Eminent loss rolled smoothly toward him.Good.
A lie.
He hated losing. Even now. When winning could ruin his goddamn life as he knew it.
Chapter Three
Caroline held thepaper with the riddles close to her bound bosom so no one saw the words written there, one riddle in particular not written at all. The answer…
A fart. Oh God, her cheeks raged red. They must. Could any other riddle have come to her lips but that one? It was not one she’d known as a child though, so Felix wouldn’t know it either.
Well, Mrs. Dove Lyon had wanted her to say something salacious, and this was close. In a way. Close to posteriors, and posteriors were salacious. God, she was going to combust with embarrassment.
She pushed the gentlemen’s answer sheets back toward them across the table. Beckwith picked up his pencil with laconic ease, but Felix wrapped his giant paw around it like he was a beast holding a knife meant to sacrifice a virgin beneath a full moon. It would surely crack under the pressure of his fist.
He scowled as he wrote, then he and Beckwith pushed their papers toward the center of the table at the same time. She gathered them, read them, almost fell apart. She could not breathe in these bindings, and now the donkey arses had both gotten the answer wrong.
She cleared her throat. It helped shake her man’s voice into place. “The answer, gentlemen, is”—oh God, how humiliating—“a fart.”
“Pardon me?” Beckwith leaned halfway across the table, ear tilted toward her.
She would not say it again.
“What was that?” Felix asked, arms crossed over his chest, the challenge blazing in his eyes. He knew what she’d said, knew who she was. And he was teasing her mercilessly.
She would. Not. Say it. Again.
“Mr. Maxwell,” the Black Widow snapped. “Louder please.”
“A fart!” Caroline rather screamed the word, wanting to melt right through the floorboards. Her voice was high, higher than a man’s. She was shrieking like a fishwife. Likely, in the main gaming room, the gamblers stopped everything and whipped their heads her way. Control gone. Her disguise penetrated. The one man she’d most needed to hide from had found her out.
At least she wasn’t the only one embarrassed. Beckwith blushed red enough to set the entire place on fire.
“Got it wrong, I fear.” Felix covered a laugh then held out a hand to Beckwith. “Let me be the first to congratulate you on your upcoming nuptials.”
Beckwith shook his head slowly. “I got it wrong, too.”
They looked Caroline’s way.
Curse it.There would be another tie breaker.
She consulted her paper. There were several more riddles left. She’d use one he knew this time, an easy one so that Beckwith would know it and Felix could pretend he didn’t. Yes, excellent plan. Now that he knew who she was, he would lose on purpose.
She pulled up tall, straightened her cravat, and—
“If you clear your throat one more time,Maxwell,” Felix said, “I’ll dump this wine over your head.”
Mrs. Dove-Lyon gasped. “You’ll do no such thing. It’s an excellent vintage.”
Caroline swallowed instead of clearing her throat. “Here is the next”—and hopefully final—“riddle. Nancy with the white petticoat, and the red nose, the longer she stands, the shorter she grows. What is she?”
Felix rolled his eyes and glugged his wine. He set the glass back on the table and tapped the pencil on the paper, watching Beckwith.
Who appeared utterly frustrated. He ran his hand through his hair and drummed his fingers on his leg. He shifted from one side of the chair to the other and then sipped his wine. Finally, with a grunt, he slashed letters across the paper and tossed it at Caroline. “An utter guess.”
She peeked at the answer.Curse it. “Wrong, my lord.”
“What?” Felix exploded from his chair and snatched the paper up. “An old woman? That’s your answer, Beckwith? It’s clearly a candle! How could you botch up something so…” The room grew eerily quiet. “Damn…” Felix’s face drained of color. “…easy.”
