By Any Means

by Cindy Nord

  “Of course not, I just thought--”

  “What?” She jammed the bills back inside and leaned forward, wafting the essence of lavender over him. “That you could buy me for the evening like you do your riverboat whores?”

  “What?” he roared, stepping closer, towering over her. “That’s not at all what this means. I wanted to show you how special you are. Good God, Annabelle. Don’t you know that?”

  The blood left her cheeks.

  “Special? Mon Dieu…a gentleman does not pay a women money to let them know their worth.” She straightened, locking her arms over her chest. Sapphire earbobs glinted at him in damning winks with each of her broken indrawn breathes.

  “Jeezus,” he hissed, the ache in the pit of his stomach spreading as her gaze scraped across him with disgust.

  Anger erupted.

  He knew he was a callous sonofabitch, but even he wouldn’t stoop to something so despicably low. “I don’t know what the hell you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. I was just…” he grappled for any word to make this disappear.

  “What? Buying my affections?” A soft sob ripped past her lips. “Les saints me protéger! Is that what you thought?” She waved her hand toward the collection of empty platters and dishes and glasses. “This wine, the food, your devil-driven tête-à-tête? All just so you could…b-buy me?”

  “Buy you?” he bellowed. For fuck’s sake how could this have gone so wrong? “Hell no…to thank you.”

  “For what?” she demanded. “Do any of these past weeks mean nothing to you other than restoring this property so you can sell?”

  Tears pooled in her eyes.

  One fell.

  Then another.

  Sonofabitch. “I’m trying to tell you that maybe I’m…reconsidering.” His words wobbled out to her on a strangled whisper.

  “Reconsidering? Non…non…what does that even mean?”

  Panic surged through him as he struggled to find an answer, but failed. “I…don’t know.”

  On an elegant rustle, Annabelle shoved from the table. “I’m no longer interested in playing these games.” She tossed the envelope onto his empty plate. The silverware rattled as the money slid to his lap. “Keep your money, you blackguard. You’ll be needing this…and so much more…to mask the ever-growing void in your life.” She stormed to the arched opening leading into the entry hall, stopped, then glared back. “And consider this my long overdue resignation, Monsieur Benedict. I shall be leaving your employment at first light.”

  Panic spread, blurring his thoughts. He fought to salvage the fragments of his tattered life shattering out of control. Somehow, this wisp of a woman had grounded him, kept him from tumbling headfirst into the despairing pit of his own asinine existence.

  His vision went black at the edges until all he could see were emerald green eyes filled with tears. Jeezus, he couldn’t lose her. Not now. Not when he was just starting to make sense of his worthless life. He dropped to his chair seat. “W-What do you want from me, Annabelle?” he rasped, the words grating and painful.

  Her mouth opened as if to speak, then closed. Thick lashes, dark beautiful crescents on her pale face, lowered, then rose. On a broken sob, Annabelle fled.

  The rapid tap of her steps echoed within the tense silence as Brennen stared at her slender back until the rustle of royal blue silk faded into the shadows.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Annabelle shoved the door to her chamber closed. With a jerk, she tore off each piece of her dinner dress, then unknotted the ties that had secured her bustle. The contraption rattled to the floor. She stepped out, kicking the piece against the wardrobe. Rolling down her stockings, she flipped them atop the bustle. How foolish of her to have gone to such extremes. Je suis un tel abruti! Beneath huffs of frustration, she tugged off her underslips, her pantalets, her camisole, and corset and chemise. They too joined the pile. On a sob, she donned a cream-colored lawn night robe, then turned and paced the room. With each step she took the swishing sound of her house slippers underscored her building frustrations as his remembered words burned through her.

  That’s not at all what this means. I wanted to show you how special you are. Good God, Annabelle. Don’t you know that?

  Special? She scoffed…knowing exactly the kind of special gift he wanted. Le bâtard!

