Regency Gamble: A Lady Risks All / A Lady Dares

‘What is this for?’ Greer stared at the money. It would keep him for quite a while in his drab rented room. Perhaps he could even send some home. His father had mentioned the roof needed fixing on the home farm. Stop, he cautioned himself. This wasn’t his money. Not yet.

Lockhart’s smile broadened. He looked like someone who has taken great pleasure in pleasing another with a most-needed gift. ‘It’s yours, from last night’s winnings.’

Greer shook his head and put the envelope down on the table. ‘I didn’t wager anything.’

‘No, but I did. I bet on you and you worked for me last night. This is your cut for that work, your salary, if you prefer to think of it that way.’

It was so very tempting when Lockhart put it that way. ‘I can’t take it. You wouldn’t have billed me if I’d lost.’

Lockhart nodded in assent. ‘I understand. I respect an honest man.’ He scooped up the envelope and tossed it to Mercedes who caught it deftly. ‘See if you can’t find a good use for that, my dear.’

‘What shall it be?’ Mercedes gathered up the ivory balls from their pockets around the table. ‘The losing game? The winning game? Colours? Name your preference.’ She’d brought the Captain to the billiards room after her father had left. Another look at Thurston’s table wouldn’t be amiss. Nothing persuaded like excellence.

‘You play?’ She could hear Barrington’s chalk cube stop its rubbing, a sure indicator she’d stunned him into silence.

Mercedes set the balls on the table and fixed him with a cold smile designed to intimidate. ‘Yes, I play. Why? Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t. I’m Allen Lockhart’s daughter. I’ve grown up around billiards my whole life.’ Mercedes selected a cue from the wall rack, watching the Captain’s reaction out of the corner of her eye. To his credit, he didn’t follow up his surprise by stammering the usual next line, ‘B-b-but you’re a woman.’

Captain Barrington merely grinned, blew the excess chalk off his cue and said, ‘Well then, let’s play.’

They played the ‘winning game’, potting each other’s balls into various ‘hazards’ for points. Mercedes played carefully, a mix of competence and near-competence designed to draw Barrington out, expose his responses. Would he play hard against a woman? She potted the last ball into the hazard with a hard crack. ‘I win.’

She gave him a stern look, suspecting he’d purposely let up towards the end of the second game. ‘I shouldn’t have. You gave up a point when you missed your third shot.’ It had been a skilful miss. An amateur would have noticed nothing. Near-misses happened; tables were full of imperfections that could lead to a miscalculation. But she’d noticed. ‘Are you afraid to beat a woman?’

He laughed at that—a deep, sincere chuckle. ‘I’ve already beaten you once tonight. I won the first game, if you recall?’

‘I do recall, and I suspect you were too much of a gentleman to win the second.’ Mercedes was all seriousness.

This was the type of thing her father wanted her to ferret out and destroy. Chivalry was anathema on the road. She supposed his idea of chivalry didn’t stop at women, but extended to poor farmers who’d come to town on market day and stopped in to play a game, or to men seemingly down on their luck, or to men, unlike him, who wagered with what they couldn’t afford to lose. Such chivalry stemmed from the code of noblesse oblige that gentlemen were raised with and it would definitely have to go.

‘Such fine sentiments will beggar you, Captain.’ Mercedes flirted a bit with her smile, gathering up the balls for another game.

Barrington shrugged, unconcerned. ‘Manners beggar me very little when there’s no money on the line. We were just playing.’

‘Is that so?’ Mercedes straightened. Just playing? Her father would blanch at the idea of ‘just playing’. There was no such thing in his world. She reached for the envelope where she’d laid it on a small table. She tossed it on to the billiards table. ‘I want your best game, Captain. Will this buy it?’ She’d known precisely what use her father meant for the envelope. She was to buy the Captain with it.

‘Are you serious?’ His eyes, when they met hers, were hard and contemplative, not the laughing orbs that had not cared she’d accused him of going easy on her.

‘I am always serious about money, Captain.’

‘So am I.’

She knew it was the truth—the calculation in his eyes confirmed it. This was a chance to rightfully win what her father had offered earlier. He’d desperately wanted that money; she’d seen the delight that had flared in his eyes ever so briefly. Only his honour had prevented him from taking it. ‘You’re on, Captain. Best two out of three.’

She won the first game by one point, earned when he barely missed making contact with his ball, legitimately this time.

He took his coat off for the second game and rolled up his sleeves. Was he doing it on purpose to distract her? If so, it wasn’t a bad strategy. Without his coat, she could see the bend and flex of him clearly outlined by his dark-fawn trousers, and there was something undeniably attractive about a man only in waistcoat and shirt, especially if the man in question was as well proportioned as the Captain.

He was handsomely turned out tonight in a crisp white shirt and fashionable, shawl-collar waistcoat of burgundy silk, showing off those broad shoulders. His blond hair had fallen forwards, the intensity of their play defeating the parting he wore to one side. Now, all that golden perfection fell forwards, hiding his eyes from her as he concentrated on his next shot.

It was a sexy look, an intense look—a crowd would love it, a woman would love it, looking up into that face, that hair, as he moved over her, naked and strong. Mercedes pushed such earthy thoughts away. She had a game to lose. This was no time to be imagining the Captain naked and in the throes of love-making.

Barrington won the second game, just as she’d planned. His honour ensured it. He’d promised her his best game and he could be counted on to keep his word, his honour making him blind to any dishonour in another. It would prevent him from seeing her game as anything other than straightforward and perhaps his bias would, too. No matter what a man said, a man never believed a woman was a real threat until it was too late. She didn’t think the Captain was any different in that regard. It was the nature of men, after all, to believe in their infallible superiority.

