by Anne Mallory
“Indigestion again, Andreas? Shall I have one of the boys make a remedy? The lot of them would be overeager at best.” Roman tossed his keys to a side table and blithely moved forward, grabbing a side chair by its wooden top.
The scraaaaaape of the chair echoed long and uncomfortably as he pulled it excruciatingly across the floor. It took what felt like an eternity to drag it into place. He blithely nudged Bill’s chair leg with his foot, and the one-eyed man snapped to sudden attention, scooting his chair over to make room.
Roman gave him a blinding smile, then sprawled in the added chair.
Silence reigned. The three men stared at him, then the two men—not including Andreas—shot surreptitious looks to her. She couldn’t see what Andreas’s facial expression was, but she was pretty sure it was unpleasant. Roman smiled at him cheerfully.
The silence was obvious. Roman was one over from the chair he had occupied that first night—and the other nights they had spent together here. Reserving his chair for her.
She swallowed. What was he doing? What was she doing? But Roman gave her that slow smile, the one that always did funny things to her insides—that intimated she was the only woman alive to him—and somehow her feet moved her forward, her hands shaking as they pushed back her hood, fingers lingering for a moment before dropping.
“Charlotte, this is Milton Fox, who manages things for us.” Roman indicated the auburn-haired, beefy man, who was gawking at her though trying to be surreptitious about it.
She stopped beside Roman and felt warm, familiar hands reach up to help her out of the cloak, folding it behind her, but she could barely acknowledge the actions as she woodenly sat.
“And you’ve met Andreas and One-eye.” Roman seemed more than a little amused as he waved a now-free hand at the others, hiding any smile as he bent his head to gather chips at the side.
“Good evening, milady.” Bill nodded his head to her. “Nice to see you again. You look quite fetching. Like a golden statue.”
“No,” Roman said, face hidden as he picked up chips. “More like one of those golden, snowy birds, don’t you think, One-eye? The ones that sing so prettily when you let them free?”
Bill blinked. “Of course. That too, milady.”
She swallowed around the block in her throat, looking at Roman’s bent head.
“It is nice to see you as well . . . Bill.” She had no idea what the man’s last name was, but she sure as December wasn’t calling him One-eye. “And thank you for the compliment. Please, call me Charlotte. I’m not a lady.”
Well, that had not come out quite as she’d intended. Luckily, the other two men—she couldn’t bear to look at Andreas—were too kind to say anything, but Roman chuckled and slipped a glass of the calming drink in front of her, then started stacking chips in front of them both.
Bill’s eyebrow rose at the drink, so blithely placed, then at the piles, and he shuffled his hands together in glee. “Good pots tonight.” Milton also smirked.
Charlotte had no idea what the chips meant, but whatever they were, the amount was more than she had. Which made her refusal easy. She curled her hand around the short glass. “Oh, I’m simply watching.”
“You are doing no such thing. You will play with these.” Roman indicated the stacks he had formed.
She looked uneasily at the chips, then at the faces surrounding her. Bill nodded encouragingly, eye drifting happily to the stacks in front of her. Milton nodded as well. Andreas militantly stacked his chips in small piles with one hand, his other arm hanging over the chair back. It was an oddly informal posture on the dark-haired man. His dark eyes suddenly lifted and caught hers. Fathomless pools of black menace. Threatening her with something dire.
She jumped a bit at the look. She turned to Roman to tell him that she couldn’t play with money she didn’t have, and was surprised to see his eyes narrowed dangerously at the man across the table. She swallowed and looked back to see Andreas casually stacking his chips in larger piles, looking nonchalant, as if nothing notable had occurred.
“Now, who is dealing first?” Roman asked.
Her mouth opened again to tell him that she wasn’t going to play, and his hand clamped around her thigh, his eyes piercing hers. Her lips stayed parted, and she could see in her periphery that Bill quickly took up the cards. Dealing five piles.
