Chapter Twenty Five
Henry had never been much given to gambling, and this—this was by far the largest wager he’d ever made in his life.
His heart pounded in his chest and his pulse rushed in his ears as he watched Grace consider the hand he’d dealt to her, her face utterly smooth and serene.
The sort of face that revealed nothing at all, and could have won her a fortune even if she hadn’t cheated.
At any moment she could lay her cards down on the table opposite his own. He would lose, and the game would end. That was the risk he had taken; the choice he had given her.
But she didn’t. She held them close to her chest, considered them a moment longer. “What is my tell?” she asked.
Henry blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“My tell. You said I had one. I would like to know what it is.”
She had already promised not to lie to him again, and she hadn’t been lying when she’d done it. And so long as she still held those cards in her hands, there was every chance she would never lie to him again—because there was every chance that she would never even speak to him again, let alone lie.
He said, “Your nose twitches.”
Her eyes widened, and she shifted her cards to one hand to touch her nose with the tips of her fingers. “Does it?”
“It’s adorable,” he admitted gloomily. “Or it would be, were it not accompanied by the lying.”
“I am sorry for that,” she said, her eyes lowering once more to her cards. “It’s just that I knew I would be going to the tavern anyway, and I didn’t want to argue about it.”
“I would always rather have an argument,” he said, “than have you lie to me. I would trust you with my life, but I must also be able to trust you at your word. And I know that it wasn’t mean-spirited. I know it must have seemed only like a means to an end. But the argument is worth having.”
“I don’t always think about such things,” she admitted, as she lifted one hand to toy with a lock of her hair.
“I lived most of my life in a completely different sort of world than you. My childhood was full of such trickery; all lies and deceit and swindling. I learned it from the cradle.” A little shrug.
“Perhaps my morals are more flexible than is preferable. I still steal upon occasion, when I feel it’s justified. I cheat at cards for the fun of it.”
“You don’t have to lie to me,” he said. “We could simply…talk.”
“Argue, you mean to say.”
“Yes; argue. Sometimes you’ve got to argue.”
“And you’ll expect to win,” she grumbled.
Henry felt a laugh rattle in his chest. “Against you? Oh, no. I think I’d expect to lose more often than not. But I still want to have the damned argument, Grace.”
She gave a nod so small, he wasn’t even certain it construed agreement. Perhaps it was more likely it was only acknowledgement, since she hadn’t agreed to anything just yet. And still she held those cards close to her chest and said, “It was…brave of you to come here this evening.”
“Not brave,” he said. “I’m certain your uncle, Mr. Moore, can smell fear. And I’ve been terrified since the moment I walked through the door.”
For a fraction of a moment, a smile pulled at the corners of her lips. “I know,” she said. “And rather unfortunately for you, so does everyone else.”
He felt himself deflate on a sigh. “I thought as much.”
“My family intimidates you.”
“Of course they intimidate me,” he said. “There’s so damned many of them, and at least half of them despise me at present. When Mr. Moore dragged me out of the St. John ball, I was certain he was going to toss me into the Thames.”
“He did offer, once.”
“So he said.” Henry folded his arms atop the table and leaned in. “They do intimidate me,” he said again. “But I think I could grow…accustomed to them. All of them. And perhaps eventually I would grow on them.”
“Like a fungus?” Grace suggested, with a tiny tilt of her head.
“I hope to God not like a fungus,” he chuckled. “But I love you. If that means I must endure a bit of unpleasantness—”
“And dried peas.”
“—Until I have proven myself to the rest of your family, then I will do it.” Henry rolled his shoulders, hoping to relieve a bit of the tension that had pulled them taut.
“Grace,” he said softly, and stretched one hand across the table toward hers in the faint hope that she might take it.
“When I knew I had lost everything, what I mourned most was you.”
She softened, just a little, as she glanced down at his ruined fingers. “You can’t go around beating the stuffing out of everyone you dislike,” she said. “At least my family usually restrains themselves to sharp words and dried peas.”
“Your uncle offered to throw me in the Thames.”
“I said usually,” she sniffed.
“I didn’t plan on it,” he said. “But my uncle was there, and he was rubbing my nose in what he’d done.
And that—that didn’t upset me half so much as when he told me that Latimer had danced with you already, that there was the possibility he intended to court you again, and I just… lost my head entirely.”
“Still, you shouldn’t have hit him,” Grace said.
“Perhaps not, but it was satisfying.” He flexed his knuckles at the memory of introducing his fist to Latimer’s face. “He didn’t appreciate you as he ought to have done,” he said. “It made me beyond furious.”
