Chapter 46
"Oh that is excellent!" Christian exclaimed. "Thank you very much Terry!"
Terry turned to look at Candy. He could see she wasn't happy with how this conversation was going, the double meanings between them agitated her, but for once he didn't care. It could have been the alcohol they had consumed, the way he was feeling relaxed, or the fact he had been reaching the end of acting as a friend to her. He didn't doubt the fact she was with another man, who wasn't a bad bloke and in many ways Christian reminded himself. He also didn't doubt her feelings towards Christian but he couldn't ignore either the mixed signals he was getting from her.
They had kissed twice and in both times, even if it was him who had made the first move, she had responded. She certainly didn't look happy or being fine when he flirted with Marion. The night he walked her home, she had admitted that things were complicated...She was with Christian, she herself had said that. Wasn't it obvious she was with him? Why did she need to affirm such an obvious fact? He had asked her one question at the theatre backstage and he wasn't going to pressure her to answer. He wasn't going to play the nice guy either though, just to suit herself and her peace of mind.
Archie couldn't have said it better and for once, even if Terry cringed inside, he had to admit that the obnoxious Yank was right. There were three weeks remaining till he was going to board on that ocean liner and travel back to the life he had left in New York. Whatever such life could be.
What was going to be? Give up on her?
Or find out where they stood with each other?
Almost straight away he knew the answer...
"Thank you Terry..." He heard her voice, joining Christian's in thanking him about those tickets.
She knew he was playing with the words, each sentence carefully hiding another conversation that was between them and she knew he was aware his ways were agitating her, keeping her at the edge of her seat but it could have been much worse. He handled her visit to the theatre quite well and for that she hated to admit it but she was grateful.
"It's nothing, Rose." He said with a smile. "It was the least I could do, since you did not manage to sit through the play on Monday." He added with his stare fixed on her.
"I'm glad you are all back to normal Christian!" Marion said. "Rose really wasn't herself with you at the hospital."
Christian turned and looked at her. "I know...she worries too much." It could have been the heat inside the pub, or it could be the lies, the secrets she felt they were stealing the air she breathed, the green waters inside her eyes rippled. She felt her breathing short.
"Oh, please you make me feel uncomfortable." She protested. "I really don't want to think about last weekend...or the première..." She added while avoiding looking towards Terry. "Can we move forward now?"
For a little while the four of them talked about trivial things. How it had been so rare to experience such a warm summer so far. And what parties were there to attend. Marion enthusiastically mentioned Audrey's party that was soon coming up. It was to be the pinnacle of the summer social calendar. The girls had received their invitation already.
"Angels and demons is the theme this year." Marion said with a gleam of excitement in her eyes. She turned to Terry. "I hope you won't mind if I ask you to be my plus one for the party..." She said. She hoped this wasn't too forward of her. Compared with the other times they went out, that particular evening, her behaviour was much more demure and reserved. Although sitting next to him and feeling the aura of his presence just a few centimetres away from her was enough to make her heart race inside her ribcage.
He looked at her, feeling reluctant to accept. It was sounding like something he would avoid at all costs if he was back home. Come to think of it, Terry having just entered his late twenties and he behaved like a man much older than his years. He was always like that. Apart from events he had to attend due to his job, he refused invitations from parties and get-together's that were organised just for the fun of it. Only when Susanna was around, perhaps he would give in sometimes, just so she would socialise and network too, regarding how she had changed her career to that of a script writer. By the time of her death, she had written several successful theatre plays, two of those the Stratford theatre troupe had brought to the stage, with Terry at the leading male role. It was the pinnacle of her happiness then. But in terms of parties...Terry avoided them, one could say, like the plague.
"Oh come on!" Christian exclaimed, spurring him on, looking at his hesitation. "Live a little pal!" He added. Terry moved on his chair. His knee grazed Candy's and he felt the jolt of her body. She coughed. He turned and looked at her. How she coiled her body away from him and had pulled her legs closer to her chair. The hell with it. Marion kept chasing him. Christian surely was pushing him towards her and all he wanted...He took his eyes off Candy.
"All right then." He said and his acceptance sent waves of excitement to the young woman who was sitting next to him. She could have jumped and kissed him right there and then, but she refrained and that took all her powers to do so. Given his stern talking and the kiss on her hand a couple of days prior, he was a man that was worth changing her impulsive ways.
