The Rogue's Wager (Sinful Brides Book 1)

by Christi Caldwell

  His kind. The self-important bastards who’d been oblivious to a child’s suffering. Shame cloyed at him. “You survived,” he said gruffly. How easily she could have swung for her crimes. Acts of a hungry child she was forced to commit. Bile burned his throat.

  “I set fires to establishments at his command. I am not a good person, Robert.”

  He choked. “Is that what you believe?” With every admission, a spear struck his heart. He would have been a boy of fourteen, at Eton, his life wholly uncomplicated and carefree—as hers should have been. “You were a child,” he said, his voice a desperate entreaty. Surely she saw she was not to blame?

  She lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug, and casually continued over his protestation. “My mother died within a year of us living with Diggory.” Diggory. The monster had a name, which only made her horror all the more real. His fingers tightened reflexively. Helena winced, and he forced his hands open. “I could not stop crying.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth and bit so hard, a drop of blood pebbled on the flesh. Robert brushed his thumb over the crimson dot. “He wished me to thieve for him the day she died, but I just sobbed and sobbed until he . . .” She pressed her eyes closed and at the darkness there in her whisper, a chill went through him.

  “What did he do?” Did that hoarse, painful inquiry belong to him?

  “He taught me to be s-silent.” Her voice cracked, and the cold iced him from the inside out. “He held a candle’s flame to my face so that I was no longer crying.” Oh, God. Her body stiffened in his arms, and he drew her closer to him, wanting to absorb her pain, to make it his own, to take her suffering as his. “Whenever I cried, he’d touch the candle to me.” Had she taken an old broadsword from his ancestral estates and laid him open, it could not have gutted him more. He groaned, the ragged sound befitting a tortured beast.

  Her hands.

  A dark, unholy rage roared to life. A savage, primitive fury at the man who’d put his hands on her. And if he were here, Robert would sever the bastard’s limbs from his person and stuff them in his mouth.

  “Oh, Helena.” His voice broke.

  “It was a short time,” she said quickly.

  She sought to reassure him? He sat, humbled by the depth of her strength and courage. With all she’d endured, she was far stronger than any man he’d known.

  “My brother found me.” That man who’d have Robert’s eternal gratitude. “And we lived on the streets.” Stealing. “Until we moved to the Hell and Sin Club.” She shifted in his arms, and laid the back of her head against his chest.

  Silence fell between them. Robert wound his arms around her, and cradled her to him. There were no pretty words or gentle teasing that could take away her suffering. It was, and would always be, a part of her, and he hated that he could not own all of it, sparing her that past.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  He rubbed his chin back and forth over her soft brown curls, which had escaped her neat chignon.

  “I’ve not talked about that, ever. Not even with my brothers. You do not . . . talk of those moments.”

  Just as he’d not spoken of Lucy’s betrayal until her. How very much alike they were. They’d both been indelibly marked by life and had allowed it to shape whom they’d become. She’d emerged triumphant, brave, bold, and powerful, where he’d simply moved along with a shiftless purpose—until her.

  I love her . . .

  He stilled, braced for the flood of terror. He’d resolved to never give his heart again. Yet, there was no fear. No trepidation. There was nothing more than an absolute sense of rightness. While his mind raced, Helena drew back and his arms went cold, empty at the loss of her. Except she shoved herself onto her knees, and framed his face between her hands.

  “What—?”

  Helena covered his mouth with hers, in a questing, searching meeting of their lips. The hint of lavender that clung to her satiny soft skin filled his senses, headier than any aphrodisiac, as it blended with the fragrant scent of flowers about them.

  Helena would one day leave. In two months, three weeks, and a handful of hours.

  But before she did, she could not leave without knowing this man in every way.

  She wanted him. In her arms and in her heart. Forever.

  She wanted to sear her mind and body with the heat of his touch and the power of his kiss. This was the madness that had driven her mother to sacrifice all. At last, it made sense. And in a world where women were largely powerless, Helena would have this with Robert. This she had control over.

