Page 57 of A Deviant Spinster for the Duke
She looked up at him, smiling tightly. “Thank you, Lord Tarporley, but I should hate for anyone to think that I have help. That would, I believe, be considered cheating.”
Her partner in the game was a lady that Duncan did not know, whose eyes wandered away from the competition. Her gaze settled on him for a moment, a sly smile curving up the corners of reddened lips, but he was only interested in one thing…
“Might I cut in?” he asked, resting a hand on the back of the lady’s chair. “I shall play in your honor.Winin your honor.”
The young lady blushed with delight, as he had hoped she might, and quickly rose from her chair. “I should relish having you as my champion, Your Grace. I confess, I am no good at cards.”
“Luckily for you, I have some talent in it,” Duncan replied, picking up the cards that the woman had set down.
He glanced over the top of them, hiding his smile from Valeria. She stared back at him with a different sort of fire burning in her eyes: the blaze of a challenge, stoked by the kindling of… anger, and the smoldering embers of an emotion he could not place. Or did not want to.
She is upset with me.He had seen it on her face while he had hesitated to kiss her, and when she had hurried from his townhouse that last, wrenching time. She had closed her eyes, giving him permission to kiss her, all but asking him to, and he had… embarrassed her. Who would not be hurt in such a situation, regardless of his reasoning?
After all, she did not know his reasons. To her, it must have felt like a brutal rebuffing, the mean conclusion to one of his games.
“I will not spare your pride, Your Grace,” Valeria said curtly.
He smiled. “I would not expect you to, Miss Maxwell. Shall I shuffle?”
“No, I think it would be wise for someone else to shuffle.” She took his cards as he tossed them into the middle of the table, and gathered them with the rest, handing the pack to the baron. “William, might you do the honors?”
William?Hearing that man’s name from her lips, spoken so intimately, stung like a wasp had snuck between Duncan’s ribs.
Wearing a foolish grin, the baron promptly began to shuffle the cards, cutting them and slotting them back into each other. All the while, he gazed down at Valeria. All the while, she gazed back up at him, ignoring Duncan altogether. A peculiar form of torture that he did not like one bit.
“Five cards each,” William said, skimming them across the table to their respective holders. “Best set wins.”
It was a game that Duncan knew well enough, mostly from his days at Eton and Cambridge, but he had to admit that he was somewhat rusty. Still, he was certain it would come back to him as he played.
“May the best player win,” Valeria said, her eyes lowering to her cards as she turned them toward herself.
Duncan did the same, revealing nothing on his face. “In that case, perhaps you ought to start, so you have at least one advantage.”
Her eyes flitted up in a scowl. “Ishallstart, but I will win on my own merits. I do not need to explain; you will see, soon enough.”
“Oh, but what will the prize be?” William asked abruptly.
A wide smile spread across Duncan’s face. “The winner gets to make one request of the loser.” He paused. “A debt, if you will. And the loser cannot deny the winner anything… within reason, of course.”
Valeria’s eyes widened, but before she could protest or say anything in reply, William clapped his hands together. “Excellent! Oh, this shall bequitethe competition!”
And as those words rang out, a crowd began to gather. Beneath curious stares and whispers of excitement, Duncan and Valeria made their first moves.
“A royal run!” Valeria yelped victoriously, throwing her five cards down with a breathless flourish. “Do you see that, Dunc—Your Grace? A royal run!”
Her cheeks were rosy with the evening warmth and the heat of her enthusiasm, her eyes bright with the thrill of the game.Duncan doubted he had ever seen her look more exquisite, even in that gown of Italian velvet. And her smile… It was the sort of smile that one felt lucky to be in the presence of, even in gloating.
“I can see it,” he replied, grinning. “You have, indeed, beaten me. And it only took…” he glanced across the drawing room to the clock on the mantelpiece “… an hour to achieve victory.”
And it was one of the finest hours of my life,he neglected to add.
They had played a cutthroat, vigorous game, locked in a back and forth of soaring hope and crashing failures, both of them coming close to winning at several tense moments, only to have it snatched away by the other.
“An hour?” She blinked in astonishment.
“You played well,” he told her, setting down his cards. “Why, I am as exhausted as if I had been riding for hours. My mind has not had that sort of exercise in far too long.”
Their exuberance for the game, however, had sadly been lacking in their spectators. The two of them had begun the game with a fair and lively crowd, but as time had ticked on, and the pair had sunk deeper into the bubble of the competition, more and more watchers had wandered off toward other entertainment.
