Chapter Six #2
Reginald hesitated, but only for a moment. He took it, shaking the man’s hand across the billiards table. “Thank you. I’d appreciate that.”
“And the license?”
“I—I shall take care of that.”
Reginald did not need to feel guilty—not really. It was not as though he had lied. The story was true.
It was just not, perhaps, the whole truth. The actual reason he wished to marry Jessica Chance, marry any woman. But apparently, the viscount had forgotten to press for the reasons why he had chosen his daughter specifically, for he seemed satisfied. He thought he had worked Baron Llyne out.
But he hadn’t.
“Ah, who won?” came a sweet voice from the door.
They must keep the hinges in this place well-oiled, Reginald thought as he released his hand and turned to smile at—
Miss Chance. Miss Jessica Chance.
She was leaning against the doorway with a nervous smile. Her brother muttered something and received a thump in the arm from his father, so perhaps it was a good thing that Reginald had not caught it.
How could he, when he was too busy being transfixed by Miss Chance?
She looked… She looked lovely. How had he never noticed the way her smile brought a brilliance to her eyes?
“Come on. Let us leave the lovebirds alone,” muttered the viscount, his face all delight as he pulled his son forward.
“Oh no, we’re not—” Reginald caught himself just in time.
Or perhaps not quite soon enough. Miss Chance had a raised eyebrow as she closed the door behind her father and brother.
Apparently, the viscount’s consent was enough for him to approve of his daughter being alone with her intended without a chaperone’s presence.
There were many advantages, it seemed, to jumping straight to the proposal.
“We’re not what?” Miss Chance said quietly, stepping into the cavernous room.
Reginald swallowed. Damnit all, but he was not supposed to feel this…this unbalanced when he was alone with Miss Chance. This was supposed to be a marriage of—of convenience, as she’d called it.
He wanted to be a part of the Chance family, and she was willing to have him. That was all there was to it.
So why did his knees feel mighty strange?
“Who beat whom?” Miss Chance asked quietly, picking up the billiards cue that her brother had deposited on a sofa.
“I’m sorry?”
“I presume you were playing with my father. He’s a terrific shot,” she said with an expression that was perhaps brittle. “But I have not seen you play. You might be even better.”
Reginald tried to grin. “I’m not bad.”
She laughed. “Confident, then? Have you been betting against my family?”
“I wouldn’t be tempted by a bet when focused on trying to impress my future family,” he answered, watching her quietly nodding.
What was she doing here?
Well, not here in Stanphrey Lacey, obviously, but the billiards room. She had been avoiding him the last few days, Reginald could tell. The number of times he had entered a room and she had scurried out of it, cheeks aflame—it was difficult to miss.
He had not understood it. After that kiss, that sultry, inflammatory kiss, there had been nothing more important to him than being close to her.
Reginald may not have liked to admit it to himself, but there it was. There was something about her that…that drew him to her.
It appeared the feeling had not been reciprocated.
And now she was here. What was going on with this complicated Chance woman? Did she like him or not? Did she regret accepting his proposal? Or was she excited about it?
The easiest way to find out would be to ask.
Reginald almost laughed aloud. Ask? A woman? A direct question?
That would be the last thing he would try. He was rather afraid of the answer.
“Have… Have you ever played billiards, Miss Chance?” he said aloud. Yes, it was his turn in the conversation, wasn’t it?
A slight pink tinged Miss Chance’s cheeks. “After… After what we shared in the forest, do you not think that you should call me ‘Jessica’ now?”
Jessica.
It was an intimacy Reginald had not expected. Oh, they were engaged, to be sure, but they did not actually know each other. He had presumed that he would be permitted to call her by her first name when they were married.
Perhaps not even then.
And there she was, standing on the other side of the billiards table, tantalizingly close, and yet somehow so distant, Reginald was surprised that he could even see her.
He swallowed, his throat dry. “Jessica.”
Oh, that had been a mistake. Something had fizzled in the air as he had said that, his fingers itching around his cue stick to be holding on to, not unrelenting wood, but the soft and supple form of the woman before him.
Reginald swallowed again and almost coughed, his mouth was so dry. “I… I suppose you should call me ‘Reginald,’ then. If I am to call you by such an…an intimate name.”
Miss Chance—or rather, Jessica’s—cheeks were a brilliant red now, but she did not look away as she said, “I suppose I should…Reginald.”
How was such an innocent sentence so—so erotic?
Reginald turned around with the pretense of chalking his billiards cue as he tried to tell his body to calm down.
She was going to be his bride, his wife. He could explore that side of things later. Much later.
When he was not in a house full of the woman’s family, for a start.
When Reginald turned back around, he was master of himself and had a plan. He would speak of dull subjects. Nice dull, safe subjects, and nothing else. Cold, dry, boring—
“Do you wish me to teach you billiards?” he found himself saying instead.
Jessica’s eyes sparkled. “You think you can teach me?”
No, Reginald wanted to say, his mind swirling into a blind panic. What on earth had he been thinking suggesting such a thing?
The trouble was, the late afternoon sun was pouring into the room and her flyaway hairs were shimmering like a crown and the way she put her hand to her curls, tucking one of them behind her ear…
Reginald swallowed hard and gripped his billiard cue as though it were the only thing holding him on the planet. “Of… Of course.”
Well, what harm would it do? They were going to be married, after all. It would probably be a good thing if they had at least one topic they could speak on.
