Page 40 of The Lady’s No Angel

“Naturally,” she said, as if it meant nothing.

Hart swallowed a growl of irritation and dealt the cards with practiced ease, twelve cards each. The remainder formed the talon, eight cards waiting in the middle.

Miss Baxter studied her cards with a small frown pinched between her dark eyebrows. She looked for all the world like a sweet little debutante, out of her depth and trying desperately to appear worldly. Then she looked up, and he saw the devil dancing there. It called to him, beckoning the devil that lived in his own heart. Oh, she was trouble.

Hart watched her over the rim of his glass. “You have the look of someone planning on committing a crime.”

Her beautiful mouth quirked. “If crime it is to rob you blind, then I suppose I might at that.”

Hart returned his attention to the cards, which was harder than he liked to admit. He was the younger hand, she was the elder. Advantage hers, first choice, first discard—first chance to lie through her teeth, he thought, smiling to himself.

Miss Baxter laid her unwanted cards down.

Hart regarded them, his eyes flicking to hers. “Bold.”

“Oh, no. Merely efficient,” she replied, batting her eyelashes at him.

She drew replacements from the talon, her delicate fingers light upon the cards. For a moment Hart imagined those fine, pale hands gliding over his back, and the fire in the hearth seemed to crackle beneath his skin, setting him alight.

Miss Baxter looked up. She did not smile. He could not read her at all, yet he had the disquieting notion she could read him like a book, that words like longing and need and please were written over his face in great, bold letters.

She lifted one elegant eyebrow and Hart reached for his cards, shaken. Get a grip, he told himself severely, but he could feel her studying him, watching him so closely she might count each breath he took. All at once Hart felt he was the debutant, gauche and falling into deep water.

He discarded his cards slower than he meant to, second guessing himself once they were gone. He told himself he was tired. All that ale earlier, and the long ride in the rain. But he didn’t feel the least bit tired, energy surging under his skin and demanding an outlet.

When the exchanging was done, Miss Baxter laid her cards against her bodice, gazing at him expectantly.

“Declaration,” Hart said, clearing his throat as the word came out huskier than he’d meant it. “Point first.”

Miss Baxter inclined her head. “Your point, Mr Cleaver?”

Hart announced his best suit. She didn’t so much as glance at her cards, but replied at once, naming hers.

Hart studied her, a sudden sense of déjà vu making him uneasy. “Sequence?” he demanded.

To his alarm, Miss Baxter declared a run—three, then four, then a longer one that made his eyebrows climb in disbelief. She couldn’t seriously expect him to swallow that?

“You’re inventing,” he accused.

She returned a far too innocent smile. “Am I?”

“Show.”

She laid each card with a precise little snap against the tabletop that seemed to reverberate through him.

He gaped. “Well,” he said, trying to find something sensible to say. “That’s… impressive.”

Miss Baxter did not bat an eyelid.

“Set?” he asked, before announcing his. Good, but hardly spectacular.

He watched her, wondering how it was he felt so at sea with a girl who was barely out of the schoolroom—certainly compared to him and his years of carousing. Not to mention the bloody war. What was happening here?

She named hers, and Hart laughed. What else could he do?

“You think it funny that I won?” There was an edge to her voice, a challenging note that did not escape him.

He shook his head, rueful now. “No. I think it funny that you demolished me.”