It simply describes characteristics. You like intellectual challenges. You are easily bored. That would explain your enjoyment of the military and your eagerness to avoid the home farm, don’t you think?’
Once more they skirted a truly personal issue. This time it was he who shied away from it. He caught her looking up at him from beneath her dark lashes. He chose to play the cynic. ‘It would if I hadn’t already told you that. How do I know you’re not just putting pieces of fact together and making this up to suit?’
‘You have to trust me.’ She spread his fingers and studied them each in turn. ‘Look at that.’ Mercedes licked her lips, looking entirely wanton and very much like a gypsy. He was positively rigid now. Her next words just about did him in. She caressed the flat of his palm. ‘You are a sexual creature who excels in the intimate arts.’
‘Be careful, Mercedes,’ Greer warned in low tones. He was about to ‘excel’ right there.
‘Or what? I’ll find my skirts up and my legs wrapped around your waist? Is that a promise?’ Mercedes gave a throaty laugh. The image she painted was a potent one but this was not the time or place for such a demonstration.
Greer grabbed her wrist none too gently. ‘That’s enough.’ She needed to be taught a lesson about toying with a gentleman’s sensibilities. ‘I will not play the animal to your Circe in the middle of a public park.’
She shot him a hard look and yanked her wrist away from the shackle of his grip. ‘Of course you won’t. In the end, you’ll always abide by the rules.’
It was said mockingly. She was daring him and he was almost tempted to prove her wrong, that he would break those rules and take her right there. Goodness knew it was what his body wanted.
‘Is that what you want?’ Greer asked tersely. ‘Do you want me to take you here in this most uncouth fashion?’ He could feel the closeness between them evaporating.
‘What I want is for you to concentrate on tonight,’ Mercedes snapped. Just like that the termagant was back. For a few moments they’d been something more than travelling partners. The lines that defined their association had blurred ever so briefly. He was coming to recognise Mercedes was very good at such blurring, especially when it helped her get something she wanted.
Damn her.
It all became crystal clear: the best target is someone whose ego is greater than their skill. Give up a bit early, let them think they’ve got the upper hand, then raise the stakes and win the game. Always quit while you’re ahead. Greer blew out a breath and had the good grace to laugh. ‘Are you hustling me, Mercedes?’
She smiled, wicked and knowing, a finger trailing lightly down his shirt front. ‘I don’t know, Greer. Tell me again, what are the rules to a good hustle?’
‘There he is. That’s your mark,’ Mercedes whispered at his ear a few hours later. The quiet inn had been transformed into a noisy crowd of people. It was a Friday and wages had been paid out. Men jostled at the bar for tankards of ale and the activity was brisk around the billiards table. Even a few women were present, although none were as stunning as Mercedes.
Tonight she wore a tight-fitted gown of deep-blue satin, trimmed in black lace and cut shockingly low, shoulders bared, the star pendant hanging from a black satin ribbon at her neck. Looking as she did, Greer was almost ready to forgive her for hustling him that afternoon. Almost.
He kept a hand at her back, ushering her through the crowd to an empty space near the billiards table where they could watch the games. ‘Him?’ Greer nodded towards a tall man in his early thirties playing at the table. The man in question had been winning.
Mercedes nodded, but he noticed her gaze kept moving about the room, always landing on one man in particular, a handsome auburn-haired fellow who boldly returned her attention. ‘Greer, why don’t you get me a glass of wine, if they have any?’ she said absently.
Greer questioned the wisdom of leaving her. Every man in the room had noticed her by now, Mr Auburn-haired included. When he hesitated, she laughed up at him and he had no choice but to go in search of wine. ‘I’ll be fine. But it is sweet of you to worry.’ He was going to end up fighting someone over her tonight, he just knew it.
By the time he had returned, hard-won glass of wine in hand, he could see his suspicions weren’t far off. The auburn-haired man had moved to her side in his absence and men hovered around Mercedes. Worst of all, that little minx was encouraging it.
‘Your wine, my dear.’ Greer elbowed Auburn Hair at her side with a little more force than necessary.
She took the glass from him with a smile and a laugh. ‘There you are, I thought you’d got lost.’ Then she addressed the group around them. ‘This is Captain Barrington. He’s a fair billiards player, too, like your Jonas Bride there.’ Impressive, Greer thought. She had the name of the mark already.
She batted her eyelashes at Auburn Hair. ‘Do you think my Captain can take him, Mr Reed?’ Her hand idly fiddled with the star charm where it lay against her bare neckline. Every man’s eyes were riveted on that bare expanse of skin, especially Mr Reed’s. Mr Reed’s eye might be a bit darker for it too.
Mr Reed shot him a cocky glance men everywhere have understood for centuries. I can take her from you. To Mercedes he said, ‘Shall we see?’
Mercedes reached into her cleavage and pulled out pound notes with a graceful gesture while half the room sucked in their breath. Good Lord, she was putting on a show. Even knowing that, Greer couldn’t help but feel the first stirrings of desire. Then Greer understood. The mark wasn’t Jonas Bride, not really, not unless he chose to make the man his personal mark. The real mark was Mr Reed and she’d been drawing him to her since she’d walked in the room. Find someone who likes to bet beyond their ego.
Reed called over to Jonas Bride and a game was quickly established. Mercedes blew him a kiss, the signal to lose. Give up a bit, build the opponent’s confidence. This would be for both of them should he choose to engage Jonas Bride. It was what Mercedes was waiting for, his test for the evening. Would he personally engage in a hustle? Would he be able to win when he needed to, unlike in Bosham?
‘Bride, care for a wager between us?’ Greer offered, the affront to his own pride goading him into it. He’d show Mercedes he could play this as well as she could.
Greer lost the first game good-naturedly. Mercedes passed her pound notes to Reed and tossed her dark head. ‘Shall we go again?’ she said coyly, drawing more money from her bosom. Reed practically salivated. She blew him another kiss. And another.
Reed was standing too close to her, staring too much by the time she gave the signal to win. Greer doubled his own wager with Mr Bride, who gladly took it, seeing it as a chance for easy money. He’d just won three straight games.
Greer broke and won, careful to win just barely. There was no sense in making Bride look foolish. Reed bent over Mercedes’s hand and kissed it lavishly before he surrendered the funds, his eyes lingering on her breasts.
It’s just a game, Greer reminded himself, watching money pass back and forth between them. She’s playing with Mr Reed, working him