"Excellent!" Christian said. "And you'll see how us Londoners party and have a good time, before you go back to your part of the world."
Terry smiled. Archie would have given him a strong pat in the back, and call him "sly old dog" and he'd be right. He cared not for the party, but time was running out on him. Before he'd know it, the three weeks would be over and then...His glass was empty. He stood up.
"Another round of the same?" He asked them and everyone agreed.
The moment Terry distanced himself as he approached the bar, Christian took his tobacco out. "So you bagged Graham for the party..." He said to Marion and chuckled. "I wonder, will he be your demon or your angel?" He teased her. They both burst into laughing. Candy motioned to Christian, to make some space for her to get up. He looked at her.
"I want to stretch my legs a little." She explained. "I may as well go and help Terry with those drinks." She added, and gave a quick kiss and a smile to Christian before she left. She really wasn't in the mood to hear him and her best friend gossip about Terry and what her plans of seduction were. In fact she looked forward for Terry to leave back to New York and that was a feeling she never expected to feel in her life ever. His presence was messing up with her head and her heart at the same time. Her days were fast becoming a blur of conflicting emotions, desire and resentment, love and hate, longing and denial. She was drained, she felt so. Right now she wasn't particularly keen to go to that damn party. But she had to keep the façade - everything was fine and jolly - even if nothing was as such inside her. She approached Terry and he turned to look at her.
"I thought to come and help..." She lied. He didn't say anything back. "Thank you for before..."
He gave the order of the drinks to the barman. He turned to her. "I'll leave them at the theatre reception - you can pick them up from there." He said to her. He sounded very business like.
Why was she feeling disappointed? Anger burned like an instant fire inside her. "Well thanks anyway, I will." She responded in the same manner.
Silence stood between them.
"Marion is very excited for the party." She muttered.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
She wished to disappear the moment the words came out her mouth. He didn't respond for a moment. It was almost as if he didn't breath.
Could this woman be more infuriating?
"You really have no idea what you are doing to me..." He whispered and his eyes were full of fire.
"I had asked you to stay..." She heard him stay as the drinks were placed in front of him.
Christian licked the paper and glanced at his girlfriend standing next to Terry waiting for the drinks. They looked tense and he wondered why. "Difficult catch then?" He asked and turned to Marion who had lit a cigarette already.
She huffed but looked determined. "He's very much a secret - I adore secrets." She said. Then her shoulders slumped. "Though time is running out and Rose's cousin left damn it."
He lit his cigarette while shooting glances to them as they seemed to be talking. Terry's look was rather serious. "Oh? What does that snob has to do with your actor?" He asked and turned fully towards her.
She tutted. "You have missed the gossip with your predicament, Christian." She said. "Archie was classmates with Terry at Saint Paul's!"
He stood very surprised to hear that.
Wasn't Rose at Saint Paul's with her cousins?
He remembered her words when she had revealed him her past in London and the cause of her reluctance to let her heart feel, to love and be loved. The guy had left her. Broke her heart. Moved to the States. Became an actor. Clouds were hovering inside his eyes. The crease between his brows was growing deeper.
"I was actually quite surprised that Rose didn't know Terry from before..." Marion added. "Given that them two look good friends, he would have been a good matchmaking for Archie to do with his cousin when she was in the States...although Terry is a widower."
"He is?" Christian said. Marion never kept her tongue behind her teeth. When she started the gossip, she could go on for as long one needed to hear all the life story of a person.
"Yes...He was engaged though, not married, to this woman - Susanna Marlowe - for a long time, a decade more like, but she passed away almost two years now..."
The more Marion said and revealed, the more Christian was disappearing into thoughts. Like quick sand they were. The more he tried to resist them, the more they were sucking him into their vortex. Memories linked to each other, formed a chain, each fitting to the other. How he hadn't connected the dots before, he didn't know. He had been deep inside his own problems, he completely had missed what stared him straight on his face. Terry had been the one...
He glanced back to him and Rose. Their drinks were on the bar. There was distance between them. He caught Terry's look when he turned to see Rose. Whatever Rose had said, the man looked ready to slap her across the face. Then he turned back to the bartender.
"I know...I'm really sorry Terry..." She apologised and that included everything. She was also very sincere. She had no intention to bring Marion in the conversation. She never managed to say the right thing in front of him. "I don't know what is wrong with me."
