Chapter Twenty
Tristan threw his cards down. He’d finally won. At least he thought so. Alston raised a brow and Lady Amelia leaned over the pot to see his cards. They had moved to a four-person table in the conservatory.
“Well done,” she said.
“Really?” He didn’t know exactly what he’d done. He understood the suits and their values. Straights, flushes, every rule of the game. But Alston was as blank as a marble statue. Emotionless.
“Did you let him win?” Blakewood asked.
“Please say no,” Tristan mumbled. But he had already considered it.
“I didn’t.” Alston said. “I swear. You legitimately won.”
“Then what did you do?” Lady Amelia asked her brother suspiciously.
“I didn’t try to win.”
“That’s the same as letting me win,” Tristan grumbled.
“Well I didn’t try very hard. Unless your opponent is me, this is the desired outcome. Now, in this next round, you’re going to use that wit of yours to try to crack me.”
Tristan sighed heavily. It was almost time for dinner. “Crack you? How?”
“Figure it out.” Alston scooped up their cards and reshuffled.
Tristan watched his hands, fuming to himself about his tired eyes and his sore arse.
He’d left Flick standing in a towel to be tortured like this.
He should have stayed longer. Five minutes longer, maybe ten.
Enough to bring her to climax at least once so his mood wouldn’t be so sour, but instead, he’d been beaten at cards over and over and over.
He questioned everything about his own intelligence. A stack of cards had humbled him.
Figure it out.
“I can’t believe you’re letting him marry your sister,” Tristan said to Blakewood as he tsked and shook his head. “If this dilapidated chair is any indication, you should be concerned about his finances.”
“My chairs are adequate,” Alston said as he dealt the fresh hands.
“Adequate? Miss Blakewood deserves more than adequate.”
Alston’s icy blue gaze held his. “Says the man with nothing to put in the pot.”
Tristan shrugged as he reordered his cards. “The pot is imaginary. But I can please a woman with my chair. I’ll take that over money any day.”
Lady Amelia snorted and hid behind her cards.
“Try proposing with just a chair and no money and no house, and see how Miss Brandon feels about it.”
“Ouch,” Tristan sighed. He set his cards face down and folded his arms. “I’m confident.”
“Are you?”
Tristan watched him. Not even an eyelash twitched as he reviewed his cards.
Tristan had to say something to shake him. His gaze moved to Lady Amelia and then Blakewood. Who was the weak link? A lesser man would think Lady Amelia, being a woman, but her tactics were different from her brother. She used her amusement and humor to hide.
“Lady Amelia and Blakewood will have much better chairs,” he said. He had to keep Alston talking.
“Do you want a new chair?” Alston asked blankly. “I can have one brought to you.”
Tristan shook his head. He could attack his pride, his vanity, his virility, but those things were too easy. He could hit low with something about his deceased parents, but he abhorred the idea.
Tristan cleared his throat. “How well do you plait hair?” he asked.
Alston blinked once and frowned. “What?”
“You’ve a sister. Presumably, you know how to plait hair.”
Lady Amelia set one card face down. “I bid,” she said, since she didn’t have anything to add to their imaginary pot.
Alston took her card and slid it under the deck and dealt her a new one.
Tristan watched her for a reaction. She smiled, appearing delighted with her new card, and Tristan knew she was lying. Now it was his turn.
“Trade?” he asked Blakewood, who sat on his left.
Blakewood nodded and they slid each other cards face down.
Alston knocked on the table and they lay out their cards. Blakewood won.
“I’m at a loss for how there is skill in this game,” Tristan admitted.
“You aren’t paying attention,” Alston said.
“I am. I’m watching all of you very carefully.”
“But not the cards. You have to consider what cards we might have,” Alston said.
“With only knowing the three that I have? That’s ridiculous.”
Alston shrugged and dealt again. “Too difficult? I’m surprised you’d give up so easily.”
“I’m not giving up,” Tristan retorted. “But I reserve the right to complain.”
Alston smiled. At his cards or at Tristan? Either way. It was a reaction.
“How am I supposed to guess what you have?”
“Think of the suits,” Lady Amelia said. “There are only so many combinations. Trade?” she said as she raised an eyebrow at him.
He narrowed his gaze at her. “No.”
She pouted, but then grinned.
“I bid,” he said. He sent his weakest card back to the deck and accepted a new one. A king? Now that he could work with, along with his queen and ace.
