He shrugged. “It’s the risk of coming into such places as this.”
“Isabella seemed so keen.”
“She likes danger.” After all, she’d married Mac.
“Shall I place a bet?” Beth asked.
Hazard had so many odds, so many different combinations that the dice could produce. Predicting which would come up or waiting for a precise throw seemed futile to Ian. People found that risk exciting, which baffled him. Beth’s eyes sparkled as she watched the gentleman nerve himself to throw. “What bet shall I place?” Ian rubbed his thumb over his forehead, numbers flowing through his brain in mathematical precision. “Here, and here,” he said, pointing to squares on the table. The man finally threw the dice, establishing the number he had to match, a ten. Then he threw again. Everyone groaned when the dice read twelve.
“I lost,” Beth said, disappointed.
“You won.” Ian retrieved the counters. “You bet that he would overreach on an early throw.”
“Did I?” Beth looked at the counters, then back at the table. Her cheeks were pink, lips shining red. “I think I shouldn’t wager if I have no idea what I’m betting on.”
“You’re a rich woman.” Ian placed the counters in her hands. “You have the money to lose.”
“I won’t be rich for long if I wager on hazard and roulette. What would have happened if you hadn’t been here?”
“If I’d not been here, you wouldn’t have come.”
“No?”
She raised her brows at him, dove’s wings across her face. Ian wanted to lean down and kiss them, here in the middle of the crowd. Beth, his lover, his mistress. He wanted everyone to know she belonged to him.
“Ian?”
She’d asked him a question. “Mmm?”
“I said, how do you know I wouldn’t have come without you?”
Ian took her elbow and steered her to a less crowded part of the room. “I wouldn’t have let you.”
“Really? Would you follow me about, like Inspector Fellows?”
“This is a dangerous place,” he said grimly. “Isabella understands. You don’t.”
Beth’s bosom rose. “You’re very protective.” She leaned in to whisper to him. “I thought we agreed that our
Ian didn’t remember agreeing to that. She’d said,
Ian hadn’t responded, and he didn’t respond now. Having the affair with her would never be enough. He wanted more than playing with her in Mac’s studio, the bliss of having her go down on him in the carriage. He wanted it again and again, the joy of her forever. Not Beth as his courtesan, not a love affair that ended when he left Paris. He wanted Beth for always.
The problem was how to do it. Beth didn’t wish to marry, she said. Her engagement to the snake Mather had left her shy, and she’d already turned Ian down once. He would have to think of a way, but the task didn’t bother him. Ian was good at focusing his attention on a problem until he solved it, to the exclusion of everything else. A slender young man with thick blond hair stepped out in front of him, and Ian’s thoughts fell in shards. “I thought that was you.” The man’s eyes lit up, and he stuck out his hand. “Ian Mackenzie, as I live and breathe. How are you, old man? I haven’t seen you since they sprang you from prison.”
Ian studied the young man with interest. About thirty, well-bred voice, slim hands, manicured nails. The man continued to hold out his hand, his smile wide. “Well met.” Ian hesitated, then took the proffered hand as though reminding himself of the appropriate response.
A darker man loomed behind the first and looked at Ian with dislike. “Who is this, Arden?”
The slender man laughed. “This is Lord Ian Mackenzie. Be nice to him, old chap. He once saved my life.” The other man didn’t look mollified. Arden released Ian’s hand and clapped him on the arm. “You look uncommonly well, Mackenzie. What has it been, seven years?” “Seven years,” Ian agreed. “And two months.”
Arden burst out laughing. “He always has to be precise. So very, very precise. They let me out, too. My father kicked off a few years after you left our happy home, and my foul brother went next. He got drunk as a lord and drowned in his bath, thank God. I wouldn’t blame his wife one whit if she’d held him under.”
Beth hid a gasp, but Ian nodded. “I am pleased.” “Not as pleased as me, I’ll wager. So there I was, sole heir to the bulk of my father’s fortune. Good Dr. Edwards was rubbing his greedy hands, but my sister got my commission of lunacy reversed, bless her down to her rosette-laden slippers. She and I fled the morbid climes of England and now inhabit a rather drafty house in the French countryside. This is Graves. He lives there, too.”
The dark-haired Graves nodded tersely. Arden chuckled. “He’s jealous as a wet hen; don’t mind him. Is this your wife?”
“This is Mrs. Ackerley,” Ian corrected.
“A friend,” Beth said quickly, extending her hand. Arden looked as impressed as if he’d been introduced to the queen. “Well met, Mrs. Ackerley. Lord Ian is a fine man, and I’ll never forget him.” His words were glib, but his eyes shone with emotion. He glanced at his glowering friend and laughed. “Don’t worry, Graves. I’m all yours. Shall we?” Graves turned away at once, but Arden lingered. “Excellent to have seen you again, Mackenzie. If you’re ever near Fontainebleau, look us up.” He waved, beamed a final smile, and turned away. “Yes, yes, I’m coming, Graves. Stop a moment, do.”
Ian watched them go without expression. “The card games are much more lucrative,” he said to Beth. “I will teach you how to play.”
“Ian Mackenzie.” Beth set her heels as Ian tried to lead her away. “What did he mean, you saved his life? You cannot simply close up without telling me the story.” “I didn’t save his life.”
She walked to an empty alcove where chairs had been placed for weary gamers. She plumped down on a chair and folded her arms. “I refuse to move until you tell me.” Ian sat down next to her, his golden eyes unreadable.
“Arden was in the asylum with me.”
“So I gathered. He doesn’t look insane.”
Disgust flickered across Ian’s face. “His father had him committed, wanted the doctors to cure him of his affliction any way possible.”
Beth glanced to where Arden was speaking to Graves by the hazard table. They had their heads together, Arden’s nose almost on Graves’s cheek. Graves clamped a gloved hand on Arden’s elbow, then softened his grip and moved his hand to Arden’s back.
“Mr. Arden prefers the company of gentlemen,” Beth concluded.
“Yes, he’s an unnatural.”
Beth studied the two men with interest. She’d known youths in the slums who sold themselves to men with certain perversions, but she’d never seen two men obviously in love with each other. At least, none who admitted it, she amended. Such things didn’t last long in the rough neighborhoods of the East End.
“So his father sent him to an asylum,” she said. “How awful.”
“Arden shouldn’t have been there. It was hard for him.”
“He is adamant that you saved his life.”
“He means I took a punishment for him.”
Beth dragged her attention from Arden and Graves.
“Punishment?”
“He was caught with a book of erotic drawings. Men with men. I remember how frightened he was. I claimed it was mine.”
Beth’s mouth popped open. “That was brave of you. Why would they believe that?”
“My brother Cam used to smuggle me erotic books. I told the attendants that this one had been in the last
