She leaned back into the cushions as well, pulling the edge of his cloak through her fingers, drinking in his expressions. "Where are you taking me, leader of my follies?"

He put his boot heel on the edge of his seat. A move that would cause a society matron an attack. "Family card game."

She blinked. "Pardon me?"

He spread his arms wide. "You said you didn't know me last night."

Something thrilling and downright terrifying ran through her. Even if she had meant that statement in reference to herself at the time, here he was offering up part of himself.

She opened her mouth, but nothing emerged. Her entire being shut down by the ecstasy and terror pulling at each other.

"There is no fear for your reputation as none of the players will utter a word about you. And I thought you might like to get to know Andreas better. Would be good for him too, liking someone in society." He looked amused at some private joke, the heel of his boot grinding into the edge of the seat, back and forth.

She didn't respond, as doing so would just produce stuttering.

"He doesn't bite too hard, I promise," Roman a.s.sured her, and for the first time she had met him, he sounded earnest. Her world flipped again.

"I . . . I don't play cards."

"Not at all?"

She swallowed. She rarely admitted it. For many ladies played cards just as hard, or harder, than some of their male counterparts. And solid contacts existed in the game parlors.

But when asked to play, she always demurred.

"I hate them." She looked away, clenching her fingers in the fabric of his cloak. Why had she divulged that? She met his eyes, determined to revive their banter, but stopped. It was unnerving, his complete lack of surprise.

"Of course you hate them. But you've never really played, have you?"

"My father tried to teach me to play whist long ago." She had stubbornly refused to show any apt.i.tude for it. She knew it was childish, but it had been something in her control, and she'd needed the outlet.

"Yes, and your desire to abstain in no way stems from your irresponsible father's decisions. I am happy you do not let his idiocy rule your choices."

She sighed. "Will you not let me have my immaturity?"

"Not in this." His smile was dangerously cheerful once more.

Maybe . . . "You play for money."

"Nothing to worry about." He waved a hand. "And you'll do wonderfully. I'll help."

She grimaced, but nodded to satiate him. Once play began, and he was immersed like her father, she could retreat to watch and keep at least one of her comforting, old standards of control in place.

She pulled up the hood of the cloak when the carriage rolled to a stop. Roman said something to the driver after he helped her dismount, then led her through the back door, where they were immediately beset. Five boys stood there, three hopping and nearly bursting at the seams.

"Sir, sir, there is a run on table four," a small boy said.

"And that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Treverly is cheating again, but Jimmy can't catch how he's doing it," a larger one eagerly spoke up.

"-Gimling's up. Charity has the rue. Tyson can't be found."

"-Bernie's drunk."

"-Captain Stabley punched Johnny Tinsdale. In the groin. "

"-We ran out of Popler's."

Roman let go of her hand and clapped his hard. "Boys."

There was immediate silence.

"What night is it?" His voice was deceptively even.

Eyes widened, and nervous looks ensued. A few curious gazes finally turned her way, trying to pierce through the shadows of her hood.

"Sir?" The largest boy seemed to accept the task of voicing the single question.

"Shut down four, tell Jimmy to watch the side, have Gimling deal with Charity, Tyson will be here at three, ring Bernie's bell-hard." He barked the last. "Take the pitch off Tinsdale, send to the highway for more, and for the love of cheating St. Nick, go to Donald with these ."

They hopped to, the smallest one, with a jagged scar the breadth of his forehead, even sent a cheeky salute as his tiny frame disappeared through the door to the h.e.l.l proper. Loud voices and the clink of chips rose, then muted as the door swung shut.

Roman shook his head in annoyance, though there had been something oddly pleased in his eyes for a moment at the smallest boy's cheek. He took her hand and led her up the stairs. She said nothing, nerves grabbing hold of her again. Pushing down thoughts and desires.

They walked through the hall, opening that same door he had unlocked so many weeks ago. She could hear voices as he pushed it open and ushered her inside.

All talk stopped as three heads turned their way. The click of the door engaging sounded like a gunshot in the silence. Only long practice stopped Charlotte from shifting. She concentrated on the darkest gaze. Andreas Merrick looked coldly furious.

"Good evening," Roman said, drawing next to and slightly ahead of her, enough so that she could see him in her peripheral vision, a wide smile on his face.

She couldn't move, though. Couldn't understand how Roman didn't feel at least a little intimidated by the stare the darker man leveled upon him.

"Indigestion again, Andreas? Shall I have one of the boys make a remedy? The lot of them would be overeager at best." Roman tossed his keys to a side table and blithely moved forward, grabbing a side chair by its wooden top.

