by Anne Mallory
That he would secure what he wanted, regardless of the eventual method, hung in the very air around him.
“Mr. Merrick—”
“Roman.”
“What might I possibly possess that would be of interest to you? You are hardly in need of more money—”
He smiled. “Every man is in need of more money.”
“Then I must confess now that we have none. Which means my father was betting everything on a very large pot. You must have surely won a good sum the other night.”
“I’ll have you know, I donated all of Trant’s monetary losses in that hand—nearly twelve thousand—to the Orphans of Liberty.”
She stared at him, unable to comprehend the amounts of money her father played and squandered. “Indeed.”
An angelic expression graced his face. “They needed the funds.”
“I find your attempt at humor vulgar.”
He clutched a hand over his heart, the other continuing to swirl the liquid nonchalantly. “Maligned without cause.”
Donated more than twelve thousand pounds to a fund for orphans—did he think her stupid? “I hardly think without cause. Besides, I’ve done work with that charity, and I’ve never heard your name mentioned as a donor.”
He smiled lazily. “And called on my crockery. Starting at such a deep deficit just makes the game far more interesting.”
“You find this a game?”
“I find you a diversion too entertaining to pass up.”
“I am hardly that interesting.”
“Men do not compose ballads to you night and day?”
Her lips thinned into a strained smile. “I don’t know why you’d be interested.”
“No?”
“I doubt you lack female companionship.” There was no way the women in the retiring room had been giggling over the other Merrick. He had been far from unattractive, but he was not the sort of man over whom one giggled. A charming rogue—that was the type of man who caused unknown hearts to flutter.
And the man in front of her seemed to switch easily from charming rogue to lethal killer at will.
“You say that as if I would grab the nearest woman who winked in my direction.”
“I’m merely pointing out that you have little reason to find me a game or challenge.”
“You don’t think yourself beautiful—beauty so uncommon as to cause comment?”
She felt the cold pit open. “I have been told such by men before, yes.”
He tilted his head. “But you do not think that of yourself?”
She lowered her eyes. She could claim modesty with the look instead of simply trying to hide her expression. “I see the lines of my face. Symmetrical, with eyes shaped the way men seem to enjoy. I know my hair is the desired color. I’ve been told I have pleasing lips and chin. And our seamstress gives us a discount just so she can continue to clothe me.” With gowns well above their means even then.
“So you know you are beautiful.”
Each day she looked into the mirror and saw a beautiful portrait. Perfectly motionless. Frozen in time.
She met his eyes. “Yes.”
“So why wouldn’t I be interested in you?”
She smiled, the social smile she had long perfected. “Of course. My apologies, Mr. Merrick.”
“If you call me Mr. Merrick again, you won’t be able to sit for a week.” There was a teasing quality to his words, but she froze all the same.
“Of course. My apologies, Roman.” His name formed strangely about her lips and tongue, curling into the top of her palate. “I will not forget myself again.”
The edges of his eyes creased. Irritation. She had provoked him. Did she desire to be harmed? His eyes were unreadable as he lifted the glass of amber liquid to his mouth.
The words slipped from her without her consent. “I will do as you say. As offered upon entering the room. I’d rather not end up like the woman in the hall.”
Everything about him stilled. The half-empty glass hung in the air, freed from his beautiful lips. He didn’t respond for a long moment. “You fear I will cut you?”
Damage her beauty. There was an uncomfortable thread deep within her that hungered for the freedom from it no matter the cost.
She met his eyes, lifted her chin. “I can beg you not to, of course. Quite prettily, I assure you.”
His eyes shuttered. “You think I did that to her? Slashed her?”
She looked at the thin, faded scar that curved down his cheek and around the back of his neck. She hadn’t noticed before that it continued around his throat. She wondered how he had survived the wound.
“I don’t know, Mr. Merrick. And if you didn’t, then I have probably insulted you greatly.” Her throat felt raw, it was hard to swallow. “But I know little about you.” She wished she had listened more closely to the gossip. Wished she had contacted Miranda and damned her pride. “And though the eyes can be deceived, they are all I have to go on.”
His fingers gripped the glass—knuckles turning white before loosening. He tipped his head, any amusement completely gone. “I will never harm you, Miss Chatsworth. Of that you have my word.”
She said nothing for a long moment, their eyes linked. Then she nodded. But she didn’t have any reason to believe him, and the further tilt of his head seemed to acknowledge that.
“And I did not do that to Marie. Noakes did.”
She felt a rush of emotion over that statement. Relief, anger, curiosity—caution that he wasn’t telling the truth—that it was a convenient tale.
“Did you kill him?”
One eyebrow lifted. “Do you really wish to know?”
A part of her did, in truth, but she said nothing. He pushed the other glass closer to her. “Here. Drink this. I promise it isn’t poisoned; nor will it incapacitate you in sotted glory. You will feel better.”
She grabbed the glass in shaking hands and tossed the liquid back as if she’d done so a thousand times previous. The spicy drink burned as it coursed down her throat, and she gave a slight cough. A trail of warmth spread down her neck and pooled in her stomach, spreading tendrils through her midsection.
