One Night of Sin (27 page)

“Don’t touch anything,” he told her in a low voice. “Once we put our wager in this circle—it’s called the betting box—no one’s allowed to touch it until the hand is over. Also, don’t touch the cards.”

“I won’t,” she quickly agreed.

Alec placed two red chips inside his betting box for an initial wager of ten guineas. When all of the other players had laid their bets as well, the dealer doled out the cards. Starting at his left, he made one pass around the table, laying all cards faceup; he dealt Alec a three and Becky noted that the dealer’s own card was an eight.

“Do the suits matter?”

“No.” Alec’s anticipatory stare remained fixed on the dealer, who was making another pass around the table, handing out a second card to all the players. Again the cards were dealt faceup.

Alec got another three.

“Is that good?” Becky whispered.

“Could be,” he said, then nodded toward the dealer as the old man placed his own second card face down. “You see? Now none of us knows what the dealer’s got in his hand. He’s got that eight, but his second card could be anything. That’s where the fun comes in.” He glanced around at the other players’ hands as he spoke.

“Fun? This is nerve-racking.”

“No one’s been dealt vingt-et-un,” he commented under his breath.

“What happens next?”

“Each player takes his turn. You’ll see.”

She peered over his shoulder at the gamblers to his right who began taking their turns in succession. Her curious stare drew an answering leer from a sweaty fellow across the table whose scruffy jaw was badly in need of a shave. He lifted his flask in Becky’s direction and toasted her with a harsh gulp of blue ruin.

Alec sent the man an icy look and pulled Becky onto his knee.

When his turn came around, he put another two red chips in the betting box and tapped the table casually with his fingertip. The dealer gave him a third card.

“A three again!” Becky exclaimed, then hastily stifled herself.

So, he had nine and he wanted twenty one. Two more red chips went into the betting box; again he summoned another card with a tap of his finger. This time it was a five.

Five plus nine: They were up to fourteen.

The other men around the table seemed to be holding their breaths as they watched him, but Alec, without a flicker of emotion on his face, placed another pair of red chips in the betting box and sought a fifth card.

Oh, please be a seven.
They now had thirty guineas on this wager.

The dealer gave Alec his fifth and final card—a six.

Becky stared at it, crestfallen. They were short. They had only made twenty.

Then she heard one of the other men say to Alec, “Nicely done, sir,” and she noticed the twinkle in his blue eyes as he amiably answered, “We’ll see.”

“I thought we wanted twenty-one,” she whispered, turning to him.

“Yes, but we haven’t gone over, and a five-card trick beats everything but vingt-et-un.”

“Oh!”

As the other men took their turns, some fell short of twenty-one or even the twenty that Alec had gotten. Others went over—the term was going ‘bust,’ as Becky soon learned—and from these, the dealer immediately confiscated the chips they had wagered on the hand.

At last, in the final step of the game, the dealer revealed his facedown card—a ten, giving him a total of eighteen. He had to pay even money to one man who had slipped in with a nineteen, but Alec’s five-card trick was a win that paid two to one.

“There you are, sir, well done, my lord,” the dealer murmured, shoving two green chips and two more red ones toward Alec.

Becky stared at her rescuer in amazement. “You just won sixty pounds!”

He cast her an ever so slight, private smile. She realized he was jubilant within, though as cool as steel outwardly, like a proper gambler.

“I like this,” she whispered, settling more comfortably onto his lap.

Alec nodded. “Everybody likes winning. They say it is an aphrodisiac,” he murmured in her ear.

“What’s that?” she asked innocently.

His laugh was low and very wicked. “I’ll tell you later.”

The dealer swept up all the cards and slid them under the bottom of the deck.

“Shouldn’t he shuffle?” she inquired, but Alec was nuzzling the curve of her neck.

“Not until someone gets vingt-et-un. I like your hair like this,” he purred, his warm breath tickling her earlobe. “It’s very pretty.” She had worn her hair pulled back from her face with a pair of combs, the back lifted off her neck, hanging in bouncy ringlets. Alec’s lips explored while some of the players left the table and new ones took their places. Becky glanced nervously at them, biting her lip against the sizzling desire that he sent searing through her veins. “You look so innocent in pink. It just makes me want to debauch you. I love your neck.”

