The Rogue's Wager (Sinful Brides Book 1)

by Christi Caldwell

  I pray for your quick recovery, and ask when you think of me, you do so with some fondness.

  Ever Yours,

  Helena

  The crumpling of parchment filled the quiet, punctuated by Robert’s rapidly drawn breaths. Surely he’d been mistaken. He unfolded the page and reread the words there. And reread them again. Yet, no matter how many times he worked his gaze over that bloody page, they remained the same. A practical, cool parting devoid of any true emotion. A vise squeezed about his heart and he shook his head, his raspy breath filling his ears. No.

  “She left?” Stunned disbelief ripped those words from his chest.

  His father hesitated. “The day after you were shot.”

  With another empty, black laugh, Robert scrubbed a hand over his face. Is it really a surprise? Hadn’t he found her in the streets of St Giles and Lambeth twice in just the short time he’d known her? The sting of an all-too-familiar betrayal slashed across his muddied thoughts and he fed his slow-budding disgust for her for being fickle, and for himself for loving her, and for wanting her now, regardless.

  She’d chosen a life without him, preferring her existence as it had been, where she saw to the bookkeeping at her brother’s club. But you never considered what she wished for . . . In your silence you expected her to give up her world—for you . . .

  An empty numbness seeped in and spread like a slow-moving poison, blotting out all warmth. He wrinkled the sheet in his hands, and collapsed against his pillows. Cold, empty mirth spilled past his lips.

  “What is it?” his father asked quietly.

  “At the bloody irony of it all.” Closing his eyes, he shook his head back and forth. “I had one woman who would have sold her soul to be duchess, and another who,” I cannot live without. “Who wants no part of it.” And with that, wanted no part of him.

  “She loves you, Robert.”

  A sound of bitter disgust spilled past his lips. Ever the optimist, even in the face of absolute darkness. “Just not enough,” he spat. It had never been enough. Lucy had wanted a title. And Helena, she’d wanted her bloody books.

  Had she asked, he would have promised her the role of bookkeeper of every goddamn hell in London if she’d wished. He would have simultaneously dragged down the sun and the moon, and handed them over to her had she but asked.

  She shouldn’t have had to ask . . . You should have known that love she had and honored it . . .

  His face contorted in a spasm of grief and he wanted to toss his head back and rail.

  A woman who’d long had more control than most any lady of the peerage, and who chafed at her brother’s influence in her life, Helena would have never been one to simply toss aside that self-control. Even for his love.

  “You love her,” his father said simply.

  It wasn’t a question, and yet Robert nodded jerkily anyway. With all he was. Yet knowing the strength of her spirit, and her desire for more than a life as a leading societal matron, what had he offered her? What can I offer her?

  “Go to her.” The duke coughed into his handkerchief. “Just when you are able,” he said weakly, and shoved slowly to his feet. A twinkle lit his pained eyes. “Something tells me you will need every strength to bring that lady to heel.”

  Only, Robert didn’t want to bring her to heel. He wanted her to always be the strong, courageous, fearless woman who spat in the face of Society’s strictures and took on the Diggorys and Whitbys of the world—he just wanted her to be that person, at his side.

  Robert closed his eyes. Now how to convince the stubborn minx that she wanted to be at his side?

  St Giles, England

  One week later

  Chapter 24

  Rule 24

  Never love.

  All you need is love.

  Thirty cases of brandy.

  Twenty-one cases of sherry.

  Twenty-two cases of whiskey.

  Helena stared at the neat column of numbers.

  Her calculations.

  The very ones she’d insisted upon more than two months ago. Oh, of course those calculations had not taken into consideration the need to account for increased membership in that time, but still there was a remarkable significance in those numbers.

  She touched her fingertips to the sloppy markings in Adair’s hand. Her spectacles slipped over the bridge of her nose, and she shoved them back into place. For Ryker’s frugality and his contradictions of increasing the liquor accounts, she’d fought his stubbornness, and, at last it would seem, in her absence, he’d adjusted the liquor accounts. A wistful smile pulled at her lips.

