Page 11 of Kiss or Dare


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He took a sip of the champagne. Just a sip. It was more prop than libation tonight. If he was going to win—and he must—he needed all his wits about him.

Devon straightened out the wrinkle in his nose and sauntered into the room. He strolled around each table. When a hand ended and the participants in the game blinked as they came back to reality, a drearier or a better world depending on the outcome for each, a schoolmate of Devon’s recognized him.

“Ho there, Devon!” Lord Adam said. “Mors tua, vita mea.” Though he spoke to Devon, his brown-eyed gaze wandered over those assembled in the room, a summer storm that strolled from one end of the country to the other before dissipating. Finally, he dragged a slender hand through his muddy colored hair and met Devon’s gaze with happy eyes. “Here to lose to me?”

Devon ignored the Latin motto they’d tossed around at school. “Never lost to you once in my life.”

Adam slapped his hands to the table and pushed to a stand. “Unfortunately, well I know it. I’ve lost enough tonight.” He nodded at the remaining gentlemen at the table. “You know how to collect your winnings.” No one chuckled, though it was a bit of a joke. Adam didn’t have any money for anyone to collect winnings from. They had to apply to his father, and his father was a right terrifying man. The Duke of Cresswell. Rich as Croesus but also a miser. Everyone knew once Adam came into in his inheritance he’d be good for the money. He wasn’t the duke’s heir, but he would be well taken care of, nonetheless. He’d be able to pay off all outstanding IOUs in the blink of an eye. His father would have to die for that to happen.

“Lord Devon,” a rough voice said from the table. “Take Lord Adam’s spot,Reputation Ruiner.”

Devon hid the flame of rage that ignited in his belly with a charming smile. That damned moniker followed him about like an annoying fly since he’d returned to London after his unexpected jaunt North with Lady Jane Crenshaw. Even after her eminently respectable marriage to an earl, the name had not died. He wanted to smoosh it beneath his boot heel, grind it to bits and pieces, and never hear it again.

He could not show his ire, though. He’d been hoping for an invitation to play at this particular table. Devon had lingered here during his stroll, longer than he had at the others, on purpose. One or two of the table’s inhabitants were notoriously bad gamblers, and one or two were notoriously good. Would be a challenge. He might lose some, and he might win some. While he was no ace at cards, he was also no dunce.

He threaded his fingers together and stretched his palms outward as he sat. The cards were dealt, and they played.

Devon used to join the chatter that always attended a game of cards, but these days he did not. The stakes were too high. His purpose too important. He needed full concentration.

So, he only looked up from his cards several games in, and several hundred pounds richer, when he heard her name at a nearby table.

“Miss Clarke is a prime one that’s for sure. I’d like to see her better, with all that hair tumbled on my bed linens.” A drunken chuckle.

Devon looked up, searching for the voice’s owner, bile and anger rising in his throat. He often heard men who called themselves gentlemen speak of women in such a way. He never joined, but he never corrected them, and he always felt slightly guilty about the latter. His cards bent under the pressure of his fingers.

“Wouldn’t have to marry her either,” another man said. “So lowborn we could have a bit of fun, and no one would blink an eye.”

“Definitely not marriage material,” yet another man said. “Why anyone thought to allow her on the Mart is beyond me.”

Still another voice rose. “Littleton is all but engaged to the chit. You best hold your tongue.”

Devon’s gaze darted around the room looking for old Alfred, Viscount Littleton, the man Miss Clarke had set her sights on. A stodgy chap but a good one. There he was—drinking with a book by the fire. Of course, he wouldn’t gamble. And he did not appear to be paying any attention to the conversation in which his near fiancée’s good name was being besmirched.

Devon crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his seat, glaring at Littleton, his ear ever attuned to the conversation.

“The girl keeps good company, you have to admit that,” said one chap. “Her bosom friends seem to be a duchess and a countess. Imagine that. A mere inventor’s daughter cavorting with suchton.”

Devon had heard enough, and Littleton apparently had not, so Devon did the only thing he could think to do. He slapped his cards on the table. “I fold.” He didn’t particularly like Lillian Clarke, but he wasn’t about to hear her, or any woman for that matter, slandered.

Then he dragged his chair to the table with the vulgar chaps and placed it backwards between two gentlemen. He straddled the chair and draped his arms across the back. “Hello,gentleman,” he growled.

“Lord Devon!” they said in chipper tones.

He saw no reason for any preamble. “If the lot of you do not stop your inane and vulgar chatter this very moment, you’ll be leaving here with a black eye and a bloody nose.”

The men look befuddled, their eyes wide, their gazes searching one another for answers.

“Let me speak in clearer words to ensure you nodcocks understand me. You are not to speak as you have been doing about Miss Clarke. She’s a lady, and you will respect her.”

A bark of laughter. A red-faced gentleman said, “The inventor’s daughter? Why should we?”

Devon ran a finger along the ornate carving on the back of the chair, keeping his movements casual, his face placid. “Putting aside the fact that her father is not just a mere inventor, but the inventor of a steam automaton responsible for saving countless lives and well respected by the Regent himself. Also putting aside the fact that, as a lady of your acquaintance, you should treat her with as much respect as you reserve for any other lady, and if you do not stop, I will throw over this table right now and beat each of you about the head with my chair.”

He grinned. He loved escalating his threats. There was a certain art to it, to moving from bloody noses to pummeling someone with a chair. It was great fun, indeed. Even better fun if he actually got to do those things.

He hoped the grin convinced them he was just crazy enough to do it. Because he was.

The confusion in their eyes disappeared, replaced by fear.