Sweetest Little Sin (14 page)

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Authors: Christine Wells

BOOK: Sweetest Little Sin
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Someone else would have to infiltrate the party, find this errant list, and bring Radleigh to justice.
“We have such plans for your entertainment, you will be amazed!” said Beth, wriggling in her seat like an excited child.
“I can hardly wait,” murmured Jardine.
Louisa looked up at him sharply. There was a lazy glint in his eye. Was he up to something?
As Beth went on, enumerating the arrangements she’d made for her guests, Louisa’s grip on her own hand turned brutal. But the more Beth talked, the less inclined Louisa was to believe that Jardine had fallen in love with the chit or had any serious intentions toward such a rattlepate. Besides, it was all too coincidental to ring true.
What was Jardine’s real reason for being here? Had he merely used Beth to get an invitation to this party?
Perhaps he’d come to put a spoke in the wheel of Louisa’s betrothal. If so, what did he plan to do? Even Jardine wouldn’t accept a man’s hospitality and then turn around and kill him.
Surely not.
Could he be here for the same reason as she was?
She frowned. That didn’t seem right. If Jardine were here to find that list, why would Faulkner send her and Harriet to the house party at all?
Regardless, Jardine clearly enjoyed her discomfiture. Which of course made her determined to be excruciatingly polite.
“What a fascinating house this is, Miss Radleigh. I’m intrigued by the Indian influence I’ve seen.”
Beth made a moue. “Not our doing, but Radleigh likes it. He was smitten as soon as he saw the place. I suppose it reminds him of our childhood.”
She lowered her voice. “Some of it is quite . . .” She leaned forward to whisper. “. . .
Shocking
. Not at all the thing.”
Was she referring to the erotically decorated temple Harriet had mentioned?
Jardine’s lip curled. “Great art is often not at all the thing, Miss Radleigh.”
Beth’s face dropped ludicrously at the mild setdown.
With a slight smile, Jardine added, “Perhaps you ought to show me these despised creations. Then I can offer you my opinion.”
The silly girl melted into a puddle of shining gratitude and hurried away to get her hat. Obviously, she’d missed the implications of Jardine’s ploy to get her alone.
“Like shooting fish in a barrel, isn’t it?” Louisa narrowed her eyes at him. “Jardine, she’s a child.”
“I find her . . . refreshing,” he said. “I’m hardly in my dotage, either, you know.”
“Using her to punish me is just about the most despicable thing you’ve done,” she hissed. “Do you have an understanding with her?”
“Who said I was using her to punish you?” He threw his arms along the back of his chair. “The planets and all their moons do not revolve around you, strange as it might seem.
My lady
.”
Anger flared at the rebuke. Was she really nothing to him anymore? No matter how she suffered at his hands, she couldn’t believe it. What about that desperate kiss in Richmond Park?
Oh, she knew better than to set store by the physical affection a man might show. But he’d kissed her as if they were the last mortals left in the world, as if his life would be nothing without her. Folly to believe it, and yet inside, in her
soul
, there was no doubt. They belonged together.
Her voice grew husky again. “How long have you known her?”
Shrugging, Jardine spread his elegant white hands. “A day? An hour? What does it matter?”
This bit of whimsy would have drawn a scathing reply if they hadn’t been sitting in the midst of the other house-guests. His lips curved into a smile that held a hint of understanding and a healthy dose of challenge.
The ache in her chest flared to a knifing pain. Not jealousy, no. She knew he was shamming it. But this parody of courtship playing out between him and Beth cut her to the quick.
She looked away.
Beth returned, bonneted and flushed with happy anticipation. Louisa studied her, took in the sparkling green eyes, the warm honey tone of her hair, the lush curves of her well-developed figure. The adoration in Beth’s gaze as she lifted it shyly to Jardine’s reminded Louisa of another besotted girl, many years ago.
Jardine rose and offered Beth his arm.
Raw with pain, Louisa watched them go.
Nine
JARDINE escaped to the card room that evening in time to see Louisa denude her slender arm of a glinting bracelet and toss it on the table between her and Radleigh. It landed with a chink against its mate.
His jaw tightened. The intimacy of that little tableau made his blood simmer with rage. But he forced himself to hold back and wait for them to play out the hand.
If Radleigh had been any kind of gentleman, he wouldn’t allow Louisa to stake personal valuables, but Radleigh was no kind of gentleman at all, was he?
Jardine watched as Louisa lost both her pretty pieces to the blackguard. Radleigh pocketed his winnings without a qualm.
Louisa gave a small shrug, as if the matter was of no consequence, but her eyes shot daggers. And for once, the daggers weren’t for Jardine.
Not for him. He ought to be glad, but something inside him reared up in protest. He wanted her glaring looks—all her looks—to be for him alone.
He slid into the chair Radleigh had just vacated.
“Fleeced you, did he, my little lamb?” He reached for the deck of cards, shuffling them between his long fingers.
He suspected Radleigh had cheated. The fierce storm of emotion in those blue eyes confirmed it. Her expression shuttered. Then, with a long, cool look, she answered. “Apparently so.”
“Never mind. I’ll send you another pair of bracelets. Prettier than those baubles you lost.” He hesitated. “If you’d told me you were short of funds, I could have franked you.”