“Behave, you scoundrel,” she chided in a breathy whisper. “You need to concentrate.”

“You are my muse,
cherie.
You inspire me.”

“How much are those green chips worth?”

“Twenty-five.” With that, he nudged one of the green chips into the betting box.

It was a steeper bet than they had started with last time, but Becky willed herself to trust him. The dealer again distributed two cards to all seven players, leaving his own second draw facedown. His faceup card was a four.

Alec had received a pair of sevens and was staring at them with a look of brooding intensity. “Are you superstitious, my girl?”

“A little, I suppose.”

“Then give me a kiss for luck.” He leaned his cheek toward her.

She smiled and obliged him, pressing a lingering kiss to his clean-shaved cheek.

Armed with her kiss, Alec slowly put the other green chip in the betting box and tapped the green tabletop twice. He stared at the dealer with a look of idle nonchalance, but sitting half on his lap, Becky could feel the tension thrumming through his body.

Cries of amazement erupted around the table before the third seven even hit the green velvet.

“A royale!”

“Damn me!”

“Ain’t seen one of those in months!”

Alec exhaled slowly through his mouth.

“Three sevens, that’s twenty-one!” she said, turning to him in excitement.

“You weren’t fooling. You
are
lucky.” He looked a little dazed as he glanced at her. “That kiss worked better than you know.”

“A royale trumps everything, little missy,” the middle-aged bald man beside Alec told her. “That’s why it pays three to one!”

Her jaw dropped as she whipped around to face her rescuer again. “Alec! You just won a hundred and fifty pounds!”

The man beside them bought Alec a bumper.

As word of his “royale” traveled rapidly throughout the gaming hell, people began gathering around the table to watch him play; but Becky was a bit superstitious, and Alec’s winning streak sent gooseflesh rising on her skin, as though someone had stepped on her grave. These sums were getting awfully large. She could barely believe he had won in one hand almost all that it cost to run the farm for a year. She swallowed hard, glancing nervously at the other players. Many of them were leaving the game, but Alec showed no sign of quitting anytime soon.

Maybe he should,
she thought. Why press their luck?

She was elated with his success, of course, and realized they still had far to go, but frankly, she was beginning to feel a trifle unnerved. As the stools again changed ownership and the dealer added the used cards once more to the bottom of the deck, she turned hesitantly to him.

“Perhaps we ought to quit while we’re ahead.”

“What, quit now?”

She nodded uneasily.

“Hell, no,” he whispered. “Not a chance.”

“Alec.”

He ignored her, his gaze riveted on the card box. Now that she noticed it, the fevered look in his eyes rather scared her. It bolstered her decision to leave.

“I want to go now, Alec. I mean it. Let’s get out of here before we lose all that you just gained.”

He shook his head. “Soon. Not yet.”

“Why risk it? You’ve won over two hundred guineas in less than twenty minutes—”

“Becky, I know what I’m doing!”

She blinked at his sharp tone.

“Sorry.” He lowered his gaze. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” He cupped her cheek. “Sweetheart, I’m doing this for you.”

“Are you?” she asked quietly, staring hard into his eyes.

He turned away with an impatient scowl.

She really could not argue with his success, so she held her tongue and gave him the benefit of the doubt for one more hand; but she swore to herself that if he lost their winnings now, she was going to throttle the man.

As the dealer paid out their treble winnings, the hundred fifty quid he had won arrived in the form of one black chip and two more of the green. For their third hand of the night, Alec laid an initial wager that topped out the maximum this table allowed: the black chip worth a full hundred guineas.

Becky felt a little ill. “It’s too much. We’re going to lose it all.”

“Child’s play,” Alec replied under his breath. “In Brighton, I’ll be wagering many multiples of this. Relax. It’s just beginner’s nerves. Ignore it.”

Becky took a deep breath, finally realizing the full extent of the trust she was going to have to place in him in order for this plan to work. A hundred pounds was a drop in the proverbial bucket compared to what they would need to regain Talbot Old Hall. He was right. In Brighton he would be betting thousands on each hand. Having lived very simply all her life, she was not sure her nerves could stand this, but Alec seemed perfectly composed.

