The Ice Princess (Princes #3.5)(5)

He glanced at Aphrodite, but her eyes were downcast. Had she slipped him the Pam? Impossible to know.

Meanwhile Lord Howling drained his glass of wine and pushed his remaining pile of coins into the pot in the middle of the table. "Night's getting late. End this, shall we?"

The skeletal man raised an eyebrow, but followed suit. He turned to Isaac, his twisted lip raised in a sneer. "I'm afraid you'll have to bow out, Captain."

"Not yet," Isaac said quietly and laid his hand down.

For a moment there was stunned silence and then Hyde began to clap. "Oh, well done, sir, well done!"

The man with the twisted lip stood abruptly, his chair falling backward. "She slipped him the Pam!"

Isaac rose slowly, his hand on his sword, his heart beating hard.

Then Lord Howling snorted. "Don't be a fool, Whistler. The captain won fairly. Let him enjoy the spoils of victory. Come, I'll stand you a bottle of wine."

Whistler went reluctantly, urged on by Howling, and Isaac didn't let go his sword until they had left the room.

"I congratulate you, sir," Hyde began. "If you want to begin your, ah, victory celebration, I can assure you--"

"Not now," Isaac interrupted the foul little man. "Have you a bag for my winnings?"

"Naturally." Jimmy Hyde smirked. "We wouldn't want guineas falling out of your pocket as you walk the East End. I'll fetch a purse for you."

He left and Isaac frowned after him, wondering if Hyde planned to have him waylaid and robbed on the way home.

"You can take Billy with you," Aphrodite murmured.

He turned back to her. She stood beside him, as lovely and wanton as always. "What?"

"Billy." She indicated a bully boy idling by the door to the salon. "He can be trusted to guard your back on the way to your ship."

"Ah. Thank you." He eyed her, wondering what was going on behind that golden mask.

She glanced down. "It is I who should thank you."

He cocked his head. "Why?"

"You know why," she said low. He'd never heard her sound so serious before. Gone was the whore who'd drawled ribald comments to him just hours before. "You gambled your own money and saved me. Thank you."

Isaac sighed. "I'm sorry to shatter your illusions of me as a bollocks-less white knight."

Her head reared back and her green eyes narrowed behind her mask. "What do you mean?"

He smiled and took her hand, bending over her white knuckles as he murmured, "Only that I fully intend to enjoy my prize."

Chapter 3

As the wind whistled through the Ice Princess's snowy halls it made a kind of music, high and sweet and strange. The Ice Princess herself seemed to sing as well, although her frozen lips never moved and her song had no words. Nevertheless, the eerie melody was carried on the north winds far and wide. Her wordless song told of longing and grief and a passion so deep it could never be fulfilled. . . .

—from The Ice Princess

Coral stared at Captain Wargate for a moment, her eyes wide behind her golden mask. It had never occurred to her that the puritanical captain would demand his prize. But wasn't he a man like any other? And all men were base fools when one came right down to it.

She straightened her shoulders. The curl of her upper lip was hidden by the mask, but her voice dripped with scorn when she said, "Of course, Captain. I wouldn't dare to deprive you of anything you'd rightfully won."

If her distain perturbed him, he made no sign. His black hawk eyes were scanning the room as if her presence hardly mattered to him. "Your graciousness overwhelms me, madam. Ah, Hyde."

This last was addressed to Jimmy who'd come strutting back into the salon with the sack Wargate had requested for his coins. Jimmy waved it in front of Wargate like a flag before a bull. "Here you are, Captain! I hope it's large enough for your winnings. Of course it doesn't fit the most delectable prize." He leered at Coral.

She stared back stonily, long since inured to Jimmy and his crass ways.

"Now, then will you be wanting guards to walk home with you?" Jimmy asked with mock sympathy. "It's dangerous hereabouts for a lone man with bulging pockets, but I think we can lend you a couple of our boys, say at a half crown each?"

"No need," Wargate snapped.

Jimmy made a fussy little moue. "I know you're a big, strong man, Captain, but remember pride goeth before a fall. Why walk alone when—"

"There's no need," Wargate interrupted Jimmy's prattle, "because I have no intention of walking back tonight. I'll claim my first night tonight."

Jimmy's eyes widened even as Coral felt her heartbeat quicken. Tonight? She'd have no time to prepare. No time to—

"Eager to taste the delights of our Aphrodite, are you?" Jimmy giggled. "I can't blame you. By all means, enjoy the spoils of victory, in fact—"

But Coral lost the last part of Jimmy's snide comments because Wargate had caught her wrist and pulled her out of the salon. He started for the stairs. His legs were long and his stride fast, so she was forced to jog alongside him, panting, her breasts jiggling ungracefully.

"I'm not a dog on a leash, Captain!" she hissed.

He stopped so abruptly she cannoned into his side, her breasts smashed against his arm, one hand braced against his broad shoulders. She caught her breath, looking up into his stern black eyes. His eyebrows were lowered disapprovingly. If he had any awareness of her bosom pressed against him, he didn't show it.