When I started volunteering at the orphanage, I could not have foreseen how much it would affect me. But I have found my life’s true calling. Those unfortunate, forgotten, downtrodden children have nobody to champion them—but as I already love each and every one of them as my own and know how it feels to be trampled on and abandoned, at least they shall always have me in their corner …
—from the diary of Miss Venus Merriwell, aged 18
“Is it me, or is it warm in here?” Much to Galahad’s annoyance, Venus had been distracted throughout the first three tricks of the final round, and Diana wasn’t behaving much better. Both women had been fidgeting like fidgeting was going out of fashion. Because all of Venus’s shuffling kept sending puffs of her seductive fragrance his way while she continually adjusted and readjusted her shawl, she was also distracting the hell out of him. With all those brief flashes of cleavage combined with the seductive scent of jasmine, it was a miracle he’d won two tricks.
The second, he knew full well, had come more out of luck than judgment, because he had completely lost track of the cards for a good two minutes during the previous trick that she had stolen. Then lost track, again, during the next for a while, too.
During those missing moments, she had unknotted her shawl and it had slipped on one side, exposing the upper swell of her perfect left breast. He probably could have coped with that if she hadn’t been idly twirling a finger in the stray curl that bounced above her left shoulder, too. Both things had made him hot under the collar, but the way she had bit her lip in the closing moments of the third trick, the way she had slowly drawn that plump, pink flesh through her teeth, had been the final nail in his coffin. Desperate for the torture to end, he’d squandered his highest trump, the ace of hearts, simply because he had no clue what she held anymore.
Consequently, he was now the most significant ace in the pack down and constantly backtracking in his mind to recount what had gone before. By his best guess—and thanks to the siren opposite him, it really was a guess—there weren’t that many trumps left.
Minerva’s brow kept furrowing, so it was fairly safe to assume she had only the five of hearts as all the lower trumps were now in the haphazard pile in the center of the table. With Diana’s clumsy playing, so were the nine, the ten, and the king, and he recalled Venus had laid the queen. Or Minerva had. Either way, that was gone, too—but at least Gal still held the jack. And that jack was now unbeatable.
Or so he hoped.
He choked down some of the tea Olivia was force-feeding him to cover his anxiety, then, when he found his mouth filled with tea leaves, almost choked for real. Lord but he hated the stuff—even without the accidental bilge of leaves left because the hostess had forgotten to use the strainer.
“Well, of course you are warm.” Also peeved at the erratic stop-start nature of the game, Minerva spoke in a snippy tone. “You are practically swaddled in a blanket, Vee, when the fire is roaring!”
“I suppose you make a valid point.” Venus gazed at her tantalizing wool-covered chest. “I had quite forgotten I was wearing this.” Her fingers went to the latest knot in the front of it and made short work of it. Then she inhaled deeply, fanning herself with her hand as she let the fabric slip from her shoulders to the back of the chair. “That is better.”
It most definitely was, because perhaps now she would stop fiddling with the damn thing.
And it wasn’t.
Because now he had to find a way to cope with all the slightly flushed, perfect skin back on full display when the perfume alone was killing him.
“More tea, Galahad?” Noticing his empty cup, Olivia brandished the teapot again. As a desperate distraction to all his inappropriate lust, Gal held his cup aloft. “There’s one cup left in this pot.”
Which would make it so stewed, the tannins would strip his teeth and make his lips stick to them. “That would be lovely.” About as lovely as sucking up the stagnant puddle water from Piccadilly Circus. Before she poured, he forced a smile that he suspected was more a grimace. “Don’t forget the strainer.” He just didn’t have it in him to choke down more sludge.
“Oh, of course! Silly me.” Olivia grabbed it and leaned over him to top up his beverage, forcing him to lean closer to the Jasmine Enchantress who was suddenly much too close for comfort.
“Can the four of you get on with it as I’m losing the will to live.” Jeremiah’s constant complaining from the audience wasn’t helping Gal’s shredded nerves, either. “I swear I’ve never known a hand of cards to last as long as this one.”
As Gal needed only one trick to win, and his body was rampant with lust and his molars were practically floating on tea, he was equally keen to get it over with. Frankly, the sooner he escaped Venus, the better. After Olivia’s pointed observations of earlier, and all the talk of matchmaking, it would be prudent to put as much distance between them as possible.