  He parted her lips and slid his tongue inside and a low moan escaped her, as she met his strokes in a bold parry. A shuddery gasp exploded from her, that sound lost in his mouth, as he worked her décolletage down and freed her breasts to the warm spring night air. The air caressed her skin, and then he lowered his head, dragging his mouth over her breasts.

  She cried out and lurched upwards. His mouth blazed a fiery trail over her skin, that tempting trail sending warm heat pooling at her center, so she was liquefied under the power of his touch. “So beautiful,” he whispered, his breath fanning her skin.

  Helena tossed her head back as he closed his lips around the tip of her right breast. He drew that sensitized bud into his mouth and sucked gently, then more incessantly. Her hips lifted in a desperate rhythm that came from wanting him and he worked the fabric of her gown up until he found her dripping center with his hands.

  Robert swallowed her cry, and teased the nub of her femininity until she was incapable of anything but sensation. Her breath rasped sharply, and she closed her thighs tight around his hand, anchoring him close, needing so much more. She let her legs splay open, and with a pained groan, he drew away and rolled to his side.

  Helena’s body throbbed at the loss of him, and she hurried onto her knees beside him. “Why did you stop?”

  “I cannot take you like this,” he gritted out between great, rasping breaths. He flung an arm over his eyes.

  Helena drew his arm back and lowered her face so their lips were a hairsbreadth apart. “I want this.”

  “You deserve marriage and a proper bed with satin sheets,” he said gruffly. “You deserve—” She covered his mouth with hers, swallowing those words.

  “I am tired of others telling me what I need or deserve,” she whispered, slipping her hands inside to stroke him under his jacket. “I want you.”

  Robert hesitated, and then, in one smooth movement, stood, swept her into his arms, and carried her deeper into the gardens. He laid her down and she studied him through heavy lashes as he removed his jacket and laid it on the thick, green grass in this pretend Eden.

  Helena shoved up on her elbows, and eyed him hungrily as he came down over her. His lips found hers once more, and she moaned and he slipped his tongue inside, tasting her, and the taste of him, brandy and mint, filled her senses.

  “I have wanted you from the moment I first saw you, Helena Banbury,” he said, between kisses. He dragged his mouth lower to worship her breasts once more, and she wound her fingers in his luxuriant silken tresses, holding him close.

  Never stop. She bit her lip as he suckled and teased and tasted until she was a quivering bundle of desire. He dragged her skirts up and slipped his hand between them, finding her drenched center. Helena bucked against his hand, thrusting into his palm, needing him and only him.

  Robert reached between them and freed himself from the confines of his breeches. The sight of his jutting shaft, tall, bold, proud, and stretched toward her, sent twin waves of heat spiraling and she reached out and wrapped him in her palm.

  His eyes slid closed on a hiss, and he rocked into her hand. A thrilling sense of power at driving this strong, powerful man to desire surged through her, and she continued to stroke him in her palm. Up and down in slow, exploratory strokes until his hips were frantically pumping into her hold.

  In a remarkable display of self-control, he pulled away, but he was only positioning himself between her legs. H
e slid his shaft inside her smoldering center, stretching her wider and wider, and she flailed her head back and forth on the earth, the throbbing ache at her center growing, the one only he could fill. Then he stopped, and she bit the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out.

  Sweat beaded on his brow, and she reached up, brushing back a loose golden strand. “Please,” she implored.

  But he only lowered his head to her breast, suckling her until she was pulsating, a moment from shattering.

  He thrust inside.

  Bloody hell!

  Robert swallowed her cry with his kiss, and she jerked as pain shot through her. He froze, allowing her body to adjust to his length filling her. She closed her eyes, and drew several deep, steadying breaths.

  Robert touched his lips to her eyelids, her forehead, and then he again kissed her mouth. “So beautiful.” And even with her scars and imperfections, in this moment, in his arms, she actually believed it.

