The Lady's Gamble

by Abby Ayles

He would keep taking her to the park and the museum for the rest of his life if that was what would please her. He would buy her dresses and shower her with jewelry. But most of all he would make her feel confident.

  Thomas wanted Regina to see herself as he saw her. And he wanted her to be able to walk into a room with her head held high because of it.

  He wanted more intimate things as well of course. He especially wanted to show her the Ocean Room, the master bedroom. It was done up in blues all over and was so calming. He knew that Regina would love it. He wanted to kiss her everywhere and dance with her and hold her in his arms.

  But above all of that, yes, he wanted her to have confidence.

  Thomas stared at himself in the mirror above the dresser. His hair was in disarray from running his hands through it in frustration. He set about fixing it. He must look presentable.

  If he could end this whole affair with Regina possessing the confidence that she deserved then he would be content. Would he be happy? No, he didn’t think so.

  He rather suspected that since it had taken love so long to come, it would take a long time in going away. Perhaps an even longer time in coming back in a different form.

  But it didn’t matter about him. He didn’t have to marry. Regina did. She would need to find someone.

  With her newfound confidence, he was sure that she would. He hoped that she would. He wanted her to be happy even if that meant she wasn’t by his side.

  His Puck. Did she know that he truly meant it when he said that? That he meant mine? That he meant stay by my side, little fairy?

  She could not. How could she? She saw nothing in him but a careful guardian and that was how it should be.

  Yes, if he could end this with Regina confident in herself, then he would be content. Satisfied, even. He could watch her from the sidelines. And he’d find someone else in time, someone he could tolerate well enough who could bear him a child to continue the family line.

  Now was the time for setting aside his torment. He was a man. Not some Gothic hero or the star of a play. He was a regular man and he did what was needed and he certainly did not waste his time pining over things that could not be.

  Just as his father could not handle finances better. Just as his mother could not live longer. So Regina could not be his. It was simple. It was fact.

  Crying over it wasn’t going to solve anything, so why bother? Actions were what mattered.

  He had bargained her sister for his aide and that had been wrong. Furthermore, Regina only saw him as a brother. Those two facts could not be denied so why bother with denying them?

  Enough, now.

  Thomas composed himself and left the room.

  Chapter 22

  Regina was starting to hate shuffling cards.

  In fact, whoever had invented shuffling cards could be run over in a carriage accident and she would be perfectly happy.

  As the deck once again spilled out of her hands, she let out a swear.

  “Now where would a sweet girl like you learn a word like that?”

  She startled, turning to find Harrison lounging in the doorway. He had changed into another pair of trousers and a shirt, although he still did away with his jacket and waistcoat.

  “I can’t seem to keep them from falling out of my hands,” she admitted.

  “It can be hard, with your smaller hands,” Harrison admitted. He walked over and sat down next to her. “Here, I’ll show you.”

  He took the cards and shuffled slowly, showing her how to hold them and how to use the wrists.

  “If you get good enough, you can trick people with shuffling,” he explained. “You can deal them bad cards and give yourself good ones. But you don’t need to worry about that right now.”

  “What if someone at the table is doing that?” Regina asked.

  She felt a little distracted by all the things she hadn’t noticed about Harrison before. Or, to put it more accurately, the things she hadn’t let herself notice:

  The way that he smelled, heavy and masculine—the way it made her breath catch but also made her want to curl up against his side and breathe him in;

  The darkness of his hair, and the way it curled slightly now that it was just the two of them alone together and he didn’t have to tame it down;

  The intensity and warmth in his eyes, the way they seemed to bore into her;

  The skill of his hands, and how large they were, dwarfing hers…

  So many things she hadn’t consciously thought about. So many things she had dismissed, now all rushing to the forefront. She could remember noticing them before, and the rush of warmth inside of her, but she hadn’t thought about it. Perhaps she hadn’t let herself think about it.

  Now she was thoroughly sunk. She wanted nothing more than to cross the distance between them and kiss him.

  Harrison seemed as usual, however. There was no change in him. He treated her the same way that he always did, with casual warmth and teasing. He was obviously overall unaffected by what they’d done.

  That hurt, a little, actually. Were all men like that? Could they all become overwhelmed in the moment and then act as though nothing had changed once it was over?

  Still, nothing really had changed, had it? They were still the same. She was simply his pupil at cards. He was helping her to dig her family out of a precarious position. Nothing more.

  Regina shook herself. This was ridiculous. She was proving herself to be the silly little girl that she’d always feared she was. She had no time to think about things like this. She had to focus on the cards.

  “Lord Pettifer, for one, might be capable of that,” Harrison said.

  Regina realized that he was answering her question and that she had missed the good first half of his answer.

  “But none of them would dare in a game such as Loo,” Harrison went on.

  “Do you know that for certain?” Regina wouldn’t put it past Lord Pettifer to pull a stunt like that.

  Harrison seemed to read her expression, because he gave a small chuckle. “Even the likes of Pettifer wouldn’t dare. Loo is such a dangerous and popular game because of how much is up to chance. Your skill comes from how you’re able to play the others around you.”