“I’m not short,” she snapped. “I just don’t have the ready with me. And thank you for the offer but I’m quite capable of buying my own baubles.”
Slowly, he nodded. “Your brother is generous.”
“Absurdly so.”
“He owes it to you, I should think.”
Louisa bowed her head, refusing to reply. He gazed at the complicated arrangement of her pale blond hair, remembering how it streamed between his fingers like quick-silver, like moonlight.
He slapped the stack of cards on the table. “Will you cut?”
She complied and he shuffled, then dealt the cards.
“What stakes shall we play for?” she said.
“I don’t want to take your money. Let’s play for something else.”
His gaze flickered over her suggestively. One hand crept to the diamond at her throat. Did he make her nervous?
Good.
He tilted his head. “Let us play for truth.”
“Truth?” Her brow furrowed, and the tiny line across the bridge of her nose deepened. “What do you mean, truth?”
He leaned forward a little. “If I win, you tell me why you are here, what you are doing with a jumped-up toad-stool like Radleigh.”
She shrugged. “You already know the truth about that.” She hesitated, her expression turning speculative. “And if I win?”
“You’re not going to win.”
She ignored the interjection. “
When
I win, you must tell me why
you’re
here. What you are doing with Radleigh’s sister.”
“Done.” There were many reasons for his presence. He could give her at least one true one. But he didn’t intend to let her beat him, so it was a moot point.
The hands passed with little comment beyond the play. They were so evenly matched in skill it surprised him. There were large gaps in his knowledge of Louisa Brooke. The notion didn’t sit well with him.
He was reckless, brilliant; she, more cautious, counted cards and calculated the odds. Luck remained firmly with the wicked, however, and Louisa was down by the final hand.
“These cards have been marked,” said Jardine conversationally, running his fingertip over the slight scratch in the corner of an ace. “We ought to have called for a new pack.”
He’d intended to rattle her and he succeeded. She played a card she should have kept. “I hope you’re not accusing
me
of cheating.”
He swooped on her mistake. “Hardly. What would you do if I were? Call me out?”
“At least admit I am as good a shot as you.”
“Oh, undoubtedly. How do you fare with a smallsword?”
Her mouth twitched slightly, as if it wanted to smile. As if she imagined how satisfying it would be to run him through. The idea made his blood race, and most of that blood seemed to collect in his groin.
What did that say about him?
He let his gaze wander over what he could see of her, the low-cut neckline making the most of her sweet, small breasts. The single diamond nestled between them as if to symbolize the treasures that awaited a man bold enough to explore. That slender throat and angular, intelligent face, the cold fire of her eyes.
His.
If he lunged across the table, picked her up, and dragged her away with him, would anyone notice?
Hissing through his teeth, he forced himself to bide his time. If he showed more than a passing interest in her at this party, all he’d worked so hard to achieve would be lost. Almost as an afterthought, he played the winning card.
At her look of chagrin, he smiled. “This will be most interesting.”
Apprehension spiked her gaze. Louisa had a secret. Important enough to keep from him despite the implied promise of honesty. But he was skilled in the gentle art of interrogation. He’d have the truth from her this night.
“And now, I shall claim my prize,” he said softly.
“Come.” He rose and held out his hand to her. “There are too many eyes on us here.”
Slowly, she rose and placed her hand in his, her gaze never leaving his face. How could she contemplate for a bare second becoming betrothed to another man?
As they left the room, a harsh voice spoke behind them. “Lady Louisa? Going so soon?”
LOUISA didn’t know whether to be relieved or sorry that Radleigh had stopped them. She’d been too intent on the play to spare a thought to what she’d say to Jardine if she lost. How did she tell the truth and still withhold the information she’d sworn to divulge to no one?
But never mind that now. She stood like a bone between two snarling dogs.
She directed a quelling look at Jardine. “Will you excuse me, gentlemen? I’d like to return to the music room.”
“Of course.” Radleigh bowed and held out his arm, which she ignored.
Jardine’s lip curled. “Debts of honor must be paid at once, my lady.”
“The debt will be satisfied tomorrow,” she said stiffly. “I assure you, Lord Jardine,
I
don’t forget my obligations.”
She curtseyed to them both and slipped away.
Louisa returned to the music room to find that the opera singer had already made her triumphant finale. The room was abuzz, mostly with gossip over the flamboyant singer’s latest aristocratic lover rather than her musical excellence. Beth’s little companion was serving tea.
Beth pounced almost as soon as Louisa took her cup.
“Oh! I thought you’d never return. Honoria won’t let me play cards for money, so I had to stay and speak to all the old ladies.”
Taking her hand, Beth drew her to a sofa. “I’m so glad you’re here. We can have a comfortable coze.”
Listening to girlish confidences about Beth’s current infatuation scarcely appealed. Louisa wanted to take the chit by the shoulders and shake some sense into her. But quite apart from the impropriety of such a course, if Beth was half as besotted with Jardine as Louisa had been at her age, nothing Louisa could say would sway her.
Louisa herself had never had the luxury of disclosing her feelings for Jardine to anyone. When they’d first met, Max had forbidden her to entertain the dashing Marquis’s advances. He was dangerous, Max had said. Dangerous, reckless, and the most unrepentant rake to grace a London ballroom.

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