  One minute ground into another as she paced. She wrung her hands so hard her knuckles ached. Ten minutes later, she caught her image in the mirror. The hurt in her face at odds with the look of joy reflecting back earlier that night. Then, she’d look forward to the evening, her belief in Brennen’s transformation from a vulgar gambler to a man who truly cared.

  Money!

  His answer for everything.

  I just wanted to show my gratitude.

  She rubbed her fingertips against her throbbing temples, then stilled. Her lower lip trembled as shame swam into her veins. What if his action was sincere? What if as he’d said, the money was simply a show of his gratitude?

  Money is what had always driven him. Money his sole protector in a lonely life destroyed by war. Of course he’d return to that behavior. He always allowed his money to talk for him. Yet, the man she’d come to know these past few months would never have dishonored her.

  For all his arrogant charms, she knew he had no clue about people. “Mon Dieu, how could I have behaved so badly, accused him of such crudeness?” Her hand rose and held back a sob. She turned and her slippers scuffed up yet another mortifying wave of despair. “More so after everything he’s done for me?”

  The heat of the evening pressed closer. On edge, she jerked open her back door and exited onto the veranda. The gentle breeze wafted across her burning cheeks, sending strands of unbound hair across her face.

  At the railing, Annabelle stopped, raked the tendrils back. Her loose-fitting gown rippled around her nakedness as she tipped her head and she stared at the cavalcade of stars. Vibrant, blinking, silently mocking her for her foolish behavior toward Brennen.

  My emotions got the best of me. She clutched the smooth bannister. She owed him an apology, but a hastily scrawled note would have to suffice. The thought of facing him again after… In matters of the heart, I’m a coward. Instead, she’d lay her regret on the entry hall table when she left the manor house in the morning. Surely the sisters would take her in, and she’d send someone back to gather her belongings.

  She inhaled, allowing the flower perfumes that spun in the air to settle over her. Her heart broke at the thought of leaving, but she could no longer stay, having assumed their friendship had blossomed into so much more.

  His cash presentation at dinner proved otherwise.

  A gruff voice from the opposite end of the gallery met her ears. “Talk to me, Annabelle.”

  She whirled toward the sound.

  Brennen!

  How long had he been sitting at the table? Had he heard her pacing? Her mumbled words? Her angst? She clutched at the cloth belt around her waist. There was little else between her bare skin and the wind, and a strong gust could open her robe.

  She shuddered as an infuriating part of her wished it would. Still, the other part inside Annabelle, the part that drove her life and defined her path, differentiating right from wrong, reached down and skimmed the fabric against her. She should flee back inside, seek safety away from this conflicting man and all the frustrations he’d brought to her world.

  As he stared at her in the dark shadows the warmth on her cheeks grew. She crossed to her rocker and sat.

  Another breeze swept past, rustling the leaves of the nearby trees.

  A silver wash from a heavy moon spilled light across a glass in his hand. No doubt the amber liquid inside whiskey.

  She ached to move closer, to say how sorry she was for jumping to such a horrid conclusion. “Talk about what?” she whispered, unsure if her words even reached to the far end of the gallery where he sat.

  “About the money and my grave mistake.” The glass rim touched his lips. He
continued to stare straight ahead. “I’m sorry if I offended you. I meant only respect when I offered you the gift.” His heavy sigh reached out to her, his tone pleading. “I’m not good with words, or knowing how to show you that I…care.”

  As she’d only too late realized.

  Clouds slid past overhead, and the shimmer of moonlight revealed a deck of cards clutched in his other hand.

  His raison d’être… his lifeline.

  Gambling.

  On a sigh she closed her eyes and leaned against the rocker. She deserved this torment. After months of living near this man, she knew him far better than he realized. “I’m sorry if I spoke harshly,” she rasped. “I had no right to assume you meant anything other than what you’d shared.” There, thank God…she said it. “Twas my folly for thinking something more.” Seconds moved into minutes as the soft rocking of her chair melded with the breeze.

