Tempted By Fire

by Thea Devine

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  of all someone who had thwarted him one time before.

  But she had still another arrow to pull from her quiver. This was the optimum moment—there would never be another, and her heart started pounding wildly as she considered in the space of a deep breath everything riding on the sweetness of her draw and the accuracy of her aim.

  "Well then, my lord, may I suggest a private game between us?"

  He was stunned by the brazenness of her counterattack. She was a worthy opponent, the goddess. She was a damned huntress, looking for prey, and she had played with him fearlessly and lunged in for the attack.

  He felt the teeth of her cleverness in the back of his neck. He bowed slightly. "At your service, madame."

  Her heart dropped to her feet. But outwardly, she coolly and efficiently called for the cards and for Lady Truscott to assign a room.

  "My dear, that was brilliant," Lady Truscott whispered, as she led them to a small anteroom on the second floor which was set up with a table, two chairs, a side table and a branch of candles.

  "It is the house's money, madame. I hope I may serve you well," Jainee told her, almost choking over her sin of omission.

  "The fact that Southam has returned serves me very well indeed," Lady Truscott murmured as she motioned them into the room. She laid down several unopened packs of cards on the table and bustled about for a few minutes adjusting the light and the position of the table before she turned again to Southam and inquired: "My Lord? May I get you a glass of wine, or perhaps something to eat?"

  Southam waved her away and pulled out a chair for Jainee and then seated himself opposite.

  "Your choice, madame."

  "I defer to you, my lord," Jainee responded in kind, but her heart still pounded and her hands were icy cold. She couldn't handle the cards, not yet.

  But she seemed composed and nerveless to him. Then again, a woman who worked the gaming tables at Lady Truscott's

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  would have to be. He just could not square the two pictures of her: gutter brat and goddess.

  Which side of her was real? Or did it matter? The only real thing was the cards and the game at hand. He picked up one deck and set the others on the side table, and then he cracked open the new package with a violent whack on the table that startled her out of her abstracted expression.

  "We are but two, madame." He shuffled the cards thoughtfully for a moment. "We will play at Quinze."

  "As you will, my Lord," Jainee said. "You will find counters in the drawer of the table." She pulled out the drawer on her side and removed a box of wooden discs. "And your wager?" she added lightly.

  Southam handed her the thoroughly shuffled deck, rooted out his own box of counters and stared at them consideringly. "Twenty pounds per round, madame."

  She made a split second decision to make another bold stance. Quinze was a game of rapid rounds where she would have little or no control over the cards, and she could win as easily as she could lose. But his choice was canny: it would allow him to accept her challenge while dispensing with the obligation in as little time as possible.

  For that reason alone, she wanted to up the stakes, and so she said briskly, "You need not be kind, my lord. I make the wager at fifty pounds round unless you cannot afford to lose it. We will play for one hour." Now she had dictated the terms.

  Again he was taken aback. There was nothing genteel about this goddess, even in a situation where a man's best instinct was to try to act the gentleman. "Agreed, madame."

  She pushed a counter to one side and he did the same. She looked up and smiled at him. "We will commence."

  She dealt them each a card and he found he could not keep his eyes from the movements of her hands and the glowing silver bands that circled her wrists.

  He lifted the card. "Draw."

  She looked at hers. "Stand." She dealt him a second card.

  "I am fourteen."

  "Ten." She pushed the stake to his side of the table, and the

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  play began in earnest at breakneck speed, with intermittent punctuations of "Stand," "Draw," and, on her part: "I am crθve, my Lord," when she wished to give him the trick in spite of her cards.

  Periodically, when they tied or both drew over fifteen, she made certain that the succeeding stake went to him, doubled, to incur further losses for herself.

  But still, it was damned hard to lose to Southam, particularly at this game. His grasp of the possibilities was impressive, and his memory of passing cards was complete, equal to her own.

  They were at a stand-off by the half hour, with each side piled with counters.

  "Perhaps you weary of the game," she suggested to him to prod him into a moment of reckless anger.

  "On the contrary," he said mildly, "I am endlessly fascinated."

  She dealt the next cards. There was something in his tone she did not like, almost as if he suspected that the odd overdraw on her part were a pretense—as it indeed was.

  She needed to slap him down and she went at it with great determination. She dealt him a second card before she lifted her first. "Draw." The second card put her over again. "I am crθve, my Lord."

  Something kindled in his eyes. "I believe I must see the evidence, madame."

  She smiled cagily, and turned the cards. "It is nothing, my lord; too much is at stake for me to hoax you." And on that, she was most sincere, so much so that he gazed at her oddly for a moment, and then swept the stake to his side and motioned for her to begin again.

  He could not make her out. Nothing in her manner harkened back to their encounter of the year before. He would have wagered, in fact, that she was rather enjoying the fact that he had realized who she was and that he had chosen not to refer to it. And she was equally amused about his choice of game and the procedure by which they played.

