Page 11 of A Lyon’s Lesson

He glanced up at Diana clinging to the pole and staring at him. The air was thick with silence.

Aphrodite dealt the cards. Face up, Rick had a three of clubs and Bidenden a Jack of Spades! Fuck! Rick’s two hidden cards were a three of diamonds and six of hearts. His only hope was a prial of threes. He slid the six of hearts across the table and Aphrodite dealt him another card face down. For a few moments he didn’t dare to look. Finally, he did.

“Well?” said Bidenden. “Are you all in?”

“You heard Mrs. Dove-Lyon, it’s winner takes all,” said Rick.

“Are you sure?” asked Bidenden, his smile widening. “If you fold, I’ll let you keep your winnings. I just want her,” he said with a nod to Diana.

Rick heard the soft inhalation of breath from the now trembling figure above them.

“Over my dead body,” said Rick softly, pushing all his counters toward Aphrodite.

Bidenden laughed. “You’re mad. Do you know what I’ve got here?” He tapped his face down cards.

Rick gave him a feral grin back and said, “It doesn’t matter.” And turned over his pair of threes. A prial of threes beat everything in the deck.

Bidenden’s color drained away as he saw what Rick had. A little whimper from above made him look up. Diana’s hand touched the lips on the mask and then extended toward him. He smiled, a warm feeling in his chest. He’d done the right thing for the first time in his life, and it felt good.

Bidenden rose with a snarl and flung away, only to turn back and say with soft menace, “This isn’t over, Layne!” He stomped over to the Abacus Woman and then left the room. When Rick looked back, Diana had vanished into the ceiling again, and he rose slowly. Removing his mask, he discarded it on the table and gathered up his jettons. He took them over to the Abacus Woman, who looked at him through her veil and said softly, “You are free of debt to this house, my lord. I suggest you remain so.”

He bowed and then turned to find a large fellow in a mask confronting him.

“If you’ll follow me, my lord?”

Rick frowned and shrugged, following him out of the room and up the stairs to the floor above where he was shown into a private office, where, sure enough, Mrs. Dove-Lyon was waiting for him.

She was seated behind a large desk and nodded him toward a chair. She had a document in front of her. He took the seat, eyeing the document warily. He noticed the clock behind her showed that it was after two.

“Congratulations,” she said, pushing the document toward him. “If you will just sign here and here—”

He took it, glancing at the neat script. “What is this?”

“Your agreement to wed Miss Woodrow within the month.”

“What?” He read the document swiftly. “This is ridiculous! I never agreed to anything of the sort!”

“You won her. It was you or Bidenden. I gave you the choice.”

He leaned across the table. “That is no choice! For God’s sake, no gentleman would want to see her sacrificed to him!”

“Very true. But it is you the ton believes ruined her. You will marry her and silence the gossip forthwith. Or I will reinstate your debt and foreclose!” She narrowed her eyes at him, and he clenched his teeth.

“Damn it, you know how grab a man by the balls don’t you?”

“Don’t be crass.” She offered him the pen.

He took it reluctantly and scrawled his signature across the parchment.

“Good,” she said, taking the pen back and adding her own signature. “And now I will allow you to speak with your bride. And be nice to her! She has been through enough, poor child.”

Rick shoved back the chair and rose as Mrs. Dove-Lyon did, smiling at him, she left the room through a different door than the one he had entered.

Chapter 5

Cecey had removed the mask and veil, but was still garbed in the shockingly transparent chiton, when she caught the muffled tones of a voice she recognized through the door. Moving to it, she pressed her ear to the panel and listened.

She was still reeling from the events of the evening. Being dressed in such a scandalous gown and lowered into the card room to hover over the table and watch three gentlemen playing for her had been both exhilarating and terrifying. When the blond gentleman, whom she immediately recognized as the Earl of Lannister, and surely the man whom Mrs. Dove-Lyon had suggested she was going to arrange a match for Cecey with, rose from the table and left, she realized with growing horror that her fate rested on the outcome of the final game between Lord Kenrick and Bidenden.