The Last Gamble

by Anabelle Bryant

  ‘We’ll wait abovestairs in my office. I’ve already sent Ace to Dursley’s residence with my message. When he returns, we’ll have more information.’

  Each word sounded as if it cost too much, his patience exasperated, her own temperament cagey and intolerant of the necessary process. She followed up the narrow stairs and down another dim corridor until they arrived at Luke’s office where he ushered her inside without speaking, lit a few necessary lanterns and released a long breath. Meaning to break the prolonged silence she grappled for any line into conversation. ‘Ace?’

  ‘One of the lads employed here at the hell.’

  It was the right choice. Luke seemed to ease immediately. He dropped one shoulder to shed his coat, the action leaving him in shirtsleeves, the white linen a stark contrast to his golden skin and ebony hair. Did he notice her ogled attention? She should force her eyes away, though, despite her internal admonishment, she didn’t.

  ‘All of our lads were once homeless, lost to the streets in one way or the other. Max, Cole and I provide them with meals, a place to sleep, and promise of employment.’ He heaved another exhale as if dismissing the kind act. ‘It’s a small show of generosity in a large, cruel city.’

  ‘Do not denigrate your collective effort.’ She wouldn’t allow him to undermine the noble accomplishment.

  ‘Come here.’ He indicated a curtained wall, his voice gruff and she understood why. He must torture himself with culpability for Nate’s disappearance, this interminable waiting nothing more than torment in another form.

  She watched as he pulled a long silken cord and the crimson drapes that flanked the left wall unfurled to reveal a tinted glass window. As she stepped closer she realized it offered a view of the world below. ‘How very clever.’ She did not lie, impressed by the intelligence and deliberate prudence to have installed the beneficial feature.

  ‘Those on the gaming floor below cannot see us.’ She heard pleasure and pride in his voice, an effortless dignity that did not escape her notice. ‘For once the bastards have the upper hand.’

  She might have responded but a quick rap on the door obliterated further conversation.

  ‘Enter.’

  Luke turned, his shoulders drawn straight, as if unsure Dursley himself would step over the threshold. Indeed, that was one scenario they hadn’t discussed.

  But it proved a street urchin, a lad she presumed was named Ace, a lanky boy suspended between child and man, his tenor in flux, a dirt smear on his cheek amidst a mass of hectic freckles.

  ‘Got that message for you.’ Ace shifted his eyes in her direction for a rabbit-fast assessment though his every attention remained on Luke, who lurched for the note, the lad out the door before Georgina could steal another look.

  Her eyes riveted to Luke as he scanned the paper and then crumpled it in his fist, thrust away in his pocket. She had to wait for him to speak, her collective breath seeming an hour in anticipation.

  ‘He’s gone.’ The two words pierced the stillness with succinct disappointment.

  ‘What?’ She needed his explanation, the moment critical.

  ‘According to the butler, Dursley left London and will not return until later this week.’ His voice sounded void of emotion.

  ‘When?’ Why had her conversational skills reduced to one-word responses? It could only be the fragility of the subject and her effort not to cause further pain.

  ‘Two days at best.’ He looked away with this answer. From disappointment or frustration, she did not know.

  ‘I see.’ An improvement. Two words strung together. She strove for increased success. ‘I cannot linger. I must be in Coventry in time for Lord Tucker’s return.’ She stated it matter-of-factly, a suitable answer, not an edict, wanting to recognize the parameters of their limitations and plan to arrange her life for no other reason than to find a solution and somehow help locate Nate. She never meant to imply she’d withdraw her assistance, yet her words had the opposite effect.

  Fury flickered in his eyes, a bright flash, catching her unaware as he charged within a pace. She gasped in surprise.

  ‘Send old Tucker a note. Apologize for the delay.’ His demands peppered her, though his refusal to take time and consider the statements lit her anger.

  ‘You have it all figured out, don’t you?’ she lashed out in return. ‘All to your advantage.’

  ‘To my advantage?’ He took another menacing step and his hot breath brushed her cheek.

