“Well, the name does have a nice ring to it, but if you don’t mind, I’ll just call you Leister, then.” I decided to let the matter rest rather than pressing him on the details of his past just to satisfy my own curiosity. “Why don’t I get you a nice cup of wine and we can have a drink together while we contemplate the possibilities of the universe and your illustrious future?”
He nodded. “Fine, that might be nice. You’re sure you’re all right after your choking spell?” he asked again, his expression troubled again.
The man was good, I had to give him that. He actually seemed genuinely concerned about me, but the false sincerity only served to strengthen my conviction. I turned to grab the second mug, filling it from the wine jug.
Plan A was quite simple, as most good plans are. First, I would get the duke addled. Then I would con him out of his valuables and try to ascertain whether he had the TTM on his person. If he did, I would deliver the coup de grâce, knocking him out and taking it from him. If the TTM wasn’t on his person, I would have to move toward the more complex plan B. Since it was just the backup plan, the details hadn’t exactly been worked out. In a nutshell, I would somehow have to break into his estate the following evening, then search the premises. Needless to say, that course of action was fraught with problems and uncertainties, so I sincerely hoped that my instincts were right and he had it on him.
I handed the duke a cup of wine and sat down again, holding both hands out to him. He reached out and clasped them loosely, pausing to gaze into my eyes before grazing his thumbs over the pulse points in my wrist. A bolt of heat jolted through me at his touch, and I gasped, struggling not to pull away. His pupils dilated, his grip tightening almost imperceptibly.
He’s a fiend, I reminded myself and slapped a casual smile on my face to mask my reaction. “No, silly, yours need to be palm up.” Tugging my wrists from his grasp, I turned his hands over to lie flat on the table.
“Now, then, here is your lifeline.” I traced the crease that led from beneath his index finger in a curved vertical line almost to his wrist. The urge to follow it with the tip of my tongue hit me like a train, but I tamped it down.
“It appears that you will live long and prosper,” I said, realizing only after the words left my lips that I’d been quoting Mr. Spock from Star Trek. I really had to stop watching so much TV.
“How can you tell that?” he asked, arching a cynical brow.
“Well, the line is long and deep. And your money line is also very pronounced,” I replied, tracing a crease running from beneath his ring finger parallel to the first.
I’d read a short booklet on the basics of palm reading for authenticity’s sake, and what I told him was mostly true, if you believe in that kind of stuff.
“And what about love?”
His voice had dropped to a husky whisper. I swallowed hard and traced another line, deciding to take him down a peg for toying with me. “I see love here, yes. Oooh…” I looked up and gave him a pitying shake of my head.
“What? What is it?”
“Well, it’s a bit too vague with only a palm, but I foresee some trouble in the area of love. Really, I shouldn’t say more. It wouldn’t be proper.” I dropped his hand and turned my face away in faux modesty.
He picked up his wine and took a slug, setting it back down hard, sloshing it over the sides of the cup. “Out with it. Come on now, you can’t start telling me something like that and then stop. It’s only the two of us. You’re a fortune-teller and I’m a loon. Why the need for propriety?” he asked. He stared at me again, this time with a challenge in his eyes.
Cocky bastard. “All right, then, sir, if you insist. It’s your money after all. Is everything…erm, working down there?” I flicked a pointed glance below his waist.
“What do you mean?” he sputtered. “Of course. Absolutely. It’s never been a problem.” His brow furrowed. “Is it going to be? A problem, that is.”
“Can’t say without my crystal ball. Palm reading is much less accurate. Oh, but I do have another method we could try! How about pulling some cards? I have a deck around here somewhere.” I turned to rifle through my bag.
I dropped the deck of cards on the table between us. My goal was to get him talking, drinking and making merry so he wouldn’t notice the slightly bitter taste when I drugged his wine. To that end, I decided that to let him off the hook and cease my efforts to unman him. I would just redouble my efforts to charm the pants off him.
