by Zoë Archer
The value of the money itself was nothing to him. Only the thrill and heady power of manipulating chance to his advantage. A framed painting upon the wall depicted the goddess Fortuna, blindfolded, scattering coins as she balanced precariously upon a globe. She bestowed her gifts without favor, immune to mortal influence or desire.
Studying the painting, Whit permitted himself a small, vicious smile. He had toppled the goddess from her perch. She had no power over him anymore.
I have killed an ancient god. Where once there were deities, the Hellraisers reign.
He almost pitied the world. Almost.
Hours later, Whit stood outside the club, amazed how little anything had altered. From the noxious puddles in the street reflecting the gray dawn, to the nodding coachman awaiting him, to the deliberately imposing façades of buildings fronting St. James’s Square, the world was almost exactly the same as it had been the previous day.
He felt a bizarre urge to stop a passing costermonger, shake the man by his shoulders, and crow about the wondrous new world he had created. Instead, Whit and Leo donned their tricorn hats and stood quietly, their breath steaming in the frigid air.
“I feel as though I should ring the bells at St. Paul’s,” Whit murmured.
Leo offered a rueful grin. “Been fighting that urge ever since yesterday. But now”—he yawned hugely—“Mr. Holliday’s gift or no, I haven’t seen my bed in far too long. Are you for home?”
Home. And Zora. It was a measure of how entranced Whit had been with his power that she had only infrequently entered his thoughts as he had sat at the card tables, existing as a warm, luminous presence hovering at the edges of his consciousness. Now, fresh need surged, only temporarily dammed. He saw her dark eyes, heard her low, husky voice, and it was all he could do to keep from knocking the coachman from his perch and driving himself home at a breakneck pace.
“Home, my lord?” said the coachman, snapping Whit to wakefulness.
“I think I’ve done all that I care to,” said Whit. He felt not dissimilar to the sleek matched carriage horses that steamed and stamped in impatience.
“At the club, anyway,” added Leo.
“Can I give you a ride home?” Leo’s residence was in Bloomsbury, a distance most would traverse either on horseback or by carriage.
“These peasant legs of mine find pleasure in walking. Enjoy your Gypsy girl.”
Already stepping into his carriage, Whit paused, one hand upon the top of the door. Enjoy her? She was more than a momentary pleasure, some exotic delicacy to be sampled before moving on to the next flavor. He had only to think of her and a primal hunger gripped him, something that would not be slaked by taking her once or twice. More than fancy, more than lust. This he already knew, though he had not even tasted her mouth.
“Good night, Leo,” he said.
“Good morning, Whit.” Leo strolled off, whistling.
The ride to his town house in Berkeley Square was brief, yet Whit churned in a fever of restiveness. When he did at last arrive, he did not wait for the carriage to stop, nor the footman to open the carriage door. Instead, he flung the door open and bounded up the steps. He took no notice of any of the footmen or maids he passed once he was inside. He strode quickly to the game room, not pausing as he handed off his hat to a waiting servant. As he neared the room, his heart throbbed with each step.
He paused outside the game room just long enough to give a tap on the closed door. No sound from within. Panic gripped him. Was she gone? It could not be possible.
Fear dissolved when he opened the door, stepped inside, and saw Zora sitting by an open window. The fire in the grate burned low, and no candles were lit. It hurt to look at her, the dawn light tracing silver and smoke along the bold, feminine lines of her face. She had her legs drawn up, her arms wrapped around them, as she perched upon the chair. Her head turned toward him when he entered, eyes flaring bright. Other than this, and the small tightening of her hold around herself, she did not move.
Whit shut the door behind him, but when he turned back to her, he did not close the distance between them. He wanted to look his fill, behold his treasure, his prize. Zora.
She stared back. Her gaze traveled over him, seeing, no doubt, his evening finery a little less pristine after a night’s adventure. She lingered longest on his face. A keen, exacting stare—one he was coming to know well. It cut him open as surely as an anatomist studying a specimen. His heart exposed to her. An exquisite pain.
