“And before you ask,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said, her voice sharp as if no veil could muffle the power of her law in this place, “I am prepared for the final two to tie more than once. I am always prepared for any eventuality.”
“I do not expect anyone to tie with me,” Felix said.
“Such hubris,” the dealer muttered. That voice. High and low. Confused.Grating.
The gentleman to Felix’s left, the Earl of Beckwith, tugged off his gloves, cracked his neck left then right. “I believe you’ll be trying to tie withme, Fox.”
Felix raised a brow, offered a challenge.
“Didn’t realize you were in the market for a wife,” Beckwith grumbled.
“It’s time.” More accurately, Felix had runoutof time. Grandfather had asked him to marry before he died, and he swore he was knocking on death’s door. That, probably, a bold lie, but Felix couldn’t deny the only person alive whom he loved.
No chance of him courting a woman, though. Too much trouble. Much better towinone. No flirtation required, nopretending. Simply a recognition of marriage as a transaction. No need, even, to spend time choosing a lady.
And if he lost… no loss really. The Black Widow could have Hawthorne House. He’d only planned to let it rot.
“Time to cut the chatter, gents,” the dealer said. “Are you ready for the first riddle?”
Felix’s three competitors narrowed their eyes in concentration on the squares of paper placed before each of them, picking up their stubby pencils. They nodded.
The dealer’s attention seemed alive and crackling on Felix for a moment. Apparently, the man waited for some indication from Felix.
Leaning back in his chair, Felix stretched his hand lazily on the table, flicked his fingers toward the dealer.Yes, ready.
The dealer answered by pulling a bit of paper from his jacket pocket and unfolding it. He cleared his throat, and said, “At night I timely go to rest, and early with the sun appear. When mounted high, I am at the best. ’Tis my delight to please the ear. What am I?”
Beckwith’s brows shot together. The other two gentlemen collapsed against the back of their chairs with groans.
Felix almost laughed.
He knew the answer. Didn’t even need to think. He’d watch the others squirm for a moment before writing it down. Surely they would figure it out, too. The notorious Black Widow of Whitehall would not have invited them were they lacking in wits. She’d want a good game. And fools answering riddles would not offer that.
Beckwith scribbled, the other two leaned low over their papers, and the dealer watched them all—presumably—from beneath the brim of his too-large hat.
Curious man. He wore that hat so low over his face, nothing showed but the bottom of a black domino, a tipped-up nose, and red lips.
Curious lips. Not the sort that usually occupied a man’s face. Full and as curvaceous as a woman’s figure.
Felix grunted away the observation, picked up his own pencil, and scrawled the words half-heartedly across the page: 1)A lark. He flipped the paper over, the better to keep his answers from prying eyes.
The answer released a memory. Sitting in the dirt with a little girl, his spindly boy’s legs rubbing against the edges of her summer-stained skirts.I bet you can’t guess this one, Felix.He hadn’t guessed it. But he’d kept it. Like a raven keeps a shiny thing. A treasure.
When everyone had done the same, the dealer’s gaze dropped to his own paper once more, and he said, “Twenty-four I do contain. They change to thousands in the main. Fair ladies court me, and dispute by me, although myself am mute. What am I?”
Felix added his second answer—the alphabet—before flipping it over once more, seeing on the empty back another memory—the two of them under the piano one candle-lit evening, listening to the adults speak of things they couldn’t understand yet, and playing the riddle game she adored.This one is easy, Felix.It had not been. He’d groused about it.
Feeling the memory curve his lips, Felix’s gaze floated up. He caught sight of the dealer. That man stared at him, the visible curves of his cheeks and jaws… were they paler than before?
Why were his lips so damn familiar?
The other men labored over their answers, and Beckwith wrote his down last, shaking his head as he did so. And much the same occurred through the next two riddles.
With only one riddle remaining, Felix bristled with confidence. Who knew acquiring a wife would be so easy? Half an hour’s idle pursuit would see him engaged to be wed.
“You seem happy with the riddles so far,” Beckwith said before taking a long draw of his drink.
“They are old friends of mine.” Felix finally allowed himself a sip of the fine wine each player had been gifted upon sitting.
