“Just a warning before we start. I spent almost every summer between age seven and eighteen playing Hearts with my Aunt Titania.”
I laughed. “Oh, is that a threat then?”
She was grinning. “Yes, it is. You are going to lose.”
Good. I wanted to. I had no idea that the Baroness was as big a gambler as her husband. All right, maybe not as big a gambler, but it was a nice surprise that she liked to play cards. I liked that she thought she was so good that she was going to beat me. I would have loved to give her the pleasure of beating me.
“Is that so? In that case, how about we make things interesting?”
She seemed to hesitate for a bit. Perfect. You cocked it up Niall. She was still a married woman no matter what had happened between us five years before. She probably thought I was hitting on her. I couldn't help it when what came out of my mouth sounded like flirtation. It was. I would cop to that immediately. I was disastrously attracted to her, but I didn't want to scare her away.
Just then, she nodded and gave me a small smile. “Sure. Let’s.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded again. “I'm always ready to make things interesting.”
There she was. I smiled seeing a glimmer of the woman who had been in my hotel suite five years ago. I felt like any other woman in her position, traded off by their husband to a complete stranger would react with tears. They would have been a crying heap in my hotel room, angry, indignant and humiliated that her husband would do something like that, but ultimately powerless to stop him.
The Baroness didn't cry. She took matters into her own hands. I didn't know whether the Baron knew what we got up to that night, but sleeping with the man that your mad husband handed you over to in a card game seemed like the best kind of revenge. She was strong. She was proud and she didn't let people mess with her. She was married to an absolute knobhead but she was holding her own.
I needed to slow down. She wanted to play cards with me. This wasn't going to be a repeat of that night just because we were seeing each other again. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a stack of chips. I placed it on the table. She did the same, reaching into her clutch and pulling out her own stack.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Let's go.”
We started to play. She wasn't kidding when she said she was good at this game. All those summers playing with Aunt Titania had paid off. I watched her win my small stack of chips with some satisfaction. I never lost but that was my problem. I needed to do it more. The way things were looking, the Baroness was going to clean me out tonight.
“I told you, you were going to lose.”
“I believed you,” I told her. “I don't suppose you want to stop?”
“Is this you begging me for mercy?” she asked.
“Well, I don't have any more chips.” She made an exaggerated sad face.
“Oh no. Now I can't run you into the dirt like I want to,” she said. I laughed and reached into my pocket. I didn't typically use cash, only when I was gambling. I took the clip of money that I’d gotten exchanged in New York and took out five crisp fifty-pound bills. I looked at her. She was staring at the cash like I had just pulled out a gun.
“What? Not enough?”
She shook her head and smiled at me. “I'm not going to tell you how badly you should lose to me. I feel like you should be able to make that decision yourself.”
I laughed. “How diplomatic,” I said, adding to the stack.
We played again and again; she was beating me. The clip in my pocket was getting lighter and lighter. I loved it. This was what I looked for whenever I walked into a casino. Money had been the best and worst thing in my life. I liked to see it leave. Maybe it would end up with someone who made better use of it than I would.
That said, however, I was running out of cash and I had no more chips. I watched her make a tidy little pile of her winnings on the table next to her laughing, like a little girl. This was fun for her. Not in the masochistic way that it was fun for me but honest fun. What was that, I thought. Was the Baron a bore? Well, that went without saying but couldn’t she still get out there and have fun even though she was with him?
Again, probably not. I knew how
one-dimensional and shallow the social lives of the wealthy and connected could be. I had lived through a lifetime of it before liberating myself and it still happened from time to time when I spent too much time with family. I was having fun too. Despite the circumstances that had brought me out here to London and the impending meeting with my father, I was glad that I came. It was worth it to be here losing my money to the beauty I had been fantasizing about for the last five years.
We played again and it turned out that I spoke too soon. My hand was good. Shit. My stomach sunk. We kept going and it didn’t change. I didn’t want to stop though. I was already out of cash but stopping would mean the Baroness wouldn’t have a reason to stay here with me anymore. The game was all that was keeping her sat there. I had to do something.
I unlatched the Rolex on my wrist and tossed it onto the table. The Baroness looked shocked.
“Very nice,” she said, fingering the piece. What is it worth in chips?”