“One-eye’s specialty. Perfect for the appearance of drinking true spirits. Especially for when a man—or woman—needs to keep his wits while feigning the opposite, since men tend to get suspicious of other men with empty hands.”
The thought that he had just told her something she could use against him gave her pause. She wondered if it would make a difference if people knew that he might not be consuming alcohol when he played against them.
He watched her, as if he knew what she was thinking. “Best not to ask what it is made of though.” He swirled what was remaining in his glass. “Feel better?”
An automatic response in the affirmative formed to placate him, but she realized that she did feel calmer.
He smiled knowingly. “Back to the question of why I’d be interested . . . it is a good one. For I know many things about you, and yet nothing about you at all, do I?”
He seemed to imply with the statement that he did somehow know her beyond what he might have heard from others. Her stomach tightened at the thought that he was separating her real self from the one she presented to the world. Her eyes narrowed automatically, too used to calling upon pride to react with lingering fear instead. She allowed him to pour more of the liquid into her glass.
“And though I find you beautiful, I understand what it is like to rely on beauty and know the shallowness of it.” His eyes were lazy, but there was a sharp point there in the center, acknowledging her. “Yet, it is impossible to say if you would have caught my attention the first time had you been plain and wrapped in brown. Thus remains the endless dilemma of beauty’s impressionable curse.”
“The first time?”
“Oh, I’d seen you before, Charlotte.” His lips pulled into that slow grin that did funny things to her.
“You knew who I was at the Hunsdens’ shop? Then, you knew when you
were gambling with my father who I was?”
She hadn’t had enough time to process the events. She had only discovered less than half an hour past that the man in front of her, the man who had won her, was the man from the shop. But he had shown no surprise to see her.
He tilted his head. “Had you been hard to forget the first time, beauty or not, you were impossible to forget the second and third. And this last time, alas, sealed your fate.”
She had no idea what he meant by that.
“I’d never seen you before the shop,” she said. A man like Roman Merrick would be hard to forget as well.
“Like vampires, we are.” His lips slashed charmingly. “Waiting to suck the wealthy and damned dry, only dealing in twilight.”
That brought to mind a feral image of pale skin, yet the man in front of her looked as if he spent time outdoors. “Your brother looks as if he’s never seen the light of day, but you have more color than he.”
“The curse of some long-dead Romany ancestors. Blessed with their fabled luck though, so can’t complain about my lack of pedigree in the mixture of odd lines.” He shrugged and swirled his glass, his decidedly non-Rom blond hair and blue eyes exhibiting the truth of the odd mixture he claimed. It was as if each bloodline had given him its best trait, mixing together for a stunning whole. “But my brother and I venture out only for auspicious occasions. Of course, the sun would never dare pierce Andreas’s skin.”
He seemed amused at some private joke.
“Now, as to what you have . . .” He tilted his head. “You have exactly this at your disposal, do you not?”
Something strange tightened within her. “More nights of the same? Surely you are not a man who requires a woman to scathingly or insipidly talk him dumb?”
He twisted the glass, coating the sides in amber. His gaze saying far more than words as to what those nights would entail.
She took a moment to answer, trying to keep herself together, for she’d never felt farther from control. “I doubt even marriage to Mr. Trant could cover such goings-on should I lose.”
“But think of what might happen should you win?” Lips curved charmingly, pulling and promising. The pleasures of a game, of a simple bet. Dangerous.
“And what would happen should I win?”
“That is where we come to terms.” He drew a finger along a furrow in the table. “What do you desire, Charlotte Chatsworth?”
The husky, almost scratchy syllables shivered along her skin.
Freedom. That is what she desired. In all guises.
She smiled, strained. “Nothing that can be given, Mr. . . . Roman.”
“But there are many things that can be given, Charlotte. You are thinking far too hard.” His eyes were amused, but piercing all the same. “For example, it could be something as simple as returning home posthaste, virtue intact. Or something more pedestrian, such as money to cover your father’s debts. Or something as complicated as . . . relief.”
“Relief?”
He looked entirely too satisfied that she had asked. He reached across the table and lifted her gloved hand from her glass. Pulling it between his, he slipped each fabric channel over each knuckle, medium-grade silk brushing her skin in a roughened caress. She removed her gloves multiple times a day. She knew the feeling as they popped free. But never had she felt like this. Warmth penetrated the material, bare fingers brushed each half-freed digit. Promises in each removal.
He smiled, predatory and dangerous, his eyes linked to hers before dropping to the freed silk in his hand. He examined it for a moment, then idly tossed the glove to the empty chair between them. He leaned back in his chair, lifting his glass again.
She stared at him for a long moment, unnerved and unaccountably warm, but gathered her wits back together. “I can remove my other glove, should I win?”
“You can remove whatever you like. Or ask me to do it for you, a slave to your whims.” For a moment, she wondered how she had ever thought his eyes like ice. More like molten silver. She blinked, and his light eyes were idle and amused once again.
“It sounds far more like you would win.”
