to me. So much so that I’ll make you a wager. Another round of cards, madame. Vingt et Un—with or without variations, as you choose. This time, if you win, I shall take you myself to the Comtesse de Chirac’s ball.”
Her eyes sparked—with anger or pride or perhaps simple dislike. He couldn’t tell and, at the moment, didn’t care.
“Sport, indeed,” she said. “One rash wager after another. I wonder what you think you’ll prove. But you don’t think, do you? Certainly you haven’t stopped to ask yourself what your friends will think.”
He hardly heard what she was saying. He was drinking in the signs of emotion—the color coming and going in her face, and the sparks in her eyes, and the rise and fall of her bosom. And all the while he was keenly aware of the place where her sharp little needle had stabbed him.
“Nothing to prove,” he said. “I only want you to lose. And when you lose, you’ll admit defeat with a kiss.”
“A kiss!” She laughed. “A mere kiss from a shopkeeper. That’s paltry stakes, indeed, compared to your dignity.”
“A proper kiss would not be mere, madame, or paltry,” he said. “You may not pay with a peck on the cheek. You’ll pay with the sort of kiss you’d give a man to whom you’ve surrendered.” And if he couldn’t make her surrender with a kiss, he might as well go back to London this night. “Considering your precious respectability, that’s high stakes for you, I know.”
One flash from her dark eyes before her face turned into a beautiful mask, cool, impervious. But he’d had a glimpse of the turbulence within, and now he couldn’t walk away if his life depended on it.
“It’s nothing to me,” she said. “Haven’t you been paying attention, your grace? You haven’t a prayer of winning against me.”
“Then you’ve everything to gain,” he said. “Easy entrée into the most exclusive, most boring ball in Paris.”
She shook her head pityingly. “Very well. Never say I didn’t warn you.”
She returned to her chair and sat.
He sat opposite.
“Any game you like,” she said. “In any way you like. It won’t matter. I’ll win—and it will be most amusing.”
She pushed the cards toward him.
“Deal,” she said.
At the time of the French Revolution, Marcelline’s aristocratic grandfather had kept his head by keeping his head. Generations of Noirots—the name he’d taken after fleeing France—had inherited the same cool self-containment and ruthless practicality.
True, her passions ran dark and deep, as was typical of her family, on both sides. Like them, though, she was quite good at hiding what she felt. She’d had to teach her sisters the skill. She, apparently, had been born with it.
But the casually disparaging way Clevedon referred to her shop and her profession made her blood boil.
That was noble blood, too, running in her veins—no matter that hers was the most corrupt blue blood in all of Europe. But Noirot was a common name, as common as dirt, which was why Grandpapa had chosen it. Now, most of the family was gone, taking their infamy with them.
Notorious or not, her family was as old as Clevedon’s—and she doubted all his ancestors had been saints. The only difference at the moment was that he was rich without having to work for it and she had to work for every farthing.
She knew it was absurd to let him provoke her. She knew her customers looked down on her. They all behaved the way Lady Renfrew and Mrs. Sharp did, speaking as though she and her sisters were invisible. To the upper orders, shopkeepers were simply another variety of servants. She’d always found that useful, and sometimes amusing.
But he…
Never mind. The question now was whether to let him win or lose.
Her pride couldn’t let him win. She wanted to crush him, his vanity, his casual superiority.
But his losing meant a serious inconvenience. She could hardly enter a ball on the Duke of Clevedon’s arm without setting off a firestorm of gossip—exactly what she didn’t want to do.
Yet she couldn’t let him win.
“We play the deck,” he said. “We play each deal, but with one difference: We don’t show our cards until the end. Then, whoever has won the most deals wins the game.”
Not being able to see the cards as they played through would make it harder to calculate the odds.
But she could read him, and he couldn’t read her. Moreover, the game he proposed could be played quickly. Soon enough she’d be able to tell whether he was playing recklessly.
The first deal. Two cards to each. He dealt her a natural—ace of diamonds and knave of hearts. But he stood at two cards as well, which he never did if they totaled less than seventeen. Next deal she had the ace of hearts, a four, and a three. The next time she stood at seventeen, with clubs. Then another natural—ace of spades and king of hearts. And next the queen of hearts and nine of diamonds.
On it went. He often drew three cards to her two. But he was intent, as he hadn’t been previously, and by this time, she could no longer detect the flicker in his green eyes that told her he didn’t like his cards.
She was aware of her heart beating faster with every deal, though her cards were good for the most part. Twenty-one once, twice, thrice. Most of the other hands were good. But he played calmly, for all his concentration, and she couldn’t be absolutely sure his luck was worse.
Ten deals played it out.
Then they turned their cards over, slapping them down smartly, smiling coolly at each other across the table as they did so, each of them confident.
A glance at the spread-out cards told her she’d beat him all but four times, and one of those was a tie.
Not that she needed to see the cards laid out to know who’d won. She had only to observe his stillness, and the blank way he regarded the cards. He looked utterly flummoxed.
It lasted but an instant before he became the jaded man of the world again; but in that look she glimpsed the boy he used to be, and for a moment she regretted everything: that they’d met in the way they’d done, that they were worlds apart, that she hadn’t known him before he lost his innocence…
Then he looked up and met her gaze, and in his green eyes she saw awareness dawn—at last—of the problem he’d created for himself.
Once again, he recovered in an instant. If he was at a loss—as surely he must be—there was no further sign. Like her, he was used to covering up. She should have covered up, too. He ought to have second thoughts. It was no more than she expected. His consternation, however faintly evidenced, rankled all the same, and more than it ought to have done.
“You’ve been rash, your grace,” she taunted. “Again. Another silly wager. But this time a great deal more is at stake.”
His pride, a gentleman’s most tender