“If he had,” Grace said, pursing her lips in haughty condescension, “perhaps I would already have married him.”
“I’ll hit him again.”
“Henry. What has become of you?”
“I don’t know, exactly,” he said on a heavy sigh.
“Perhaps I know what it is, now, to be truly desperate.” Still his fingers stretched toward hers, an open invitation.
“I promise you that I do appreciate you, and I will love you for the rest of my life if you will only give me the opportunity to prove it to you.”
Grace shifted in her seat and chewed at her lower lip. “I won’t do your reputation any favors,” she said. “We’re still scandalous, my family, and we’re not particularly repentant about it. People will say you’re marrying beneath you.”
“We can’t control what people say,” he said, parroting her own words back to her. “I know that you’ll know better. And I have come to understand that what people say is not nearly so consequential as what we know to be true.”
Once again her eyes flicked to her hands.
She shifted just a little in her seat, and the pad of her thumb slid along the edge of one card.
The queen of hearts he’d returned to her at last, eminently recognizable by the pattern printed upon its back, different from the rest of the cards.
“You’re giving this back to me?” she asked.
“Oh, no,” he said. “That is a temporary loan. It’s mine, now.”
“Yours!” she said, on a short, incredulous laugh. “It’s mine. You’ve ruined a whole deck, you know.”
“I’ll replace the deck if you like,” he said. “But the queen is mine. It’s my good-luck token.”
Grace gave a dismissive little snort. “You don’t believe in such things, do you?”
“I didn’t,” he said. “But I do now. I’ve gotten accustomed to keeping it in my pocket.
It gives me comfort to know it is there, so I must have it back.
” His fingertips tapped out an anxious rhythm upon the surface of the table.
“Besides,” he said, “it’s only fair that I should steal your queen, when you stole my heart. ”
Her mouth popped open. “I did no such thing!”
“Oh, yes, you did. Perhaps it’s not your fault; you’re such a proficient little thief that probably you weren’t even aware you were doing it. But you did, and now—now it is yours. And you cannot return it, for I’ll only give it back to you again.”
Her eyes misted over, vibrant green glistening in the lamplight. Her lashes lowered, her lips trembled faintly—and she lowered her cards to the table at last. “Well,” she said. “It seems you’ve gotten the best of me. I have only seventeen points.”
He didn’t know when she had made the switch; probably he would never be competent enough to catch her at it. But the ace he’d dealt her had been replaced at some point, and the winning hand he knew she had once had was now reduced to only a queen and a seven.
Relief swept over him in a great, crashing wave. He reached for her across the small table, and this time, emptied at last of their cards, her hands slid neatly into his, her small, soft fingers intertwining with his own. “Does this mean—”
“Yes.” She leaned across the table, her lips catching at his.
He released a shuddering breath, drew in another that was fragrant with the alluring jasmine scent she wore. “And you will—”
A soft sound curled in her throat as her lips parted beneath the pressure of his. “Oh, yes,” she breathed, releasing one of his hands to slide her fingers into his hair.
He hadn’t a ring for her. The estate jewelry was entailed; it was unlikely that even Mother would be allowed to keep so much as her wedding ring, much less that he would be permitted to retain the use of any others.
But he would find something for her, something that suited her.
Something she would be proud to wear, even if she would be only his wife and not his countess.
“I have got to get you a ring,” he said. “And we have got to tell your family—”
“Not tonight.” Her fingers drifted down his chest, her palm coming to rest over his heart. “Tonight is for Danny and Hannah. They shouldn’t have to share it.” A light scratch of her nails. “But you can stay for the party.”
“They’ll shoot dried peas at me.”
A little laugh, light and airy and delighted. “Probably they will. Will you mind terribly?”
“No.” He hesitated. “Will your family suspect, do you think? Will they be…displeased?”
“They won’t suspect; they’ll know. But they want me to be happy, so it’s possible they’ll even be cordial.” She pressed a last quick kiss to his lips as she disentangled her fingers from his and rose to her feet. “Let’s go, shall we?”
“One moment. I need—” He paused as he glanced down at the cards upon the table, which had become rather scrambled about in the last few moments. He shuffled them about with his fingertips, searching through them. “Grace?”
“What?” she inquired innocently as she backed toward the door.
“This,” he said, as he lifted the queen she’d revealed in her hand from the table and held it up for her perusal, “is the queen of diamonds.”
A guileless blink. “Is it, then?”
“What has become of my queen?”
She pressed her lips together to stem the mirth that shook her shoulders. “It is somewhere upon my person,” she said sweetly. “And if you are very lucky, I’ll let you find it.”