A Gentleman Undone by Cecilia Grant

past, must turn up twenty-one on the deck’s last hand and secure shuffling privileges as well as the next deal.
    Will slid his cards faceup across the table and let his hand loiter, lifting it just in time to effect a slight glancing collision between his fingertips and hers. For the first time that evening, she looked at him.
    He wouldn’t compromise her in any way. But if she was at all inclined to read him, she could not possibly mistake what was in his thoughts. I’m watching how you handle those cards. Don’t expect to make a fool of me twice .
    She gave him no reaction whatsoever. Her impassive eyes considered him the way they might consider wallpaper while her hands swept cards in from all directions. She shifted her gaze to some other man, and when she’d formed a haphazard stack, finally dropped her attention to the deck.
    Whatever trickery she employed must come now. But she only straightened the cards and shuffled, in rather stolid fashion, and passed the deck to her left neighbor to cut. Then she dealt them out, an initial card on which each man might determine his bet.
    His fingers and thumb took hold of the card at thevery place where she’d touched it, his prints mingling with hers. Ace of diamonds. Damnation. She would tempt him, wouldn’t she?
    Across the table she was studying her own card, a single slight crease in her brow. Maybe she was playing fair tonight. Maybe his warning look had done its job. Last week she’d watched the cards as she’d gathered them, and intermixed them with such care as suggested, in hindsight, some deliberate arrangement. This time she’d raked them in without looking.
    And hell. It was an ace. A sad excuse for a man he’d be if he didn’t risk a little. He pushed twenty-five pounds forward.
    A second card came round to each man and he lifted the corner to find a three of spades. Soft total of fourteen. Four, if he preferred. No chance of going over on the third card; two different paths to twenty-one. Of course if he turned up a ten next, that would change the outlook. Hard fourteen was a considerably less attractive hand.
    The fellow at his right side finished his turn and Miss Slaughter’s eyes came once more to him. “Do you care to buy another card?” she said.
    “I might twist as well, recall. Unless you’ve effected some change to the rules.” Their first words exchanged since he’d convinced her to let him follow her home. His consciousness of that fact—of their nightlong pretense to be less acquainted than they truly were—was the only possible excuse for his failing to be struck immediately by the oddity of her question.
    “Of course,” she murmured, chin dipping as though chagrined by the mistake. “Buy or twist.”
    Now it did strike him, with full force. She knew the rules. Of this he had no doubt. She’d said what she’d said on purpose: she was telling him to buy.
    For whose benefit, though? Did she mean to help him,or to amuse herself by taking him in even when he ought to know better?
    She’d brought her chin up again and watched him, all disinterested patience. Damn his sluggish instincts and her placid mask; he couldn’t read her worth a farthing. If she had his ruin in mind, her eyes and mouth showed not the smallest hint of twitchy eagerness or ruthless resolve.
    He set his head on an angle, peering at the underside of the ace. “Another, facedown,” he said, and counted out twenty-five pounds more.
    The new card dropped in and he palmed it up. Two of clubs. The back of his neck prickled as all his short hairs stood on end. Two plus three plus one made six. He was more than half the way to a five-card trick, with fifteen pips to give.
    What the devil was she about? If she’d done anything irregular to arrange this, he hadn’t seen it. Yet what were the chances he would draw three consecutive cards so low, without some manipulation on her part? He threw her a quick look but her face, as always, gave away nothing.
    Without