  How very peculiar the turns life took. Had there not been a dwindling supply of spirits, would she have deliberately contradicted Ryker’s rules and stepped out on that floor? Helena trailed her index finger over the top of the page, her gut clenching.

  Yet, she had stepped onto those once-forbidden floors, and her life was irrevocably changed.

  Or it had been.

  A spasm gripped her heart, and she drew in a shaky breath. Giving her head a shake, Helena dipped her pen in the inkwell, and proceeded to tabulate the monthly living expenditures for the private apartments.

  For now, her life was remarkably . . . the same. Just as it had been for the past ten years. Day in and day out she rose, visited her cramped offices, and managed the books.

  Her mind hurried through the tabulations, and she marked the right column. Though it wasn’t entirely the same—there was a single, and very important, difference. Upon her return, she’d been granted greater freedom to move about the club floors.

  Mayhap in Ryker’s shock that she’d chosen to return to the Hell and Sin, she’d at last earned respect from a man who despised any and every aspect of the ton.

  Mayhap, in her absence, they’d come to appreciate the role she’d played, and she’d been granted greater freedom to successfully carry out that role.

  Or mayhap, it was simply that in her absence, and with her return, they’d acknowledged the truth—she was no longer the six-year-old girl who’d been in need of protecting but was now a woman, just five and twenty and fully grown, and in possession of her own mind.

  Through all of it, her additional responsibilities at the club, her freedom within these walls and halls, and her brother’s admiration, she had everything she wanted.

  So why was there this great, gaping hole of emptiness?

  The pen in Helena’s fingers trembled, and ink splotched the page. Setting the pen down, she slid her eyes closed.

  Her entire life, she’d believed if she left the Hell and Sin Club she would be incomplete, that she would be forsaking years’ worth of vows she’d taken, and all the self-control she so cherished.

  I miss him. I miss his laughter and his smile. I miss speaking to him, and his touch and his teasing. She missed every part that made Robert Dennington, the Marquess of Westfield, who he was. He was a man who’d seen past her scars and not sneered at her love of mathematics.

  And he’d nearly died because of her.

  Helena opened her eyes and stared blankly down at the open ledger. In the end, by penning a note of lies and leaving, she’d set them both free.

  Her throat worked, and though there would forever be this aching wound of loss, he was better for it. The damage Diggory had done was testament of that. She’d brought her world to Robert and his family, and that was a life she’d never have him be part of. It was a life she herself didn’t truly want. Drunken gentlemen, tossing away coin while people starved in the street. Men who’d drink themselves to death and wager away their family’s existence. That was the empire she’d lauded.

  The door opened, and she quickly picked up her pen.

  “I’m nearly finished,” she said, not taking her gaze from the page.

  “I didn’t say anything,” Calum drawled, closing the door behind him.

  “You didn’t need to,” she muttered, grateful for the distraction. For the emptiness inside, there was also a balm in being with the fa
miliarity of the brothers who’d always been there.

  Calum perched his hip on the edge of her desk.

  Helena glanced out the corner of her eye, and then continued working. “Is there something Ryker wished to speak with me on? Have I been summoned?” She lifted her eyes to his. “Again?”

  He had the good grace to flush. “He’ll never admit it but he did it to protect you. He knew Diggory couldn’t reach you in polite Society.”

  Yes, because everyone had always done what was best for Helena Banbury, making decisions, setting rules. What she’d wanted or believed had never been considered—not truly. She’d been spoken at.

  Only Robert had ever truly spoken to her.

  “Nothing to say?” Calum’s gruffly spoken question rumbled in the quiet, punctuated by the click of her pen striking parchment.

