My Once and Future Duke (The Wagers of Sin #1)

by Caroline Linden

  “Morality,” the duke drawled. For the first time he gave her more than a glancing look, more contemplative than before. “How novel among your companions, Philip.”

  Philip’s head had sunk on his shoulders, like a turtle’s. His ears were red. “Enough, Ware,” he muttered again. “Please, Jack.”

  Jack. What a carefree name for such a rigid man. Sophie began to feel rather sorry for Philip, being dressed down in front of his friends and companions. The duke’s voice was not loud, but they had attracted notice. “Yes, please,” she said to the duke in her most quelling tone. “This is hardly the time or place.”

  “Oh? There appeared to me to be no time to lose.” Again his cool blue gaze slid over her. “No doubt you would have preferred I remain silent until you’d won a good sum from him.”

  She breathed deeply to avoid saying something she would regret. She should have put off Philip more forcefully when he interrupted her game with Giles Carter. “That is manifestly untrue. I’ve no interest in ruining anyone and am appalled you would imply it.”

  “Leave her out of this,” said Philip. “My dear, perhaps you’d better go, so my noble brother and I can quarrel in private.”

  The duke’s mouth curved darkly, and Sophie had a quicksilver thought that he’d be irresistible if he really smiled. “How much have you won from him?”

  “That is absolutely none of your concern,” she shot back in indignation. What did it matter how he smiled when he was such a coldhearted beast?

  “It is when he pleads with me to pay his debts,” the duke said. “Will you be the next creditor I must satisfy?”

  Philip flushed purple with humiliation—­and rage. He stepped forward, putting his hand on Sophie’s shoulder. His fingers lingered, then slid gently down her back to her waist. She went rigid, which Philip seemed to take as encouragement; he stepped closer, between her and his brother. “Leave her be,” he said again, his voice barely audible. “Mrs. Campbell and I are . . . friends.” The delicate pause suggested more. “There is no harm intended between us.”

  “Don’t be a fool.” The duke hadn’t taken his eyes off Sophie. “She’s not your friend. She’s not even your mistress, which might at least justify the expense. She merely wins your money.”

  Sophie’s mouth dropped open in fury. “How dare you—­”

  “I can prove it.” At long last, the duke looked away from her. He picked up the dice from the table where she’d dropped them. “You wish to play, madam? Then play with me.” He put out his hand, and after a moment Philip sullenly handed over a handful of markers. Without even looking at them, the duke dropped them all onto the hazard table.

  She stared, doing quick mental arithmetic. Almost fifty guineas lay on the table, a princely sum. “You play very high, sir.”

  “One guinea a round, then,” he said coolly. “Or are you afraid of losing the game when your opponent is not a callow young man?”

  Lord Philip’s head jerked up. He sent a look of scalding hostility at his brother, who ignored it. Sophie saw, though; as much as it had been intended to taunt her, it had been a public humiliation to him.

  She knew only one way to deal with humiliation and scorn: by standing her ground. She had faced both many times, from certain snide young ladies at Mrs. Upton’s who laughed at her lack of status, from the London matrons who sniffed at her independent ways. To slink away was weakness, and as the duke had insulted her very publicly, it would also tar her reputation. He’d implied she was a confidence artist, if not an outright cheat. Of course Sophie liked to win—­she had to, to support herself—­but she played fairly, lost her share of games, and was always gracious. And in this case, where she’d been trying to discourage Philip in her own tempered way, she felt the injustice of the duke’s words like a slap in her face.

  “Afraid?” She drew herself up in her haughtiest imitation of Mrs. Upton. “Of you?” She paused and gave him a pointed look. “Why on earth would you think that?”

  A sharp, vindictive grin spread over Philip’s face. A muscle twitched in the duke’s cheek. “Then play.”

  She was mad to do this. Mad, and reckless, and probably stupid, but Sophie had done worse. If he wanted to play a few rounds of hazard, nothing would please her more than beating him at it.