"Until you find out, can you stop behaving like a matchmaker?" He snapped at her and picked up the two pints from the bar top. She picked up the two gin cocktails.
They walked towards the table. Unbeknown to the both of them, the tide had turned.
Another hour passed before the girls got up to head for the Kit-Kat club where Audrey and the rest of their friends would be for a night of dancing. Christian has lost his previous cheerfulness. What he had come to realise about Terry and who must had been in Rose's life bothered him more than his problems with MacDonald, which someone would call absurd. He however knew how to face and deal with MacDonald, however scary the prospect was. How to deal with Terry and Rose, he had no clue. Should he let this growing feeling of anger control him? Should he just trust Rose? He was unsure what Terry wanted in London after all those years. Perhaps t was truly a coincidence. A coincidence crafted by the devil himself.
He was holding a card no one knew he had. In his mind, he flipped it between his fingers while the thoughts raced. Trying to find an excuse to put everything under another perspective. If it was true that Terry was Rose's old boyfriend, did it mean that he came back to claim her? After all those years?!
"Christian?"
"Christian?"
"My love?" He heard Rose's voice as if it reached him through a tunnel. His mind returned to the table. He looked at the two women who were ready to get up and go.
"My God Christian, you look like someone has rained on your parade." Marion noticed. Rose had noticed the change too.
"Are you ok my love?" She asked him, sounding worried. She had told him to take it easy, but it was useless to actually give an advice to someone who was used to be on the go, almost non-stop. Having kept him for those few days in her house, was more than enough for him. It was the maximum he could have endured without doing something, anything.
"I'm fine Rose, there is no need to worry." He said with a controlled reassurance in his voice. "You two go, have fun."
"Me and Terry will go on to Buck's club to meet with the rest of the guys." He said. He gazed to Terry. He hadn't been much fun and games since he had returned from the bar with Rose. Had it been something said between them that had spoiled the mood? It burned Christian to know. Rose kissed Christian on the lips, a kiss goodbye for now. The men stood up. Terry kissed Marion on the cheek.
"Be careful with this guy here." She said to Terry and motioned to Christian. "He had a mean poker hand as I've heard..." She teased Christian.
"That is good to know..." Terry said back and smiled.
Both Marion and Rose left and for a moment the men looked at them walking towards the door, till they left the pub, and them all alone there. It had been all civil and even if tense at time, it had its fun and laughs.
Terry took his cigarette case out, opened to pick a cigarette. All that while Christian looked at him. He must have been nuts to have such a strong desire for her, Christian thought, after all that time in order to make such a trip from New York to London without knowing what she was doing. Was he that naive he thought that Rose would still be waiting for him? Perhaps she know he was coming? But her attitude towards him hadn't changed. Not really...Her only change was that she was a bit more on edge the past few weeks. Was Terry the one that made her nervous?
Damn you Terry!
To think that he liked him... He continued his internal rumbling. He too, had started to roll a cigarette of his own. Christian was known to be short tempered when he was faced with injustice or foul play but what he suspected with almost certainty, he had prove it. He had confronted Terry between a joke and a fact about him fancying Rose.
And what if I am...
Christian recalled his answer...Was he really confessing to Christian without him knowing? He would have to be patient and observe.
"Had enough of drinking?" Terry said as he glanced at Christian's pint which stood almost full still on the table.
"What?!", Christian said, taken aback from his question, a hint of suspicion in his eyes. Was he so damn easy to read?
"Pint is full...", he explained with a smile.
"Oh...", Christian exclaimed and picked up the glass just as Terry did the same. He had managed to become a bundle of nerves which didn't help the situation. Still there was nothing he could do about it but to try and restrain himself. Terry raised his glass.
"To blokes night out", Terry commented with a chuckle.
"To blokes night out", Christian added with half mustered enthusiasm.
Christian's gaze fell back to a group of young woman, giggling while throwing love struck glances to Terry. Smiling eyes, red cheeks, excited gestures, their image transported him back to the moment he first saw Rose entering that pub, dressed in a man's tuxedo, asking for a painter, of all things. His lips curled up to a faint smile.
"Funny thing memories...", he said with a soft voice.
Terry put his glass down.
"What about them?", he asked him.