I spread the cards out over the table and advised him to choose four. He did, and with a flourish, I flipped them over. “Ahh, I see now. The queen of hearts. Beautiful. Love is on the way for you, good sir. Oh, and your palm was misleading!” I gave him a broad wink. “Jack of spades only surfaces for the most virile of men.”
He sat back and let out a sigh of relief. “I wasn’t really worried, but one never knows.” That damned diabolical dimple flashed like a bloody beacon as he leveled me with a grin, then finished the rest of his wine.
I stood and picked up his mug, refilling it. As I poured, I flicked my thumbnail against a catch on the emerald ring that adorned my third finger. The stream of powder that trickled out was imperceptible in the dim candlelight but I kept up the animated chatter to distract the duke just in case.
I set the cup in front of him and filled my own glass in turn, sans the mickey. “Let’s have a toast, shall we, Leister? To impropriety,” I trilled.
“To impropriety,” he answered, clinking his mug against mine.
Following my lead, he drank it down.
“Do you happen to know what time it is?” I asked, relieved when he seemed to take no notice of the subtle difference in taste.
“I do.” He rifled through his pockets. To my disappointment, he pulled out a gold pocket watch and glanced at the face. “Half past eight.”
Of course, it would have been way too easy if he’d just pulled out the TTM. It did keep perfect time, but the way my luck was going, it lay hidden in his house locked in a safe somewhere.
“Say,” I ventured, my tone conspiratorial. “It’s still fairly early and I’m really enjoying your company. Would you care to play a game with me? Mayhap we can be really improper and do some gambling. I would wager this ring.” I pulled the sapphire off my pinky. “What will you wager, handsome?”
I lowered my gaze and fluttered my lashes, trying my best attempt at the seductive coquette.
“Do you have something in your eye?”
He leaned forward, all concerned, to get a closer look.
“Er, no, no, just a little smoky from the candles.” Note to self: brush up on flirting techniques.
Changing tactics, I leaned toward him again, relying on old faithful to reel him in. It worked, as his attention strayed to my breasts.
“All right, a game might be nice. I’ll wager my watch, then,” he responded, still watching my breasts as if in a trance.
I rose again to fill the mugs. I felt a tiny bit tipsy, but nothing I couldn’t handle, and it was far more important to make sure he kept drinking. The powder he’d ingested was a mild drug that would lower his inhibitions a bit and, mixed with alcohol, would cause him to pass out. He was much larger than I’d anticipated when I measured the amount, though, and now I doubted if the one dose would do the trick. A second ring on my left hand held a similar dose, but I didn’t want to overdo it. I decided to hold off and see how things progressed.
“What shall we play? How about a game of guessing?” I suggested.
“Guessing? And what would we guess?”
“We’ll use our powers of observation to determine things about one another. I’ll tell you something about yourself and if I’m right, I win that round. Then, you do the same to me until one of us is wrong when the other is right, and declared the winner. But we have to tell the truth or else it wouldn’t be fair.”
“All right. But as a fortune-teller, I think you have the advantage,” he teased. “And truly, I’ve no need of your possessions. Let
us make it more interesting, shall we? What say we shut the flap to the tent and play for something I want more than your ring.” His voice dropped to a husky tone that gave me shivers. “How about a dance?”
I was totally taken aback, but shouldn’t have been. What he was suggesting was a little risqué for the time period, but he was nicknamed the Loony Duke, for God’s sake. And really, what was a dance? I had nothing to lose except my reputation. And as a traveling gypsy fortune-teller in the 1800s, it really wasn’t all that valuable at any rate. More importantly, I’d convinced him to stay, and that was all that mattered.
Moving toward the front of the tent, I untied the knot securing the flap and rolled it closed. “You’re on!”
I added a little extra sway to my hips as I walked back to my seat. “I’ll go first.”
I took a moment to look at him, sizing him up, as if mining his visage for information. It didn’t hurt that I had a limited dossier on him and already knew some basic facts that I could use. I opened my mouth to “guess” the month of his birth—May—when I stopped short, mesmerized by his pretty brown eyes.