“You’ve got a good hand,” Alston said.
Tristan winced. “What did I do?”
“You looked at your cards for too long.”
“You do nothing but stare at yours,” Tristan returned.
Alston smirked. “Do I? Then how did I see you?”
“Bloody hell,” Tristan muttered.
“Language,” Blakewood said.
Tristan barked a laugh. “Are you protecting Lady Amelia’s ears?”
She snickered and Blakewood sighed. “I suppose not. Her language is fouler than anything I’ve heard you say.”
“It’s her brother’s fault,” Tristan said. “It’s difficult being a brother and a father.”
The air stilled. Tristan kept his gaze on his cards but peeked at Alston. He was looking down at the table now. Good, he’d finally said something significant, but how did that reveal his cards?
“Trade,” Blakewood said, and Alston made the trade.
“Trade,” Alston said to his sister.
“No,” she said and knocked.
They set down their cards. Tristan wiped a hand over his face. He’d won, but he still didn’t understand how. How could he intentionally win? How did he make the odds go in his favor? Everything he wanted in his life was now balanced on a deck of cards.
“We’re going out tonight,” Alston said.
Tristan looked up and Alston was looking directly at him. “It’s one thing to play the game, another to watch others play it.”
“The Den?”
“Why not? May as well.”
Tristan hadn’t been back since yesterday evening. He nodded.
Later that night, he snuck into Flick’s room.
This time he came through the kitchen door—he’d swiped a key from the butler’s pantry earlier.
He crept to Flick’s room and silently entered.
All her candles were out, the fire banked and putting off consistent heat.
Tristan undressed and padded toward the bed.
He lifted the sheet, spotting a rogue foot near the edge.
He gently grabbed her ankle. She was on her side and facing away from him.
He didn’t want to startle her, but he’d been thinking about this moment since her bath, and he wanted to make his dream come true.
He trailed his fingers up her leg as he crawled onto the bed, peeling the coverlet away from her body.
“Flick,” he whispered. He leaned over her shoulder. She had her palms pressed together, tucked under her cheek. He kissed her cheek, and she murmured.
“I need you,” he said, then he pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “Do you want me to wake you up?”
She sighed, her eyes closed. “Mmhm.”
He ran his hand over her hip, rocking her to her back. She stretched, reaching her arms above her head and straightening her legs. She folded her arms behind her head and turned her face toward him, eyes still closed.
“Can I kiss you?”
“Tristan?” she asked in a sleepy voice.
“I’m right here. You don’t have to open your eyes if you don’t want to.”
He moved lower, straddling her lower legs and pushing her nightgown up.
He watched her face intently. She shifted, her breasts rising and falling with a deep breath.
Tristan bared her from the waist down, running his hands possessively over her thighs.
He brushed his thumb through the triangle of springy, dark curls, and she squirmed, arching her neck as she brought her hands to her breasts.
Tristan bent close and blew air over her, then parted her, just enough to lick her where she was most sensitive. Her hips shifted, arching closer to his mouth.
“Please, Tristan,” she moaned with her breathy, sleepy voice.
He pushed his tongue deeper, lapping at her center until her legs were shifting underneath him, wanting to open for him and give him more.
He moved in between her legs, spreading her with his hands on her thighs and reveling in her trust and desire.
He bent over her once more, this time using his fingers to part her and lick deep into her.
Then he licked upward to the bud that crowned her sex and gently sucked.
She came alive under his hands, her fingers digging into his hair.
“You’re a devil,” she said, fully awake now.
She held him to her, and he smiled against her silky wet heat as he teased and wrung moans from her throat.
He listened to her beg and cry out his name as he brought her to the cliffs of the heavens and pushed her over, tasting her release on his tongue as her body flooded with her pleasure.
She panted, pushing to her elbows, and glared at him.
He frowned. “You’re not pleased with me?”
“You infuriate me with your cryptic planning, and then you don’t return until late, and I’m supposed to be happy to see you?”
“Aren’t you?”
“No.”
He sat back on his heels. He didn’t know what to do.
“I’m being given the illusion of choice while simultaneously being told what to do. I’m helpless in planning my own future and I bloody hate it.”
“Bravo,” Tristan said.
She threw a pillow at him.
“What can I do for you?” he asked. “Tell me what you want.”
“I want to know what you’re planning.”