Royal Regard

Chapter Four

"But—"

He pushed her pip back to its original position and moved another three spaces instead, closing a point. "I do hope your unwarranted guilt won't force poor judgment on the backgammon board." His next roll allowed him to knock one of her stones out of play. She passed a hairpin across the table, adding to his pile, already twice as large as hers. It was lucky for her he only gambled for money if it were obligatory.

"Charlotte is right," she mumbled. "No one in London is going to buy anything from you now."

"Really, dearest," Myron guffawed, "you give the upper classes far too much credit for moral certitude. You could appear at St. James's in the buff, drunk as David's sow, trailing a string of gypsy lovers, and as long as Seventh Sea issues ample dividends, my business won't fall off a whit." His chuckle and brief touch of her hand was intimate in a most unromantic way, but the familiar tenderness filled a much deeper need. "Not that I condone such things, you understand. I'm sure Our Lord would be scandalized by drunkenness and gypsy lovers, even if His Majesty would not."

Her double sixes brought her tile back into, then out of, his home board and into hers, pulling ahead by numbers, if not by hairpins. Luckily, she only had to win by numbers.

"If you say 'gypsy lovers' anywhere in public, they will be added to the list of men with whom I must have fornicated." She sighed as he shook his dice cup and pulled her shawl tighter, looking up to assure herself the curtains were tightly shut against the chill.

"God and your husband both know you to be virtuous, and ours the only judgment with which you need concern yourself."

She raised an eyebrow. "If only God were the arbiter of proper behavior in London."

"England would be the better for it," Myron agreed.

A few turns later, sending hairpins across the table in both directions, she said, "If you are so concerned for proper behavior, you might do well not to insult a duke in the middle of Almack's. He was only being polite, asking me to dance."

His face darkened and his voice went cold. "Malbourne is a scourge, and his advances are not to be tolerated. You are to refuse his company in no uncertain terms, or I shall do it for you."

Her eyes were wide as she stared across the expanse of the card table. "What is so wrong with the Duke of Malbourne?"

She knew exactly what was wrong with him. The man was forward, and although that was to be expected of any Frenchman, he was also exceedingly handsome. So striking, she was ashamed to admit, that the thought of him already sent tingles into parts of her body entirely unaccustomed to titillation. She had been wondering all night what it might be like if his hand had followed the same course as his eyes, but with every passing notion, she was reminded how unworthy she was of the attentions of such a venerable gentleman.

"What I know of him is not to be repeated in the hearing of my wife," Myron snapped, drumming his fingers on the tabletop, "nor any gently bred woman."

"But—"

His voice softened and grew conciliatory. "Please, my dear, do as I say in this. I have only your best interest in mind."

"Of course, but I wish you would—"

"Now then, I think it wise we should discuss your plans for the rest of the Season. You will have need of a new husband soon enough, and while I understand why you find London so disconcerting, it will not do for your fear of British aristocrats to keep you from exploring the field of eligibles."

Her shoulders straightened and she scowled at him. "I will not need a new husband, and I am not afraid."

"No?" He rolled a two and a three, closing three consecutive points. Had she not escaped the bar and his home board on the last turn, she would probably now be trapped. "Then why is it you hid behind Charlotte and declined to dance with Lord Pinnester, who wishes only to advance your good name?"