The Rogue's Wager (Sinful Brides #1)(15)

The greetings shouted his way came as if down a long hall.

There seemed to be a good deal of buzz? At the hazard table about the Marquess of Westfield’s inebriated state. He blinked. Wait. I am the Marquess of Westfield.

He frowned, rather resenting the inaccuracy. He didn’t get soused. Well, this night he’d intended to but he’d only drunk one . . . or had it been two? Mayhap three glasses . . . ? He spun back around and glanced at the empty tumbler on his table. A lone amber drop stuck on the rim of the glass. Or was it four? Surely he’d not had four?

He gave his head a shake, and then spun around so quickly all that kept him from toppling over was the edge of a faro table. The stone-faced dealer immediately dealt him in the hand.

“Thank yooou,” he slurred.

The cards blurred before his eyes. He threw down his hand. Someone slapped him on the back and a round of cheers went up at the table.

He winced. Why in hell were they cheering? The dealer shoved a pile of winnings in Robert’s direction. He blinked, bleary-eyed, at another winning hand of faro and collected his coins, stuffing them into his pocket.

The din of the gaming hell blared in his skull until his gut roiled with nausea.

Or mayhap that was too much drink.

As he wound his way through the Hell and Sin Club, he struggled to see his way through the dimly lit hall filled with the plumes of cheroot smoke. He wanted to clamp his hands over his blasted ears to blot out the raucous laughter and excited calls from around the lively tables.

He exited the gaming hell through the door leading to a winding staircase, and then up to the private suites rented out by gentlemen.

Robert swiped a hand across his eye wishing he’d stopped at half the bottle of brandy. A whole bottle was entirely too much. At least to then be expected to climb . . . he squinted . . . one, two, three, four—

Had he counted stair four already.

He cursed.

He jabbed his finger at the stairs lined in a thin, blood-red carpet. “One-twoo-threeee . . .” Oh, hell, this really wasn’t working.

Perhaps it would be easier to climb the bloody thing and count steps that way.

Robert scratched at his brow. Only . . . Why in hell am I counting stairs?

The stairway pitched and he grabbed the rail to steady himself.

Ah, right, the whole treachery business. After all, everyone eventually manipulated.

He shied away from the truth of his own flawed judgment, even all these years later, and instead fixed his attention on more pressing matters: climbing the stairs without toppling over and breaking his fool neck.

Where had he been before the whole maudlin reminiscences of Lucy Whitman?

Ah, yes . . . counting the stairs to his private rooms. He’d been counting stairs for reasons he still couldn’t recall. Robert drew in a long, slow breath and placed his foot on the first step, beginning the long, arduous ascent upwards.

Halfway up, he pitched against the wall. He clenched his eyes and willed the staircase to remain still. “Mmusnn’t realize ahm a marquess,” he scolded the steps. They shifted at his pronouncement. Yes, rather pompous of him. Nor would it do to offend those stairs any further.

He reached the main level and swayed unsteadily.

Robert cursed, throwing his arms wide to balance himself.

Then took several steps down the long, narrow corridor lit with alternating sconces at each door. He stumbled against a door.

A woman wearing a dowdy nightshift appeared at the end of the long hall. A familiar woman. Robert squinted as a memory slid through his liquor-induced haze of the Spartan-like creature at the edge of the gaming hell floor. The same Spartan-like creature who now held up her arm and—a flash of silver glittered in the dark.

He scratched his brow. Perhaps the club members below had the right of it and he’d indulged in too much drink. The woman hadn’t seemed a cutthroat earlier that night. “Are you brandishing a knife?” He winced as his voice boomed off the corridor walls.

The fiery-eyed woman narrowed on him, and then like Wellington’s men set on the charge, the slim-waisted hellion flew down the hall so quickly her nightshift and wrapper danced and flapped wildly about her slender ankles.

“Indeed,” he muttered to himself. It appeared he’d not overindulged quite as much as he’d thought a moment ago. She did, in fact, have a blade in her hand. A vicious-looking dagger that she wielded like a warrior princess.

“You there!” She stuck her blade out and wagged it in his direction. “What are you doing on this floor? These are Mr. Black’s private apartments!”

Suddenly more clearheaded than he’d been all night, Robert took a moment to evaluate the spirited tigress. With her pale, sharp features she’d never be considered a beauty. The modest nightshift accentuated the narrowness of her hips and the trimness of her waist. Yet for the otherwise drabness of the woman, a fire danced in her green eyes, lending interest to her; that shade heightened by the tight, no doubt painful, chignon at the base of her skull. Though . . . he scratched at his brow. What was the exact shade of her hair? “Neither red nor brown,” he murmured. Streaks of red in brown. Surely there was a name for such a—

The woman narrowed her eyes into thin slits. “What are you on about?” she barked, again wagging her knife.

Robert held a staying hand up. He could name all manner of wicked deeds he’d rather do with the virago than be stabbed by her. The scandal sheets would have quite a bit to say about the future Duke of Somerset being slain in the infamous club. The too-much-drink business would seem rather secondary to such a juicy morsel.