‘We are not colluding,’ the woman replied with a smile and tossed a handful of chips in his direction as well. ‘I am beating him. I shall win those back from him and you as well, just as I did the last time.’
‘The hell you will.’ Fred stared at his brother’s companion and thought longingly of that time, just a few days ago, when her voice had not been as familiar to him as his own.
Georgiana looked up at him, tipping her chin up defiantly, and half closing the blue eyes in her disguised face. ‘I fail to see why not. The gentlemen at this table tonight lack both luck and skill.’
‘Put down the cards and leave immediately, or by God…’ Words failed him. He turned to his brother. ‘And you!’
Christian shrugged. ‘There is no harm in letting her play another hand. She has not lost once since arriving at the table. She has the devil’s own luck.’ And now, he was looking at her with the same awed smile that Fred had seen on his friends when they’d spoken of her.
‘She has something of the devil, at least,’ Fred agreed.
‘And her husband is a very lucky man,’ Christian said, with admiration.
Was it some sort of divine punishment that his brother was looking at his wife in a way that was practically lustful? When it had happened to Fred, it had been an accident. But Christianknew.
And so did Georgiana. She was the one at fault, here. Now she was smiling at him as if it pleased her to see him angry. ‘Are you trying to decide how many of your rules have been broken?’ She reached into her reticule and removed a small notebook and pencil. ‘I think the answer is likely all of them. But it might help if you keep score on paper.’
‘Perhaps you should be the one keeping a tally. I know for a fact your husband forbade you from setting foot in this place.’
She shrugged. ‘I do not like it when he comes here, either. But what can be done about that?’
‘This is not the place to discuss it,’ he whispered. A few more words and everyone here would guess her identity and assume he had been cuckolded before the wedding cake had gone stale.
‘Where and when?’ she said, staring up at him without blinking. ‘I see no reason to go home just to talk to the walls of an empty house.’
‘But that is where you are going, all the same,’ he said, in the quiet voice he used when dealing with drunkards and hysterical courtesans. ‘Snyder, put this woman in a cab.’
Christian rose, ready to protect her. ‘She came with me.’
‘And she is leaving alone,’ Fred said, putting a hand on the insolent puppy’s shoulder and pushing him firmly back into his chair. ‘I want to know that she arrives safely where she has been sent.’
It had been a coarse and stupid thing to say, for it implied he trusted neither wife nor brother. Christian was giving him a militant glare, ready to add insult to insult. Without intending to, Fred had created just the situation he’d feared.
A feminine laugh cut the tension between them. ‘Christian, darling, remember what we spoke of? Now be a dear and collect my winnings. I will see you soon.’ Then she turned to Snyder and accepted his arm, allowing him to escort her from the room.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It had been less than a week since the wedding and it was time to admit Fred’s plan for a scandal-free marriage was a total failure.
He might not have minded her visit to Vitium et Virtus if his wife had had the decency to lose her allowance like the flighty chit she pretended to be. Then, she might have returned home shamefaced and sorrowful, ready to come to heel and behave like a lady.
Instead, she returned with a reticule that contained all of her money and all of Christian’s as well. He’d have shouted at his brother for being a cloth-headed fool, if it had not been Fred’s own wife who had fleeced the boy. Instead, he’d behaved like a jealous lover and very nearly provoked a duel.
Since it was his fault that Georgiana had joined their family, he was responsible for the damage she caused. Instead of scolding him about the dangers of gambling, Fred had apologised for his temper and written Christian a cheque for the money he’d lost, promising to say no more about it.
By the time he had mended the quarrel and come home, Georgiana was asleep in her own bed and the door to the room was locked as it always was.
A visit to his parents’ home this morning had proved she was a bad influence on his sisters as well. Georgiana had encouraged them to buy Minerva novels and admitted that she was in the habit of hiding them in the cover of her prayer book so she might read them during chapel. Apparently, it was too late to forbid her to go to a prize fight. She had found her way into one before their marriage and described the action to Josephine in graphic detail.
Worst of all, she’d bought them a mynah bird that might have been the devil’s own servant judging by the words it knew. Though his sisters assumed it spoke nonsense, he’d been in Portugal long enough to know what a shout of ‘Ola, puta!’ meant. When the bird had greeted his mother with the phrase, he had snorted his tea through his nose.
He’d been leg-shackled to a disaster. But everywhere he went, from White’s to Vitium et Virtus, people were congratulating him. They patted him on the back, shook her hand, and bought drinks so they might toast to his good fortune at marrying such a thoroughly delightful girl.
Fred had no choice but to thank them and agree. But all the while, he feared that his smile, which should be the smug grin of a recently bedded groom, was actually the nervous rictus of a man trapped in a minefield.
And with each moment he spent with her, the chance increased that he might drag her to the floor and ravish her on the spot. Last night, as he’d raged at her before throwing her from the club, he’d caught himself looking down her bodice and wondering what it would be like to carry her, still masked, to an upstairs bedroom and take her against a bedpost. When he’d got home, he’d spent half the night listening through the wall to her even breathing and wondering what she’d worn to bed.
And this morning, before his call on his mother, he’d glanced in a shop window and seen something that would suit her so well he’d purchased it immediately. What sort of fool bought apology presents before the argument had even begun?
