The Princess and the Diamonds Read online

  He wasn’t accustomed to having to work at landing a woman in his bed. Yet with this woman, every fiber of his being told him she’d be worth the effort and the wait.

  In the meantime, he prayed she’d heed his warning and remain home Saturday night.

  The last thing he wanted was to have her become a regular at the Duc’s Basset tables.

  Chapter Four

  Gabrielle walked into the Duc de Navers’s private gaming den, feeling confident. All day she’d sequestered herself in her private apartments away from Caroline and Bernadette, and worked on bolstering her confidence and courage. And wrestling the far too distracting Marquis de Montfort from her thoughts.

  Honing her focus.

  She could do this. She could. She would win back the rest of Daniel’s debt.

  And she’d be damned if she was going to let Montfort scare her away. No one rattled her. Not even the King of the most powerful nation in all of Christendom.

  No one was going to keep her from doing what she needed to do.

  Montfort may be gorgeous, and maddeningly seductive, but he was also overbearing, pushy. And annoying beyond words.

  It was bad enough he had followed her, showed up at her home, dictated to her, and aroused her body.

  Now he’d even muscled his way into her dreams. She was having carnal dreams about the man that were become more and more heated. Erotic dreams in which he was doing more than just caressing her hand or cheek. He’d stoked her body, in places no man had ever touched. They were so vivid, she could feel the warmth and texture of his skin against hers. The sumptuous press of his hard body. And the score of his fingers over her sensitive sex. Gabrielle woke up each morning her sex aching and mortifyingly wet.

  As if she didn’t have enough on her mind. Thanks to Montfort, her thoughts now wavered between the diamonds tucked under her mattress, and fantasizing about a certain the Marquis on it.

  She’d never had a lover. Never been with a man. Never found any at court particularly stirring. And yet, Montfort was beyond stirring. He was wreaking havoc on her mind and body.

  Glancing about the Duc’s drawing room, she noted that there were fewer people in attendance this eve.

  The same three tables were set. She strode to the same chair she’d used last time. It had been lucky. And she had to maintain the luck she’d had the last time. Over last few days she’d observed men in a way she’d never done before, both the male servants and the men on the street below her window. She studied their walk. Their mannerisms. Practiced mimicking them.

  She wanted no one else guessing her gender.

  Ignoring how itchy her periwig was, she cast another furtive glance about. No Montfort. Could it be that the obnoxious man wasn’t showing up tonight? Could she be that fortunate?

  The banker sat down, joining the other four players at the table. Gabrielle pulled out her pouch of louis d’or. She had two pouches on her. One with the diamonds and another with half the winnings from the previous night. Thankfully, she didn’t need to risk the diamonds tonight. She’d brought them strictly for luck. Tucked in her pocket, they’d brought her great fortune last time.

  God help her, she needed more of the same tonight.

  Half her winnings from the previous game was still a handsome sum and more than enough to win back the balance of her brother’s losings.

  The banker began dealing out thirteen cards per player. It was then she heard the door open and close behind her. A figure approached the table and sat down in the vacant chair across from her.

  She didn’t need to look up. Her nerve endings tingled, already keenly aware of the identity of the newly arrived player. Dragging her gaze up, praying her senses were wrong, she was immediately captured in a pair of light gray eyes.

  Montfort.

  He didn’t look as though he was happy to see her. Good. The feeling was mutual. Liar, her body screamed. It was atingle. And a traitor. Gabrielle fought back the urge to gnash her teeth.

  A strong hand gripped her shoulder, yanking her focus up. She found Navers smiling down at her. “Welcome back,” he said, seating himself beside the banker. It was obvious he intended to assist him by being the game’s croupière again.

  She responded with a nod.

  “Let us begin.” Navers’s comment was to the group. “Place your bets.”

  Gabrielle turned up four cards and placed three louis d’or on each, trying to ignore Montfort and her racing heart. She hadn’t been this discomposed the last time. Mathias was making her nervous—worse than before.

  Forget him. Stay focused.

  The banker dealt a ten and then a five.

  She’d won her couch.

  Joy and confidence shot through her system. Her nerves dissolved and she relaxed her shoulders. She couldn’t help but glance up at Montfort and had to fight back her smile. He’d won his couch as well. It delighted her. Not because she cared whether he won or not. What made her happy was that the very same thing happened the last time when she’d had such enormous luck.

  They’d both won their couch on the first deal.

  It was a good sign. One that suggested good fortune was on her side—that a repeat of what happened the other night was about to happen again. Substantial winnings awaited her this night.

  There had to be.

  Not wanting to do anything to disrupt something as fickle and fleeting as luck, she echoed her pattern of play, doing everything exactly the same as she’d done before. Crooking the corner of her card, she indicated she was going on for a higher payout. She was going for a sept-et-le-va—a chance at winning seven times her bet. It was a daring play that had paid off the last time, and in fact, many times in the past.

  The banker turned up his card. However, this time her winning card didn’t show up. She watched as he took her money.

  Her gaze drifted to Montfort. His expression was unreadable but his winnings were clear. He’d played it safer and won another couch.

