Wicked, My Love (17 page)

People had gathered around the table to watch. After two more hands, she had a three-hundred-pound bet sitting on the table. Her entire body quivered, akin to when Randall played upon her nipple. She held a five to her chest, and a ten was showing. A six of hearts, an ace and a seven of clubs, and a jack of diamonds were still out, as well as several low cards in various suits.

“This is what it's all about,” she heard herself say, the wine and excitement loosening her lips. “Do you feel it?” she asked Harding. “The power? The rush?” She took a deep breath through her nose, her breasts straining against the tight, low bodice.

“Oh, sweet God, I do feel a rush,” Harding said. Behind him, Randall cursed.

“At this moment”—Isabella gestured about her—“everything is possible. I love this feeling. I love it. There is no playing it safe now. In an instant, all could be realized or lost. Still, you want to stay in this moment, keep this excitement, this energy a little longer.” She gazed up at the chandelier and sucked in another deep breath, feeling the tilt of the earth, the pull of the fat moon, and the charge of the air. “I'll take another card,” she whispered.

An electric murmur ran through the crowd; then the guests settled into a tense silence. Spinkell slid the card across the green velvet covered table. She kept it down, refusing to look at it, but rubbed it tenderly with her index finger. Spinkell turned his cards: a jack, three, and seven. Twenty. Randall and Harding tossed in their cards.

Isabella slowly set the five of diamonds, which she had kept hidden to her breast, beside the ten showing. She removed her glasses, blurring her world, and reached for the remaining card. She flipped it. The room went dead silent.

“I think I'm in love,” Harding said.

Wild cheering erupted. She felt an arm go around her neck and warm lips found hers. They didn't induce the body-throbbing, world-stopping, thousand-shooting-stars passion that Randall's lips did, but they were cozy and tasted of red wine and made her sigh, wanting to linger in their warmth.

***

Randall saw Harding put his filthy mouth on Isabella's. Blurry, black spots clouded his vision. He bolted from his chair, sending Cecelia stumbling a few steps. He grabbed the railroad man's shoulder. “I told you not to touch her, you arse.” Randall ripped the rogue away from Isabella.

She gazed up at the viscount, her enormous eyes all inky and unfocused, her soft lips parted, the edge of her pink tongue just visible. His heart squeezed.
How
could
you
do
this
to
me?

In a twinkling, Harding's trio of yahoos was at their employer's side.

“I believe Lord Randall is a little upset.” Harding laughed, slicking his hand over the side of his head. “It's not my fault she prefers me, old boy. I'm more her style. Now take Cecelia and leave us alone.”

“I don't want…”
Cecelia.
What had Randall's stupid masculine pride driven him to? “Dammit, I told you that they were both my mistresses.”

“I'm not sharing you…with…with…
that
hideous woman.” Cecelia lunged at Isabella, sending her tumbling off her chair. She grabbed the net of gems in Isabella's hair and tried to rip it out. “These are mine. He is mine.”

Guests began clapping and stomping. “Totty brawl! Totty brawl! Totty brawl!”

Isabella, who wasn't wearing her glasses, hadn't seen the vixen coming in time. “Ouch! She's hurting me,” she shrieked, trying to pull away, but the jealous actress held tight to the headpiece.

Isabella shoved Cecelia, sending her reeling into Randall. In her tiny, wiry fingers, the actress gripped a jeweled net hairpiece with tufts of black hair dangling from it. “You get out of my dress, you…you…
blind tart!”

“Totty brawl! Totty brawl! Totty brawl!”

“Make her go away,” Isabella screamed, fumbling about the floor, her tresses loose. Randall tried to help her, but Cecelia huddled, all weepy, against his chest, blocking him. Harding reached Isabella first, drawing her into a protective embrace.

“Get that banshee out of here,” the railroad baron hissed at Randall. “She's all yours. Congratulations.”

Spinkell handed Isabella her spectacles.

“Thank you.” She sniffed, coming to her feet with Harding's aid.

“This has been a most exciting evening.” The dealer bowed. “Good night, gentlemen, ladies.”

