Knaves

by Lawless, M. J.

  Valmont pondered this before nodding. “And do you think she’ll agree to my demands?”

  Eloise shrugged. “Hard to say.”

  He paused again before turning to face the blonde, her face a mask once more. “I want you to concentrate on him. I don’t think you’ll find him too difficult. Who knows, you may even find pleasure in it.”

  The mask flickered for a second as Eloise caught his eye and a smirk appeared briefly on her lips. “He will be… interesting, perhaps.”

  “Turn him, and she’ll be ready to fall. Then she’ll do whatever I want.”

  “Well,” said Eloise, standing and giving him a brief kiss on his head, “you’ll enjoy it at least.”

  Chapter Four: Karla

  As she placed one elegant Christian Louboutin pump in front of the other, Karla controlled the rage in her heart. From an incandescent sun of fury, it cooled to an earthly ice age before descending to a hellish frost. It was no accident, she thought to herself as she retrieved her card pass from her bag, Hayden mooning behind her nonchalantly, that the lowest circle of Dante’s inferno was a plain of ice, in the centre of which the traitor Judas had his head stuck up Satan’s arse. Well, perhaps she was elaborating slightly, but at that precise moment she would have liked to have torn her companion a new asshole—starting preferably at his chest.

  What did surprise her was how angry she was. She’d been disgusted by the way that Hayden would no doubt claim it was Sebastian Rider who was ogling that French slut, but to her astonishment Karla realised that she cared more than she liked to admit. For all her education, both as a brilliant student of languages and then in the wiles taught to her by Uncle Coilin, she had always been the one in control, the one who always had the upper hand when it came to men. She’d need to get a grip on herself before she put Hayden in his place.

  As she entered their apartment, her sense of anger increased. After their argument that morning, they had spent much of the day making love—their bodies compressed into sometimes bizarre positions on nearly every item of furniture (though this time, it was to be noted, they didn’t break the bed). Making up had never been so sweet, and when she had fallen asleep in Hayden’s arms, listening pleasurably to his plans to scam the Marquis de Valmont, she’d felt blissfully happy.

  Letting her bag fall behind the sofa, she froze at the sound behind her.

  What the fuck? Was he... was he actually whistling?

  Turning slowly, she saw that Hayden was preparing himself a drink, the glasses and decanter clinking on the bar, his back to her.

  Invoking several of the more obscure saints she remembered from her childhood schooling, Karla vowed that the fate of Judas was far too good for this man.

  “Do you want a drink?” he asked casually.

  Karla opened her mouth to speak. To her horror, all that came from between her lips was a muted, gargling noise. He turned and, seeing her expression, frowned, lifting his glass to sip the golden whisky.

  “I don’t see why you’re so mad with me,” he said with a sigh. His eyes—those beautiful blue eyes—contained a mixture of concern and stubbornness. Two of his shirt buttons were open and standing there, so self-assured in the white silk jacket he had taken to wearing in his role as Sebastian, she was distracted for a moment by the dip where his throat met his glorious chest. Damn him! Everything about the man was perfect, except for the fact he could be such a conceited asshole. Karla opened her mouth again. Once more, nothing came out. Hold me, she wanted to cry out. Tell me you want me!

  His next statement made her ashamed of her momentary weakness.

  “I think that went rather well, considering. I mean, at least I won back half the money I lost.”

  “Won?” she asked incredulously. “Won? Hayden, he didn’t even look at his cards. He didn’t care!”

  Raising an eyebrow as though she had caught onto a brilliant secret, he smirked and replied: “I know. Fabulous isn’t it. Just think how stinkingly rich he is! We’re going to make a killing.”

  “And when were you going to get around to telling me about my part of the deal? You know, the bit where I walk into a Victorian novel and have two men gambling over my virtue?”

  That made Hayden almost spit out a mouthful of his alcohol. “That’s a bit strong, isn’t it? I mean, it’s not as though you’ve kept your virtue locked up all these years.”

  He was insufferable! Walking over to him, she slapped him across the face. It wasn’t the same kind of violent blow that she’d inflicted on him that morning, when her fury had overwhelmed her. This was the kind of slap that hurt her much more than him.