She willed herself to have faith, and barely realized she was mentally reciting the Lord’s Prayer as the dealer’s nimble hands bestowed the requisite two cards on every player; on the first pass, Alec got the queen of hearts. Becky held her breath as the dealer came around again.

A worldly chuckle escaped his handsome lips as the queen found a partner in the ace of diamonds.

He sat back casually. “Vingt-et-un.”

The crowd around the table cheered him wildly, but Becky stared at him, paling.

This was too uncanny. Obsessed as he was with honor, there was no way he’d ever cheat, but she knew what Mrs. Whithorn would have said. A man with this kind of luck must have surely made a deal with the Devil.

Alec raised one eyebrow and gave Becky an I-told-you-so glance.

She was unnerved, resisting the urge to bless herself with the sign of the cross as she eyed his perfect cards. “M-May we go now, please?”

“You must be joking.”

“I’m in earnest, Alec!”

“Settle down,” he said with a flicker of annoyance in his eyes. “I know what I’m doing.”

Her temper flared. “Oh, really? Isn’t this how you got yourself into that ‘deep dark hole’ you mentioned? Isn’t this the reason half your furniture’s gone? Forget this! I’m leaving.” She got up abruptly from his lap. “I’ll wait for you outside, if you can manage to pull yourself away anytime soon.”

“Becky! Get back here! Becky, don’t you dare walk out—”

She ignored his protest, her heart thumping as she exited, maneuvering through the admiring crowd that had gathered around to watch the famed Lord Alec Knight at play.

That—blackguard!
she thought as she marched out of the salon, not stopping till she had reached the outdoors. The night had turned cool, but with ire heating her blood, she did not feel the chill. The black-clad porter stationed outside paid her no mind, conversing with another fellow as Becky paced back and forth beside the building.

She just knew Alec was going to come out empty-handed, and then she was going to find the nearest candle-snuffer and use it to clobber the rogue.

“Most stubborn creature I ever—chit’s going to get herself killed!” Alec muttered angrily to himself under his breath, glancing in the direction in which his impossible charge had gone storming out. “Could you hurry, please?”

Hastily pushing his chips toward the dealer, he drummed his fingers on the green baize table while the old man counted out five black chips and two red, giving these to Alec. He tipped the dealer, in turn, and quickly strode over to the clerk’s window, settling with the house to collect his winnings, a full five hundred guineas.

Then he was stalking out after her, triumphant over his success this night, yet gnawed at by the sobering realization that she might have a point. If he did not stay on his guard against himself, it would be distressingly easy to slip back into his old habits.

But bloody hell, he didn’t need a mere slip of a girl telling him what to do, how to play his hand. Striding outside, he asked Tom the doorman if he had seen his girl.

The big man gestured to a white-clad figure waiting in the shadows. When Alec saw her bristling posture, he knew he was in trouble. Arms folded across her chest. Foot tapping slowly at the hem of her skirts. Cold, level stare. No, his demoiselle did not need to say a word to express the way she felt.

And so, pinned in her quelling glare, he resorted to the time-honored male trick of going immediately on the offensive. Marching across the street, he approached in an aggressive state of indignant masculine bluster.

“Don’t you ever walk out on me again like that! Good God, you’ve got a horde of Cossacks after you—what if they had shown up while I was still inside?—and by the way, we do not happen to be in the best neighborhood!”

She stared stoically at him, unruffled by his rant. “I’ve heard about men like you, you know. Men who lose their fortunes in one night of gaming. There are stories of them all the time in the newspapers. They usually end up shooting themselves in the head. Is that what you want?”

“You really are the most incredibly ungrateful creature!” he exclaimed, throwing up his hands at his sides.

She thrust out her jaw, looking thoroughly obdurate. “How much did you lose?”

“Not a goddamn penny!” He reached into his pocket, and pulling out his billfold again, offered it insolently to her. “Here! Why don’t you count it? You obviously don’t trust me, so maybe I’m lying. Go on! It’s all there.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, making no move to confiscate the cash. “If you’re not going to take this seriously, then maybe I
am
better off on my own. You said yourself that all you care about is pleasure, but we are not here so that you can have fun, Alec.”