“I’m afraid my bookkeeper fails again to show, Miss Winthrop.”
“I keep my father’s books,” she stated calmly, “and would be happy to assist, sir.”
She was too much. “I rather doubt your bookkeeping is on the level required of a business like mine, miss.” He tried not to stare at her bodice.
Her brow creased.
“But I appreciate the offer.” He topped off his glass once more, taking another swig. “Now, how may I be of service to you?” He made a point to meet her ridiculously soft, doe eyes. “You do realize, that should anyone see you entering or leaving my establishment your reputation would be?—”
“Ruined, yes. I’m aware.” Her hand shook slightly as she stared down into her drink. “Mr. Harris, I seek assistance in a matter regarding my father’s finances and thus my very future.” Her hand steadied. “Now that my sister is newly married, my father is—for the moment, at least—flush with cash.” She made a face. “But as you may surmise, sir, those funds will not last. Already there is a man my father entertains whom I…”
Harris leaned forward as her voice faltered.
“I fear expresses an interest in my person which I do not at all reciprocate.”
Ah,he thought, the very thing Jasp feared would happen had, and soon.Damnation.
“I shall reach majority in but a month’s time, sir, and should very much like to avoid being sold off before I am of age to reject this unwelcome marriage suit.”
Harris admired the lady’s pluck; she was also older than Jasp thought.
“In fact, I should like to amass enough cash of my own to secure my future without the need to marry at all.”
He leaned back in his chair. Not nearly so meek, either. “And just how mightIassist in this, miss? If you are not asking me to marry you myself, I don’t see how I am to thwart your repugnant suitor.”
Her face bloomed scarlet, but she held her ground. “Sir, you run a gaming house. I should like to place bets at your establishment to acquire enough funds to buy my way out of any marriage my father pressures me to accept.”
Buy her way out o’ marriage by gamblin’ like her pot an’ pan?Insane.
“Miss Winthrop.” He resisted the urge to shake sense into her bouncing, brown curls. “That is averybad idea.”
Her lips pursed with displeasure.
“I am frankly surprised you’d wish to engage in the very same activity that keeps your father in waters so perilously deep.”
She tipped back the rest of her glass and clanked it on his desk. “Mr. Harris, with all due respect, I am no fool.”
The chit may as well have slapped him with her words.
“My sense of numbers is astute.” Her eyes were now sharp as glass.
Crikey,Harris thought. “Shall we play a round ofvingt-et-unthen, miss?” He pulled out a deck from his top desk drawer, sliding it across to her.
“Yes, let’s, Mr. Harris.”
He won the first round neatly, as expected. But Miss Winthrop won the second and third, and every round thereafter. He did not need to test her further; she possessed the same uncanny knack for counting that Jasper Audrey did.
Harris swore under his breath. “You did not jest when you offered to help reckon my accounts, Miss Winthrop.”
“I did not, sir.”
He considered the lady anew. She must be desperate to come here on her own, to a gaming hell owner little better than a stranger, all to ask if she might cheat at cards to buy herself out of marriage.
“Youdorealize what you are asking, miss.” He met her gaze.
Miss Winthrop’s grip on her empty brandy fumbled so that the glass rolled clear across his desktop. He righted it.
“Mr. Harris, were women not barred from entering establishments such as your own, I would have gambled my family out of misfortune yearsago.”
