“The only way I get my lesson is to wager?”
“Think of it as double the research. Lessons in gaming are an adventure many women would not pass up.”
“It’s not an adventure. It’s research. How many times must I tell you?”
“Call it whatever you like, Pippa. Either way, it’s something you desire.”
She looked to the hazard table, longing in her gaze, and he knew he’d won. “I want the gaming.”
“This is it, Pippa.”
She met his gaze. “My first lesson in temptation.”
Clever girl. “All or nothing.”
She nodded. “All.”
Clever, doomed girl.
He moved back to the table and handed her a pair of ivory dice. “On the first roll at the Angel, a seven or eleven wins. Roll a two or three, and lose.”
Her brows rose. “Only a two or three? How did I lose on a nine during our first meeting?”
He couldn’t stop his smirk. “You offered better odds; I took them.”
“I suppose I should know better, gaming with a scoundrel.”
He tilted his head toward her. “I imagine you’ve learned the lesson since.”
She met his gaze, eyes large behind her spectacles. “I’m not so sure.”
The honest words went straight through him, bringing desire and something even more base with them. Before he could reply, she was casting the dice.
“Nine,” she said. “My lucky number?”
“Already an inveterate gamer.” He collected the dice and handed them back to her. “The play is simple. Roll a nine again, and you win. Roll a seven, and you lose.”
“I thought a seven was a win.”
“Only on the first roll. Now you’ve established that your main is nine.”
She shook her head. “I don’t care for those rules. You know as well as I that the odds of rolling a seven are better than of doing the same with any other number.”
“Care for them or not, those are the rules to which you agreed when you chose hazard.”
“I didn’t chose it,” she grumbled, even as she tested the dice in her palm. She wasn’t leaving.
He leaned against the table. “Now you see why gambling is a very poor idea, indeed.”
She cut him a look. “I think it is much more likely that I see why you are a very rich man, indeed.”
He smiled. “No one forced you into the game.”
Her brows rose. “You did just that!”
“Nonsense. I gave you something to risk. Without it, there is no reward.”
She looked to the table skeptically. “I am fairly certain that there will be no reward anyway.”
“One never knows. Some espouse the benefits of Lady Luck.”
One of her golden brows rose. “A lady, is she?”
“It has to do with her being so very changeable.”
“I take no small amount of offense to that. I am in no way changeable. When I make a promise, I keep it.”
She tossed the dice, and a memory flashed of their first meeting.
I dislike dishonesty.
“Two and four,” she announced. “Six. What now?”
He lifted the dice and passed them to her again. “You roll again.”
“I have not won?”
“If it is any consolation, you have not lost, either.”
She rolled three more times, a ten, twelve, and eight, before wrinkling her nose and saying, “Why, precisely, does this make men do silly, untenable things?”
He laughed. “At the Angel, onlookers can bet on anything related to the game. The outcome of the individual roll, whether any one throw will be higher or lower than the last, the precise combination of pips on the die. When someone at the table is winning on every toss, the game becomes very exciting.”
“If you insist,” she said, sounding utterly disbelieving as she threw the dice again, rolling a six and three. “Oh!” she cried out. “A nine! I won! You see? Luck is on my side.”
She was smiling, cheeks flushed with the thrill of the win. “And now you see why men enjoy the games so well.”
She laughed and clapped her hands together. “I suppose I do! And now, I receive the answer to a question!”
“You do,” he agreed, hoping she’d keep her queries to the club.
“Who were the women outside?”
He reached for the dice. “Members.”
“Of the Angel?” she fairly squeaked, reaching out to accept the ivory weights. “I thought it was a men’s club?”
“It is more than it seems. This is not, technically, the Angel.”
Her brow furrowed. “What is it?”
“That is another question.” He nodded to her hand. “The games are more complicated upstairs, but for the purposes of our game, we shall keep with the same. You win with a nine.”
She tossed again. Six and three.
“I win again!” She crowed, smile widening into a full-on grin. He could not help matching it as he shook his head and retrieved the dice. “What is it?”
“It does not have a name. We refer to it as the Other Side. It is for ladies.”
“Which ladies?”
He handed her the dice.
She rolled a five, then a ten, then a nine. “Huzzah!” she cried, meeting his surprised gaze. “You didn’t think I would win again.”
“I confess, I did not.”