And still she couldn’t pull her eyes from Roman’s. Couldn’t pull her thoughts away from his hand. Undoubtedly, each of the other three people at the table could see his hand or otherwise knew where it was placed. She was so used to any physical gesture simply being between the two of them—she was so used to having almost no physical contact with anyone in public, period—that her mind froze.
Her eyes broke free, and her hands automatically raked in the cards piled in front of her. His warm hand squeezed her thigh in approval, then lifted.
Well, when she lost all of his money in the next five minutes, he would realize his folly. It had been idiocy staking her a small fortune, judging by the looks of the piles.
Still, her pride made her think of the money as her own. So when he peeked over her shoulder, then leaned forward and threw in a few more of her chips, she balked. “What are you doing?” she hissed, raking them back. She didn’t know what they were playing, or what she had, but that wasn’t important. “Are you playing, or am I?”
His brows rose, and she heard Bill snicker.
And such was how the games went, though she reluctantly accepted Roman’s advice more times than not. She ended up doing much better when she did, unsurprisingly—her piles dwindling due to her inexperience, especially surrounded by sharps, but filling out when she followed his pointed suggestions. He patiently explained each new game, usually tweaking the others as he did so.
“Bill can hardly play Loo without reminiscing about his uncle. The memories get him nice and drunk, and you can then pluck whatever you need from his dwindling chips.”
“Andreas thinks Speculation involves deciding which frown to use. I think his ‘dire things will happen to you for making that comment’ frown is especially nice, don’t you?”
“Milton still maintains a prostitute gave him Vingt-et-un. We keep trying to tell him it was his sister, but he won’t listen. See?”
“Commerce is a bore, but Andreas doesn’t know how to have fun, so we pity him and play it. Milton will never admit it, but he hates the game with a passion. Andreas will never admit it, but he encourages us to play so Milton’s trousers get in a twist. Bill will never admit that he finds their bickering amusing and cheats shamelessly when they do it. And I will never admit that I instigate half of it.”
Even with Andreas being barely civil, playing was surprisingly fun, though frighteningly fierce, at times. For people who called it a “family game,” they played like they would eat the others alive if given the opportunity. Even Bill, who had been more willing to bet kindly against her at the beginning; once she started following Roman’s advice, he eagerly joined the bloodbath, including her in the letting.
Her mind had stopped working properly when she realized the first pot had been three hundred pounds and that it was considered “measly.” She had decided that the better part of retaining her sanity lay in playing as if it were all an illusion of chips and paper.
Though that was likely how her father got into trouble, and she then had to banish that thought as well.
In the course of events, her coiffure had lost its shape, and one of the short locks around her face kept slipping into her eyes. She finally gave in and brushed it away, trying to tuck it behind her ear. Without looking away from his cards, Roman reached into his pocket and handed her a fresh clip. It was one of hers, likely forgotten at some point in the past. He always had one handy.
She smiled and took it from him. “Thank you.”
She opened the pin in her teeth and pushed her hair into place, her eyes automatically looking up as she withdrew the pin from her lips to secure it. She froze as every eye but Roman’s w
as on her. She swallowed and clasped the pin in place, breath coming too fast as she blindly gathered her cards.
“Interesting little bauble to have in your pocket, Roman,” Andreas said.
“Hmmm?” He was examining his cards, which she had quickly figured out meant he wanted the others to think it was a good hand—whether it was or not. It was a frustrating tactic to a beginner like she, because he just as often did nothing when he had a good or bad hand, and she had wrongly assumed otherwise at first, thinking she had him figured out. “Charlotte always forgets one when she needs it most.”
“It is very fetching on you, milady.” Bill looked over the top of his cards nervously—looking from Andreas to Charlotte, then back again.
She swallowed, but Roman seemed as if he wasn’t paying attention to the undertones. “Thank you, Bill,” she said.
“I didn’t realize you were such a connoisseur of women’s accessories, Bill,” Andreas said unpleasantly.
She narrowed her eyes at Roman’s brother, but Bill didn’t seem to take offense. “Spiffing lady needs a few shinies. Though some don’t need nothing to make them pretty. Like milady here. Good stock.”
