The Duke Identity (Game of Dukes #1)(5)

“God’s bollocks, they’re all doing the buttock jig,” O’Toole chortled.

Peering over, Barton sniggered. “That one’s giving ’er a green gown, ’e is!”

“Oh ho, look at this one.” Chin jiggling with delight, O’Toole pointed at the three of spades. The illustration featured a woman sitting astride a man, her back to his chest, her eyes heavy-lidded as she impaled herself on his engorged sex. “St. George is riding the dragon, eh!”

Smithers scurried over from the other side of the table. “I want to see, too!”

Men were so predictable. A bit of obscenity reduced cutthroats to giggling schoolboys. Borrowing this deck from her chum Alfred had been a stroke of inspiration. Distraction was the key to successful sharping, after all. The trio was so diverted by the fornicating figures that they failed to notice a critical fact: the cards were marked.

“Let’s play,” O’Toole said between snorts of laughter.

She nudged them into a game of vingt-et-un, with O’Toole starting as the dealer. To build his confidence, she let him win a few rounds and take fifty pounds from her. Then it came her turn to deal, and, being cautious, she gave him another round, totaling her losses to a hundred pounds. By this time, onlookers had gathered around the table, eager to watch the high-stakes play and placing their own side bets on the outcome of each round.

As the game paused for O’Toole to toast himself, a scent cut through the eau de tavern of greasy meat, stale ale, and unwashed bodies. The clean smell—soap, leather, and male—tickled her nostrils, released a rush of awareness. Without looking, she knew that the stranger was standing behind her. Unable to resist, she turned slightly in her chair and looked up.

And had to tilt her head to look farther up.

The eyes that met hers were a deep elemental brown, the color of rich earth and polished wood. The intelligence gleaming behind the wire-rimmed spectacles made her shiver. His gaze shifted to the game, and she saw where it landed: on the Knight of Spades, a rather hirsute fellow who was inserting his lance into a lady on all fours.

The stranger’s eyebrow, the one with the scar, winged upward.

She spun back around in her chair, her cheeks pulsing with heat. The cards had never discomfited her before. In truth, she’d found their absurd depravity amusing. Why, then, did they cause her insides to feel as quivery as an aspic when she saw them through the stranger’s eyes?

Shaking off her reaction, she resumed the game, dealing a face-down card for all the players.

Checking his card, O’Toole gleefully said, “I’m in for a ’undred quid.”

Barton and Smithers placed smaller bets.

Tessa passed out the second cards, face up. O’Toole’s was an eight, hers a five—a deliberate move on her part to feed his overconfidence. He went for the bait.

“Let’s make this more interesting and double the stakes, eh? Everything I got in ’ere,”—O’Toole jabbed a finger into his bulging purse—“plus all my winnings.”

“You’re certain, O’Toole?” Wetting his lips, Smithers said, “You’re already ahead—”

“Shut your bloody gob!” O’Toole glared at his crony, who fell silent, cheek twitching. “When Lady Luck spreads ’er legs, a real man don’t walk away. ’E swives ’er, and swives ’er good.”

“You tell ’im, O’Toole,” Barton crowed.

Still aware of the stranger behind her, Tessa decided it was best to hurry things to their conclusion. “Double it is.”

O’Toole shoved his pile of money forward; she matched with two hundred pounds of her own.

She dealt the third cards. The groans of Barton and Smithers came as no surprise seeing as she’d busted them, giving them both above the value of twenty-one. O’Toole received an ace of clubs; when he saw her third card, another five, his grin widened.

Chortling, O’Toole, flipped over his first card. “Ace o’ diamonds brings it to twenty for me. Pot’s mine, unless you got—”

She flipped over her hidden card.

“Mary’s tits, it’s an ace o’ hearts,” an onlooker breathed. “Wiv two fives that makes twenty-one. Tom Brown wins!”

Cheers went up. O’Toole’s face turned a violent shade of red.

Sensing the direction the wind was blowing, Tessa swept her cards and winnings into her satchel and rose. “Much obliged for the game, sirs. Now I fear I must be off—”

“Not so fast, you buggering cheat.” O’Toole surged to his feet, his glare menacing.

Uh oh. She took refuge in righteous anger. “Got no right to besmirch my good name, sir. Won fair and square, I did, and you’ve no proof elsewise.”

Murmurs of assent rose. Even among thieves, beggars, and fences, no one liked a sore loser.

“Don’t need no proof, you wily bastard. I know you fleeced me.” O’Toole jabbed a finger at her. “Barton, Smithers, get ’im!”

She made a run for it. She dodged past Barton, who was big but slow, and almost made it past Smithers. Unfortunately, the latter was quicker than he looked. He caught her arm and wrenched it, causing her to cry out.

“Got you—what the bleeding ’ell is that?” Smithers shrieked.

In a flash of champagne-colored fur, her ferret, Swift Nick, burst free of her inner pocket and dashed up to her shoulder, still imprisoned in Smithers’ grip. The animal rose on its hind legs, hissed, and sank its fangs into her attacker’s hand.