Page 40 of The Luckiest Lady in London

“Of course,” she answered, as if there were no other possible choice.

“And you are the best player at home, no doubt?”

“No. I can hold my own with Cecilia and Julia, but Matilda is a terror at the table.”

That surprised him. “Really?”

“Had she been a man, we’d have sent her to Monte Carlo to win a fortune.”

“So what did you use as stake when you played at home?”

“Stake? What sort of question is that?” She shot him a look full of scorn. “We played to win. Now will you please let me concentrate?”

He wished it had been possible to capture her expression of contempt. For a poor fortune hunter’s daughter, she could rival a dowager duchess in haughtiness, when she was in the mood. “Certainly, Lady Wrenworth.”

She had already lowered her gaze to her cards, but now she slowly looked up. “You won’t stop calling me Louisa, will you?”

Little things like this made her the conundrum she was: that she would tell him openly that she did not trust him, and then in the next breath demand this intimacy from him.

“There is a time and a place for it,” he told her.

She gestured at the private rail coach, empty except for the two of them. “We are already in private.”

He only repeated, “There is a time and a place for it.”

Her cheeks colored—neither the time nor the place was too far away now.

“Right.” She cleared her throat. “Your turn, sir.”

* * *

It was rather difficult to concentrate after that, but since Louisa wasn’t the only one distracted, she still defeated her husband soundly.

“Good thing you only play to win,” he teased her. “Remind me to never put any money on the table.”

“As long as you say nothing to your friends. I am not averse to taking their money.”

“I’d like to see you go up against Lady Tremaine. She is quite the player.”

She made a face. “Your former paramour Lady Tremaine?”

“My current good friend Lady Tremaine. I lost five hundred pounds to her once. You will be my vengeance and seize the sum from her—with high, compounding interest, of course.”

“Are you sure I am a better player than she?”

“Her advantage over most men is that she has a noteworthy chest, which she displays shamelessly when she sits down to a card table. You, however, will not be distracted by a pair of breasts.”

Louisa suddenly had the image of him with his hands on Lady Tremaine’s noteworthy chest—and it made her feel spectacularly underendowed. “Is she invited to your house party?”

“She is always invited to my house party. But she is out of the country this month, sampling the male species all over Scandinavia.”

“But if she comes, you will be distracted by her breasts?”

“It’s nothing to do with her. I sometimes find myself staring at sculptures of bare-breasted women around Huntington—speaking of which…”

They drove past the gate of the estate.

“Welcome to your new home,” he said softly. “I hope you like it.”