  Helena opened her eyes, and trailed her gaze over the chiseled planes of his face. And as he began to move, their gazes remained locked. The pain receded and with it came that slow, aching pleasure. She began to move, lifting to meet his thrusts, until their bodies met in a perfect harmony, until their hips rose and fell with a desperate urgency that drew Helena higher and higher to that maddening edge of ecstasy.

  He pressed deep and she cried out, exploding into a sea of blinding white light and feeling. Robert shouted, and then poured himself deep, in great, rippling waves that filled her and left her replete.

  With a great gasp, he collapsed atop her, careful to brace his weight on his elbows.

  A dreamy smile pulled at Helena’s lips as she stroked her fingers over his fine cambric shirt. There were so many reasons they could never be together. Not the least of which were his revelations last evening of Lucy Whitman and his broken heart. They came from different worlds, and she had the Hell and Sin . . . and he would one day be a duke.

  All of those realities could intrude on the morrow.

  Now, she’d have nothing but this.

  “We have to return,” he said, pressing a kiss to the sensitive spot where her ear met her neck.

  Helena angled her head to better receive that gentle caress. For more than a month, she’d lamented the folly in leaving her door open at the Hell and Sin, only to find the greatest gift had come from it. She’d let Robert in and she’d have it no other way. “Must we?”

  Passion clouded his eyes. “Marry me.”

  She blinked up at the twinkling night stars. Surely she’d merely imagined that hoarse half please, half command.

  That dream he held forth tugged at her. A month ago, she’d have preferred death by quartering to marriage to a nobleman. Now she wanted all of what he offered . . . but selfishly she wanted more. “Oh, Robert,” she said, flipping to her side so she could search his face. Uncaring that she was bastard born, he would marry her anyway. Tenderness pulled at her heart, as she fell in love with him all over again for defying every preconceived notion she had of noblemen and of women of her station. She stroked her palm over his cheek. “You don’t have—”

  “I want you.” He captured her wrist in his hand, and dragging it to his mouth, he placed a kiss where her pulse pounded away.

  Want.

  Not love.

  Helena studied him, the intensity pouring from his endless blue gaze. Since she’d been a girl she’d disavowed marriage. She had wanted nothing but the safety of her role at the Hell and Sin Club, and self-control of her life. If she wed him, she would be forfeiting that role. That self-control.

  Robert removed a kerchief from inside the jacket on the ground and tenderly cleaned her. He shuttered his lashes but not before she detected the wounded spark there. His lips turned at the corner in his lazy half grin. “You’re going to wound me with your silence, love.”

  Love. The single defining gift he’d not offered. Because his heart was already given to another.

  With a sound of impatience, Helena sat up and set to work righting her dress. She’d never bind herself to a man out of his misbegotten sense of honor. She would not have Robert because of that. “I do not need you to marry me because of what we’ve done,” she said, hurrying to adjust her wrinkled skirts and bodice. Honorable as he was, Robert would always wish to do the right thing . . . even by a duke’s by-blow daughter. “You have to return to the ballroom.”

  As it was, her hasty flight would be noted. Had the guests present also spied the marquess’s retreat? A laugh bubbled past her lips. Not that it mattered, either way. She was not long for here. Something stabbed at her heart.

  “Is that what you believe?” he said quietly, as he gathered his jacket and stood. “That I’m offering for you because I feel a sense of obligation?”

  “You are a gentleman, Robert,” she said simply, as she attempted to shove her tresses into a semblance of an arrangement. Robert stuffed his arms into his sleeves, and then wordlessly turned her around, quickly setting her hair to rights. She glanced over her shoulder at him. “I do not doubt you’d marry me because—”

  “I love you.”

  Her breath caught loudly. She shook her head.

  He nodded.

  She gave another shake.

  “I love you,” he said again, in quiet, solemn tones. He palmed her cheek with a tenderness that threatened to shatter. “I would marry you because I love you.”

  Her lower lip trembled. She’d thought taking Robert in her arms would be enough. Only, three months would never be enough, and to marry him would mean abandoning her family, the club, and every pledge she’d taken.