  Surely they didn’t expect that she could return the same woman who’d left? Particularly after having been forced out. “What is there to say?” She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. But can you truly resent them that, when it brought you the most splendorous days you’ve known in the course of your five and twenty years? “Ryker knows all. He knew what was best. I’d broken the rules, and I’m no different than any other employee.” Disposable and replaceable.

  “About what happened when you left,” Calum said quietly.

  She stiffened, and blinked down at the page. He wished her to speak about her time outside of these walls. A spasm wracked her heart. She didn’t wish to relive those days and the regret she’d now carry in leaving Robert. “We don’t—”

  “Speak of personal matters,” he cut in. “I know the rules.”

  Did her brother simply send Calum for further questioning to disprove her place here? Helena steeled her jaw. “You may assure Ryker that—”

  “He did not send me to speak on it.” At the wry twist of his words she looked up. “In fact, he asked I not put questions to you about it. He said to leave you to the books.”

  And they had. Every one of her brothers and the employees at the club had allowed her to seek out her office, and slip back into the old, familiar routine of bookkeeping. The task of going over reports and books had proven a distraction. A temporary one.

  “Is this about Lord Westfield?” he asked bluntly.

  Her eyes misted over and she blinked wildly at her page, willing the drops away, willing them gone so Calum wouldn’t see those signs of her weakness and know that her heart had never been further from this club.

  The floorboards groaned, and she stiffened as her brother sank to his haunches beside her chair.

  “You love him.”

  She managed a jerky nod. With all she was, and all she would ever be. Unable to take his silence, Helena forced her blurry gaze to his. Even through the sheen, the bitter twist of her brother’s lips shone bright. Of course, hardened and jaded as he’d always been, as they’d always been, he would never see love as anything but a mark against her character. A short while ago, she’d not been unlike them. “I thought I would be losing myself if I loved him,” she said, willing him to see. “But I’ve found there is nothing weakening about loving someone. It does not make you frail, or incapable of successfully keeping books, or running a business. It makes you stronger.”

  Calum gave a discreet cough, and shifted. “Uh, yes.” He patted her awkwardly on the back, and she sighed. Being with Robert, free in her thoughts and emotions, she’d forgotten the stifling oppressiveness of this constraint. “You should return to your books,” he said gruffly, and she nodded. Once, she’d been like him and her other brothers, unwilling to talk of anything that truly mattered, beyond the clubs.

  Helena returned her attention to her ledgers.

  He started for the door, and then called her name.

  She glanced questioningly over her shoulder.

  “I am glad you are back,” he said, with uncharacteristic emotion lighting his eyes.

  Helena smiled, incapable of giving him that same lie. “Oh, Calum,” she called when he pressed the handle. He stared quizzically back. “Someday, you are going to find yourself hopelessly in love, and not be able to tell up from down, and I’m quite going to revel in that moment, Calum Dabney.”

  He snorted. “There is no fear of that.” His lips turned up at one corner, full of so much male arrogance, she rolled her eyes.

  A moment later, he closed the door, and she looked back at her books. With a sigh, Helena pulled free her spectacles, folded them, and set them down on her ledger.

  For the first time in the whole of her life, there was no calm in her numbers. Or peace. Or joy. Just this peculiar emptiness.

  She rubbed at the sharp ache in her chest. When she had sat beside Robert in the street, as he was pale and drawn, feverish from a bullet he’d taken for her, small pieces of her soul had died, leaving in their place this jagged coldness, a forever reminder of what she’d brought to him.

  In those moments, his ragged groans and moans had sucked at her sanity, and ultimately left in place a realization—she could not marry him.

  She had no place being with a man such as him. Her world was one of violence and danger, and in simply being in it, he was at risk. As were his sister and his father. For even though there was no longer any threat of Diggory, there would always be rival club owners who knew the heart of Ryker’s weakness—his family.

  Helena clamped her lower lip between her teeth. The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth, and the horror trickled in.

  Robert’s blood staining her fingers, spilling onto the dirty London street, his raspy breath as his eyes rolled to the back of his head—

  “The nightmare?”

