From Duke till Dawn: 2018’s most scandalous Regency read

“Then give me five thousand pounds,” Ellingsworth said easily.

“Did you secretly imbibe a cask of whiskey on our way here?” Alex demanded.

His friend rolled his eyes. “I’m sober.” He thought about it for a moment. “Mostly.” He exhaled. “The hundred pounds would set me up at the tables so I could win that five thousand.”

“Which you need because . . . ?”

“I have a project I’m working on.” Ellingsworth grinned. “A secret project.”

Alex could just imagine what folly his friend wanted to finance. “An expensive secret.”

Langdon dug into his coat pocket and produced a hundred-pound note. He held it out to Ellingsworth. “Enjoy, old man.”

“My thanks.” Ellingsworth grabbed the money and hurried off toward the tables.

“First of all,” Alex said with exasperation, “what the hell are you doing walking around with that much cash on your person? You’re a duke’s heir.”

Langdon shrugged. “Most underground gaming in London is cash only. They’re not interested in my vowels, duke’s heir or no. Your other question . . . ?”

“Why on earth did you give Ellingsworth the hundred pounds? He’s just going to lose. He usually does.”

“He’s my friend, Greyland.” Langdon smiled faintly. “It costs me little to make him happy for a few hours. Mayhap you ought to consider the price of your own happiness.” With that, Langdon ambled off.

Shaking his head at his youthful friends, Alex stood alone and surveyed the chamber. Unlike at some gaming hells, this unnamed one permitted women as well as men to risk their fortunes. Jeweled diadems and plumes were as plentiful as stickpins and Brutus-styled hair. Perfume, sweat, and alcohol scented the noisy air as the guests clamored at the various card and dice tables. More servants in green constantly moved through the room, bearing trays of food and drink.

He moved deeper into the room, taking his time, assessing. Perhaps Alex might be able to carry through with his plan and forget himself for a while in this place. Let slip the tether that always bound him.

By nature, he wasn’t a man given to gambling. It was the curse of his class, the need to wager outrageous sums on nearly anything. The betting book at White’s was proof of that. And this gaming hell was, too.

The large vaulted chamber was packed with patrons eager to know the thrill of a bet, the highs of winning and the crushing despair of a loss. Boredom ran riot amongst aristocrats, especially now that Bonaparte had been exiled to St. Helena, never to escape again. That boredom bred a need for sensation, for emotion. Alex had never felt this ennui, too busy with his responsibilities, but he knew several who did. Ellingsworth and Langdon were two of many men hungry for experience in the midst of privilege. Langdon, especially, seemed to thrive on challenge and danger.

Alex was slightly older, and perhaps he flattered himself to think he was wiser, too. But what had that gotten him?

He took a step toward the hazard table. The hell with it. Time to give up some of his control. Sink his teeth into the meat of life.

Yet before he made it to the table, he saw more than a few of the patrons looking in his direction. Some of them were whispering behind hands and fans. A few glanced at him with that dreaded emotion: pity.

He threw back the last of his wine. Damn and hell, was there nowhere he could go to feel at ease?

If they wanted something to talk about, by the devil, he’d give them enough ammunition to set their chins wagging for the next decade.

He stalked to a vingt-et-un table. People’s gazes and whispers followed him. The Duke of Greyland never gambled. Tonight, he would.

He wagered wildly, heedless of his cards. Wins and losses piled up, until he no longer cared how much money he’d lost or gained. It could have been a pittance, or a fortune. What did it matter?

A small crowd gathered, watching with barely concealed amazement.

“He’s gone mad,” someone whispered.

“The chit broke his sense,” another answered.

He moved to place another substantial, careless bet. A voice behind him made him freeze, however. It planted him like roots from an oak, and he couldn’t move under its memorable feminine, familiar spell.

“Won’t you play another hand, my lord? I’m certain the house will give you credit. Come, I shall fetch you a glass of wine.”

He knew that voice. Her voice. The Lost Queen.

Yet it couldn’t be. Had to be another illusion, like that woman’s laugh at the chophouse.

“Are you hungry, my lord? Cook has just prepared a superb steak avec poireaux vinaigrette.”

No—this was no illusion. Two years melted away like ice in a fire as Alex slowly turned around, uncaring that he was in the middle of a game. His body roared with pain and pleasure.

There she was. Achingly unforgettable. Devastatingly beautiful. As slim as a birch tree, with pale golden hair framing a face of shattering loveliness. Dressed in a bronze satin evening gown, her hair held up with amber clips, she stood next to Lord Coleman, smiling at the old earl in her winning way. Her hand rested lightly on his sleeve.

She wasn’t one of the patrons. She . . . worked here. But how? Why? What did any of this mean?

“Cassandra.” The word came from his lips like a rasp, as though his body was a cavern that had been closed for a millennium.

He didn’t speak very loudly—at that moment, he couldn’t. Yet she looked up at once. Her hazel gaze met his.

For half a heartbeat, her expression registered joy, longing. Then horror.

He blinked, and both expressions were gone from her face. She looked smooth and unreadable. It was as if he’d imagined her emotions.

He felt both numb and acutely aware of every nerve. His heart pounded and his mouth went dry.

“Alex?” she whispered.

It truly was her. Cassandra Blair. The Lost Queen. The woman who’d shattered his heart two years ago.

Chapter 2 (#ulink_64110c37-11b9-5a60-869b-6440c8b55c65)

For several moments, Alex and Cassandra stared at each other, as if frozen. The only thing that moved was Alex’s heart, pounding like a steam engine in the center of his chest.

He barely noticed Lord Coleman looking back and forth between them. “I’ll, ah, investigate the vingt-et-un tables,” the older man muttered before ambling away, leaving Alex alone with her.

He’d had lovers and mistresses before—women who enjoyed pleasure and were eager to share it with him—and while he acknowledged he’d been attracted to sundry women, his hunger for Cassandra had been sudden and obsessive. He’d seen a flame smoldering beneath the coolness of her exterior and it called to him, like a fire seen through a long, dark night.

He’d been drawn in by her quiet dignity, so different from the forced frivolity of debutantes in search of husbands. When other women looked at him as a collection of wealthy estates, awed by the age of his title and his prestigious lineage, she had spoken to him and looked at him as though he was a man, not just a duke. There had been tragedy in her eyes and understanding in her smile born from years of lived experience. And—he couldn’t deny it—the carnal awareness she displayed in her movements stoked a fire in him he’d never before known. He’d burned to touch her, to taste her kisses, to know the feel of her body against his.

Now the woman who’d carved a hollow inside his body and brain stood before him, two years older but as powerfully stunning as she’d been back in Cheltenham. Seeing her again seared a hole right through him. He’d be reduced to ashes in a moment.

All the details of her returned to him in an instant, from the arch of her eyebrows to the birthmark on the inside of her thigh. A birthmark he’d kissed.

Someone at one of the faro tables shouted, snapping Alex back to the present moment, to this place. Cassandra, too, seemed to wake, blinking and furrowing her forehead.

He could not speak to her as he longed to do in the middle of a gaming hell.