Kiss Me Forever/Love Me Forever. Rosemary Laurey

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СКАЧАТЬ He smiled.

      “Make a living by it, do you?” Sebastian asked.

      Christopher looked over his cards. He did look like a card shark in an old movie and every muscle showed he resented the insinuation. “I have, on occasion. We must play for high stakes one day, you and I.” They both looked ready to stake each other.

      “Are we playing Whist or War?” Dixie asked. It was like sitting between a pair of eighth graders.

      “Peace, Dixie.” The way Christopher smiled suggested they shared secrets. “I once fought over cards. Never again.” With a smooth movement he played a king.

      Silence fell over the table as Christopher’s uncanny knack of winning tricks had Dixie pondering the truth behind Sebastian’s insinuations. Emily made a couple of comments about play but silence seemed more cheerful than her twittering.

      Dixie won the next trick by breaking trumps and decided to do her bit to keep the tension going. “Sebastian,” she said, “thanks for giving Christopher my organizer. I was glad to get it back.”

      Sebastian stared, Emily gulped, and Christopher gave an innocent smile that wouldn’t fool an infant. What was going on? Had Christopher lied, just as she’d suspected?

      “I told Dixie you gave it to me, knowing I’d be seeing her.” Christopher smirked. It was the only word for it. Sebastian gave him a look that could curdle milk. “You never did mention where you found it. Did you, Caughleigh?”

      Sebastian hesitated, eying his cards before discarding a useless three. “James picked it up. I’m so glad it got back to you, Dixie.”

      Sleazy James? How did he come into this?

      “That’s right, your sister’s dear son. He’s not here tonight, I noticed. Left the neighborhood has he?” Christopher seemed determined to niggle.

      “He’s in town for the weekend. If it’s any of your business.”

      “None, really,” Christopher replied and took the trick. He also won the hand. He stood up. “Let the winner get dessert.”

      “It isn’t over yet.” Fury seemed to seethe through Sebastian’s teeth.

      “You think not?” He pushed in the chair. The table wobbled.

      Dixie stood up. “I’ll help you carry them.”

      “Lovely. I’ll stay and keep Sebastian company,” Emily said.

      The desserts were at the far end of the hall. Christopher seemed in no hurry. In fact, he walked as if worn out.

      “You like to win, I noticed, almost as much as Sebastian hates to lose. It’s only a game.”

      “Card games can be more dangerous than duels.”

      “Fight duels often, do you?”

      He shook his head, his dark hair gleaming in the lamplight. “Not for a couple of hundred years.” She chuckled and looked up at him. His eye seemed hard and cold. Then he smiled and her toes curled inside her leather pumps. “You’re the only woman in years who’s been willing to look me straight in the face. It doesn’t bother you?”

      “In a way. But not like that. I wish for your sake you had two.”

      “I don’t miss it, except when it comes to looking at you.”

      “What happened?” Should she have asked? She didn’t know him that well.

      “I lost it in a fight. Years ago when I was young and foolish.”

      “Not the two-hundred-year-old duel?”

      He shook his head and grinned, “Long before then.”

      “Trifle or cheesecake?” Emma asked, serving spoon in hand.

      “You’re not getting any?” Dixie asked as he placed three servings on the tray.

      “I need to be careful what I eat—allergies, you know.”

      “Christopher never eats. That’s how he stays so thin,” Emma said.

      Dixie felt inclined to believe her. Christopher’s narrow wrists barely filled the cuffs of his linen shirt.

      “Jealous, my dear Emma?” he asked, with a twinkle in his dark eye.

      Emma grinned. “Watch it!”

      Dixie filled the thick white coffee cups from the urn on a side table. “Enjoying your evening with Caughleigh?” Christopher asked, his voice too quiet to be conversational. “I bet he doesn’t kiss like I do.”

      At that, her hand shook and she sloshed coffee into the saucer. “I wouldn’t know,” she replied, trying to sound very English and proper but knowing she missed it by a mile.

      “I knew it! You shouldn’t be wasting your time with him.”

      “Right now I seem to be wasting it with you.”

      “Nothing between us will ever be a waste.”

      Hair prickled around the nape of her neck. She felt heat rising between them. “Coffee’s ready. Let’s get back.”

      “Worried?” his voice teased. “You don’t want to give Emily too much space. She might take advantage of poor old Sebby.”

      “I doubt anyone’s ever taken advantage of Sebastian.” The hum around them half-swallowed his chuckle but Dixie heard it all the same.

      Christopher and Emily won the last hand. Sebastian appeared not to have enjoyed the evening very much. Emily almost bubbled with excitement as she claimed the centerpiece as her prize. The pink begonias matched her face.

      “How was this as an evening of British culture?” Christopher asked Dixie.

      “Come now, Marlowe,” Sebastian said. “Don’t put her on the spot.”

      Sebastian wouldn’t answer for her. “Interesting. Like something out of an Agatha Christie. You know, cards in the village hall and someone found dead on the vicarage lawn in the morning.”

      “Now you’re getting fanciful,” Sebastian said, his mouth tightening.

      “You’re right,” Christopher said, smiling at Dixie. “But for that scenario you need a vast twenties vicarage, not the three bedroom bungalow Reverend James lives in, plus a parlor maid to find the corpse before breakfast.”

      “Stop this, both of you!” Emily fussed. “There aren’t murders in Bringham. Dixie was just joking. Americans do that all the time, I’m told.”

      Dixie wanted to ask who’d told her, but bit it back. All she needed was to get home. Alone. And she fancied Christopher planned to complicate that.

      He leaned back in his chair, causing the thin metal legs to scrape the floor. “We had one recent death at the vicarage.”

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