Nick’s hand shot out and trapped Mariana’s fingers on the table. Her eyes widened and flew up to meet his as a spark of electrical current raced up his arm. She must have felt it, too. “This is your game, Mariana. You make the rules.”
“How will I learn to play the game if I’m a delicate flower for whom allowances must be made? I thought you live in a harsher world than that.”
“I do.”
Sudden awareness caught Nick by surprise, the bare flesh of their hands pressed skin to skin. He pulled his hand back as if scalded. She rose to her feet and wiggled out of her dress, allowing it to fall to the floor in a heap of coarse wool. Yvette and Lisette first gasped, then collectively cooed at the sight of her.
The dress was dull as used bathwater, butdullwasn’t the correct word for the garments that lay beneath. He wasn’t certain the fuchsia of the corset and garters existed in nature, but the color came alive against Mariana’s honey-toned skin, even as the corset embraced her lush body, pushing ripe breasts up and forward, curving in at her waist and subtly flaring out at her hips. She was a hothouse flower in bloom. She was incomparable.
His mouth again went dry. He must busy himself if he was to keep his head, the one atop his shoulders, in the game. Slowly, as not to startle this exquisite confection before him, he shrugged off his jacket and added it to the pot. His contribution felt meager compared to Mariana’s.
She settled into her chair with an insouciance as if nothing of consequence had occurred. Very French was that insouciance. Very unlike the Mariana he knew. The croupier dealt the next hand.
As they changed cards, it was undeniable that the tone of the room had altered. How could it not? Mariana had thrown down the gauntlet.
No longer did Yvette and Lisette whisper and giggle. Instead, they became more . . .tactile. . . with one another. Yvette feathered light fingertips across Lisette’s collarbone before reaching up to remove an earring. She repeated the motion on the other side and tossed the pair into the pot. Lisette responded in kind.
And Mariana? Captivation writ plainly across her face, she watched Yvette and Lisette play out an erotic scene for which patrons paid outlandish sums of money to witness and even join. For the uninitiated, it could be overwhelming. Yet Mariana’s cool response was to reach up, remove the silver brooch holding her simple chignon in place, and drop it into the pot.
The action itself was simple; the effect was anything but. Her hair tumbled about her shoulders, stray tendrils finding their way to the cleft between her breasts, transforming her into the most alluring woman in Paris. Nick added his waistcoat and averted his gaze. Play was ready to resume.
The round that had begun so dramatically concluded with a whimper when he showed his hand. Mariana sighed and folded. As he gathered his winnings, he watched her attention again stray toward Yvette and Lisette, who were now caressing one another’s faces. Then, one whispered into the other’s ear, and they both angled their bodies toward Mariana. Likely she’d never seen such a display between two women. Or even considered its possibility.
Lisette reached out a hand and tenderly cupped one side of Mariana’s face, while Yvette cupped the other. Mariana sat stone still as if bewitched by a spell. Experienced fingertips began tracing a path down her cheeks and neck, inch by inch, trailing lower before hesitating at the space just above her breasts. Suddenly, the equilibrium of the room felt balanced on the tip of a needle with no margin for a wrong movement. One either toppled over, or one was pricked.
It occurred to Nick that blood might be drawn tonight.
Emboldened by Mariana’s lack of response, Yvette and Lisette sidled closer. The three women looked like they were forming a sacred pact, its secrets known only to them. And all Nick could do was watch, helpless on his side of the table. He glanced at the croupier whose attention remained fixed on the whispery fuzz of his cards.
Fingertips resumed their progress ever lower toward the curve of Mariana’s scantily clad breasts. He could see the outline of her nipples puckered beneath her white chemise.
Before Nick had a chance to consider what this night might reveal, Mariana’s hands reached up and grabbed each trollop by a wrist, eliciting annoyed whines from each. The pact was broken.
A relieved Nick shot to his feet. At last, he could be of some use. “That will be all,” he told the visibly bewildered Yvette and Lisette in their native language. Petulantly, they grabbed their discarded apparel and stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind them.
He made eye contact with the croupier. “You must go, too. And leave the cards.” The man nodded and was through the door in a thrice of heartbeats.
Nick turned the lock behind him and faced a Mariana altered from the one who had entered this room an hour ago. This woman could be the most sought after and expensive courtesan in Paris.
“There is nothing those women won’t do, is there?” came her first words in what felt like hours, but must have been no more than five minutes. Anything could happen in five minutes.
“No.”
“Must that be me as Iworkfor you?”
Her voice emerged quiet and soft, and he detected an uncharacteristic strand of uncertainty running through it. “You will never be forced to do anything you don’t want to do,” he responded with a fervid earnestness he hadn’t expressed in years, if ever. He sat in the croupier’s vacated chair across from her and pushed a stack of coins across the table. “Ready?”
She pushed the coins back toward him. “Let’s keep the stakes high, shall we?”
Chapter 9
Sharp: Subtle, acute, quick-witted; also a sharper or cheat, in opposition to a flat, dupe, or gull. Sharp’s the word and quick’s the motion with him; said of anyone very attentive to his own interest, and apt to take all advantages.
A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
Francis Grose
Even with all the twists and turns the night had delivered, Mariana gleaned from Nick’s startled expression that he wasn’t prepared for this one. He’d expected her, like any sheltered lady of her class, to accuse him of subjecting her to a night filled with vice and perversity. Instead, she’d chosen to keep playing, to further the game, to push it to its edge. She would learn tonight’s lesson before their game was done.
