The Lady Risks All

by Stephanie Laurens

  The searing moment rocked them both.

  With all sophistication set aside and only instinct to guide him, he bent his head as she stretched up, and their lips met and locked, and passion burned.

  The conflagration built slowly, layer upon layer of wicked heat, of hungry flames. They both fought to hold it to a slow, steady cadence, to a rhythm slow enough that they could fully taste and savor each moment.

  Could thrill, each of them, to the other’s intimate touch, to each evocative caress that he pressed on her, that she returned to him in full measure. Fingers splayed, played, wickedly intent. Their mouths fused, then parted; lips cruised, teeth nipped, tongues laved. Rasped, lasciviously licked.

  He worshipped her breasts, then moved on.

  She caressed the rigid column of his erection, then spread her hands and devoured his chest, his back, his flanks, his thighs. All of him she could reach.

  Fiery tension thrummed through them, forceful and so real, yet they clung to the fraught moments, to the silvery glory, and reverently drank this, the truth of them, in.

  But, eventually, need raked too desperately to ignore. He lifted her and she wrapped her long legs about his hips, and slid down as he thrust slowly upward and filled her. A shivering, shuddering sigh fell from her lips, then she wound her arms about his neck and drew his lips to hers.

  The kiss was all heat and smoldering latent passion, bucking molten beneath their now tenuous control.

  She pulled back, tipped her head, hoarsely whispered, “The bed.”

  He walked to it. Holding her to him, he kneeled on the silk covers, then shifted forward on his knees and tipped her back until she lay on the dark blue silk, and followed her down.

  Let her draw him down fully atop her.

  Let her embrace him and hold him as he let the reins slide and let all he felt for her take over and drive him.

  Into a dance to end all dances, into the heat of their raging fire.

  And she was with him, gasping and clinging, riding and racing as, bodies plunging, they let passion whip them up the last peak.

  To where ecstasy waited, brighter, more brilliant, than ever before.

  To where their hearts collided, shattered, and re-formed, transformed and became one as they fell through the glory.

  Joy caught them, buoyed them. A sense of peace so pervasive it utterly overwhelmed them, flooded them, enfolded them, and dragged them down.

  Despite all, this still had to be their end.

  Uncounted minutes later, he stirred, reluctantly drawing his mind from the soothing soporific embrace of satiation. He lay slumped more or less on his stomach. She lay beside him, her eyes closed, her expression blank, as sated and boneless as his imagination had earlier painted her. Her hair was spread in a rippling brown wave of shimmering silk across his pillows.

  Easing up on his elbows, he took moments—several—to drink in the sight, to let it sink into his mind, engrave itself on his memory. Then, moving slowly, he turned and shifted up in the bed until he could sit with his back against the pillows piled against the carved headboard. Raising one arm, he set that hand behind his head and gave his mind to finding the words—the right words—he knew he had to say.

  Eventually, she stirred. He glanced at her face and saw her lashes flutter. Decided he was as prepared as he was ever going to be to have this discussion he didn’t want to have.

  When her lids rose, he was waiting to capture her shadowed gaze. “We can’t continue to see each other. Not like this—indeed, not at all.”

  She blinked, then beneath the covers he’d drawn over them, she turned onto her stomach; propped on her elbows, she faced him. Slowly frowned. “Why?” Her voice was husky, still low. “I . . .” A lock of hair fell over her face; she put up a hand to push it back, then froze. Even in the faint light, he saw her blush. “Oh.” Abruptly she looked down, her hair, released, curtaining her face.

  His jaw clenched. “No. It’s not that.” He waited, but when she didn’t look up, he reached out and caught her chin on the edge of his hand and tipped up her face, then gently brushed back the silk screen of her hair. Only when he could see her face clearly did he finally meet her eyes. “You are the first—the only—woman I’ve ever brought to this room, to this bed.”

  She tilted her head, searching his eyes. “Then . . . why? If it’s not that you’ve tired of me”—she raised her shoulders, gestured with one hand—“why call a halt to something we both enjoy?”

