Lucy Ashford - One Night with a Regency Lord

Understanding that she was dismissed, Amelie made to leave. She couldn’t picture Gareth playing the child’s game, but she could always leave the spillikins in her bedroom. With hurried thanks, she gathered up the games and ran up the stairs.

‘I’ve found something,’ she called out gaily. ‘A pack of cards! Or rather Mrs Skinner found them, tucked at the back of an enormous dresser, which I don’t think has been opened for at least thirty years. Unfortunately, they smell of mothballs, but then this room isn’t exactly fresh, even with the window wide open.’

As she was speaking, she cleared the small table between them of empty glasses and medicine bottles. ‘There, a perfect card table. What shall we play? I know very few games, but I imagine you can teach me.’

‘No.’ The brusque monosyllable startled her.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I said no. I can’t teach you any card games, nor do I wish to play.’

She looked puzzled. ‘How difficult am I to understand?’ he said sharply. ‘I don’t wish to play.’

‘But it’s only a game of cards—an amusing diversion,’ she protested.

‘For the last time, I don’t wish to play.’

The familiar bleak expression had returned to Gareth’s face. His eyes were once more stony and the straight night-black brows threatening. He leaned back in his chair, detaching himself from the proceedings and refusing to meet her earnest look.

‘That’s all right,’ she said a little uncertainly. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

‘You didn’t. Just learn to take a refusal when it’s given.’

She bit back a retort. After tomorrow she would never see Gareth Wendover again. It was hardly worth quarrelling with him despite his extraordinary rudeness. But it was difficult to accept that he was the same man who had kissed her with such ardour only yesterday. He was transformed and she felt deeply wounded by the change.

‘I’ll find something else to play,’ she stammered a little shakily.

Minutes later she returned with the spillikins. The hard look on Gareth’s face had disappeared and when he saw the spillikins he laughed out loud.

‘I know you’ve been my nursemaid these past few days, but have I regressed that badly that you need to play a child’s game with me?’

‘That’s all they have downstairs, and we must make the best of it.’

She held upright the bunch of thin sticks and allowed them to fall at will. They scattered wildly across the table top.

‘The sticks coloured blue score most highly, red next, then yellow, and green are the most lowly,’ she explained.

‘I shall be lucky to pick up one stick cleanly, never mind its colour. I’ve suffered an accident, after all.’

‘You’ve sprained your ankle, not your wrist.’

‘But women are so much more dextrous, it’s hardly fair.’

‘Surely, Mr Wendover, you’re not saying that a woman can outdo you.’

‘Gareth, please. If we’re to be serious competitors, we must use first names. That way our insults, when they start flying, will be nicely personal.’

‘I’ve no intention of trading insults. It’s just a game, not a competition,’ she said carelessly.

Nevertheless, she tried very hard to win. When it came to her turn she took minutes to weigh up the arrangement of sticks before deciding which one she would try to extricate from its place without dislodging the others. Gareth had gone first and could begin with the easiest stick to lift, but once into the thick of the game, they were both forced to concentrate intently when their several turns came round. At one point, he appeared to disturb one of the sticks he was trying to avoid and she called foul.

‘I merely breathed on the stick and it moved of its own accord,’ he disputed, shaking his head in bewilderment.

She burst out laughing. ‘That’s certainly original. I’ll give you the excuse if only for sheer invention.’

He laughed back at her, his heart filled with a strange happiness. So the game went on until there was just a small pile of sticks left in the middle of the table, all thickly entangled. They were neck and neck in the number they’d managed to acquire and, faced now with the most difficult moves, they both studied the table keenly, trying to decide their best approach. In the event it was Gareth who managed to extricate his last spill without disturbing the one other that was left.

‘Voilà!’ he exclaimed.

‘Magnifique,’ she unconsciously rejoined, responding spontaneously to his skilful play.

‘A maidservant who speaks French as well as having a French name! It becomes more and more intriguing.’ He looked searchingly at her.

‘I’d hardly say that I spoke French,’ she said, desperately seeking a way of moving the conversation on to less dangerous ground.

‘Still, it’s an unusual maid who knows any French. And you are an unusual maid, aren’t you? You’re proud and independent, you speak genteelly and hold yourself like a lady. If it weren’t for your clothes, I would take you for a lady.’

From the bottom of her heart, she thanked the absent Fanny for donating her wardrobe, then set about allaying his suspicions.

‘My young mistress made a great friend of me and I learned from her how to go on.’

He considered this for a while. ‘You may have learned conduct from her but not, I think, your courage.’

‘What do you mean?’ She was disconcerted.

‘Didn’t you say that your mistress was being married off against her will?’

‘She is, but courage won’t help her. Her brother has gambled away the family’s fortune and marriage is the only way to restore it. She’s expected to make this sacrifice for her family.’

‘Quite a sacrifice! Would you make it, I wonder?’

‘I would not,’ she declared ringingly and with a vehemence that surprised him.

He looked at her as she sat across the table. Her creamy skin glowed translucent in the shadowed sunlight that filled the room and the velvet brown of her eyes blazed a fiery spirit. She had never looked more enchanting.

‘Nor should you,’ he said, his voice husky with feeling.

The atmosphere was suddenly charged with tension, their bantering mood dissipated. He should defuse the moment, he thought, make a joke, turn away. She’d already chosen to put distance between them and she was right. Instead, he rose quickly from his chair, taking no heed of the damaged ankle, and took both her hands in his. Slowly he raised her up and encircled her in his arms.

Crushed against his hard frame, she felt the same foolish impulse to melt into him; she began to tremble beneath his hands. He touched her face, her arms, and brushed across the warm silk of her breast. He gently kissed her hair, her ears, her cheek. In a moment his tongue had parted her lips and was slowly exploring the softness of her mouth. His body moved against her and she groaned softly with pleasure. She wanted to dissolve into this nameless delight, yet some voice of wisdom pulled her back to consciousness. This was a man who had come from nowhere and would go to nowhere. She would never see him again once they parted. He’d made her vulnerable, created a desire in her that she’d never before known. And desire meant weakness; she had only to think of her mother’s fate to know that. Impelled by a new urgency, she hastily pushed him away and began to tidy the scattered sticks, barely able to see them for the emotions churning within her.

‘That shouldn’t have happened.’

He was still standing close to her, his breathing ragged and his voice rough. He seemed furious with himself.

‘After yesterday I vowed I’d never again touch you.’

Distractedly, she smoothed her tumbled hair and then began to pack the last of the spillikins in their box.