"How some of them remain cherished...and others just wither...", Christian replied with his eyes still on the girls, replaying in his mind past images of him and Rose like short reels taken from a film.
Terry's face turned to thoughtful. He knew those memories that Christian talked about, very well. He had lived with them for years in fact. Christian recommenced rolling that half-made cigarette he had left lying on the table. He licked the paper before placing it between his lips to light it.
"Some stay in our minds for longer...sometimes even forever...", Terry commented. His voice trailed off to those memories of his, he used to carry in his mind, picking one at a time, living through it, same way he would pick up a favourite book of his from a bookshelf full to the bream with written stories.
"Like our college years for example...", Christian added and took a gulp of ale.
"Rightly said", Terry said back.
"Did you know that you and Rose went to the same college?", Christian said all of a sudden as he turned to look at Terry smoking his cigarette with a blue gaze that was travelling to his past. As much as he wanted to think of his suspicions in a calm and rational way, his heart was pushing him to dig, to learn, to find out...he was certain of who Terry was - well almost certain. All he wanted was the confirmation. Everything fitted.
Even Terry's original and strange insistence to buy his Scarlet Rose...everything had their price...even her. At the time Christian thought of him as an eccentric fella. But now he realised, his were angry words... He was angry to realise that Rose hadn't waited for him to return back to her life...Christian thought and felt the thought burning a hole in his mind.
Terry pulled his eyebrows up. His breath stood still. He hadn't expected that question from Christian. Surprised as he was, he had always been very cautious of the amount of information he revealed of his past, especially to Candy's lover.
How the hell did Christian know?
To ask where he got his information, it would be a confirmation from him that he knew. A nagging feeling of worry started pinching him inside. Before he opened his mouth to answer Christian's question, he wondered of what Candy had already told him. It was something they had never discussed before. Among so many things he -
Damn it!
So many things they hadn't said, that needed to be said. He gritted his teeth. His jaw tensed.
The two of them sharing beers before going to a poker game, was making it obvious that Christian must had known only very little, at least not Terry's identity. He wouldn't be as friendly and open towards him if he knew who he truly was. The poker game between them had started way before they were to touch any cards.
Bottom line was that he found the question strange but in an irrational way...everything that connected him with Candy stirred his heart in an uncomfortable way when he heard of those connections mentioned by other people. In Terry's mind, his story with Candy was something extremely private, his own little treasure he meant to only share with her and no one else.
"She was?! I didn't know!", he lied, faking his surprise the way an actor would do, making it ring completely true. "I hadn't noticed to be honest, she is younger than me so she would have her own friends." he added with conviction before stumping his cigarette out and taking a gulp of ale.
"She would...", Christian said back. "Though you were classmates with her dear cousin..."
Terry's heart beat strong in his chest. Damn Archie! Had he blabbed? He would have punched him in the face if he had him in front of him. The guy helped with one hand and messed up with the other. He locked his stare on Christian's face. Was he fishing? Did he suspect something?
"Yes, that's true...though I wasn't particularly a social person back then Christian." Terry replied, thinking that honesty was the best answer here. "You could say I was pretty much a loner on my St. Paul's days." He added.
It wouldn't be easy to trick Terry to reveal of things he didn't want revealed, Christian thought. They had the whole night though. He wasn't going to let him off the hook. Given how this man had come into their lives out of the blue, with motives that he kept to himself but at the same time having Rose in their centre - something that Christian was ready to bet his life on for he was getting very quickly dead certain about it - made him feel vindictive.
If Terry was playing with both of them for those days he was in London, so too Christian could play this game. He took his chain watch out. Time was still early for them to go to Buck's club but he wasn't in the mood for any more chitchat with Terry. They could go on and wait for the rest of the guys there. Have a cigar and a whiskey.
"So Rose has also told you of her time at St. Paul's?", Terry couldn't help it but ask Christian.
And why wouldn't she? Terry thought inside.
She and Christian were a couple after all. Their physical intimacy drove Terry mad with jealousy, but it was the realisation of a deeper intimacy where they shared details of what their lives were before they met each other, bringing them closer, that pained Terry on another level. It was a quiet pain, a bitter taste in his mouth, a shadow in his eyes when he watched them share tender words between them. And that was without taking into consideration, the uneasiness he now felt by Christian's question, having made him realise he indeed knew parts from Candy's memories.