“Oh, in that instance I would. Perhaps you could play with that in mind. I’ll take the choice off your hands. Free you. Give you that relief.” Glittering eyes, full, decadent lips. Her eyelids felt heavy as her gaze moved between the targets. “For each game you lose, I could remove a piece of your clothing.”
He leaned over and lifted her bare hand, his bare fingers, rougher than what she was used to, inspecting her forefinger. He looked up, his lips pulling dangerously. “Or suck a piece of you dry.”
Her finger disappeared into his, and she felt them pull from root to tip. Dear God, there was something in her that reached up, coiling around the feeling in her finger, almost feeling his mouth there, tongue curling around the tip, and she almost said yes.
She pulled her finger back, cradling it against her chest, breathing hard. “I . . . I think not.”
He seemed amused as he leaned back, lifting his drink again. “No, that would bring an abrupt end to the game, would it not? And now that we are playing, I hardly want it to end so soon.”
“I—I haven’t yet agreed.”
“No?” His lips curved, as if denying the claim.
“I couldn’t possibly win a portion of the money my father is in debt for. And even if I could, he would simply gamble it away instead of settling the debts.”
“I could settle those debts.” There was something very silky about the way he said it. She wondered if this was how Lucifer bargained. “Easily. And without your father.”
She didn’t bother to ask how. It wasn’t the most pressing question. “Why would you?”
He merely smiled. “Will you play?”
“For a relief of my father’s debts?” she asked in disbelief.
“For more nights together?”
“Those are your terms? One of my father’s markers for each game you lose. A . . . a night for each game I lose?” She could be indebted to him for eternity by the morning. “I could not fulfill those terms.”
“No? But you would simply need to pick the game wisely. Unless you want to be deeply indebted to me?” He smiled temptingly, and she clutched the finger he had abused in her lap. “You might be able to keep the game going until dawn, and forestall all losses . . . or wins. Even the implicit one in the original bet for this night. For at daylight, I cease to exist.” His fingers pushed quickly outward like an evaporating shot. Those lips slashed, pulling further in pleasure.
She heard her voice ask, as if from afar, “What kind of games do you play?”
“I will let you choose.” As if it had already been decided and agreed upon.
It was enough presumption to raise her hackles. She narrowed her gaze. From the glittering of his eyes, he appeared a little too pleased at that stubborn response. She also wasn’t so naïve as to see that should she refuse to play a game, he would be free to do . . . whatever . . . he wanted with the rest of the night anyway.
“Like chess?” Not a game she would associate with the man in front of her. And one that she might stand a chance at winning—or at least playing through to the night’s end.
His lips curved. “I’ll start to think Andreas has Rom blood after all,” he murmured.
An odd comment. For hadn’t he said that he carried the strain, which would indicate his brother would as well?
But understanding took her, as she remembered the other man from the shop. They weren’t brothers. At least not by blood. She wondered how they had come to share a last name. Adoption?
Roman lifted an ornate box from the shelves behind him. He slid the top off to reveal striking figures and offered it to her to choose. A box that was far too close at hand.
She let a breath escape, a tinge of hysteria escaping with it. She needed to quell such a response before it cascaded with other feelings and opened up the metaphorical box to the rest.
Instead, she concentrated on th
e very real box before her and the figures therein.
It was a beautiful set. Charlotte touched the head of the white queen. They had sold their heirloom pieces a year ago. She still mourned their loss. But ivory and gold provided spare comfort when worse fates loomed.
“I can’t tell you how pleased I am with your choice.” His lips stretched, and the flutters in her stomach beat harder. Of course, a man with a chess set so near at hand was likely to be skilled.
In her beloved sister’s foul words, bloody great.
Chapter 6
Roman watched her lips pinch and turn down before quickly smoothing out. He tried to maintain a bland façade but found his own lips quirking.
“I haven’t played in years,” he said as idly as he could. “I keep the set handy only if someone deigns to indulge a poor beginner.”
“I’m hardly stupid, Mr.—Roman.”
He hummed, not looking up to see her reaction as he put pieces in place. “No, I’ve not yet taken you for lacking intelligence.” He brushed his fingers across hers as he retrieved the black king.
Her fingers clutched into the velvet lining as the king lightly slipped across her knuckles.
She wet her lips, pulling them together and inside. It made his muscles clench from his stomach to his knees. “And it is just my luck that you are probably a master of the game.”
There it was again, that hitch in her voice after he touched her.
The sound made him want to do things to her. Dirty, animalistic things. To bruise her lips with his, muss her perfectly coiffed hair while scraping her on the sheets, blotch her skin with feral color as she lost track of her own name—head tilted back, eyes glazed, unintelligible sounds emerging.
Something in his thoughts must have come through his eyes, because the pulse in her throat leapt again, and her breathing increased. Whether from unknown desire or from fear, it was hard to tell.
He hummed and resumed his naturally charming façade. The one meant to put others at ease. But it seemed to elicit the opposite reaction in her, smart woman, and her eyes grew wary—warier—and watched everything about him, studying him in the same way he studied her.