With the fluid grace of a cat, he stood, his fingertips brushing across the felt tabletop. “In this establishment, it is necessary.”
The cold distance infusing his words brought her down to earth. Yes, he was himself tonight. Dressed in crisp whites and blacks, he was a vision of aristocratic English male. Ice wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Before her stood the man she’d assumed him to be until last night. Except he wasn’t that man, and possibly, he never had been.
She watched him approach the Madame and begin conversing with the woman in her native French. She couldn’t help admiring his cool, collected confidence. Nick had ever been so. He knew how to handle a moment capably without trying to prove himself to anyone.
Yet another attractive quality about her husband she’d willed herself to forget. Yet another attractive quality about her husband she again remembered.
Aware that she was staring, Mariana redirected her gaze and took in the room around her. To her right stood the gaming table. Seated in one of its five chairs was a gray-bearded croupier, who sat with his face bent to the task of fuzzing the cards. All beards now suspect, she narrowed her gaze on the man before determining this one was genuine as the man’s hair was the same gray.
Her gaze swung left toward the room’s other dominant feature: the most massive and ornately carved bed she’d ever seen. With its scarlet and velvet coverings, it looked like a caricature of a bed one would find in a bordello.
A hot flush crept up the cleft of her décolletage, and her eyes squeezed shut. A specific memory from last night came to her: her hands braced against the bedpost, Nick’s body positioned behind her, short bursts of his breath on her neck, capable fingers unraveling the flimsy scraps of cloth separating her naked skin from his . . .
The door clicked shut, blessedly drawing her attention away from the bed and a memory that served no good purpose. The Madame was gone.
“Madame Larousse has a place for you,” Nick said, “if your arrangement with me ever sours.”
“She thinks me a strumpet?” Mariana felt not an ounce of surprise or outrage at the Madame’s assumption. In fact, it might even delight her.
“What other kind of woman would you be?” he asked, eyes wide and guileless.
A short laugh escaped her. “Life as your spy is infinitely more interesting than life as your wife.” She wasn’t certain when they’d last engaged in light banter, but it felt new. If she wasn’t careful, it could feel like a beginning. She would be more careful.
“The meaning of la coquine?” she asked in an attempt to right the conversation before it went completely sideways.
“Minx.” He paused before continuing, “Or hussy, depending on your point of view.”
“So this place is what I think it is?”
“Yes.” Nick stepped to a side bar and poured two tumblers of whiskey neat.
“I don’t drink whiskey,” she said, assuming one glass was meant for her.
“Tonight, you might reconsider.”
He offered her a half-full glass, and she took it. “Is there a reason I might need the fortifying effects of whiskey?”
An enigmatic smile curved his lips. “After receiving your request that we meet tonight, I decided this was the perfect place to begin your . . . lessons . . . regarding the fundamentals of espionage.”
“You’re giving me spy lessons”—He winced at her phrasing—“in a brothel?” She thought he would teach her a few tricks of the trade tonight and send her on her way.
“We have three nights until your next tête-à-tête with Villefranche.” He set his whiskey on the nearest table and slipped his right hand into the interior pocket of his evening jacket, pulling from its depths a long and slender object.
It was a cigar.
The sudden blaze of mortification fired through Mariana as Nick snipped off the end before striking a match and puffing the cigar alight. A thin and winding column of smoke wafted toward her, its acrid scent of earth and decay filling the room. Cigar secured between thumb and forefinger, he asked, “Would you care for a puff? It is my understanding that life thus far has denied you the pleasure of appreciating a man’s cigar. Although, if memory serves—”
“You were there today.” Her heart threatened to thunder out of her chest.
The cherry end of his cigar began to gray with ash. “I have—”
“People,” she finished for him.
He tapped the ash into a crystal dish. “You will never be alone or unsafe, Mariana. Never.”
His words elicited a powerful charge of emotion within her, and she glanced away, lest he see it within her eyes. The moment elongated as neither of them spoke. Nick did enjoy prolonging a moment. In fact, she remembered just the sort of moment he most enjoyed prolonging . . .
Years. It had been years since she’d indulged such thoughts about him. She wasn’t one for dwelling on past failures, but with one touch of his body last night, those years threatened to fade into irrelevance.
Nick cleared his throat, breaking through her unhelpful reverie, before stubbing out his cigar in the dish. His point made, he held up the glass in a toasting gesture and tossed back the entire contents of his glass. She took a compliant sip and couldn’t help a grimace.
“It’s bourbon whiskey from the Americas,” he explained as he began walking toward her. She instinctively braced herself. “Tonight, we will play poker.”
“Poker? It sounds menacing.”
“It’s a card game played on Mississippi riverboats,” he explained in the patient tone one would use with a toddler. “One must employ duplicity and guile to win at it. You mustn’t give yourself away.”
“That’s tonight’s lesson? Duplicity and guile? And where did you pick up bourbon”—She held up her glass—“and Mississippi riverboat games?”
“On a Mississippi riverboat.”
“Nick”—And she’d thought he could never shock her again—“when were you on the Mississippi River?”