  “I thought it was about the cards.”

  “It is, I suppose, but if you truly want to be good at Loo, or any other game where it’s about chance, you have to make the cards secondary. The cards serve the purpose of using the players.”

  “That’s what you were trying to get me to understand when you brought your friends over last night,” Regina said. “You wanted me to figure out that I should look at how they were playing and use that instead of relying entirely on my cards.”

  “Exactly.” Harrison nodded. “I was hoping that you’d figure it out on your own, and you did.”

  He reached out and gently tucked her hair behind her ear, smiling proudly at her. Then his face grew more serious. “I haven’t played Pettifer directly. I’ve heard plenty about him, of course. And I saw him play against your father. So I do have a very good idea. But I don’t know his methods as well as I’d like.”

  “Then it will be all on me,” Regina said, voicing her thoughts aloud. “I’ll have to figure him out as we play.”

  She winced a little at the thought. Would she be able to fool him? A man who had made his living ruining others through cards? Could she keep up?

  “No, none of that, now,” Harrison said. He frowned. “You have to stop beating yourself up on the inside. Don’t think I can’t tell when you’re doing it, you get this most put out look on your face. I’d say it’s adorable but I think you’d take offense.”

  “I’m not—” Regina let out a huff of frustration. “It’s perfectly reasonable of me to be nervous about my abilities, isn’t it? I’m just a girl. I’m not even particularly sociable.”

  “You’re intelligent and a quick learner,” Harrison replied. “That’s all you need to be. I’ll help you figure out the rest. And you’re a bett
er liar than you think you are. You just need some coaching.”

  “That’s so odd,” Regina replied, putting on a thoughtful face, “Because I could have sworn someone who looked an awful lot like you telling me last night that my emotions could be read all over my face.”

  “Well, yes, that’s true, but hiding is the part that I’ll teach you. You’ve got the part where you go along with things down pat. In case you forgot the part where you didn’t panic because my friends were rude teases and put you in an awful position.

  “Lying isn’t just hiding. That’s the part you have to work on and I find that delightful, because that’s what most people think it is.”

  Harrison started dealing out cards as he spoke, slowly, to show her how it was done. “You’ll have to take a turn dealing so you should learn, even if you’re not going to be using it to cheat. If you deal poorly, they’ll pick up on it and see you as a weak player.

  “But as I was saying, about the lying. Most people think that lying is just hiding the truth. They don’t understand the other half of it, which is going along with things. It’s redirection. Distraction.”

  Regina thought about that. “So I couldn’t hide my emotions very well. But I was able to go along with it when we ended up having to pretend that we were a couple. And I could—hold my own, I suppose that you could say—with the others?”

  “Yes, precisely.” Harrison handed her a hand of cards. “You were able to engage them and keep up with them. Although we had to improvise and pretend that we were a couple, none of them suspected the full truth. And that’s important.”

  “Because if you can just hide your emotions, people will know something is up even if they don’t know what it is, or they won’t want to engage with you because you’ll be distant. I still want Lord Pettifer to engage with me.”

  “Precisely.” Harrison smiled at her in a way she was beginning to realize meant he was proud of her. “He has to want to play you. You have to engage him and make him intrigued. He has to wonder who you are, and be convinced that he can beat you.”

  A thought occurred to Regina. Lord Pettifer had once made an advance towards Bridget. What man in England hadn’t, she thought, but perhaps…

  “Perhaps I should seduce him?” Regina asked. “Not truly, of course.”

  The very idea of kissing Lord Pettifer made her sick to her stomach.

  “But perhaps, he is rather attracted to Bridget, after all. I am told I look the most like her, in that we both resemble our mother most closely. Maybe, if I were to play up the flirtation a little, that would intrigue him more? I would remind him of someone, but with my mask on he wouldn’t know for certain who I was. It would appeal to him, I think, to be presented with a puzzle.

  “Who knows, he might even believe that I am Bridget. That would certainly appeal to him. My sister appeals to everyone. And I wouldn’t confirm it, of course, I wouldn’t confirm anything about my identity but he could wonder. I could let him form his own theory and think that theory is true.”

  Harrison’s brows drew together and his jaw clenched. He was unhappy, Regina realized.

  “Did I say something wrong?” She asked.

  Harrison shook his head. “No.” He looked at her and his face gentled. “Oh, no, Puck, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  He ran his thumb over the line of her cheekbone, soothing her. Regina leaned into the touch, almost unconsciously. She liked it when he touched her, perhaps too much.

  “It is a clever idea, I have to admit,” he said, speaking quietly. “But I must also confess that I rather hate the idea of you appealing to him in any way.”

  “It’s not me,” Regina protested. “It’s Bridget. Everyone wants Bridget. I would simply make it seem like I’m her.”

  “But it would still be you,” Harrison countered. “You would be the one that he was looking at in that way, and he doesn’t deserve it. Not a man like him.

