“Oh please, that’s a given.” Lord Fine added, gratingly condescending, “Don’t worry, duck. You don’t have to be good at things. You just sit there and be pretty, and I’m sure that’s all Arthur needs.”

Rory narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, all right. Let’s play.”

“What the hell,” Lord Fine said, as Rory raked in all of the chips from their final round.

Arthur was also staring at Rory in shock. “You cleaned us out.”

“It’s that, what’d Ace call it, that luck of the Irish,” Rory said, trying not to smile. Lord Fine gave him a filthy look, and Rory had to bite his lip not to grin. “Look, I’m not gonna keep your money.”

“You should, you won it,” said Arthur.

Rory shrugged. “But you two were just going easy on me because I just learned,” he said innocently. “Letting me win, right?”

Arthur and Lord Fine exchanged a glance.

“So it wouldn’t be right to keep it,” Rory said. “It was never mine anyway.”

Lord Fine groaned. “This is actually worse than the losing. He robbed me, and now he’s magnanimously returning it out of pity.”

A few minutes later, Rory was crossing the threshold to the guest room. Arthur followed him right in and shut the door behind them.

Before Rory could kiss him, Arthur grabbed him by the suspenders and tugged him close. “All right, confess,” he said, bending down to bump Rory’s nose with his nose. “You already knew how to play poker. You were toying with me back on the ship and tonight you swindled us.”

“I never played before you taught me, honest.” Rory grinned. “But yeah. I took you for a ride.”

Arthur furrowed his brow.

Rory wrapped his arms around Arthur’s neck and stood up on his toes so Arthur didn’t have to stoop. “Turns out it helps at poker when you can see the history of the cards in your hand—including the cards they were next to in the deck.”

“Oh, you absolute brat.” Arthur sounded delighted. “How do I keep forgetting you’re full of magic to your eyeballs and that you do, on occasion, use it for more than saving the world?”

“I was just messing with you two,” Rory said with a grin, moving his hands to Arthur’s broad chest and pushing gently but pointedly toward the bed. “I know it’s cheating to use magic; I was never gonna keep the money.”

“You are a marvel.” Arthur let Rory move him, let himself be steered backward until he hit the mattress and went down on his back. “I can’t believe you used your magic to take advantage of me.”

“I’m about to take advantage of you all over again,” Rory told him, and crawled on top of him.

Chapter Sixteen