Isabel detected an impatience to the man that she didn’t understand. He didn’t seem especially interested in the card game. He’d certainly displayed no interest in her physical person. What precisely was it that he wanted to get on with?
Still, get on with it, she would. Except when she looked down at the cards in her hands, she didn’t know what to do with them.
“You’ve never played French vingt-et-un, have you?”
“Um, no.”
He held out a hand. “I shall deal.”
“Whatever you wish,” she said as a variation ofyour pleasure is mine.
But it was true. Whatever he wished would happen in this room tonight. After all, wasn’t its outcome certain? Did it matter if she won or lost? By losing, she would win. Then she would walk away from this night and never look back.
Long, masculine fingers strummed crimson baize in a lazy rhythm. “Shall we set the value of the counters at five?”
“Shillings?” What an awful lot of money to gamble on a hand of cards.
He shook his head, an amused light flickering in his dark eyes.
“Pounds?” she asked, aghast.
His fingers missed a beat. “Fivehundred.”
She went speechless.
“Pounds,” he confirmed.
Then she remembered: this game wasn’t real—not truly—and the value assigned to the counters didn’t matter. This was all a silly prelude to what would happen at his—forhis—pleasure.
“You know the rules of the game better than I,” she said. “How can I trust you?”
The sudden coldness of his eyes shot ice through her veins. “I have any number of vices,” he said, low, menacing, “but cheating at cards isn’t one of them.”
She didn’t know this man’s name or his favorite food, but, so help her, she believed him.
He claimed the deck and began expertly fuzzing. “The first round of the eight is the ordinary game.”
Isabel staked one counter and experienced a startling exhilaration. Fivehundredpounds. She wanted to give in to the urge to play towin, a feeling she’d never had much success in resisting. Competition had ever made her nervy.
But she wouldn’t. She was here to lose. More than a card game, at that.
He dealt the first cards and asked if she would increase her bet. She shook her head. He dealt them each another card. He revealed a seven and a knave; she a two and nine.
He met her eye and held it. “Why didn’t you take another card?” Before she could answer, he continued, “Are you even trying to win?”
Isabel’s heart stuttered in her chest. “I, um, yes,” she said, thatyesemerging more question than declarative statement.
His eyebrows drew together, and he snorted. “In all honesty, I thought you would be more”—he paused for a well-timed beat—“formidable.”
Isabel’s gaze fell toward the table. Wounded pride, shame, annoyance, even anger, were all emotions that rose and swirled inside her. It was the content of his words, yes, but more it was the way he spoke them, like an indulged lord viewing her, speaking to her, as if her only reason for existing on this earth was to provide him entertainment and pleasure, and she wasn’t holding up her end.
Of a sudden, she wanted nothing more than to beat this man. The outcome of this night, of this war, was already determined. Even though once he’d had his fill, she would be little more than a nothing to be used and discarded, that didn’t mean she couldn’t win a few battles along the way.
“Deal,” she replied, the single word imbued with tempered steel.
It must have shown in her eyes, too, for the side of his mouth curled up into the semblance of a smile that made her heart skip two beats. It wasn’t a smile meant to convey joy or reassurance. It was the smile a wolf gave his prey the moment before he devoured it. This man was the physical manifestation of the word trouble.
He dealt two cards face up. “Imaginary tens. My two and your nine are tens in this round. Then we play ordinary. Understand?”
