Page 3 of A Bet with a Duchess (The Gambling Dukes #1)

THREE

Georgiana

I took a deep breath as I walked onto the terrace the next morning.

Well, I had survived it. An entire morning in the company of Mr. Fynn Monroe, alone, and I hadn’t succumbed to the desire to kiss him senseless, so really I ought to be congratulated.

If only the rest of the week was going to be that simple.

The lake was quiet, as it always was overnight, and the sunshine peeked through the trees that surrounded the garden, over an acre, covered in plants absolutely blooming in the hot weather.

I breathed out slowly. None of my friends ever got up this early, and even if they did, they knew better than to disturb me on the terrace at this time.

This was my time.

Time to reflect. Time to consider the thousand and one problems that I was faced with. Time to?—

“Ah, there you are.”

I stiffened. I had heard no footsteps, but that may have been because I had not been listening for them. No one ever came out when I was here.

No one, except?—

“Mr. Monroe,” I said icily.

I had not intended to be so direct, and saw with a mixture of pleasure and disappointment that the gentleman stopped in his tracks at least ten feet away. He was dressed in the same suit as yesterday, but a different cravat this time. Once again, the suit seemed to be stretching against the muscles of his arms.

I swallowed. My gown, embroidered with daisies around the hem, felt almost childlike in the presence of such potent masculinity.

“Your friends not here?”

“Sadly not,” I said with feeling. They would have made a welcome buffer to the investigative journalist, and with Lilah here, the gentleman’s attention would certainly have been distracted…

And a feeling so unexpected I almost gasped rushed through her heart.

Jealousy.

Every man looked at Lilah; it had been the problem with every man I had ever considered as a potential lover.

“That’s a shame, I would have liked to speak with them,” said Mr. Monroe easily, sitting on a chair a little way from me.

“I am sure you would, but none of them know of any secret within the club because?—”

“There isn’t one,” the journalist chimed in, a cheeky smile on his face. “I know. I must say, impressive that you are keeping to the line this early.”

“Early?” I laughed, then forced down my amusement. I was not here to be entertained by a man trying to ruin my friend’s and mine’s club. “It is early, I suppose. I like the early hour. Most mornings I rise for the dawn.”

Mr. Monroe’s eyebrow rose. “Even in the summer?”

“Especially in the summer. The best time to think, the early hours of the summer. Everything fresh, everything new…”

My voice melted away as my gaze caught his. How did he do it, this vaguely irritating gentleman who always seemed to be…looking at me.

Which was ridiculous. We were out here alone, conversing, what else was he supposed to look at?

But it did not explain the almost predatory look he was giving me now, as though I owed him something. As though anyone else who touched me, even thought about it, would soon find himself punched in the gut.

I swallowed. The way no gentleman had ever looked at me before.

A tingling anticipation washed across my skin, making me feel alive as I had not done since…well, it was hard to recall. There was something so powerfully masculine about Mr. Fynn Monroe, something I had not yet managed to inoculate myself against.

And I would have to. This was only the second full day he was here, and with my friends deciding to stay at old Ben’s for another few days of a house party…

Well. That left me here alone.

Or rather, not alone.

“You were saying?” murmured Mr. Monroe.

I swallowed. “I think we should return to the library, there was still many records we have not exam?—”

“I do not want to see any more paperwork,” groaned Mr. Monroe, his head dropping.

It was all I could do not to laugh. Well, I wanted to say, you were so determined to dig out secrets about us, but I called your bluff, did I not?

Surprised, are you, Mr. Fynn Monroe, that there’s nothing to find?

“I suppose I should offer you somewhere to work,” I said likely. “Take the Blue Drawing Room.”

“Oh, I couldn’t,” he said automatically, I could tell by how quickly he spoke. “I would not wish to deprive you and your friends of a drawing room?—”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said nonchalantly. “We’ll just use another one.”

Mr. Monroe stared at me for a moment, then laughed, that lopsided smile I hated that I noticed returning. “Right. Of course.”

“And you can take your dinners there too, I wouldn’t wish you to be bored by my chatter,” I added.

Or winkle something out of us that we may forget we’re saying before you, I thought darkly. This Mr. Fynn Monroe was clever, you could sense that after being in his presence for more than five minutes.

But there was something about the way he held his head. Something vulnerable that seared my heart in a way I did not expect, and before I could stop herself, words I had not intended to say had tripped off my tongue.

“Well, I suppose I could show you what we actually get paid for.”

Mr. Monroe’s head jerked up. “What, see the?—”

“We have several packs of cards in the house,” I said, inclining a hand back to the manor. “If you were interested…”

My voice once again faded away as Mr. Monroe rose to his feet and approached me. He only looked that tall, I told herself, because he was standing and I was seated.

It was nothing to do with the fact that he was at least three inches taller than me. And broader. And wearing that delicious cologne again, damn it!

“I am very interested.”

I tried not to flush as I rose. He did not mean it like that, he was interested in the club—in destroying it!

