Page 79 of Dare to Love a Duke
Tom would have been content to pass the game by—there were other sights to see at the fair, other amusements to bring a smile to Lucia’s face—but she stopped and nodded toward the booth, where a tall, thin man stood, crying to the crowd.
“I want to give it a try,” she said.
“Truly?” Tom eyed the game with suspicion. The man encouraged the crowd to throw wooden rings at weighted bottles lined up atop a bench. Poppets of different sizes were arranged between the bottles, most likely prizes for whomever managed to land the ring onto the bottles’ necks. No one, with the exception of the barker himself, was successful, men walking away with their shoulders slumped.
Yet Lucia had already plucked a coin from her reticule and approached the barker with it.
“Ah,” the man said with a knowing nod. “Want your chap to win you a prize?”
“I intend to winmyselfthe prize.”
Tom smiled to himself when the barker looked back and forth between him and Lucia with a confused look.
“Guv?”
“The lady intends to be her own champion,” Tom said. “I, for one, will not gainsay her.” He adored that about her, her determination, her need to succeed on the basis of her own strength and skill.
The barker shrugged, then held up a wooden ring. “Real simple, like. I’ll show you.” He lightly tossed the circle of wood, and it neatly fell onto the neck of the bottle. “Now you.” He offered her another ring.
“I want that one.” She pointed to the piece of wood he’d just thrown.
The barker’s forehead pleated. “They’re the same, ma’am.”
“Perhaps so,” she said levelly, “but I will use the one you just threw. And I intend to do it from where you are standing.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but Lucia kept her expression perfectly smooth. Clearly, she would not be dissuaded. After the barker retrieved the ring and handed it to her, a nearby stocky man in a tall hat paused.
“That gentry mort won’t make it,” he mused aloud while Lucia took her position.
“A pound says she does,” Tom said.
“I watched three coves give it a go,” the man in the tall hat said, “and none of ’em got the prize.”
“Then it’s a guaranteed win for you.” Tom pulled a shilling from his inside coat pocket. He glanced at Lucia, who watched him with wry amusement. “Let’s agree to it.”
“Awright.” His opponent produced a bob.
“Have we settled the wager?” Lucia asked drily.
“Go ahead, love,” Tom said.
Lucia studied the bottles as she held the ring. The barker watched her apprehensively from the other side of the booth, and it seemed that nearby vendors and members of the crowd had stopped in the middle of their activities to watch.
She pitched the ring with a careful underhand throw. Tom held his breath as it arced through the air, then caught the edge of the bottle neck. For a moment, it appeared as though the ring would bounce off. With a clatter, it swung around the neck of the bottle and settled into place.
She’d done it.
He grinned as pure delight radiated through him—as if she’d captured the moon and brought it triumphantly to Prinny, himself. And Tom was the lucky sod who happened to witness her triumph.
This trip to the fair had been an impulse, a way to distract himself from the looming pressures of life. But it was far more than that. It was an affirmation—of her resilience, and the joy that could be found tucked between the pages of the world’s weighty tome.
He wasalive.He and Lucia were alive together, shoring up the strength he needed to face the coming tempest. And it was coming.
“I’ll take that one, please,” Lucia said in a matter-of-fact voice, pointing to the poppet in a blue dress.
Not bothering to hide his smugness, Tom turned to the man in the tall hat. It served the blighter right for underestimating her. “And I’ll have my shilling, sir.”
Muttering under his breath, his opponent shoved the coin into his hand before storming off into the crowd. Never had Tom received a shilling with as much pleasure, regardless of how replete the dukedom’s coffers might be.
