Page 3 of Highland Spy

Yet she loved winning, the knowledge that for one more day or week or month, she could afford to live.

A warning nipped at the back of her mind. She’d been at the table too long and had won too much.

She risked discovery.

A man settled at the table beside her before the final round of the game could conclude.

“Good evening to ye, lass.” His congenial tone was laced with a heavy Scots accent.

She turned toward him and met his warm hazel eyes.

“Good evening to you as well, sir.” She’d never spoken to a Scotsman before, nor actually seen one up close.

There was a wildness in the way his brown hair fell to his shoulders, and in how he’d failed to scrape the whiskers from his face, leaving the hard lines of his jaw shadowed and dark.

“Have you had much luck tonight?” she asked.

His gaze slipped to the neat stacks of coins in front of her. “No’ as much as ye, my lady.”

She let her own stare trail across her piles of winnings. Shame sizzled against her cheeks.

She had definitely been too greedy.

Perhaps she would do well to lose several hands for good measure.

“I have been quite lucky tonight,” she said in as humble a tone as she could muster. The lie sat bitter on her tongue.

Was this how far she’d sunk?

From an earl’s daughter to a lying, cheating pauper with naught but a good name and several silk dresses from the previous year’s stock.

The man’s gaze settled once more on her face and he stared at her in the way men stare at a woman when they are interested.

She knew the look well and had felt its weight touch her face often.

“Perhaps I’m lucky tonight myself,” he said.

The silky undertone in his voice crept up her back like the skilled swipe of a musician’s fingers strumming a harp.

“What do you mean?” Of course she knew what he meant, but the glint of flirtation in his eye begged her to prompt him for the compliment.

A golden dollop of honey dribbled to lure the bee.

And she buzzed ever closer.

He pulled his freshly dealt cards toward him. “Perhaps I’m lucky tonight because I’ve met ye.”

His fingers were long and graceful, but too masculinely blunted to ever be considered feminine. Capable hands.

She picked up her own cards. “Well, we haven’t met, have we?”

There was an engaging smile hovering at his lips, one she found all too attractive. “Then allow me to introduce myself. I’m Connor Grant.”

She repeated the name in her mind.

Connor Grant.

It was smooth.