Chapter Nineteen #3
I quickly canvased the first foyer and made my way to the inner rooms, surveying all the people and searching for the face etched into my brain.
He was not on the first floor, or on the second.
Just when I was beginning to despair and balefully contemplating the stairs that led to the upper levels, a head of dark waves capping a lean body caught my eye walking toward a table in the main gaming room.
My relief was palpable. I hurried toward him before anyone could take the empty seats.
There was not one directly beside him, so I had to be content to sit one player away.
Tarik barely lifted his head, even as I sat and placed my bet.
I lost the first round to the dealer, completely distracted as my mind tried to come up with something clever to say.
But as I studied Tarik circumspectly, all I could think about was how sad he looked.
Sad and gaunt, as if he hadn’t eaten properly in days.
He wore his new clothes, though they were rumpled and disheveled, his cravat askew and his coat unbuttoned.
Regardless, he was still the handsomest man in the room.
“My lord,” the dealer said louder, startling me out of my thoughts. “Play is to you.”
Distractedly, I stared at my cards. Eleven. I signaled for another without speaking. A queen of hearts appeared. Twenty-one.
“Congratulations, my lord,” the dealer said.
“Thank you,” I said.
I felt the jolt of Tarik’s stare followed by his surprise…
and subsequent fury. His roiling emotions were tangible enough to sense.
My eyes flicked up and to the side slowly.
The collision of our gazes was to be expected, since he was glaring at me, but the electric force of it still punched the breath from my lungs.
Those blue eyes were glowing like heated stones, incandescent with rage.
At least I still made him feel something.
“What are you doing here?” he growled, making the player between us flinch.
“Last I heard, gentlemen have free will.”
His glare intensified even as it dropped to my bare lips for an infinitesimal second. “Yes, men.” His voice lowered, and I warmed at the fact that even in his anger, he wouldn’t expose me. “You should not be here, Roz.”
I let my lip curl arrogantly. “Who’s going to stop me? You?” I wanted him to stand up and say yes…I wanted him to drag me out of there like I meant something to him. Except the boiling ire drained from his face, leaving nothing but a blank, defeated expression that I hated.
“No,” he muttered. “I don’t care what you do.”
Clearly uncomfortable, the man in the middle swung his stare between us. “Would you like to switch places?”
Tarik growled no just as I said yes. The other man stared down into his cards.
“Coward,” I said softly.
“Liar,” drifted back, and I winced.
The dealer cleared his throat, and play resumed in weighted silence with a new deck.
The next few rounds went quickly, and I must have been lucky, because the dealer went bust each time.
My mound of money was sizable. Tarik lost, though I wasn’t sure if he was even keeping track, betting only the minimum as he was.
I was attuned to every single movement he made, even the breaths that left his lips.
To get his attention, I put the maximum bet down on the next hand. Fifty pounds.
That got everyone’s attention.
His shoulders stiffened at my boldness, but he grunted and stayed focused on the table.
By some miracle, I won that hand with a natural, and with a two-to-one payout, that meant one hundred and fifty pounds, but I didn’t care about the money.
Emboldened, I wagered the maximum again, this time earning myself another grunt and a sidelong glance of warning.
My heart thumped with illicit thrill. As pure luck would have it, I received another natural.
One was lucky enough; two in a row drew attention. Not the good kind.
Three hundred pounds in two hands.
“Cheat!” one of the players jeered. “Either he signaled to the dealer or bribed him, but deceit is afoot.”
“I think I saw him palming a card,” the man between me and Tarik said. “Check his sleeve.”
I scowled, glaring at my challengers in turn. It didn’t matter that this was an upscale gaming hell; when people started losing, the accusations were bound to fly. “I did no such thing, you lying cads!”
The man who had made the second accusation reached over and started tugging at my coat, as if he intended to pull it off right then and there.
I shoved at him, even as buttons of my coat tore loose, and I let out a yelp.
I managed to get in a flailing half jab to his nose before his weight disappeared in a second as Tarik let out a roar and practically tore the man away with superhuman strength.
“Get off!”
Howling in rage, the man struck out a wild punch toward Tarik but instead hit the dealer, who had rounded the table to break up the fight with three enormous muscled men. This wasn’t like the time in the West End when I was a lady and could throw my father’s name around.
One, I was not dressed as Lady Rosalin, and two, many of the people in this gaming hell were likely aristocrats who knew my family. But unlike at the other gaming hell, the guards had the situation in hand in minutes.
“Thank you for what you did,” I said to Tarik.
His lips tightened. “I intervened only because I didn’t want to go to jail because of a brawl and get thrown out of the college.
” It was a relief to get more than grunts out of him, but was this when I should tell him that he was already on the verge of such a calamity?
I opened my mouth, but he stopped me. “You shouldn’t be here. ”
“I’ll leave if you come with me.”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Rosalin.”
“Tarik.”
He scowled. “God, you’re stubborn. Fine. Lead the way—let’s go, then.”
A wave of relief rushed through me as we collected our winnings and made our way through the club.
A part of me wanted to ask him what he’d do differently than a place like Danforth’s, but I wasn’t sure he’d be open to conversation.
His strong palm against the small of my back steering me through the crowd had my heart singing, but the minute we collected our cloaks at the entrance, it fell away.
Outside, a small crowd had gathered, and I stared in surprise at the handful of men in uniform, the Bow Street Runners, who were observing the entrance of Danforth’s Den. Had they been summoned because of the racket?
“He’s the thief!” someone accused.
The Runners marched forward, one of them grabbing me by the arm and knocking my hat off in the process.
Real fear sluiced through me at the thought of being arrested.
“Unhand me. I stole nothing,” I shrieked in high-pitched voice, making the man peer down at me, eyes widening in surprise as my unpinned hair tumbled loose.
“You need to come with us for questioning, miss.”
Tarik surged forward, ever protective despite his dismissive words. “Don’t touch her! She’s nobility. I’m the one you want. If you have questions, I’ll go with you.”
Shrugging off the Runner’s hold amidst the gasps of people nearby, I swung around wildly, realization dawning at the choice he was making and what it would mean for him. “No, Tarik. You can’t.”
“I’m not doing it for you.”
It was a lie. I knew that with every fiber of my being. I closed the narrow gap between us. “Who’s the liar now?” I asked.
Then I shoved up to the tips of my toes and kissed him hard.
I heard more muffled gasps around us, but what did it matter?
My so-called reputation was already hanging by the skin of its teeth.
Tarik was worth it. His entire body froze but his lips were soft and receptive.
At least he was kissing me back. When we broke apart after a handful of seconds, he was flushed. I was certain I looked the same.
“Your hair is down,” he murmured.
I shrugged. “So it is. Don’t say anything, and don’t go anywhere. They can hold you, but they can’t keep you without proof of wrongdoing. I’ll fix this. And then we need to talk about an old rival of yours.”