Charlotte blinked.
Bill addressed himself conspiratorially to Milton over his cards. “Mother is quite a shiner.”
Charlotte’s hand jolted.
Roman pinched the bridge of his nose and pushed his fingers out and over his closed lids. “So that was it. I swear, if I had ended up there instead, you’d be called One-arm.”
Bill looked at his cards, affronted. “Got it right, didn’t I?” he muttered. “Didn’t see you complaining after.”
Charlotte looked from one to the other. “What—?”
Roman waved her question away and smiled charmingly. “Nothing.”
She looked back at her cards, willing to let it slide for now, too caught up in the fact that Bill might fancy her mother—her mother, who knew about—no don’t think of her in anything but the abstract. No one fancied Viola, she was far too cold. Like . . . like Charlotte.
Andreas snorted, and the uncharacteristic noise made her look at him. There was malice in his gaze as he looked at his brother. “Works on her too, does it? For now.” His dark gaze swung to her, almost dismissively. “They are speaking of watching your house to determine the location of your bedroom.” His voice was snide. “Roman can’t be arsed to solve such things himself.”
She looked at her cards for a second, deciding how to play the verbal hand; how to deal with the thick tension in the room. She looked at Bill, and said lightly, “You watched my house?”
“No, obviously One-eye watched your mother,” Roman said lightly, as if unaffected by Andreas’s words, but the edges of his cards curled.
Bill leaned toward her over the cards bent to his chest. “What kinds of flowers does your mum like?”
Charlotte stared at him, uncomprehending for a moment. “You want to know what type of flowers my mother likes?”
He wanted to know what sort of flowers frigid Viola Chatsworth liked?
Bill looked abashed at whatever he read in her face, and leaned back, shuffling his cards. “Awk. No, never mind me. Mouth has a mind of its own sometimes.”
From the corners of her eyes, she saw Andreas open his mouth, and Roman as well—probably to counter whatever his brother was about to say.
“Blood roses,” Charlotte blurted. “She adores them.”
It was one of the few pleasures her mother seemed to have in life.
Bill perked up. “Really? Got a thing for bloody red myself.”
“I’m in hell,” Andreas muttered, throwing his card play on the table.
“Now, Merrick. First thing you should know about a lady—she likes to be appreciated. That you’ve taken the time to discover her likes and dislikes. Especially if you are serious in the courting.”
Charlotte stared at Bill.
“My mistake,” the dark man across from them said viciously. “I’m somewhere far worse than hell.”
“Now, Merrick. Second thing you should know about a lady—she requires tender handling. Especially the most prickly variety. Sweet cores underneath, but easily damaged. Sensitivity goes a long way. And the full bloom is well worth the scars from the thorns.”
“Yes, Andreas,” Roman said cheerfully. “You should pay close attention. No finer courtier than One-eye.”
Bill nodded solemnly. “Boss knows, though he can’t follow my instructions. Too impetuous. Good thing milady here likes his tactics. You, however—”
Andreas leveled a look of utter death at him.
Bill scratched his neck quickly. “—right. Whose hand?”
Milton looked as if he was dying, his face purple. “Your turn. Three up.” He coughed into his sleeve, then coughed again, something suspiciously like a snicker in the hack.
“Er, so, Merrick,” Bill said. “How’s Na—”
“Fine.”
“Oh.” He blinked at the quick answer. “Good. And how did—”
“Fine.”
“But weren’t you tracking—”
“Fine.”
Roman wasn’t even trying to hide his grin at their exchange. There was something diabolical in his eyes as he watched his brother.
“Yes, Andreas,” Roman said. “How is your tracking going?”
“Roman.” There was a clear warning there.
Roman smirked.
Bill scratched his head. “I thought—”
“Fine.” Andreas all but snarled the word.
Roman simply grinned. But the depth of anger in Andreas’s final answer shut Bill up for a few hands. However, not even Andreas Merrick and his deadly one-word answers seemed to keep the man’s spirits down.
