Free The Beloved Scoundrel by Iris Johansen

head regretfully. “Ah, it’s gone. Too bad.”
    She pushed back her chair and stood up. “I have to go find Alex.”
    “By all means run away.” He stood up and bowed courteously. “There are signs of softening. If you stayed, you might even smile at me again.”
    “It’s not likely.” She moved toward the door. “It was obviously caused by the shock of losing, and I have no intention of doing that again.”
    S he could never bear to let him have the last word, Jordan thought.
    A smile lingered on his lips as he picked up the pieces and returned them to the leather box. That final verbal thrust was part and parcel of her dislike of losing. Lately he had found himself watching and anticipating it, rather like a fencing instructor waiting for a favorite pupil’s lunge.
    “Marianna tells me you won today,” Gregor said ashe strolled into the cabin. “That should put you in good humor. Victory hasn’t come that often to you of late.”
    “How kind of you to remind me.” Jordan leaned back in his chair. “Have you had a pleasant afternoon?”
    “Oh yes, our dour captain is teaching Alex how to sail the ship.” He grinned. “Braithwaite is soft as mush in the boy’s hands. It is most rewarding to see, when he’s so difficult with everyone else.” He went to the sideboard, poured a glass of whiskey, and drained it in one swallow. “Ah, that was good.”
    “I’m glad you enjoyed it. You do realize you’ve seriously depleted my stock on this trip?” Gregor took infinite enjoyment in all physical pleasures including liquor, but Jordan had never seen him drunk. He seemed to store the alcohol in some mysterious section of that huge body until the effects dissipated.
    “It’s the dampness.” He refilled his glass. “I don’t mind cold, but I hate damp and cold together.” He refilled his glass.
    “Since we’ve reached the Mediterranean, it’s no longer cold,” Jordan pointed out.
    “Well, I don’t like damp and heat together either.” Gregor sat down and stretched his legs out before him. “Alex is very excited about going to Cambaron. He’s been plaguing me with questions.”
    “His sister doesn’t share his eagerness.”
    “She is afraid?”
    “No,” he said quickly.
    “You denied that as swiftly as she would have done.” Gregor smiled slyly. “You’re beginning to sound like a proud father.”
    “What a sickening thought. And completely in error. You’re the one with whom she’s at ease.”
    “Does that bother you? You told me you wanted her to feel uncertain and vulnerable. You cannot have it all ways.”
    “It does
not
bother me.”
    Gregor took a deep drink. “Besides, if you wish to make her fear you, then you should not let her win so often.”
    “You know very well I don’t let her win. She’s a fine player.”
    “Oh, I thought it was some clever ploy to make her feel safe with you before you turned and rended her.” He beamed. “It is just as well. The effect is the same. How can the girl be frightened by a man who not only loses to her with regularity but is actually proud of it?”
    “I’m not proud of losing. I dislike it intensely.”
    “But you’re proud of her,” Gregor said softly. “I’ve watched the two of you, and I find it very curious. It’s almost as if she were your own.”
    “Balderdash,” Jordan enunciated precisely. “I told you, I don’t feel in the least fatherly toward the girl.”
    “Then there is an alternative to consider.”
    “There is no alternative either.”
    “Unless you’ve considered it, how can you be so positive?”
    “I assume you’re intimating I have a passion for her?” He opened the drawer of the table, shoved the chess box into it, and slammed it with a little more force than necessary. “I told you I don’t bed children, Gregor.”
    “But in Kazan a female of sixteen is a woman.”
    “This particular female has far to go before she reaches that state.”
    “I agree. She is somewhere in between. At