Michael’s gaze snapped to her as Langford sneered, “I will not play cards with a woman.”
She took the seat at one side of the table. “I usually will not play cards with men who rob children of their inheritance, but tonight appears to be one for exceptions.”
Cross looked to Michael. “She is incredible.”
Possessiveness flared as he took his seat, eyes on his wife. “She is mine.”
Langford leaned toward Penelope, fury in his gaze. “I don’t play cards with women. And I certainly don’t play them with women who have nothing I want.”
Penelope reached into her bodice and withdrew a paper of her own, setting it on the table. “On the contrary, I have something you desperately want.” Michael leaned forward to get a better look at the paper, but Penelope covered it with her hand. When he looked up, her cool blue gaze was on the viscount. “Tommy is not your only secret, is he?”
Langford’s gaze narrowed, furious. “What do you have? Where did you get it?”
Penelope raised a brow. “It seems that you’ll be playing cards with a woman after all.”
“Anything you have will ruin Tommy as well.”
“I think he’ll be fine if it is allowed out. But I assure you, you will not be.” She paused. “And I think you know why.”
Langford’s brows snapped together, and Michael recognized the frustration and anger on the other man’s face as he turned to Cross. “Deal the cards.”
Cross looked to Michael, the question in his gaze as clear as if he’d spoken it aloud. Michael had not wagered in nine years. Had not played a single hand of cards, as though he’d been waiting all that time for this night, this moment, when he would wager against Langford again . . . and this time, win.
But as he watched his wife, proud and glorious, take on the man he’d spent so much of his life hating, he realized that the wicked desire that had gnawed at him for the last decade every time he thought of Langford and the lands he’d stolen was gone, lost along with his desire for revenge.
They were his past.
Penelope was his future.
If he could deserve her.
“The lady plays for me.” He lifted the proof of Tommy’s legitimacy from where it sat in front of him and placed it on the table in front of her. She snapped her attention to him, her eyes clear and blue and filled with surprise as she registered the meaning of the move. He would not ruin Tommy. Something flashed across her face . . . a mix of happiness and pride and something else, and he made the decision in that moment to bring it back again and again, every day. It was gone in an instant, replaced by . . . sudden trepidation.
“You have what you want, love. It is yours.” He raised a brow. “But I would not stop if I were you. You’re on a winning streak.”
She looked to Langford’s wager—Michael’s past—and he wanted to kiss her thoroughly for the emotion that showed on her face . . . nervousness and desire . . . desire to win.
For him.
She nodded to Cross, who took the change in stride, shuffling the deck with quick, economical movements. “One hand of vingt-et-un. Winner take all.”
Cross dealt the cards, one down, one up, and it occurred to Michael that the game was not for ladies. While the rules were deceptively simple, Penelope had likely never played, and without a very good stroke of luck, she would find herself crushed by a veteran player like Langford.
As Michael considered the possibility—that after all this time he would have come so close to destroying Langford and restoring the lands of the marquessate, and failed—he realized that for too long he’d considered those things to be the markers of his redemption. Now, however, he knew the truth.
Penelope was his redemption.
In front of her, facing up, was the four of clubs. He watched as she lifted the corner of the other card, looking for any indication of what she might have. Nothing impressive, he was guessing. He turned to Langford, facing a ten of hearts, left hand flat on the table, as ever.
Cross looked to Langford, who tapped his flat palm once on the table. “Hold.” A decent hand.
Langford had likely come to the same conclusion as Michael—that Penelope was a novice, and like all novices, she would overhit.
Cross looked to Penelope. “My lady?”
She nibbled at her lower lip, drawing Michael’s attention. “May I have another?”
One side of Michael’s mouth lifted in the hint of a smile. So polite, even as she wagered for more than a million pounds’ worth of real estate in the most exclusive of London’s gaming hells.
Cross dealt another card, the three of hearts. Seven. Michael willed her to hold, knowing that the next hit would likely bring her over twenty-one. It was the easiest of mistakes, to wager on a pair of low cards.
“Another, please.”
Cross hesitated, knowing the odds and not liking them.
“The girl asked for another,” Langford said, all smugness, knowing he was about to win, and Michael vowed that, while the older man might leave the club without losing a thing, he’d leave having felt the full force of Michael’s fist.
The six of hearts slid into place beside the other cards. Thirteen.
Penelope bit her lip and checked the facedown card again—proof that she was a novice at the game. If she had twenty-one, she would not have looked. She met Cross’s gaze, then Michael’s, worry in her eyes, and Michael would have wagered his entire fortune that she’d gone over. “Is that it?”
“Unless you’d like another.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“The girl is over. A blind man could see it.” Langford revealed his second card with a smirk. A queen. Twenty.
The viscount was the luckiest man in London tonight.
And Michael didn’t care.
He simply wanted this evening over, so he could bring his wife home and tell her that he loved her. Finally.
“I am, indeed, over twenty,” Penelope said, revealing her final card.
Michael leaned forward, sure he was mistaken.
The eight of diamonds.
Cross could not keep the surprise from his voice. “The lady has twenty-one.”
“Impossible.” Langford leaned forward. “Impossible!”
Michael could not help himself. He laughed, drawing her attention with the sound. “My magnificent wife,” he said, pride in his words as he shook his head in disbelief.
There was a movement behind her, then all hell broke loose.
“You cheating bitch.” Langford’s heavy hands were on her shoulders, yanking her out of her chair with furious anger, and she cried out and stumbled before he lifted her from the floor and shook her violently. “You think this a game? You cheating bitch!”
It couldn’t have lasted more than a second or two before Michael reached her, but it felt like an eternity before he extracted her from Langford’s grasp and passed her to Cross, already there, waiting to keep her safe.
And then Michael went after Langford with visceral intent. “I don’t have to ruin you, after all,” he growled. “I shall kill you instead.” And then he had the other man’s lapels in hand, and he was spinning him toward the wall, thrusting him into it with all his might, wanting to punish him over and over again for daring to touch Penelope.