Court of Flowers (Sutherland Book 1)

XIX | Soldier Secrets

West could sense Tanner looking at Rider and then motioning his head toward West. He sensed his friend doing it too many times for it to be normal.

His darting look went over his cards and at Tanner, his lips curling with fury.

"What is it?" his friend asked, blinking his light brown eyes with feigned innocence.

"You are bloody mocking me, Tanner," he snarled.

"Ignore him," Rider said, throwing the remainder of his cards on the table, ending the game.

Tanner threw his with a groan. Leaning against his seat, he stared at West. "Where have you been?"

"With Sasha," he nonchalantly replied, laying his cards down to join the others on the table. "Why?" he asked the same time Tanner asked his.

"Ignore him," Rider repeated, eyes on the door. Then he frowned.

Seeing Rider's expression, Tanner and West turned to see what caught his attention.

"Who is that?" Tanner asked, straightening in his seat with interest.

West frowned. He did not recognize the woman. And perhaps no one in the room did as well.

"West? Do you know her?" Tanner asked as the red-haired woman scanned the room.

"I do not know all Belles, Tanner," he said through his teeth. Then he stiffened as the woman's green eyes fixed on him.

"You definitely know her."

"I said, I do not."

"Then why is she coming toward you?" Tanner inquired.

"West Blackwood," the woman greeted, standing before West. Her eyes did a quick scan of the table before she fixed it back on him, cold and authoritative. She was a Belle, he concluded. They were the only women courageous enough to address him without a title. "Come with me at once, please."

"Why should he?" Rider demanded before West could open his mouth. His friend's tone was nowhere near amiable as his icy stare was. "You are interrupting our game, madam."

Without taking her eyes off West, the woman said, "You have won the game, have you not?"

Tanner's eyes widened as he snapped his head at Rider's direction.

"I assume your game is over." She stepped back, face as expressionless. To West, she repeated, "Come with me at once, please." The other gentlemen in the room had paused their game to listen to or ogle with interest. While it was not uncommon to find a woman in the gaming room, it was unheard to find one who was ordering a duke to stand up and follow her.

"The duke is staying here, madam," Rider icily replied. Tanner, on the other hand, could have already reached the ballroom if his shifting in his seat be counted as steps. "Whatever business you have with him shall have to wait."

"My business with this gentleman," the woman's grating voice answered, tearing her eyes from West to Rider, leaving a trace of icy trail at their wake, "is one that does not concern you, sir."

West saw Rider's hand clench into a fist while Tanner gasped with amazement, eyes veering wide to Rider.

West let out an exhale of annoyance, staring up at the Belle. "Has something happened?" he asked.

Her green eyes returned to his. "Do you wish me to answer that here?"

"Yes."

"Then, yes, something happened."

It might be the flash of consternation that crossed the woman's green eyes, or it could be her insistence on haste, that alarm kicked in and jostled West from his seat.