What had she done? She skimmed her fingertips lightly over the cards, hardly daring to believe she’d beaten him, but no—the cards said she had.
She’d won.
Emilia regarded the empty wine and brandy glasses, her head beginning to swim. He was coming tomorrow to see the proof that he was the next Lord Sydenham. It was what she’d wanted, and yet she felt a tremor—partly apprehension, partly anticipation, partly an incipient headache from drinking so much.
And what on earth was the favor he wanted from her?
Nick stalked through the club,his hands clenched and his heart bumping erratically in his chest. That had not gone to plan.
She’d thrown him off from the start, turning up in a form-fitted dress that reflected her eyes, a silver locket shining at her plump décolletage that lured his eye like a beacon. He’d tried to regain the upper hand, only to be upended again by her expression as he showed off his life’s work.
He’d thought it would give her some pause in her crusade to make him change his life. She would realize how unsuitable he was for her purposes, beyond all hope of reform. Perhaps she would simply be offended and leap on his offer of five thousand pounds.
Instead Emilia Greene was impressed—even intrigued. Nick saw it, and it sent a thrill through him.
That led him astray in the card game. He couldn’t simply tell her no, not when she looked at him with those lightning-blue eyes, her barely-contained breasts swelling above her bodice with every indignant breath she took, so he bargained with himself: show her what a callous cardsharp he really was. She only played whist for penny stakes. She would lose, and retreat in a huff.
Instead she gulped down a glass of his best Madeira, followed by a generous dram of French brandy, and started telling him off directly, so unerringly that he’d lost his mind yet again. There was something dangerous about Emilia Greene in a passion, flushed and reckless as she snatched up the gauntlet he’d tossed down.
Now he was going to call on her tomorrow morning and spend an hour with her leaning over his shoulder, her face next to his, her beautiful bosom almost near enough to taste. She was going to show him what she’d done. She had promised him a favor.
Nick had told Forbes to wait nearby, and his manager materialized within five steps of leaving the private room. “Send her home,” he said curtly. “Discreetly. Pay the hackney driver double to keep silent.”
Forbes raised a brow but nodded. “You’re done with her, then?” Forbes had given him a suspicious look when Nick told him to keep an eye out for the plucky governess. Nick supposed the man questioned his motives, what with Miss Greene having lied to gain her first interview. Or perhaps it was her aristocratic connection. Or the fact that she kept coming back, and that Nick couldn’t stop himself from seeing her.
Forbes was probably right to worry about that.
“Dis aliter visum,” he said.The gods decided otherwise.
Forbes’s eyes narrowed; he hated when Nick used Latin.
“For now,” he growled, and strode away.
CHAPTERSEVEN
His night did not improve from there.
Louis found him at the hazard tables around midnight. “A word, sir?”
“Go on.”
Louis lowered his voice. “A member is questioning the odds. What ought I to tell him?”
Nick took his time answering. Louis was one of his newer employees, a tall, handsome young man with a charming manner. He’d applied for a post as a croupier, but had proved himself so knowledgeable about horses and racing that Nick had put him in charge of the turf book, where members could place their bets on the races. “What does he want?”
“It’s not so much that he wants better odds, sir, as that he’s scoffing at the ones set.”
Nick’s brow rose. “He wants worse odds?”
Louis hesitated. “Seems so.”
“He’s got some hedge in mind, I suppose.”
“Likely, though he’s not tipping it to me. But many of the members look to him about the races, and I suspect he’s stirring up discontent with how the odds are fixed.”
Nick’s mouth thinned. Those odds were set after advice from a closely-held network of jockeys and stable masters at the racetracks. Members were free to make bets between themselves at any odds they liked, but if they wanted to wager against Vega’s, they had to accept Vega’s odds. “Who?”
“Baron Fitchley, sir.”