It occurred to her that she must forget everything she thought she knew about this man and start from scratch. Before her stood a spy who made secret ocean voyages, drank exotic whiskeys, and played cards on Mississippi riverboats.
Oh, and he happened to be her husband.
Three taps sounded on the door.
“I shall save that story for another time,” he called over his shoulder.
A shrill, excited squeal from downstairs burst into the room alongside two saucy young strumpets who sauntered in with arms linked, each gripping an open bottle of champagne. Their dark flashing eyes flitted between Mariana and Nick before one whispered into the other’s ear, and they giggled in unison. Mariana’s hand felt for the chair beside her, and she searched Nick’s face for a clue about tonight’s proceedings. But he betrayed not a single thought.
The subject of the strumpets’ matching smirks and giggles became immediately apparent to Mariana. They were speculating about her and Nick, and what such a couple would require of them. In their place, she would wonder the same. Actually, now that she thought about it, she did wonder the same. What would be required of these two strumpets tonight?
One fact was obvious: they weren’t innocent virgins, and this situation was neither new nor shocking to them. In fact, she was likely the only person in this room to whom this particular circumstance would be . . . fresh. Every muscle in her body tensed at the perverse notion. She readied herself for the night with half the contents of her glass.
“Yvette and Lisette will be playing with us,” came Nick’s low voice, closer to her ear than she expected.
Playing with us? Mariana turned to find him at her elbow. “Are you on a first name basis with every strumpet in Paris?”
A quicksilver grin crossed his lips as he pulled out the chair beside her. “Shall we?”
She bit back a responding smile. She liked the way that particular smile transformed his serious and intense visage into that of a carefree boy. She’d made herself forget all about that smile, and now she remembered it. She was remembering too much.
If she knew what was good for her, she would hasten to Calais and board the next ship bound for England. But she didn’t know what was good for her, because she lowered herself onto the proffered seat and arranged her skirts as if settling in for a long evening. Nick sat to her left, Yvette and Lisette to her right, and the croupier across.
One could almost forget the croupier, so quiet and understated he was, eyes cast down, face obscured by the beard so characteristic of a certain class of Parisian. Yet a familiarity hung about the man that she couldn’t lay a finger on.
The thought was replaced by matters more urgent when Nick nodded, and the croupier began dealing several sets of five cards arranged in various combinations.
Nick made no move to pick up the cards. “Poker is a vying game, similar to Brag.”
“Brag uses three cards,” Mariana pointed out.
“Similar. Not the same.”
Again, that patient note sounded in his voice. It found its way beneath her skin and nestled there.
As Nick proceeded to explain the rules of the game and its winning combinations, Mariana only caught every other word. Yvette and Lisette, with their ceaseless whispering and giggling, provided constant distraction. They, too, had found their way beneath her skin.
Uninterested in the words coming out of Nick’s mouth, they displayed a most definite interest in him as a man. One strumpet leaned forward in feigned curiosity, when really she was offering him a view of her décolletage, while the other strumpet skated her tongue across her bottom lip in a brazen attempt to draw his eye to the nature of its potential charms. Mariana had seen it dozens of times. Women simply couldn’t help themselves around Nick.
“Shall we?” he asked once he concluded his tutorial. He distributed three bags of small coins around the table before the croupier performed a quick shuffle and dealt. The game was on.
Mariana picked up her cards and hid an unruly smile. A straight flush. Even though the cards were low, it was one of the best combinations in the game.
She added a few coins to the pot and glanced around, trying—and likely failing—to mask her elation. Nick’s face, on the other hand, gave nothing away as he changed two cards. Meanwhile, Yvette and Lisette drank champagne straight from the bottle and giggled, not bothering to hide their cards from each other.
When the time came to reveal her cards, Mariana’s heart raced at the prospect of a win. Yvette and Lisette showed one pair each before Nick laid out a full house. Relief stole through Mariana. If anyone could have bested her straight flush, it would have been Nick.
“Well done.”
“Beginner’s luck, to be sure,” she allowed as she reached for her winnings. All she wanted to do was crow in triumph.
It felt good to best Nick. Always. Obviously, there was nothing to this game.
The croupier dealt the next hand. This time she was but one card away from a straight. How lucky.
She slid her nine of hearts facedown toward the croupier, who changed it for a different card. All she needed was a Jack of any suit to complete her straight. With bated breath, she lifted the new card. Nine of diamonds. The Curse of Scotland—Grose’s appellation for this particular card—wasn’t at all what she needed. Now what?
Unwilling to admit uncertainty, therefore weakness, she pushed more money into the pot.
“You’re raising?” Nick asked as he tossed enough coins into the pot to check her bet.
“Of course,” she replied, hoping her voice didn’t ring as hollow as it felt.
In the end, it was Yvette—or was it Lisette? Oh, who cared—who won the round. Of course, their response was to giggle and whisper and giggle some more. What a pair of bubble-brains. Mariana wouldn’t have minded taking the pair of strumpets by the shoulders and shaking some sense into them.
