Her face flooded with heat. Of course.Her game. “Piquet.”
“Very well. Piquet it is.”
He took her arm, but before he could maneuver her away, Julian stopped them. “What a coincidence. I fancy a game or two of piquet this evening, as well.”
Devon studied Julian, a faint, sardonic smile on his face. “How interesting. I imagined you’d play at Hazard, Captain, orRouge et Noir.”
“I don’t play any game where the house takes the advantage.”
“Ah. You put your trust in your skill, then? Games of strategy fascinate, I grant you, but a gentleman has only himself to blame when he loses.”
“And himself to congratulate when he wins.”
Devon laughed as if delighted. “Well said, Captain.” He drew Charlotte’s arm more firmly through his, and Julian followed them to a table in the corner of the room where a small group of ladies and gentlemen were paired off in various stages of play. “What’s your wager, Lady Hadley?”
Charlotte looked Julian in the eyes. “A guinea per point.” Her pockets were deeper than his. Perhaps he’d think twice on that wager.
He didn’t. “A guinea per point.”
Devon raised an eyebrow, but he retrieved a fresh pack of cards from a wooden box at the center of the table and handed it to Charlotte. “Will you cut for the deal, my lady?”
Charlotte cut, the edges of the cards slippery against her damp fingers. Julian won the deal, but he pushed the deck back across the table to her. “The lady deals.”
“A questionable move in terms of strategy,” Devon said, “but of course the Captain is a gentleman. I leave you in good hands, Lady Hadley.”
Devon moved away, but behind Julian’s back Charlotte saw him wander over and whisper in Lady Annabel’s ear. Annabel looked over her shoulder, eyes wide, and began to nudge her way through the crowd of bodies at the Hazard table.
Charlotte frowned and shook her head. She’d handle Julian herself.
“I confess I’m disappointed,” he said, before she could speak. “I thought Devon would arrange a truly spectacular diversion for the widows tonight—something to exceed a masquerade at a west end whorehouse.”
Charlotte finished the deal and placed the talon in a neat pile between them. “Oh? What did you envision?”
He glanced at his cards. “Carriage races in Hyde Park at midnight perhaps, or a stroll through the rookeries in the dark. A reunion of the Hellfire Club? Which diversion would you prefer, my lady?”
“Ah well, as wicked as I am, why limit myself to just one?”
“Do you suppose I think you wicked, Lady Hadley? Or do you think it yourself?”
“Both of us, I imagine, and yet I wouldn’t dare speak for you, Captain.”
“But you’d dare any number of other things, wouldn’t you? That’s rather the problem, you see.”
Her gaze shot to him over the top edge of her cards. “What I fail to see is how it’syourproblem.”
“You mistake the matter. The problem isn’tmineany more than this game of piquet ismine. One can’t play alone, after all. The problem is yours, as well.”
Charlotte plucked lightly at her cards, rearranging them in her hand, but under her heavy silk gown her spine had gone rigid. “Are you so much cleverer than my brothers, Captain? Than your cousin? You’re not the first to try and take me in hand and shuffle me about like a deck of cards, and yet for all their combined efforts, here I remain.”
His face hardened. “Do you boast of that? You’d tear your family apart for a bit of diversion? For wicked widows, wagering, and whorehouses?”
Dear God. His expression. Charlotte blinked blindly down at her cards to avoid the look of cold disgust on his face. Perhaps she deserved his loathing for being so weak, for hurting her family.
But I can’t go back there…
“Shocking, isn’t it?” She forced the words past the lump in her throat. “I can’t imagine why you bother with me at all. Why not leave me in London to suffer the consequences of my wicked behavior?”
“That’s not my decision to make. Or yours either, as it happens.”