It was therefore most unfortunate that Mr. Monroe was standing quite so close to me as I rose. I brushed up against his chest, most unwillingly, but then immediately wished I had paid more attention as the sensation of my breasts against his muscular chest sparked something rather akin to desire in my stomach.

Not that it was desire. Just lust, I told herself, just a physical need never satisfied.

I would have to be foolish not to notice just how handsome that irritatingly charming gentleman was, even if he was here to end my pet passion.

“In that case,” I said as lightly as I could manage, “come with me.”

The Orangery had been added onto the manor house when the Gambling Dukes had bought it, I explained to Mr. Monroe as we moved around to the East Wing of the house.

“None of the magnificent rooms magnificent enough?”

I smiled as I led him into a corridor lined with terracotta pots on plinths. “Not quite.”

It wasn’t worth explaining, not yet. Just seeing the place would blow my words out of the water, anyway. It was Lilah who had the way with words, and there was nothing like seeing it.

“Here we are,” I said quietly as they reached a door much like the others in the house, but the glass here was opaque. “The Orangery.”

It was rather spectacular.

Glass; sheets and sheets of it, spiraling upwards so high, you could barely see the top. Oranges, the trees not only the fruit, growing in lines within terracotta pots, the soil and the fruit lending a fragrance to the air that was intoxicating. The warmth of the place, the sultriness…

There was nothing like it.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Mr. Monroe as he turned to me, brow furrowed, as I closed the door behind us. “This was only build a few months ago?”

“Finished but a fortnight ago,” I said with a laugh, brushing my fingertips across a small orange tree. “Lilah gambled on something rather large, and decided she wished to spend her winnings on this.”

“It’s…it’s spectacular.”

Yes, it was. Oh, there were plenty of noblemen’s homes which had Orangeries, but none were as large as this.

“Walk with me, Fynn.”

I bit my lip, wishing I had not slipped into calling him by his first name, but it was all too easy to meander into familiarity with this man.

And in this place. It was where I came to think, where I thought not only on my past but my future. About what I wanted it to be. What it could be, now that I was rich, and with friends, and a widow not a silent wife.

Frowning slightly, Fynn—blast, Mr. Monroe slipped in step beside me. “But this?—”

“I know,” I said with a laugh. “It is truly splendid, is it not?”

“I admit myself impressed,” Mr. Monroe said with a wry smile. “And it is here that you play cards?”

“One of the places.” I stepped over to a console table as the path upon which we had been meandering opened up into a table and several chairs, a small fountain just to the left. I pulled a set of playing cards out of the drawer. “We’re really rather good, you know.”

The skill had had earned us thousands.

“Rather good?”

I indicated the chairs. “Why don’t you find out?”

Mr. Monroe looked highly suspicious. Good, I could not help but think. You are finally treating me like the opponent I am. “What are we playing for?”

I shrugged as I slid as elegantly as I could muster onto a chair. “What do you have worth gambling?”

Not much, that much I would hazard a guess. There was little to shout wealth from the man, though his manners were relatively refined and he spoke well. But there was no pin in his cravat, and the carriage upon which he had arrived had departed. This was not a man of independent means.

Of course he wasn’t. the man worked for a living, did he not?

Mr. Monroe sat down opposite me, leaning back with the air of suspicion still tight in his eyes. “What shall we play?”

“Poker, I think,” I said lightly, shuffling the cards rapidly in a way that I knew would impress.

There. There it was. The man could not help but be impressed.

“You…you are rather good at that,” Mr. Monroe said weakly.

He sounded incredulous. Damn straight, I thought. I had worked hard, and so had Lilah. So had I. We had poured ourselves into this club, nothing handed to us.

We’d earned it.

“I am rather, aren’t I?” I said with a smile. God, it was pleasant to shine before this man, after he so desperately wished to ruin me. “That is one of the things that people underestimate in us. No one expects a lady to understand probabilities, or psychology.”

“Psychology?”

I probably shouldn’t be telling him this—but hell, I couldn’t help myself. I was proud of what we’d done, proud of what we’d achieved.

“My husband, when he died, left me nothing,” I said lightly, as though it did not matter. “I was left with a title but nothing else. I had to earn my way.”

There—a flicker of admiration. “But?—”

“But a lady cannot earn her own income, can she?” I interrupted with what I hoped was a winning smile. “Thankfully my three friends understood my dilemma.” They shared it. “And so we created the club.”

“The Gambling Dukes.”

“Lilah wanted it to be the Gambling Duchesses,” I said, unable to hide my smile. “But with Kineallen as our de facto leader, he got the final say.”

“And you are the only four members.”

This was not a topic I should be talking about—but Fynn Monroe was so…so warm. So charming. “To date. I do not think we would forbid future members—in fact, it will soon be necessary.”

His eyebrow rose as his gaze following my shuffling cards. “Necessary?”

I shrugged, and tried not to notice how he watched my breasts. “We cannot win money from each other, not if we wish to continue to draw incomes from the club. We need others.”

“Other members?”

“Other members, other competitors,” I said with a nod. “And I can tell you that when playing with our most discreet competitors?—”

“More discreet than me? More discreet than dukes?” Mr. Monroe looked astonished.