“A successful evening,” she said. Her voice stroked him with its velvet timbre.
He strode to her. “A miraculous evening.” He tried not to see her minute flinch when he reached for her, but she relaxed when he only took a lock of her black hair and wound it around two fingers. His thumb caressed the heavy, silky strands.
She raised a dark brow. “Miraculous implies the work of the Divine.”
“Another kind of divinity. Ah, Zora,” he breathed, crouching down so that their faces were level, “I wish you could have been there to see it. To see me.”
“Even if I left this room, I don’t think the places you frequent would admit me.”
That made him pause. Slowly, he unrolled her hair from around his fingers, and it pleased him that the locks continued to hold the shape. He needed something of him to affect something of her, no matter how small.
“Women are not admitted to gentlemen’s clubs,” he said, “but, on my arm, you could go anywhere your heart desired.” This was not entirely truthful. As Whit’s mistress, she might be able to attend the theater or visit the pleasure gardens of Vauxhall and Ranelagh, but no aristocrat or person of gentle birth would admit her to his private residence.
“I want to go home.” No pleading in her tone, only a statement of truth. Nevertheless, her words were a cold knife cutting through his euphoria.
“See what I have for you.” From his pocket, he withdrew a sheet of paper and held it out to her. “Take it.”
She eyed the paper warily, then, slowly, her slim hand reached out and took hold of it. Briefly, her gaze flicked down to the paper, then back up. “I can’t read this.”
Ah. He had forgotten. It was widespread for people of the lower orders to be illiterate. Whit ventured to guess that at least half his servants could barely write their own names. Country folk were often unschooled in their letters, as well. Yet he placed Zora far above the ranks of ordinary people, even above the gentry he knew. Here was evidence that she was no paragon, but a genuine woman of circumstance and flesh. A fact both discomforting and alluring.
“It is a draft from the gaming club,” he said. “Tonight, I won ten thousand pounds.”
Her lush mouth parted in surprise. “Ten thousand—” She blinked.
“That’s more than a bishop makes in a year.” He folded her hands around the paper, and she was delicate but strong beneath his palms. “Yours,” he said.
Her night-dark eyes went round. It took her a moment to speak. “You are giving it to me?”
“Everything,” he answered, rough and urgent. “I will give you everything. This night’s work was all for you.” His words came faster as excitement built in him as he relived the events of the past few hours. “If only I had the means to show you, to let you experience what I experienced. It’s incredible, Zora. And beautiful.”
“There’s no beauty in such wickedness,” she said. “Using magic to cheat.”
His patience frayed slightly at the edges. “This, from the woman who happily tells lies to any willing fool.”
She tried to tug her hand back, but he maintained his hold. “No, your pardon,” he said, forcing down his temper. “That was ill spoken of me. But, Zora, this gift of mine is not wicked, it’s wonderful. And I want to share it with you.”
No answer from her, only her continuing stare as if she could uncover a deeper truth—or other self—within him.
“This ten thousand is yours.” He tightened his grip. “No more dukkering, or living out of a tent. No more hor
se fairs or roaming from town to town.”
“No more being Roma,” she answered bluntly.
He smiled. “Sweet, wild creature. I would never take that from you. If you wish to dukker, you may certainly do so. I can give you a tent made of silk, gilded fortune-telling cards, and more gold around your neck.” With the tip of one finger, he lightly touched the coin-laden necklaces that hung so deliciously between her breasts. The chains held her body’s heat, as if forged from her golden skin.
“You must think very little of yourself,” she said. “Offering me money to couple with you.”
He reared back as if she had slapped him, releasing her. “You mistake me.” He rose up and paced away. “I won’t lie and say I don’t want you in my bed. But I’m not paying you to fuck me.”
Her mouth compressed at his coarse language. She unfolded herself and stood, holding out the draft. “What is this, if not a whore’s payment?”