“You pretend that being called the Loony Duke doesn’t bother you, but it does. In fact, it’s been the source of a lot of pain for you,” I heard myself say.
Well, where the hell did that come from? Way to go Stormy. That should put him in a real festive mood. I stared at him, shocked at my own audacity, and waited for him to walk out.
He looked back at me for what seemed like an eternity. “And you,” he said finally, his voice filled with quiet understanding. “You like pretending to be someone you’re not, because you don’t trust anyone enough to just be yourself.”
I sucked in my breath hard as his words crashed over me like an icy wave. How could he know that about me? I didn’t even know that about me until he said it.
The air between us trembled with tension, as if what happened next hung on a precipice, teetering first one way, then the other.
I struggled to regroup and then said, too loudly, “Your birthday is in May.”
He looked at once relieved and disappointed. “Your favorite color is blue.”
“Wrong. I don’t have a favorite color, because they’re all too pretty to choose just one!” I shouted gleefully, holding my hand out for my prize. I was happy to have bested him, but even happier the super awkward moment had passed.
“You win,” he said with a crooked smile, and reached into his pocket to pull out the watch. “So what now?”
“Well, what else do you have to wager?” I gave him a saucy smile.
“I have a small sack of coins tied to my belt. But if I’m to wager that, I require more than a dance.” His dark eyes burned into mine.
“And what would you consider a fair bet?” I tried to keep my tone light despite my pounding heart. He was finally going to reveal himself to be the smarmy low life I knew he was by suggesting a quick bonk or a knob-slobbing. Shame on me for feeling a little bit let down.
“A dance…and a kiss,” he said with a slow smile.
“A…a kiss you say? All right, then. A kiss and a dance it is.” Why did I feel perpetually off-kilter with this odd man?
He stopped me before we began the game, and raised his cup high. “To new friends,” he toasted with a warm smile.
“To new friends,” I parroted and drank, the wine suddenly tasting sour, like vinegar on my tongue.
“Let’s play a different game now. How about three-card monte?” Not invented yet, genius. I quickly covered my blunder. “Here’s how you play—I’ll push around three cards facedown, and you try to locate the queen. Then vice versa. Whoever has the best results after ten games will be declared the winner,” I improvised. Anything that got us away from the intimacy of the previous game but still held his interest would have seemed like a big improvement. But more importantly, I was a seasoned card mechanic and it would be near impossible for him to win any card game against me.
To my surprise, as play commenced, I began to enjoy myself. We laughed and teased and shouted as the game wore on. A few times, I got so caught up that I forgot to cheat, and ended up winning the match by the skin of my teeth.
I jingled my newly acquired bag of coins playfully and did an impromptu I-won-so-suck-it jig. The duke seemed impressed with my moonwalk, and I spent a solid ten minutes trying to teach it to him. “A new dance from the Orient,” I explained.
As we sat, breathless and chuckling, a young woman called into the tent, “Hello? Will you be finished soon? I’d like my fortune told, if you would.”
The duke met my eyes and started to stand. “I really should let you take some other patrons instead of hogging all of your time. I will stop back by before I leave. What do I owe you for the reading?”
“No, please stay. I’m having such fun. One more game,” I begged him, realizing with a sharp blast of fear that I was in danger of blowing it. “I’ll tell her to come back a little later.” I walked over to the flap and did just that.
I returned to the table and grabbed the cups, focused enough to realize that if he hadn’t yet passed out from the first dose of the drug, he wasn’t going to. I added the second dose of powder to his wine before turning back to him.
“I have nothing left to wager except a few more coins for a meal,” he said, with a rueful chuckle. “You’ve already won almost everything I brought.”
Half of my mission was complete, then. I’d robbed him. I tried to brush off the hollow feeling that accompanied that thought, assuring myself that joyful vengeance would follow once I got the TTM back. Now for the important part.
“Nothing?” I asked, starting to feel a little desperate.
