“Actually,” she said, “I was hoping to entice the card cheat to play me at piquet. I knew I could beat him, and that losing might prompt him to try cheating again. Then, once I caught him at it, I would have threatened to expose his actions to the world unless he returned the money he stole.”
The color drained from his face. “Because he’s a lord. And you figured that revealing his cheating—the way your brother had not—would ruin him in society.”
She bobbed her head.
Eyes glittering, he snapped, “You were going to blackmail a man you don’t know, a man who might be of such consequence that he could ruin you or even hurt you physically. How the hell did you think to manage that? If you called him out for cheating, it would have been over. He would have been ruined, and thus have no reason to pay you. Or worse yet, he would have denied it, and—as your brother feared—people would choose to believe him over you.”
“Owen and I had a plan. Once I caught the man cheating, I was going to signal Owen, who would ask the fellow if they could speak privately. Then Owen would have told him I was a cousin of Brilliana’s bent on retrieving the money her husband was cheated out of. Owen would have been the one to make the threat, not me, and he would have acted as a second witness. He could have handled the fellow. You see? My plan would have worked.”
“A plan that assumed this lord wouldn’t try to shoot you or Owen, or have you thrown out of the club bodily. Or just bluster his way through it.” He snorted. “Why not just ask around about the fellow?”
“We did. No one knew who the man was. And we couldn’t be too bold in our questions or we’d risk scaring off our quarry. If he’s a card cheat, he must be used to avoiding angry players who want his blood.”
“If he’s a successful card cheat, no one’s caught him at it.” He gazed coldly at her. “I’m not entirely sure you would have done so.”
She tipped up her chin. “If Reynold could tell, I certainly could. Which is one reason I had to be the one to do the gambling. During my first months in London, when Owen was merely asking around, he couldn’t learn anything. If Owen had been able to play cards as well as I, he would have been taking the risks for me there, too, but he can’t. So I was forced to go into the hells myself. This devil is clearly very sly.”
“Or, as that fellow said at Dickson’s, he’s simply a naval officer, which means he might have returned to sea recently. Did you consider that?”
“I’m considering it now, but when I started gambling at Dickson’s I didn’t know about the sun tattoo being common to sailors.”
“Yes, you clearly made a number of problematic assumptions when you embarked on your scheme.” He stared her down. “You, my dear, were utterly mad if you thought such a hole-ridden plan would work.”
“Not mad. Desperate.”
That seemed to give him pause. “I can see that,” he said, a hint of sympathy in his voice. Then his eyes hardened on her. “But there’s no need to despair anymore, now that I’m involved. So this nonsense of searching for the card cheat at Dickson’s must end. At once.”
Sixteen
Warren gazed at the woman he meant to marry, the woman who’d gone strangely silent and wary. But he wouldn’t take back his words. The very thought of Delia trying to blackmail some card cheat made his blood run cold. If he’d had any idea she was plotting such a mad thing, he’d have fought harder to stop her earlier.
“Are you forbidding me to continue looking for the card cheat?” she asked with deceptive calm.
Uh-oh. “I’m saying that since the situation with Camden Hall will be handled by me and my attorneys, there’s no longer any reason for you to search for this fellow and risk your very life to get money from him.”
“I still can’t let him get away with what he did. Surely you see that.”
A vise tightened around his gut. “So it is revenge that you seek. Not just money.”
Hanging her bonnet from the latch on the window, she headed for the spiral staircase. “Can you blame me? My brother died because he was so distraught over what he’d done that he stumbled off a bridge. If not for that blasted lord—”
“I realize that.” Warren was missing something here. Why did she so directly connect her brother’s death with his losing all the family funds? Men got drunk and stumbled into rivers and lakes all the time. The drowning could have been just a tragic accident.
Not that he would be able to convince her of that. She was clearly consumed by the idea of avenging her brother’s death. “Nonetheless, revenge is another of those dangerous games that rarely turn out the way you plan.”