“Keep your legs together and keep the damned blunt,” he bit out. “I want you to have the money whether you become my mistress or no.” He gave her a hard smile as he planted his hands on his hips. “Trust me, love, I’ve enough confidence in my skills as a lover. Bribes are unnecessary.”
She stared down at the draft. A struggle waged within her, her shoulders tensing, her brows drawing low. As she debated, Whit’s own tension raised yet higher. He did not lie. The money would be hers, even if she rebuffed his advances. But, by the Devil, he did not want her to.
The moment stretched, tightening. Say yes, he urged in his mind.
Zora raised her gaze to him. Her eyes were dark and rich. “Temptation comes in beautiful guises. You. This.” She held up the draft. “You tempt me so.”
“A mutual condition.”
She moved away from the chair. But she did not come to him, as he urgently wanted. Instead, she laid the draft upon the card table. “I won’t accept this.”
Disappointment gutted him. From the heights of his earlier exhilaration, the plunge down was far, the crash painful. Anger and dismay. He was not accustomed to being denied, especially something he desired this badly.
“What the hell do you want?” he demanded.
“To go home.” His question forced her to answer honestly, but it wasn’t what he hoped for. She took a step toward him. “More than that, I want you to renounce Wafodu guero. Return the dark magic he gave you.”
“Impossible,” he said.
“What do you want?” she asked, echoing his question.
He strode to her so that only a few inches separated them. This close, he caught her scent of smoke and forest. Her heather-honey skin was dusky, luminous. To resist touching her was beyond him. He feathered caresses down her cheek, along her neck. Barely, he suppressed a groan. If just the feel of her skin against his fingers felt this good, how much better, how sweet and delicious would she be wrapped around him as he sank himself into her?
“I want to touch you everywhere,” he rumbled. “I want my tongue in your mouth. I want my cock inside you. I want to make you come so many times, you forget your own name and know only mine.”
Her breath hitched, her eyes darkened. Lush color stained the high crest of her cheeks. The tip of her tongue darted out to wet her bottom lip. She did not touch him, yet she did not push him away either.
“Zora.” Her name was like incense and secrets. “Do you want to kiss me?”
Magic compelled her to answer truthfully. “Yes.” She held his gaze. “I wanted to kiss you soon after I met you. Because I saw not just a handsome man, but a man with a hunger like mine. A man with a need for answers. A questing soul.”
He found it difficult to draw air—his heart beat too fiercely. Nothing compelled her to say these things, for she had answered his question. Her words were freely given, and that made them all the more precious.
“I wanted to taste that hunger,” she murmured. “I wanted to know if my lips could answer those questions. If this man whom I saw could be my counterpart, the companion on my own quest.” Her eyes were dark and inescapable. He felt himself falling deeper, deeper, and did not want to stop his fall.
“I saw that it could be so,” she continued. “I see it now, for I’ve never met a man like you, and I never will again. There is no one such as you. Just as there is no one such as me.”
Whit had no protection from her. He did not want protection. He threaded his fingers into her hair as he cradled the back of her head. He wanted—needed—her mouth. Brought his own close to hers, close enough to feel her breath upon his lips.
Her hands came up to wrap around his wrists, her thumbs brushing against the thunder of his pulse. “Yes,” she whispered, her eyes drifting closed.
Their mouths met. Words, details glinted through him like dropped gemstones. Soft. Lush. Spice. Her lips were wonders beneath his own. Full and silken, pliant yet bold. The initial kiss saw them both with lips closed, but it took only a moment’s contact before they needed more, and opened to each other. With a groan, he felt her tongue touch his, a velvet stroke that reverberated through his body in sumptuous, heavy waves. She moaned in ready response.
Her taste intoxicated. A woman’s taste, bold and demanding. He met her demand with his own. They sought out answers and found them in each other. The kiss deepened, and her hands moved from his wrists to his shoulders, pulling him closer. Their bodies fit together, as perfect as music. She was curved yet strong, possessing enough softness so that his tight, hewn body found precisely the place it most belonged.