“This is a cue,” he said, holding out his own.
Jessica smiled faintly as she stepped over to the rack, picking one out with inexpert fingers. “And that’s what I hit the balls with?”
“Yes,” Reginald said weakly.
This was ridiculous. When he had ridden up to Stanphrey Lacey and around the side of the house, he had been astonished at just how plain Miss Jessica Chance had been. After all, compared to some of her cousins—compared to her sisters—there was absolutely no contest.
He still believed that now, but in the opposite direction. She was clearly the most enthralling and enticing one of them all. The lilt of a smile in the corner of her mouth, the way her neck curved—
“And I want to tap all the balls into the holes?” she asked lightly.
Reginald was gripping his cue so hard, he was astonished that he had not broken it in half.
“Before we start leaning over and caressing the long, hard—I mean, before we start playing billiards,” he amended hastily, wishing he had a handkerchief with which to wipe his brow, “it’s important that you learn the rules. ”
“The rules,” repeated Jessica quietly, running her hands up and down the cue as she examined him.
Reginald coughed.
Dear God, did she have any idea what she was doing?
Surely not. Surely, it was only his filthy mind, he tried to tell himself, that was making him think of her hands on his—on his—
“I suppose it’s all about scoring points,” came her light voice.
Reginald whirled around. “What did you say?”
“Billiards,” Jessica said innocently, pointing toward the cue rack where the points-counting board could be seen. “Is… Is that not so?”
She was a conundrum, Reginald realized. Here they were, in the billiards room with green leather sofas and armchairs, decades of cigar smoke embedded in the walls. The place was as masculine as it was possible to be.
And here she was, smiling nervously and talking about billiards as though that were the most important thing they had to talk about.
Not marriage. Not the rest of their lives. Not the kiss that had burned into him a need that he had not realized he would be possessed by.
Who was Miss Jessica Chance?
It was only now that Reginald was starting to understand how little he understood her. He’d had her down as a wallflower, and indeed, there were moments when her shyness overcame all ability to speak and she slipped out of the room, cheeks blazing.
None of her family seemed to notice. None of her family seemed to care.
But there were moments, moments like this, when Reginald could see something else. Something…not different, but additional.
And he was intoxicated with the challenge of discovering which was the true Jessica Chance.
“So,” he said brusquely, attempting to distract himself from the woman who was becoming startlingly distracting. “Billiards. Points. Yes, right. So there, are two players—”
“You and me.”
Dear Lord, did she have to be so distracting?
“Yes,” Reginald managed to say in what he considered to be a very calm voice, not at all preoccupied by her subtle movement as she stepped around the table.
Her movement certainly had nothing to do with the reason why he stepped around but in the opposite direction, maintaining the same distance between them. “You use the cue—”
“This thing here?” Jessica asked innocently, lifting up her cue.
Reginald tried not to look at the way her fingers curled around the wood. “Y-Yes. You use the cue to hit the cue ball.”
Jessica looked over the table. “So many balls.”
Stay calm, man, stay calm—
“And which is the cue ball?”
“We have one each,” said Reginald, grasping at the opportunity to keep the conversation light, and most importantly, not erotic in any way.
Jessica blinked up at him, all innocence. “So there is a pair of balls that we play with?”
Just about managing to transform his groan into a cough, Reginald looked up with as much nonchalance as he could manage. “Y-Yes. Yes. Every other ball is worth a number of points if you pot them, and there are cannons—”
“‘Cannons’?” The elegant woman looked around the room as though seeking these particular weapons.
“It’s complicated.” It wasn’t, but Reginald’s brain wasn’t entirely working right now, and he desperately struck out for shore. “Over the game, you rack up points, over there, by the rack, and when the table is cleared, the person with the greatest number of points wins.”
“And that’s it?”
“The rules of the game are always easier than playing the game itself,” Reginald said with a wink.
Yes, that was it. Flirt. Flirt! Woo the woman!
Wait. Wasn’t the whole point that I did not have to?
“And do you find playing the game enjoyable?” asked Jessica, stepping around the table and stopping just before him.
Reginald carefully placed the cue down on the table before he snapped it in half. “I suppose it’s more fun when everyone knows what they’re playing. When everyone knows the rules.”
His breath was coming up short, which was ridiculous, but she was so close and the memory of that kiss was clouding his judgment. That kiss… That wonderful kiss…
“And do you treat life like a game?” came Jessica’s quiet question.
Her eyes darted to his mouth as she spoke, and Reginald could have crowed to the rooftops. Was she thinking about that kiss too? Did she wonder, as he did, just what had possessed them to do it? Did she long to repeat the experience?
“I…” Reginald swallowed.
Did he treat life like a game?
His mind moved upward, despite himself, to the list he had written before arriving here. It was not something he would ever want read, not in this house, though there was no shame in it.
If Jessica Chance found it, his life would be forfeit. He certainly wouldn’t be able to take both her father and brother. And maybe several uncles and cousins besides.
“You… You’re not treating this as a game, are you?”
Jessica’s voice was low, troubled, even, and it shot a bolt of discomfort through Reginald.
Not as a game, he could say. But it is something I need to win. There’s so much at stake—more than you could ever know.
Perhaps he should tell her. But he couldn’t. She, her parents, the whole Chance family—they would flee his company if they knew. His opportunity to become part of the Chance family would be over.
Reginald tried to smile as jovially as he could as he lied, “No, definitely not.”