  It’s all right. It’s a loss, but you’ll win it back. The night was young and she still had plenty of money left.

  Less than an hour later, she was down to her last few louis d’or. Her palms were sweaty. Her heart galloped and her head was horribly itchy from the cursed periwig.

  She’d lost almost every coin she’d brought with her.

  Montfort, on the other hand, was untroubled. Why should he be? He had a good-sized stack of gold coins before him.

  Her luck would turn for the better. Good fortune had been missing all night and was due to show up. She wasn’t going to panic. Nor dwell on how much she’d lost. Turning up two cards, she placed her final coins on them.

  The banker dealt his cards. “King wins. Knave loses.”

  To her horror, her money was swept up by the Duc. Oh God! She could barely breathe. She’d lost it all. Half of what she’d previously won for Daniel.

  “Sir, are you listening?” The Duc’s voice jolted her out of her whirling thoughts. Quickly she realized he was speaking to her.

  “Pardon?” she asked.

  “I said, are you going to make another bet?”

  All she had on her to bet with were her diamonds. She needed one good win to turn things around. Dare she try? One player at the table had already bet everything he owned and lost. She’d watched, sick to her stomach as he was forced to sign over his château and hôtel. The other players at the table rose and left, all considerably lighter in the purse, but at least they still owed their homes.

  She and Montfort were the only players remaining at their table.

  Knowing the odds were better with fewer players in the game, she made up her mind to play on.

  Did she really have a choice?

  Deciding she’d risk only one diamond, she reached inside her breast pocket and pulled out the pouch of diamonds, praying no one could see how her hands trembled. Somehow she got her fingers to work and not fumble while loosening the ties.

  Gabrielle pulled out a diamond and set it down on her card.
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  “Not enough,” Navers said.

  Gabrielle frowned. “What do you mean? The diamond is worth at least six hundred louis d’or.”

  “The stakes are higher than that. You bet at least two or you don’t play.”

  A small voice whispered, Walk away. But she quashed the voice. She couldn’t win if she didn’t play.

  Gabrielle pulled out a second diamond and set it down on her card.

  Montfort placed his bet on his own cards.

  With trepidation in her heart and her stomach queasy, she turned and watched the banker’s hands as he flipped two cards over. “Ten wins. Eight loses.”

  As fast as that, her diamonds were taken away.

  She was shaking and pulled her gaze up from the empty spot that once had her precious gems to Montfort. He’d won a sept-et-le-va.

  “I’ll take payment in diamonds as well as coin.” Montfort astonished her with his request. “It will save you the trouble of having to deal with the gems, Navers,” he added.

  The Duc thought for a moment then waved someone over. A man about Navers’s age had been standing in the corner of the room the entire time observing the goings-on. He approached. Like the Duc, he wasn’t wearing a mask.

  “Check the diamonds,” the Duc ordered him. Pulling out an eyepiece from inside his justacorps, the man examined both gems.

  “The bigger one is worth about six hundred louis d’or,” he advised Navers. “And the smaller of the two, about four hundred.”

  With a nod from Navers to the banker, the banker pushed her diamonds and the balance of Montfort’s winnings toward him. Frozen in disbelief, she watched helplessly as Montfort scooped up his winnings, dropped them into a pouch, and quit the game.

  In moments, he was out the door with the King’s precious gems.

  On shaky legs she rose, murmured she’d had enough, and walked across the drawing room, forcing herself to keep to a swift walk and not break into a full-out run after Montfort.

  The instant she made it to the hallway, she tore after the man with her diamonds.

  *****

  Mathias stopped short in front of his carriage and raked a hand though his hair.

  Merde!

  He fucking hated seeing the Comte de Rochemore lose everything. This was the first time since Victor’s death he’d seen a loss of that magnitude. Jésus-Christ, the man had four daughters! He’d never come up with a dowry for them now. Tonight he’d sealed their fate. There would be no marriages. No children. For any of them. All four young women would have no choice but to enter a convent and live out the remainder of their days in the cloister.

  Whether they wished it or not.

  Curling his fingers, Mathias let loose a string of expletives. He was so overwrought, he wanted to slam his fist into something. Anything.

  This game had to stop. He wanted it to stop. It was leveling the lives of so many innocent people—people who’d never sat at a Basset table. He thought when Sard had approached him, this would be easy.

  It was gut-wrenching.

  He’d started all this for Victor, thinking this was the least he could do for him. After watching Rochemore sink farther and farther into debt at the Basset table tonight, he decided he’d done enough for his friend.

  Victor could have done a million things differently, not the least of which was having the courage to deal with the aftermath of his financial losses.

  Instead, he’d chosen to abandon his wife and child after he’d driven them into poverty.

  Fuck. He was tired of torturing himself over Victor’s death. Tired of wondering if he could have done more. Seen more sooner. He’d spent months letting it eat at him. It was Victor who should be the one consoling his wife and child.

  He should never have left his family to fend for themselves, destitute.

  Mathias had stepped forward and purchased a townhouse in the city for Victor’s wife Marie and son, so they’d have a home to live in. He even gave Marie a monthly allowance.

