She picked up her cards as the room became more and more crowded. Her heart sank as she looked at them. It was a good hand. Too good! She must rid herself of all these face cards!
She discarded them and picked up from the stock. Excellent. They were dreadful. They were so dreadful that she waited for Lord Ashworth to discard, and then she said happily, “Oh dear, carte blanche.”
Lord Ashworth’s hands tightened ever so gently on his cards. As she had noted when last they played, his lips pressed ever so slightly together—a sure sign he was happy with his hand. He knew she would work to lose the game. He knew her mind.
So they went on, Lily making every mistake she knew how to avoid. She sunk nothing and was rather gleeful over the fact that she’d nothing valuable enoughtosink.
She played one bad hand after the next. She must get Lord Ashworth to one hundred points as soon as possible.
Lily did her best to ignore the talk swirling around their table. She could not help hearing some of it, though.
“I do not see why everybody has claimed she is so good,” one young gentleman said.
His friend nudged him in the ribs and said, “The wager is will she have him, you numbskull. If she loses, she will have him. What do you think she means to do?”
Lord Ashworth laid down a final trick. “To one hundred, Miss Farnsworth. Do you admit defeat?”
“Oh, yes,” Lily said, laughing. “And you had better call me Lily.”
Lord Ashworth reached across the table and took her hand. “I will ride for Surrey on the morrow to see your father. In the meantime, I believe I have the right to escort my fiancée to the gardens for air?”
The night airwas fresh and cool after the heat of the crowded card room. The paper flowers waved gently in the breeze, their colors showing in the moonlight. Lord Ashworth led her through the garden paths.
Lily was deliriously happy, though she said not a thing. What did one say at such a moment?
“I fear you must have been shocked at my declaration,” Lord Ashworth said. “I have not represented myself in a particularly favorable light. I certainly have not gone about a courting in the usual way.”
“We have not gone about much in the usual way,” Lily said, glad he’d broken the silence. She had more to say, things she wished to know, she only did not know how to begin.
“I did think,” she said slowly, “that you avoided me this past week.”
“I did not,” Lord Ashworth said. “I was truly indisposed, just not with a fever.”
“Your arm?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Tell me what happened.”
The lord seemed to hesitate, as if he were not certain he would tell her. Then he said, “Mr. Shine thought to blackmail me. To blackmail us. He threatened to put it about that we had been alone for a period of time in an empty house. I met him in Hyde Park the night of Lady Blakeley’s half mask.”
“But you attended the mask,” Lily said. “And told us to stay away, so I thought—”
“I made an early appearance and then slipped away. I did not wish to cause talk by not appearing and I did not want you and your aunt to be out on the town. I could not be everywhere at once and I could not be sure if Mr. Shine worked with any associates that might attempt a kidnaping as a further means of funds. The men I employ are experienced, but I would not have risked it.”
“And then he shot you in the park?”
Lord Ashworth nodded. “And I shot him too, but I think only a graze.”
“Though yours was more than a graze.”
“Yes, well, he took me by surprise. He shot when my back was turned.”
“You might have been killed!” Lily said. “It would have been my fault. I was so foolish to get us into that situation to begin. Why I did not hold my tongue when I realized the cards were marked, I will never know.”
Lord Ashworth’s hand had been slowly traveling from Lily’s hand to around her waist. Lily had been very accommodating in pretending not to notice.
He pulled her close and lifted her chin. “Come, my little piquet genius, no regrets now.”