  Among the few things she remembered Philip telling her about his brother was that the duke didn’t gamble—­in fact, he disapproved of it strongly. That meant he would play like a rank amateur. The Duke of Ware had been rude and insulting, and she was not above retaliation. She felt a wholly unwarranted solidarity with Lord Philip, and a driving desire to trounce his insufferable brother.

  She stepped back to the table, dropped a marker for a single guinea, and raised the dice. “Seven.” Her voice rang in the hush that had fallen around the table, but she barely noticed. The world had shrunk to the two of them. Gazing directly at her nemesis, she brushed a taunting, sensuous kiss over the face of the dice before tossing them onto the table.

  Chapter 4

  Sophie knew she ought to have walked away the moment the duke ordered his brother to stop playing. Hazard was a game of sheer luck, and clearly hers was ebbing tonight. Not only had Giles Carter disappeared, she was now the center of attention thanks to the duke.

  If her luck was bad, though, his was atrocious. He lost and lost badly. After the first round, a tiny frown creased his forehead as he studied the table, making him look almost endearingly puzzled, as if the game’s rules had changed on him. It gave her a moment of pause; how could she feel badly taking advantage of Philip, then revel in beating a man who had no experience at hazard?

  Behind the duke’s back, Philip sent her a gleeful look. She couldn’t resist a tiny smile in reply, but the duke looked up at that moment and saw it. His jaw firmed. “A professional gamester, I take it.”

  Sophie flushed with fury. “Perhaps the personification of Lady Luck.”

  “Lady Luck,” he repeated. “And like my brother before me, you’re against me.” He picked up the dice again and held them out.

  So be it. If he wished to lose, she was ready to win.

  She raised the stakes. She began to flirt a bit with some of the spectators, and to ask the crowd, which had grown rather large and quivered with attentive interest around them now, what she should do. They always cried that she should bet more, so she did. Philip moved to her side and recovered his bonhomie, cheering her on every time she won. And consistently her luck was just a little better than the duke’s.

  It surprised her that he played on, even after she had won a shocking sum of money from him. Even the most bumbling player would have recognized that the dice were not on his side this evening and slunk away with his pockets lighter, though not emptied. Not the duke. And every time he forfeited another marker, something surged inside her.

  Finally, though it felt abrupt, the duke put his hands palm down on the table and surveyed the damage. His golden hair had grown disheveled, falling in rumpled waves over his forehead, and he’d unbuttoned his jacket at some point. It made him look far more like his rakish younger brother. “Enough,” he said.

  She sent a dazzling smile in his direction. “As you wish, sir. And may I say, it has certainly been my pleasure.” The crowd rumbled with laughter. A small mountain of markers sat on her side; she’d lost track of the total after it reached two hundred pounds. This was her best night in a year.

  At her words, he looked up, visibly irked. His eyes glittered sea blue, and his mouth tightened. “One more round.”

  She laughed in disbelief. “Such a gambler!” Beside her, Philip snorted with laughter. Philip was enjoying this immensely. Sophie rested her hand on the table to lean closer to him and lowered her voice. “Surely you’ve lost enough for one night.”

  The duke’s gaze swung toward her, slowly climbing from her hands to her face. Too late she realized her comment, well meant advice to someo
ne on a bad losing streak, had struck him as condescension. “No more paltry stakes.”

  Her moment of regret ended. Paltry! No wonder Philip despised him. “Let that be a lesson, Philip,” she said lightly, without taking her eyes from the duke. “A hundred guineas is a paltry sum.”

  Philip chuckled. The duke stared at her. A tiny muscle twitched in his jaw, giving the impression of barely leashed emotion. “I stake five thousand pounds.” Sophie’s mouth dropped open and the crowd buzzed with shock—­and delight. Clearly Vega’s did not see recklessness on this scale every night. “One round each, played until loss, winner take all. If we both throw out, it’s a draw.”

  Unconsciously her gaze veered back to her prize money. She’d have to wager it all, on one round. If she won, it would be by far the smallest part of her profit tonight. It would also put her almost at her goal of ten thousand pounds saved. Independence would be within her grasp in this one round . . .