  He rubbed his face and avoided her pained stare. “I deserved that,” he said quietly.

  “Yes, you did.” She wanted a drink, but more than that she absolutely needed a cigarette. Another of her habits that she’d given up for him—not that he seemed to care.

  “Look,” he began to explain slowly. “I would have told you. We were... we were talking last night—he was the one who asked about you. He’d heard about you. Jesus, Karla! Everyone who sees you wants you—every man at least! Quite a few women, too, I suspect. He... he mentioned how it would be such a... decadent was the word he used—such a decadent thing to place a bet for a night with such a beautiful woman who was the talk of Monte Carlo.”

  “You’re lying!”

  “Okay, okay. I’m not exactly lying—I might just be a little... judicious with the truth. Don’t you see, Karla? This is such an opportunity! A game of cards and we walk away ten million richer!” He came forward and, somewhat tentatively, took hold of her hand. “We can’t lose.”

  “You lost last night,” she said sullenly.

  He grimaced and rolled his eyes to the ceiling before looking at her pleadingly. “I meant to lose. I won tonight, didn’t I?”

  “He let you win. There’s a difference. Don’t you see?”

  “Oh, come on! It’s a stupid game to him—he’s bored! Hell, what we’re doing—it’s not even criminal. Hmm... kind of takes the fun away when I put it like that.” Karla began to struggle to pull her hand away half-heartedly, but he tightened his grip. “We’ll be doing him a favour. A night’s excitement and then we’ll be off to somewhere bright and beautiful!”

  “A night where I might get more than I bargained for.”

  Despite his attempts to maintain a façade of concern, he couldn’t help but scoff at this. “I’m sure you’d enjoy it!” he sneered.

  Now she did pull her hand away and this time he let it go. That hurt almost as much as the slap.

  “What do you mean?” She was icy again.

  “Don’t play me for a fool. J’ai bien l’honneur,” he crowed mockingly. “You could barely take your eyes off him!”

  “What!” Again Karla’s mouth was opening and closing without intelligible sounds emerging. She wanted to scream now. Why on earth did she act this way around him? He told her not to play him for a fool, but somehow she was the one who always felt foolish.

  “Admit it. He’s quite a looker—fabulously rich, with all his titles and aristocratic snobbery. God! I bet he’s got so much grandeur up his backside that when he takes a dump a dukedom pops out. Go on, admit it. You fell for him.”

  Once more, Karla performed the fish act as a painful realisation dawned on her. There was something wicked and decadent about Valmont’s face—and also extremely handsome. He was not quite the muscle bound hunk that Hayden was, but his lean, athletic body spoke of a man who was vain enough to keep himself in the peak of physical perfection. And he did have centuries of entitlement behind him that, she knew, would be hard to resist even as his arrogance would repulse her. Once she would have sought him out, but that was before. In any case, Hayden’s cruel remark completely missed the point and reminded her why she was so angry.

  “I did not fall for him,” she said coldly. “I was observing him, casing him. Playing my role, if you remember. You were the one who couldn’t keep your mind on the job.”

  �
��What do you mean?” he asked suddenly defensive. Something inside Karla’s chest cracked.

  “You couldn’t keep your eyes off that... hussy!” she spat, swallowing back tears.

  “I barely noticed her,” he said, but now he couldn’t keep his eyes on Karla.

  “You liar!” she almost screamed. “If you drooled any more I was going to have to call a waiter over to bring you incontinence pants. It was... it was disgusting!”

  “You’re over-reacting,” he mumbled, turning away to return to the drinks cabinet. Karla was horrified. Part of her wanted to drop the subject, to pretend that none of this was happening, but an imp of perversity had taken up residence inside her soul. Retrieving her bag, she lifted out her phone and began to search on it. What she found sickened her, and she shoved the image on the screen into Hayden’s face when he turned around. He backed away in surprise.

  “Is that what you want?” she asked, tears forming in her eyes. “Is that really what you think what women are for?”

  The pause was just a little too long.

  “No!” he cried out, but it was too late. Before she could give full vent to her anger, however, Karla’s phone began to ring. It was her Uncle Coilin.