  He was sick to death of the weight he felt in his chest over Victor’s untimely death. And he’d done everything he could to make matters right. Including doing something he thought he’d never do again—enter another gaming den.

  Tomorrow he had another meeting with that weasel Valette, and would have to give up more names.

  Which brought him to a different dilemma. Silvie. A willful woman who didn’t have enough good sense to walk away from a losing table.

  He’d had to watch that damned fiasco, too. Her tension and horror mounted with each hand she lost. He didn’t want to sense it. Or notice it at all. Yet he was maddeningly attuned to her every emotion tonight—and the carnal hunger he felt for her.

  She had him utterly enthralled at every level. He wanted her so badly, his sac ached.

  This attraction to her was the last thing he damned well needed.

  Especially when he was an informant for the King’s Lieutenant General of Police on a mission to report the names of those who regularly frequented Navers’s gaming den. He wanted to do just that—and be done with the matter.

  But this mysterious woman was convoluting matters considerably.

  Worse still, she was playing games—beyond Basset—and he had no idea why. He didn’t know what to make of her secrets. He didn’t know how to snap the fascination. Or mute the sexual pull between them. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. Or the memory of her heated reactions to his touch. He’d spent the better part of the last few days and nights at a cock-stand for a female he wanted to protect. And who wanted no advice or protection from him.

  Isn’t that fucking perfect?

  He couldn’t very well tell her the details of his mission—especially to a woman he knew nothing about. And he certainly couldn’t seem to impress on her to stay away from Navers’s hôtel.

  “Montfort!” A female voice grabbed his attention. He turned around and saw Silvie racing toward him. He knew it was only a matter of time before she came after him. He had her gems, after all. They were important to her. The devastation in her eyes when she’d lost them was impossible to miss.

  She stopped before him, her breathing quick. “I need to speak to you,” she said.

  “Yes, well, I need to shake you for your fool-headed play. What did you think you were doing in there? I thought you had some experience in the game. You don’t stay and continue to lose money when you’ve no luck on your side to speak of!”

  She lowered her eyes. “Yes, you’re right, of course.” Her response was soft, her manner demure. And he was stunned. Since when did this woman become so docile?

  “I really must speak to you,” she repeated and looked around. They were alone in the courtyard, save for the horses and the drivers. “But not here. Come to my townhouse. Tonight. I’ll meet you there.”

  With that she stalked away briskly.

  Mathias was drained and angry and, now thanks to her, his cock was hard again.

  For a woman in men’s clothing.

  Before Victor took his own life, Mathias had a normal existence. He attended the theater, was welcomed in all the best Salons in Paris, and actually had women who gave him their name as well as their bodies. And yet here he was, covertly working to topple a Duc and turn in his peers, all the while panting after another man’s mistress who was cloaked in secrecy. If he had any good sense at all, he’d get in his carriage and go home, but wild horses couldn’t keep him from Silvie’s townhouse or from hearing what she had to tell him.

  He was going to demystify this mystifying beauty and get her out of his system.

  This wasn’t going to get any more involved than it already was.

  Chapter Five

  The moment Mathias arrived at Silvie’s townhouse, he was asked by the majordomo to follow him.

  As the man led him across the grand vestibule, Mathias tried his level best to learn the name of the lady of the house from the servant. To learn how long she’d been living in the townhouse. Hell, to learn anything about her at all. Al
though no one else seemed to know anything about the Marquis de Gaillard’s new mistress, surely the majordomo did.

  It proved to be a futile exercise.

  The blasted somber servant was tight-lipped.

  As soon as they began climbing the stairs, Mathias realized he wasn’t heading to a drawing room. Dieu. He was being led to her private apartments.

  His greedy cock thickened farther and strained harder against the inside of his breeches. Easy now. He never knew what to expect with this woman. She wasn’t the most predictable of females. He wasn’t about to make any assumptions.

  Reaching one of the doors in the corridor, the servant knocked and opened it upon hearing his mistress’s bidding.

  Mathias stepped in. The servant closed the door behind him leaving Mathias standing in an antechamber. He looked around. The sitting room had chairs of light blue damask and gold and white walls. But the room was empty.

  “In here, please,” he heard her say from the bedchamber.

  His heart began to race. Merde. He was acting as if he was some nervous youth about to fuck his first woman.

  He entered the bedchamber and found her standing near the large four-poster bed. She was in a rich red and white gown, her hair in a gorgeous cascade of dark curls reaching her shoulders.

  She was nothing short of breathtaking.

  Dressed in feminine attire that showed off her fine female attributes, she made his knees weak. What was conspicuously absent was her jewelry. She wore none.

  She’d had on a few fine pieces the other day, so he knew she owned some. In no way was he going to presume it was omitted on purpose because she anticipated sex and didn’t want it getting in the way.

  Mathias was going to let her take the initial lead, then take over, moving one slow seductive step at a time.

  In her bedchamber, alone with her, mere feet from her bed, he’d do absolutely nothing that would jeopardize this moment.

  She had her hands folded before her. He watched as she smoothed her skirts and refolded them. She’s nervous. All the more reason to take it slow.