“How would you know?” she clipped out.
“Trust me, I do.” He’d seen what had happened when Niall had taken his just vengeance on Clarissa’s attacker. “I understand how you feel, probably better than you can imagine. So if you’re determined to exact revenge, I can take care of that, too.”
She halted to regard him warily. “What do you mean?”
“God, I know I’m going to regret what I’m about to say,” he mumbled. “But if you really want me to, I’ll root out your card cheat on my own and get him to admit to what he did.”
“How?”
“By asking questions of the right people. It should be easier for me than it was for you or Owen. A lord showing a casual interest in another lord won’t be considered suspect.”
She sighed. “But as the new brother-in-law of the late Mr. Trevor, you’ll be more suspect. So if you start asking questions, everyone will know why. And no one will admit the truth.”
“I can be discreet. One of the hallmarks of the St. George’s Club is discretion. Among our members are the former investigator Lord Rathmoor, and Lord Fulkham, undersecretary of state for war and the colonies. Either of them might know something. And the club exists to look into troublesome matters for the women in members’ lives.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Really? Aunt Agatha says your club exists so men can get together and gossip.”
He bit back a smile. “That, too. We do drink and play cards and the like there. It is still a gentlemen’s club, after all.”
Hope lit her face. “And you would seriously pursue my card cheat for me?”
“Do you think I’m lying about it?” he asked quietly.
“No! I mean . . . it’s just that—”
“—you’ve already been lied to a great deal by the men in your life. I’m right, aren’t I?”
With a terse nod, she turned away to climb the first flight of the staircase. He ascended behind her in silence, wondering if she would reveal anything else.
When she reached the next floor, she released a shuddering breath. “My father often made empty promises to us. ‘This is the place we’ll settle, my darling,’ he’d say to Mama. Or he’d tell me, ‘Here we’ll stay for good, my girl.’ ”
She hardened her voice. “But then, it was always, ‘Next time, dear. We have to leave town now—things have grown sticky with that club owner.’ Or ‘I heard that there’s lots of money to be made these days in Nice.’ He dragged us across half of Europe, following rumors about pigeons ripe for the plucking. If he hadn’t won Camden Hall in that card game, I daresay he’d still be at it.”
Coming up beside her, Warren placed his hands on her waist. “As I recall, your brother also promised to stop gambling, then headed off to London to lose all his money.”
“Exactly. He railed against the life of a serious gambler. Wouldn’t even go to the city. He was always saying he couldn’t afford to leave the estate because of one thing or another.”
“I remember your aunt saying he wouldn’t even take the time to give you a proper debut.”
“Yes.” She gazed off past him to the window that showed the forest beyond. “But I suspect it was more a matter of money than time. The estate was already in a bad way when Papa won it. It took a lot of work and ready blunt. Plus, Reynold said he wanted to bring it up to snuff not by seeking an infusion of capital from gambling but by man
aging the place properly—investing in better crops, helping his tenants improve their farming practices.”
She looked distant, contemplative. “He must have felt very desperate for funds to have changed his mind about that. To have resorted to gambling in London.” She gazed up at Warren. “I didn’t resent his doing that, you know. Papa had always settled financial matters that way, too. It’s just that, well . . . Reynold never did. If he’d told me what he planned, I would have understood. I wouldn’t have approved, but . . .”
Her voice caught, and Warren tugged her close, wanting to comfort her somehow.
With a shaky breath, she accepted his embrace. “It’s just that Reynold lied about it, to me and to Brilliana. He waltzed off to London for a couple of weeks and threw everything away on a card game without a word to us about his plans. In the end, he turned out to be as irresponsible, feckless, and utterly unconcerned about how his actions affected us as Papa.”
“In light of all that, I see how you find it hard to trust men—especially given that you’ve routinely seen the worst side of them in the stews.” Warren gazed down into her eyes. “But I’m not just any gentleman. Have I ever lied to you, ever told you anything but the God’s honest truth?”