  But the first rule of gambling was: easily won, easily lost. The duke’s luck had been abominable, but that didn’t mean her odds had improved. “Not tonight, sir,” she said, with more than a tinge of regret. Better to keep the few hundred pounds she’d already won.

  “You mistake me. You don’t have to risk a farthing.” She made the mistake of looking at him again. Indifferent to the onlookers whispering around them, he rose to his full height and folded his arms. It made his shoulders look very broad and his arms very strong, and there was a focus in his face as he watched her that made Sophie’s heart patter erratically. She wanted to look away from his sea-­blue gaze but couldn’t. “One week of your company is what I want.”

  If Jack had seen any other man act the way he’d behaved tonight, he would have suspected the fellow was barking, howling mad.

  Since he was that fellow, he knew beyond all doubt that he had indeed lost his mind.

  He had ignored his own good judgment and caused a scene—­and not just any scene, piously preventing Philip from running headlong into ruin, but a scene that would enthrall every gossip in London, no matter what pledges Dashwood exacted from his patrons. Worst of all, he was breaking his own vow to avoid gambling—­at hazard, the game designed to beggar a man as speedily as possible.

  But there was something about this woman that provoked and entranced him beyond all reason. Her hair had come loose as they played, and one curl hung down at her nape, tangling in that extra length of black ribbon. Every time she leaned over the table to collect the dice—­or her winnings—­his eyes were drawn to that curl, teasing and tempting him to catch it, to bury his face in the mass of her chestnut hair, to inhale her scent. He could almost feel the ripe curves of her body against his. When she smiled after a good roll, he didn’t think of the money he’d just lost but of what her ripe pink mouth would taste like.

  Utter madness.

  He hadn’t been affected by a woman like this in years, and was shocked by how powerful it was. Helplessly he gazed at her, fully aware that she was flirting with every scoundrel pressed up against the hazard table trying to peer down her vivid red bodice. She filled it out spectacularly, he couldn’t help but notice. No wonder Philip had broken his vow of moral rectitude for her. Jack hadn’t missed the fascination in his brother’s face as he watched her, and on no account was he going to allow her to make a fool of Philip. He had stepped forward to save his brother from a mercenary temptress, nothing more.

  But the moment her gaze connected with his, every thought of Philip vanished from his brain.

  Consequently, he went a little mad, taunting her into gambling with him, playing recklessly even when it grew abundantly clear he had no idea what he was doing. He’d thought Philip looked like a fool, but then he’d proven himself one, in front of every avid gambler in town.

  A murmur went through the crowd when he made the last outrageous wager. Philip, who had been openly enjoying his humiliation to this point, lurched forward. “What the devil are you doing?”

  Jack barely glanced at his brother. “Wagering.”

  “You can’t wager that!”

  “No?” He turned to look at Mrs. Campbell. How reckless was she? She was staring at him, eyes wide, her rosy lips parted. The wise move here would be for her to collect her winnings and walk out the door.

  “Five thousand pounds,” she said, her voice so soft he barely heard it. Her eyes flickered toward Philip, almost in apology. “Against one week of my company.”

  She was considering it. His heart jolted in his chest. He would probably lose, the way his luck was running, but . . . she was considering it.

  With a quick motion she put back her shoulders and stepped to the table. “Done.”

  The crowd hissed in stunned surprise. Philip froze, his expression terrible. Jack barely registered any of it; triumph shot through him, hot and thrilling. Mrs. Campbell tipped up her face to stare defiantly into his eyes, and he knew, in some deep primitive part of his soul, that he was going to win.

  And damn it all if his pulse didn’t surge at the thought.

  “A moment, Your Grace,” murmured someone beside him. Dashwood, the club owner, had sidled through the crowd. “That’s a rather substantial wager.”

  Slowly Jack turned. “Do you think I cannot cover it?”

  A nervous titter ran through the crowd. Everyone knew he could cover five times that amount.

  “That wasn’t my concern,” said Dashwood, unperturbed. “You’re not a member and I cannot guarantee anything . . . on either side.”

