you are not one to argue with a lady.’ The Duke’s narrowed gaze flicked down to the cards and the guineas on her side of the table. ‘Your companion has the devil’s own luck, I see.’
He was being careful not to use her name. She couldn’t help but be grateful for the courtesy. She offered him a sweet smile. ‘Don’t you mean skill, Your Grace?’
‘A newly won skill, then.’
As she had hoped beyond hope, he hadn’t forgotten her or their card games aboard ship some two years before. While she had played off her feminine wiles to get his attention, he’d treated her as little more than an annoying child. Brat, he had called her on the last occasion he had visited Meak, or any other of her brother-in-law’s residences.
‘Unfair, sir,’ she said, keeping her expression flirtatious. ‘I learned from the best.’
His lips quirked at the corners, his eyes glinted, the brief smile making him appear less austere. And more devastatingly handsome. An unwelcome pang pierced her heart. As if she had missed his smiles, which back then had been wickedly teasing. Oh, of a certainty she had missed him. The way one missed a stone in one’s shoe.
The maitre d’, standing at a little behind him, gave an impatient cough.
The flash of amusement on Freddy’s face vanished as quickly as it had appeared. He turned his chilly gaze on her escort. ‘Lieutenant, may I offer you a parlour where you can continue your game in private?’
The commanding tone of his voice was something she certainly didn’t miss. His attempts to act like her older brother. To take charge, as if he had some authority over her actions. She damped down the instant raising of her hackles. After all, this was the reaction she had set out to achieve. His wanting to protect her from her own folly. Not that she would let him know the full extent of her error.
Granby’s expression collapsed into something like relief. He gulped. ‘Very civil, Your Grace. Perhaps...’ He gave Minette a pleading look. ‘Perhaps we should leave?’
Several nearby patrons, including the man who had inspected her when she’d first arrived, had paused in their game to watch the unfolding drama.
‘Oh, no,’ she said, rising to her feet. ‘We should accept His Grace’s kind offer.’
Granby’s face crumpled. ‘Really?’
‘Naturellement.’
Freddy bowed, his expression mocking. ‘Be so good as to follow me.’
He led them through a door in the back wall of the subscription room. As she passed him in the doorway, Freddy leaned close and murmured in her ear, ‘I wonder what Gabe is going to think of this piece of mischief?’
She cast him a glance from beneath her lashes. ‘I didn’t take you for a tattletale, Your Grace.’
Granby gasped.
His Grace glowered.
Minette gave him her brightest, most innocent smile and breezed past him. Her gamble had paid off. She had his full attention.
Now came the most difficult part of her plan.
* * *
Following in the wake of the shamefaced Granby and the clearly recalcitrant Miss Rideau, Freddy curbed his ire. The attraction he’d always felt towards the stunningly beautiful French girl, with her velvety brown eyes flecked with gold and her deliciously creamy skin, of which he and everyone else in the club had seen far too much this evening, had nothing to do with his anger.
He was a normal, red-blooded male, and she was a lovely young woman.
No, it was Minette’s lack of respect for the feelings of his friends, Gabe, the Marquess of Mooreshead, and his wife, Nicky, that had him clenching his jaw to the point of cracking his back teeth. How could she be such a little idiot as to come to a place like this? ‘Heaven’, as his customers like to call his establishment when in the throes of their disillusion. For he had no doubt this was all her doing.
Fortunately for her, Barker, his maître d’, knew a member of the Quality when he saw one. The moment Freddy had come in by way of his private entrance, his man had brought him the news that the wrong sort of woman had strayed onto the premises. She wasn’t the first lady to wander through his portals. Usually they were older, married, matrons looking for a bit of excitement after doing their marital duty. As long as they were discreet, no one paid them any mind. However, never did freshly minted debutantes like Minette Rideau darken his disreputable door. Neither did he want them to. He liked his women as dissolute as he was, when he bothered with them at all.
She was lucky no one had recognised her. If they had, not even Gabe could save her reputation.
Minette was trouble. Reckless. Heedless. Things the male predator within him had recognised at their very first encounter on board ship. Apparently, she had no more idea than a baby about the harsh truths of the world in which he resided. The need to beat a little sense into the baby-faced Granby pulsed in his blood. How could the man have let her inveigle him this way?
He escorted the pair along a carpeted passageway, the salacious pictures on the walls advertising the purpose of the rooms at the back of the house. Some of his customers preferred their amusements out of the public eye. Such as those who held political positions, where deep play would cause a raised eyebrow or two. Others demanded more carnal forms of entertainment.
Minette carefully kept her eyes lowered, but he knew she saw them.
He opened the door to a room set up for gentlemen who took their cards seriously to the point of utter ruin. Windowless, panelled in dark wood, the only ornament a marble fireplace and mantel.
Once the pair were inside, Freddy closed the door and turned the key. Granby started.
Freddy put up a hand. ‘To ensure we are not interrupted.’
The lieutenant nodded and looked relieved.
Freddy fixed him with a look designed to freeze. ‘Are there maggots in your brain, Lieutenant? What do you mean by bringing a gently bred girl to a hell?’
‘Pardonnez-moi,’ Minette said, her voice equally icy, ‘I do not believe what I do is your concern.’
‘Well, you believe wrongly,’ Freddy said. ‘Well, Granby? Are you indeed so bacon-brained you did not realise that any one of your friends might have walked in and recognised Miss Rideau?’
The poor tongue-tied lad gulped and shifted on his feet. ‘Told you. Debt of honour.’
Freddy leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms over his chest. ‘Tell me about this wager of yours.’
‘Lady Cargyle’s al fresco breakfast,’ he blurted in a rush.
Freddy waited for the next burst of words. If memory served, the young man had a bit of a stutter, which he manfully controlled by these staccato deliveries.
‘Croquet,’ Granby choked out. ‘Wager. Ball through three hoops with only one knock of the mallet.’ He blushed. ‘Not possible.’
‘So did