  A shuffling of cards met her ears. “My true self is dark and miserable, Annabelle,” he said, his voice so low she could barely hear him. “Yet your light keeps blinding me to that fact, I suppose.” Soft and steady, another scuffling of cards hissed. “You’re my joie de vivre.”

  His joy of life? She stared at his handsome profile, seeing the pain that etched deep lines across his face, unable to stop the glimmer of hope gathering inside her heart.

  He leaned forward, his shoulders hunched as he slid his glass onto the table. He wore no jacket, no cravat, just a pair of buff-colored britches and the plain white shirt he’d donned for dinner, whose full sleeves now ruffled in the wind.

  Her gaze dropped lower.

  Black leather boots tossed back another glint of moonlight her way.

  “I’ve lived my whole life on a gamble,” he continued, his rough voice cracking. “I’m good at avoiding. Done it all my life. Lucky at cards…unlucky at love. I’d early on set my own damned rules and refused to cross the line.” The words dredged up from some agonizing place inside him as he repeatedly shuffled the deck. “I mean, the death and destruction of war’s been over for years. And every day since, I kept wonderin’ when I’d start living again.” He drew another shaky breath and looked at her. “And then you smiled at me as you boarded that riverboat in Louisville, and nothing’s been the same in my life since.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, recalling his first charming smile, the devilish glint in his eyes, his kind impulse to donate to the orphanage. “I-I remember every single part of that crazy day.” His torment tugged at her heartstrings.

  He grunted. “I’m only kind because of you. I go from laughing to yelling in a heartbeat...’tis all volatile and transforming...you forced me to break my rules about ever caring…about anyone, or anything.” Their gazes deepened and he delivered his words to her as if for safekeeping. “…but you’ve also brought more life into me this summer than five years of livin’ on some damned boat ever did.”

  “Rules are meant to be broken, Brennen.” Love for this wounded man swelled inside Annabelle, filling her, erasing all emptiness and anger within her heart.

  She stilled.

  Love?

  Yes! Love. She loved him in spite of his self-imposed imperfections. Loved him so fiercely that she’d decided to leave him if only to protect herself.

  Yet now…all he shared…his attempts to connect with her now…share how he felt. She inhaled to calm her racing heart. “That’s the thing about people. They’re always searching…or,” she paused, grappling for just the right word, the right inflection that she, all too well, understood, “…running.”

  “Running?” He snorted. “That purely defines me. Hell, I can’t even deal with everyday life, let alone all my unknown tomorrows. Gambling, money, whores who mean nothing – these well-cover my asinine stupidity,” he continued in a strangled whisper, holding his whiskey glass like a lifeline, “Yes, I was lookin’ to make a quick buck, sell the place, move on. Return to what I knew. But, the more days I spend here, with you…and the others, the more I realize I never really had anything worth going back to. You make me want to be a better man, Annabelle, a man with purpose.”

  She wrapped her arms about her, aching from pity, wishing she could spare him this agonizing pain. Did she dare believe him? Was he playing her again for a fool? Everything inside Annabelle rose up, fortifying her, forcing her to her feet.

  There was only one way on earth to find out.

  She eased out a ragged sigh as her muffled footfalls took her past wicker rockers and side tables and stands filled with beautiful ferns. When she reached the table she caught the scent of his whiskey, and the lingering essence of the bay rum fragrance he’d earlier applied. He didn’t look up, didn’t acknowledge her presence in any way, but continued to stare at his cards.

  Leaning forward, she closed her fingers around the tin of lucifers that rested near the oil lamp in the center, then withdrew a match.

  One strike sparked the flame.

  “I have a request this evening,” she asked, lifting the globe. The tink of blown glass against metal resonated across the tension. She set fire to the wick, then replaced the covering. A shake of her wrist doused the match which she flicked over the bannister.

  “What kind of request?” he rumbled, glaring up at her. The night air ruffled the hair at the nape of his neck. The half-empty whiskey bottle near his elbow confirmed he’d been out here awhile.

  “Teach me the game of poker.”

  Surprise lifted the lines of exhaustion on his face as she lowered to the opposite chair. In silence she waited as he straightened from the table, sliding back his arms.