  Jack raised his head and gave him a glacial look. “Are you interfering?”

  Finally the club owner paused. It probably went against the grain for the owner of a gambling hell to prohibit any sort of wager. “Not if the lady is certain she wishes to proceed.” He cocked his head expectantly. “Are you, Mrs. Campbell?”

  It was utterly silent. Jack watched the pulse throb at the base of her throat; he studied the color that rose in her cheeks. She was as rosy and delicious as fresh strawberries. He should hope the owner’s question gave her time to reconsider and refuse. He was insane to do this. She had bewitched Philip, and seemed in a fair way of doing the same to him.

  But he mentally growled in triumph when she put up her chin and said, clearly and boldly, “Quite certain, Mr. Dashwood.”

  The club owner bowed his head and stepped aside. Jack picked up the dice and offered them to Mrs. Campbell. Her fingertips brushed his palm as she took them, and her gaze jumped to clash with his. Something leaped inside him, and he waved one hand at the table, inviting her to play first.

  “Seven,” she called, flinging the dice. An eight. She made a face of exaggerated regret and swept up the dice for her next roll. A nine. Grimly, she rolled once more.

  Eleven.

  Her eyelashes fluttered, but she didn’t say anything. Jack reached for the dice. For the first time all evening, they felt light and easy in his hand. He let them rest there a moment, weighing them. He couldn’t lose now; if he threw out, it would be a draw and they would both walk away. But if he won . . .

  “Six,” he said quietly, and flicked his wrist. The dice bounced around before settling into place.

  A pair of threes.

  Her chest heaved as she stared at them. It was practically the only good roll he’d made all night. The onlookers burst into a seething rumble of whispers and exclamations. Jack turned to his brother, who was staring white-­faced at the table. “You’re done here. I won’t cover another debt from this or any other gaming club.”

  “Right. Very well.” Philip seemed to have difficulty breathing. “I’ll agree to that. I deserve that. But don’t do this—­not her—­”

  Jack looked at Mrs. Campbell. She still stood as if frozen at the table. Everyone had withdrawn a step, leaving her alone in the center of a small circle. She was staring at the dice, her eyelashes dark against her pale cheeks.

  Reluc
tantly his conscience stirred. His quarrel wasn’t with her. He could speak to her privately, in Dashwood’s office, and explain why he’d made that wager. He was only trying to save his brother from ruin. Well—­his gaze dipped to her bosom for a moment—­not entirely, of course, but it was an unimpeachable motive and had the benefit of being true. He would release her from the wager on the condition she swear not to gamble with Philip again. That was his primary purpose—­his only purpose, damn it, even though he had to work to keep his eyes off her—­separating her and every other sharper from his brother.

  Philip pushed past him and took Mrs. Campbell’s hand. “Don’t worry, my dear,” he said to her. “It was a coerced wager. You aren’t required to fulfill it.” He shot a venomous glare at Jack.

  She started as if from a trance. “What?”

  “Of course you aren’t!” Philip exclaimed. He lowered his voice, but Jack still heard. “He did it to punish me, because of our friendship. He cannot hold you to it—­nor will I allow him to, Sophie.” Philip clasped her hand in both of his and brought it to his lips while Mrs. Campbell raised her eyes to Jack’s.

  There was no fear or horror in them—­she was furious. And she was letting Philip hold her hand for far too long.

  His conscience fell mute. “On the contrary.” He tilted his head, and Dashwood, lingering nearby but pointedly looking away, sighed.

  “Mrs. Campbell, you lost a wager freely agreed to. It must be paid.”

  Her bosom rose and fell. Her eyes glittered. “Yes. Of course. I see that. If His Grace will call upon me tomorrow, I’m sure we can—­”

  “Mr. Dashwood,” Jack said, “collect Mrs. Campbell’s winnings and credit them to her account.” He took her arm and tugged her away from Philip. She hung back and he put an arm around her waist, deliberately holding her to him. It was meant for Philip, but again his heart seemed to stumble over itself at the warmth of her body against his. He started for the door, taking her with him.