catch Bath at the end of their Season, and turn north towards the industrial centres.’
Greer raised a brow in Mercedes’s direction. ‘The three of us?’
Mercedes gave a small, almost coy smile, her eyes fixed on him knowingly as if she understood her answer would seal his acceptance. ‘I’ll be going, too.’
She was daring him with those sharp eyes. Was he man enough to go on the road with her? Or had he had enough after last night? Was he brave enough to come back for more? More of what? Greer wondered. Her tart tongue or her sweet kisses? Potent silence dominated the room as they duelled with their eyes, each very aware of the thoughts running through the other’s mind.
Allen Lockhart coughed, a thin, near-laughing smile on his lips as he reached into his coat pocket. ‘In all the excitement, I almost forgot to give you this.’ He handed a thick envelope to Greer. The flap was open, revealing pound notes.
‘What is this for?’ Greer stared at the money. It would keep him for quite a while in his drab rented room. Perhaps he could even send some home. His father had mentioned the roof needed fixing on the home farm. Stop, he cautioned himself. This wasn’t his money. Not yet.
Lockhart’s smile broadened. He looked like someone who has taken great pleasure in pleasing another with a most-needed gift. ‘It’s yours, from last night’s winnings.’
Greer shook his head and put the envelope down on the table. ‘I didn’t wager anything.’
‘No, but I did. I bet on you and you worked for me last night. This is your cut for that work, your salary, if you prefer to think of it that way.’
It was so very tempting when Lockhart put it that way. ‘I can’t take it. You wouldn’t have billed me if I’d lost.’
Lockhart nodded in assent. ‘I understand. I respect an honest man.’ He scooped up the envelope and tossed it to Mercedes who caught it deftly. ‘See if you can’t find a good use for that, my dear.’
‘What shall it be?’ Mercedes gathered up the ivory balls from their pockets around the table. ‘The losing game? The winning game? Colours? Name your preference.’ She’d brought the Captain to the billiards room after her father had left. Another look at Thurston’s table wouldn’t be amiss. Nothing persuaded like excellence.
‘You play?’ She could hear Barrington’s chalk cube stop its rubbing, a sure indicator she’d stunned him into silence.
Mercedes set the balls on the table and fixed him with a cold smile designed to intimidate. ‘Yes, I play. Why? Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t. I’m Allen Lockhart’s daughter. I’ve grown up around billiards my whole life.’ Mercedes selected a cue from the wall rack, watching the Captain’s reaction out of the corner of her eye. To his credit, he didn’t follow up his surprise by stammering the usual next line, ‘B-b-but you’re a woman.’
Captain Barrington merely grinned, blew the excess chalk off his cue and said, ‘Well then, let’s play.’
They played the ‘winning game’, potting each other’s balls into various ‘hazards’ for points. Mercedes played carefully, a mix of competence and near-competence designed to draw Barrington out, expose his responses. Would he play hard against a woman? She potted the last ball into the hazard with a hard crack. ‘I win.’
She gave him a stern look, suspecting he’d purposely let up towards the end of the second game. ‘I shouldn’t have. You gave up a point when you missed your third shot.’ It had been a skilful miss. An amateur would have noticed nothing. Near-misses happened; tables were full of imperfections that could lead to a miscalculation. But she’d noticed. ‘Are you afraid to beat a woman?’
He laughed at that—a deep, sincere chuckle. ‘I’ve already beaten you once tonight. I won the first game, if you recall?’
‘I do recall, and I suspect you were too much of a gentleman to win the second.’ Mercedes was all seriousness.
This was the type of thing her father wanted her to ferret out and destroy. Chivalry was anathema on the road. She supposed his idea of chivalry didn’t stop at women, but extended to poor farmers who’d come to town on market day and stopped in to play a game, or to men seemingly down on their luck, or to men, unlike him, who wagered with what they couldn’t afford to lose. Such chivalry stemmed from the code of noblesse oblige that gentlemen were raised with and it would definitely have to go.
‘Such fine sentiments will beggar you, Captain.’ Mercedes flirted a bit with her smile, gathering up the balls for another game.
Barrington shrugged, unconcerned. ‘Manners beggar me very little when there’s no money on the line. We were just playing.’
‘Is that so?’ Mercedes straightened. Just playing? Her father would blanch at the idea of ‘just playing’. There was no such thing in his world. She reached for the envelope where she’d laid it on a small table. She tossed it on to the billiards table. ‘I want your best game, Captain. Will this buy it?’ She’d known precisely what use her father meant for the envelope. She was to buy the Captain with it.
‘Are you serious?’ His eyes, when they met hers, were hard and contemplative, not the laughing orbs that had not cared she’d accused him of going easy on her.
‘I am always serious about money, Captain.’
‘So am I.’
She knew it was the truth—the calculation in his eyes confirmed it. This was a chance to rightfully win what her father had offered earlier. He’d desperately wanted that money; she’d seen the delight that had flared in his eyes ever so briefly. Only his honour had prevented him from taking it. ‘You’re on, Captain. Best two out of three.’
She won the first game by one point, earned when he barely missed making contact with his ball, legitimately this time.
He took his coat off for the second game and rolled up his sleeves. Was he doing it on purpose to distract her? If so, it wasn’t a bad strategy. Without his coat, she could see the bend and flex of him clearly outlined by his dark-fawn trousers, and there was something undeniably attractive about a man only in waistcoat and shirt, especially if the man in question was as well proportioned as the Captain.
He was handsomely turned out tonight in a crisp white shirt and fashionable, shawl-collar waistcoat of burgundy silk, showing off those broad shoulders. His blond hair had fallen forwards, the intensity of their play defeating the parting he wore to one side. Now, all that golden perfection fell forwards, hiding his eyes from her as he concentrated on his next shot.
It was a sexy look, an intense look—a crowd would love it, a woman would love it, looking up into that face, that hair, as he moved over her, naked and strong. Mercedes pushed such earthy thoughts away. She had a game to lose. This was no time to be imagining the Captain naked and in the throes of love-making.
Barrington won the second game, just as she’d planned. His honour ensured it. He’d promised her his best game and he could be counted on to keep his word, his honour making him blind to any dishonour in another. It would prevent him from seeing her game as anything other than straightforward and perhaps his bias would, too. No matter what a man said, a man never believed a woman was a real threat until it was too late. She didn’t think the Captain was any different in that regard. It was the nature of men, after all, to believe in their infallible superiority.