  “Because I’m not the sort of man you can even be seen with, much less acknowledge as your lover—and ultimately someone will see, will talk. It’s too dangerous.”

  Miranda tipped her head further, her eyes on his. “Isn’t that for me to decide?”

  He held her gaze for a moment, then his features hardened. Tossing back the covers, he reached for his trousers, rose and hauled them on, then stalked to where a decanter and glasses sat on a tray atop a dresser.

  She watched him pour a glass of what she assumed was brandy. About to replace the stopper, he glanced at her. She shook her head. Restoppering the decanter, he picked up his glass, sipped, then prowled back to the bed.

  He halted by its side, sipped again as, a frown in his eyes if not on his face, he looked down at her. After a moment, he said, his voice dark and low, “I’m Neville Roscoe, London’s gambling king, and as such I am utterly and immutably ineligible to consort with any lady, other than illicitly. Quite aside from the danger of blackmail or abduction, an illicit relationship won’t do for you. I might be as rich as Croesus, but the one thing I can’t buy is respectability, the sort you need any man in your life to have. And no matter how much I might wish it, I can’t change that. No amount of philanthropy will ever alter that.” His dark gaze locked on her face, he sipped again, then went on, his voice quieter, “Tell me, did my mother mention her notion of me reverting to being Julian?”

  She considered carefully before saying, “Caroline told me of the events that prompted you to become Roscoe. Lucasta mentioned that she thought that, with that earlier situation being fully resolved, you might now feel free to reverse the change.”

  His lips twisted; he raised the glass to disguise the expression, but his gaze never left her face. A moment ticked by before, his voice still quiet, he said, “I considered it. Because of you, I thought of it.”

  When he didn’t continue, her heart, her flesh, growing colder by the second, her tone flat, she prompted, “But . . . ?”

  He held her gaze for several heartbeats, then swung away, picked up a straight-backed chair from by the wall, set it down facing the bed, then sat. Leaning forward, forearms on his thighs, cradling the glass between his hands, his face now more or less level with hers, he met her gaze. “I can’t.”

  It felt strange to be discussing such an emotionally fraught subject in such a calm and detached fashion, but . . . she dragged in a breath and clung to the same quiet, even tone he’d used; she had to understand. “Can’t? Or won’t?”

  He thought, sipped, then grimaced. “Both. I can’t because too many people in the ton and elsewhere would recognize me as Roscoe, which would effectively ruin everything I’ve spent the last twelve years achieving for my family. And I won’t—wouldn’t—even were that not the case, because . . .” He let an instant go by, then met her gaze. “As London’s gambling king, I have over one thousand people on my collective staffs. The vast majority have families. Given their talents, most would have difficulty finding alternative gainful employment.” He paused, then lowered his gaze to the dregs in his glass. “I became Roscoe to protect six people—my mother, my sisters, Henry, and Caroline. Admittedly, they were my family and had no one else to help them, but . . .” He refocused on her face. “Roscoe’s family numbers in the thousands, and if he vanished—simply wasn’t there—or even sold his holdings to someone else, none of those people would be safe, not as safe as they are while I, as Roscoe, am here.

  “Those thousand and more people are the responsibility I accepted
as a means to protect my family. I can’t—won’t—simply turn my back on them now that the Delbraiths are safe and it would be convenient to return to the ton.”

  Convenient. He was speaking of—

  “I won’t discard them”—his gaze locked with hers—“even if doing so might allow us to continue our liaison.” His gaze was uncompromising. “But believe me, you deserve better than an affair with a wastrel lordling, and that’s all Lord Julian Delbraith will ever be.”

  What about something more than an affair . . . an icy sensation locked around her heart. To hold back the realization of what his words implied—to not let the impact shatter her—she forced herself to focus on a point she’d yet to grasp. “I might understand your decision better if I knew why it was necessary for you to become Roscoe in the first place—why that specifically was required to save your family.”

