Lady Rogue

by Suzanne Enoch

  With a suspicious glance at him she turned and walked into the billiards room. She already knew the layout. In addition to the table, a liquor tray sat on one side beneath the window, a folded gaming table and two worn, comfortable-looking chairs close by it. She glanced over her shoulder to see that Everton followed her, and took a seat before the mahogany gaming table.

  Alex leaned over and flipped it open, his motions crisp and angry, then walked to the mantel and pulled out a deck of cards from the small chest perched there. He tossed the deck onto the table, then moved on to the liquor tray and lifted two glasses and an unopened bottle of brandy. “Your father encourages you to drink brandy, then?” he finally said, taking the seat opposite her.

  “He doesn’t care,” Kit answered defiantly, still trying to interpret his mood. She guessed it had little to do with her supposed clumsiness, and wondered again what the man who wasn’t a stranger to Everton had been telling him. “I can drink any man under the table, anyway.”

  “Splendid.” He deftly uncorked the bottle and poured a measure of the amber liquid into each glass. He slid hers across the table toward her, then sat back, obviously waiting for her to proceed.

  It took little sense to know that she should not be drinking with him in this hidden room by themselves. “Alex,” she finally said, reaching out to fiddle with the glass, “if you wish me to apologize again, I will. The dratted rug was turned up on one side, and I fell.”

  “How very clumsy of you,” he noted.

  “That’s not very nice,” she retorted.

  “Well, I’m a bit angry. Drink.”

  “No.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because I don’t like you any longer, and I don’t wish to drink your brandy.” She stood and turned for the door.

  Everton reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Sit down,” he hissed.

  Surprised at the contact, she jerked free and took a further step away from him. “No. If you wish to drink with someone, go find your mysterious friend.”

  Alex pushed to his feet, his eyes snapping with fury. “Down!”

  She put her hands on her hips, not wanting him to see that he was making her uneasy. “What the deuce are you so angry about, Everton?” she demanded.

  He opened his mouth, closed it again, and slowly retook his seat. “I suppose I’ve gotten used to having everyone around me do as I tell them. You are more…independent than I am used to.”

  At least he was speaking in complete sentences again. “Now who’s being unimaginative?” she prodded, still irritated at the implication that she had been lying, whether she had been or not.

  He scowled. “All right, you annoyed the bloody hell out of me, and you being a female, I can do nothing but beat my chest and bellow at you.” He gestured at her to resume her seat. “Please. Come drink me under the table, chit.”

  There was still something remote in his eyes, but being in his company was even more inviting than the idea of finally beating him at something. Perhaps a few glasses of brandy would return him to his cynically amused self. “All right, but don’t blame me for the aching head you’ll have tomorrow.”

  “I’ll risk it.”

  Kit sat again and lifted her glass. Eyeing him over the rim, she took a swallow, then another. “It’s very good brandy,” she offered with a tentative smile.

  Alex returned the expression briefly and drank as well. “Brandy’s actually a bit too dry for me. I prefer port, but as you are obsessed, we’ll drink brandy.”

  He refilled the glasses, then opened the pack of cards and began shuffling them. “Commerce?” he asked, glancing at her.

  “All right,” she agreed. “If we play for brandy. Loser takes a drink.” Though it was not her best game, she played fairly well, and if she could get him drunk enough, she might actually be able to obtain some information from him.

  He eyed her for a moment, then nodded. “And winner gets to ask a question.”

  Apparently he was seeking information, as well. “What sort of question?”

  “Any sort at all. We’ve been together for a week, and know little of one another. Whatever comes to mind.”

  It felt like a trap, but it could close on him just as well as on her. “Agreed.”

  He dealt them three cards apiece, and set the deck at his elbow while he examined his hand. She did the same, and then looked up at his questioning expression. “One,” she said, discarding the diamond and hoping for a flush of spades.

  Alex slid the card over to her and took one himself. “Well, chit?”

  She sighed. “Queen point.”

