“Is mockery the best you have to offer, Montford, after we once meant so much to each other? After months of only living when we were in each other’s arms?”
“So romantic, Selina, but do permit me to point out that you appeared lively enough when you hurled your hairbrush at my head, and I don’t recall you being in my armsthen.”
“Oh! I might have known you’d throw that in my face.”
“Mere words, my dear. They land rather more gently than your hairbrush did.”
Selina’s face darkened, two ominous spots of color rising in her cheeks. “That’s it, then, Montford? Reproaches, and accusations? You have nothing else to say for yourself?”
“Not a blessed thing. I believe you’ve said more than enough for both of us.” At this point, the less he said, the sooner he’d be free of her forever.
“Well, I don’t know why I’m surprised at it.” A sneer turned Selina’s lovely face ugly. “My mistake was in thinking you cared about my feelings, but you care only for your own selfish pleasures.”
“Then you’re well rid of me, aren’t you?” And he of her, and not a moment too soon. After an hour with Selina, his head ached as if a swarm of miniature she-devils had insinuated themselves into the veins at his temples and were stabbing at him with tiny pitchforks.
Wasn’t having a mistress meant to be pleasurable? Hadn’t there been a time when Selina’s smile had transported him? There must have been, but it was all a blur now, like a mirage shimmering just out of his reach.
“That, Your Grace, is the one point on which we can agree.” She tossed her head, her dark curls tumbling over her shoulders. “As I said, I’ve another engagement this evening. I can’t sit about all night while you puzzle over your cards.”
“Far be it for me to delay any pleasure of yours, my lady.” He ran his finger under the damp linen clinging to the moist skin of his neck. The gold earrings glinted dully in the firelight, the enormous, teardrop-shaped rubies winking at him like a pair of blood-red eyes, a glittering symbol of his folly.
The earrings were part of a parure he’d given to her as a token of his affection from their earlier, fonder days together. Extravagant little baubles, those rubies, but the expense was nothing. Jewels came and went, much like mistresses did. He didn’t give a damn about the other pieces—a magnificent ruby necklace and a set of diamond and ruby combs. She’d kept those, with his blessing.
But the earrings were another matter entirely.
If they’d been ordinary jewels, she might have kept them, too, as a token of his once-ardent affections, but there was nothing ordinary about those rubies. He’d given them to her during the most violent throes of his lust, when nothing less than the most, er . . . intimate expression of his regard would do for his lovely Selina. It had given him a thrill to see them dangling from her ears, knowing what was hidden inside.
Now his reputation, such as it was, hinged on him getting the earrings back. Christ, what a bloody fool he’d been, handing such a weapon over to a viper like Selina, but God knew there was nothing more ridiculous than a man with an aching cock.
It had taken another, far more valuable sapphire parure to persuade her to evenwagerthe ruby earrings tonight. She’d refused at first, claiming she couldn’t bear to part with a gift he’d given her in the first flower of their love.
Flower of their love, indeed. What bollocks. Selina only understood one kind of love, and that was the love of money. As for true love—the hearts-and-flowers, yearning-sighs-and-breathless-kisses love? She wouldn’t know it if it reared up and bit her on her big toe.
But then, neither would he. They were the same sort of creature, he and Selina. It was a humbling thought, indeed, though at least he lacked her viciousness. His heart was impenetrable, yes, but it wasn’t the black, shriveled thing that lurked in the deep, cold depths of Selina’s chest.
But for all that Selina was the devil’s handmaiden, she wasn’t a fool.
Those ruby earrings were the perfect cudgel, the sword hanging above his head, the blade at his throat. As long as she had them, she still had power over him, and she knew it well. She wanted to keep them nearly as badly as he wanted to take them from her.
Not because she loved them, but because she despisedhim.
Fortunately for him, there was one thing Selina loved even more than revenge.
Jewels. Sapphires were her particular weakness, because they brought out the deep blue color of her eyes. In the end, the lure of the sapphire parure had proved too tempting for her to resist, and so, here they were, a fortune in jewels tossed carelessly onto the table between them.
“Come, Your Grace.” Selina studied her fingernails, all casual negligence. “Show your hand, or forfeit the game.”
He glanced down at his cards. A queen, a seven, and a three. Twenty points. It was a promising hand, yes, but like all of Satan’s minions, Selina had the devil’s own luck. Still, there was nothing for it but to lay down his cards and pray she hadn’t drawn an ace.
He spread them out on the baize. “Twenty, my lady.”
Selina’s face went white, then red, and he held his breath as slowly, slowly, she lowered her cards to the table.
* * *
“Dratted, cursed thing!” Prue snatched up her ruined letter, balled it in her fist, and in a fit of pique, threw it on the floor next to the four other crumpled bits of paper.
The fire had burned down to embers in the grate, and the garden beyond the glass doors behind the desk had turned an inky, impenetrable black, yet all she had to show for her efforts were a few scrawled lines and a heap of ink-blotted paper.