“Wait, I need to talk to you,” Isabella and Randall said in unison.

“No, no, you're not talking to anyone,” Randall told her, trying to disentangle himself from Cecelia—dear God, it seemed like the crazy woman had a dozen arms. She was a bloody octopus. “You're g
oing home.”

“You don't hold that trollop and tell me what to do.” Isabella eyes, now magnified, were hot and sharp, and Harding's arm around her was strong and flexed.

Damn
Cecelia, damn Harding, and damn Isabella.
Especially damn her. How could she hold on to the very man trying to destroy him?

Randall watched Harding take her elbow, an intimate, predatory smile lazing on his mouth, as he led her away. “Love, you've got to tell me where you've been hiding all this time.”

For years, she had been Randall's homely, awkward, and clumsy childhood nemesis, but suddenly she was a radiant flower. Harding had discerned in a matter of minutes her creamy breasts and stunning figure…and lovely smile…and gambling prowess…and brains…
and
bloody
hell!

Isabella tried to reach back for Spinkell. “But I need to talk to—”

“Me,” Harding finished her words, drawing her captive to his chest. “You need to talk to me and no one else here.”

“I'll just be around the bar if anyone wants to see me,” Spinkell announced, and drifted off in the opposite direction.

Randall released a deep, soul-wrenching “Bugger!” He didn't know a thing about Spinkell. Where did he live? What did he do when he wasn't dealing? Meanwhile, he knew where Isabella would be staying tonight…and alone. He was going to make damned sure of it. Until then, she wasn't leaving his sight.

Isabella glanced over Harding's shoulder, flashing Randall a hot look that said “Go ask him about Powers, you idiot,” jerked her head toward the retreating Spinkell, and then returned her attention
to Harding.

Cecelia wrapped her fingers around Randall's elbow. “I look better in that dress than she does.”

It took every bit of Randall's restraint not to say that Isabella looked a thousand times better in and out of that dress and any other dress. “Darling, why don't you order a bottle of wine and find a dark table?” he said, trying to put her someplace while he went af
ter Spinkell.

Cecelia gave a purring laugh, raised onto her tiptoes to whisper in his ear something about the best love he had ever experienced, all night long, oil, licking, beads, climaxing over and over, and…
Would
she
just
be
quiet!
Across the room, the railroad baron had drawn a chair next to Isabella's. She laughed, that silvery, head-tossing kind, and then wound a strand of hair around her finger. Was she flirting? No, because Isabella didn't know how to flirt. Then she bit her lower lip and gazed coyly at Harding from under her lashes. Oh, that was definitely flirting. Randall couldn't miss it; her lenses magnified the blatant act.

Just
get
what
you
need
from
Spinkell, then march Isabella back to her hotel and throttle her…or kiss her…or fuck her…

“Are you even listening to me, Randall?” Ce
celia demanded.

“Sounds well enough, w-whatever you want,” he stammered, not quite sure what love acts he was committing himself to. “Just excuse me.” He made a beeline for the bar.

***

Spinkell stood at a round table by the bar's side, near the entrance to the back stairs. Away from the gaming table, his energy was more frenetic. He ran his hands through his hair and sipped from a glass of ale. He bowed as Randall approached. “I think you can see
both
your mistresses from this vantage,” he said. “The one you don't want anymore and the perfect one you just lost.”

He chuckled, but Randall didn't think anything was funny. Under normal circumstances, the viscount would have tried to ingratiate himself with Spinkell, shown him what a fun, easygoing, everyday chap he could be. But he didn't have the time, what with Isabella learning to flirt and the devil as her tutor. Her words last evening in the train station echoed in Randall's mind:
I
can't help wanting to feel, to see, to know a man. I'm so desperate in my desire.
He put three crowns on the table.

“About two months ago, you dealt to a man named Anthony Powers.” Randall described Powers, moles and all. “He lost a great deal that night.”

Spinkell looked at the money. His lips protruded where he ran his tongue over his upper teeth. “Many men lose here,” he said slowly. “I can't remember them all.”

