The sound of crumpling paper shot through the room like a log collapsing in a fire. The dealer’s hand had become a fist. When he realized everyone looked at him, he bowed his head even more. “Pardon me.” The voice quieter, softer. Then he cleared his throat and smoothed out the paper on the table. “Shall I read the final riddle?”
“Are you well, Mr. Maxwell?” the Black Widow inquired.
The dealer raised a hand, waved away Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s concern. “Of course.” He pulled up tall, which was not tall at all. “Ears open, gents. The final riddle is this. There is a thing both long and stiff, and at the end there is a cliff. Of moisture from it doth flow, and makes fair lassies pleasant grow. What am I?”
Beckwith barked out a laugh. “Long, stiff, pleasing the lassies. How naughty of you, Mrs. Dove-Lyon.” He slashed an answer onto his paper then folded it. The other two gentlemen followed suit.
“Not my riddle.” The widow chuckled, the trajectory of her hidden gaze on the dealer. “Though someone is certainly naughty.”
The dealer watched them with a faint curve of his red lips.
The halting chords of a guitar floated up from somewhere, riding the faint and raucous rumble drifting up from the main gambling room. Felix tapped one fingernail on the polished tabletop, considering. This riddle was new to him, and it seemed to have been composed to be purposefully provocative. If Caro had ever heard it, she’d not sense its double meaning.Pampered, protected, innocent Caroline. Nothing likehim. It had been years since she’d annoyed him with her riddles, months since he’d last seen her. He barely thought of her at all anymore. But the riddles had brought her roaring back to life. He shifted, uneasy.
He must focus on the answer, must figure out which one to give. There was the answer the other men were so confident of, the one that appealed to their prurient minds. And there was the other one—the innocent one that would tumble from Caro’s red lips.
The dealer’s lips were red, and they’d shaped the riddle with glee, lingering over words likelong,moisture, andlassies.
Back to Caro, then. Damn riddles. Of course that’d tug her into his mind, knocking down everything else. He rubbed his forehead above his brows and took another sip of wine before writing down his answer. “Done.”
“Last to finish, Lord Foxton,” the dealer said. Those lips… they were not… the lips of a man.
Bloody hell.What an odd thought. But once he’d had it, he couldn’t shake it away. They werenotthe lips of a man. And more than that, those cheeks had never seen a razor, had never known the need for one. The delicate curve of that jaw—hardly the hard-boned promise of manhood found in boyish years. He couldn’t unsee it now—rosy cheeks and long-lashed eyes. The whole of the dealer’s face surroundingthat mouth. Which meant…
“Mrs. Dove-Lyon,” Felix said, relaxing into the back of his chair and stretching out a leg beneath the table, “when will you introduce the bride?” He knew only that she was eight and twenty years of age, attractive, of good social standing, and wealthy.
“Soon enough, Foxton.” The Black Widow stood behind the dealer’s chair now, grasping the back of it. “Mr. Maxwell, gather the answers.”
Maxwell? Another Caro connection. Her surname.
The dealer’s red lips parted slightly as he reached across the table to gather everyone’s papers. Beneath his too-large jacket, the edge of the table bit into his chest, cutting unexpectedly deep into the man’s flesh. As if more than muscle existed there. As if bounteous flesh… too much for a man’s slim frame…
No.
As Mr. Maxwell opened the papers and lined them up in a neat row in front of him, his tidy, white teeth snagged his bottom lip.
A familiar gesture
Caro’s gesture of old.
Bloody hell!
All the impressions and shapes shone with new meaning. The curve of the cheek, the plump line of the lips. Red.
Like Caroline Maxwell’s were. Impossible.
Yet true. There she was—the one woman he avoided, the one he’d spent years forgetting.
Miss Caroline Maxell.
What in hell was she thinking? To play at dealer for the infamous Lyon’s Den! Why would she… unless… she was the mysterious bride?
Bloody, bloody hell!Her father’s death last year must have sent her running headlong into madness. Surely she had not chosen Felix to be here tonight. He’d been a last-minute addition, according to the widow. But it couldn’t be coincidence… Fate. If so, what a bitch Fate must be. He wanted a wife he could marry and forget. A woman who would make his grandfather happy, and… well, he supposed Caro would certainly do that.
God, Grandfather would love this.
But Felix wasnothis grandfather.
He reached across the table to grab his answers back, but she was too quick. She slapped her palm on top of the paper at the same time he did, her head popping up, the hat teetering back but not falling. It revealed her eyes. Not that he’d needed to see them through the domino to know her. Their hands touched. Unintended. Brutal. Tingling like a lightning bolt to the chest. They faced one another like armies meeting on the battlefield at dawn. Neither moved to relinquish the prize.
