Page 67 of The Marquess Wins a Wife
The library was deserted, though a fire glowed in the hearth, lending a comfortable warmth to the air. Several small, neat couches were arranged throughout the room, some clearly meant to capture the light of day that would eventually come streaming through the windows, some perched near tables set with glowing lamps for reading at night. Bookshelves lined the walls, stocked with volume after volume; a collection to rival any that Lizzie had ever conceived of.
Wandering toward a shelf to scan the titles, which ranged from the innocuous to the mortifying, she said, “Really, I am a very poor gambler, and I shouldn’t like to become indebted. And it’s hardly fair to expect Luke to pay for my losses, when I’ve no money of my own.”
Selecting a particularly salacious title, Susan began to thumb through it. “Whatever else my brother is, stingy he is not. He’d stake you, if you asked him.”
Lizzie managed a rueful smile. “In fact, he was the one to warn me away from gambling.”
With a light laugh, Susan said, “Bold of him, all things considered. He’s been cheating foryears.”
The fine hairs at the nape of Lizzie’s neck lifted. “Whatever do you mean?” she asked, and heard the threads of apprehension thrumming in her voice.
“Oh, no, please—I didn’t intend to give you the wrong impression,” Susan hastened to say. “He’d never cheat in matters of honor or even for money. It’s—well, it’s just a silly little thing. He’s got this trick coin, you see, one with two faces. It was a gift from Papa, when we were just children. A curiosity he found in a shop.” A laugh rolled up her throat, her nose crinkling with her amusement. “I didn’t know about it at first. He tricked me out of my pudding for aweekbefore I discovered what he’d been up to.”
Shaken, Lizzie felt herself sway, listing backward on her feet as the blood drained from her face. A trick coin–atrick coin. And she’d never checked—because who would have bothered to do so? If the face was revealed, then ofcoursethe opposite side had to be tails. Ofcourseit would.
Heads, he had called, every single time. Each of them knowing full well what the outcome would be in advance.
“Oh, no,” Susan said, her brows drawing in concern, her mouth going slack with the shock of realization. “You—you’re not a poor gambler at all, are you?”
“No,” Lizzie said softly as she sank down upon the couch before her knees could collapse beneath her. “No, I don’t suppose I am. Only a foolish one.”
“What did he win from you?” Susan asked, settling beside her, reaching out to touch her arm.
Lizzie let her eyes close, and drew a deep, steadying breath. “Nothing important,” she said at last, and the words came out dull and toneless.
Nothing important tohim, at least.
∞∞∞
Luke stood at the side of Lizzie’s bed, staring down at the place where his wife ought to have been.Oughtto have been—it was past one in the morning already! Where the devilwasshe? Her bed had not even been disturbed, so she had never even beeninit. He’d been certain she had not had an engagement this evening, and even when shedid, she never remained out quite so late. She was always home for dinner with the family and home again by midnight at the latest, no matterwhatinvitations she had accepted.
With a furious growl, he strode back through his door, snatching up his dressing gown and casting it on before he slammed out of his room and thundered down the stairs. The household had largely wound down for the evening, but the presence of the footman stationed near the door suggested that he had been left to watch for Lizzie’s eventual return.
“Where the hell is my wife?” Luke snapped as the footman scrambled to attention, clearly perturbed to find his employer in such a state.
“I—I’m certain I don’t know, sir,” the man stammered. “Lady Sudley came around for Lady Ashworth earlier this evening. They did not specify their destination.”
“Or when they planned to return?”
“No, my lord.” Abashed, the man lowered his gaze to the floor.
Bloody everlasting hell. “Go to bed,” he snapped. “I’ll wait up for her myself.” And give her a piece of his mind besides. As the footman scampered off toward the servants’ quarters, Luke strode toward the drawing room, took hold of the nearest chair, and dragged it out into the foyer as its clawed wooden feet screeched across the marble.
Finally he settled in to wait.
And he waited.
And waited, past the light chiming of the longcase clock in the hall tolling the hour. And waited, until at last, just as the lamp the footman had left burning had begun sputtering, there was the sound of a carriage pulling to a stop outside. And he waited, temper still simmering, as the door opened, and Lizzie swept inside at last, wrapped up securely in a crimson pelisse in deference to the cold snap that the evening had brought.
She paused, startled, features going blank as she caught sight of him there, stretched out in the chair, waiting.
“Oh,” she said inanely. “I didn’t expectyou.” She glanced around for the footman, but since Luke had already dismissed him for the evening, instead she went to work on the buttons of her pelisse herself, shrugging out of the heavy garment and hanging it upon a nearby rack.
“Plainly not.” For a moment he was forced to pause and simply admire her as she was, dressed for a night out, since he had never seen it before himself. Her dark hair had been swept up, properly pinned, and framed with a velvet bandeau. A single curl had been left to drape artfully down the nape of her neck, where it dangled just above the neckline of her emerald gown. She looked elegant and sophisticated—a far cry from the woman who had once held him at gunpoint. “Where the hell have you been?” he asked. “You had no engagement this evening.”
She blinked as if the question had baffled her, a tiny frown appearing between her brows, as if she could not imagine why he might have asked—or cared. “At Ambrosia,” she said. “With Susan.”
“So late in the evening?”
