Page 23 of Gentlemen Prefer Heiresses
“I always tap the table.”
“Yes, but when you don’t have anything you use all your fingers.”
“She’s right,” Grace crowed. “How clever you are, Gina, to spot his habit so quickly.”
“You were aware I did that?” he asked. Even he hadn’t been cognizant of it.
Grace didn’t have the decency to look abashed. “Why do you think I always beat you?”
“Because you manipulate the cards.”
“I have to figure out what you’re holding in order to determine how best to manipulate them.”
He shifted his gaze back to Gina. “Perhaps we should step into the hallway and you can give me some lessons on how not to give anything away.”
He wanted to reach across the table and flatten his palm against the blush warming her cheeks.
“I think there have been enough lessons for tonight,” Grace said. “And enough gaming. We should be off.”
“Afraid I’m ready to call it a night as well,” Minerva said.
“Same here,” Avendale announced.
“Which is why I shall never marry,” Andrew said. “Marriage breeds boredom. You all serve as perfect examples. It’s not even nine.” He looked at Gina. “If you wish to stay longer, spend some time on the gaming floor, I’ll escort you home.”
“That might be viewed as inappropriate,” Grace said. “You’re a bachelor. Hardly chaperone material.”
“You’re the one who said we were family.”
“Still, we must protect her reputation.”
“I could send word to my maid to join me here,” Gina said. “If I’m on the gaming floor until she arrives, everyone will know I did nothing untoward. Then if Andrew would be kind enough to see us both home... I really would like to stay a bit longer.”
Grace looked at her husband, who merely shrugged. She glanced over at Minerva.
“I don’t see the harm,” the Duchess of Ashebury said. “Besides, spending time on the gaming floor would probably serve her courtship goals better than being hidden away in here with us. One of the nice things about the Dragons is that it provides a social environment outside of the ballrooms.”
“You’re right. I’m probably just being overprotective,” Grace said. She gave him a hard look. “Have her home by midnight. I promised Mother. You know how she worries until all the chicks are home.”
With good reason. Her chicks tended to do things they ought not, especially when temptation came in such a lovely package as Gina Hammersley did.
Oh she was a wicked girl. She hadn’t wanted to go to the gaming floor. She’d wanted to find a dark quiet place where Andrew could bestow another kiss upon her.
But Grace had escorted her to the roulette wheel before she and her husband had departed. Now she had the attention of two other gentlemen—she’d been introduced to them recently, had danced with one at the wedding ball—and knew she should be grateful for it, should relish it, but couldn’t seem to keep her attention on either gent.
Instead she was constantly looking over to where Andrew stood at a table throwing dice. She loved the way he shook the ivory, released the cubes, then looked over the heads of the people bending to see what he’d thrown and met her gaze. Even from this distance, she could see the heat in his.
“You won again, Miss Hammersley,” Lord Manville said, turning her attention back to him.
“So I did.” She gathered up her winnings, placed another wager.
“Will you be at the Waverly ball?” he asked.
She smiled at him. “Those are my plans.”
“Excellent. I should like to go ahead and claim your first dance.”
“I’ll take the second,” the other gent, Lord Benson, said.
