Free The Duke by Gaelen Foley Page A

of disdain. “You again.”
    “What’s your game, Miss Hamilton?” he asked pleasantly.
    “Vingt-et-un.”
    “I understand the prize is your kiss.”
    “Only if you win—which you won’t.”
    A smile tugged at one corner of his beguiling mouth. He slid a thick gold ring off his pinky finger and placed it in front of her. “Will this do?”
    Sitting up straight in her chair, she picked up the ring and examined it skeptically. The ring had an onyx medallion with a gold
H
emblazoned on it.
    She slid him a calculating glance, wondering who he was and what the
H
stood for, but she didn’t care to indulge his vanity by asking. No friend of Dolph’s was a friend of hers.
    “A pretty trinket. Alas, I already own a dozen like it.” She gave his ring back to him. “I don’t wish to play you.”
    “Dear me, do I have the look of a cardsharp?” he asked in a cool, cultured baritone.
    “I dislike the company you keep.”
    “Perhaps you are leaping to conclusions—or maybe this is just an excuse?” he suggested with another sly smile. “Perhaps the
indomitable
Miss Hamilton merely wishes to back down?”
    She sent him a ladylike scowl as the men around them laughed.
    “Very well,” she conceded in a severe tone. “Best of three hands. Face cards are ten points. Aces high and low. You’ll regret this.”
    “No, I won’t.” He placed the ring once more between them, then coolly sat back, slung his arm over the chair’s back, and propped his left ankle over his right knee. He nodded toward the deck on the table. “Deal the cards, Miss Hamilton.”
    “Giving orders, are we?”
    “I am only answering you in kind, my dear.”
    Holding his taunting gaze, she realized he was referring to her earlier command to bring the coin to Dolph. She gave him a sardonic look. “I am your servant, my lord.”
    “Interesting notion,” he murmured.
    Under his penetrating stare she grew uncharacteristically flustered. Her hands trembled slightly, making her clumsy as she shuffled the deck, but at length, she dealt them each two cards, one face down, one face up. She set the pile down and picked up her hidden card, the king of diamonds. With her face-up six, she decided to take a third card, but she looked at her opponent first in inquiry.
    He flicked his fingers, elegantly declining. She turned over a three for herself, hiding a smile of satisfaction as her total came to nineteen.
    “Show me what you’ve got,” she invited him with the mildest trace of flirtation. She couldn’t seem to help it. There was just something about the man.
    He sent her a knowing little smile and turned over a queen and a ten. “Twenty.”
    She scowled, sweeping her nineteen aside.
    She dealt again, more determined than ever to beat the arrogant scoundrel, an impulse that had nothing to do with the small fortune she could get from pawning his fine ring if she won it. He was too smug and domineering by half.
    This time Bel dealt herself a pair of knaves. Twenty. Marvelous, she thought, sure she’d get him this time. “Would you care for another card?”
    “Hit me.”
    “Don’t tempt me,” she murmured, peeling an eight off the top for him.
    “Hell,” he said, tossing his cards down. “Went bust.”
    “I’m so sorry,” she consoled him, her eyes sparkling.
    As he brushed his spent cards aside with a lordly scowl of irritation, she picked up his large ring and slipped it on her finger, pretending to admire it on herself. He lifted his eyebrow at her. With the big ring flopping on her finger, she dealt the final hand. His face-up card was the two of clubs.
    Obviously he would want another card, she mused, strategizing as she examined her own hand, a four face down and a nine face up, for a total of thirteen. She would have to be careful not to overshoot twenty-one.
    She glanced across the table at her enigmatic opponent. He beckoned. She dealt him a five.
    “Another,” he murmured.
    “The four of spades.”
    “I’ll stay.”
    She