My Lady's Dare

“Your…compliments, my lord?” she asked.

“For being English, of course,” the earl said, his lips tilting. “Why, whatever did you think I meant, Mrs. Carstairs?”

“I thought you were complimenting me that I didn’t appear to be English.” Her eyes challenged him a moment before she added, her tone conciliatory, as befitted someone in her position. “Obviously, I was mistaken. Pray forgive me, my lord.”

“Had I meant that, madam,” Dare said smoothly, “then I should be the one to beg your forgiveness.”

“There is no need for your apologies here, Lord Dare,” Bonnet said laughing. “Whatever your meaning. Elizabeth is here to serve you. If there is anything you should require during your visit, anything at all…” The Frenchman paused and again gestured expansively, this time seeming to include the woman and the servant behind her, who was still holding the tray. “Please don’t hesitate to make your wishes known. Any of my servants will be pleased to accommodate so welcome a guest. In any way you desire,” he added, his voice soft, and his eyes on the woman.

There had been an obvious undercurrent in the suggestive words, and Dare found himself interested in Elizabeth Carstairs’ reaction. Her eyes met Bonnet’s. Dare was unable to see what was in them, but there was no doubt about the rush of color that ran beneath the translucent skin of her throat and spread upward into her cheeks, far more pronounced than the rouge.

The intent of Bonnet’s offer had probably been clear to everyone. Mrs. Carstairs’ “services” were available to the Earl of Dare, and perhaps even to the rest of them. Given the character of women who were usually employed in a gaming hell, there had been nothing particularly startling about the Frenchman’s offer. What had been surprising was Mrs. Carstairs’ response. Seldom had the earl encountered a demimondaine who had the capacity to blush. Or, he admitted admiringly, the courage to parry wits so openly with one of her employer’s guests.

“You are too kind, sir,” Dare said, inclining his head.

The gambler had introduced her as Mrs. Carstairs, but that title was almost certainly a sop to convention. In England, any unmarried woman living under a man’s protection was referred to in such a way. It was a ridiculous pretense, but then much about the conventions of their society was ridiculous.

At Dare’s expression of gratitude, Elizabeth Carstairs had turned her head. Her eyes met his. In them, quite clear, was rage. And beneath that unspoken anger was pain, an agony perhaps as deep as that which he had seen in the eyes of the man whose tortured body he had held today as he drew his last breath. For a moment the force of her anguish was so strong and communicated to him so forcefully that it literally took his breath.

It had not been an appeal. He had no doubt that the revelation had been unintended. Perhaps if he had not had so recent an experience with suffering, he might not even have recognized what he had seen.

Breaking the contact that had briefly flared between them, Elizabeth Carstairs turned, calmly replacing the decanter on the tray and stepping away from the table. Dare heard the fabric of her gown whisper as she moved, and the hint of her perfume lingered in the air, but he could no longer see her face.

And he found he really wanted to. A discovery that was almost as shocking to the Earl of Dare as Elizabeth Carstairs’ unexpected reaction to Bonnet’s offer had been.

“Gentlemen,” the Frenchman said, “shall we begin?”

It was almost dawn. A thin, watery daylight was beginning to creep between the folds of the thick velvet curtains that had been pulled to keep it out. A pall of smoke, floating a few inches off the floor, hung over the Turkish carpets. Several of the candles had guttered and gone out, and there was no more conversation.

No one had yet left the table, although now only two men were playing. And it was obvious that very soon one of those two would be the victor.

The heap of notes piled carelessly before the Earl of Dare had steadily grown during the last few hours. The stack that stood before Bonnet had conversely shrunk until only a handful of what had been there at the beginning of the evening was left. And the fickle cards, like a woman enamored with one gallant, continued to favor the earl.

“Capet,” Dare said. “Forty points, and my game, I believe.”

There was no tally sheet beside his long-fingered hands that rested, totally relaxed, against the surface of the table. The totals were kept in his head, and in every instance Dare’s calculations had matched those announced by Elizabeth Carstairs, who stood slightly to the right and behind Bonnet’s chair.

The kind of score keeping she had done was little more than a parlor trick, and one Dare had certainly seen before. One of the German casinos employed a dwarf to do the same thing. And in Paris, during the short respite from the hostilities provided by the Peace of Amiens, Dare had once seen a small, brown-skinned boy, dressed like an Indian rajah in a turban and a striped silk tunic, keeping up with the points.

All it took was concentration on the cards and a head for sums. It was unusual to find those abilities in a woman, certainly, and the novelty was almost sure to appeal to the jaded gentleman of London’s ton. Dare suspected, however, that Mrs. Carstairs’ physical attributes were far more important in drawing visitors to Bonnet’s rooms than was her head for numbers.

Throughout the long hours of the night, with the lift of her brow or the tilt of her chin she had directed the Frenchman’s servants to refill the wineglasses or light the gentlemen’s cigars. And when he and Bonnet had switched to piquet, she had kept their points in order. However, since her challenge to the earl’s comment at the beginning of the evening, she had said almost nothing, except to answer Bonnet’s demand for the score.

