On a Wild Night Read Free

dangerously fashionable gaming hell; resistingan urge to peer into them, Amanda paused on the threshold and coolly surveyed the company.
    While they, not so coolly, surveyed her.
    Four of six round tables were circled by gentlemen, hard-eyed and heavy-lidded, glasses by their elbows, cards in their hands. Their gazes swept insolently over her; Amanda ignored them. A larger table hosted a game of faro; two ladies clung, sirenlike, to two of the players. The banker looked directly at Amanda, froze as if he’d just remembered something, then looked down and turned the next card.
    Beside Amanda, Reggie Carmarthen, childhood friend and exceedingly reluctant escort, surreptitiously tweaked her sleeve. “Nothing here, really. If we leave now, we can make it to the Henrys’ before supper’s over.”
    Completing her survey, Amanda met Reggie’s gaze. “How can you tell there’s nothing here? We’ve barely arrived and the corners are dark.”
    The owners had decorated the rooms off Duke Street with dark brown flocked wallpaper, matching leather chairs and wooden tables. Lit only by well-spaced wall sconces, the result was a shadowy, distinctly masculine den. Amanda glanced around. A sense of danger swept her, a skittery sensation washing over her skin. She lifted her chin. “Let me do the rounds. If there’s truly nothing of interest, then we can leave.” Reggie knew what particular thing she was searching for, even if he definitely didn’t approve. Linking her arm in his, she smiled. “You can’t sound the retreat quite so soon.”
    â€œMeaning you won’t listen even if I do.”
    They were conversing in muted tones in deference to the concentration of those playing. Amanda steered Reggie toward the tables, doing nothing to shatter the assumption anyone seeing them would make—that Reggie was her cavalier and she’d talked him into bringing her here for a dare. She had talked him into it, but her purpose was a great deal more scandalous than a dare.
    Being new, the hell had attracted the most dangerous bucks and blades searching for the latest in dissipation. If she’d found any thing to her taste in the more establishedvenues, she would never have considered coming here. But she’d been doing the rounds of the established hells and salons for the past fortnight; her presence here tonight, in a room where the only familiar faces besides Reggie’s were ones she would prefer not to acknowledge, was a measure of her desperation.
    Parading on Reggie’s arm, pretending an innocent, wholly spurious interest in the games, she cast her jaded eye over the players, and rejected every one.
    Where, she inwardly wailed, was the gentleman for her?
    They reached the last table and paused. The room was deep, stretching double the length they’d already traversed. Unrelieved gloom enveloped the area before them, the glow cast by two wall lamps the only illumination. Large armchairs were grouped here and there, their occupants barely discernible. Small tables stood between the armchairs; Amanda saw a long-fingered white hand languidly toss a card onto one polished top. It was patently clear that this end of the room hosted the truly serious play.
    The truly dangerous players.
    Before she could decide whether she was game to enter what loomed as a lair, one of the groups they’d passed ended their game. Cards slapped the table, jests mingled with curses; chairs scraped.
    With Reggie, Amanda turned—and found herself the object of four pairs of male eyes, all hard, overbright. All fixed, intently, on her.
    The nearest of the four men rose. To his full height, a head taller than Reggie. One of his companions joined him on his feet. And smiled.
    Wolfishly.
    The first gentleman didn’t even smile. He took one insolently swaggering step forward—then his gaze went past them and he hesitated.
    â€œWell, well—if it isn’t little Miss