  How had her life become so muddied in so short a time? Death by hot flame had always been preferable to life amongst the haute ton. Nor had there been a possibility of her sliding into this foreign world. Until she’d failed to lock her door and Robert had tripped into her life.

  Is it truly abandoning a dream as much as embracing a new one? A dream she’d never allowed herself because of how unattainable it had been.

  “Yes,” she whispered, as he stroked the pad of his thumb over her lower lip.

  He stilled. “Yes?”

  With a smile, he held her close and she drew in the sandalwood scent of him. “I’ll speak to Wilkinson on the morrow.” Even that deliberate use of the duke’s title, as opposed to the term “Father,” spoke of Robert’s awareness in ways that most nobles would never have.

  There would be time enough for all that came with this in the morn. For now, she had this.

  With reluctance, he set her away and consulted his timepiece. “I should return.”

  She managed a nod, and he hesitated.

  Then, with several long strides, he reached the door and left.

  As soon as it closed behind him, Helena buried her face in her hands. How could she set aside the existence she’d made for herself as a woman with some control, for the life of a duchess?

  A faint click at the front of the gardens brought her head up, and her heart quickened. “Rob . . .”

  The Duchess of Wilkinson closed the door behind her. Her astute gaze took in Helena’s sloppy chignon and her wrinkled gown, and then settled on Helena’s cheek. Vitriol poured from the woman. “You would not stay gone, Miss Banbury.”

  I was forced here . . . But how glad she was to be here . . .

  The woman strolled over with the casualness of one walking in Hyde Park and as she came to a slow stop before Helena, Helena resisted the urge to break past her and flee. Alas, she’d endured far more evil than this angry duchess.

  “I understand why you do not like me,” she said softly.

  “Do you?” the woman shot back in clipped tones.

  Loving Robert as she did, Helena couldn’t fathom the agony of marrying him and watching as his heart belonged to another. “I do.” Helena turned her palms upward. “I am sorry you’ve known pain.” And she was. Even as ugly as the duchess’s soul was, life had turned it that way.

  The duchess scoffed, that at
tempt at being dismissive ruined by the splotchy color in her cheeks. “You think this is about love? I do not love the duke.” Yes, but Helena would wager at one time the woman had. “I do respect the distinctions of rank and birthright. You and your mother and brother inserted yourselves into my life.” Hatred so strong brightened the crisp green of her eyes, and Helena took a step back. “She gave him a son, when I could not.” The duchess closed that slight gap, taking a step forward. “And I will be damned if I see you take my daughter’s right to rank by whoring yourself with Lord Westfield as you have.” Her Grace flicked Helena’s rumpled, limp cap sleeve. Then with smooth, expert duchess-like grace, the woman turned on her heel and walked away. She paused, and glanced back. “Oh, and Miss Banbury?” Helena stiffened. “I suggest you avoid returning to the ballroom. It would take but a single glance to know you were rutting in the gardens like your whore of a mother.” With that, the duchess left, leaving Helena alone.

  As soon as the lady left, Helena let loose a string of curses that would have only confirmed the woman’s every last vile supposition about her.

  For who could have ever believed that polite Society had evil greater than the beasts that lurked in the Dials?

  Chapter 21

  Rule 21

  Do not let anyone inside your heart.

  With her knees drawn to her chest, Helena sat at the window seat overlooking the London streets. Rain pinged off the crystal windowpane, and trailed a shimmery tear downward. Through the glass, she touched the tip of her index finger to one of those clear beads and followed its path until it converged with another drop and then they faded altogether.

  Robert was set to arrive at thirty minutes past one o’clock to speak with the duke, and then their lives would be inextricably connected—forever. Her heart gave a funny leap.

  Since she’d climbed abovestairs last evening, bathed, and sought out her bed, she’d lain awake, unable to sleep. This time it hadn’t been the nightmares that kept rest at bay. It had been him. Helena rested her forehead against the cool window.