Once or twice, when Dare had raised his eyes from his cards, he had found hers resting on his face. Her gaze would then move to consider the face of another of the players, without haste and with no indication of discomfort at having been caught looking at him. Each time that happened, the earl had allowed his amusement to show, smiling as he followed her eyes, watching the gambler’s woman deliberately not look at him.

“Elizabeth?” Bonnet’s tone this time was sharper and more demanding than it had been before. The strain the Frenchman was feeling as his losses mounted had gradually become apparent.

That was hardly surprising, however, since an enormous amount of money had changed hands tonight. The earl had raised the stakes with each game. And it was by now obvious to everyone, including Bonnet, that Dare seemed out to ruin the house.

“His lordship’s total is correct,” Mrs. Carstairs said. “The game is his.”

Her eyes considered the man seated across the table from her master, and this time they remained on his face, even when he lifted his own to meet them. He inclined his head, silently acknowledging her agreement.

“Another game,” the earl suggested to his opponent, his gaze still on Elizabeth Carstairs’ face.

All night, his mind only partially engaged by the cards, he had found himself trying to imagine what would bring a woman like her to this place. It had been merely an intellectual exercise, perhaps, designed to prevent his having to think about what had happened today—yesterday, he amended—in France.

The Frenchman’s lips tightened angrily at Dare’s suggestion, but there was no doubt what he would say. As long as a guest wished to play, Henri Bonnet’s tables were open. No matter the elegance of its furnishings, this was, after all, a gaming house. Gentlemen came here for only one reason; they wanted to gamble. And usually the Frenchman wanted that, as well. Tonight, however, luck had deserted him. The cards had fallen Dare’s way, and he had won with stunning regularity.

Without speaking, Bonnet reluctantly pushed his remaining notes to the center of the table. The stone in the ring he wore flashed green fire with the movement, just as it had with every turn of the cards. At the last it had seemed almost an omen of the Frenchman’s ill fortune.

Bonnet’s gaze lifted from that diminished stack of notes in front of him to the earl’s face. His lips pursed again, and then, reluctantly, he began to remove the emerald ring, twisting and turning until the thick gold band slipped over his knuckle. He placed it on top of the money.

“This wager is agreeable to you, my lord?”

Dare’s eyes examined the ring as it lay among the scattered notes. Finally, he picked it up, and holding the band between his thumb and forefinger, lifted the jewel to the light. After a few seconds, he tossed the ring carelessly onto the table.

“An exceptional stone,” he said. The Frenchman smiled, his relief was almost palpable, until Dare added, “Except that it is badly flawed.”

He raised his eyes once more to Elizabeth Carstairs’ face. Her posture was as erect as it had been when the evening began, her head high, her hands at her waist, one resting within the other. The earl’s gaze traveled slowly down and then back up her slender figure, clearly revealed by the narrow cut of her gown.

“A piece not worth half as much as it appears on first glance,” Dare said softly.

His voice was pleasant. There was no hint of accusation in its deep timbre. It was obvious to everyone, however, that Dare’s words were a thinly veiled metaphor for the woman standing behind the Frenchman’s chair.

“I had been informed that the emerald is a gem of exceptional value,” Bonnet said stiffly.

There was a small and deadly silence as everyone waited for Dare to respond. He chose not to, his eyes now on Bonnet’s reddened face, his own expressionless. He displayed no anger at the Frenchman’s denial. And he made no defense of his statement. The silence grew.

“However,” Bonnet said finally, “I bow to your lordship’s undoubtedly superior knowledge of such things. I had no idea the stone was flawed when I offered it.”

“I was sure that was the case,” the earl said, “which is why I felt I could do no less than point it out to you. A shame you were hoodwinked. Did you take it as a wager?” Dare asked, his eyes again lifting to the woman’s face.

The same flood of color which had invaded her cheeks when Bonnet offered her “services” to his guest had again begun to edge her throat. Nothing else about her face had changed. She appeared undisturbed by either the earl’s eyes or by his words, her features tranquil and composed.

“I took it as payment of a debt,” Bonnet said.

“Pity,” Dare replied, the boredom in his tone dismissing the ring as an object unworthy of further discussion.

He pushed the huge, untidy pile of notes which had been lying in front of him into the center of the table. It represented the bulk of everything that had been wagered tonight, and its size dwarfed the small stack the gambler had offered. Then the earl waited. And the silence grew once more.

Across the room a candle sputtered and died. A whiff of white smoke trailed from it, drifting upward into the darkness. After a moment, Bonnet picked up the ring and pushed it almost violently back onto his finger.

“This house,” the Frenchman said, his words clipped. “I give you my word, my lord, that it is unencumbered by debt.”

The earl’s eyes examined the room as if he had not been sitting within it all night. Then he inclined his head to Bonnet. “May I offer my congratulations on the excellence of your property.”

The gambler’s lips flattened at the mockery before he gathered control and said, his voice clearly furious, “I believe its value to be more than equal to your current wager.”