‘This is it. Winner takes all.’ Mercedes set her mouth in a grim line of determination. Whether anyone knew it or not, there was just as much pressure to lose well as there was to win. But Barrington was nearly untouchable in the third game, potting balls without also hazarding his cue ball, and it made her job easier. He was starting to smile, some of the intensity from the second game melting away, overcome by his natural assurance and confidence.

‘Look at that,’ he crowed good-naturedly after making a particularly difficult shot, ‘just like butter on bread.’

Mercedes laughed too. She couldn’t help it. His humour was infectious. This must be why people like to play him, she thought. Even if you were losing to him, you wanted him to win. His personality drew you in, charmed you. That would have to be saved. She added it to the mental list in her head: chivalry, no, personality, yes. She wondered if she could change the one without altering the other? Without altering him? Because Greer Barrington was eminently likeable just the way he was. She had not bargained on that. She lined up her last shot and took it with a little extra force to ensure the slip. She would make her shot—he would be suspicious if she didn’t—but her cue ball would hazard and that would decide the game in his favour.

Mercedes thumped the butt of her cue on the floor with disgust. ‘Devil take it,’ she muttered on her breath for good, compelling measure, her face a study of disappointment. ‘I had that shot.’

Barrington laughed. ‘You’re a bad loser.’ He said it with a certain amount of shock as if he’d made a surprising discovery. He shifted his position so that he half sat on the edge of the table, his eyes alight with confidence and mischief. But Mercedes already knew what was coming. Part of her wanted him to take the money and be done with it. If he was smart, he’d pocket that envelope, walk out of here and forget all about the Lockharts. His blasted chivalry was about to work against him.

‘I’ll give you a chance to win it back. One game takes all, I’ll wager my envelope against—’

She interrupted. ‘The road. Your envelope against the road. I win, you take my father’s offer.’ Don’t do it. The wager is too much and you should know it.

Barrington studied her for a moment. ‘I was going to say a kiss.’

‘All right, and a kiss,’ Mercedes replied coolly. But she wasn’t nearly as cool as she let on. This wouldn’t be like the previous set of games where she’d been entirely in charge of the outcome. She’d decided who’d won and it had been easy to control things simply by losing. She wouldn’t have that control here. Her only option this time lay in complete victory.

She chalked her cue and watched Barrington break one of his shattering breaks in the new style becoming popular in the higher-class subscription rooms. She studied the lay of the table and took her shot. On her next shot, Mercedes carefully leaned over the table, displaying her cleavage to advantage where it spilled from the square neckline of her gown. If he could take off his coat, she could make use of her assets, too. She looked up in time to catch Barrington hastily avert his gaze, but not until he’d got an eyeful. She smiled and went back to her shot. ‘Like butter on bread,’ she said after it fell into a pocket with a quiet plop.

Barrington shot again. ‘Like jam on toast.’ He raised a challenging eyebrow in her direction. His shot had been an easy one and he had the better lay of the table. None of his remaining shots would require any particular skill or luck. If she didn’t do something now, he’d outpace her and win. The shot she was looking for was risky. If she missed, it would assure Barrington’s victory and she’d have some explaining to do to her father. But if she didn’t try she would likely end up losing anyway.

She bent, eyeing the table. Unhappy with the angle, she moved, bent, sighted the ball and moved again. Finally pleased, she aimed her cue. ‘I find jam a bit sticky.’ She shot, the cue ball splitting the pair she’d sighted perfectly, each one rolling smoothly to their respective pockets.

The Captain favoured her with a sharp look. ‘Impressive. I think you may have been holding out on me.’

Mercedes lifted a shoulder in a shrug. ‘A lady must have her secrets, after all.’

Two shots later she claimed victory. Her risky shot had paid off.

Barrington settled his cue on the table, a not entirely happy look on his face. ‘You win. The road it is.’

Mercedes came around the table and stood beside him, guilt threatening to swamp her. She’d goaded him into this. She’d directed the evening towards this very outcome. Perhaps it hadn’t been fair. ‘You’ll like it. You can play billiards all day, all night, and my father will introduce you to a lot of people. You’ll have opportunities.’ She pressed the envelope into his hands. ‘And you’ll have your money. You won’t have to take up the home farm for a while.’ She tried for a laugh, but it fell flat.

‘I lost.’

‘I don’t recall asking for the envelope if I won.’ Mercedes smiled up into his face. She hoped he saw that smile as one of friendship. She’d been hard on him tonight, whether he knew it or not. But they were in this together now. He was her chance. His successes would be her successes, at least for a while, at least until she decided he’d served his purpose as he had tonight.

She boldly took the envelope from his hands and put it inside his waistcoat. His body was warm through his shirt where her hand made contact with his chest. She tucked the envelope securely into an inside pocket.

‘You don’t mind the road all that much, do you? I was fairly sure last night you didn’t have any plans.’ Mercedes was gripped by another bout of conscience. She hoped she hadn’t ruined anything for him.

‘No. I’m looking forward to it, actually.’ Barrington gave a fleeting smile, perhaps designed to appease her guilt. ‘I was merely wondering what my father would make of all this.’ Ah, the sainted Viscount with his empty coffers.

‘Sometimes fathers don’t always know best,’ Mercedes answered softly. ‘Especially if what they want for us is holding us back. Our paths can’t always be theirs.’