  “Pair of threes,” he said, displaying them for her. “Drink up.”

  Kit took a swallow. The liquid burned as it traveled down her throat. “And your question?”

  “Why did you go out again last night after we said good night?”

  For a moment her heart stopped. Swiftly she set an affronted look on her face. “How did you know that?” she demanded.

  “It’s my turn to ask a question,” he reminded her.

  “I’d…spied Thadius Naring drinking earlier, and thought he’d be an easy mark,” she said slowly, watching his expression to see if she’d given away more than she should have.

  “You might have told me,” he said after a moment. “We could have fleeced a few coins out of him together.”

  “Seeing you at the Traveller’s would have had him pissing in his breeches. And I need the coin. You don’t.”

  He nodded. “True enough.” Alex slid the deck over to her for the deal.

  This time she ended up with a flush to his pair of sevens. She gestured at his glass, and he took a long swallow, as though taunting her. “How did you know I went out again?” she asked.

  “I ran across Naring this morning. He wanted a chance to recoup his losses.”

  Alex won the next hand, and looked at her for a heartbeat after she took the obligatory drink. “How long have you spoken French?”

  At least these first questions seemed to be ones she could answer without too much difficulty. Perhaps it was simple curiosity that motivated him, after all. “I’m not certain. For a time after we left England I didn’t understand a word of it, and then I did.”

  He won the next round as well, and she would have thought he was cheating, except that she had dealt the hand. “Have you always lived in Saint-Marcel?” he asked as she drank.

  If this kept up, she wouldn’t be in a condition to ask him anything if the opportunity ever arose. “No. After Madrid and Venice we lived in Saint-Germain for a while, but we’ve lived in Saint-Marcel on and off for five years or so.”

  Finally she came up with three nines, and refilled his glass to the brim before he drank. “Let me see,” she mused, while he watched her. She would have called his expression wary, but it was too aloof for that. But she knew that he had secrets, too. Everyone did. The trick was to uncover what she needed to know without him guessing what she was seeking. “Where does all your money come from, Croesus?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “What kind of question is that?”

  “Ah ah,” she admonished, wagging a finger at him. “It’s my turn.”

  Alex sat back. “Well, do you wish to see an estate ledger, or may I just give you a general breakdown of income?”

  “A general summary will do.”

  He gave a slight smile and shook his head. “The majority comes from investments. I am a shareholder in several textile, mining, and shipping companies. The rest comes from government appointments, tenant rent, and from my brickwork, and crop, wool, and stock sales at Everton, Charing, Hoaroak Abbey, Castle Gandailey, and Corredor Timederia. And a little wagering, for amusement.”

  Well, he’d said it, but he’d managed to smuggle it in the middle of a breath-stealing mound of wealth. To focus on his appointments above the rest would be far too obvious. “My,” she offered, rather stunned to actually hear it all laid out before her, and he chuckled.

  “You asked,” he said dry
ly.

  In the next hour she learned that despite his reputation as a rake, he took his duties as a member of the House of Lords very seriously, and that he had sold off his shares in a French textile company when the board had voted to support Bonaparte’s ascendancy. She’d tried to nudge her questions in the direction of his politics and his particular duties, and he’d just as skillfully misread her meanings and given answers that had little to do with what she truly wanted to know. At least, she imagined that his misdirection was on purpose. For his part, he’d won the majority of hands, and Kit was forced to acknowledge that he was better at cards than she. Of course, as the loser, she was consuming far more liquor, which wasn’t helping her game in the least.

  It seemed only wise, then, when she lost a hand and Alex rose to throw another log on the dying fire, that she turn her wrist as she lifted the glass. Deftly, the swallow that was supposed to go down her throat slid wetly down her sleeve instead. She hated the idea of ruining her shirt, and quite possibly her lovely blue coat, but she hated the idea of losing to Everton, and losing her wits, even more.

  “All right, chit,” he said with a half smile as he retook his seat, “how many times have you visited England since the age of six?”