  Still she would not be cowed. ‘Lord Tucker depends on me to care for his son just as I cared for Nathaniel.’ She wouldn’t forsake Luke but neither would she shirk her responsibility. Lord Tucker’s finer qualities included understanding, but in the same vein he expected her to uphold her obligation. The situation wont creative thinking and a few minor arrangements, but Luke made it sound a betrayal no matter he hadn’t taken time to hear her out. ‘Don’t you understand?’

  ‘Understand.’ His chuckle was more growl than laughter. ‘Know what I understand?’

  Prudence told her not to answer.

  ‘For months, I had nothing. Every lead exhausted, every search fruitless. I hired men, implored any contact in my power, and it all resulted in naught a clue.’ His voice grew ragged. ‘Inside I was empty and the emptiness grew pervasive. Each day I’d hope by exertion any minuscule enquiry would produce the information, until this. I’m so close now.’ His hand shot up, his fingers clenched tight as if he hung on to hope, a tangible thing. ‘My half-brother stole Nate and disappeared, a fox gone to ground, and now you are here, my first and last chance to corner the devil. I will not let it waste.’ His words erupted, forceful and frantic, like birds flushed from the hedges. He’d worked himself into a rage, but it wasn’t fuelled by anger. Nay, helplessness, hopelessness, so intensely raw it cleaved her heart. The silence tapered into unbearable, distraught emotion.

  She closed the space between them and placed her fingers to his jaw. The muscles shifted beneath her touch. He’d clenched his teeth, whether to keep from saying more or cinch his pain she could not know.

  ‘Don’t pity me, Georgina.’ A battalion of emotions flickered in his eyes: anger, resentment, regret and vulnerability.

  ‘Pity you?’ She resisted the desire to shake her head in bewilderment. ‘You have it all wrong. I admire you. Revere your strength. How fiercely you love your child. The heroic efforts to find him when the worst perpetration any parent could experience was imposed upon you by your own blood.’

  The words, spoken from her heart, reverberated with personal significance, reminiscent of her thoughts last evening in regard to her family residing only a few miles away. Still, she couldn’t attend that now. Not with this wonderful, wounded man in front of her, the susceptibility in his eyes powerful enough to burn her soul. Pride was a tenacious, though fragile, force.

  He didn’t reply and she wondered if she’d gone too far, said too much, but then he swept forward and backed her to the glass wall, pinned beneath his heat by the strength of his kiss. She whimpered, a sound of pleasure and surprise as she fast melted into his embrace.

  He’d reacted instinctively. Not intending to frighten, too long held taut in wait, insufferable wait of so many things. He craved her with insatiable desire, hungered for her with every ounce of his being. She was beauty and light and hope, and he would kiss and touch until he believed once again that all would be right. When he kissed her, his mind went blank, his body in control. He needed that escape now.

  He’d find a way to convince her to stay, tempt her, trespass boundaries, seduce her if he must, in truth no sacrifice. Confident in his sexual prowess he’d use every tactic necessary to cause her to remain in London.

  For Nathaniel’s sake.

  For his own.

  Lies filled his head. Beautiful, tempting betrayals. She meant nothing more than a way to a means, an expenditure of his riotous emotion, a kind woman whose presence was transient, no more than temporary.

  Lovely, seductive lies.

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nbsp; His heart beat too hard. Blood raced through his limbs. This was no gentle kiss. No courtship or promise. He took her lips as bold as a thief who stole silver while the hostess dined. No, this kiss was as essential as breathing and he growled his satisfaction into her mouth when she did not shy away, instead pressing her curves into his hard muscle, placing her palms on his chest to inch upward.

  He coaxed her sweet mouth open, seeking the warm silk of her tongue, and waited, rewarded with a flick, flutter, before complete capitulation. Her tongue slid against his in surrender, twined in a dance that promised so much pleasure. Matched stroke for stroke, he pursued. Physical awareness won out and sensuality fast replaced sensibility. The weight of her breasts against his thin linen shirt, her apricot scent, the touch of her fingers held tight to his shoulders as her nails pinched his skin in painful pleasure. He brought her closer still and scattered kisses along her jaw to burn a path, branding her and marking her as his, no matter what the future held. He trailed his mouth to her ear and whispered wicked carnal suggestions. Sensing her approval in each panted breath, he returned to her mouth, sucking hard on the lower lip which she fretted whenever concerned. This kiss rendered every rule of propriety meaningless.

