Their second night at The Lucky Honeypot was proving even more profitable than their first. They’d entered separately and practically ignored each other for the first few hours to quench any suspicion that they were working as a team. John had won a fortune playing vingt-et-un while Charlotte had had mixed results at whist depending on her partner.
She’d done quite well playing with the Earl of Withington, however, and her pot was at least twice the size that it had been when she walked in.
She was relieved, though, when John strolled over just as the last trick was played.
“Mrs. Brown, how lovely to see you again.”
She arched a brow. “If it was truly that lovely to see me again, you would have come over earlier rather than cooling your heels at another table for two hours.”
John put a hand to his heart in mock chagrin. “Had I realized my presence had been missed, I would have attended to you earlier.”
Charlotte sniffed. “I’m not at all sure that I accept your apology.” Her accent wavered on that last word, but the men she was seated with didn’t seem to notice. They were too busy grinning at her censure.
“Then play with me and let me make it up to you.”
The earl was no longer grinning. “I say, Harrow. Wait your turn. Mrs. Brown and I are playing at the moment.”
Charlotte tsk tsked. “Come now, my lord. I can’t let you monopolize me all night. But do promise we’ll play again tomorrow.”
Withington scowled as he stood. “As you wish.” He took her hand and kissed it for far longer than he would have had they been in a ballroom and had she been Lady Charlotte rather than Mrs. Brown. She felt nothing. The earl was an objectively attractive man but the touch of his lips to her fingers barely registered on her senses.
They registered with John, though. Beside her, he stiffened. Good. She liked a touch of jealousy, even though it was terribly misplaced.
He took the seat Lord Withington had just vacated and sent her a smoldering look. “So, who’s dealing?”
* * *
John and Charlotte were crushing their opponents. Every time they played the last trick, and she was sure that Lord Berridge was going to cut his losses and leave, he doubled down, insisting on another game. The thrill of winning subsided, and she began to feel nauseated at his desperation. Was this how William had gotten so far into debt? Could he not tell when it was time to walk away?
“I think you’re done,” John said to Berridge after Charlotte played the final card and raked in their winnings. Thank goodness. She wasn’t sure she could bear too much more.
“No.” Berridge shook his head and reached into his breast pocket to withdraw a packet of papers. “This is worth more than enough to keep the game going.” He threw it into the middle of the table.
“What is it?” she asked. She and John needed ready money, not a promissory note.
Berridge smirked. “Love letters from an earl’s daughter.”
“Oh.” That knocked her backward in her chair, her hands gripping its arms to steady her against the shock. Across from her, John’s hands flinched, as though he intended to reach for her and thought better of it.
Berridge was a right cad. The wagering of intimate letters was not something that had even crossed her mind. Did men truly do that? Any sympathy she may have been feeling for the viscount dissipated.
John shook his head. “I don’t trade in gossip. We play for real blunt or not at all.” He picked up the papers from the middle of the table and tossed them into Berridge’s lap.
The viscount’s face twisted in desperation. He untied the string that held the letters together and unfolded the top one, waving it in John’s direction. “She admits to giving me her virginity, in writing.”
The shock of his words felt like a slap to the face. Instinctively, she recoiled. The cur. It was dishonorable enough to take a girl’s innocence and then not marry her. But to take her letters and share them was more than dishonorable. It was vile. It made her want to reach across the table and scratch out the viscount’s eyes. It made her want to destroy him the way that poor girl must have been destroyed by his actions.
“It’s a deal,” she said firmly. “State their worth.”
John whipped his head toward her, eyes wide in surprise. Berridge relaxed. “Five thousand pounds. Her father has already paid that twice over to keep them from the newspapers.”
She swallowed. A game with stakes that high would risk everything she and John had won that night, and essentially for nothing. The letters were worthless to her. She surely wouldn’t sell them—not even to save her brother.
It was a foolish, foolish risk.
“Accepted,” she said, with less confidence, before signaling to a nearby footman. Lord, she needed a drink to settle her nerves.