Thank the Lord for Shropshire!
The day after tomorrow, she would leave and he’d have at least a month to get his goddamn urges under control. Strict control, because things couldn’t go on like this! His preoccupation with her was like a sickness. His desire for her unbearable. The control she held over him terrifying.
“You’ll be pleased to learn that I’ve changed my mind about The Fluffy Puppy, as I’ve come up with something much better.” Venus had given up fanning herself with her hand in favor of patting the skin behind her neck with a handkerchief as she leaned his way. “I’m going to call your den of iniquity The Powder Puff.” The folded square of linen made its way to the front of her neck, then caressed the silken skin of her collarbone before she flapped it in the vicinity of her chest like a fan.
“Over my dead body.” He shot her a playful but warning look as his mouth dried while he tried resolutely to keep his eyes from wandering north. “What was I thinking, agreeing to such a stupid bet?”
Surely she didn’t hate him that much?
If it came to it, he supposed he’d have to welch on the bet for the sake of the business, even though he had never welched on a bet in his life. His grandpa would be spinning in his grave if he did, of course, and the rest of the family would be up in arms. Then his relationship with all the good people around him would be as tarnished as his relationship with Venus was and she would be proved right about him by default. He could hear her victory speech already. Untrustworthy. Unreliable. Selfish. Dishonorable.
Despicable.
What a mess! And all mine!
What a jackass!
“It’s not too late to change the stakes.” Venus dabbed the handkerchief again on the skin just above her breasts. Breasts that were rising and falling above her straining bodice in time with her breathing in the most bewitching manner. “Care to up the ante?”
“What did you have in mind?” Frankly, anything would be better than being either the proprietor of The Powder Puff or the social pariah of the family.
“It really is very hot in here.” Now Diana was apparently about to expire from the heat, although to be fair to her, unlike Venus, she was at least perspiring. Thanks to the impressive alabaster breasts directly across the table, so was Gal. His shirt had even started to stick to his back. Probably because all the tea he’d had forced upon him was now oozing from his pores. “Can somebody open a window?”
Hallelujah! “Giles—” Gal gestured to the big sash window closest to the card table. “I think we all need some air.”
“Absolutely not!” Olivia stopped Giles in his tracks. “It’s bitter outside and snowing! You’ll let out all the heat! Why don’t I ask Dalton to fetch Diana a cold compress to cool her down?” She bellowed in the general direction of the door. “Dalton! Fetch a cold compress!”
“I don’t want a cold compress! I want some air.”
As Diana was getting redder in the face by the second, Giles sidestepped Olivia and marched to the window. He flung the sash upward defiantly. “If my wife wants air, she gets air.” He stomped toward Venus, yanked the shawl now dangling impotently over the back of her chair, and tossed it at the moaning matriarch. “You can ward off the arctic winter in this, Olivia.”
Gal was supremely grateful for the frigid breeze that instantly blew across the card table—until he noticed the flurry of goose bumps blooming on Venus’s exposed décolleté and almost combusted with need. Especially when she was now leaning forward again as if gazing into his undoubtedly filthy mind, looking all devious and sinful. And kissable.
Oh so kissable.
While everyone else was distracted by the arrival of Minerva, Venus touched his arm and dropped her voice to a breathy whisper. Both movements sent a fresh wave of unwelcome desire ricocheting around his system. “How about we play for buildings instead?”
“No.”
She pouted, drawing his gaze to her lips again and reminding him of how good they had tasted. “How can you reject me when you haven’t even heard me out, Galahad?”
“Go ahead. Say your piece. But it’ll still be a no.” With Diana still huffing and puffing as Giles fanned her, Gal made a show of checking his cards and trying to look blandly confident while he gave his needy body a stern talking-to.
What the hell is the matter with me? He wasn’t usually so … rampant? Yes, she looked particularly beautiful tonight, and yes, the memory of their spectacular kiss in Brighton was still fresh in his mind, but still … Gal could usually control his emotions. Was a master at masking them. What the hell is going on here that makes everything she does suddenly seem so … carnal?