I rather liked seeing him like this. “Yes. For the discreet competitors. Royalty, for example.”

He turned away from me then, looking around at the perfectly exquisite Orangery of Dalhurst Manor. His head shook as he tried to take it all in. “This is…this is wild. To think you have built up all this, the four of you friends…and you do not consider matrimony?”

The cards slipped from my hands. “I beg your pardon?”

“Forgive me, Lady Cartice, I appear to have startled you,” Mr. Monroe said, that irritatingly charming smile returning. “I meant—well, the four of you. Two gentleman and two ladies?—”

“Oh! Oh, no!” I wrinkled my nose in immediate discussion. “Oh, the very thought—it would be like wedding my own friend!”

“And yet many in Society would expect it.” Mr. Monroe appeared far more intrigued by this denial than I would have thought. “Keep the money within the family, as it were.”

“Yes, well, I have known Lilah all my life. Our mothers were close friends,” I said, fumbling for the cards which had scattered across the table.

Mr. Monroe’s eyes were far too knowing. “It was not the Lady Rotherwick of whom I spoke.”

Blast the man, he truly was the most irritating thing I had ever met. “Kineallen married my best friend.”

There. That had shown him.

Mr. Monroe’s eyes widened in apparent horror. “Oh—oh, I did not?—”

“She died in childbed two years ago. The child too.” If I did not speak on it too long, perhaps it would not hurt.

“I-I—I am sorry, I was unaware?—”

“And Lilah’s older best friend married Markham. She died of a fever two months later.” I affixed the man with a stern glare. That would surely distract me from the tears. “My husband died six months ago, and Lilah’s husband a week before my own. You see, Mr. Monroe, we have all lost spouses, and we have chosen a life of frivolity and joy. Matrimony has brought naught but pain.”

Pain which had receded a little in the last few days. Why?

Mr. Monroe looked most discomforted. “I should not have—I apologize.”

“Yes, well. I am sure you can understand that I am a little unsettled at present, when there’s a man trying to ruin my friends and me,” I said tightly.

And I had to remember that, didn’t I? Remember I should not be sitting so close to the man who was determined to find something to punish them with, something to take back to London and publish for the world to see.

“I had not realized that was what brought you together,” said the interloper quietly. “Loss.”

“And a love of a wager, of course,” I said with a laugh that was absolutely not brittle. “Markham is certainly never a man to give up on a risk?—”

“Gamble, in short,” Fynn said lightly.

I shrugged. “Some may see it that way. I see it more as the way the world works. Is not every action we take a risk? Do we not take decisions each day without truly knowing the potential outcome?”

I was shuffling the cards again, spinning them and flicking them between my fingers as I had done to amuse Paul.

“Well, I must admit I am impressed.”

“Of course you are.”

“Oh, not with this—well, with this,” admitted Mr. Monroe as he raised a hand around the Orangery that the Gambling Dukes had created. “But that wasn’t what I meant. I meant you.”

My heart skipped a beat and my hands inexplicably went cold as they froze. “Me?”

He nodded, leaning close to me. “You. You truly believe there is nothing for me to find, do you? You’re invested in this club and not just because it’s your friends, because you believe it in.”

“I see no harm in a little pleasure,” I breathed, rising to my feet and swallowing hard at the man who now stood directly before me.

Because I could do nothing else but breathe. How could I, with such a man standing there, painfully out of reach?

For a moment I could almost believe we were still standing on the terrace, as though we had never come in here. Perhaps we had laughed, talked a little about something that was nothing to do with the tension between us. The bet. The deck I had stacked against him, even though he did not know it.

And then my heart almost stopped. Mr. Monroe had stepped not away from me but around me, and his presence in the Orangery seemed less somehow, without him close to me—until he spoke again.

“A little pleasure, yes,” murmured Mr. Monroe from behind me—directly behind me.

His breath danced across my skin, the back of my neck, and I tried not to moan, to lean back into his arms, and give myself up to the dream of what could be if he was a different man.

“I-It’s important to us at the Gambling Dukes that we?—”

“I don’t want to hear about the Gambling Dukes,” Mr. Monroe said darkly in a low voice, just out of sight but I could feel his every syllable. “I want to hear about you. About why you are so desperate to get rid of me.”

My eyelashes fluttered. Get rid of him? Dear God, the thought of him leaving now without taking me, without showing me just what those hands could?—

“Lady Cartice,” Mr. Monroe murmured, his lips barely an inch from my shoulder. “Are you listening?”

My eyes snapped open.

“I am sure you wish to return to the library and look through more of our records,” I said, turning and forcing myself to step forward—step away from the damned alluring man.

I blinked in the blank emptiness of the desolate place. Mr. Monroe’s eyes had pooled with desire, desire I knew he felt but would not act on.

And neither would I. We were not animals, after all; we were attracted to each other, yes.

But that did not mean we were going to act on it.

Besides, he was the enemy. I could not trust him, just as he evidently had no desire to trust me. And that was fine. Completely fine.

“Shall I see you at luncheon?” I said brightly.