Page 18 of Scoundrel Take Me Away (Dukes in Disguise #3)

Chapter Eight

Thorne hoped he hadn’t overplayed his hand in the carriage.

He wasn’t a fool. He knew that forbidding Lucy from doing something was the surest way to get her to do it.

And, as it happened, his plans for the evening very much hinged on her wandering off at some point.

But for now, he kept his hand clamped firmly over hers where it rested in the crook of his elbow as they glided past the formidable bruiser of a majordomo and into the belly of the beast.

Lucy’s grip tightened when they passed through the entryway and she got her first glimpse of the card room.

Calling it a card room hardly did it justice, Thorne mused as he glanced around, seeing the familiar space as if for the first time through Lucy’s eyes.

Tables covered in Morocco leather and green baize dotted the room, each one surrounded by gentlemen either playing cards, or calling out encouragement or derision as they watched the fast-moving play.

House wenches strolled between the games, refilling wine and whisky glasses, offering brandy and cigars whose pungent smoke wreathed the air.

Swags of emerald-green velvet draped the walls, the light from multiple candle sconces and crystal chandeliers casting everything in a blazing glow.

The very air pulsed with the excitement of fortunes won and lost as men wagered on everything from the next hand of whist to the color of a passing bawd’s private hair.

Above it all, a soaring domed ceiling arched overhead, painted like the frescoes in a cathedral—except instead of cherubim and seraphim, the subject matter was gods and goddesses of ancient Greece.

Scantily clad nymphs cavorted with suggestively leering fauns; a heavily muscled Hades glowered at the coquettish Persephone swooning in his arms.

Lucy gasped audibly, and Thorne allowed himself a smile of satisfaction. “It’s not Paris,” he murmured, “but we like it.”

At the far side of the cavernous room, on a gilded balcony carved with clusters of grapes, stood the man who owned it all.

Mr. Simon Rook, looking as though he’d served as the artist’s model for the mural’s dark, hulking Hades, leaned his hands on the balustrade and surveyed his domain.

Even from a distance, Thorne could see the wicked scar that bisected his left brow, as though some long-ago enemy had tried to carve the man’s eye out.

Thorne imagined the unsuccessful attacker wished he’d never made the attempt before he met his no doubt grisly end.

Simon Rook wasn’t known for being forgiving.

Catching sight of Thorne, Rook gave him a slow nod of greeting. Lucy noticed Thorne nodding back and asked, “Who is that?”

“Club owner,” Thorne said, beginning a slow circuit of the room. “Stay away from him; he’s not someone you want to know.”

Lucy craned her long, elegant neck. “He looks as if he keeps a close eye on this place.”

“Nothing happens at Sharpe’s without his knowledge.”

“He must maintain a record of all his members,” Lucy said absently, her gaze still on the dark-haired man. “I’ll bet Mr. Sharpe knows every single person who has ever set foot in this place.”

“Mr. Rook,” Thorne corrected her. “Not Mr. Sharpe. And why do you want to know?”

“He’s not called Mr. Sharpe?” Lucy swiveled her head round to stare at Thorne. “This club isn’t named after him?”

“A man who is an expert card player, taking nearly every pot and winning every game, is known as a sharp. The play here is very deep, the sums wagered astronomical; many a young man has been ruined at these tables. Rook means the name of the hell as a warning to inexperienced card players to stay away—not that they heed it. And, of course, the house takes a cut of every game. So in a sense, the house always wins. Rook is the true sharp.”

“You almost sound as though you admire him,” Lucy observed.

Thorne shrugged. “He’s good at what he does. I admire him enough that I invested a significant amount of cash to enable him to open the hell.”

Lucy turned surprised eyes on him. “Does that make you a partner in his enterprise? Are you secretly a man of business, Your Grace?”

“Hardly.” He sniffed, looking away from her inquiring gaze. “I’m a man who likes to put his money to work, rather than himself. The club brings in a nice dividend, and Rook and I stay out of each other’s way. A successful investment all round.”

Before Lucy could reply, a fight broke out at the table they were passing. A skinny stripling of a lord uttered a low croak of dismay at the fall of the cards, and the friends who were with him rounded on the winner, a rotund older gentleman in a shabby suit of clothes and a pair of spectacles.

Thorne tensed, wondering if this was the opportunity he’d been hunting, but a couple of kicked chairs and shouted epithets later it was all over.

“Did that gentleman with the glasses cheat?” Lucy asked in an undertone.

