So many things she hadn’t consciously thought about. So many things she had dismissed, now all rushing to the forefront. She could remember noticing them before, and the rush of warmth inside of her, but she hadn’t thought about it. Perhaps she hadn’t let herself think about it.
Now she was thoroughly sunk. She wanted nothing more than to cross the distance between them and kiss him.
Harrison seemed as usual, however. There was no change in him. He treated her the same way that he always did, with casual warmth and teasing. He was obviously overall unaffected by what they’d done.
That hurt, a little, actually. Were all men like that? Could they all become overwhelmed in the moment and then act as though nothing had changed once it was over?
Still, nothing really had changed, had it? They were still the same. She was simply his pupil at cards. He was helping her to dig her family out of a precarious position. Nothing more.
Regina shook herself. This was ridiculous. She was proving herself to be the silly little girl that she’d always feared she was. She had no time to think about things like this. She had to focus on the cards.
“Lord Pettifer, for one, might be capable of that,” Harrison said.
Regina realized that he was answering her question and that she had missed the good first half of his answer.
“But none of them would dare in a game such as Loo,” Harrison went on.
“Do you know that for certain?” Regina wouldn’t put it past Lord Pettifer to pull a stunt like that.
Harrison seemed to read her expression, because he gave a small chuckle. “Even the likes of Pettifer wouldn’t dare. Loo is such a dangerous and popular game because of how much is up to chance. Your skill comes from how you’re able to play the others around you.”
“I thought it was about the cards.”
“It is, I suppose, but if you truly want to be good at Loo, or any other game where it’s about chance, you have to make the cards secondary. The cards serve the purpose of using the players.”
“That’s what you were trying to get me to understand when you brought your friends over last night,” Regina said. “You wanted me to figure out that I should look at how they were playing and use that instead of relying entirely on my cards.”
“Exactly.” Harrison nodded. “I was hoping that you’d figure it out on your own, and you did.”
He reached out and gently tucked her hair behind her ear, smiling proudly at her. Then his face grew more serious. “I haven’t played Pettifer directly. I’ve heard plenty about him, of course. And I saw him play against your father. So I do have a very good idea. But I don’t know his methods as well as I’d like.”
“Then it will be all on me,” Regina said, voicing her thoughts aloud. “I’ll have to figure him out as we play.”
She winced a little at the thought. Would she be able to fool him? A man who had made his living ruining others through cards? Could she keep up?
“No, none of that, now,” Harrison said. He frowned. “You have to stop beating yourself up on the inside. Don’t think I can’t tell when you’re doing it, you get this most put out look on your face. I’d say it’s adorable but I think you’d take offense.”
“I’m not—” Regina let out a huff of frustration. “It’s perfectly reasonable of me to be nervous about my abilities, isn’t it? I’m just a girl. I’m not even particularly sociable.”
“You’re intelligent and a quick learner,” Harrison replied. “That’s all you need to be. I’ll help you figure out the rest. And you’re a better liar than you think you are. You just need some coaching.”
“That’s so odd,” Regina replied, putting on a thoughtful face, “Because I could have sworn someone who looked an awful lot like you telling me last night that my emotions could be read all over my face.”
“Well, yes, that’s true, but hiding is the part that I’ll teach you. You’ve got the part where you go along with things down pat. In case you forgot the part where you didn’t panic because my friends were rude teases and put you in an awful position.
“Lying isn’t just hiding. That’s the part you have to work on and I find that delightful, because that’s what most people think it is.”
Harrison started dealing out cards as he spoke, slowly, to show her how it was done. “You’ll have to take a turn dealing so you should learn, even if you’re not going to be using it to cheat. If you deal poorly, they’ll pick up on it and see you as a weak player.
“But as I was saying, about the lying. Most people think that lying is just hiding the truth. They don’t understand the other half of it, which is going along with things. It’s redirection. Distraction.”
Regina thought about that. “So I couldn’t hide my emotions very well. But I was able to go along with it when we ended up having to pretend that we were a couple. And I could—hold my own, I suppose that you could say—with the others?”
“Yes, precisely.” Harrison handed her a hand of cards. “You were able to engage them and keep up with them. Although we had to improvise and pretend that we were a couple, none of them suspected the full truth. And that’s important.”
“Because if you can just hide your emotions, people will know something is up even if they don’t know what it is, or they won’t want to engage with you because you’ll be distant. I still want Lord Pettifer to engage with me.”
“Precisely.” Harrison smiled at her in a way she was beginning to realize meant he was proud of her. “He has to want to play you. You have to engage him and make him intrigued. He has to wonder who you are, and be convinced that he can beat you.”
A thought occurred to Regina. Lord Pettifer had once made an advance towards Bridget. What man in England hadn’t, she thought, but perhaps…
“Perhaps I should seduce him?” Regina asked. “Not truly, of course.”
The very idea of kissing Lord Pettifer made her sick to her stomach.
“But perhaps, he is rather attracted to Bridget, after all. I am told I look the most like her, in that we both resemble our mother most closely. Maybe, if I were to play up the flirtation a little, that would intrigue him more? I would remind him of someone, but with my mask on he wouldn’t know for certain who I was. It would appeal to him, I think, to be presented with a puzzle.
“Who knows, he might even believe that I am Bridget. That would certainly appeal to him. My sister appeals to everyone. And I wouldn’t confirm it, of course, I wouldn’t confirm anything about my identity but he could wonder. I could let him form his own theory and think that theory is true.”
Harrison’s brows drew together and his jaw clenched. He was unhappy, Regina realized.
“Did I say something wrong?” She asked.
Harrison shook his head. “No.” He looked at her and his face gentled. “Oh, no, Puck, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
He ran his thumb over the line of her cheekbone, soothing her. Regina leaned into the touch, almost unconsciously. She liked it when he touched her, perhaps too much.
“It is a clever idea, I have to admit,” he said, speaking quietly. “But I must also confess that I rather hate the idea of you appealing to him in any way.”