The game was played with more intensity than it had been previously. Word spread throughout the gaming hell and they quickly developed an audience, a ring forming around the table and chairs.
The scrutiny caused her to buckle under pressure. At first they were minor mistakes—missing John’s unspoken signals, putting down the wrong card—but they quickly accumulated. Add to that Berridge’s unbelievable good luck, and it became apparent that everything she and John had worked for that night would be for naught.
They were losing. Hell, the writing was on the wall. They’d already lost.
She tried to keep the panic from her face, tried to appear as unflappable as John did, but she could feel the beads of perspiration forming across her brow. When she reached for her fan, it wasn’t to flirt or to send John a hint as to the quality of her hand. It was because it was hot, too hot, in here.
The more dire her predicament, the more smarmy Berridge’s expression became. He and his partner took another trick. There were still a few hands left, but the job was done. She would see the game out—a Wildeforde didn’t quit—but in her head she was tallying up all the ways she had lost.
“I say,” came a voice from the crowd. “I saw that.”
She looked up to where the Earl of Grantham was scowling.
“As did I.” A plainly dressed man at her shoulder had both arms crossed.
“I don’t understand,” she said, only remembering her accent at the last second. “You saw what?”
To her left, Berridge stiffened.
“The bounder is floating the cards,” Grantham said.
The bastard. It was only the shock of it that kept her from shrieking like a fisherwoman.
The viscount stood, finger pointed in Grantham’s direction. “Sir, I should call you out. This is a preposterous allegation.”
Two guards—the giant man who’d visited William’s apartment and another of equal size—stepped forward. They both looked at the plainly dressed man at Charlotte’s shoulder who had spoken. He gave them a sharp nod, and they took Berridge by each arm.
“Do you know who I am?” He tried to shake free of their grasp. The men’s grips tightened, and the viscount winced. “Unhand me at once.”
The guards ignored him, and he was dragged, unceremoniously, from the room. Charlotte watched after him with her jaw open, not quite believing what had just happened. The crowd around them buzzed, with much of the audience shaking its head in condemnation.
Charlotte looked at John, who was doing his best to look unaffected, though she could see the tension in him. She turned to the man next to her. “So…what happens to the pot?” There were five thousand pounds in there, along with the viscount’s letters.
“It gets split between you and your partner,” the man said to her.
She would have sagged with relief if she weren’t strung so tight. “Well,” she said. “I’m feeling generous tonight, Lord Harrow. You may take the money.” She grabbed the letters from the table and stuffed them into her reticule. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen. The mood has been tarnished. I’m going to call it a night. Good night, Lord Harrow. It was good to see you again.”
Completely muddled, she accepted the arm of the nearest gentleman and allowed him to escort her outside, only then to remember that she and John had a plan for their exit and she had just ruined it.
“Around the block, if you will,” she said to the hackney driver. Thankfully, by the time they were once again in front of The Lucky Honeypot, she could see John walking up the street, his eyes peeled on the road. As the carriage pulled up beside him, she rapped on the ceiling and it came to a stop.
John peered inside the window, sighed, and climbed in, taking the seat next to her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, turning toward him. “I was all befuddled and took the cab without thinking.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Are you well? As long as you’re well, then it is of no consequence.”
He wrapped his arm around her, and she sank into him, taking comfort from his warmth and the scent of bergamot that enveloped her. “What a night,” she said. “I would prefer not to run that close to losing again.”
His cheek rested against her hair and his arm tightened around her, pulling her close to him so they were shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh, with nothing between them. “I should have seen his deceit earlier. Thank God Grantham spotted it. Now we have the money and the letters, though I don’t know what we’ll do with them.”
Now that the threat had gone, her heart was slowing, and feeling was returning, her curiosity abounded. She straightened and dug her hand into her reticule to retrieve the packet. She tugged open the string that bound them and took the first letter.
The handwriting was perfectly formed, small and even with the occasional flourish. Charlotte turned straight to the farewell and her stomach dropped.
My love always,
Lady Luella Tarlington