“Passable at best,” he said on a wince. “I don’t gamble as ageneral rule, so I’ve never needed to be anything more.”
“That’s all right,” she said, in what he supposed was meant to be a soothing tone. “I’m going to teach you how to cheat.”
Chapter Nine
The children had, according to their agreement, been relatively quiet for fifteen minutes and no longer. Slowly their volume had crept up and up and up again, until the chaos had once more hit a fever pitch.
Lord Lockhart did not appear to have noticed. Nor had he noticed that the time had gone well past the quarter of an hour he ought to have stayed.
Grace had moved to the floor, clearing the clutter of the tea that had since grown quite cold to one side in order to give herself a level surface for her playing cards. Lord Lockhart had only been attempting to follow the quick, fluid motions of her hands as she flipped through the cards, demonstrating how easily she could make an ace located at the bottom of the deck reappear at the top as if by magic.
She had expected him to be offended by the suggestion of cheating. Affronted by the casual assault upon his honor that she would even suggest such a thing. Instead, he was riveted by her mastery of the cards.
“You don’t need to win,” she said as she performed a swift false shuffle, then revealed that the order of the cards had remained unchanged. “You only need to be the distraction forme. Convince your uncle that there is more sport to be had in cards than in billiards. Perhaps even that he might win money from you. The salon on the ground floor would be perfect, if you can manage it. It’s well away from the stairs, and I won’t need to pass it in order to get up them.”
“Cheating is not…something I would ever consider beneath normal circumstances,” he said slowly, though his eyes had not left the swift movements of her hands.
“I had thought as much,” she said wryly. “You don’t seem the sort.”
“To cheat?”
“Even to bend the rules,” she said. “Much less to break them entirely.”
“Do you? Bend the rules, I mean to say.”
“When it suits me. Probably less often than some people would like to believe. But more often than probably I should.” She laid out a selection of cards before her. “For example,” she said. “You should never wager against me, because Idocheat. And I always win.”
Lord Lockhart scrubbed a half-smile away from his lips. “Even against your family?”
“You must be joking.Especiallyagainst my family.” She turned the cards over to reveal two kings, with the queen of hearts laid between them. “But I don’t require money, so I largely restrict my cheating to family gatherings, where everybody expects me to cheat, anyway.” She paused a moment, considered—clarified. “Except just once, when I fleeced Lady Evanstone out of twenty quid because she said something just awful about Charity in my hearing.”
And he did laugh this time. “Ishouldbe horrified,” he said. “But Lady Evanstone is just—”
“Wretched?”
“Cruel,” he said. “I’m not certain I have ever heard her sayanything kind of anyone. She was one of those who shunned my mother at the beginning of her marriage.” He sank a bit in his seat, dragged one gloved hand through the immaculately-combed locks of his dark hair. “Her son must have taken after her, for when we were children, he loved nothing better than to remind me that I had been born into a title by the skin of my teeth.” A sigh, heavy and poignant. “I suppose he was wrong, there.”
The injustice of it was infuriating. For all the lovelessTonmarriages and countless affairs that abounded, how was it fair thatthisman, who had been the product of a love match which had been made legal only days too late should be considered illegitimate? Hewashis father’s son. He ought to have been the heir. Only chance had made it otherwise.
Grace was going to have to teach him to manipulate chance to his favor. She gestured to the cards laid out before her. “This is calledfind the lady,” she said. “The queen, of course, is the lady.”
“I’ve seen this before,” Lord Lockhart said. “A street game?”
“Of a sort. It works best, of course, when you’ve got an accomplice.”
“An accomplice?”
“Someone who is in on the swindle; used to bait the hook, so to speak,” she said. “Mama used to be mine. She was very beautiful, so she naturally attracted attention. We’d play a few hands as though we were strangers, which I would of course allow Mama to win. Then she would walk away with her winnings to put some distance between us and let the onlookers pour in, ready to try their own luck. In actuality, I fleeced them of everything they were willing to wager. Here, I’ll show you how it works.” She flipped the cards one at a time, setting them face down once more. “There. Can you find her?”
“But you haven’t moved them,” he said, his brows drawn inconfusion. “She’s in the middle.”
Grace bit the inside of her cheek to suppress a smile. “Would you wager ten pounds on it?”
“Of course. Who wouldn’t?”
Anyone with an ounce of self-preservation. With the edge of her fingernail, Grace flipped the middle card, revealing a king.
Lord Lockhart sat bolt upright, earning himself a hiss from Tansy. “How did you do that?” he asked, enthralled. “It was supposed to be the queen—I’d swear to it.”
