain your most humble and obedient servant,’ and he bowed elaborately on the last word.
    You were never my servant and you may go to the devil for all I care, thought Hester, flashing him her most demure smile while she bowed to him. But he had seen the look in her eye and he knew what it meant: Miss Hester Waring was inwardly roasting Mr Tom Dilhorne again!
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    â€˜What are you doing here, Tom Dilhorne?’ asked Madame Phoebe, née Fanny Dawkins, who ran a most respectable gaming hell and brothel in one of Sydney’s newest streets, most such houses being found in less reputable quarters like The Rocks. Only the rich, the outwardly respectable and the officers from the garrison patronised Phoebe’s, particularly since you could get a good meal there, although how she managed that, Sydney always being short of good food, was a mystery known only to herself and Tom Dilhorne. Better than that, she ran an honest house and provided clean girls, so authority winked at her presence in a respectable suburb.
    Tom, who had changed into his working clothes after leaving Hester, said nothing. He had been helping to unload cargo on the docks since he never refused even manual labour when the need arose, one of the reasons why those who worked for him were loyal. He rarely explained himself, and did not care to tell Phoebe that he was at a loose end since he and Mary had parted company.
    In his earlier, wilder days he had been a constant customer at Phoebe’s, in her first house on the edge of The Rocks, not for the girls, but to use it as a meeting place for business and to play at cards—but never at dice.
    Boredom had brought him back after a long absence. He knew that the officers of the garrison and the richer Exclusives and Emancipists would be there and it would be an opportunity to discover whether his old skills had grown rusty. The mixture of intuition and sheer cold calculation which made him such a formidable businessman was equally as formidable when applied to cards—which was why he never became involved with dice. Games of pure chance held little appeal: there was nothing for him to control.
    In the past his presence at the table had deterred some, but was a challenge to others. To say that you had beatenTom Dilhorne was almost an accolade and one that was but rarely earned.
    â€˜It’s his memory, isn’t it?’ said green young Ensign Osborne to Captain Pat Ramsey, as they watched Tom who, before playing, was drinking with Madame Phoebe. She was known to have a soft spot for him. There were those who would not have believed the truth that they had never been lovers.
    â€˜I never get into bed with anyone I’m going to do business with,’ Tom had once said, years earlier, to an impertinent question about his relationship with her.
    â€˜Parker says that he seems to remember every card he plays—and yours as well. I’ve always wanted to see him in action, but he’s not been here for some time. What brings him here