Son of a rogue and a gypsy, Hero Fiennes Tiffin was a notorious rake until a shattering betrayal left him alone and embittered in the Welsh countryside. Desperation drives quiet schoolteacher Josephine Langford to ask Hero Fiennes Tiffin to help sav...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The billiards room was at the far end of the house. While Josephine lighted the candles in the chandelier that hung from the middle of the ceiling, Hero built a coal fire to take the chill off the damp spring night. Then he removed the fitted velvet cover that protected the table. Dust flew in all directions and Josephine sneezed.
"Sorry." He folded the cover and dropped it in a corner. "Another failure of housekeeping."
"I'm beginning to think my role as housekeeper won't leave time for me to be a mistress."
"I can live with dust," he said swiftly.
Josephine gave the involuntary, hastily suppressed smile that fascinated Hero. Coaxing that smile was like trying to lure a shy foal to his hand; patience was the key.
He took a set of ivory balls from the equipment cabinet and laid them on the baize-covered table. "Do you want to use a mace or a cue stick?"
"What's the difference?"
He handed her the mace, which was a pole with a broad, flat head. "This is the old-fashioned way of playing billiards. The ball is pushed, rather like in shuffleboard, if you've ever played that. A player using a mace doesn't have to bend over." He set the mace against the cue ball and demonstrated, sending the object ball into a corner pocket.
"And the cue?"
He took off his coat so he could move freely, then bent over, lined up a shot, and stroked. The cue ball knocked a red ball into a pocket, then caromed off a second ball, which also dropped into a pocket. "The cue allows more flexibility and control. But I imagine you'll prefer the mace—it's more moral."
Josephine's dark brows arched. "How can one piece of wood be more moral than another?"
"The mace saves a lady from bending over and exposing her ankles to whatever depraved males are present," he explained.
Her full lips quivered, and she pressed them together.
Amused, he said, "Why don't you go ahead and let yourself smile? It must be a tremendous strain trying to keep a straight face around me."
His sober, pious schoolmistress giggled. He wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't heard with his own ears.
"You're right," she agreed ruefully. "You haven't a serious bone in your body, and it's very hard to maintain my dignity. But I shall persevere." She lifted the mace in one hand and the cue in the other. "It won't matter which of these I use, because I suspect I've fallen into the clutches of a billiard sharp."
He rolled a red ball across the green baize toward a pocket. Halfway across the table, it hit a bump and skipped to the right. "This table is so warped that skill won't count for much. I'm looking forward to seeing how the slate surface will work."
