Page 24 of The Secret of Flirting
“Excellent,” Hart said, brightening as he shuffled. “Another victim.”
“I wouldn’t count on that. Vingt-un is my game.”
“We’ll see.” Hart handed the cards over to Gregory. “Stake of five pounds per hand?”
“I take it you need money,” Gregory said. When Hart looked grim and cut the cards, Gregory added, “I have a better way for you to make it than vingt-un.”
Hart lifted his head. “I’m listening.”
“I need you to do something for me. It’s important, which means—”
“Excellent compensation,” Hart drawled. “I’m in.”
“Don’t you want to know what it is first?”
“No. I still owe Warren a bit of blunt for helping me pay off my debt to Brilliana for— It doesn’t matter. Suffice it to say, I don’t want that hanging over my head, even if heismy brother and unlikely to call in the bet.”
“It’s a matter of honor.”
Hart nodded as he turned one card up.
“Very well.” Gregory turned his up, too, then shrugged when he lost the chance to deal. “Do you remember that actress we met in Dieppe? Monique Servais?”
Hart gathered up the cards. “I should say so. How could I forget the only woman to have put the great Lord Fulkham in his place?”
“As I recall, she rebuffed you, too, old chap.”
“She did not,” Hart said. “I rebuffedherby running after you instead.”
“If you say so.” Gregory paused to watch Hart deal. “To be honest, most of that night is a blur.”
It took a minute for those words to register with Hart, but when they did, he turned instantly contrite. “Oh, God, I forgot. That’s when you found out about—”
“John. Yes.”
Some weeks after that horrible night, Gregory had learned the full extent of what had happened to his brother. John had ignored the advice of his superior. Instead of waiting a week until the officer they’d been watching was away on maneuvers, he’d searched the officer’s tent for a certain treasonous letter while the man was supposedly in the mess.
Except that their suspecthadn’tbeen in the mess. John had been caught. Or so his superior surmised, after the fool’s body turned up in a ditch with his throat slashed.
It had been little consolation to Gregory that the officer had eventually been charged with murder, and later with treason once his tent was successfully searched and the letter found. John was still dead. Gregory had still failed him.
He thrust that thought to the back of his mind.
“So what’s this about Mademoiselle Servais?” Hart asked.
“I think she’s in town.”
Hart eyed him askance. “What do you mean, youthink?”
“I believe she’s masquerading as the Princess de Chanay.”
With a low whistle, Hart dealt himself a card that brought him to fifteen. “That would be quite a feat, wouldn’t you say?”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.” Gregory made a motion to indicate he meant to stand at nineteen. “It seems that the two women resemble each other.”
Hart dealt himself another card and passed twenty-one. Shoving a five-pound note across the table, he listened as Gregory gathered up the cards and began to relate everything he’d noticed at the royal dinner, every suspicion he’d had about Princess Aurore. Of course, he refrained from speaking of their kisses. No need to mentionthose.
When Hart began to pepper him with questions, their card game was forgotten. And the man’s skeptical remarks made him doubt his own theories.