  The frown returned to his eyes. “I would have thought that would be obvious to someone rigidly set on respectability.”

  “I understand all about respectability in the gentry,” she replied tartly, “but the aristocracy has somewhat different, more fluid, rules, as I’ve recently learned. You set out to use gambling to pay your family’s debts. Dozens of peers gamble outrageously, as your brother did in creating that debt, so why did you, gambling with a higher purpose, need to hide your identity?”

  “Ah.” His lips twisted in a cynical smile. “The ton has always been two-faced and is frequently flagrantly hypocritical. The reason is . . . multifaceted, as so many situations involving ton mores are. First, the amount of money that was needed to satisfy creditors and refill the family coffers was immense—there was no chance of covering it with a few spectacular wins here and there. And if I’d gone out to amass such a massively obvious amount via the gaming tables, it would have instantly signaled to all and sundry that the Delbraiths were penniless, and that would have spelled ruin for the very six people I wanted to protect. On top of that, society would have been scandalized that in order to rescue the Delbraiths I was, albeit legally, draining vast amounts from the coffers of other ton families. And lastly, I wouldn’t have been able to do so anyway, because I would have had to win very large amounts frequently, and within a week every gentleman with money in London would have taken to avoiding me. I wouldn’t have been able to find anyone to gamble with, and the gaming houses and clubs wouldn’t have let me in their doors, having realized that my intention was to break their banks and that I had the skills to do just that.” He met her gaze, his expression beyond cynical. “So while as Lord Julian Delbraith I had the skills to do what I needed to do, as Lord Julian Delbraith I couldn’t do it.”

  “But how did becoming Roscoe allow you to do what you couldn’t as Lord Julian?” She clung to her curiosity, using it as a shield to hold her thoughts, her reactions, at bay.

  Through the shadows, he simply looked at her and said nothing.

  She held his gaze and didn’t retreat. After a moment, her voice quiet, she said, “You’ve just told me that our association is at an end—that I won’t be seeing you, spending time with you, again. So humor me, just this once, and tell me.” Trust me, even if this is good-bye.

  He remained silent for a moment more, then raised his glass and swiftly drained it. Lowering the glass, he turned it in his hands. “I needed to give all the inveterate gamblers and the owners of the gaming houses in London time to forget Lord Julian, but the family needed money, large amounts of it, quickly. I went to the Continent. I traveled to every town where wealthy young men rashly wagered their blunt. I won. Because I won, I had to keep moving constantly—no more than a week in one place. Often only two nights if I won a spectacularly large amount.” Briefly he met her gaze. “I’d realized, almost from the nursery, certainly by the time I went to school, that for someone with my particular talents it never pays to win too much, or too frequently. By the time I went on the town I’d learned to lose, and did, deliberately, to disguise my winnings. I often walked out of a club ten thousand pounds richer and no one who’d played with me would have had any notion that I’d won more than once or twice, and that only modestly.” His lips twisted. “I was very good at what I did.” He sighed and glanced down at the glass. “But that wasn’t what my family needed, so on the Continent I’d win as much as I could, and then leave town and never go back. I, and the small crew I gradually gathered around me, lived like that for two years.

  “Then we came back to England. I’d changed enough that none of the owners or staff of the gambling clubs recognized me, and at first I steered clear of any of the haunts of the haut ton. I’d learned a lot on my travels, and I’d realized that the most certain yet covert way to make lots of money through gambling was to own the club, so I bought one. The Pall Mall.” His expression hardened. “After that, I never looked back.”

  She frowned. “Caroline said gambling was the family addiction, yet I’ve never seen you gamble.”

  He shrugged. “I run forty-three businesses, all based on gambling. I feel no need to sit down at a table to add to that.” He paused, then said, “It’s not the gambling per se that we’re addicted to, it’s the thrill of success.”

  A piece of the puzzle of him slid into place. “That’s why you push Henry to try all sorts of novel things on the estate—why you insist he takes an active role in running almost everything.”