Enjoying the tightness of her grip on his arm, Thorne glanced up at Rook’s impassive expression as he silently directed the action below. “No. Or Rook would be down here to throw him out. That little lordling merely found himself outclassed by a far superior player.”

They continued their slow tour of the room, pausing now and then to watch an interesting bet.

Lucy became very involved in observing a game of hazard where a man with a nautical look about him, weather-browned and straight of spine, managed to roll seven multiple times in a row.

The raucous crowd around him swelled as he won again and again, and even Lucy cheered lustily when he managed to roll seven for a sixth time.

“I can’t believe it,” she cried over the din. “Surely he can’t do it again.”

Jostled by the crush of gentlemen jockeying for a better view, Lucy was pressed hard into Thorne’s side, and he took immediately advantage.

Passing an arm about her shoulders, he hauled her in close, her back to his front, and leaned down to speak into her ear. “The odds of him throwing seven next time are the same as they were the first time he rolled.”

Lucy shook her head but didn’t attempt to move away from him. There were people on all sides, shoving and shouting, but Thorne planted his feet and kept them steady.

He loved how tall she was. If he tipped his head forward, his nose would touch the coronet of sable-dark hair coiled at her crown. Thorne inhaled deeply, taking the fresh sweetness of her scent into his lungs and holding it there like the smoke from a cheroot. Intoxicating.

“That can’t be right,” she argued. “That doesn’t make any sense. The odds must be fully against him now.”

“No more than they ever were. The dice don’t remember from one throw to the next,” he said. “They don’t care what’s been thrown before. They land how they land.”

“So there’s no skill involved at all? It’s only luck?”

“Hazard takes nerve more than skill. A cool head is an asset in any game of chance. As my uncle used to say, never allow emotion to overtake you. It’s the men who lose their heads that make mistakes and miss the obvious plays right under their noses. Pitiable, really.”

She turned her head slightly, giving him a view of her flushed cheek and the tendril of a curl at her temple. “Are you a sharp, Your Grace?”

He pressed a secret smile into her hair. “I never play at all unless I’m certain of winning.”

“That’s not very sportsmanlike.”

“I don’t care about sportsmanship. I like to win.”

Her heart was beating very fast under his wrist, her pulse visible at the base of her throat. “Everyone likes to win. That doesn’t make you special.”

“Ah, but how far are you willing to go for victory? That is what has set me apart since I was a very young man.”

“Because you go too far,” she said, her lips barely moving. He could see the flutter of her lashes, feel the quick heave of her breath.

“There’s no such thing,” he purred, just as the retired naval officer lost his eighth roll, inciting howling pandemonium among the crowd.

Money changed hands between those who’d placed side bets on the outcome, and one drunkard who’d clearly gotten carried away began to tear at his hair and clothes in despair at the amount he owed.

“I need to find the ladies’ retiring room.” Lucy had to shout to be heard, pulling away from him.

Thorne let her go with reluctance. “Where do you think we are? A Mayfair ballroom? There is no ladies’ retiring room, because there are no ladies.”

“I’ve seen one or two,” Lucy protested, scanning the room for a moment before her eyes lit up with recognition. “There! Sitting with Lord What’s-His-Name, drinking champagne.”

Following her gaze to the sultry, expensively dressed redhead batting her eyes at Lord Offaley, Thorne tucked his tongue into his cheek. “That is Mrs. Forrest.”

Lucy’s eyes widened. “The famed courtesan! So that is what she really looks like. The broadsheets do not do her justice.”

“You comprehend their difficulty; it would be difficult to render a figure like hers in pen and ink without having it look impossibly overexaggerated.”

“How gorgeous she is,” Lucy said with an odd note in her tone. Admiring, but a touch wistful. Thorne wondered if she was comparing Susannah Forrest’s extravagant curves to her own slender form.

Thorne had always admired Mrs. Forrest, though he hadn’t bothered to throw his hat into the ring when she discreetly let it be known she was hunting for a new protector last winter.

He didn’t care to jump through the hoops required by a sought-after courtesan deciding upon whom to bestow her favors.

But he liked Mrs. Forrest, who possessed a shrewd mind and a witty, engaging conversational style that only enhanced her extraordinary looks. Indeed, he’d always found her uncommonly attractive.

It disconcerted him to realize that he found Lady Lucy Lively infinitely more appealing.

“Yes, she is,” he agreed shortly. “And Lord Offaley has gone to great lengths to secure her as his mistress. So she is definitely not a lady.”