  “Karla,” Hayden began to say, placing his drink to one side and reaching out an arm towards her, as though only now realising just how upset she really was, but she waved him away dismissively.

  “Yes? Uncle? Yes—it’s me... No, I haven’t been abducted by a shape-changing alien with remarkable powers of mimicry... Are you drunk?... Oh, I see... Just because they’re free you don’t have to accept every beverage from the hostesses. And no—I don’t care how beautiful they are... I’m not really in the mood for this conversation right now, Uncle... Okay, okay, find a bar and sit tight. I’ll be with you in an hour—and Uncle?... I think hair of the dog’s meant to be the next day.”

  She switched off her phone and glared at Hayden. He stared at her uncomprehendingly. “What’s going on?” he asked at last as she lifted up her coat and stuffed her phone back into her bag.

  “It’s Uncle Coilin. He’s at Nice airport. He was meant to come here, but he seems to have incapacitated himself, so I’ll go and get him.”

  “Why... What the hell is he doing here?”

  “I asked him to come.” Karla’s matter-of-fact tone hid the fact that she felt her heart was breaking—all the more painful because she didn’t really understand why she was feeling this way. “When you were sleeping. I thought we could do with some more information on this Marquis so I asked him to fly over and help us.”

  Hayden scowled at this. “I had that covered.”

  “Oh, really? And when was that? In between losing a hundred thousand and ogling a whore?”

  “She’s not a whore! She just has some... very impressive capabilities that’s she’s not shy to demonstrate.”

  Karla’s chest surged in pain at this. “Oh, god, Hayden,” she said in a very small voice. Her eyes were hot and her heart hammered inside her. Why had she not realised he was like this? No, no, that was a stupid question. Why had she refused to let herself see that he was like this, that he had always been this selfish?

  He seemed utterly oblivious of the crisis working its way through her. “My brother, you know, the hotshot in the City. He’s been doing some digging around. That’s how I know how rich Valmont is!”

  She shook her head and lowered her eyes so that he wouldn’t see her tears, her anger now turning into bitterness. “I’m going,” she said, pushing past him. “I’ll find a room for Uncle and... I don’t know. Don’t wait up.”

  As she was about to walk through the door, however, she stopped and turned back. He was standing there, dumbfounded, his broad shoulders slumped and his strong, handsome face revealing the traces of the boy who must have been so loved as a child. He was a bastard, but why oh why did he have to be so... beautiful with it?

  “Hayden,” she said quietly. “You mocked my virtue—fuck it, I deserved that. God alone knows the things I’ve done with my life. But I want to ask you one question. Do you know how many men I’ve slept with, since I’ve met you?”

  He opened his mouth, as though to make a wisecrack. This time it was his turn to say nothing.

  “That’s right.” She felt her mouth compress into a hard, tight line. Then she turned to leave. “Don’t wait up, Hayden. We need to plan what we’re going to do with your Marquis in the morning.”

  Chapter Five: Hayden

  Hayden felt utterly miserable. That had gone terribly and every time he opened his mouth the wrong thing seemed to come out.

  He knew, deep down in his heart, why he was behaving like such a pig. Karla had been right—not entirely right, but enough to see through him. Eloise had been an unexpected move on the part of Valmont, one that had thrown him and his carefully planned behaviour as Sebastian Rider. He hated the fact that he’d lost control of himself, just as he hated some of the things he’d said.

  But he also hated Karla. Well, perhaps hate was too strong a word. But he was incredibly pissed off with her. She’d over-reacted. Perhaps he hadn’t handled things as well as he could have, but if only she’d let him explain: this was a perfect opportunity! It was one that was far too good to miss, but Karla coming over all PMS-ey was going to ruin everything.

  In truth, Hayden was looking for any excuse to shift a blame that threatened to eat away at him onto anyone else he could. Like a child, he had stormed around the room after Karla had gone, calling her every name under the sun, impotent in his rage. After about an hour of this, when she refused to return and bear witness to his righteous fury, he had slunk down to the bar to get himself as drunk as he possibly could.