  In a rush to slow time, he caught her tongue between his teeth, satiny wet and delicious, the subtle pressure no more than a love bite, but strong enough to gain pause. All mad, hungry passion slowed to savour, lazy and languid instead. This time he listed kisses down her neck, lower to where her pulse kept a frantic beat at the delicate indentation between her collarbones. He smelled apricots in her heat and licked across the thrum beneath her skin, her heartbeat skittering against his tongue.

  He had no right, lost all logic, and bowed her neckline, pressing the length of one finger between her breasts, the heated constraint of soft, damp, forbidden skin arrowing sensation straight to his groin. Had he any sense he’d stop, but when she exhaled a stuttered sigh of pleasure, he abandoned one temptation for another and stroked across her bodice, the linen hardly a barrier from the pressure below, the silky soft tip of her breast tight under the pad of his thumb. How he longed to taste the dusky peak.

  Pressing into her skirts to alleviate the unrelenting, maddening bliss, he ground the unmistakable ridge of his arousal against her pelvis. He’d shocked her. Heard it in her gasp, felt it in her laced fingers through his hair, bound tight, and he reared back, not in retreat but all at once aware of what he’d neglected, informed by the scrape of her nails against his scalp as he watched her eyes open, dazed from their pleasure, their breathing ragged and short. Without breaking the intensity of her gaze, he reached forward and released the pins in her hair, wrapping a long, heavy length around his fist until he brought it to his mouth for a reverent kiss.

  She looked thoroughly mussed, her hair tumbled around her shoulders, skin rubbed pink from the barest whiskers on his chin, lips swollen and wet, breathtaking and beautiful. The glass pane at her back clouded with their heat, blocking out his other life, yet he paused too long to drink in her image, reason at the ready to intrude.

  ‘Have you never been kissed?’ He couldn’t help but ask. Jealousy, or some related emotion, wondered at the ferocity of her sensual response, the question necessary to explain the unexplainable force of his own desire. And at the same time, he yearned to know who touched her, like some invisible foe he would vanquish along with every memory she held of any other intimacy.

  She searched his face, taking inventory as she sussed out the answer. Her breath feathered on her tongue, against his chin. ‘Not like that.’

  What began as a kiss quickly evolved into something he could not name, could not understand, a yearning so strong he could only ride out the storm, caught in the surge of passion and desire. How experienced was she? Had she ever lain with a man? Invited pleasure? Engaged in sensual, sexual acts? Pleasured herself? He wanted to know every detail and at the same time didn’t care to hear answers. What delectation they created together obliterated all other. Emotion, raw and vulnerable, unwound in his chest and he ignored its demand for attention.

  He took her mouth again. His hands moved over her, learning every curve, cursing fabric and obstruction, until at a loss to touch flesh he gathered her skirts in handfuls, collecting muslin and cotton, thick in his palms to push aside. The office air, cool despite their heat, could only have teased her exposed thighs. They quivered when he pressed his palm flat. He swallowed, knowing himself a rakehell and rogue, a man with extensive sexual experience, though the feel of Georgina’s smooth skin beneath his hand proved an extraordinary force. His cock ached for release. His mind warred with his pursuit. He inched one hand higher and her legs trembled in consent. Further across the lacy hem of her silk stocking, closer to the slit in her drawers where he knew she waited with pure, wet heat. He didn’t want a touch, one stroke of his finger against her core. He wanted all. To touch, taste, satisfy, to feel her hot, tight flesh around his finger, embrace his hard cock and clench him in climax.

  The barrage of images and demands proved too much and he ended the maddening bliss by teasing a finger into her depth. She was soft, slick perfection, the base of his palm banked against her downy curls, his finger enfolded in erotic sensuality, so wet and ready he struggled, stilled, in beg of control. To stop would kill him, slay and finish his already damaged heart. Yet he did nonetheless.