“Well…” He hesitated. “There is one more thing. But you’ve been so lucky, I’m not sure I want to risk it.”
Am I finally going to catch a break?
I tried to keep my voice calm. “And what thing would that be?”
“Well, it’s almost surely one of a kind, and I’d hate to part with it so soon after acquiring it.”
Convince him to show it, to risk it. Make him an offer he can’t refuse.
Hoping against hope that it wasn’t too good to be true, I took a deep breath for courage, then sauntered forward and put my hands on the duke’s broad shoulders, pressing him back into his makeshift seat. I bent low, my face level with his. “This is all going the same way, win or lose. I want you as my lover tonight. But I’m having too much fun to quit. Won’t you play one more game with me? This time, I wager all my clothing, along with the dance and the kiss,” I said with my very best siren’s smile. As I waited, I said a silent prayer that my “siren” was more convincing than my “coquette.”
It seemed not, as he peered at me through narrowed eyes. His voice was curiously cold, completely at odds with the heat of his gaze as he nodded. “Intriguing,” he said grimly. “But I’d like a taste first. Just to see if it will be worth it, you understand.” He reached up and wrapped his hand in my hair, pulling my lips to his. The kiss was no gentle taste, but a searing clash of lips and tongue.
I whimpered, shocked at the pressure building fast and low in my belly, shocked that I wanted to continue kissing this man, my enemy. He pushed me away and it was over as quickly as it had begun. The tent filled with the sounds of our labored breathing. He stared at me with raw need and something else I couldn’t define.
“That will do. It’s a wager. Let’s drink on it.” He turned to face the table once again and held his glass up.
I clinked mine to his and we drank.
“I want to play the guessing game again. And I want to go first this time,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument. He turned and set his empty cup to the side.
“Fine.” It didn’t matter if I won or lost. He had the TTM on him and I would win it now or take it once the second dose of the drug took effect. Then I would go get Bacon, head off to the copse of trees near the beach, don my alternate perception goggles, locate the wormhole and the two of us would blow thi
s place for good.
“Guess number one,” he said, his face suddenly impassive. “You are a liar and a cheat.”
“What do you mean?” My voice trembled as gooseflesh rose on my arms and the master plan came to a screeching halt.
“Who are you really?” he asked, his icy gaze drilling into mine. “And remember, if you lie, you lose.”
I swallowed hard, trying to dislodge the lump that had formed in my throat. “Dorothy Gale. Fortune-teller. Rorn and braised in Bratt’s Pottom. Pratt’s Bottom.” My tongue felt like a fuzzy, fat caterpillar and my head had begun to swim. Everything seemed to flicker before my eyes like a silent film from the twenties and I struggled to stay alert. The last thing I remember is Leister reaching into his pocket and pulling out Bacon’s TTM, with a shake of his head.
“You lose, Dorothy.”
Then my world went black.
Chapter Three
A chilly breeze swept over my bare shoulder and roused me from my stupor. I gingerly opened my eyes only to slam them shut again as the light bum-rushed my pupils. My head pounded in protest. An oil slick of nausea roiled in my belly. Where the hell was I? Hospital? And where was Bacon?
I reached a hand to my aching head but met with resistance halfway. Again, I struggled to open my eyes and fought through the pain and nausea until my pupils adjusted to the light. When I saw the chain around my right wrist, I almost wished I’d just left them closed. The events of the previous night came flooding back to me.
I’d been duped. The con artist had been conned, the pirate pirated. I tried to piece together what had happened. Somehow he had obviously switched the cups, but when? I had poured in the second dose and it was only a few minutes later—ah, the kiss. Had the kiss been nothing more than a distraction? Maybe he saw me adding the powder to his drink and decided to take action? Maybe he’d been looking more closely the second time? Maybe I was too obvious in my quest to find out if he had the TTM and he’d gotten suspicious? Or maybe—Holy shit. My TTM.
The Twisted Tale of Stormy Gale Page 3