Chapter Seventeen-Devil Take the Hindmost

Chapter Seventeen

Devil Take the Hindmost

     Phillip choked down another shot. It was probably number eight or so. He'd be passed out soon and then Melly would come looking for him. He'd wake up in bed, in his pajamas, and Melanie would make the hangover cure her Mammy once taught her to make for her father.

     Phillip repeatedly asked the bartender why any girl like Melanie could love a man like him. Phillip was only 22, but he already felt like an alcoholic. He knew he was upsetting Melanie. He knew he acted like a cad when he got dead drunk. He knew he was a disappointment to his parents, his future wife, his adoptive son.

     What would happen when Melanie got pregnant? Could Phillip change? If he couldn't change for Melly, whom he'd loved for so long since that summer at Ardely, how could he change for the sons and daughters she would give him? No...Phillip couldn't change. What about when took office? What if he didn't let him? His mother had quadruplets, all of them age seven or so now. Could they handle that? Traditionally, it was the second son. Phillip was a disappointment. He knew it. But he couldn't change. 

    Phillip asked for another shot, but the bartender had gone. He swore, then saw the stranger at the end of the bar. Out of the corner of his eye, the strange nodded.

"Vicomte," he smiled crookedly. Phillip's eyebrows furrowed.

"Sir," he replied.

"You don't know me, Comte," the strange stood, and Phillip's eyes went wide and he sputtered out of his seat.

"You!" he cried, pointing at the man with the mask.

"I've not come to kill you. I was thinking we could play a little poker. Make a few bets?"

"What do you want?" Phillip asked, still backing away from the stranger.

"Melanie is to choose tomorrow night."

"What do you mean?"

"Is she yours or mine?"

"Draw the line," Phillip sneered.

"If she sings, you lose. You leave here, disappear."

"And if she won't? If I win?"

"All your debts, wiped away."

"Very well, let's begin. Devil take the hindmost." Phillip laid the cards out on the poker table as his fiance's master poured two drinks.

"A toast," he said,handing one glass to Phillip. He took it and drown it back.

And everything went black

And Phillip woke up in his bed with Melanie sitting beside him with the hangover cure, just the way he thought he would.