A frown creasing her brow, she ducked her head. “Not that I know of.”
The faintly distrustful words pierced him. “I’ve behaved honorably toward you, Delia Trevor, or you wouldn’t be marrying me now. Your instincts are telling you I can be trusted. You should listen to them.”
“Very well.” With a hard swallow, she drew away from him. “As long as we’re talking about trust, I have something to ask you, and I need you to answer me honestly. Your answer won’t change my decision to marry you. It will merely help me know what to expect.”
Bloody hell. He dearly hoped she wasn’t going to ask about the nightmares again. Because what would he say? That he periodically turned into a sniveling coward in the dark? That the man standing here offering to solve all her problems couldn’t even stop his own night terrors?
But if he wanted her to trust him . . . “Ask whatever you wish.”
She released a nervous sigh. “Do you . . . intend to be faithful to me after we marry?”
For a moment, he could only gape at her. That was what she wanted to know?
Good God, what an idiot he was. Of course she was concerned about that, given his reputation and the hastiness of this marriage.
“I mean,” she went on quickly, as if fearing to hear his answer, “before you were forced to change your plans, you often said you had no intention of settling down with one woman anytime soon. And I’ve heard that men of your rank tend to have, well, fashionable marriages. Where the husband and wife do as they please.”
He tamped down the sudden irrational anger that seized him. “Is that what you want?”
“No! I would prefer something more . . .”
“Unfashionable.”
She brightened. “Exactly.” Then her face fell again. “But if that’s not what you want . . . if you intend to go on as you have been, I will . . . attempt to look the other way. As long as you’re honest about it, I will attempt to be a dutiful wife.”
The word dutiful scraped him raw. “You really think you could do that.” Sarcasm crept into his voice. “You could just blithely go on about your daily activities while I screw anything in skirts.”
The blunt words made her blink. “I suppose I could . . . try—”
“Don’t you dare!” He strode up to her, his temper flaring even higher. “I don’t want a ‘dutiful wife,’ whatever the hell that is. I want you, the intrepid and impudent Delia Trevor. And I can tell you right now that I bloody well won’t ‘look the other way’ if you go hunting for some other man in your bed. So you can put that thought right out of your mind.”
God, had he spoken those jealous and possessive words aloud? Apparently, he had.
And given the sudden softening in her features, she was taking them exactly the way they sounded. Damn it all. He’d better repair the damage. “That does not, however, mean I’ll stay home every night dancing attendance on you. I’ll continue to go to my club and—”
“The stews?” She fixed him with eyes gone as still as lake waters.
“No.” He’d simply have to find another way to make it through the dark hours. Despite her brief sojourn gambling all night at Dickson’s, she wouldn’t want to stay awake until dawn for the rest of her life, especially in the country. “I think I can safely promise never again to spend my nights in the stews.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she whispered.
As she turned to climb the next flight of stairs, he followed her, anger boiling in his belly. “Do you still trust me so little? You said you’d be a ‘dutiful wife’ if I continued my bachelor ways. So why would I lie and claim that I won’t, when you’ve already given me carte blanche to do as I please?”
“I’m not saying you’re lying. You may truly believe now that you can promise it. But once you and I . . . Once you realize that I know so little of how to . . . to please a man—”
“Is that what this is about?” Relief banished his anger. “You’re worried about your ability in bed?”
She halted ahead of him on the stairs. “In truth, I’m terrified about our wedding night.”
The word terrified reminded him painfully of what Clarissa had gone through before her marriage. Perhaps he’d better clarify what she meant. “Of sharing a bed with me? Or of not doing it well?”
“Not so much the former.” She climbed the rest of the way to the top, with him dogging her heels. “I mean, I trust you to make it as easy for me as you can, given my inexperience. But after all the seductive women you’ve bedded—”
“That was a different thing entirely, and not nearly as exciting as you apparently imagine.” As soon as they emerged onto the rooftop, with its lovely views and large wooden table at the center for picnics, he tugged her into his arms. “In the brothels, it was an even exchange of money for services, and neither I nor the women ever forgot that.”