The scraaaaaape of the chair echoed long and uncomfortably as he pulled it excruciatingly across the floor. It took what felt like an eternity to drag it into place. He blithely nudged Bill's chair leg with his foot, and the one-eyed man snapped to sudden attention, scooting his chair over to make room.

Roman gave him a blinding smile, then sprawled in the added chair.

Silence reigned. The three men stared at him, then the two men-not including Andreas-shot surrept.i.tious looks to her. She couldn't see what Andreas's facial expression was, but she was pretty sure it was unpleasant. Roman smiled at him cheerfully.

The silence was obvious. Roman was one over from the chair he had occupied that first night-and the other nights they had spent together here. Reserving his chair for her.

She swallowed. What was he doing? What was she doing? But Roman gave her that slow smile, the one that always did funny things to her insides-that intimated she was the only woman alive to him-and somehow her feet moved her forward, her hands shaking as they pushed back her hood, fingers lingering for a moment before dropping.

"Charlotte, this is Milton Fox, who manages things for us." Roman indicated the auburn-haired, beefy man, who was gawking at her though trying to be surrept.i.tious about it.

She stopped beside Roman and felt warm, familiar hands reach up to help her out of the cloak, folding it behind her, but she could barely acknowledge the actions as she woodenly sat.

"And you've met Andreas and One-eye." Roman seemed more than a little amused as he waved a now-free hand at the others, hiding any smile as he bent his head to gather chips at the side.

"Good evening, milady." Bill nodded his head to her. "Nice to see you again. You look quite fetching. Like a golden statue."

"No," Roman said, face hidden as he picked up chips. "More like one of those golden, snowy birds, don't you think, One-eye? The ones that sing so prettily when you let them free?"

Bill blinked. "Of course. That too, milady."

She swallowed around the block in her throat, looking at Roman's bent head.

"It is nice to see you as well . . . Bill." She had no idea what the man's last name was, but she sure as December wasn't calling him One-eye. "And thank you for the compliment. Please, call me Charlotte. I'm not a lady."

Well, that had not come out quite as she'd intended. Luckily, the other two men-she couldn't bear to look at Andreas-were too kind to say anything, but Roman chuckled and slipped a gla.s.s of the calming drink in front of her, then started stacking chips in front of them both.

Bill's eyebrow rose at the drink, so blithely placed, then at the piles, and he shuffled his hands together in glee. "Good pots tonight." Milton also smirked.

Charlotte had no idea what the chips meant, but whatever they were, the amount was more than she had. Which made her refusal easy. She curled her hand around the short gla.s.s. "Oh, I'm simply watching."

"You are doing no such thing. You will play with these." Roman indicated the stacks he had formed.

She looked uneasily at the chips, then at the faces surrounding her. Bill nodded encouragingly, eye drifting happily to the stacks in front of her. Milton nodded as well. Andreas militantly stacked his chips in small piles with one hand, his other arm hanging over the chair back. It was an oddly informal posture on the dark-haired man. His dark eyes suddenly lifted and caught hers. Fathomless pools of black menace. Threatening her with something dire.

She jumped a bit at the look. She turned to Roman to tell him that she couldn't play with money she didn't have, and was surprised to see his eyes narrowed dangerously at the man across the table. She swallowed and looked back to see Andreas casually stacking his chips in larger piles, looking nonchalant, as if nothing notable had occurred.

"Now, who is dealing first?" Roman asked.

Her mouth opened again to tell him that she wasn't going to play, and his hand clamped around her thigh, his eyes piercing hers. Her lips stayed parted, and she could see in her periphery that Bill quickly took up the cards. Dealing five piles.

And still she couldn't pull her eyes from Roman's. Couldn't pull her thoughts away from his hand. Undoubtedly, each of the other three people at the table could see his hand or otherwise knew where it was placed. She was so used to any physical gesture simply being between the two of them-she was so used to having almost no physical contact with anyone in public, period-that her mind froze.

Her eyes broke free, and her hands automatically raked in the cards piled in front of her. His warm hand squeezed her thigh in approval, then lifted.

Well, when she lost all of his money in the next five minutes, he would realize his folly. It had been idiocy staking her a small fortune, judging by the looks of the piles.

Still, her pride made her think of the money as her own. So when he peeked over her shoulder, then leaned forward and threw in a few more of her chips, she balked. "What are you doing?" she hissed, raking them back. She didn't know what they were playing, or what she had, but that wasn't important. "Are you playing, or am I?"

His brows rose, and she heard Bill snicker.

And such was how the games went, though she reluctantly accepted Roman's advice more times than not. She ended up doing much better when she did, unsurprisingly-her piles dwindling due to her inexperience, especially surrounded by sharps, but filling out when she followed his pointed suggestions. He patiently explained each new game, usually tweaking the others as he did so.