  His suspicions mounted as the counters piled higher and

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  higher on his side. But her expression remained intent, faintly amused, wholly involved; when he asked her to show cards, she did not back down. And as this was a game which did not involve reckless play, he could not fault her audacity with the cards. She remained cool, level-headed, a little brazen in her table talk, and he felt himself veering off the pace again.

  It was the eyes, as fathomless and eternal as the Mediterranean, cradling secrets and some kind of life of which he had no knowledge. It was the eyes and those fine-boned hands enslaved by the bracelets of yore.

  Suddenly he knew just what it was about the eyes that so bemused him: they were no longer the eyes of an innocent, and she would never be at anyone's mercy ever again.

  That was the secret behind her eyes and the surety of her hands. He was so caught up in his notion that he missed her soft words: "I am crθve," and he did not ask to see her cards and he only became aware of his misstep after she had folded her hand into the deck.

  "The coup is yours, my lord," she said softly, her eyes glowing with that same impertinent light. "I believe that makes it one hour we have been at play."

  He looked at the pile of counters on his side, which was considerably higher than hers, and he felt as though somehow she had bested him once again. The feeling was engorging; he was choking on it.

  He began the count and she followed suit.

  "It seems you are indebted to me to the tune of ten thousand pounds, madame," he said finally, with every last sense in him clamoring with distrust at the coincidence of the same sums wagered and lost between them.

  It therefore was not as easy as accepting a voucher to have done with the matter. His bold black gaze raked her serene face, seeking any sign of fraud, but how could there be? She had lost.

  Still, he trusted his instinct, and when she made no sound of protest at the sum, he wondered at her sang-froid.

  But then, that was her stock in trade. He should not expect her to be like other women; these things were all in a night's

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  work for someone like her- Doubt
less she now had a variety of duties to perform, and presumably she had become as adept at those as she had at handling the cards.

  It was merely a matter of testing her skill once more, to be sure that something vindictive did not underlay the reason for her challenging him.

  But she had lost. That was the thing that totally threw his reasoning.

  "I'm of a mind to make one more wager, madame."

  "As you wish, my lord," Jainee answered him instantly, her guard immediately up and assessing him. She could tell nothing from his expression, but his hesitation in calling for pen and voucher told her volumes: he did not trust the outcome of the game.

  A wary man, Southam, but he was still having a hard time of it, she guessed, trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle —her loss, her incredible transformation, his sense of not controlling the situation , . . yes, that must bother him the most of anything. He was off-balance because he could not figure out why he felt something was wrong when she had gone down ten thousand pounds in practically the blink of an eye.

  She wished she could have controlled the amount of the loss, but such things were chancy. It was her bad luck that the amount turned out to be the same. Nevertheless, he wished to buck fate and his sense that she somehow was manipulating events, and at that, she thought, she would be perfectly happy to get him to a gaming table where in fact the probabilities were in her favor.

  For her now, it was more than just a contest between equals. It was a pure out-and-out battle for the upper hand, and she must win and he must be the means by which she accomplished her goal.

  The more she sat with him, the more she wanted to evoke some emotion in the set expression on his face. She was close enough to him to see the wear his years had wrought on his face in the web of lines around his mouth and eyes. And she could see that even he, despite his reputation, was not immune to feeling.

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  She had caught a flash of response deep in his eyes twice, maybe three times in this brief hour of play; she had noted his deepening vexation in the minute shifting of his body as he had gotten more and more exasperated with the play, and finally, in the set of his mouth as he realized she might be faking the declaration of "crθve."

  But all that was over now: he was renewed by the thought of taking her on once again, and with witnesses this time.

  "What is your pleasure, my lord?" she asked him impudently, bending her head to hide the sparkle in her eyes at the audacity of the question. She was on such thin ground here, but she could not let him master her, not when she almost had him to the wall where she could claim victory.

  Once again her direct question caught him off guard. He was not used to a woman speaking her mind, but then, a goddess should not have to mire herself in verbiage.

  "One more wager," he said evenly, "the loss riding on the outcome."

  "I agree to that," Jainee said, matching his tone, thinking furiously. She had to put herself in his power somehow; he could win just as easily as lose at any banking game played in the house. The problem was that the house money put her in no risk whatsoever, and she had to get the bet in the book in order for him to honor it. It had not been enough to lose ten thousand pounds of house money to him, and he knew it. But he didn't know why or how she had done it.

  "With two provisions," she added, knowing this counterpoint to his proposal would arouse his suspicions still further. "The first is, the wager goes in the books. And the second is that I must use my own money. I cannot commit the money of the house to another possible loss."

  He hesitated but a moment: her demand was not unreasonable, but he was totally baffled by it. He had no choice. "Agreed. Mine must be the choice of game."

  "Agreed."

  "One round."

  "Agreed."

  He came around to pull back her chair for her then, and as

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  they proceeded down the steps to the reception room, Jainee called for the betting book.

  "Here it is, my lord: we will say ten thousand pounds against the outcome of the turn of the cards on one play of the game of your choice. You have but to name it."

