The Governess's Scandalous Marriage. Helen Dickson
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was enjoying teasing her and could think of nothing that would please him more just then than to prolong their encounter. There was something about her that touched a hidden spot within him that he had not felt for a long time. It would give him no pleasure to have her arrested. No pleasure at all.
‘If you refuse to relinquish it to me, then I will have to. What do you suggest?’
‘A wager,’ he suggested.
Linnet’s eyes narrowed. If playing for the necklace was the only way she could secure it and put it back in its box, then that was what she must do. ‘What kind of wager?’
A leisurely smile moved across the stranger’s face. ‘By your actions you seem to be hell bent on self-destruction.’
Linnet’s eyes flashed with a feral gleam. ‘That is my affair.’
‘I agree, but you cannot deny that you have got yourself into an impossible situation. You are too reckless by far.’
‘What is life without a little danger?’ she replied wryly.
Christian laughed lightly. ‘My feeling exactly. So—let us play a game of chance. The best of three.’ Putting the necklace back into its box and placing it on top of the chest, he produced two dice from his pocket.
* * *
Raising her eyebrows, Linnet gave him an ironic look. The man was infuriatingly sublime in his amusement. She was self-willed, energetic and passionate, with a fierce and undisciplined temper, but her youth, her charm and her wit had more than made up for the deficiencies in her character. She was proud and spirited and so determined to have her own way that she had always been prepared to plough straight through any hurdle that stood in her path—just as she was about to do now. It dawned on her that she was making an idiot of herself, but her wits had been put somewhat out of sorts by their exchange so far. If she weren’t so desperate to replace the necklace that Toby had stolen, she’d cheerfully tell the man to go and jump in the Thames.
‘You even came prepared, I see.’ Linnet glanced at the dice suspiciously. Should she ask to inspect them? she wondered. On second thoughts, perhaps not. They looked quite ordinary, yet she was hardly an expert in these matters—Toby would have been able to tell if they were loaded at a glance. It would appear that she would have to trust this infuriating stranger.
The handsome stranger stepped towards a table. She followed, feeling his eyes intently upon her. His hands were the hands of a gentleman, his fingers long and tapering. But if he was a gentleman—a nobleman for all she knew—then what had turned him into a thief? She looked up at him, meeting eyes as black as his mask. He was tall, lean, muscular, giving the appearance of someone who rode, fenced and hunted. She recognised authority when she met it and his personality was so strong that she was certain that with a lift of one of his arrogant eyebrows, or a flare of a nostril, he could make one tremble with fear. She guessed him to be in his late twenties.
There was an aggressive confidence and strength of purpose to him. She detected an air of breeding about him, a quality that displayed itself in his crisp manner and neat apparel. His eyes, holding hers captive, seemed capable of piercing her soul, laying bare her innermost secrets, causing a chill to sear through her. She felt overwhelmed by his close presence and he seemed to invade every part of her. She thought it miraculous that she managed to keep her head.
‘Would you like first throw?’ he asked.
‘No, you can go first.’
‘I must point out that I never wager on uncertainties.’
‘That’s an arrogant assumption. Are you saying that I will lose?’
He bowed his head in deferential respect. ‘I would not be so bold. I would not dare. I suspect it would be more than my life is worth. All I am saying is that I intend to win.’
Clearly in no hurry, he caressed the dice in the palms of his hands and then rolled them over the table’s polished surface. They rolled over and over before finally stopping close to the edge, showing two and five. Next it was Linnet’s turn. Collecting the dice herself, she rolled them carefully, breathing a sigh of relief with the dice showing six and three.
‘The first roll to you,’ he said, scooping up the dice masterfully in his hands.
His second throw showed five and five. Linnet followed with a disappointing three and one. There was a certain sense of triumph in the look he gave her. He was confident. He believed he would win.
‘We are even,’ he said. ‘Well—this is it—the decider.’
Holding her breath Linnet bit her lip as she watched his throw. Six and five. Picking up the dice, she sent up a silent prayer, knowing in her heart that she wouldn’t match his high score. The dice seemed to roll for ever. At last they stopped rolling and showed double five.
‘Oh, dear,’ she said as disappointment swamped her.
‘Oh, yes,’ he mocked, scooping up the dice. Losing no time in claiming the necklace, he slipped it into his pocket along with the dice.
Linnet watched him, feeling anger towards the stranger for catching her, but most of her anger was directed against Toby for putting her in this position and also at herself for getting caught and being bested at the dice. She tightened her lips. Resentment burned in her breast and heated her cheeks. ‘I don’t suppose you would change your mind and take something else?’ she suggested, knowing it was a futile question, but hoping he would.
Behind the mask his eyes went darker than dark and his voice was soft but cutting. ‘No, I’m afraid not.’
‘What would you have done had I won?’
His lips curved in a slight smile. ‘As to that, little lady, you will never know.’
Christian saw the intensity in her eyes, the defiance to accept that she had lost and the ill-concealed anger. Her hands were clenched. He had watched her soft white hand as she had rolled the dice and he got the impression that this young woman was like two people—outwardly she was like the consummate actress, but underneath there was something else—something he now picked up on and it wasn’t the underlying steely quality he’d expected.
She was small and slender, her hands small like a child’s that could easily slip into a pocket—a necessary asset to a thief. This was not a woman who lost easily. ‘Of course you could choose something else to steal—although I wouldn’t advise it. Should you be caught and a constable called, then the consequences for you would be dire indeed.’
‘As they will for you, should you be caught with the necklace in your possession. I do not believe you have a claim to it, otherwise you would have taken it without rolling the dice. You are a thief, sir, and as likely to hang as any other thief.’
He laughed in the face of her ire. He knew he should enlighten her and tell her he was no thief. He should explain that his father had unearthed it in Egypt. Aware of the value of this precious object and knowing it was a target for thieves, he had approached Lord Stourbridge, also in Egypt, who was to return to England before him. He had given it to him for safekeeping and this ball to which Christian had been invited, with Lord Stourbridge’s lawyer’s permission, had been the perfect opportunity to retrieve it. Yes, he should tell her the truth, but he was enjoying her company and wished to prolong it a while.
‘Dear me. You have a strange preoccupation with seeing me hang. As a gentleman and a peer of the realm, I assure you that will not be my fate. You must know that London is a dangerous and corrupt city. Crime abounds and though the legal system has its limitations, allowing criminals to flourish, that does not mean that they cannot be caught. So have a care lest I inform Lord Stourbridge of your intention to steal from him.’
* * *
Linnet’s face blanched beneath the mask. The utter humiliation of being arrested and publicly conveyed out of the house by a constable, and subsequently brought before the magistrate and thrown into prison for thieving, would be mortifying. ‘I will not take anything else,’ she said quietly, the words