Yes. Here, was his answer. And it made him greedy for more.
His cock was thick, insistent, rising up between them to cradle against the curve of her belly. She rocked into him and he growled. He needed inside her in every way.
She pulled back, only slightly, yet to lose her mouth felt like the cruelest wound. “Whit,” she breathed. “I can’t lie to you, but your kiss does not lie to me. I knew it wouldn’t. The man I wanted at the camp is still here.”
“He never left,” Whit rasped.
Her hand drifted from his shoulder to stroke his face. He leaned into her touch, craving it. “You’ve no need for magic. Not when there is a whole world between us to explore. You can surrender Wafodu guero’s magic yet gain so much.”
A new tension tightened his body. “Don’t ask that of me.”
“There is strength enough in you,” she persisted. “In each of us.”
“And if I want everything?” His words were a harsh grate in his throat. “Power and you?”
Her hand dropped from his face, and her other hand slid from his shoulder to flatten against his chest. Though she trembled slightly, he still felt a subtle exertion of pressure as she held him back. “One or the other. But not both.”
Whit released her. He had never faced an obstacle as impassable as Zora’s will. This frustration, this consuming, thwarted need—he’d never known it until now, and it stoked a conflagration of rage. He grabbed the bank draft from the table, strode to the fire, then threw the draft upon the flames. Zora gasped. He did not trust himself to speak, so he watched the edges of the paper blacken before the whole document writhed in the fire, reducing quickly to ashes.
He sent her one last, searing gaze before slamming from the room.
Chapter 6
Zora was being punished.
Or rather, it felt like punishment when Whit did not visit her once during the day. She stared out the window and watched an orange tabby cat hunting in the garden. When the cat lost interest, it lightly leapt over the wall, free to come and go as it pleased. She envied that cat.
Servants came and went, most in states of terror as they brought her food, emptied her chamber pot, and even brought in and filled a hipbath. Zora had eyed the bath warily. If she wanted to use it, she needed to strip, which left her vulnerable. The servants might not be able to see her, but Whit could.
The worst of it was that Zora had been unable to decide if she liked that idea or not.
God, that kiss ... Not
once throughout the day did she forget it. Her mouth still felt his, she still tasted him—brandy and tobacco and man—and her body demanded more. Worse than the needs of her body were the needs of her heart. She had kissed Whit to make a point, to prove that he was still the worthy, searching man she had desired at the camp.
Unfortunately, she had been right. And she wanted that man, her hunger even greater. It could be so good between them. Could be, but never would, not when he refused to turn from the Devil. Hairline cracks spread through her heart as she thought of the loss, made all the more difficult by her continued imprisonment.
She had to focus on the mundane to keep from surrendering her sanity. So, she had taken a chair and wedged it beneath the doorknob. Whit possessed enough strength to knock through that small defensive barrier, but he hadn’t used violence against her. Not yet. So she had peeled off her rather limp, stale garments and taken a bath. Lavender had perfumed the water. It had smelled of heaven and felt even better, especially after days trapped in a room she was beginning to despise.
After her bath, Zora had donned her musty clothing reluctantly, then removed the chair from beneath the doorknob. A few minutes later, more frightened servants had come in, muttering in fear to see the obviously used bath. They had taken the tub away and left several paper-wrapped packages in its place.
“Whoever’s here,” a shivering footman had said, “I was to tell you that these things is for you.” Then he had scuttled away like a rat fleeing fire.
She had cautiously unwrapped the parcels, chary of what they might contain. While she doubted someone had wrapped up a bundle of adders, it would have been reckless to simply tear into them. Slowly, so slowly, she had untied the blue silk ribbons on one package. The magpie in her loved the ribbons—so sleek and beautiful, yet used for such a practical purpose! Zora would have gladly woven the ribbons into her hair, or trimmed a bodice with them. These wealthy gorgios baffled her.