  He watched her write the particulars on the book which she had replaced on its lectern, with all the fluttering exquisites gathered around her, tittering over the boldness of the wager. He watched the sweet curve of her mouth, in profile, as she listened to the commentary, and the slight crinkling of her eyes when something really amused her. And his unwilling eye was caught by the fullness of her breast against the taut material of her tunic and the graceful bend of her body as she leaned over the lectern and completed the details of their wager.

  "Your choice of game, my lord?"

  She was looking up at him now, her blue eyes blazing with amusement and confidence, and he heard her voice as if from afar. He focused in on it, and her and her downright cocky attitude, and his need to always win.

  "One round of Blind Hookey, madame, and the results will stand."

  "As you wish, my Lord," she said evenly, writing his choice down in the book, closing it and then gliding over to join him. "It seems we will have an entourage, but perhaps it is better that we do." She slanted a speaking look up at him. "Please permit me to lead the way."

  In this, he had no choice, and he had another distinct and uneasy impression that were she let, she would always lead the way. He was but a pace behind her as she threaded her way through the already overcrowded center salon where an active and noisy game of Faro was in progress.

  Two rooms beyond that were set up with the smaller banking games: vingt-et-un and baccarat; on the lower floor, the roulette games held sway, and more card games, and on the third floor, the private rooms and the dice games, with one large front room devoted to Hazard.

  The dining room was on the reception floor, and next to that the second card room where a dealer was just commencing a 47

  round of Blind Hookey when Jainee entered with Southam and a trail of gossipmongers.

  There were five players at the table as the dealer placed the shuffled deck in the center of the table. The player to his right cut the cards and reunited them, and the player beside him cut the first stack and set it beside the deck. The next player cut and then the next so that there were altogether six stacks of cards made from the deck, all of varying sizes, in the center of the table. The player to the right of the dealer selected one packet of cards and pushed it toward the dealer and the wagering began.

  As the last colored counter was laid win-lose against a package of cards, the dealer turned the whole of his stack over to reveal the bottom card, a queen high.

  The first stack tied it, and the dealer took the tie. The second was lower, the third lower, the fourth, a tie, the sixth a king to take the dealer's bet.

  The dealer took the cards, and Jainee called out to him: "We have the next round," as she made her way through the crowd around the table.

  "My lord Southam and I will play one round," she said to the dealer, keeping her voice as neutral as possible. "We will play a fresh deck."

  "As you wish," the dealer said. He opened a drawer in the table and removed a half dozen wrapped decks of cards and invited Southam to choose the one with which they would play.

  Southam selected one and the dealer swept the others away, and then opened the deck and shuffled it thoroughly, after which he placed it in the center of the table for the first cut.

  Southam made the cut, the dealer closed the cut and motioned for Jainee to make the next cuts.

  Southam brushed aside her hand. "I will make the cuts — three of player's stock and one to the dealer," he said, his hard black eyes boring into Jainee's, daring her to gainsay him.

  "It is your choice, my lord," she said, shrugging, and her indifference to his upsetting the rule infuriated him all the more.

  He watched her as closely as a cat as he felt out four varying

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  sized packages of cards. "You may choose the dealer's stock."

  "I have no wish to," she said,
thereby throwing the odds back to him. Or was she? He could detect no movement in her toward the dealer, no sign of collusion. And yet he still was possessed of the sensation that she had everything in hand and he had no chance, no choices whatsoever.

  Grimly, he pushed one thin stack of cards toward the dealer.

  "Lay your wagers," the dealer said.

  "We will have one counter apiece," Jainee said, producing a box from a drawer on her side of the table. "My lord, choose your betting piece," and, as he took one, she chose another from the opposite side of the box, and said, "This shall be mine. Each piece is worth ten thousand pounds and we will wager on one stack of cards only against the dealer."

  She heard the audible gasp behind her as she announced the terms, but Southam appeared as impassive as ever. "Place your bet, my lord."

  "I would defer to you, madame," he said in kind. She smiled then, that cat-lapping smile that he was growing to hate, and she laid the counter down on the thickest stack of cards, the one in the center.

  Carelessly, he put his counter on the stack to the left of hers, on the dealer's right, and he watched her as she signalled to the dealer to upend his stack.

  The dealer's card showed nine.

  Jainee motioned for him to turn over her cards. Her bottom card showed deuce.

  Southam waved off the dealer's hand as he reached for his cards. He turned his own stack to reveal queen high, and he shot a fast hard look at Jainee and caught her out, just this one time, as she was schooling her features into an expression of complete disdain to hide the small quick smile of triumph that had lit her face as he turned over the queen.

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  Chapter Four

  The course was set, and again she had the full impression that her actions had not instigated events at all. Nor could she convince Lady Truscott that there was any benefit to her losing such a large sum of money to Southam. Lady Truscott was not pleased in the least to have Southam recoup his loss and to have another ten thousand pounds added on top of it.