Cast in Ice by Laura Landon Read Free Book Online

want to imagine what would have happened if she hadn’t walked away from that table tonight.
    “Except you almost didn’t quit, did you?”
    Her gaze lowered for a fraction of a second before she lifted it again and glared at him. “You don’t know anything about me. You don’t know what I would or would not have done.”
    “That’s where you’re wrong,” Nick answered. “I know everything about you. Including that you are desperate for funds. Funds you cannot go to your father to get, because you cannot tell him what you need them for.”
    Her reaction was that of a sail whose wind had been sucked from it.
    “You don’t know that,” she said, except her voice lacked the bravado it had earlier held. Her confidence waned.
    “But I do,” he repeated, then lifted his hand to his face and pulled off his mask. “I know everything about you, Lady Winnifred. And I know that you’ve gotten yourself in over your head.”
    Nick should have taken a great deal of satisfaction in the sharp intake of her breath. He should have felt a smug sense of elation at her reaction, but he didn’t. The fear he saw in her eyes erased any pleasure he might have felt.
    “You,” she said in a ragged whisper. Her hands reached out on either side of her and her fingers clutched at the velvet cushions. She was terrified and he’d put that terror in her eyes.
    Nick reached out and lifted the mask from her face. Dark curls came loose from their pins and fell in ringlets over her shoulders. Her lips parted in surprise and her lower lip trembled as if she couldn’t control it.
    “Yes, me, Lady Winnifred.”
    “Why can’t you leave me alone?” she cried out. “I haven’t asked for your interference. I don’t want it.”
    “But you need it.” Nick leaned forward and placed his forearms on his knees. He was almost level with her. “Do you have any idea how the owners of The Dove can guarantee they will make a profit from their gaming tables. Do you?”
    Her silence was her answer.
    “The answer is because of what happens on the third level.”
    “There is a third level to The Dove ?”
    “Yes, there is a third level. And it is on that level that they give their patrons the opportunity to pay their debts without having to go to their husbands, or their fathers, or brothers, or…wives to beg for the money to cover their debts.”
    She stared at him for several long seconds. He knew she didn’t want to ask what happened on the third level. Knew she realized that it wasn’t something she wanted to know. Or hear. But her curiosity wouldn’t allow her to remain ignorant. And because Nick couldn’t allow her to remain unaware of what could happen to her if she lost at the gaming tables, he intended to tell her every disgusting detail.
    He waited. He didn’t want to force the information on her. But wanted her to ask. Wanted to wait until she was ready to hear what he had to tell her.
    “What happens on the third level?” she finally asked.
    “For the females, there are auctions.”
    Nick gave her time for his single word to register with her.
    “What kind of…auctions?” she asked.
    Her voice was soft, her words tentative, as if she already knew what kind of auctions he was talking about, but didn’t want her assumption confirmed. Nick couldn’t blunt the dangers she took every time she walked through the door of The Dove . He couldn’t allow her to think there were no consequences to her actions.
    “Auctions in which they can sell their bodies to cover their debts.”

CHAPTER 5

    Winnie swallowed hard as the repulsiveness of Nick Stillman’s answer settled. Surely he didn’t mean that women of the ton allowed themselves to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. Surely he didn’t mean The Dove was little more than a high class—the highest class—bordello?
    No, she couldn’t allow herself to believe him. Surely he was only trying to frighten her. But what if he wasn’t?
    “How do you know this?” she asked.