The Widow Wager

by Jess Michaels

  “So much,” he said softly.

  Rafe watched him for a moment, and Crispin could feel his brother’s caution, his search for delicacy. “I know you have lost a great deal of money in the past year or so.”

  Crispin jolted. “It’s none of your damned business.”

  Rafe’s nod was his unexpected response to Crispin’s outburst. “I agree. It is not my business what you do with your funds. Although I think the reason I found you today at Marcus and Annabelle’s with Paul Abbot is because you are trying to amend whatever damage you did.”

  Crispin clenched and unclenched his hands in frustration. “Yes,” he finally admitted. “Abbot is helping me look into some investments in order to…” He trailed off and Rafe nodded in understanding.

  “And what is his thought about your chances at regaining some of the wealth you lost?”

  “It will take time,” Crispin replied. “A few years at least. Some of the investments might be faster, others are more long term and steady.”

  “And you went there in order to keep this from Gemma?” Rafe pressed. “How much does she know?”

  “Some of it.”

  Crispin bent his head and turned back to the alcohol he wanted so fucking badly that he had begun to sweat. He’d only been having one after-supper drink with his wife and sister-in-law every night, and by the time he had that, he was shaking. The only thing that made the pain end was going to bed with Gemma. Her touch saved him every time.

  It shouldn’t. But it did.

  “She knows some but you still hide?” Rafe asked.

  Crispin faced his brother again. “I know when she looks at me, she sometimes sees the life she led at her father’s, always wondering if it would be all right. Always trying to fix what he destroyed. I don’t want her to see that with me. I will fix this without involving her, troubling her.”

  Rafe moved toward him and slowly lifted his hands to close them over Crispin’s shoulders. “Allow her to be your partner, Crispin, in your troubles as well as your triumphs. Show her that you are not her father by allowing her to see the actions you take. The girl cares for you, the way she tracked your every move in the parlor today told me that.”

  Crispin flinched. These things Rafe said were exactly what he could not do, did not want. “You don’t understand.”

  Rafe released him. “No,” he said, his tone laced with bitterness. “You are right. I don’t understand. Because you have shut me out as neatly as you attempt to do with her. I hear whispers, I see glimpses, but I have no idea what happened to change you into the man who stands before me today. But I’m your brother, your blood, and I love you enough to keep trying. I hope you don’t destroy Gemma’s desire to keep trying before you realize how valuable it is.”

  “Are you finished?” Crispin asked, hating how harsh he sounded. But Rafe couldn’t help. No one could help.

  Rafe sighed. “Yes. I’ll see you at Elsworth’s tomorrow, then. And we can pretend this, as so many other conversations, did not happen, I suppose. Good day.”

  His brother said nothing else, but left the room and left Crispin alone. And once he was alone, he muttered, “I know how valuable she is. What she offers in those eyes. It doesn’t mean I can have it.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The sounds of music and talking people pressed around Gemma, making her throat as tight as if it was in a noose. She forced her smile broader and looked around the room at all the Society lords and ladies and saw so many faces looking back. Judging back.

  As it had been for so very long.

  She knew why they stared. They stared because of her father’s reputation. They stared because they liked to call her a killer. They stared because of her scandalous forced marriage to Crispin.

  “It looks like you could use this.”

  She turned to find Crispin approaching her, a tumbler of some kind of spirits in his hand. “Normally I do not approve of drowning one’s troubles in drink.”

  “Yes.” He chuckled. “I had guessed that.”

  She shot him a look and took the glass. “In this case, perhaps I will make an exception.”

  As she lifted the glass, he placed a hand on the small of her back and before any spirit touched her lips, a sense of calm began to fill her. She glanced up at him, amazed by how this gentle touch could be so soothing. He returned the look, his eyes locked with hers.

  “I see your anxiety on every line and flutter of your face. You don’t have to worry about their thoughts regarding you,” he said softly.

  “But I do. For Mary.”

  He pursed his lips. “You spend so much time worrying and fretting over everyone else.”

  The burning heat of a blush filled her cheeks and she looked away from him at last. “It is all I can do,” she whispered, then cleared her throat. “At any rate, if my feelings are so obvious, then I am in trouble regardless.”

  He shook his head. “I do not think they would be obvious to anyone else.”

  She jolted. “Then how can you see them so clearly?”

  He was quiet long enough that she forced herself to look up at him again. He was suddenly grim. “I know you,” he finally retorted, but the admission seemed to give him no pleasure and hit her like both a stab to the heart and a warm embrace.

  Such discordant feelings only fueled her tangled state of mind.

  A state of mind that was not helped when she looked over his shoulder and saw the approach of one of her least favorite people in London.

  “Oh, damn,” she said, downing the drink in one slug.

  Crispin stared at her, eyes wide. “What brought that on?”

  “Lady Winterhaven is approaching.”

  “Who?”

  She almost laughed at his refreshingly out of touch confusion. It would not help Mary, but it was a happy change from her father, who only cared about rank and rule.

  “The Countess of Winterhaven came out the same year I did, and for whatever reason, she decided we were rivals.”

  Crispin cast a glance over his shoulder at the still-approaching lady. “Perhaps because you are a dozen times more lovely than she?”

  She smiled despite her increasing nervousness. “I have no idea, but she would malign me whenever she got the chance. And I know she was one of the people who spread the rumors that I killed Theodore. Her maid and one of my footmen were…involved in some way, and I think she wheedled some of the story from them and embellished greatly.”

  To her surprise, Crispin’s face, which had been amused and relaxed, not tightened with anger on her behalf. “That bitch.”