  She was not as disciplined. She shuddered, arched against his hand with a moan he would remember while he dreamed, her fingers pressed so tightly to his shoulder he knew there would be marks come tomorrow. He smiled against her mouth to steal her gasps and pleasure noises, and allowed her to rock against his hand in shy gratification.

  The governess was a sensual creature, one with little experience and unfathomable depth of sexual curiosity. He growled in appreciation, stilling her hips with his hand, sliding his fingers from her pantalets with an action that cost much.

  He would have liked nothing more than to extend their exploration, but his body demanded he either stop or find completion and, unwilling to destroy the tenuous bond with Georgina, he’d chosen his own discomfort.

  She reassembled quickly, her fingers busy rearranging her gorgeous mahogany tresses into a tight knot. She smoothed her palms down her skirts, adjusted her neckline and took a deep breath before she finally matched his gaze. Delectable minx replaced with proper governess in less than a few moments.

  They stood that way, inhaling and exhaling each other’s existence. Her efforts were lost, her skin flushed pink, her lips swollen. She looked thoroughly ravished and indescribably beautiful, a wondering glow in her gaze. He had no idea what she saw. Traitorous libertine, crude philanderer, or worse, the man who stole her innocence as he plundered her body.

  ‘I should return to the house.’ Her murmur, frayed and husky, winnowed through him as erotic as the bite of her nails on his shoulder moments before.

  ‘Yes.’ He wished to read her mind. She couldn’t possibly think to leave London now. ‘I will follow later.’ He swallowed, unsure what she would reply, but she didn’t. Her gaze continued to flitter about the room as if at a loss where to land, rejecting each location without a blink. He accompanied her downstairs and outside where he summoned a hackney with a sharp whistle. Tucked inside, he spoke to the driver and paid the fare, the hack taking wheel before he could ascertain any words needing to be said.

  With Georgina gone his attention came to rest across the street where a familiar, yet odd-placed, stranger stood. A man of small stature and nondescript features watched their interaction, almost indecipherable against the hornbeam trunks, but for one distinguishable detail which set him apart: a long, jagged scar that carved a path down one cheek.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Georgina kept her eyes skyward as the hackney lurched into motion. Peculiar how the weather had altered from pristine blue to ominous presage in less than an hour. She pushed her spine further into the hard wood seat in a determined attempt to calm the unnerving perturbation caught so
mewhere between mind and soul.

  She narrowed her eyes at the clouds overhead. Perhaps it would storm. The sky had assumed an unusual shade as fascinating and dangerous as the silver glint in Luke’s eyes before his mouth crushed down upon hers. And that was the thing about storms; they plundered, destroyed, reformed, and in the aftermath endured only two results: total devastation from which one would never heal, or quiet beauty, the epitome of peace, resolved and resplendent after the worst was over.

  How to interpret his question. Have you never been kissed?

  Little effort was required for her to summon the memory of what occurred in a garden on the outside of this city, only miles away. Obscene and repugnant, the rude scrape of teeth across her mouth still held the power to upset her pulse’s steady rhythm. She struggled to force the memory back into the grave where it belonged, but not after she ran her fingertips across her neckline, confirming it lay in place, as if to erase the unwanted, harsh groping of his hands at her breasts on that ugly evening. She’d rebelled, his repellent assault too much for her to endure, though it signalled the beginning of the end, had it not?

  Her hand stilled now, flat against her heart, her mind quick to recall the exquisite sensation evoked by Luke’s exploration of her body. How far would she have allowed things to progress? She could not answer that question clearly. At one point it seemed as if she were falling down a well, aware sooner or later she would land at the bottom, but the ephemeral floating, transitory and fleeting, produced such intense pleasure, it proved difficult to fear the end result. His kiss tipped her off balance with dizzying effectiveness and changed the odds of all she dared risk. Fear ached in the pit of her stomach. She should not begin something that could only bring about agony in its demise. And why? Why had he kissed her as though she meant something to him? Was it misplaced anger and frustration that drove him to want her? Did he use her to slack the unbearable reality he needed to wait longer until finding his son? There was no room in her future for happiness at the moment. Any notion of falling in love was a borrowed idea at most.