  His mouth wrenched sideways. “What?”

  “You heard me.” She tacked on a tenuous smile for good measure as she pushed the long swath of dark hair behind her shoulders. A quick tug tightened her fabric belt.

  Puzzlement spread into his brooding stare.

  “N-Now?” he stammered, sitting up straighter than the new lightning rods that now occupied the roofline above their heads. “After our fight a-and…Jeezus, Annabelle—”

  “Qui,” she cut in. “Right now. I mean, how can I condemn something I don’t understand? Poker, the impetus that has molded you.” She folded her hands before her on the tabletop.

  Seconds coursed past as his expression shifted from shock to a resigned acceptance.

  If only she could read his mind.

  He furrowed a dark brow, then cleared his throat. “You’re certain?” The angst in his voice softening to bewilderment.

  “Quite certain.” She tapped the table with her index finger. “And I’m a fast learner so let’s begin.”

  Much to her relief he nodded.

  On an exhale, he flipped the first card. “In Draw Poker ranks descend from the Ace, this one, which is the highest, to the King, Queen, Jack, then 10 on down to 2.” He pointed to the corner of the card. “This one’s the Ace of spades.”

  She leaned closer. “That looks like a garden shovel.”

  The tension in his lips softened a fraction further. “Yes, I suppose so. The correct term is spades. There’s also clubs, diamonds, and hearts. They’re called suits.”

  “Suits? As in the elegant black cutaway you wore to dinner?”

  He nodded, then at last chuckled, dimpling one cheek. The sound wrapped around her like answered prayer.

  “Your objective,” he continued, refocusing, “is to hold the highest hand at the end of a betting round.”

  He flipped the next card atop the previous one. “This is the four of hearts.” Another flip, another explanation. Until he’d gone through the entire deck.

  “So how does one get a “hand” in poker?”

  He smiled, bringing a dimple to his other cheek. Heat rushed through Annabelle as the lamplight emphasized the handsome contours of his now-relaxing features.

  “Good question,” he said. “Some games are played “face up” so everyone sees the cards, or “face down” so only the player knows what he’s holding.”

  “Which do you prefer?�
�� She reveled in his smooth southern drawl

  “Well, I like my games played with the cards dealt facing down.” He took another sip from his glass, then grinned. “Adds a bit of mystery.”

  She laughed and leaned back. “I already see why you’d like this game…what with your mysterious, no-responsibility nature.”

  He chuckled. “There’s that, too. No accountability means one is usually left alone.”

  “And you like that, don’t you?” She swept off a leaf that had drifted in on the breeze to land near her elbow. “Being left alone, I mean?”

  “Well that all depends on who I’m with, I’d say.” He smiled again, and Annabelle’s heart skipped another beat.

  Charming rogue.

  “Let’s refocus, shall we?” Upon her nod, he scooped up and again shuffled the deck. “A poker hand contains five cards which consists of a combination of possibilities dealt to each player.” He shot a card her way, then dealt himself one. Again, he repeated the pattern, ‘til five cards, face down, lay before them both. “Now look at ‘em, but don’t let me see what you’re holding. As I always say, one plays for the full stake, or they must pass the shoes.” Another chuckle followed.

  With a smile, she did as he asked, splaying the cards in her hand as if they were her sandalwood fan. “I’m guessing we rank them from the Ace down to two, as you previously mentioned?” He stared at her, his eyes dark and unreadable in the flickering light. She cared so much for him the look he gave almost made her giddy. “That’s what you said, isn’t it?” she added in reaction to his solemn expression. “Ace is the highest with the lowest to the two, correct?”

  His lips twitched. “Correct, but wait…” He eased back in his chair, a long leg sliding out beneath the table. “There are ten different hands in poker from a royal flush, which rarely happens…I’ve only held two in all the times I’ve played, all the way down to a simple one card high.”

  “How is the winner determined?”

  “By the one who holds the best grouping of highest value cards.”