Regency Gamble. Bronwyn Scott
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favoured him with one of her knowing smiles. ‘Perhaps you’re more of a gambler than you thought, Captain.’
Greer considered this for a moment. ‘I suppose I am. Although we don’t have to remain strangers.’
‘What do you propose?’
‘A little Q and A, as we call it in the military.’ Greer stretched his legs, settling in to enjoy himself. ‘Question and answer.’
‘Or a consequence,’ Mercedes supplied with a smug little smile. ‘I know this game, Captain. You’re not so terribly original.’
‘No. No consequence,’ he explained, watching Mercedes’s smug smile fade. ‘There is no choice to not answer. Question asked, answer given. There is no option to refuse.’ Greer folded his hands behind his head. ‘Ladies first. Ask me anything you’d like.’
‘All right then.’ Mercedes thought for a moment. ‘Have you always wanted to be a soldier?’
‘I was raised to it, ever since I can remember,’ Greer replied honestly, although he was cognisant of the omissions that answer contained. ‘How about you? Were you always good at billiards? Born with a cue in your hand?’
The beauty of the game was that it allowed the participants to ask directly what they’d never dare give voice to in polite conversation over dinners and tea trays. They traded questions and answers over the dwindling hours of the morning, his knowledge growing with each answer.
Greer learned she’d travelled with her father until she was eleven and he’d sent her off to boarding school. After that she’d come home on holidays and wandered the subscription room, watching and studying the game around which their lives were centred.
He learned her mother had died from birthing complications, that her name was Spanish for mercies—although in Latin it meant pity—quite apropos for a baby girl left to the tender sympathies of a single father, a gambler by trade, who could have just as easily have abandoned her to distant relatives and never looked back. But Lockhart hadn’t. He’d taken her, cradle and all, on the road and continued to build his fame and his empire until his baby girl was surrounded by all the luxuries his ill-gotten gains could buy.
Those were the facts and when Greer had accumulated enough of them, he did the thing that made him so valuable to the military: he took those singular facts and coalesced them into a larger whole. In doing so, he saw quite well all the fires that had forged Mercedes Lockhart, that were still forging her—this incredible woman of refinement and education and emotional steel.
Was she doing the same to him? Her questions, too, had dealt only in basic, general curiosities—did he have a large family? What were his parents like? What did he like to read? To do in his spare time? Was she taking all those pieces and digging to the core of him? It was an unnerving prospect to think she might see more than he wanted to reveal. But that was the risk of the game—how much of oneself would one end up exposing?
As the game deepened, the questions moved subtly away from generally curious enquiries about each other’s family and history and towards the private and personal. ‘Who is the first girl you ever kissed?’ Mercedes flashed him a mischievous smile as she added, ‘And how old were you?’
‘Oh, it’s multiple questions in a single shot now, is it?’ Greer quipped good-naturedly. He didn’t mind. The question was harmless enough.
‘A first kiss is only a good question if age is attached. It adds perspective,’ Mercedes replied, willing to defend her ground in good fun.
‘Well, it was Catherine Dennington,’ Greer recalled with a fond smile. ‘I was fourteen and she was fifteen. Her father was the village baker and she was plump in all the right places.’ He feigned a sigh. ‘Alas, she’s married now to the butcher’s son and has two children.’ Greer winked at Mercedes. ‘How’s that for perspective?’ He studied her with the exaggerated air of an Oxford professor. ‘Speaking of perspective, Miss Lockhart,’ he said in his best mock-academic voice, ‘It’s only fair, if you want to talk about kisses, that you tell me about your first intimate encounter.’
He’d asked mostly out of spirited mischief. She couldn’t stoke the fire and then run away. Even with the intended and obvious humour behind the question, Greer had half expected her to scold him for such impertinence and he’d let her wiggle out of her obligation to answer. He’d not expected her to answer it.
She narrowed her catlike eyes and returned his studied stare, making sure she had the whole of his attention. ‘Dismal. It was a wet, messy foray into adolescent curiosity. He was in and out and done before it really began for me. And yours, Captain? Better or worse?’
The fun disappeared, replaced by something far more serious. They weren’t talking about kisses any more. But Greer matched her with a succinct answer of his own. ‘Better, much better.’ But it was more than an answer. It was an invitation, one no sensible gentleman would have issued and they both knew it.
‘Well played, Captain.’ Mercedes leaned back against her seat, impressed. He hadn’t been frightened off. Instead of being embarrassed for her, he’d gone on the offensive with a self-assured disclosure of his own. She could choose to take him down a notch with a sharp comment about the natural arrogance of men when it came to estimating their sexual prowess. But such a rejoinder merely led down a tired road of well-worn repartee.
‘Now we know each other’s secrets,’ Greer said quietly in a manner that fit their newfound solemnity, ‘what’s next?’
Mercedes peered out the window, buying some time to put together an appropriate answer. The coach began to slow and she couldn’t resist a smile. Perfect. ‘Lunch. That’s what’s next.’ She couldn’t have timed it better herself. The stop would bring their game to a close and with it an end to any awkward probes into her past. The things in her past were best left there. She’d made mistakes, trusted too freely. She didn’t want to create the impression such a thing would happen again. It wouldn’t do to have Captain Barrington entertaining any untoward notions.
She knew what those notions would be: to get her into bed, have a dalliance and leave her when the differences in their stations became too obvious to go unremarked. Sons of viscounts could offer her no more than a bit a fun. It was not that she’d mind an affair with the Captain. He’d already demonstrated a promising propensity for bedsport and he was certainly built for it. But such a venture would have to be on her terms from beginning to end. Mercedes fanned herself with her hand. Was it just her or was it getting hot in here?
It felt good to get out of the carriage and stretch her legs. The morning mist had cleared, giving way to a rare, sunny April day. The spot her father had found was delightful: a place not far off the road, and populated by wildflowers and a towering oak with a stream nearby for watering the horses.
Mercedes took herself off for a few moments of privacy, letting the coachman and the groom have time to take care of the horses before she began setting out the food. But when she came back, she saw she was too late. Someone had taken charge and set up ‘camp’ without her. A blanket was spread beneath the oak tree. The hamper was unpacked and the man most likely responsible for all this activity stood to one side of the blanket, his blond hair falling forwards in his face as he worked the cork free on a bottle of wine with a gentleman’s dexterity, a skill acquired only from long practice.
It was yet another reminder of the differences in their stations. Her father had never quite mastered the art of uncorking champagne on his own. He always laughed, saying, ‘Why bother when I have footmen paid to do it?’ Her father had come late to the luxuries of a lifestyle where champagne was considered a commonplace experience. Not so with Greer. He could talk all he wanted about the hardships of the military and the lack of wealth in his family. The indelible mark of a gentleman was still there in the opportunities that surrounded him. Boot boys from Bath hadn’t the same experiences.
Greer looked up and smiled when he saw her, the cork coming out with a soft pop. He poured her a glass and handed it to her. ‘It’s still chilled.’