Ester lifted her chin. “Someone dear to me gambled and lost everything at your tables. If I had not intervened, he would have acted the fool and handed over the livelihood that supports his mother and younger sisters.”
“Who is this person?”
“I shall not inform you of it, my good sir. You are villainous enough to pursue him for your loss.”
“Villainous?” he murmured, his eyes gleaming too wickedly for comfort. “I am wounded by your misjudged contempt.”
“Dare not say you believe you are a good man? You steal the wealth of others!”
He stared at Ester with a good deal of severity in his glance. “They willingly hand it over. Every man knows the risk before they enter my domain.”
“Well, you will not be getting Samuel’s own,” she said stubbornly. “He is only one and twenty and spent most of his life in the countryside. He is not a man about town or had enough experience to sit at a table with seasoned sharks. He…in truth, he is my cousin, and he is very good-natured and was foolishly misled.”
“Where are the other IOUs? Did you burn them too? Were those men also poor, misguided fools?” he demanded caustically.
Ester bit her bottom lip, now thinking that plan had been ill-advised. “I also burned them,” she whispered.
“Ah.”
The dangerous wealth of meaning in that soft exhalation was unfathomable to her. She looked about the gardens, no longer feeling the thrill of unexpectedly seeing him.
Leaves crunched under his polished shoes as he moved closer to her. “Lucien typically records theIOUsin a ledger.”
Ester swallowed, curling her stocking-clad toes into the prickly grass.
“Lucien had not gotten to record that night’s winnings but from memory recalls a loss of more than thirty thousand pounds and three properties. How will you repay those losses, Miss Fairbanks?”
Her heart was a pounding mess. “Are you determined I am to repay them?”
“Most assuredly,” he said with grave indifference. “I will accept nothing less.”
“I have no such wealth to repay you, Edmond.” She gripped the edges of her gown until her fingers ached. “Have you no heart for those who would have lost their estates to you?”
“No,” he said with biting iciness. “My doors are only open to gentlemen and ladies of a certain class. Your class, I believe. Those who can afford it. Those who already know their responsibilities and what they should or should not do. No one forces or cajoles them to my gambling hell. They come of their own free will and make their own risk. If your cousin had won, you would have celebrated his victory. However, he had lost due to his own folly, and suddenly he is the victim of his own choices, and I am the villain who enticed him. You had no business in my business and will repay what is owed.”
The truth of his words slapped her, and she jerked back from him, fisting the front of her gown. “Very well,” she said with light candor, not liking the nerves coursing through her body, filling her with restless energy. “I shall do so immediately.”
He arched an arrogant brow. “Will you?”
“Yes. With the loss of the estates, I suppose the total sum owed might equate to about sixty thousand pounds.”A fortune.
“We could agree on that figure,” he said enigmatically.
“Good. It is settled.”
He took a few steps closer, and Ester merely lifted her head up to continue keeping his regard.
“I am braced for whatever outrageousness you are about to suggest.”
“I suppose the twinkle in my eyes gave it away?” Ester said with a shaky smile.
Edmond blinked but made no reply.
“I shall allow you to kiss me, and it will erase this debt.” Ester held her breath, her heart jerking so fast it was a wonder she had not fainted.
“A kiss,” he repeated slowly.
“Yes.”