  The gravelly voice of Ryker Black cut across the terror and she spun about so quickly she wrenched the muscles of her neck. The nightmare—only this time, a new one that defied her own horrors at Mac Diggory’s hands. “Ryker.” She set the pen down and slowly stood.

  Her brother stood several paces away, the harsh planes of his scarred face familiarly blank and unmoving.

  They stood, their eyes locked in a silent battle.

  “It isn’t time for my weekly meeting,” Helena said at last, shattering the tension.

  Ryker folded his arms across his broad chest, and winged a frosty black eyebrow upwards. “I asked a question.”

  No, he’d stated two words. What accounted for his silence? What demons were his? She was his sister, and had known him the better part of her life, and still knew next to nothing about who he was. She tipped her chin up. “We do not speak about the past, Ryker. The rules.” Those same ones that had gotten her sent away.

  Then, when you were Ryker Black, you could break any rule, especially your own.

  “Diggory’s dead, and cannot harm you, ever again. You did that, Helena. You slayed that demon.” That lethal whisper sent a chill rolling along her spine. How casually he spoke about her firing a bullet through Diggory’s head in the alley that day.

  “I am not worried about Diggory,” she said quietly, and ran her fingers along the back of her shellback chair. It was the inevitable warfare that would come in taking down the leader of The Devil’s Den.

  He took a step closer, his eyes thin, impenetrable slits trained on her. “You wish to go back,” he continued, not allowing her a chance to reply. “Even as Wilkinson’s wife tried to off you, you’d return to that world.” Wilkinson. Not “Father.” Not “our father.” That same man he so disdained, had, in committing his wife to Bedlam, ultimately chosen right over that noble tie.

  Helena passed a sad gaze over her brother’s face. “Oh, Ryker, you look to the nobility and see them as all the same.” He saw the Duchess of Wilkinson’s treachery and not the duke’s kindness. Or Diana’s bravery in running for help inside the Hell and Sin Club that day, and ultimately ruining her name and reputation. Guilt stabbed at her heart. “You judge me for not judging them?” A sharp laugh escaped her. “You are so consumed by your hatred of those people, that you have become blinded by it.” Two month
s ago, she would have bit her cheek to keep from uttering words that would upset Ryker and her place in this universe. Not any longer. As much as she’d prided herself on her strength, she’d not truly been strong in asserting her place—inside this club, and inside her family.

  A muscle ticced at the corner of his right eye, but he gave no other outward reaction to her charges. “I do hate them,” he said in the most revealing words he’d shared with her, ever. “But with Westfield risking his own neck and coming for you, he has my respect.” Which for a man who respected few, and liked even fewer, was saying much, indeed.

  She shook her head sadly. Of course, Ryker would honor that ultimate act of bravery and foolhardy act of selflessness. But it would never blot out the years upon years of hatred he’d carried. Instead, he’d see her love of Robert, Diana, their father, as a testament of her weakness. “Is there anything else you require?” she asked tightly.

  Ryker shook his head. Without another word, he turned on his heel and left.

  She stared at the oak panel, and let the tension out of her shoulders. As a girl her life had existed with definable blacks and whites. There had been no confusion or questions about her place in the world. As a woman who was scarred and marked by the streets of London, that place could have never been clearer. Somewhere along the way, she’d begun to dwell in a netherworld of grey, where everything she’d believed had proven remarkably more complex.

  Abandoning work for the day, Helena snapped her ledgers closed, and swiped her spectacles from the desk. Striding over to the door, she pulled it open and stepped out into the hall.

  She started down the same familiar path she’d traveled so many times . . . and froze.

  Her gaze caught and held upon the small scrap of purple. Unbidden, her legs carried her over to that leafy vegetable. Stealing a look about, she dropped to her haunches and picked up the cabbage leaf, holding it close to her eyes. Her heart pounded hard as she pushed to her feet and followed a trail of those purple scraps that abruptly ended outside her chambers.