"She has, yes..." Christian replied. He looked straight into Terry's eyes, hoping for a glimmer of familiarity to flash into them. A sign to tell him that Terry knew of those experiences. "A lot of those experiences were the same to mine, despite studying in different places. But some of them were a lot more interesting since St. Paul's was a mixed gender college." , he added with a need to prod further.
Nervousness was turning to dread inside Terry. He chose to chuckle and have a gulp from his drink instead of saying something back.
"The old flames we mentioned before...", Christian added to his previous sayings before tasting the bitter ale from his pint.
"Seems like everyone had such memories from college...", Terry replied, trying to find a way to get out of this conversation, his palms had turned moist with sweat.
"Rose had only one, but that's another long story..." Christian said back, and took his watch out once more.
Terry could hardly breathe at the sound of his last words but decided to remain silent. Saying nothing it would much better than saying anything that would cause even the smallest of suspicions. Christian got up. It was time for them to go. It was useless for him to tip toe around Terry with meaningful statements, waiting for a slip of tongue from him. Alas, the alcohol at least was not enough to loosen up minds and ease up hearts to the point things would come out without realising it. Far from it though, the game was still on. He was certain of that.
"We must go", he turned and said to Terry.
Christian's mood had changed, Terry could feel it. Despite of them talking through their third pint of ale that stood on the table half full, the air between them had turned cold, there was a distance now that wasn't there at the beginning. Terry realised it must had been something said while he wasn't at the table. Marion said something perhaps? He couldn't explain of where it had come from. Why Christian chose out of all the time he had, to tell him there and then about him being classmates with Archie in St. Paul's. Throwing all those innuendos about Candy's old flame...
Christian's last statement was more than strange...Terry wondered whether there was something more that Christian knew...was that what this blokes night out was about? Christian trying to get him to talk? Picking up from where he had left that sudden "I know you fancy Rose" fact he had said out of the blue at his dressing room? He felt he was on his toes. He had to be if his thoughts were right.
"Are you alright Chris?", Terry asked him one last time as he was gulping down the remains of the ale inside the pint glass.
Christian put the empty glass down, his eyes were sparkling when he turned to look at Terry. "Yes, why wouldn't I be?", he asked, sounding almost suspicious of Terry's question.
"Oh...it's just because you seem not all here..." Terry replied, his stare turning quizzical.
"Don't mind me Terry...I get funny before I hit the poker table...that's all" He threw back an excuse. "Are we ready to go?", he continued.
Terry raised the glass to his lips and gulped down what was left from his ale. He banged the pint down at the table. "All set, let's go...You Brits take your card playing way too seriously." He said to Christian and threw a last wicked glance to the girls that giggled once more when the two of them passed in front of their table on their way out.
They approached the club, Terry in his car and Christian on his bike. On the outside, the building didn't really say much. It was rather unassuming and grim looking. The Buck's gentleman club had been one of the most recently established gentleman's clubs in London. Its founder, Captain H. J. Buckmaster had started it only a couple of years after the Great War ended, in 1921 in fact, based on a need for a club that was less stuffy than those that currently existed. Indeed it was famous for its American Cocktail Bar, something that was unheard of and too modern for the most traditional gentlemen's clubs.
They parked and both men stepped out on the pavement. "This is it." Christian said and went towards the door with Terry following behind. Although initially the club was sourcing its members from the British army regiments, progressively, its membership widened to include men from many walks of life and it created a name for itself for being a club for young guys more than anything else. They came in and were greeted by a valet who led them up a staircase to the first floor where the main bar was. The space as expected has a masculine ambience with its wood panelled walls and the big fireplace that stood cold at the time. The atmosphere was rather lively. Up on the one corner of this big rectangular room there was a quarter of musicians, one on guitar, another behind an upright piano, a saxophonist and a drummer. The air was filled with the latest jazz sounds, a cloud of smoke lingered over groups of men sitting on various tables, having animated conversations, fuelled by the famous cocktails made by the barman behind the American bar which stood prominent on the other end of the room. Everyone looked relaxed, having a good time.
