One Night Is Never Enough Read Online Free PDF Page B

coiled, springy sensation tightened in Roman’s gut. A sensation he hadn’t felt since he’d been on the streets, throwing dice for bread, needing that extra bit of luck so they wouldn’t starve.
    Andreas was going to kill him.
    “Stanley.” Roman called over one of the young boys who ran errands between the tables and rooms. “A round of drinks for the table.” He motioned a circle with his finger. “And tell Andreas to come round. To bring the luck of the streets for Chatsworth.”
    Stanley’s head bobbed, and he disappeared from view.
    Chatsworth was avidly examining his cards, a tight smile about his lips. Liable to do something stupid? Roman had thought no more than a minute previous. Sometimes his revelations had the rottenest timing.
    Trant was silently gloating. Downing looked as if he were contemplating murder. Two of them. Possibly even throwing in Roman for good measure if he thought he could get away with it.
    It didn’t take the whisper of twenty ticks of the standing clock before Andreas appeared in the doorway, eyes moving around the room in short order. Trying to determine if there was a physical threat he hadn’t been alerted to.
    “Merrick,” Downing greeted, eyes returning back to the table’s participants and hardening again. He tapped his fingers against the table. “Come to witness the debacle?”
    Andreas met Roman’s eyes. Fiercely questioning what the bloody hell was going on.
    Roman gave a tilt of his head. “A bit of an extra bet to oversee. Tonight, Trant chooses to amuse and annoy.”
    Trant shot him a look but said nothing.
    It was a lovely trick of theirs. For even with Roman’s tendency to be chatty with the aristocracy—so much easier to extract information when people thought you a friendly face—when the two of them were together, even weathered old dukes grew silent. Intimidated. Unsure of the disparities they displayed and the absolute hardness that snapped together when they chose. Of course, too, Andreas could sometimes just be a fiendish beast.
    Andreas strode forward, passing behind Roman, behind Trant, continuing to the right side of the room and standing in front of a messy pile, where he withdrew a ledger. He turned to face them, leaning back against the counter and lifting a pen. “What should I record?” he asked in the perennially bored, irritated tone he used in public and with anyone not close to him.
    “Oh, I doubt Chatsworth will want it on the books, isn’t that so?”
    Chatsworth looked up, and something about the whole bet seemed to be sinking in to his gin-soaked mind, because a fine line of sweat had gathered on his brow. “No, no, leave it off.”
    Andreas snapped the book closed and turned his back to toss it to the counter, obviously annoyed. “Well then?”
    “Chatsworth has just put up a night with his illustrious daughter against Trant’s ten thousand.”
    Andreas stilled, his fingers tightening on the pen as he replaced it in the well. Just for a hair of a moment. Too short for anyone else to catch it. Anyone who hadn’t been tossed to the streets and then spent twenty years with another person, scrapping together, watching each other’s backs, forming an uncompromising bond.
    Andreas didn’t turn around, didn’t look at Roman. He didn’t have to. Every line of his body said what he was thinking.
    Neither of them needed to win a hand for a paltry ten thousand pounds.
    A boy entered with drinks, pulling the table’s attention briefly as he set them down. Roman turned his attention to the boy as well, keeping the movements of the other men in his peripheral sight. Andreas’s boots harshly struck the boards behind, his long strides eating up the floor, as he brushed Roman’s chair. Roman leaned forward, catching the falling paper surreptitiously as it slid down his back, then scooting his chair forward to cover the actions.
    “Consider it witnessed,” Andreas said without turning, as he strode from the room, anger in