"Bill can hardly play Loo without reminiscing about his uncle. The memories get him nice and drunk, and you can then pluck whatever you need from his dwindling chips."

"Andreas thinks Speculation involves deciding which frown to use. I think his 'dire things will happen to you for making that comment' frown is especially nice, don't you?"

"Milton still maintains a prost.i.tute gave him Vingt-et-un. We keep trying to tell him it was his sister, but he won't listen. See?"

"Commerce is a bore, but Andreas doesn't know how to have fun, so we pity him and play it. Milton will never admit it, but he hates the game with a pa.s.sion. Andreas will never admit it, but he encourages us to play so Milton's trousers get in a twist. Bill will never admit that he finds their bickering amusing and cheats shamelessly when they do it. And I will never admit that I instigate half of it."

Even with Andreas being barely civil, playing was surprisingly fun, though frighteningly fierce, at times. For people who called it a "family game," they played like they would eat the others alive if given the opportunity. Even Bill, who had been more willing to bet kindly against her at the beginning; once she started following Roman's advice, he eagerly joined the bloodbath, including her in the letting.

Her mind had stopped working properly when she realized the first pot had been three hundred pounds and that it was considered "measly." She had decided that the better part of retaining her sanity lay in playing as if it were all an illusion of chips and paper.

Though that was likely how her father got into trouble, and she then had to banish that thought as well.

In the course of events, her coiffure had lost its shape, and one of the short locks around her face kept slipping into her eyes. She finally gave in and brushed it away, trying to tuck it behind her ear. Without looking away from his cards, Roman reached into his pocket and handed her a fresh clip. It was one of hers, likely forgotten at some point in the past. He always had one handy.

She smiled and took it from him. "Thank you."

She opened the pin in her teeth and pushed her hair into place, her eyes automatically looking up as she withdrew the pin from her lips to secure it. She froze as every eye but Roman's was on her. She swallowed and clasped the pin in place, breath coming too fast as she blindly gathered her cards.

"Interesting little bauble to have in your pocket, Roman," Andreas said.

"Hmmm?" He was examining his cards, which she had quickly figured out meant he wanted the others to think it was a good hand-whether it was or not. It was a frustrating tactic to a beginner like she, because he just as often did nothing when he had a good or bad hand, and she had wrongly a.s.sumed otherwise at first, thinking she had him figured out. "Charlotte always forgets one when she needs it most."

"It is very fetching on you, milady." Bill looked over the top of his cards nervously-looking from Andreas to Charlotte, then back again.

She swallowed, but Roman seemed as if he wasn't paying attention to the undertones. "Thank you, Bill," she said.

"I didn't realize you were such a connoisseur of women's accessories, Bill," Andreas said unpleasantly.

She narrowed her eyes at Roman's brother, but Bill didn't seem to take offense. "Spiffing lady needs a few shinies. Though some don't need nothing to make them pretty. Like milady here. Good stock."

Charlotte blinked.

Bill addressed himself conspiratorially to Milton over his cards. "Mother is quite a shiner."

Charlotte's hand jolted.

Roman pinched the bridge of his nose and pushed his fingers out and over his closed lids. "So that was it. I swear, if I had ended up there instead, you'd be called One-arm."

Bill looked at his cards, affronted. "Got it right, didn't I?" he muttered. "Didn't see you complaining after."

Charlotte looked from one to the other. "What-?"

Roman waved her question away and smiled charmingly. "Nothing."

She looked back at her cards, willing to let it slide for now, too caught up in the fact that Bill might fancy her mother-her mother, who knew about- no don't think of her in anything but the abstract. No one fancied Viola, she was far too cold. Like . . . like Charlotte.

Andreas snorted, and the uncharacteristic noise made her look at him. There was malice in his gaze as he looked at his brother. "Works on her too, does it? For now." His dark gaze swung to her, almost dismissively. "They are speaking of watching your house to determine the location of your bedroom." His voice was snide. "Roman can't be a.r.s.ed to solve such things himself."

She looked at her cards for a second, deciding how to play the verbal hand; how to deal with the thick tension in the room. She looked at Bill, and said lightly, "You watched my house?"

"No, obviously One-eye watched your mother, " Roman said lightly, as if unaffected by Andreas's words, but the edges of his cards curled.

Bill leaned toward her over the cards bent to his chest. "What kinds of flowers does your mum like?"

Charlotte stared at him, uncomprehending for a moment. "You want to know what type of flowers my mother likes?"

He wanted to know what sort of flowers frigid Viola Chatsworth liked?

Bill looked abashed at whatever he read in her face, and leaned back, shuffling his cards. "Awk. No, never mind me. Mouth has a mind of its own sometimes."