Victoria hadn’t the faintest idea what a season in London entailed, but she listened attentively as Charles described the round of balls, routs, soirées, theater parties, and Venetian breakfasts she would be attending. Her apprehension had escalated almost out of control by the time he mentioned that Caroline Collingwood would be in London for the same reason.
“... and though you didn’t seem to pay it any special note at dinner this evening,” he finished, “Lady Caroline mentioned twice that she hoped you would be going to the city so that you could continue your acquaintance there. You’ll enjoy that, will you not?”
Victoria thought she would enjoy at least that part of the season very much and she said so, but in her heart she hated to leave Wakefield and face hundreds of strangers, particularly if they were like the Kirby ladies.
“Since we’ve settled all that,” Charles concluded, opening a small drawer in the table and extracting a deck of cards, “tell me something; when your friend Andrew taught you to play cards, did he happen to teach you piquet?”
Victoria nodded.
“Excellent, let’s play that then.” When Victoria readily agreed, Charles gave her a frown of mock ferocity. “You won’t cheat, will you?”
“Absolutely not,” she promised solemnly.
He slid the deck across to her, his eyes laughing. “First, show me how good you are at dealing from the bottom. We’ll compare our techniques.”
Victoria burst out laughing. She picked up the piquet deck and the cards leapt to life in her nimble fingers, flying into place with a graceful whoosh and snap as she shuffled and reshuffled them. “First I will gull you into thinking this is your lucky night,” she explained, swiftly dealing cards two at a time until they each had twelve. Charles looked at the hand she had dealt him, then raised his eyes, regarding her with fascinated admiration. “Four kings. I’d bet a fortune on this hand.”
“You’d lose,” Victoria promised with a jaunty smile, and turned over her own cards which included four aces.
“Now let’s see how well you deal from the bottom,” Charles suggested. When she showed him, he threw back his head, laughing.
The card game they’d intended to play degenerated into a farce, with each of them taking turns dealing themselves outrageous winning hands, and the library rang with their mirth as each tried to dupe the other.
His concentration sorely disrupted by the peals of laughter coming from the library, Jason strolled in to investigate just as the ornate grandfather clock was chiming the hour of nine. Upon entering the library, he found Charles and Victoria slumped in their chairs wiping tears of hilarity from their eyes, a deck of cards on the table between them. “The stories you two are trading must be even funnier than those you told at dinner,” Jason remarked, shoving his hands into the pockets of his snug-fitting trousers and regarding them with a slightly disgruntled expression. “I can hear you laughing from my study.”
“It’s my fault,” Charles lied, shooting Victoria a sly wink as he stood up. “Victoria wishes to play a serious game of piquet and I’ve been distracting her with jokes. I can’t seem to be serious tonight. Would you sit in for a game with her?”
Victoria expected Jason to refuse but, after glancing curiously at Charles, he sat down across from her, and Charles positioned himself behind Jason’s chair. Charles stood there until Victoria glanced at him, then he gave her a laughing, eager look that clearly said, “Beat him soundly—cheat!”
Victoria was so giddy from their outrageous card tricks, including the new ones Charles had taught her, that she fell into the plan without further urging. “Would you prefer to deal or shall I?” she asked Jason innocently.
“You, by all means,” he said courteously.
Taking care to lull him into a false sense of security, Victoria shuffled the cards without any show of deftness, then began dealing them out. Jason glanced over his shoulder at Charles and asked for a glass of brandy, then he lounged back in his chair, indifferent. He lit one of the thin cheroots he occasionally enjoyed and accepted the glass Charles handed him.
“Aren’t you going to look at your cards?” Victoria asked.
Jason shoved his hands into his pockets, the cheroot clamped between his even white teeth, and leveled a speculative glance at her. “Normally, I prefer mine dealt from the top of the deck,” he drawled.
Impaled on his gaze, Victoria stifled a horrified giggle and tried to bluff. “I don’t know what you mean.”
One dark brow lifted, challenging her. “Do you know what happens to card-cheats?”
Victoria gave up all pretense of innocence. Propping her elbows on the table, she put her chin in her hands and regarded him with laughing blue eyes. “No, what?”
“The party who has been cheated issues a challenge to the party who has done the cheating, and frequently a duel is fought to settle the matter.”
“Would you like to challenge me to a duel?” Victoria ventured daringly, enjoying herself immensely.
Jason lazed in his chair, studying her laughing face and sparkling eyes while he appeared to consider the matter. “Are you as good a shot as you said you were when you threatened my life this afternoon?”
“Better,” she declared baldly.
“How are you with sabers?”
“I’ve never held one, but perhaps Lady Caroline would stand in for me. She is excellent at that sort of thing.”
The dazzling charm of Jason’s lazy white smile did odd things to Victoria’s pulse as he remarked, “I wonder what possessed me to think you and Caroline Collingwood would be safe companions.” Then he added what sounded to Victoria like a lovely compliment. “God help the London beaux this season. There isn’t going to be a heart left intact when you’re through with them.”
Victoria was still trying to recover from her astonishment at his high opinion of her effect on gentlemen when Jason straightened in his chair and became brisk. “Now, shall we have that game you were so eager for?”
When she nodded, he took the cards from her hand. “I’ll deal, if you don’t mind,” he joked. He had won three hands before Victoria saw him deftly stealing a card he needed from those he’d already discarded and shouldn’t have touched.
“You wretch!” she burst out with indignant laughter. “I’ve fallen in with a pair of bandits! I saw what you just did—you’ve been cheating while we played this hand.”