“Hard to say, old man. Usually, the only way we confirm these things is after the fact.”
When people and buildings lay in pieces.
“It’s too much of a risk to have Diana at the game.” His throat grew tight at the prospect.
“On the contrary. She’s a deterrent against the Stags doing anything too rash,” Sunderland argued. “Widow needs Diana’s fortune to fund her operation. They won’t let anything happen to her.”
The duke swallowed a final swig of his coffee. “On the other hand, you, Holt, they’d have no qualms about killing.”
That evening, while she put the final touches on her toilette, Diana renewed her appreciation for the power a beautiful dress could grant.
She’d come to love the men’s clothes she’d worn during their travels. Free from the underpinnings of corsets and petticoats and bustles, she was more in tune with how her body moved. She didn’t have to second-guess her posture, and that kind of liberty was intoxicating.
As she smoothed her hand down the fitted bodice of her red silk evening gown, she willed the nerves fluttering in her stomach to settle. To ensure no outsiders discovered they were holding a high-stakes illegal card game, a masquerade reception at the Porto Rosso would serve as a cover forIl Gioco. Diana’s costume was conspicuous by her choice. The low-cut neckline and shimmering beaded silk set off a ruby pendant nestled in an array of diamonds forming a flower.
Beneath the robe-style gown, she donned a leather harness that the excellent staff of the townhome had purchased from a local acrobat troupe. Neither Sunderland nor Ian knew she’d taken this precaution, but after what had happened in Menton, Diana had taken redundancy planning upon herself.
She glided down the narrow staircase of the townhome and took distinct pleasure in the way Ian’s gaze consumed her. The sight of him in his costume threatened her own composure. His tailor-made dress blacks paired with an obsidian shirt, tie, and a silk waistcoat that matched her ruby made him look like the devil himself.
The Porta Rossa was a short walk away. Despite the anxious energy pricking them both, they didn’t rush. Diana’s throat was too clogged with emotion to say anything. They were barreling to the end of the mad adventure she’d set them on,and she was terrified that by the end, neither of them would keep the promises they’d pledged to each other the night before.
When they reached the steps of the hotel, Ian pulled a black domino from his pocket, and she lifted her red silk and feathered mask from her reticule.
He insisted on helping her tie hers. As his deft fingers fastened the ribbons slowly, he bent toward her ear. “When this is over, I want to spend hours with you wearing nothing but this mask.”
“Devil,” she murmured. Her cheeks heated beneath the silk. “Now promise me you won’t invent some excuse to prevent me from joining you tonight.”
“It would be a waste of energy. You’d eventually wrangle a way in.” His fingers caressed the sensitive skin on the back of her neck. “But you need to promise me you’ll stick to the plan.”
Diana didn’t waste breath arguing that she’d depart from the plan the minute she sensed his life was in danger. She flashed him a seductive smile and ushered him into the foyer. Their invitation card secured them an escort through a series of stairways and back corridors until the faint murmur of voices and clinking glassware drew them through a gilded door.
Before them, a set of stairs led to a sunken reception room, where spectators circled the perimeter of a card table staged in the center of the parquet floor. Along the upper floor, more people mingled between pillars wrapped with gauzy fabric. Like Ian and Diana, they were all dressed in rich costumes.
“I didn’t think there would be so many observers,” she remarked as Ian led her around the game table.
“Recognize anyone Widow would employ?”
“Not yet.” They could have been in the crowd somewhere, which made her stomach clench. “Yourcapoand his men are at the back, behind the table.”
Ian drew her to a shadowed corner of the wall, where they had a clear view of the entrance. “Before this all starts, I need to tell you something.”
“Is it how lovely I look in this dress?”
“You bewilder my senses in that dress,” he rasped. “One of the many reasons I want you by my side tonight. But we are going to have to separate.”
“Like hell—”
“Excuse me, I wasn’t finished.”
How he could be so sharp and so soft at the same time baffled the breath out of her.
Her chest, in fact, was smarting with a sharp, familiar pain. They’d pledged to be truthful with each other merely hours before, and Ian was already backsliding from it.
His attention flicked away from hers, and while she mentally composed the tirade she’d throw at him for not having the bollocks to look at her while he was shirking his promise, she registered what had captivated him.
A brown-haired woman circled the upper floor overlook. She wore an exact copy of Diana’s red dress. And had her arm entwined with the Duke of Sunderland.
The two scoundrels had conspired to use the Stags’s shell game to shut her out ofIl Gioco.