  His questions had been like that all evening, queries that could be interpreted as either idle curiosity, or a wish to discover something deeper. She wondered whether he had guessed anything about her true purpose for being in London, and why he would have reason to suspect her. “Oh, I don’t know,” she offered, grimacing as though trying to remember. “Three or four times. We never stayed very long.”

  For the next half hour she succeeded in distracting him enough to dump nearly a full glass down her sleeve, though it didn’t make answering his increasingly complicated questions any easier. “What time is it?” Alex asked, stretching sleepily and glancing over at the mantel.

  “Nearly three,” she answered quickly, grinning. “Your deal.” Slyly she tilted her glass into her sleeve again.

  “I lodge a protest. That was not my ques—” Everton lurched across the table, grabbed her arm, and yanked her over the cards toward him. Hearts and diamonds went flying as he pushed her sleeve up to reveal the brandy-soaked elbow of her shirt. “You little fraud!”

  “Let me go!” she protested, flushing and trying to pull backward. She had forgotten how strong he was, for her flailing about had little effect. Instead, he hauled her around the side of the table and stood her upright.

  “Strip,” he ordered.

  She just stared at him. “What?” she queried, her heart thudding unevenly.

  He smiled lazily. “Take off that damned coat. We’re going to finish this game, and I paid too much for this bottle for you to be dumping it down your sleeves.”

  “Oh, all right,” she grumbled, and shrugged out of the coat. It was with some difficulty that she kept her balance. She looked over at Alex, to find his gaze was directed somewhat lower than her face. “Everton,” she muttered, blushing.

  “Hm?” he said absently, raising his eyes to hers again. “How did you learn to tie your cravat like that?”

  “Antoine taught me,” she returned. “He says it’s the very latest thing, only you won’t wear it.”

  “It looks foppish.”

  “It does not,” she protested, looking down at her chest. “I’m the pink of the ton.”

  “By God, you are, chit,” he said admiringly, the cynical, slightly drunken twinkle in his eyes mocking her good-humoredly. He stepped over to the liquor table and procured a second bottle, for they had nearly consumed the first one.

  “You must remove your coat as well, monsieur le châtelain,” she demanded as he returned.

  Alex glared at her as he removed his own gray coat. “And what does that mean?”

  “I only called you the lord of the manor. Not very insulting at all, really.” His sleeves were unsoiled, so he’d been drinking every glass she’d set in front of him. Even so, the advantage remained his, for he outweighed her by better than five stone.

  She stood there for a moment, looking at him in his shirtsleeves, fighting the abrupt, scandalous desire to unbutton his waistcoat and pull his shirt free, to run her hands over his bare chest. The curl in her stomach tightened deliciously, and spun downward.

  Alex resumed his chair, and leaned forward to grasp one end of her cravat and pull her back down opposite him. Her splendid knot came undone. “Stop that,” she said belatedly. The protest seemed weak, so she reached out and tugged his cravat loose, as well.

  Before she could retrieve her hand, he grasped the ends of her fingers. Alex examined her palm for a moment, running his fingers featherlight across her skin, then turned her hand over to brush his lips slowly along her knuckles. His breath was soft and warm, nearly as soft as the touch of his mouth on her fingers. In her guise as a man she’d never had her fingers kissed before—but this was no polite greeting, anyway. Her eyes met his, and he yanked her half over the table again and closed his mouth over hers.

  Christine shut her eyes and kissed him back, kissed his lips which were soft and firm at the same time. She had expected a kiss, even his kiss, to be mauling and sloppy, like those she’d seen in Parisian taverns since she was fifteen. But there was nothing mauling and sloppy about Alexander Cale at all, or about the shuddering pulse in her veins, or the sudden electric heat coursing along every nerve in her body. When he let her go she sat slowly back down in her chair again, for a moment still unable to breathe. Her cravat, caught in his long fingers, slid loose from around her neck. Azure eyes spent a long time looking at her, then blinked and glanced down. “We seem to be missing half the deck,” he muttered.

