Page 30 of Hazard a Guest
She’d been terrified of that man, hadn’t she? The one who was trying to buy out her club in the most underhanded way, the one who’d refused to let her say no and was now trying to force the matter, the way some men always would when facing off against a woman.
He hadn’t thought anything scared her.
Seeing her like that, pressed against the thin pane of glass, such a feeble, horrifying guard between that magnificent woman and the perilous reality of the cliff below had nearly sent him sprinting toward her today. It had taken more than a breath of frozen horror to notice Freddy there, and then, of course, the other fellow.
Thaddeus Beck, he thought. Just who the hell was he, anyway? And how could someone like Joe protect her from something so insidious and also so perfectly, horribly legal?
She’d held his hands in the conservatory. She’d put her own fingers between his, warm and soft and cradled in the embrace of those golden skirts. She’d really touched him, with purpose. She’d wanted their fingers like that, interlaced, gripping together.
He felt the dice adjust against his ribs, as though by wondering it he’d awakened them in all their bloodthirsty, elegant fury.
Perhaps we could help, they seemed to whisper.
It was the whisper Freddy must have been hearing. All this time.
He glanced around the room for Freddy as they filed out toward the gaming tables and thought, perhaps unfairly, that his jester antics toward Owen and Hannah Lazarus were taking on a slightly more frantic air.
Would it comfort him if Joe approached and told him it would be all right? Or would it only make matters worse?
He hadn’t the faintest idea how to help, how toreallyhelp.
At least his concern had silenced those dice for now, the pair of them seeming to curl up and fall silent until such a time as their voices might be heard again.
It ended very, very badly, Freddy had told him, of once trusting the dice to Ember.
How, exactly, could it have ended badly? Especially if he got them back?
Joe sighed. No matter how fine his clothes, he was deeply out of his element in this place, with these people.
No matter how much he’d grown, he was still only himself, just like Ember had said.
So what in heaven was he meant to do with that now that he knew it? What could he do other than simply guess and hope?
If Penrose was “Faithful and Prepared,” then Joe would have to be something too.
Guessing and Hoping, he thought.
It would make a very poor crest indeed.
CHAPTER 11
“I’m not going in there,” Freddy whispered, stopping Ember short of progressing through the foyer and into the gaming room. “I can’t.”
She turned at his grasp on her arm, coming almost nose-to-nose with him, and blinked in genuine surprise. “Oh,” she said after a second. “Yes, that makes sense.”
“But Penrose,” said Freddy, grimacing.
Joe joined them, following easily as Ember gestured to an empty corner where they might talk, his thumbs hooked into the pockets of his tails.
She tried not to look at him directly, lest she begin to stare again. She needed to deal with Freddy first.
She failed at not looking, of course, but only stared for a moment.
“Penrose has plenty of guests to distract him,” she reasoned, shivering a little when Joe’s shoulder brushed hers, butotherwise remaining focused on poor Freddy. “Why would he single you out?”
“Because he said he was going to,” Joe answered easily, looking down at her. “He’s sweet on Freddy.”
“He’s notsweeton me,” Freddy retorted immediately, then paused and considered it with his head tilted. “Wait, is he? Does Penrose have a wife?”
