Page 9 of A Wicked Game

A year ago the sight of a Davies and a Montgomery voluntarily sharing a carriage would have been the social equivalent of seeing Lord Wellington playing cards with Bonaparte, impossible to comprehend. And just as likely to end in bloodshed.

But now the idea wasn’t quite so preposterous. Ever since Gryff had married Maddie and Carys had succumbed to the inexplicable charm of Tristan Montgomery, the very foundations of the Davies-Montgomery feud had been shaken.

Morgan and Rhys were the only Davieses left standing—and Morgan planned to do everything in his power to forge a Davies-Montgomery alliance of his own.

Chapter Four

Morgan watched Harriet rap on the ceiling to tell the driver to move on, then place her hands neatly in her lap.

He caught her eye. “I’m sorry to hear about your father’s illness. I had no idea his sight was failing.”

She looked surprised by his solicitousness. “Thank you. He has what the doctors call cataracts. His vision has grown steadily worse. Now he can’t see much at all, just patches of dark and light.”

“Is there no medicine that can improve the quality of his life? What about eye drops?”

She let out an exasperated laugh. “Oh, there are several treatments, although some sound utterly nonsensical. I’ve researched the condition extensively. The most promising is a new type of surgery, performed on the eye, that removes the cloudy lens and restores the vision almost completely. But Father’s refused to contemplate it.”

“I don’t blame him,” Morgan said stoutly. “I’d be terrified of having some old sawbones poking about in my eyeball. What if you lost whatever vision you had? You’d be completely in the dark.”

She frowned. “Modern medicine has made enormous strides in recent years. Yes, there is an element of risk—as there is with any medical procedure—but I’ve been trying to convince him to at leastspeakto an eye surgeon for months. He won’t hear of it.”

“Perhaps I should try to convince him.”

Morgan tried not to laugh at her expression of horror.

“As if he’d take advice from a Davies! He’d sooner listen to the devil. The only way that would work is if you told him not to attempt it under any circumstances. Then he’d probably do it, just to be perverse.”

Morgan chuckled. “Just like your uncle, Baron Lucas. He loved nothing better than taking the opposite course to the one suggested by my father.”

Harriet’s lips curved in a reluctant smile. “Well, yes. But you have to admit they both enjoyed the rivalry.” She slid him another wary glance. “You took the news of my being Mister Crusoe surprisingly well.”

“For a Davies, you mean,” Morgan snorted. “What did you expect me to do? Leap across the desk and strangle Melville with his own cravat?”

He let his gaze drop to her throat, as if imagining his hands there, and enjoyed the way her muscles contracted as she swallowed.

“What I mean,” she said, a little breathlessly, “is that it sounded as if you’d planned an extremely unpleasant punishment for Mister Crusoe.”

Morgan smiled. “Oh, you’re right about that. I spentmonthsfantasizing about all the things I would do when I finally got my hands on him.”

She sucked in a breath.

“Being told to abandon my vengeance was extremely disappointing.”

Harriet looked as if she couldn’t decide whether he was joking or not. Morgan sank farther back in his seatand allowed himself the sinful pleasure of inspecting her at such unexpectedly close quarters.

In truth, although hewasannoyed that his dreams of a painful payback had been thwarted, he couldn’t deny a certain crushing sense of inevitability at learning Harriet was the culprit.

Of course she was.

Because no matter what they did, they seemed destined to vex and complicate each other’s lives. He should have expected it, really. Fate had a warped sense of humor.

“How did you plan to punish him?” Harriet asked, and Morgan’s attention snapped back to the coach. “Since you’re a man, I assume it involved some kind of oafish physical retribution.”

He feigned affront, naturally. “You women aren’t the only ones allowed to think up fiendish ways to torture men, you know. Mister Crusoe caused me weeks of discomfort and frustration. I was going to return the compliment.”

“Well, that isn’t an option, now you know it was me. You promised Melville.”

He sent her a simmering glance. “I would never abuse you physically, Miss Montgomery.”

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