The Ice Princess (Princes #3.5)(3)

But all of that had taken money. Too much money. She’d borrowed from Jimmy Hyde, only later finding out that several of her original backers had already sold their portions to him. By the time she’d realized what he was doing, he’d held the majority share in the Grotto. In effect, he owned Aphrodite’s Grotto. Which meant he owned her. If she refused, Jimmy was quite capable of tossing her out in the street. Without her, the Grotto girls and boys would be unprotected− and subject to Jimmy’s less then tender mercies.

Coral calculated and decided quickly. If she showed reluctance, he’d be twice as gleeful at her misery. That much she’d learned about Jimmy Hyde in the last four months.

So instead of trembling, instead of balking or running away, Coral threw back her shoulders and stepped away fro, Captain Wargate’s protective hands. She sauntered forward and placed her hand in Jimmy’s and then she looked about the room, her head held high.

“It will be my pleasure,” she murmured, and she put every ounce of allure and promise that she’d ever learned in her life as a courtesan into that one sentence.

Which, frankly, was quite a lot.

The crowd erupted into a roar.

“One hundred guineas!” Jimmy called, raising his voice above the eager shouts. “ One hundred guineas to join this game, gentlemen! Who’s in?”

That silenced them, and even Coral’s lips parted beneath her mask. One hundred guineas was a mad fortune. He r best working girl only made eight guineas a night− and that was when the mark was too drunk to realize his folly. Jimmy had lost his mind. No man would gamble a fortune for a chance− a mere chance– of winning her for a sennight.

But broad dark-blue shoulders were making their way through the crowd. Captain Wargate parted the men standing in front of Jimmy and without even looking at her slammed down a worn leather money bag on the table.

“I’m in.”

Chapter 2

Now the Ice Princess lived in a land far to the north where the snow and ice never melted and the winds were so cold a man's nose might very well freeze and fall off if exposed to the air for too long. Her castle was carved from drifts of snow, the huge empty halls hung with icicles and despair. The princess herself sat on a glittering throne of solid ice in the middle of a frozen lake. Her gown was of lacy frost, her crown of sharp icicles, and the icy pale oval of her face was perfect in its frozen beauty. . . .

--from The Ice Princess

He was a fool.

Isaac Wargate knew it even before his fingers left the bag of guineas. Only a fool tried to save a whore. He'd told more than one besotted sailor the same thing in innumerable ports of call, and yet he still couldn't regret placing his money on the table.

He'd felt Aphrodite tremble when this wicked game had been called.

Thus it was with much less regret than a sane man should feel that he watched Hyde snatch up six month's wages.

"Well done, sir!" crowed Jimmy Hyde. "Who else? Who else wishes to win this lovely prize?"

"Count me in," said an elderly lord. He threw a silk purse on the table.

"I as well," said a skeletal gentleman with a twisted lip. His skin looked diseased.

Suddenly there was a rush to the table, very like the churning of sharks when chum is thrown in the water. Isaac glanced at Aphrodite. If she was disturbed at being the possible prize of an old man or syphilitic she didn't show it. But then her golden mask covered her face, hiding everything but her pale green cat eyes. The mask was skillfully made, the eyeholes oval and framed by delicate gold eyelashes, the lips fashioned into a frozen golden smile. Two years he'd been coming to the Grotto to retrieve his men and he'd never once seen her without her mask.

Though sometimes in his dreams he thought he saw her face.

"This way, gentlemen," Hyde called as he led them into one of the salons.

Aphrodite strolled by his side, head erect, her movements graceful and unhurried. She appeared as composed as always, but she shot him an unreadable glance from her green cat eyes as she passed.

Isaac straightened. He hadn't imagined the way she'd sagged against him when Hyde had appeared. Dammit. She might be a whore, but she didn't want this.

He jerked his chin at Lieutenant Cranston, who'd been standing quietly by the side of the hall all this time.

Cranston came to his side. "Sir?"

"Have Smith finish rounding up the men," Isaac ordered, "and see that they make it safely back to the Challenger or whatever lodgings they've found."

"Aye, sir," Cranston replied quietly. He was a man in his third decade, the oldest and most reliable of Isaac's junior officers, and thus the man Isaac often chose to accompany him on these retrieval trips.

Cranston cleared his throat.

Isaac cocked an eyebrow at him impatiently. The other loo players had already entered the salon. "Yes?"

"Will you be wantin' me to return to, ah, help you, sir?" Cranston murmured.

"No, I think I can handle a game of chance myself, lieutenant," Isaac replied drily. "And Cranston?"

"Sir?"

"I'd appreciate it if the other officers didn't hear of this matter."

"Very good, sir," Cranston replied with a small twitch of his lips.

Isaac eyed his lieutenant a moment before grunting and entering the salon. Wonderful. Even Cranston thought him a fool.