Randall added a coin atop the others.

“I remember him now. He kept flirting with the women, something about some cat game. A bit of a queer bird.”

Across the room, Harding was pulling the stray pins from Isabella's hair. She giggled, all flushed and flustered. She had better not be explaining her economic theories or talking about her promising openings with that scoundrel.

“Was Powers supposed to lose?” Randall made the tower of coins a little higher.

Spinkell's lip twitched just the slightest. He rubbed his mouth. “Look, I need this job. My wife just had a baby. I can't…”

Two gold sovereigns were added. “Congratulations on the addition.”

The dealer released a long, uneasy breath. “Sometimes the manager has a special request.”

Harding had removed Isabella's glasses and was making a game of moving them around the table, just beyond her reach. As she patted about, searching for her spectacles, the railroad bumhole enjoyed the fine view down her bodice.

“Do you have any idea who wanted Powers to lose?” Randall managed to say through a clenched jaw. He was blindly throwing money on the table at this point.
Pop
it
out, Spinkell. I've got to murder someone.

The dealer's throat contracted with his swallow. He glanced off in the direction of Harding and Isabella.

Harding ran his finger down one of her locks and then drew tiny circles on her collarbone, dangerously close to Randall's breasts. Technically, the lovely mounds were on Isabella's body. But Randall had been the first man to discover them, so he claimed them like some wilderness explorer.

“You might want to rescue Miss Izzy May.” Spinkell looked dead level at Randall and spoke slowly. “I wouldn't trust Harding or his men.” He swept the money from the table in an easy motion and slipped behind the door to the back stairs.

“Goddammit, I knew it.” Randall stomped across the room. Harding's muscled triplets came forward to stop him. Randall shrugged them off, too scorching angry to be intimidated.

“Get your bloody hands off her,” he growled at Harding. “She's my mistress, under my protection. And I
will
protect her.” He drew his coat back, revealing a pistol peeking above the waist of his trousers. “If you have a problem, we can settle it as gentlemen.”

“What's happening?” Isabella cried. “Where are my glasses?” She beat on the wood with her palms, locating them across the table. She jammed them on her face and gasped. “Randall, w-what are you doing? Put your gun away.”

“Gun?” several men in the club repeated. Whispers blazed through the room, and then all heads turned, breaths bated.

Harding's easy expression drained from his face, leaving the cold hardness beneath. He slowly rose and put his hands on his hips, his gold poppy chain glinting in the chandelier light. “Son, you should know I'm not going to back down from a fight. Nor am I going to lose. Are you certain you know what you're proposing? I'm giving you thirty seconds to reconsider how you want to end your life.”

“Let me talk to him,” Isabella pleaded. “Please. Just for a minute.” When Harding didn't budge, she slipped onto the floor and under the table. “Come, Randall,” she said, crawling out the other side. “I'll just be a moment,” she told Harding. “Please, wait for me.” She clasped Randall's elbow and tried dragging him toward the stairs. But Randall was ready to fight, with his fists, gun, chairs, wine bottles, utensils, whatever weapon he could make. His body quaked with pent-up violence. The world would be a considerably better place with Harding removed from it. Then a screaming ball of blue silk and blond hair shot from the crowd.

“He's mine,” Cecelia screamed. She grabbed Isabella's bodice. “Get out of my dress.” She yanked, ripping the fabric, uncovering a white, lacy corset.

“Totty brawl! Totty brawl! Totty brawl!” the crowd began chanting again.

Cecelia held a square of red silk in her fist, her teeth gnashing. “You are not going with him, you blind, ugly bitch.”

The last shred of Randall's restraint broke. “You're the ugly—”

Isabella pressed the back of her hand on his chest, halting his words. “Hand me your gun,” she said with creamy menace. “We're going to settle this problem like gentle ladies.”

Cecelia shrieked and fled. “She's cracked. She's mad. She wants to kill me.”

Isabella straightened her back, smoothed her torn gown, and turned on her heel. “Come, Randall.”
Totty
brawl, indeed.