  Her body trembling, Kit slipped sideways out of her seat and gathered up the scattered cards. When she sat again, he was slowly winding her cravat around his fingers and watching her from half-closed eyes. “Don’t you wish to concede?” she suggested instead, her voice unsteady.

  “Why?” he said softly. “Did you have something else in mind?”

  “You are under a debt of honor, Everton,” she stated, as though the words were some sort of shield. Byron’s poetry ran through her mind, soft and sensuous, making her want to give in to what she’d been imagining from the first moment she’d set eyes on him.

  “And you have sweet lips,” he murmured.

  “You’re drunk,” she said, even less steadily.

  “In vino veritas.” He grinned lazily. “That’s Latin, chit.”

  “I know what it is.” Kit stacked the cards. “It’s my deal.”

  Distracted as she was, she didn’t stand a chance, and of course, he won the hand. He studied her face, then reached out one hand to tug the ruffles of her sleeve up to her elbow. As his fingers brushed her skin, she shivered again.

  “Don’t you trust me?” she asked.

  “No. And no more cheating,” he repeated huskily, watching closely as she set the glass to her lips and drank. “All right. When did you last wear a dress?”

  She hadn’t expected the question, and glanced down before she faced him again. If he was trying to unsettle her, it was working better than she cared to admit. “I was six. Nearly fourteen years ago.”

  Surprisingly, she bested him the next hand with a flush of hearts. “Who was the first woman you kissed?” she asked, deciding turnabout was fair play. And she wanted to know.

  He chuckled. “My mother,” he answered, and slid the deck over in front of her.

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “It’s what you asked.”

  “Coward.”

  “Beg pardon?” he returned, raising an eyebrow.

  “You heard me.”

  “What an aggravating female you are,” he said, then smiled again. “Lucy Leviton. My tutor’s daughter.”

  “How old were you?”

  She didn’t expect him to reply, for he’d been quite adamant about only giving one answer away at a time. Alex pursed his lips. “Fifteen.” He tilted his head to eye
her sideways. “Do I get a free question, as well?”

  Kit shrugged, half-afraid to meet his gaze in case he should kiss her again, and wanting nothing more than to feel his mouth on hers. They were both too drunk to be having any sort of conversation. “I suppose.”

  He stood and walked around behind her chair. “Do you consider kissing to be dishonorable?”

  His tall presence behind her seemed to radiate heat. Questions about her past and her father, she had answers ready for. Questions about her heart and her feelings were far more difficult. And dangerous. “Dishonorable? No, I wouldn’t call a kiss exactly—”

  He leaned down over her shoulder, tilting her head back with his fingers on her cheek and touching his lips to hers again. “Good,” he murmured, straightening and coming to stand before her. “Then I couldn’t possibly be dishonoring any debt with a mere touch of the lips.” Everton pulled her to her feet. “The rules seemed a bit strict, anyway.” Slowly and softly he lowered his mouth to hers.

  Somewhere this evening had completely slipped out of her control, if it had ever been there. His lips tasted of brandy. Kit shut her eyes, trying to shut him out, but the warmth and strength and nearness of him seemed to engulf her. She found herself seeking his mouth, running her hands along his arms and down his ribs to his waist, pulling herself harder against him, yearning for more, and knowing that she’d stepped far beyond the bounds of where she should be. “Alex,” she finally murmured.

  “Shh,” he replied, running his hands down the small of her back and kissing her again. “Be foolish for once.”

  No one would know, she thought for a wild moment as she clung to him, drinking in his nearness. Everyone thought she was a man. If she were to begin an affair with Alex, no one would know. Kit tried to take a breath, reaching for her lost senses, and then turned her head away and shoved at him. “Everton, stop it.”

  Slowly his hands slid away from her shoulders, and she finally looked up at him. His expression was unreadable, his eyes focused on her mouth. “All right,” he said after a moment, clearing his throat. “If you insist. Back to the questions, then. Am I the first man you’ve kissed?”