The Husband Trap by Tracy Anne Warren Page B

diversion.”
    “You wish to play cards,” she repeated, nonplussed.
    “Mmm-hmm. Your choice. Hearts or two-handed whist?”
    “I…I…Hearts, I suppose.”
    “Excellent choice.” He removed a vase of flowers from a round cherrywood tea table that stood near the unlighted fireplace, set the arrangement high on the mantel. He drew up a pair of side chairs, took a seat and began to shuffle the cards. “Come on,” he urged when she failed to move from the settee.
    Utterly confused, she masked the unexpected twinge of disappointment that swept through her. Then rose and accepted the seat across from him. She picked up her hand, blinked in dismay at the card’s blurry appearance.
    Her spectacles. How could she have forgotten she would need them? He had caught her completely out. If she squinted a little, though, she believed, she could just make out the numbers. At least she had no trouble distinguishing the colors, red from black. She only prayed she didn’t mix up the suits.
    “Anything wrong?” He lifted a single dark eyebrow.
    “No, simply studying my cards.”
Studying them hard,
she thought.
    Somehow she managed to compensate, the game falling into an odd rhythm, of sorts. Although he won the first two hands, she trounced him on the third, relaxing enough to forget most of her difficulties as she chuckled over a very droll story he told concerning a wagonload of apples and a farmer trying to escort his hungry pigs to market.
    “My game,” she declared, grinning in triumph as she spread her cards faceup on the table.
    “So it is.” Adrian tossed down his hand, tallied the points. “By my calculation, you’re twenty points ahead. I demand another chance at victory.”
    “Very well.”
    “A drink first, however. What would you care for, my dear?”
    “Thank you, nothing for me.”
    “You must have a little something. Drinking alone is never any good.”
    “Well, all right, if you insist.”
    Adrian disappeared through the connecting door that joined her suite to his. He returned in a short while carrying a pair of bowl-shaped snifters. He set one in front of her.
    She eyed the amber liquid with suspicion. “What is that?”
    “Brandy.” He sipped from his glass, then resumed his seat.
    “I have never had brandy. I am not in the habit of drinking hard spirits, you know.”
    “I did not think you were. But it seemed to me you might enjoy indulging in a little experimentation.”
    He was right. Jeannette would enjoy just such a thing. She was always ripe to try the unusual or the forbidden. Violet raised the glass, gave it a tentative sniff. The scent was sweet yet tangy.
    “You are not trying to get me drunk, are you?” she asked.
    “There is barely a splash in that glass. Hardly enough to get drunk on. Besides, what use would I have for plying you with liquor?”
    “To help you win the next game, perhaps.”
    Adrian laughed, flashing her a devastating grin. He drank another swallow of his brandy, then set his glass aside and began shuffling the cards.
    She sniffed at her glass and swirled the alcohol, watching it run in rivulets inside the snifter. Her twin would try it, she knew. And she was supposed to be her twin, after all. She was also a married woman now. What could be the harm, as he said, in a little experimentation?
    She took a drink and choked, her throat burning as if a fierce hand had wrapped around it and squeezed. She sputtered and coughed, fighting to catch her breath.
    Adrian reached out, rubbed his palm over her back. “There now, not so much at once.”
    “That is vile,” she gasped as soon as she could speak, coughing a few more times. “Why on earth do you drink it?”
    “It’s not so bad. You merely have to acquire a taste for it. Takes practice.”
    “Hah. Well, I believe I will leave the practicing to you.”
    He arranged the cards he had dealt for himself, pierced her with an eye of mock condemnation. “I will have you know that is some of the finest brandy to be