Page 16 of Beth: A Regency Romance Novell

“I’m hardly a card sharp,” she said. “There are no cards up my sleeve. You watched me shuffle the deck. Do you intend to keep playing? Or are you afraid?”

“Afraid?” An ugly flush covered his cheeks. “And let a woman beat me?”

Ten minutes later, Ramsey slammed his fist on the table. “I’m down to my last few coins,” he barked. He tossed back the last of the wine in his glass and rose to walk to the bureau. “We’ll start a new deck. I shall deal.”

Beth wished she could inspect the pack but knew he would turn nasty at her request. She preferred to humor him and keep him playing. While they were here, at least, it kept him from his main purpose to send her home deflowered and disgraced.

After he shuffled the new deck of cards, the game turned in his favor. Ramsey began to win. Beth watched him helplessly. She couldn’t catch him at it, but he had to be manipulating the cards. She sat straight in her chair and played on doggedly. If she accused him of cheating, he might turn on her. There was a new brittleness about him, and she feared he might snap, which made him even more dangerous. But she could not stop the momentum as he won hand after hand.

Within the hour he claimed the last of her coins and sat back and crossed his arms with a satisfied smile.

The clock struck four. “It will soon be dawn.” Beth pushed away from the table. Beyond the window the trees dripped, and the moon appeared through the misty clouds, the storm having finally blown away. “I would like to go home now. If you intended to damage my reputation, you have succeeded.”

“That wasn’t part of our agreement.” He climbed to his feet, his eyes roaming over her. “Come to the bedchamber. You agreed to spend some time with me, if you lost the game.”

“I made no such promise.” A chill spread down her spine beneath her shift. She jumped to her feet and began to back away. “Let me go, please.”

With two strides he was upon her, his hard hand on her arm, his fingers tightening around it.

Beth struggled within his grasp. “Don’t give me any trouble. I warn you.”

She gasped and her spine slumped with a sense of impending doom.

A loud crash came from somewhere below. “What the devil was that?” Ramsey released her arm.

“Ghosts?”

He scowled back at her, but she saw fear in his eyes. Another crash sounded below. Ramsey ran to the door as he searched in his pocket for the key. Producing it, he turned it in the lock and hauled the door open. In his haste would he forget to lock it?

She heard him fumble with the key and the clunk as the bolt turned. With a moan of despair, she hurried over to search the walls for a hiding place.

Ramsey’s voice rose in anger from the hall below. She couldn’t make out his words and wondered who it could be. Might someone have come to help her? She couldn’t make herself believe it and had no time to wait to find out. The servants’ stairs Lilly had spoken of must be here somewhere.

Desperate, Beth moved along the walls, her fingers prodding the carved border atop the drawing room panels. Suddenly, the dining room doors, which Ramsey had closed, were thrown open.

Beth spun around.

Lilly beckoned from the doorway. “Come quickly,” she whispered.

With a smothered crow of delight, Beth ran to her. A cleverly concealed door in the dining room wall, half-timber half-papered, stood open revealing a set of wooden stairs. She scrambled with Lilly into the confined space.

Lilly closed the door behind them, and darkness descended. “Best we don’t light a candle in case he comes into the stairway.”

“Lilly,” Beth murmured heaving in breaths of stale air. “I am so grateful to you. What was that noise downstairs?”

“I pushed over the armor in the hall,” Lilly said.

“But how did you get back up here without him seeing you?”

“I ran fast up the stairs and into the bedchamber.”

“Can we get into the parlor downstairs? There might be a window we can open.”

Lilly shook her head. “Those rooms are locked. He has all the keys. He carries the housekeeper’s chatelaine with him. He locks every one, the library, the salon, even the door to the cellar. There is no way out. He locked me in after I brought the shopping yesterday. And he won’t let me go again, until he wishes to.”

“Can’t we break the kitchen window?”

“It’s barred.”

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