Free Taming an Impossible Rogue by Suzanne Enoch Page A

Good God. No wonder that even with the scandal attached to her, four men sat at her table while half a dozen more stood about, supposedly watching the game.
    And no wonder Fenton was so determined to get her back in hand. Camille and the marquis’s name were inexorably linked, and the men surrounding her spent their days at the House of Lords with Fenton, at other clubs with Fenton, at soirees with Fenton. He would never be able to move past the fact that he was technically still engaged to a woman who’d fled their wedding to work at a gentlemen’s club.
    That had taken courage. The young lady with whom he’d walked this afternoon had been cautious and hurt, but the one he looked at now was confident and even … sultry. Earlier today he’d thought swaying her back into Fenton’s—and by extension, Society’s—arms would be a simple matter. Camille Pryce, however, had more facets than he’d expected. He needed to discover what motivated her, what it was she truly wanted, and what it would take to send her back to her betrothed. And he needed to be someone she trusted if he meant to accomplish any of that. Which meant that he needed to stop staring at her like a cat sizing up a mouse. However much he might wish to pounce.
    She glanced up, and the corners of her mouth turned up as their eyes met. He smiled back at her, nodding, shoving back at his predatory instincts until they subsided and returned to the cave. Apparently she’d decided that his kissing spree of earlier wasn’t so awful, after all. Considering that he had at least two additional families cursing him now, he was glad it had been worth it.
    “I think I’d like to play,” he said.
    “Only four players at this table, Blackwood,” the Viscount of Swanslee commented, glancing up from his cards. “Go find another table.”
    “I’d like to play here .”
    Next to the viscount, Jonas Atherling stood. “Take my seat,” he offered, gathering his coins. “I’d prefer to be in a different room from you, anyway.”
    “Likewise.” The stodgy fellow was practically swimming in cheap French cologne, and it followed him like a cloud as he departed. Wondering how Camille had managed to breathe, Keating took the abandoned chair. “And how do your fare this evening, my lady?” he asked, putting his own blunt on the table.
    “Very well, Mr. Blackwood.” Camille gazed at the players. “Ready, gentlemen?”
    “Deal the damned cards,” the stocky gentleman on Keating’s left grumbled. “Here’s hoping Blackwood’s ill luck alters my own.”
    “I don’t have ill luck,” Keating protested. “I make ill choices. There’s a very large difference.”
    “Isn’t that rather like debating degrees of death?” the fourth fellow, seated just to his right, commented in a low voice.
    Swiftly Keating reassessed his general opinion of the club’s membership. At least one of them seemed to have both intelligence and some spleen. “And who might you be?”
    “That’s right, you’ve been away for a time, haven’t you?” The man gestured for a third card. With his left profile partly obscured by too-long dark brown hair, the best impression Keating could get was that he was in his mid-twenties and lean.
    “What are you, my replacement in debauchery? You should be at a less reputable club.” He glanced at the glass sitting at the fellow’s elbow. “And you shouldn’t be drinking brandy. You’ll want something that sinks into your gullet quickly. Whiskey. Or Russian vodka.”
    Finally the man faced him. The thin white scar that ran from halfway down his right cheek and glanced off his chin was only made more striking by his milky white right eye, an unsettling balance to the dark blue left one. “I don’t think I require your advice, but you make a valid point.” He pushed to his feet, sliding a quid to Camille. “Good evening.”
    No one else took the one-eyed gentleman’s seat, so Camille dealt two face-up cards to the trio of men before