My Lady's Dare

“Ah,” Dare said, as if in sudden understanding. “You wish to put the house up as your stake.”

“That was my intent, my lord.”

“Forgive my slow wits. I thought you were merely making conversation. Your house against…” Dare’s eyes fell to consider the notes he had pushed to the center of the table only a moment before. He began pushing through them with one long finger as if he were counting. “Then it seems that I must add something to my own stake. Something to sweeten the pot, so to speak. Something to make my wager as valuable as yours.”

Bonnet bowed. “I believe you are correct, my lord.”

“And do you believe I am correct, Mrs. Carstairs?” Dare asked. When she didn’t answer, he raised his eyes from the pile of notes. The color had drained from her face, leaving it milk-white. Her eyes met his.

“I do, my lord,” she said, her voice calm and controlled.

For almost the first time, Bonnet looked up, his gaze fastening on Mrs. Carstairs’ profile. His eyes narrowed when he found her oblivious to his examination, her gaze locked on Dare’s. Then the gambler looked at the English nobleman, whose mouth was arranged in an enigmatic half smile. Bonnet’s eyes came back to the woman standing just to the right of his chair.

Suddenly, with a violence that was totally unexpected, given the politeness which had veiled the accusations implied in the recent exchange, the Frenchman stood. He moved so suddenly that the heavy chair he had been sitting in tilted and fell over.

Startled, Elizabeth Carstairs’ gaze flew from Dare’s face to Bonnet. Without speaking, the Frenchman grasped her upper arm, his fingers digging into the soft flesh just above her elbow. Automatically, she flinched from the pain and tried to pull away, but his grip was brutal.

“Perhaps my luck might change if you weren’t here,” he said in French, adding a very idiomatic appellation, a gutter term which one might more appropriately expect to hear in a Parisian brothel. The words were almost inaudible, muttered under the gambler’s breath, and Bonnet had already begun to pull Elizabeth away from the table when he said them.

The Earl of Dare’s hearing, however, was acute. He had heard them, half rising from his chair in response. His own iron control had already reasserted itself, however, when the gambler’s eyes were drawn back to the table by that movement.

“No offense to you, my lord,” Bonnet said, his fingers still gripping his employee’s arm.

Elizabeth had by that time ceased to struggle. She did not look again at the earl, and her face was once more coldly composed, the blue eyes shuttered and emotionless. It was obvious she didn’t expect Dare or any of the others to mount a rescue. She was Bonnet’s property. He might therefore do with her as he wished. She understood that, it seemed, as did they.

Dare didn’t glance toward the woman Bonnet was holding. His gaze was fastened instead on the Frenchman’s face.

“Gamblers are a superstitious brotherhood,” Bonnet continued. “When our luck is in, we wish everything to remain the same. When our luck is out, however—” The Frenchman turned to look at Elizabeth. “We make changes,” he said softly, the words, and the threat, obvious.

Then he turned back to the table, smiling at his guests. “More wine, gentlemen?” He gestured imperiously to the servant across the room, the emerald again flashing, before he added, “We shall resume our game, Lord Dare, as soon as I return.”

His fingers tightened, provoking another involuntary recoil from his victim. The gambler stalked to a small private door at the other side of the room, propelling Mrs. Carstairs along with him. With her free hand, she had gathered the long, straight fall of her gown to keep from stumbling over it.

When the two of them had disappeared through the door, which Bonnet slammed behind them, none of the Englishmen at the table said a word. Pendlebrooke signaled again for more wine, and this time the Frenchman’s servant hurried forward to fill their glasses. When he had finished, he passed around more of Bonnet’s cigars. Most of the men accepted, and as the familiar ritual of lighting them ensued, no one proposed any conversation to end the unnatural silence.

They had been as aware of the implication of what Bonnet had done, Dare imagined, as he had been. Bonnet might claim to be concerned about the effect the woman was having on his luck, but his action in taking her out of the room had suggested there was a more sinister explanation for Dare’s good fortune.

The gambler had skirted very close to accusing the earl of cheating, implying that he had been receiving signals from the woman who stood behind the Frenchman’s chair—in a perfect position to see his cards. Many of the hotheaded young coxcombs of the ton, ever careful of their honor, might well have challenged Bonnet, ignoring his stated reason for banishing Mrs. Carstairs from the room. Dare’s reputation, however, was not as someone who went off half-cocked. He was considered coldly controlled, almost dispassionate.

