Page 43 of Hazard a Guest
Eleven.
She stared, the hairs on her neck standing up, while he simply lifted the glass and took another sip.
“So,” he said casually, “how badly did I just lose the game?”
“Joe,” she replied with no small impatience, “you just won it outright, and we haven’t even started yet.”
He grinned, that full-toothed dimpled grin that made her want to slap him and kiss him and run out of the room all at once. “Well! Maybe I’m lucky enough that I don’t need any training.”
“No one is that lucky,” she responded, sipping at the wine to try to restore the moisture to her throat. “Besides, you won’t be rolling for most of the night. You’ll do it enough to satisfy Penrose and the others, but the only way to win is by betting on others. How are you with statistics, Joe?”
“I’m a barrister,” he said with a raise of his brows, “so not very skilled, but I am an excellent student.”
“I’m sure you are,” she said weakly. “Take them up again. You can’t jostle them around like you did, or you’ll be accused of trying to weigh them. Just a little flick in your hands and then put them between your fingers before you cast.”
“Between my fingers? Like knucklebones?”
She laughed. “Yes, but let’s not tell Freddy that you’re talking about dice and knucklebones again, lest he weep.”
He laughed, a rich, comfortable laugh, and attempted to do what she was describing. The roll was less than ideal, but the dice jumping between his fingers were plenty graceful. He really had played knucklebones with dice as a child, she wagered.
“Good!” she said, finally able to smile a little, an ease creeping into her shoulders at the familiarity of this, a domain in which she was certain. “When you throw them, it should be gentle. You’re tossing them onto the felt like an offering to the gods, notcasting them off like rubbish. Release away from you, but don’tthrow.”
He made a face, doing his jostle and knucklebones move a few more times. “Like this?” he said, miming the motion.
She giggled. “No. Snap or flick your wrist. It’s dice, not a rowboat.”
He frowned at her, but it carried no weight, and attempted the roll.
Seven.
She shook her head in wonder. “I hesitate to use up any more of your good fortune here tonight,” she said. “Trust me, such things are finite.”
“Seven is good?” he asked, raising those silver-gray eyes to meet hers.
“It’s safe,” she answered, tilting her head to weigh the answer. “It’s only good if you bet on it first, which most people do.”
“Safe,” he repeated, taking up the dice again and nodding. “And we like safe?”
“We do,” she confirmed, watching him test out the physicality of the roll again.
It was making her think. Safe. Yes.
It was what he’d said, wasn’t it? That people always thought they’d got the whole of who Joe Cresson was minutes into meeting him. They saw someone steady, quiet, and safe. Unthreatening.
“Maybe,” she said carefully, her mind buzzing, “maybe I shouldn’t teach you much in the way of finesse. Not if we’re trying to swindle people.”
“I’m swindling people?” he asked, looking a little alarmed.
“Yes,” she said with a smirk. “Sort of. I’ll be outright cheating, but you just need to understand how to weigh the odds. Don’t worry, I won’t taint your soul.”
He gave a delicate cough and gave her a lopsided smile. “You can if you want to.”
She felt it then, all the blood finally making its way into her face. “Christ on a cross, Joe. Keep saying things like that and I might just do it.”
He blinked, clearly surprised, but that smile didn’t vanish. It morphed instead, curling up at the corners. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he wassmug.
She stared at him, clearing her throat and attempting to avert her eyes. “We want people to think you’re harmless,” she continued, refusing to acknowledge that her heart had just visited her toes.