She wouldn’t look at him. “What about all those fine married ladies and widows you . . . you had affairs with?”
“Damn Clarissa for telling you so much about my habits,” he muttered, annoyed that all his pigeons were coming home to roost. Literally.
Her gaze shot to him. “I didn’t find out all of it from her. I read the gossip rags the same as anyone else.”
“Well, don’t believe everything you read,” he said irritably. “Yes, I did indulge myself a few times with . . . certain ladies of the ton, but that hardly bears mention. We coupled merely to assuage our mutual loneliness.”
Good God, that was true. He’d never thought about it that way before, but his illicit affairs had always included more than a hint of desperation. For him as well as the bored wives.
“It won’t be that way with us.” At least he prayed it wouldn’t. “You and I are trying to build a life together.”
“That doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing in the bedchamber,” she said in a small voice.
“I wouldn’t expect you to. What matters most to a man is not a woman’s expertise but her enthusiasm.” He bent to whisper in her ear, “Luckily for me, you’ve always had ample amounts of the latter.”
“Still, when it comes to the point, I may disappoint you.”
“I doubt that.” He caught her by the chin. “Will it help if I tell you that I, too, am terrified?”
Her eyes flashed with scorn. “Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve been with so many women—”
“Yes, but I’ve never deflowered one. So I’m just as worried about disappointing you as you are about disappointing me. After all, introducing a woman to the pleasures of the marital bed is tricky. I might cause you to hate it.”
“I highly doubt that,” she said dryly.
He smiled. She was always so bloody honest about her feelings, one of the many reasons he felt comfortable with her. “Aren�
��t you the least bit worried about your own enjoyment?”
Her cheeks turned a bright pink. “You’ve always made our intimate encounters . . . very pleasurable. So I can’t see how doing . . . the deed itself . . . would be otherwise.” Her tone turned glum. “Unless I mess it up somehow.”
“Trust me, it’s not that tricky.” He smoothed back a lock of her hair. “How long have you been fretting over this?”
She darted a nervous glance at him. “Since you left for London.”
“So I daresay by the time we consummate our marriage, you’ll be in a fever pitch of worry over it. I won’t have that.” Cupping her head in his hands, he kissed her until she softened against him and returned the kiss with equal eagerness.
“What are you doing?” she whispered against his mouth.
He tossed his top hat onto a bench at the nearby table, then scattered openmouthed kisses down her jawline to her neck. “Having the wedding night before the wedding.”
Her pulse quickened against his lips. “Here? Now?”
“Why not?” Shrugging off his coat, he threw it onto the table, then backed her toward it even as he continued caressing her throat with his mouth. “We have a penchant for being intimate in the most inappropriate places. Might as well go on as we have.”
“But . . . but . . .”
He lifted her to set her atop his coat on the table. “Tell me, dearling. Do you like it up here on the rooftop?”
She gazed about, her eyes brightening as she drank in the beautiful views. “Of course, but . . .”
“Then it’s here I mean to take you.”
Here, she might regain her usual reckless self and feel less compelled to behave as his “dutiful wife.” That would go a longer way toward easing her fears than all his reassurances.
So he took her mouth again with all the pent-up lust he’d felt since that night he’d fondled her so boldly. And to his delight, she rose to the kiss.
“We really shouldn’t be doing this, you know,” she murmured after a moment. “It’s scandalous.”
“Says the woman who generally thumbs her nose at scandal.” He dragged her skirts up above her garters, then skimmed his hands along the silky skin of her bared thighs with a feverish need to touch and caress and have. “I want you. You want me. So let’s take what we want. Because I bloody well can’t wait until tomorrow to have you.”
The Danger of Desire Page 17