  He glanced at her as if surprised she’d seen it, then nodded. “There are challenges in life other than those found over gaming tables that can give us the same satisfaction. We just have to find them.”

  And he’d found his in becoming Roscoe.

  His refusal to revert to Lord Julian did, indeed, now make sense. Much better sense than it had before. He was Roscoe, and for many many reasons, that was who he needed to be.

  The moon was waning. Through the deepening darkness, she met his gaze. “Thank you for telling me.”

  Now to get out of there and home to her room without allowing herself to think about this being the last time she would see him. She turned away and pushed back the covers. “And now it’s time for me to leave.”

  They dressed in silence, then he fetched her cloak and they left the house and walked through the rear garden to the alley beyond. The night was cold; the moon had set, leaving the alley drenched in darkness. They walked side by side without touching, without speaking, leaving her concentrating on not thinking, on not allowing her mind to dwell on what had happened, what was happening, and what it meant—not yet.

  From the instant he’d told her their liaison was at an end, she’d felt compelled to keep her emotions, her feelings, in check, compelled to project a cool, composed façade—to behave as she assumed a sophisticated lady of the ton would in such a situation.

  But inside, behind that façade, something was tearing, ripping, but she couldn’t look to see what, or how badly. Not yet.

  It wasn’t far to the garden gate of the Claverton Street house. He reached for the latch but didn’t immediately open it. He looked at her. Raising her head, shoulders back, spine straight, she forced herself to meet his gaze without letting any of her inner tumult show. Liaisons by their very nature were short-lived. They ended. She had to accept that theirs just had.

  The shadows were too dense for her to see his face, to make out his expression. His eyes were pools of impenetrable darkness. “If I learn anything more about Kirkwell, I’ll send word.” He hesitated, then somewhat diffidently added, “If you should ever need the sort of help I can give, I hope you won’t hesitate to ask.”

  It was all she could do to dip her head in acknowledgment.

  He hesitated a moment more, then the latch clicked and he sent the gate swinging wide. “Good-bye, Miranda.”

  It was her turn to hesitate, caught by a wild and desperate urge to throw caution to the wind, to throw herself into his arms and demand . . .

  She drew in a tight breath and, head high, stepped through the gate. “Good night, Roscoe.”

  Reaching out, she shut the gate behi
nd her. And waited. Waited, all thought ruthlessly suppressed, suspended, until several long moments later she heard his footsteps moving slowly away from the gate and down the alley.

  Once the sound had faded, she dropped her head back, closed her eyes, forced herself to draw a long, deep breath.

  And let her thoughts free. Let her emotions and feelings erupt and roil through her, clashing, straining, raking, scouring.

  The torrent was so turbulent that she could find no firm ground, no certainty, only confusion.

  Only a nebulous all-encompassing hurt, an amorphous, deadening pain.

  For which there was no one to blame. She’d instigated the liaison and had never planned for it to last beyond one night, then a few, then beyond the convenient opportunity provided by their sojourn at Ridgware.

  Yes, Lucasta’s suggestion that he might revert to being Lord Julian had raised possibilities in her mind, but he wasn’t able to take that road, and after all she’d learned of his life as Roscoe . . .

  So she’d asked for one more night, and he’d granted it, and they’d indulged for one last time, but clearly he’d been right to draw a line and say No more. There was nothing in his stance that she could argue with. She might know him as an honorable and worthy man—and that he wouldn’t turn his back on all those who now depended on him underscored that—but society wouldn’t see him in the same light, and ultimately society and its expectations still ruled her life.

  The cold penetrated her cloak and she shivered. Gathering the folds more tightly about her, she looked down and started toward the house.

  Why was she so emotionally wracked? She had no right that she could see to feel so.

  Frowning, she climbed the steps to the terrace and let herself in through the morning room door.

  She didn’t know what to think. Worse, she didn’t know what she felt. Or why. Could it be that what she felt for him was love? Was that why this hurt so much—so very very much?

  Regardless, what had grown between her and him—the connection, the closeness, the violently passionate glory—was over. Ended. No more.