Perhaps somebody had spiked the tea? Or he’d drunk so much of it he was now hallucinating.
“I propose…” Her blues eyes smoldered as if she was proposing something sinful, her prim spectacles only serving to magnify the intense heat in them. “… that if I win, you sell the building next door to the orphanage to me.” The fingers on his sleeve traced a sultry path to his wrist, which made his breeches tighten. “If you win, I sell the orphanage to you.”
“A big fat no.” Heaven help me, she is scrambling my wits.
“One cold compress.” In clonked Dalton. “And more tea all around. I also brought some ice.” He waved it all at nobody in particular until he saw that it was Diana who was in dire need of it and handed the compress to her alongside a dainty cup filled with peppermint tea. He left Olivia in charge of pouring all the regular tea and, for reasons best known to himself, decided the most appropriate place to deposit the bowl full of ice was in the center of the card table. Then he clonked away and Minerva finally retook her seat.
“Is the professional card sharp really that scared of a drawing room amateur?” Venus’s earthy laughter trickled down his spine, causing havoc all the way, before it settled in his groin. “If that is the case, perhaps you should concede the game now, Galahad?”
“I only need one trick to win, whereas you need two, Venus, so there’ll be no conceding.” To the game or to his imprudent urges concerning her.
“But you’ll at least concede that you are scared.” As he went to remove the ice, she reached out and grabbed a shard then wrapped it in her handkerchief. “Scared that you might actually lose to me.” She pressed the tiny cloth parcel to the back of her neck again as Olivia slipped a fresh cup of steaming tea under his nose. “I suppose I shall have to console myself with The Powder Puff—when I inevitably win.”
“All right! I’ll take your bet.” His bark echoed in the silence of the room before everyone made a sharp intake of breath. He wasn’t sure whether it was that awful name that made him agree, the unbeatable jack in his hand, or the melted droplet of water that slowly drizzled from the handkerchief down her warm skin to disappear in the bewitching valley in the center of her bodice. Whichever it was, he already regretted it. “May the best man win.”
As if she had known he had dealt her a killer hand, Venus picked it up then used it quickly and ruthlessly to annihilate him. She laid the ten of hearts on his nine, smiling like the cat who had all the cream. “I make that two all.” He had been sorely tempted to lay his jack then.
Sorely tempted.
Until common sense had prevailed, and he had remembered it would be tantamount to suicide to lay down the highest card now and leave himself without any insurance for the last trick. So she had won two? But so had he.
“Bravo, Venus. Well played.” The game wasn’t over till the last card was laid, and laying the jack would be his crowning glory. His triumph over the most torturous adversity. Hard-earned and harder-won—God help him.
“The decider,” announced Hugh as all the spectators shuffled their seats closer. “Is it me, or can you feel the tension?” Gal sincerely hoped it was the tension of the game they could all feel rather than all his mounting sexual tension, which he was working his ass off to disguise.
Minerva threw him by laying the ten of hearts first, as Gal could have sworn blind that was already gone. But as he quietly panicked, Venus’s fingers went unconsciously to her locket when Diana laid her card. His talentless partner tossed trash because she had nothing to beat it. But he did, and Venus knew it because she gripped the locket for all she was worth and clutched her remaining two cards closer.
“Scared, Venus?” He gestured with a nod to her fingers where they now toyed with the pendant above her erratically quivering, beautifully generous breasts, grateful that he had a valid excuse to be looking that way in the first place.
Two blue eyes locked with his, the rogue sparkle in them worrisome.
“Not in the slightest, Galahad.”
There was something about the way she said it, a certainty that had him scrabbling back through every memory he had of the game so far. He had laid the jack of diamonds in that second trick he had bungled, and she had topped it with a queen.
A red queen.
He might have lost track of the cards for a moment or two, but his addled mind was sure that the queen had been a heart and not a diamond. Surely he wouldn’t have missed such a high trump being played?
Of course he hadn’t! The queen of hearts was long gone.
Long gone.
But was it sure enough to risk his building on?
Heck no!
Idiot!
JACKASS!
Gal’s fearful heart hammered against his rib cage and his throat dried to dust. But the cat who had gotten the cream, opposite him, decided to toy with her prey, drawing out the moment for all it was worth.
