Then Came You (The Gamblers #1)(58)

She reached out and cut it with a trembling hand. Worthy took the top half she’d indicated and placed it beneath the other cards. With a precise gesture, slow enough that everyone could witness, he removed the top card and set it aside. Lily felt comforted by his steadiness. She watched every move he made, certain he was dealing a fair game. “Three hands of vingt-et-un,” Worthy said. “Ace valued at one or eleven, at player’s discretion.” He dealt two cards to each of them, one faceup, one facedown. Lily’s card was an eight. Alex’s, a ten.

Worthy spoke quietly. “Miss Lawson?” Being the player to his immediate left, it was her lot to play first.

Lily turned her facedown card and bit her lip as she read it. A two. Looking at Worthy, she gestured for another. He placed it next to her original cards. A nine. There was an audible reaction from the gathering—whistles and exclamations. More money changed hands in the crowd. Lily began to relax, surreptitiously pressing a gloved hand to her sweat-beaded forehead. Her total was nineteen. The odds were in her favor.

She watched as Alex turned his card. A seven, bringing his total to seventeen. He signaled for another card. Lily gave a quiet exclamation as Worthy dealt him a jack, which put him well over twenty-one. She’d won the first hand. She grinned as she felt a few impulsive slaps of congratulations on her back and shoulders. “Cheeky bastards, I haven’t won yet.” There were a few chuckles, the patrons welcoming the temporary respite from tension.

Worthy moved the cards to a discard pile and dealt a new hand. The crowd settled immediately. Lily’s total was eighteen this time. It would be folly to request another card. “Stay,” she muttered. She frowned as she glanced at Alex’s faceup card, which was a king. He turned his card in the hole, and Lily’s heart dropped. A nine. Now they’d each won a hand. She looked at Alex, who was watching her with no trace of smugness or worry, nothing but a quiet certainty that bothered her profoundly. How dare he look so composed when her entire life was poised on the fragile turn of a card?

Worthy buried the played-out hands and dealt once more. The room was unnaturally quiet, breaths held tightly. Lily looked at her card, a queen, and turned the second one. A three. She gestured for a third. Worthy dealt her a seven. Her total was twenty!

“Thank God.” She grinned at Alex, silently daring him to beat it. She was going to win. With relief and joy, she thought of the fifteen thousand pounds. Perhaps that large a sum might even be enough to bribe Giuseppe to relinquish Nicole for good. At the very least, it would buy her time. And she would be able to rehire the detective she had been forced to dismiss for lack of money. She was flushed with triumph as she watched Alex. His first card was a ten. Gently he flipped over the second.

Ace of hearts.

His gray eyes lifted to Lily’s astonished face. “Twenty-one.”

A natural.

There was absolute silence. Derek was the first to speak. “ ’Oisted with ’er own petard,” he observed mildly.

Then the multitude raised a cry that sounded as if some primal jungle rite were taking place. “End of play, game to Lord Raiford,” Worthy said, but his pronouncement was lost in the uproar. The guests behaved like a tribe of primitive savages rather than civilized English gentlemen. Spilled liquor and wadded paper covered the carpet. Alex was subjected to crushing handshakes and vigorous blows to his back and arms, while Foka tried to anoint him by pouring vodka on his head. He ducked to avoid the splash of liquor, then came up in search of Lily. With a muffled sound of denial she had slipped through the gathering, making her way to one of the massive doorways. “Lily!” Alex tried to follow, but the tightly packed crowd made it impossible. He swore as she disappeared from sight.

Lily fled with bone-shaking, stomach-heaving haste, too terrified to watch where she was going. Suddenly she slammed into a hard object that knocked the breath from her. She made a sick sound and gasped for air, beginning to collapse to the floor. Derek, who had blocked her mad flight with his own body, seized her and held her upright. He stared at her with eyes like green ice.

“Let me go,” she wheezed.

“Women ’as no pride. Trying to cut an’ run, are you? Chicken-’earted wench.”

Lily grasped imploringly at his unyielding arms. “Derek, I can’t do this, I can’t—”

“You will. Nofing to it. You’ll honor your bet, gypsy, if I ’as to drag you to bed myself. An’ if you leaves, I’ll bring you back. Now go to my apartments an’ wait for ’im.”

“Why here? I…I’d rather go to my terrace.”

“You does it ’ere so I know you ’asn’t welshed.”

“No.” She shook her head dumbly, tears ready to fall. “No.”

Suddenly Derek changed, bewildering her with a tender smile. “No? Too late for that, gypsy. ’Tis a big lump, but you ’as to take it.” His voice turned quiet and kind, as if he were speaking to a headstrong child. “If you don’t honor the bet, no place in London would let you play—not Craven’s, not even the lowest gaming ’ell in Thieves’ Kitchen.”

“Why didn’t you stop me back there?” Lily burst out, her teeth chattering. “If you cared anything about me, you wouldn’t have let it happen! You should have kept me from getting into this mess—he’s going to hurt me, Derek, you don’t understand—”