“Lizzie?” Sophie interjected, a worried note in her voice.
Bash’s “Miss Lizzie?” poured out simultaneously.
Sinclair pulled his knee back, and Eliza gave Bash a reassuring head shake even as she noted the chill of Sinclair’s absence.
“You’d best be sitting proper, Sinclair,” Bash said.
The lord said nothing. Instead, he turned to face forward and displayed his run. Eliza gave no reaction, waiting until the others had shown their cards before flipping her trump run. Sinclair reached across the table and passed her the counters she was due with a crooked grin as the game moved into the next stage.
Sophie shifted in her seat in excitement and knocked. Jennings, likely sensing blood in the water, passed that round. Hughes, who was incapable of passing if he had the means, knocked as well. Eliza and Sinclair both knocked.
“Ah, I see,” he murmured as Sophie raised the stakes. “You’re only responsive for me.”
Eliza didn’t understand what he meant by the comment, but the rumble of his voice, the fire underlying his gaze, sent a shiver dancing down her spine. She was certain his comment wasn’t proper and an answering flush rose across her cheeks.
“You should ask Bash about the last man to speak inappropriately to Sophie.”
“Another relative?”
Eliza tipped her head toward the enforcer still hovering with a perturbed crease across his brow.
“Him?” Sinclair scoffed.
She understood the instinct. Sinclair was taller than Bash by an inch and wider by several more. But the dunner was not to be underestimated.
“Lord Pritzker, do you know him?” she asked.
“Barely.”
Eliza only raised a brow in Sinclair’s direction.
Sinclair’s own brows shot to his hairline. “No,” he said, likely recalling the strained, musical note that rasped through the man’s windpipe with every breath. He developed it mysteriously last year—or so the story goes.
“Huh,” he mused, raising the stakes a third time. “Oh well, I’ve taken a punch or two for a good cause. I can think of no better.”
Sophie stayed, and Eliza chose not to raise another time.
Sinclair called it.
“No better cause? Than what? Flirting with me?”
He hummed and flipped his cards over after Eliza’s, his expression revealing nothing of disappointment when he lost the round to her again as they moved on to the final round.
“Giving you cause to respond to me.”
Eliza rolled her eyes before setting her six down with an expectant gaze at him. This round moved too rapidly for conversation. Sinclair followed with a seven and Sophie with the eight. Hughes had no nine and cursed. The trick went to Sophie and she set down a three. Eliza won the next trick and Sinclair the following when Sophie could not produce a card. Finally, Eliza was down to her last card, and Sinclair was down to two. A tension had settled in her lower back—Eliza rarely cared about the results at the gaming table, but tonight…
When he set down a jack, she couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. She was certain Sophie had no face cards, and Hughes had only another jack. Her suspicions proved correct as each was passed over.
The grin that bloomed across her face was self-satisfied.
Sinclair reached out, pushing his single counter to her with a “Well played.”
Sophie passed over her three stakes without her usual commentary. Her expression was off, with none of her usual animation.
Jennings handed his over and abandoned the table with some comment about another drink.
When at last Eliza turned to Hughes, she noted his sweaty brow and sallow complexion.
