He leaned in, closer than the hand strictly required, his mouth near her ear.
“Play the ten,” he murmured. “Letitia’s holding the king. She will not be able to resist taking it, and the moment she does, you’ll have the trick.”
His breath stirred the loose hair at her temple. She felt it everywhere at once in the sudden, complete blankness of her thoughts, in the warmth that climbed up her neck and hadnothing to do with the fire, in the way the hand holding the ten had gone very still as though movement might give something away.
“The ten,” she repeated faintly, as though the word required translation from a language she’d only just learned.
“Unless you’d rather lose.”
“I would rather not lose.”
She set the card down.
Letitia, predictably, could not resist the king. James took the trick a moment later with quiet satisfaction and sat back. The warmth of his shoulder left hers, and Isadora discovered that she missed it immediately.
The strategy worked so well that Letitia sat back in her chair and looked at them both with narrowed eyes. She set her cards down with great deliberation.
“That’s it,” she huffed. “I am officially accusing you both of cheating.”
“It is not cheating,” James said. “It is called playing the hand correctly.”
“That’s three tricks running,” Cecily observed, mild as anything, refilling her tea without looking up.
“Luck,” William uttered, examining his own hand with the particular grimness of a man losing and unwilling to admit it.
“It is not luck. How did you know I was going to play that?” Letitia’s eyes narrowed on them both.
“I anticipated there was a distinction,” James replied. “You are very predictable, you know.”
“You have been spending time with Isadora,” Letitia said, with the air of someone identifying a cause. “She says that. The distinction thing.”
“I say it because it is accurate.” Isadora shrugged.
“You both say it because you have been in the same house for a while, and apparently”—Letitia gestured vaguely at the space between them—“this has happened.”
“What has happened?” James asked.
“You know what the other one is going to do without being told,” Letitia explained. “Which is—William, are you watching this?”
“I am watching the game,” William said.
“Watch them instead.”
“I am not going to?—”
“Look at their chairs.”
William looked and said nothing.
“Our chairs are where we put them,” James muttered under his breath.
“Nobody put them there,” Letitia countered. “They migrated. Over the course of the game, they simply moved there.” She looked at Cecily. “Did you notice?”
“I did.” Cecily nodded slowly.
“When?” Letitia demanded.
“Approximately the third round.”
