It wasn’t just his father’s disapproval he was risking—he’d risked that often enough in the past. His father’s disapproval was a private matter kept in the family. There would be no hiding this. Society would know what he’d done and that would bring shame to the entire family. He, a captain in the military, second son of a viscount, had taken up with a billiards hustler and his daughter. Never mind that Lockhart was a celebrity. Playing billiards for a living was patently unacceptable. Flaunting Mercedes in the face of decent society was a direct slap in the face to all the eligible young girls looking for husbands. Mercedes could be his mistress and be kept discreetly out of sight, but nothing more. To be seen with her publicly at the gatherings of ‘decent folk’ was inappropriate.
It would send his mother swooning and his father might actually disown him this time for good. Mercedes was wrong when she’d accused him of having nothing to risk in this venture. He had everything to risk. What would happen if he lost the security of knowing the home farm waited for him? It was not a destiny he wanted, but it was there like a safe harbour should all else fail.
He’d joined the military to make his own way in the world. But that choice hadn’t come at the cost of his family. Never before had ‘making his own way’ come with a price. His family had issues, but they were his family, the only one he’d ever get. If it came down to his own independence or them, would he give them up? He would need to decide soon. Even if he escaped Bath unscathed by recognition, it would be good to know where he stood. He couldn’t plan a future without knowing.
Sleep started to settle on him. Mercedes shifted against him and he tightened his grip about her. Maybe she wasn’t the only reason he’d got in the carriage in Brighton. Maybe he’d known this choice would push him to make the decision he’d put off for so long. It was time to face his future head on: home-farm manager, professional billiards player, half-pay officer waiting for a post, or something else altogether. Greer sighed. He wondered if there was a choice that could include Mercedes. That was the problem with options. They made one have to choose.
‘It’s time to work on your defence.’ Mercedes tossed Greer an ash cue. They’d picked up the London-Bath Road and were in Beckhampton at an inn on the turnpike where her father knew the owner. At this pace, they’d be in Bath the day after tomorrow at the latest and the true work would begin—real games, real promotion of the tournament in Brighton. These early stops had been meant to be the warm-up for the real campaign; time to turn Greer’s instinctive talent for the game into a more sharply honed skill, a calculated tool of intention without drawing attention to him until they were ready.
Mercedes arranged the balls in strategic clusters around the baize. ‘We’ll start with the group to the right.’
Greer grinned disarmingly. ‘That’s hardly fair. There’s no direct line between my ball and the shot.’
Mercedes smiled back with feigned sweetness. ‘That’s why we have to work on your defence. So far we’ve been playing opponents who play like you do. They make great offensive shots. But what happens when someone doesn’t play the table straight on you? Those men are waiting for you in Bath. You’ll need to do more than pot balls; you’ll have to know how to set up the table as well as setting up your shots if you want to impress them.’
Greer had a natural aptitude for the strategies. But she knew the real challenge would be whether or not he could pull each strategy out of his repertoire and use it at relevant points in a game.
They ran drills for an hour before her father came over to watch their progress, the perfect opportunity if she chose to seize it. If she didn’t do something today, it would be too late. She didn’t want to make Greer her whipping boy, but time was running out and so were her choices. She could only hope he’d understand.
Across the table, Greer raised an eyebrow, questioning her hesitation. ‘Are you going to rack them?’
She answered with a non-committal shrug. If she did this, Greer was going to hate her for it. A small part of her was going to hate herself too. She drew a deep breath. ‘All right, if you think you’re ready, Greer, let’s play.’ It was now or never.
That should have been his first clue something was amiss. Mercedes had opted out of lessons and drills far earlier than usual. His second should have been the way she’d chalked her cue. She held his gaze while she blew the excess chalk off the tip, a most seductive look that made a man think with a whole different set of balls than the ones of the table. ‘I’ll break.’
‘Fine.’ Greer was pretty sure most men would agree to anything with those eyes looking over a cue at them and those lips suggesting chalk wasn’t the only thing they’d be good for bl—that was not worthy of him. But he was also pretty sure Mercedes knew exactly what she was doing. She’d done it with Mr Reed. Now she was doing it with him. Why?
Something sensual and wicked flaring between them was not new. Innuendo always lay just slightly below the surface with them. Why would she push this now when he needed to concentrate on the game on the table instead of the one in his head? His brain knew better; he just had to send that same message to his body and quell the early stirrings of his arousal.
Lockhart was watching intently and Greer knew Mercedes wasn’t going to go easy on him. There was no need to. He was up to any challenge Mercedes might present. Greer bent to survey the table at cue level. No straight shot presented itself, Mercedes would be happy about that. He would be forced to select a skill from their lesson right from the start. Greer aimed his cue to hit the ball slightly off centre, using a slicing shot to send it to the pocket while sending the cue ball on ahead to safety, away from the hazard.
‘No, wait.’ Mercedes interrupted his concentration. ‘You’re still aiming too low. A slice shot is to be off-centre, not high or low. The shot you want to take will put your cue ball in the pocket too.’
‘It’s fine,’ Greer said with a tight smile, not wanting to be taken to task in front of Lockhart. He was a man, for heaven’s sake, not a sixteen-year-old schoolboy. He knew what he was doing.
Mercedes shrugged and let him take the shot, raising her eyebrows in an ‘I told you so’ gesture when his ball followed the other into the pocket. He blew out his breath. She briskly gathered up the two balls and set them back on the table. ‘Try again. This time, let me show you.’
She stood close, wrapping her hands over his, positioning the cue. He was not unaware of her body pressed to his, the light floral scent of her soap or the womanly curve of her where her hips cradled his buttocks. The arousal that had sparked earlier was in danger of being fully achieved. This time the shot went in. She put the balls back into place one more time. ‘Now, try it again on your own.’ Greer lined the shot up carefully, thinking there might be something else he’d be trying alone if she kept this up. This time he sank the shot and the game was fully engaged.
By the second round, Greer was certain there was more than one game being played out. Mercedes was shooting out of her head. He’d never seen anyone make the shots she made, and he’d most definitely not seen her display this level of skill, which was saying something.
He’d thought her formidable before. Now, there wasn’t even a word in his vocabulary to adequately describe her talent. Phenomenal, stupendous—easy word choices, but inadequate. What did she think she was doing? But there was no time to contemplate hidden agendas. Greer played harder, his shirt sleeves rolled up, his jacket off. The intensity increased. He plied his skill tirelessly with slices, stop shots that careened on the lip of the pocket, bank shots that circumvented barriers to direct shots, but nothing would stop Mercedes.
Greer lost all three games, honourably and by mere inches to be sure, but in the end he’d simply been outplayed. When the last ball fell, Mercedes threw a triumphant smile in her father’s direction. Greer expected to