And so he appeared to be now. No one was aware of the surge of rage that had engulfed him as he had watched Bonnet humiliate and then physically mistreat Elizabeth Carstairs. It had brought back too vividly to his mind a torture far more brutal, but almost certainly as casually done. And to a victim who had been as helpless to prevent it as Bonnet’s victim had been.

When the Frenchman reentered the room, he was pulling down his cuffs as he came through the door. Their costly lace fell over his hands as he walked back to the table. He nodded to his guests and waited as one of the servants hurried to restore his chair, which was still lying overturned on the thick carpet.

When he was seated, Bonnet raised his eyes to the earl. “I believe we were discussing the terms of your wager, my lord?”

Gradually, the smile began to fade as Dare said nothing, his eyes on the gambler’s face. It disappeared completely when the earl spoke.

“What if your house, like your emerald, monsieur, has some hidden flaw? One may examine a stone, but it would be difficult to verify your claim of a free and clear title tonight.”

“Do you doubt my word, my lord?”

“You didn’t know the stone was flawed,” Dare reminded him, his voice free of inflection. “Perhaps there is some…impediment to your title that you are also unaware of? How should I know if that were the case?”

“I possess nothing else of value, Lord Dare. My assets are, at the moment, all tied up in this establishment. It is a recent purchase and needed a great deal of refurbishing. I’m afraid I have nothing else. If you are unwilling to accept my stake…”

He shrugged, the gesture eloquent and dismissive at the same time, neatly lobbing the ball back into Dare’s court. It seemed that the earl’s reluctance might offer Bonnet an escape.

“The woman,” the earl said softly.

“I beg your pardon?” the Frenchman said.

“You may wager the woman,” Dare said.

Again the silence in the room was complete. No one protested, although what Dare was proposing was unheard-of. Perhaps at one time women had been chattel, which might be won or lost on a hand of cards, but that was not the case today.

“Mrs. Carstairs?” Bonnet asked, his voice astounded.

“Mrs. Carstairs,” the earl agreed, his voice expressing amusement at that astonishment.

“Mrs. Carstairs is…”

“Yes?” Dare questioned after there had been a pause of several long heartbeats.

“This is England, my lord. Not…” Again the Frenchman’s voice faltered, as if he could not think of a location where one might wager a human being.

“Indeed it is,” Dare agreed. With one finger he touched the enormous pile of notes on the table between them. “And these are the coins of the realm. Quite a lot of them, as a matter of fact. I’ll wager them all, Monsieur Bonnet, on one game. All of this for the woman.”

Bonnet’s eyes had followed the movement of the earl’s hand as it reached out and touched the money. And then they lifted again, considering his opponent’s face. “One game?”

“Winner take all,” Dare said softly. The corners of his mouth tilted. “And the only stake you must put up is Mrs. Carstairs.”

“My lord, I’m afraid that I really must—”

“We are all gentlemen here,” Dare continued, almost as if the gambler hadn’t protested. “This will go no further. I can assure you that what happens here tonight will never be spoken of again by any of these gentlemen.”

His eyes traveled slowly over the faces of each of the men at the table. They were all inveterate gamblers, well-known for their habits. What Dare saw in their eyes satisfied him that what he had said was indeed the truth. A wager legitimately made and agreed to by both parties was sacrosanct. Finally his gaze came back to the Frenchman.

“You needn’t be afraid,” Dare said. “No one will ever hear of this from any of us. Certainly not the authorities. After all, we would have as much, if not more, to lose than you if this were brought to their attention.”

That was true, of course. There was no reason for the Frenchman not to accede to the earl’s wishes. Dare might easily have demanded Bonnet put up the house, and if he had lost, the Frenchman would have been ruined. If he lost now, however…

“All right,” Bonnet said.

Apparently, once the decision had been reached, his reluctance disappeared. He picked up the cards and began to shuffle them with a practiced proficiency. They flew through his fingers in a blur. When he had finished, he placed the deck face down on the table for Dare to cut.

“Your stake?” the earl asked.

Surprised, the French gambler looked up from the cards.