The Ice Princess (Princes #3.5)(2)

His hand caught hers in a move so swift she started. His hand was big and hot, his fingers entirely enveloping hers. For a moment he stared at her, his blue-black eyes narrowed and watching.

Then he abruptly let her go. “You can refrain from touching me, ma’am.”

And the awful thing was she felt a pang of hurt from his words. Stupid, really. She’d been a whore since the age of fourteen. Had withstood far worse insults without turning a hair. Yet the clipped words of a puritanical naval captain could hurt her.

Fortunately, her golden mask hid everything but her eyes. She let her hand fall carelessly as her eyes trailed down his person. His cape was thrown back, revealing the dark blue of his coat, trimmed with bright gold braid, a pristine white waistcoat, and white breeches. Her gaze settled there, below the waistband of his breeches, and she cocked her head, examining the magnificent bulge under the white cloth.

Then she raised her eyes to his blue-black stare. “You do not want my ladies; you do not want my boys. I’ve heard that you are not married−”

“Widowed,” he snapped.

She inclined her head. “So tell me Captain. Is that padding to make your uniform fit properly? Or do you actually have a cock and balls like any other man, for I declare I am in doubt.”

She expected anger− even rage. Many men of her acquaintance would’ve struck her for such a shameless insult.

Captain Wargate smiled. His full lips widened and parted, revealing strong white teeth. She caught her breath. The man was astonishingly handsome when he smiled.

“You’re insulting my manhood, ma’am? I must’ve truly rattled you. Your repartee isn’t usually so crude.”

She glanced away uneasily, and again caught Big Billy’s eye. He nodded to one of the sitting rooms off the main hall. She should go find out what had Billy so worried. She should tend to her business.

Instead she turned back to the captain and purred, “you must forgive me, sir, but I’ve not seen any evidence of your, er, manhood as you so delicately put it. Quite the reverse in fact.”

Stupid. She needed to find the threat, not stand here and trade ineffectual gibes with a man from a world entirely different from her own.

He shifted and suddenly, the broad expanse of his white waistcoat was all that was in front of her face. She glanced up, startled.

To meet too-perceptive dark blue eyes. “Who’re you watching for?”

She opened her mouth, intending to deny or confess, she wasn’t sure, but a loud male voice spoke behind her before she could.

“Gentlemen!”

Coral turned, already knowing the source of that high, excited voice, already knowing what Billy had been trying to signal her.

A lithe Youngman in powdered wig and blazing orange coat leaped to the top of a table. He spread wide his arms. “Gentlemen!” Kindly lend me your ears, for I have an announcement you won’t want to miss!”

By this time the entire room had turned to look, the laughter and shouted talk gradually dying.

Captain Wargate was at Coral’s back and she felt the brush of his chest as he whispered in her ear. “That’s the one you were watching for, isn’t?”

She gave a single jerky nod.

“Who is he?”

“Jimmy Hyde,” she said grimly.

“And what is he?”

But there wasn’t time to answer and she wasn’t sure she could in any case.

Jimmy was talking again. “Tonight, gentlemen, you are very fortunate. Very fortunate indeed! For tonight you’ll witness a game of chance like no other.”

“What kind of game?” a tall elderly man in a full-bottom wig shouted.

“Loo, sir!’ Jimmy called back.

“Phht!” A thin-lipped dandy in black and scarlet shrugged a discontented shoulder. “I can get a game of loo in any gambling house in the city.”

“True, sir, very true!” Jimmy might be a spawn of Satan himself, but he knew how to work a crowd. He grinned and raised his right hand with a flourish. “But I’ll wager, sir, you’ll not find a pot like the one Aphrodite’s Grotto offers tonight.”

“And what pot’s that?” a royal duke drawled.

Jimmy turned and in the second before he spoke, Coral met his evil little eyes. “Why, gentlemen, we offer up Aphrodite herself!”

She staggered, though no one but Captain Wargate would’ve noticed since he caught her at once about the waist to steady her. What nasty plan had Jimmy come up with now? She hadn’t sold her own body in over two years. He knew that. He knew how much she hated it.

Which, obviously, was his point.

Jimmy grinned again like an impish monkey bent on destroying what soul she had left. “Seven full nights, gentlemen! Aphrodite will serve the winner for seven nights of bliss in any and every way he wishes!’

A buzz began in the crowd, like flies swarming to a wounded deer. Jimmy jumped from the table and held out his hand to her, graceful, indolent, the command almost entirely hidden. “Won’t you my dear?”

And there wasn’t anything she could do. He held the majority share in the Grotto. Four months ago a fire had raged through Aphrodite’s Grotto. She’d been very lucky. No one had died; all the girls, and boys, and the marks had gotten out; and only part of the building had been lost. But the back wing had needed to be rebuilt and furnished, and then when the Grotto opened again, she’d thrown a grand celebration to show she wasn’t down. Coral Smythe wasn’t out of the business.