  “He doesn’t deserve to look at Bridget or any other of your sisters that way either, of course. But I won’t have you putting yourself in a position of vulnerability, even for a moment. If he thinks he has an invitation and then—in his rage after he loses…”

  Harrison shook his head and Regina felt a sudden chill at what he was suggesting. What Lord Pettifer might try to demand from her as a way to humiliate and hurt her and sustain his own pride after she beat him.

  “I would never want that to happen to you,” Harrison said, his voice low and strained. “Part of my duty here is to keep you safe.”

  “What if he tries to do something like that, whether I seemingly encourage it or not?” Regina had never heard of anyone close to her experiencing such an act. But she had heard stories of others outside of her circle.

  It wasn’t something that people liked to talk about. The options were generally limited for the woman. Sometimes she was forced to marry her attacker.

  Regina couldn’t even begin to imagine being touched by a man in such a way. But she knew how much she generally disliked talking to people or having them touch her. She thought about how safe she felt with Harrison—and how easily it could go the opposite way with another man.

  If she considered her discomfort in conversing or dancing at a ball and then multiplied it times ten… that began to give her a rough estimate.

  She shuddered.

  Harrison reached out and took her hand, squeezing it gently. He had been doing that lately and Regina knew that it was wrong of her to allow it but she could not stop herself. It made her feel grounded and safe to have him touching her like that.

  So often during all of this she felt as though she would float away. Or, even, that she was in some kind of awful dream and she was going to wake up if only she could remember how. When Harrison took one of her small hands in his it reminded her that this was real.

  “I’ll be there,” he reminded her. “Pettifer’s an ass, if you’ll pardon the rough language. But he’s also a coward. Why else would he strip men of their fortune through cards? Why else would he go out of his way to do people harm?

  “He feels small. He’s a small man of little family and consequence. His lineage has been disgraced time and again.”

  “Your family was disgraced,” Regina pointed out.

  “Yes, and yet you don’t see me taking other men down for it. He has felt deeply the blows from his peers. People will always find the wrong things to say about you.

  “Instead of rising above it, he has decided to amass as much wealth and land as he can until they can’t ignore him any longer. They will have to speak highly of him, because he will be so powerful they won’t be able to afford not to.”

  “And he is doing it by hurting others that he feels look down on him because of his family’s past scandals and his own reckless behavior,” Regina added, showing that she understood. “But that will only make them hate him more.”

  “I do not think that he wants to be loved,” Harrison mused. “I think that he merely wishes to be feared.”

  “Then I shall have to knock him down a peg or two, shall I not?” Regina replied. “Show him that even a small mousy girl isn’t afraid to take him on.”

  “My darling, when will you believe me when I say nobody will think you mousy once this is all over?” Harrison asked.

  A strange feeling formed in Regina’s chest, weighing her down. It was hard not to believe Harrison when he said such encouraging things to her. He called her ‘darling’ while she was tucked against his side and it was so easy to believe that he truly meant it. That she was darling to him.

  Regina shoved such thoughts aside. She’d been doing a lot of that lately.

  Harrison seemed to like her and she appreciated that. He even saw fit to touch her, to show her pleasure so that she could find it for herself with a husband later on. She was grateful to him for it. But she must never let herself become confused.

  This was all so that Harrison could be happy with Bridget. That was why he was doing this for her. Anything else must be a bon
us to him, a diversion, something to entertain him.

  It wasn’t self-pity to say such things. It was merely the truth. She had to remember that.

  “Now, enough about that odious man,” Harrison said. His tone was light but he kept his arm around her. It was as if Lord Pettifer himself was somewhere about the room and Harrison felt he had to keep her close. “Let us turn to the cards.”

  Yes. The cards. That was what this was about.

  If only she could concentrate on them.

  Chapter 23

  The rest of the afternoon was spent in dealing with the matter of cards. By the end of it, Regina felt that she better understood how the game worked. She still wasn’t nearly as good at it as Harrison was.

  “It will come through practice, never fear,” Harrison said.

  How he could tell that she was dangerously close to crying in frustration, Regina didn’t know. He seemed to read her better than anyone. In some ways he read her even better than Bridget did, and Bridget had raised her.

  “We have less time than we think we do,” Regina replied. She did her best to keep her frustration in check and not let it bleed into her voice or face. “How am I supposed to become all of the things I must in order to defeat him?”

  “All of the things you are supposed to become?” Harrison asked. He sounded genuinely confused.

  Regina nodded. “Confident, and a good liar, and engaging, and witty, and an excellent card player, and an excellent judge of character, and sophisticated, and mysterious, and—and all of these things that I’m not. I’ll have to become a chameleon at this rate.”

  Harrison looked at her for a moment, lips slightly parted as if he were about to speak. He blinked slowly, taking her in. Then he said, “Regina, you don’t have to become anything.”

  “Of course I do,” she scoffed. “I have to become a good card player, for one thing.” She picked up a card and waved it in the air before letting it fall back onto the table. She partially wanted to set this entire deck of cards on fire.

  “All right, I do admit, you will have to continue to gain confidence in that particular field,” Harrison allowed. “But Regina, you don’t have to be anything that you’re not.