My Once and Future Duke (The Wagers of Sin #1)(11)

“It is when he pleads with me to pay his debts,” the duke said. “Will you be the next creditor I must satisfy?”

Philip flushed purple with humiliation—-and rage. He stepped forward, putting his hand on Sophie’s shoulder. His fingers lingered, then slid gently down her back to her waist. She went rigid, which Philip seemed to take as encouragement; he stepped closer, between her and his brother. “Leave her be,” he said again, his voice barely audible. “Mrs. Campbell and I are . . . friends.” The delicate pause suggested more. “There is no harm intended between us.”

“Don’t be a fool.” The duke hadn’t taken his eyes off Sophie. “She’s not your friend. She’s not even your mistress, which might at least justify the expense. She merely wins your money.”

Sophie’s mouth dropped open in fury. “How dare you—-”

“I can prove it.” At long last, the duke looked away from her. He picked up the dice from the table where she’d dropped them. “You wish to play, madam? Then play with me.” He put out his hand, and after a moment Philip sullenly handed over a handful of markers. Without even looking at them, the duke dropped them all onto the hazard table.

She stared, doing quick mental arithmetic. Almost fifty guineas lay on the table, a princely sum. “You play very high, sir.”

“One guinea a round, then,” he said coolly. “Or are you afraid of losing the game when your opponent is not a callow young man?”

Lord Philip’s head jerked up. He sent a look of scalding hostility at his brother, who ignored it. Sophie saw, though; as much as it had been intended to taunt her, it had been a public humiliation to him.

She knew only one way to deal with humiliation and scorn: by standing her ground. She had faced both many times, from certain snide young ladies at Mrs. Upton’s who laughed at her lack of status, from the London matrons who sniffed at her independent ways. To slink away was weakness, and as the duke had insulted her very publicly, it would also tar her reputation. He’d implied she was a confidence artist, if not an outright cheat. Of course Sophie liked to win—-she had to, to support herself—-but she played fairly, lost her share of games, and was always gracious. And in this case, where she’d been trying to discourage Philip in her own tempered way, she felt the injustice of the duke’s words like a slap in her face.

“Afraid?” She drew herself up in her haughtiest imitation of Mrs. Upton. “Of you?” She paused and gave him a pointed look. “Why on earth would you think that?”

A sharp, vindictive grin spread over Philip’s face. A muscle twitched in the duke’s cheek. “Then play.”

She was mad to do this. Mad, and reckless, and probably stupid, but Sophie had done worse. If he wanted to play a few rounds of hazard, nothing would please her more than beating him at it.

Among the few things she remembered Philip telling her about his brother was that the duke didn’t gamble—-in fact, he disapproved of it strongly. That meant he would play like a rank amateur. The Duke of Ware had been rude and insulting, and she was not above retaliation. She felt a wholly unwarranted solidarity with Lord Philip, and a driving desire to trounce his insufferable brother.

She stepped back to the table, dropped a marker for a single guinea, and raised the dice. “Seven.” Her voice rang in the hush that had fallen around the table, but she barely noticed. The world had shrunk to the two of them. Gazing directly at her nemesis, she brushed a taunting, sensuous kiss over the face of the dice before tossing them onto the table.





Chapter 4




Sophie knew she ought to have walked away the moment the duke ordered his brother to stop playing. Hazard was a game of sheer luck, and clearly hers was ebbing tonight. Not only had Giles Carter disappeared, she was now the center of attention thanks to the duke.

If her luck was bad, though, his was atrocious. He lost and lost badly. After the first round, a tiny frown creased his forehead as he studied the table, making him look almost endearingly puzzled, as if the game’s rules had changed on him. It gave her a moment of pause; how could she feel badly taking advantage of Philip, then revel in beating a man who had no experience at hazard?

Behind the duke’s back, Philip sent her a gleeful look. She couldn’t resist a tiny smile in reply, but the duke looked up at that moment and saw it. His jaw firmed. “A professional gamester, I take it.”

Sophie flushed with fury. “Perhaps the personification of Lady Luck.”

“Lady Luck,” he repeated. “And like my brother before me, you’re against me.” He picked up the dice again and held them out.

So be it. If he wished to lose, she was ready to win.

She raised the stakes. She began to flirt a bit with some of the spectators, and to ask the crowd, which had grown rather large and quivered with attentive interest around them now, what she should do. They always cried that she should bet more, so she did. Philip moved to her side and recovered his bonhomie, cheering her on every time she won. And consistently her luck was just a little better than the duke’s.

It surprised her that he played on, even after she had won a shocking sum of money from him. Even the most bumbling player would have recognized that the dice were not on his side this evening and slunk away with his pockets lighter, though not emptied. Not the duke. And every time he forfeited another marker, something surged inside her.