  As he sat there by himself, downing scotch after scotch, he fought against an increasingly prevalent dread. Was that it? Had she gone for good?

  To hold that terror at bay, he lashed out mentally, going over an increasingly peevish battle-ground inside his skull. She was being too foolish to appreciate the brilliance of his plan. That had always been something that was so wonderful about Karla—that she realised like him that conventional morality was a bind. They had been astonishing together, and his plan was brilliant...

  Except that it wasn’t. Karla had seen through him too easily. Eloise... Eloise was a factor that he hadn’t considered, that was true, but that wasn’t what worried Hayden most. No, like a blind fool he was the one who’d introduced her to the Marquis.

  Valmont was good-looking, too good-looking now that Hayden thought about it. Hayden had spent so long having other men look at him jealously that he’d forgotten what it was like to be jealous. Valmont was handsome, cultured, self-assured and—damn it!—he had enough history to justify that arrogant, nonsensical aristocratic air he displayed. Curse him! He was like one of those stupid heroes in some godawful romance, where the heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing prince. He was also, Hayden had come to realise through his brother’s contacts, fabulously rich. Bloody hell! A walking cliché and Hayden Carter had introduced him to Karla Steel.

  That bitch! She was probably already planning with her damned Uncle how best to shack up with the swine of an aristo and cut him out of the deal. Why oh why had he ever introduced the two of them to each other, and why oh why did he feel so bloody miserable?

  He was staring at his phone, deciding if he should call Karla (though whether to scream and shout at her or plead for her to come back to him now, this minute, he wasn’t sure), or his brother. God! he thought to himself. I must be drunk if I’m considering sharing my woes with that bastard...

  Before his thoughts could go any further, he heard a voice beside him that sounded vaguely familiar. It took another second or so to realise that the French woman was addressing him.

  Turning his head, he stared into the face of an angel. An angel with a little more makeup than one would expect from all those Renaissance paintings, but there was no denying that Eloise Bissette was a work of art. For a moment the vision of her parted into
two hazy images and he had to concentrate, force himself to focus.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Were you talking to me?” At least he wouldn’t have to act up much to play the part of Sebastian Rider’s buffoonery in this state.

  Eloise smiled, a bow of scarlet and a hint of pearly white teeth as her blue eyes creased. The lights across the bar seemed to shimmer around her bright blonde hair. Hayden kept continuous instructions pumped through to his eyes: don’t look at her tits—don’t look at her tits—don’t... damn! They are so fucking gorgeous!

  “I like a man who knows how to drink,” she said, her voice seductive and velvet. “Do you mind if I join you?”

  “Be my guest,” he replied, his words slurring more than he intended. “Bartender, another scotch for me and...”

  Eloise smiled again and this time raised an eyebrow as he finally managed to regain control of his eyes and look at her face. Strange, thought Hayden to himself. When he’d seen her with Valmont earlier that evening, her face had been a mask, giving nothing away, but this time her features were much warmer, full of life, and her eyes even twinkled slightly as she regarded him.

  “I’ll have a Black Russian,” she told the bartender.

  “That’s my kind of nightcap,” Hayden quipped as they were left alone for a few moments.

  “And is that what you’re doing now—having a nightcap before going to bed?” As she spoke, the Frenchwoman seemed to move ever so slightly closer to Hayden, so that now he was aware of the warmth of her body through his shirt sleeve. It felt… pleasant. “And where is Jeanne?” she continued. “Not joining you? Or waiting for you upstairs?”

  “Who?” asked Hayden, so stupidly drunk at that moment that he was in danger of forgetting their cover story. He scowled at himself. Get a grip man! “She’s had to… go out.”

  Misreading his grimace, Eloise’s smile became broader and she perched herself back slightly further on the stool next to Hayden as the bartender handed them their drinks. Her back was arched slightly, the plummeting dress descending almost to her buttocks, which Hayden couldn’t help notice were as fine as her breasts above. He started to feel a little uncomfortable beneath his belt line. He was so taken with that fact, he turned his eyes away as she lifted his drink. When he looked back, she was smiling at him, holding a glass of amber liquid up to him.