She went off to applause and the limbo dancers ran on to the stage. Several of them were related to Pierre and winked at her as they passed.
'Fantastic,' said Chris, putting an arm round her waist. 'Hey, did you see what was at the side table at the front?'
Lissa stiffened and looked at him in startled enquiry. 'Who?' She felt a strange anxiety as she asked that. Who was the man whose blue eyes made her feel like running away whenever they touched her?
'Lucifer,' said Chris, and laughed. 'In person.'
Dazedly Lissa frowned. 'What?'
'You must have heard of him,' Chris urged. 'He arrived yesterday. He's got a damned great yacht parked in the roads.' He looked wry. 'I hope he isn't going to milk us dry, baby. Why do you think they call him Lucifer? He's got the devil's own luck, and I don't fancy being bankrupted overnight.'
'Who is he?' Lissa asked slowly.
'Luc Ferrier,' said Chris. 'Come on, darling-Ferrier. Surely the name rings a bell?'
She shook her head, her eyes blank.
'He's always in the papers. He's the sort of gambler who never refuses the odds. A real wild one.'
'A gambler,' said Lissa, her voice filled with distaste.
'One of the biggest,' Chris said.
'A professional?' Lissa hated professional gamblers. They turned up all the time, people who lived by gambling, who drifted from casino to casino. Hard, obsessed and faintly inhuman, they seemed unaware of anything but the win and loss of the tables.
Chris shrugged. 'God knows. He may have a private source of money or he may live on what he wins, but he certainly turns up at most places sooner or later. And he rarely loses, and never for long. He has a lucky streak a mile wide.' He grinned at her, 'As I said, hence the nickname. I gather someone looked at his scrawl on a cheque and said; "So that's who you are… Lucifer." His name looks like that, written fast, I suppose.'
'Don't play with him,' said Lissa on a peculiar strained note. She could not have said the idea of Chris playing against that man should bother her so much, but all her instincts cried out against the idea.
Chris was grinning absently, as if he hadn't even heard her. She saw his fingers stretching and clicking and her blood ran cold. She knew that unconscious little gesture of his-it meant that Chris was itching to play against someone. People who run a gambling house should never gamble themselves-it is too dangerous. Chris had an obsessive streak, a competitive urge to prove himself against other gamblers, as though it were a duel between them, a duel he needed to win.
'Chris,' she said anxiously, clutching his arm.
He looked down at her, bright-eyed and excited. 'Darling?'
'Are you listening?'
'Of course I am,' he said in abstracted tones, then looked at her with brighter interest. 'And I'm looking, darling, Liss, in that dress you do something drastic to my blood pressure. If you don't hurry up and marry me I'm not even going to wait for the banns to be put up. You've kept me waiting long enough.'
Lissa gripped his arm, taking a deep breath. 'Promise not to gamble against Luc Ferrier and I'll marry you next month.'
She saw the abrupt flicker in his face, the taken-aback frown. 'What?' He was evading the issue, hedging, his blue eyes shifting from her.
"Promise,' she pleaded, looking at him beggingly.
'Darling I can take Ferrier,' said Chris, grinning. 'Don't get uptight about him. You're a funny little bunny, aren't you?' He kissed her nose and hurriedly said something about having to check on the front. She stared after his disappearing back in disturbed intensity. Chris had deliberately refused to promise not to gamble with that man even with her promise to marry him dangled as bait. Lissa did not like that. She stood there, biting her lower lip, and worrying.
CHAPTER TWO
She did not see Chris again that evening. As she walked through the hotel on her way to bed she ran into one of the croupiers, Max, a copper-skinned native with a French father and St Lerie mother, who gave her a quick, appreciative stare. 'Caught your act, Liss,' he said, smiling. 'Knocked them for six, didn't it? You're coming on.'
Flushing she thanked him, then asked: 'Seen Chris?'
'In the rooms,' said Max, half in flight, turned towards her with a grin. He was a handsome young man with a slim, lithe figure which looked good in the formal white evening clothes he was wearing. All the croupiers dressed well; it was one of the house rules. They wore red carnations in their buttonholes and spoke in soft, polite voices, but they were all as tough as Hades, Chris told her once. Born and brought up in the back streets of Ville-Royale, fighting from the moment he could walk, Max had a hard glint under his smooth manner. Any trouble which occurred at the Casino was quietly, discreetly taken care of by one of Chris's young men.
Lissa had never received anything but courtesy and a smile from Max, but she found him slightly alarming. She had the feeling he might well have a knife up his sleeve.
'Is he playing?' she asked nervously now, and Max gave her a quick, shrewd look.
'If you want to know go and look,' he said. He knew Lissa rarely ventured past the door, which was always guarded by several smiling men in elegant suits beneath which one could clearly glimpse the muscles of professional fighters.
Chris preferred her to stay out of the club, partly because he did not like her to get involved in that part of the hotel and partly because what she did not see of his activities there she could not complain about.
Now she bit her lip, shaking her head, and Max looked amused as he went away.
Everyone at the hotel treated Lissa as carefully as if she were made of icing sugar and might melt in the rain. The attitude had grown up during her childhood there. Chris's father had been very fond of her and had made her a special pet. Everyone else had followed suit, from Gaspard, the gardener, to old white-haired Uncle Joey whose only task for years had been to hang around the foyer and keep the uniformed bellboys in order.
If she had had a different nature she might have been spoilt by all the loving attention she had received, but she was far too serious and far too gentle. She had recognised the care with which she was surrounded and responded with loving affection to it. Even the tough boys from the dark alleys in the shanty town which tourists rarely saw had always treated Lissa like a princess. Their attitude, combined with her convent training and her own natural modesty, had kept her safely in a crystal case for years.
She went on to her own room, frowning. Was Chris gambling? And most important of all-who was he gambling with? Please, please, don't let it be Luc Ferrier, she thought desperately.
She took some time to get to sleep that night. Usually she fell asleep the moment the light was out and her head on the pillow. Health and constant activity gave her no time to dwell on the day's problems. Sleep normally just swallowed her up and what dreams she had were never remembered next day.
Tonight she lay awake, listening to the night sounds beyond her window, familiar and pleasant sounds to her but tonight oddly menacing.
Chris was a reckless gambler. Although his nature was lazy and charming, he became different inside the gambling rooms. When she had occasionally set foot in there she had found it hard to recognise Chris if he was playing poker. He was a man possessed, his handsome face excited.