“Oh, heard something today,” Bill said. “Eight’s on the out and McGregor’s in.”
Milton’s brows rose as he looked at the cards played on the table before he threw his own. “That means the whole clan is. Good fortune there. Though it won’t stop a move should they play the wheel.”
“Awk, Milt, no wheel ever worked with Boss around. Too good at pulling that trick himself. Corns would never know what hit him.”
They might as well have been speaking Norwegian for all Charlotte understood. She examined her cards, if she played the queen . . .
“Cornelius has a few players who aren’t to be underestimated, One-eye,” Milton said, throwing a look over his cards. “You know that. Roman might be the best at confidence games, but it is easy to be overpowered by a large force running multiple good cons. If Cornelius sways enough good people . . . best to be cautious, is all I’m saying.”
Charlotte pretended to keep looking at her cards, but she focused on Roman from the corner of her eye—could see the tightness he couldn’t hide.
“Best to be cautious,” Roman said, nodding. Idly. Too idly.
Bill and Milton immediately returned their gazes to their cards, shoulders tight. But Andreas’s eyes held a black gleam.
“I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I think we should discuss such caution at length. I’m sure that Miss Chatsworth would be enthralled by such a discussion. Perhaps we should even speak of the games in more detail. The ones currently running. I think she’d be decidedly interested.”
Andreas’s smile was dark. But Roman’s gaze promised dire consequences should he continue speaking.
Charlotte watched, unwillingly transfixed, exceedingly anxious with the conversation—both stated and unstated. She concentrated on Andreas as his eyes turned to hers, dark and deadly. Cruel. He was going to say something that would tip her world on end. She knew it. And all she could do was stare.
Roman’s brother was the kind of man a person wanted to examine because there was something intriguing and enticing about him. A predator luring his prey closer. Sending the same prey skidding from him, overpowering them with the sinister waves he exuded.
Unlike Roman, who would idly or hotly gut a person, then be on his way, Andreas looked as if he’d stay t
o coldly enjoy the fear and pain.
There was a rap on the door. “Enter,” Roman said. Relief that they were being interrupted was evident in his voice.
Charlotte shifted, and Roman’s attention turned to her at the unusual gesture.
A boy peered around the corner. “Boss? We need—”
All of the men were in sudden motion, even Andreas. Flicking some sort of symbol, signal, whatever, with their fingers.
Roman looked surprised for a second, any lingering anger temporarily overpowered.
“—someone to come down. Donald even said so,” the boy at the door finished.
One-eye cackled evilly. “Been a long time since you lost, Boss. Never seen you move so slow.”
Charlotte had no idea what he meant, Roman had moved so fast that she’d barely been able to see the motion. It had only been a hair later than the others, his attention on her.
“Well, bound to happen sometime,” he said lightly, pushing back his chair. “I’ll return in a few minutes,” he said to Charlotte. Then he sent a look full of dark meaning to Andreas, who tightened his lips.
One-eye cheerfully explained the meaning of the motions as Roman disappeared from the room. “You have to wait for the request to be uttered. Not fair otherwise. On card night, whoever is slowest has to deal with the problem.” He shrugged, smiling, obviously happy to have a change of subject as well. “Been a long while since it was Boss. Right surprising.”
Andreas looked even more unpleasant than usual. “Is it?”
One-eye shifted. “Aw, Merrick. He barely even showed it.”
The darker man gathered the cards. “All it takes is one moment of inattention.”
Silence descended. Milton started whistling—loudly in the suddenly quiet room. Andreas raked the rest of the cards in tight, controlled motions.
Then the edge of his mouth curled viciously. “What do you say, Miss Chatsworth? Wouldn’t you like to know the implications of what we were speaking about before Roman left?”
Andreas’s smile was . . . unpleasant. Bill shifted, obviously wanting to interject something.
“There seems to be a split in opinion as to whether I should,” she answered calmly. She could feel all of their eyes touch upon her. “And I admit myself curious, but I don’t see any dire need for me to know about it at this time if it makes Roman uncomfortable.”