But then Simon won the second hand.
Although, just barely.
“Let me shuffle before we cut for deal,” she said, looking for whatever advantage she might considering the dead heat. Rolling up the sleeves of her robe, she gently flexed her wrists and shuffled.
They cut for dealer.
Hers was high, her advantage again.
Five minutes later, she was twenty points ahead and permitting herself to indulge in the smallest degree of elation.
Simon was about to lay down his last cards.
He glanced at her as he placed them on the table. “Quartorze, ”he said, softly, spreading out four kings.
Sweeping the cards from the table in a rage, she jumped to her feet and stormed out of the room. It was a childish reaction of course; she fully realized it. But fifty-six points! Four kings! How bloody rare was that? she fumed. Must he always win? Would she always lose? Had he cheated? she suddenly wondered. And if it would have made an iota of difference, she would have stalked back into the bedroom and accused him.
But even had she won their wager, what were the chances he would have complied?
Certainly his past conduct gave her little cause to hope.
She stood in the doorway of the sitting room. Furious, inexpressibly frustrated… and-she decided, taking in the delicious array of sweets on the table-maybe just the tiniest bit hungry.
Dessert-actually, several desserts… and a great deal of champagne. That was what she needed. And then Simon could be as infuriating as he pleased. At least she wouldn’t care.
Although, she thought, still highly exasperated, perhaps a modicum of revenge would be even sweeter.
Why not call for some of the guards to serve her? she decided, moving toward the apartment door, feeling a small gloating satisfaction for the first time since Simon’s irritating and irrational stand on paternity.
“Don’t bother.”
His voice was amused and she turned from the door, her hand slipping from the latch.
“I’m not going anywhere.” Her expression was one of cloudless innocence.
They won’t come in.“
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” she replied, virtuously.
He lounged on the threshold of the sitting room, bronzed, honed, male splendor in repose, one shoulder resting against the door frame. “I’m interested in exclusivity; the guards have been warned.”
“I resent your insinuation.” She smoothed the skirt of her robe.
“Let’s just say I’m a cautious man,” he murmured, taking note of her nervous gesture. “Or were you calling them in to discuss the furniture arrangement?”
“If you must know,” she said, churlishly, wondering if she was to be constantly checkmated, “I was going to bring them in to irritate you.”
“No need to go so far. I’m already irritated by the fact that you fucked that man at Ian’s.”
Caroline scowled at him. “This obsession of yours is ridiculous. Why don’t we simply bring Will over and he can tell you that we only kissed once?”
“I expect he’ll say whatever you want him to say.” Simon’s tone was dismissive.
“Will is a man of honor.” Each word snapped with indignation.
“Good. Fine. I believe you.” He moved to the table and lifted a champagne bottle from the monteith bowl. “Do you want some of this?” He’d know soon enough if she was pregnant, and if she wasn’t, he’d see that she was carefully guarded until she was. He didn’t plan on sharing his wife.
She refused to answer. Did he think everything was resolved now that he had thwarted her again? That she wanted to share his champagne?… Or anything of his for that matter-damn him! But regardless of her annoyance, she found it difficult to ignore the perfection of his lean, muscled body as he moved about the room or more unnerving yet, to avoid looking at his magnificent penis-aroused as usual. Which fact was doubly annoying, considering both his dissolute past and the wager he’d just won.
“Are we sulking?” He shot her a glance before dropping into a chair. And then apparently indifferent to her humor, sulky or not, he raised the bottle to his mouth and drained half of it.
Caroline proceeded to deal with her frustration in the time-honored female answer to impediments and rage-dessert… in this case, a charlotte russe with pistachios, one of her favorites; a meringue with berry sauce; and two chocolate confections that would go a long way toward improving her mood. Picking up her own bottle of champagne from the bowl on the table, she took her restoratives to a chair as far away from Simon as the room allowed.
At her deft uncorking of the champagne bottle, her husband’s brows drew together in a scowl. “Where did you learn to do that?” he asked, a surly note to his voice. In his experience, only females in the demimonde who waited on their client’s every wish developed such skills.
“I believe you taught me.” Her smile was treacle sweet. Having been on the fringes of the demimonde during her exile in Europe, she knew what was causing Simon’s scowl. “It’s been very useful on numerous occasions.”
Tuck you,“ he said, not at all agreeably.
And her sweet tone turned even more cloying. “There’s no need to immediately bestir yourself, darling. We have a lifetime ahead of us to indulge in that activity. Although, with luck, you’ll soon find interests elsewhere.”
“You, however, won’t.” Each word was implacable.
“We’ll see.”
He looked at her from under the dark fringe of his lashes. “No, we won’t.”
“Do you think you can watch me every minute?” she purred, enjoying her piquant moment of retaliation.
“Someone on my staff of hundreds certainly can.”
She didn’t reply for the time it took her to put a forkful of chocolate mousse into her mouth and wash it down with a lengthy draft of champagne. “We’ll see about that, won’t we,” she eventually said, her gaze angelic. “In the past you often spent a great deal of time in the brothels. That will allow me a certain-shall we say-freedom of movement? And your servants have always liked me, you know.”
He growled deep in his throat, the sound too shockingly literal for his peace of mind. “God, Caro, you’re going to drive me crazy,” he muttered. “Although, I should be used to it by now.”
Taking note of his less arbitrary tone, she paused with a forkful of meringue poised inches from her mouth. “Perhaps we could come to some amicable agreement. It’s a common enough arrangement in the ton, is it not? Most fashionable couples lead separate lives and still manage to keep up appearances in the most civilized way.”
“If by separate lives, you refer to sexual freedom, absolutely not.”
“Are you speaking of your sexual freedom as well?” she remarked through the meringue melting in her mouth.
“You lost the wager, darling. Not I.” His voice was unutterably bland.
She sighed in a blatantly theatrical way that put his teeth on edge. “Unfortunately, I’ve never taken orders well,” she murmured, scooping up another portion of meringue before meeting his gaze. “You’re aware of that minor flaw in my character I presume.”
“And nobody touches what’s mine,” he drawled, each word underlaid with a steel inflexibility. “If you weren’t previously aware of that unflinching principle in my character, consider yourself warned.”
She lifted her forkful of meringue in salute. “It should be interesting then…”
He raised the bottle in his hand in a negligent gesture. “Take off that robe and we’ll see…”
“You don’t really think I’m likely to do that, do you?”
“Actually, I know you will.”
“And why is that?” she asked licking the meringue off the fork in a particularly provocative way.