The Duke is Wicked (League of Lords #3) - Tracy Sumner Page 0,37

the couple staring at him with matching expressions of bewilderment.

Certainly, they believed he was losing his mind.

Perhaps he was.

He wasn’t gifted with sight or the ability to read thoughts, but he’d known where to locate Delaney this eve, Julian’s advice a slow pulse through his mind—just don’t find yourself alone with her.

Which is precisely what he planned to do.

For a judicious soldier, a man who valued discipline and restraint, the urge to disregard the sensible plan was potently resilient. The girl, a lure yanking him in an ill-advised direction.

With nothing so straightforward as an opera singer at the end of the line.

The muffled laughter alerted him before the splash of light falling through the open doorway. Halting, he peered into the gaming room, pinpointing the couple in the dimly-lit corner at once. Simon and Delaney sat on opposite sides of a chessboard, in the midst of an intense match. Her elbow was propped on the table, her chin caught in her fist. She was clutching her knight with a contemplative scowl, debating her move, her riding boots, ones she never seemed to take off, in restless movement beneath the table. Simon was taunting her with a cheeky grin, and from Sebastian’s quick review of the placement of the pieces, he appeared to be winning.

“You said you were a beginner,” she grumbled, and made a move with her knight that Sebastian could’ve told her wasn’t a good one.

Simon sneered and inched his rook into place before her king with his pinkie. “And you said you were a gracious loser.”

“About as gracious a loser as you are a reformed thief.”

Simon snickered and opened his hand. Gaslight streaked off the coin on his palm. “Just for fun, to see if you’d notice. With Julian watching over me, turning me into a little prince, I have to get my fun somewhere.”

She closed his fingers around the silver and squeezed his hand. “Keep it. For good luck. A piece of America from me to you.”

Simon pocketed the coin with a spinning rotation a magician would be hard-pressed to replicate. “To new friends,” he said and raised a glass. “And I don’t mean the three deceased blokes currently occupying the space with us.”

She smiled shyly, as if an overture of this magnitude didn’t often occur. “Friends,” she echoed, and raised her glass, tapping it lightly against his, her gaze doing a hasty search in the shadows for Simon’s haunts.

She has no one, Julian had said to him earlier today. Sebastian suddenly, ardently, wanted to be her someone.

“The Terrible One isn’t angry anymore about your shabby behavior after the pyrotechnic display,” Simon called in a sing-song voice, a thin slice of cockney filtering into his speech. “You can quit skulking in the doorway, Your Grace.”

Delaney gasped and swiveled around on her bottom, clutching her glass to her chest. An ample chest for such a petite sprite, he thought with a grimace. In return, she gave a lopsided smile. Ah, she and the princely thief had dived in a bottle and come out sozzled.

Sebastian strolled into a room where her enticing scent lingered, circling the billiard table to halt before them. Delaney looked guilty, Simon pleased. The boy had likely never spent his evening with a bottle and a woman, even if the woman in question had him by a few essential years—though Sebastian feared it was fewer than he’d have liked.

She was adorable, sitting there half-cocked, eyes as pale as spring rain in the gaslight’s glow. Midnight tresses secured in a careless knot at the back of her head, one he could have liberated in less than three seconds. A serviceable gown, absent of ruffles and lace, but more compelling for the deficiency. He was trapped without the cage, aware the jolt of heat flowing between them wasn’t coming just from him. Desire, as persuasive as the scent of gin and woman governing the room, streaked through him. Rocking back on his heels, Sebastian snaked his hand in his pocket to keep from touching. “How’s the ankle?” he asked, he and Delaney in complete agreement that she’d been lying through her lovely white teeth about any injury to her person.

She sniffed and put on a proper show, rolling her booted foot in a sluggish rotation. “Much better, thank you for asking.”

Unable to help himself, Sebastian laughed and reached for the glass still pressed to her bodice, slipping it free and lifting it to his lips, holding it there a long moment before taking a sip. Her look