“Put us out of our misery and lay the goddamn card, Vee!” Jeremiah bellowed exactly what Gal was thinking, only to be reprimanded instantly by his wife.
“There is no excuse to resort to coarse language!”
“Ooooh!” Diana’s squeak made Gal jump because his frazzled nerves could take no more. “Oh my goodness!” Her white knuckles gripped the table while she gaped at them all. “My waters just broke!”
Then all hell broke loose.
“Get her upstairs!” Minerva jumped up with such force, she sent the card table toppling. Playing cards, counters, and hot tea flew everywhere.
“Summon the physician!” That came from Olivia, who started to bellow for Dalton again, while the sisters rushed to Diana’s chair and Hugh and Jeremiah shuffled this way and that like headless chickens not sure which direction to go.
“Don’t panic!” With impressive calm, Giles raised his hands in the middle of the room as if calming an unruly crowd about to riot. “Do. Not. Panic.”
As his cousin sucked in a theatrical calming breath, everyone, including Gal, did the same. In unison, they all blew it out slowly.
But while that simple, single, measured breath apparently held magical powers to make all of them stop panicking, it had the opposite effect on the prospective father.
Because Giles started to panic with a vengeance.
“Summon the physician! Summon all the physicians! Get her upstairs! Oh my God! Oh my God! Dalton! Dalton! DALTON!” His breath sawed in and out at an alarming rate as he clutched at his wife, who was now trying to smooth his cheeks to calm him down despite being the one in labor. “This shouldn’t be happening! The baby is too early! It’s too early! Something’s wrong! WRONG!”
It was Venus who took charge.
Somewhere amid all the commotion she had transformed from the overheated seductress to the cool-as-a-cucumber schoolmistress in the blink of an eye. She grabbed his cousin by the shoulders and shook him.
“Giles, breathe. Diana needs you.” He nodded, his face ashen, and she smiled as she stared deep into his eyes. “Everything is going to be all right. I promise. Help Minerva get her upstairs.”
That important task done, she turned to the others and started issuing instructions like a general. “Hugh—you fetch the physician.” Hugh didn’t need to be told twice, sprinting from the room calling for a horse like Richard III at Bosworth. “Jeremiah—Dalton…” Both men snapped to attention. “We are going to need plenty of hot water and as many fresh towels as you can muster. Keep them coming until I tell you to stop.” They nodded and dashed out, too. “Olivia—ready the room.” Because Giles and Minerva had already begun maneuvering Diana out of her chair, Venus snapped her fingers at Gal. “You—open the doors for them!”
As jobs went, Gal’s was undoubtedly the least important and soonest done. Feeling like a spare wheel, he closed the bedchamber door on the ladies and his cousin the moment they got Diana to the bed. With nothing else to do, he went to the drawing room and decided to correct all the chaos that had been left there.
He picked up all the broken china first, then used Diana’s discarded cold compress to mop up the spilled tea. Finally, he righted the card table and set about collecting up all the cards and counters. Next to his chair he found his jack of hearts in his discarded hand, and because it called to him like a beacon—because he had to know—he walked on leaden feet to Venus’s chair and stared at the solitary card lying facedown in her abandoned hand on the floor.
If he had counted the cards right, this should be the eight of hearts. If he hadn’t …
No. NO!
Best to leave it.
Forget about it.
Ignorance was bliss and Gal was certain he should thank his lucky stars that fate had intervened to save him from himself again. What he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him, and the game and bet were now as good as voided. Especially if one of the servants cleaned up all the evidence of it as unwitting but diligent servants were prone to do when a mess had been made.
But then not knowing would drive him insane.
Dreading it, he reached for the damning card and turned it over, and stared dumbfounded at the queen instead—a card he could not beat.
The witch had tricked him.
Acted for all she was worth.
Used his rampant desire for her against him to take control, and heaven help him, but he couldn’t fail to be impressed by that despite the inescapable fact that he had been a goddamn fool for falling for it.
Bravo, Venus. Well played.
She really did wield the power to tie his head and body in knots. She really was that dangerous. That clever. He sighed at the queen of hearts, and because he had no clue what to do about it, he slipped it into his pocket to ponder.