Instead, she turned in her chair and trained her gaze on Nick. “This ridiculous game is supposed to provide an instructive”—Her voice lowered to a murmur—“lesson?”
Eyes fastened onto his cards, Nick’s reply was a curt nod.
On the next hand, she went for the straight. Again. And she lost. Again.
Nick won. Yvette won. Lisette won. Mariana lost. She lost every hand, except for that first one, which was beginning to feel like a lifetime ago.
She glanced down at the freshly dealt cards now resting in her hands, and her heart accelerated. She held a flush, yet . . . she was so close to a royal flush. How every instinct called out to her to throw caution to the wind and trade the nine of spades for a chance at the ten. She resisted the call and stayed, all but assured of a victory if she sat tight. Her fingers constricted around her tumbler of whiskey. With each sip, it went down ever more smoothly.
Nick raised the stakes by tossing in a handful of coins, and the strumpets matched him. That pile of coins was exactly what Mariana needed to reestablish herself in the game, and this was just the hand that would take her there. She reached down to check their bets and found nothing but green felt, sleek and empty. She was penniless.
The room went airless, and her cheeks warmed. This was it. She was so close, and yet she was done. Her eyes refused to meet Nick’s. Would she fail at everything today?
To her right, Yvette and Lisette whispered into each other’s ears. The exchange was noteworthy because this time they didn’t giggle. Instead, matching impish grins lit up their faces as they spoke a few words to Nick in rapid French. His lips an unyielding line, he shook his head. Yvette and Lisette giggled and again pressed their point. Again, Nick shook his head, this time punctuating the gesture with a firm, “Non.”
“Nick?” Mariana asked, unable to keep her curiosity at bay a moment longer. “What are they saying?”
He swiveled in his chair and leveled his serious gaze upon her. “If you wish to stay in the game, Yvette and Lisette have a proposal.”
“Yes?” Mariana prompted. What could a pair of silly strumpets with air for brains have to propose to her?
“Since you have run out of funds, they suggest we wager articles of our clothing.”
“Our clothing?” Mariana asked in a stunned whisper. Her gaze shifted right and found the strumpets warily observing her, awaiting her reaction. They wondered if she had the nerve.
Well, they didn’t know her at all.
Chapter 8
Devil’s books: Cards.
A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
Francis Grose
Fascinated, Nick watched a parade of emotion march across his wife's face. Shock . . . Perplexity . . . Disbelief . . . Those were the expected ones. When the disbelief evolved into thoughtfulness, however, he experienced a jolt of surprise. She was considering the proposition. Of course.
If Mariana had an Achilles’ heel, it was her inability to resist the call to adventure. It was this quality that had brought her to Paris. It was this quality that had brought her into this room. And it was this quality he’d sought to exploit by involving her in the assassination intrigue.
His plan for tonight had been to allow her to deplete her funds and then to supply her with more coinage before beginning their spy lesson in earnest. It hadn’t been necessary to repeat Yvette and Lisette’s proposal.
Why had he deviated from the plan? He knew why. Because he couldn’t help himself. Because he’d partially undressed her last night, and the basest part of him would see the job done tonight, however cheaply. And because, given the opportunity, he would undermine himself time and time again when it came to her.
That was why he’d arranged this lesson here of all places. And that was why he’d repeated Yvette
and Lisette’s proposition.
Her eyes fixed on the kitty in the middle of the table, Mariana nodded once in assent. Yvette and Lisette squealed in delight. “What’s the old saying? When in a whorehouse, do as the whores do?” Her legs swung right, toward Nick. “A little space, if you don’t mind?”
His mouth went dry when she bent forward and untied the laces of her boot. She kicked the boot off her foot and paused, possibly having second thoughts. “You don’t have to do this.”
Her gaze shot up to meet his. “But Yvette and Lisette are so impressed.”
“A dubious honor, at best.”
Her eyes lit up with humor before they darted away, and gratification surged within him. How he delighted in amusing her. He was in trouble.
From the edge of his peripheral vision, he watched Mariana take her dress in hand and lift it fold over fold until the hem rested on her thigh. In a thrice, she freed the stocking from its garter and slipped it down the smooth length of her leg. Secured between forefinger and thumb, she tossed the delicate stocking, allowing it to flutter to the table. Yvette and Lisette clapped with glee.
Nick needed a large dose of spirits for his suddenly parched mouth. He reached for the whiskey and refilled his tumbler before setting the decanter on the felt. He suspected he would need several more top ups before this night was finished.
Play resumed, and Mariana lay a flush face up, a shy, sly smile curling about her rosy lips. Delectable was that smile. He wanted a nip of it. Of course, she wouldn’t give him one, not once he showed his cards.
Yvette and Lisette laid down two pairs each, and Nick hesitated. Mariana had agreed to potentially strip naked based on the strength of her hand, and his full house was one of the few combinations that beat a flush.
Like ripping a bandage off a fresh wound, he slapped his cards face up onto the felt tabletop. He half expected Mariana to throw her cards at his face or, perhaps, never speak to him again.
Three Lessons in Seduction Page 8