They opened another door and came into a second room, where there were three card game tables. They were all full. Christian approached the one table that was further inside the room, tucked at the corner. His friends were already there, getting the cards warm, having dealt a hand already, playing just for the fun of it. They all turned to greet them. Christian did the introductions and two more chairs were pulled to the table for the men to sit down. A waiter came close and Terry ordered a couple of whiskeys as the cigarettes came out. One of Christian's friends pulled the cards to himself and mixed them up. Terry did the first cut, and the man started dealing a hand to everyone on the table.
"How's your poker game Terry? Any good?" Christian asked him from across the table while looking at his cards before lifting his eyes to stare at Terry who had already lit a cigarette, his eyes firmly on the cards he held on his hands.
"Not good and yet...not too shabby either Christian." He said back as if he spoke in riddles.
"You speak the poker language already I see, so you'll fit right in our game, Terry." One of the guys said while still laughing from Terry's answer.
.
.
One hour passed, the ties were loose, the sleeves rolled up, and the glasses in various stages of running out of alcohol. A haze of smoke was hovering above the table. The guys were well into the game.
Nicholas threw his cards on the table, before pushing his fiery red hair back leaving a sigh of frustration. "Terry wins...again!", he exclaimed the same moment Terry was gathering a heap of chips from the middle of the table with a smirk and a half smoked cigarette hanging loose from his lips. His eyes were gleaming.
Christian and the rest of the guys had given up on this round from early on. Terry's winning streak had created a buzz amongst the guys. The new guy had showed them how poker was really played though Christian insisted it was first luck.
It was Nicholas' turn to deal. He scooped the cards from the table and started shuffling them into a neat pack. Christian was playing with his chips, covering them with his hand, having them stacked - picking them one by one with his thumb and his middle finger and letting them drop back on the stack.
"You got luck by your side tonight Terry..."
"You think so Christian?" Terry asked with a smile, picking the cigarette from his lips, blowing the smoke out.
"It sure looks that way." Christian commended, sounding almost annoyed.
The guys were getting their first hand of cards by Nicholas who was smiling. Christian was up in his old tricks and he sounded in shape too - picking on the new guy, trying to rattle him.
It would be interesting to watch, he thought to himself. Edward was patting his forehead, worrying about just the same thing, while Stewart was checking up his first card by bending its corner for just a flash in front of him, sucking his pipe, blowing smoke out, his look not altogether there. Whiskey had been blurring his eyesight.
"It depends in what situation you're referring too..." He replied while he knitted his brows.
Christian was surely behaving funny since their time at the pub. Inside besides the initial worry he had felt, he was dying to know the exact reason of why his mood had changed. He was sure that it wasn't anything as dumb as Christian had suggested that it was, his excited feeling for playing poker.
"Oh God!" Edward exclaimed, expecting once again Christian to start winding people up.
Terry turned and stared at him. Nicholas dealt the second hand of cards. A faint smile in Paul's lips appeared when he pulled his cards up and brought them close to his chest making sure they were out of view from the rest of the group. Stewart flicked the lighter to light his pipe.
"Luck is a coin with heads on both sides and I get to choose tails...", he said filling the silence that was between the two men.
He put one friendly hand on Terry's back and smiled, showcasing two rows of smoke stained teeth that held his pipe in place.
"Don't let him get to you Terry. Christian has it a habit to play word games to make you lose your concentration!", he said and laughed.
"Old trick my friend", Terry replied, flicked the cigarette on the ashtray and kept busy separating his chips into columns. "I played it a few times myself in the past around a poker table."
"It's like two peas from the same pod...", Christian said.
"What do you mean?", Paul asked him and picked his third card off the table.
"I meant Terry and I... Similar stories from our youth, similar college life, similar build, both artists...a lot a similarities Paul...that's what I mean..."
Terry didn't say anything. His ears were sucking in Christian's words, waiting with a beating heart of what his point was with these comments of his, but he waited with his eyes and attention turned to his chips. He took a last drag from his cigarette and tossed it to the ashtray before taking a gulp from his whiskey.
"If I was like my dear friend Edward here...",
"Hey why me?", Edward stopped him in protest.
"Shoosh! You're the emotional one...", Christian turned and put a finger in front of his lips winking at his friend.
"I would be worried that you do have your sights set on my girlfriend too", he turned and continued his thought out aloud staring at Terry, his eyes challenging him.
