Her hand reached beneath the table and emerged dangling her other garter. He unclipped sapphire and gold cuff studs and tossed them onto the felt. Play was ready to resume.
Silently, he shuffled the cards. Silently, he dealt them. Silently, he won when she folded. Silently, he slid the winnings into his growing pile.
Silently, Mariana stewed.
Gathering her composure, she finally spoke. “Tell me what I’m doing wrong.”
“Show me your cards.”
She lay them face up on the felt.
“You were going for a straight.”
“Yes?”
“I know your hand by the way you bet. If you have a pair, you raise with two coins. If you have a better hand, you raise with five coins. You’re too predictable. You cannot be predictable in espionage.”
She wanted to bristle at the wordpredictable, but she didn’t rise to it. “Then how did Villefranche become embroiled in this intrigue? He’s one of the most predictable people I’ve ever encountered.”
“Perhaps that was why he was chosen.”
“Chosen?”
“He reports to someone with more power and connections. On the other hand, he could simply be a bloodthirsty anarchist.”
“That’s one theory. Try another.”
“He’s a scion of the Orléans family. They’re a powerful family, but notinpower. He may wish to correct that imbalance.”
Mariana shook her head. “That doesn’t ring true either. He doesn’t strike me as hungry for power. Tell me,” she continued, “have you visited the museums in Paris?”
Nick’s eyebrows crinkled together in confusion at the sudden conversational switch. Then his eyes narrowed. “Is this about the Woolly Mammoth?”
“They’re woolly and have large tusks. How was that question for the unpredictable?”
Nick dropped his cards face up on the felt. She showed a pair of sevens and felt a sly smile tilt the corners of her mouth. He’d folded with a pair of Jacks. She’d won the hand and caught her first windfall of the night.
Duplicity, guile . . . She was beginning to understand how to win at this game.
Nick glared down at his mistake and conceded with a grudging, “Well done.” He took in hand a newly shuffled deck of cards, ready to deal.
Riding a gratifying wave of triumph, Mariana was just about to slide his cuff studs into the kitty when she hesitated. A nervy feeling began to get the better of her, a feeling that made the room feel bright and shiny and teeming with possibility.
She would stake her locket. She didn’t need to. And she most definitely didn’t want Nick to have it or see what lay inside, but she couldn’t resist wagering her most precious asset. Shewantedto play for high stakes. She hadn’t felt this alive . . . ever. Perhaps the bourbon had been going downtoosmoothly.
“In the last few years, I’ve discovered something about myself.” Blood zinging through her veins, she unclasped her locket and dropped it into the kitty. “I am quite taken with the history of our earth. It seems that The Progressive School for Young Ladies and the Education of Their Minds has worked its magic on my mind, too. Can you imagine?”
“I can imagine,” he replied, meeting her wager with the sapphire and gold buttons that matched his lost cuff studs.
“There’s a word for what I am.Autodidact. It’s my dirty little secret.” She could ignore the fact that his shirt fell the scantest inch open, revealing the fine trail of hair running down the hollow of his ridged stomach to the top of his trousers. “Check.”
Charged up with a feeling of invincibility, she lay her cards face up on the felt—a full house.
“Well done—again,” he bit out.
With a simple nod of acknowledgement, she accepted his paltry congratulation and slid her winnings toward her growing pile of loot. “That isn’t to say I’m suddenly a bluestocking.” She picked up the thread of their conversation as if the hand she’d just won was a triviality, as if she wasn’t exhilarated by it. It was a heady feeling, beating a man like Nick.
She reached for the decanter of bourbon at her elbow—when had that appeared on the table?—and topped her glass before shooting it back like a seasoned riverboat gambler. She might be developing a taste for hedonism.
