Page 97 of Enticing Odds
She lifted a brow and pinned him with her sternest, most challenging look.
“Are we understood?”
Sharples worked his jaw, weighing his options. He stood to gain everything if he won, and if he lost, well, it would not be a massive loss for him, Cressida reasoned. Only one evening’s profits and the promise of lucrative blackmail.
Cressida knew the man would not walk away. Still, her heartbeat picked up, and her limbs felt light and prickly. He must accept. That was the first step.
“Very well,” he croaked from behind an off-putting smirk. “It’s a deal, then.”
Cressida smiled, this time honestly.
Now came the much more difficult—
Suddenly the door swung open. Everyone turned.
Fliss rushed in, arms flailing. “I tried to stop them, Charlie, I did,” he cried.
Two men came in behind him, and if Cressida had ever been the type of woman to swoon, she would have then.
For standing in the doorway, alongside a violent-looking man she recognized as Mr. Rickard, was none other than Matthew. Her Matthew, with a murderous look upon his face.
Oh no, Cressida silently pleaded.Not now, darling—please not now.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“My lady!” Matthew criedout in shock.
She was here. She was safe.
It was then that he fully realized how terrified he’d been; the relief he felt nearly brought him to his knees. She was safe… and yet she hadn’t come to him. Cressida stood rigidly before the hazard table, her eyes wary.
Just as suddenly as the relief had come, he now felt a pit in his stomach. She didn’t want him.
“Alright,” Rickard barked from alongside him, “what’s going on here?”
Charles Sharples was the first to move. He strutted forward, thumbs hooked under his suspenders, proud as a peacock.
“The viscountess has agreed to a final bet, as it were.”
“What?” Matthew said, dumbfounded. “My lady…”
“Yes,” Cressida said, turning back to the hazard table, hands folded. “It’s true.”
He was going to be sick.
“What’s the bet?” Rickard growled.
“Oh, nothing much,” Sharples said, drawing it out, clearly enjoying their discomfort. “Only that if I win, she’s ten thousand pounds poorer.”
Cressida flinched ever so briefly, almost imperceptibly, when Sharples said the amount.
“No,” Matthew breathed.
He refused to allow one penny of her money, of Viscount Caplin and Henry’s money, to line Charles Sharples’ pockets. The thought of it made him sick.
Matthew could not hold back any longer. He went to her, taking her hands in his.
He felt such a lump in his throat that he could barely speak.