Terry lifted his eyes from his chips, pulling his eyebrow up in question to Christian's comment. He remembered the similar comment he did in the dressing room. This time a little more assertive. His heart was about to burst in his chest. He was suspicious! Not only about him fancying Rose but actually having his sights on her. Christian's behaviour seemed to him all the more weird, he felt getting more annoyed with him with every minute passing.
Damn shit, I will be leaving in less than a month, give it a break.
He thought to himself before opening his mouth to respond to Christian's taunts. "But you're not Edward...", Terry replied in a serious voice.
"Yes...", Christian replied and waited.
Bastard, you will pay if this is your plan.
For the guy, to come all of a sudden, after all that time to try to patch things up with Rose regardless or not she had moved on, any present relationships notwithstanding.
"You're you." Terry added and half smiled, though his eyes remained serious, locked against Christian's. "You're not worried about Rose and me, are you...?" He asked him.
The guys had all their cards in front of them while five cards remained face down on the table. Nicholas turned the first card. The sound of the chips falling at the centre marked the start of their betting round.
"Me?! Of course not!" Christian replied and a forced laugh rose up from his throat. "I'm just good at bluffing...that's all." he said.
"I can see that..." Terry replied.
"We all can!" Stewart replied in defence of Terry - Poor chap had been squeezed in the corner by Christian.
"Talking about sweethearts...how is darling Rose doing, Christian?" Nicholas asked him after he placed his bet on the table.
"Says her number one fan." Christian replied and gave him a half miffed look. By association, Christian was now feeling annoyed with everyone whose Rose had charmed their pants off and Nicholas was one of the most obvious ones, come to think their first encounter together at the National Gallery, the night they had sneaked in. They had their first kiss that night, Christian reminisced.
"And here I was, thinking you forgot about that!" Nicholas said to him, his eyes sparkling with mischievousness being accustomed by now to Christian's teasing.
"Come, come now! A gentleman's kiss on the back of the hand of a beautiful lady, that lasts more than five seconds risks to be labelled as unacceptable", Christian replied with a smile.
"So now you tell me that you count the seconds, every time a man kisses Rose's hand?!", Nicholas exclaimed and burst into laughing along with the rest of the guys except Terry.
Seemingly looking at his cards, he was focused more to the conversation that had Candy to its centre.
"Ahh...attention to detail mate, attention to detail." He said and looked at Terry, "Like so..." He added, by throwing a couple of chips on the table doubling the bet on the table.
Nicholas couldn't resist. He tore a blank page from the writing pad they used for their game, scrunched it to a ball and threw it to Christian who was still laughing.
"You're terrible tonight old chap!" he said to him.
"On fire!" Edward added, chuckling that no one - especially Terry - was offended by Christian's behaviour.
The whole table started laughing once more.
"She is just fine Nicholas and sends her regards", Christian responded once the laughter had died down. "Terry here was a St. Paul's inmate, Stewart..." He turned to his friend, who sucked on his pipe, while looking at the cards he was dealt and was weighing in his mind the size of the bet he'd throw on the table.
Stewart put his cards down and turned to Terry. "Holy smokes! I was in St. Paul's too!" His voice went up two notches in volume due to his surprise.
Terry didn't seem to share Stewart's excitement. In fact he didn't even raise his head from peeking at his cards on the table, playing the chips between the fingers of his left hand. "It is a big college." He said as a matter-of-fact. Inside a faint sense of uneasiness started to spread. He had thanked his fortune up till that time, that no one had questioned him about his past. His father being a very well-known man within the London aristocracy, he actually thought that up till that moment, it has been rather strange that no one recognised him.
Stewart let the smoke out, and focused on Terry next to him. He leaned forward to get a better look of his face. He narrowed his eyes.
"Oh, let the man alone, Stewart, for God's sake!" Paul said. Always, there were all sorts of mind games happening when the group played poker. Each trying to break the concentration of the other.
"Not to worry Paul." Terry said in a low voice, while thinking which chips to throw to the heap already forming on the centre of the table. He picked up a couple and tossed them before turning to Stewart. "I'm used by now of nosy parkers putting their faces in front of mine." He said, trying to keep the sarcasm low but still it was evident, he hadn't liked Stewart's prodding. "Do I remind you of someone Stewart?"
"In fact you do...Did you know of that guy, the Grandchester fella...?" Stewart tried hard to recall things from that time, his mind having been soaked in booze.