  Gemma flinched. “Well, I wouldn’t start the conversation that way because she is… Hello, Lady Winterhaven.”

  Crispin set his jaw before he turned to greet the intruder with a stiff nod.

  “Gemma,” the countess said, dismissing any rank Gemma had or had ever had.

  Gemma pursed her lips as she looked the other woman up and down. Lady Winterhaven…Lady Margaret as she had been known when they came out the same year looked as fresh as she had during her diamond debut. Her blonde hair was perfect, her elegant curves were perfect. Her green gown was stitched with jewels throughout the fabric and made Gemma very aware that her own ball gown was two seasons out of fashion. As usual she felt dowdy and plain next to this woman.

  “I did not know you were in attendance, my lady,” Gemma said, forcing her tone to remain light, unaffected.

  Lady Winterhaven smiled, her teeth all but glinting in the light from the chandeliers in a most predatory way. “Unlike some people, I am invited to all events.”

  Gemma flinched. She had opened a door wide open for that barb. She shook her head. “Forgive my manners, I have not yet introduced you to my new husband. May I present Mr. Crispin Flynn?”

  “The brother of the Duke of Hartholm, I know.” Lady Winterhaven let her eyes drift over Crispin. They held a strange combination of both disdain and what could only be called sensual
interest.

  Without thinking, Gemma slipped her hand into the crook of Crispin’s elbow and squeezed gently, as if that action could somehow stake a claim on a man she held so little claim upon. It was an empty action, but then none of her weapons against Margaret had ever had much edge to them.

  Women like Lady Winterhaven always won.

  “My lady,” Crispin said coolly.

  “You are quite a pair,” Lady Winterhaven chuckled. “The killer and the cad. And the way you wed, it was priceless. I think my sewing circle and I must have laughed for a full five minutes when we heard. You do always entertain, Gemma.”

  Gemma swallowed hard, wishing she could stop her heart from pounding. She always came up with retorts for this woman, but they came too late. They woke her in the middle of the night rather than springing to her mind in the midst of an attack.

  “Why would you laugh?” Crispin asked, his tone blank as if he truly didn’t understand. Gemma groaned. He would only make it worse.

  “Because it was a bet you lost that forced you to marry her.” Lady Winterhaven was speaking louder now, clearly drawing attention to them purposefully. And it was working for those around them were edging closer, listening while trying to look like they weren’t.

  Gemma’s cheeks burned. This would damage Mary so much. She wanted to sink into the floor or die on the spot just to escape the humiliation and disappointment.

  But Crispin seemed less affected. He tilted his head back and laughed. “Is that what you heard?”

  At his laughter, Margaret’s green eyes narrowed. “It is what is true.”

  “For one who has so much guile, you are surprisingly gullible. The story you have heard is pure, ridiculous poppycock. Gemma and I married because I fell wildly in love with her and I convinced her father to allow us to marry. When he said yes, I could not wait another moment to call her my wife.”

  “What?” Lady Winterhaven asked, her mouth agape. Not that Gemma could blame her. It was rather her own reaction to this tale. “That is not the story I heard.”

  Crispin shrugged. “Well, ’tis true, I assure you. I met Gemma’s father in a gaming hell, that is correct. And we did play a few friendly card games together. When I was invited to his home to pay him what he’d won, I caught a glimpse of the beautiful Gemma in the hallway and I was…”

  He looked down at her, his eyes shining with something that looked like truth even though Gemma knew it wasn’t. But it was so convincing and…and tempting to see it here.

  “Crispin…” she began.

  He tapped her nose gently with the tip of his finger. “Let me tell the story. You know how I love to do it.” He shifted his attention back to Lady Winterhaven. “Well, I was awestruck. Gemma is the most beautiful woman I have ever known. And although everyone knows I am a committed rake, in that second, I realized I no longer wished to be. So I wooed and won her and here we are, as happy as two people have ever been.”

  He took Gemma’s hand and raised it to his lips, and Gemma could have sworn she heard a few sighs from the crowd that was now not even trying to pretend they weren’t listening in.

  Lady Winterhaven glared at her, but then shrugged. “Well, many felicitations to you. You deserve each other.”

  She turned to go, but to Gemma’s surprise, Crispin stepped forward to stop her. “You know, Lady Winterhaven, I have been trying to place where I know you since you approached, but I have finally determined it.”

  Gemma watched as her husband leaned in close to Margaret. Her heart pounded as he whispered something in the other lady’s ear. But it obviously wasn’t something sweet, for Margaret’s cheeks went deathly pale and she jerked away from Crispin.

  “I declare, I do not know what you are talking about,” she snapped, her angry tone breaking before she skittered away with only a panicky glance over her shoulder at Crispin.

  He turned back to Gemma and his smile was broad and proud and so delectable that she wanted to kiss him right then and there, despite the impropriety of the action. He held out a hand to her, looking every inch the fairytale prince as he said, “May I have this dance, Mrs. Flynn?”

  And though her mind was buzzing with questions about what had just transpired, she could do nothing but take his offering and follow his lead.

  Crispin couldn’t take his eyes off his wife as they spun into the first steps of the waltz. She looked dazzlingly beautiful under the soft lights of the ballroom, and it was almost an irresistible temptation to have her in his arms.

  She smiled up at him as they slowly made their turns. “What did you say to Lady Winterhaven to make her look that way?”

  He grinned. Turning that bitch’s tail beneath her legs and sending her running in fear had been the highlight of his month, not just his night. After the way she had treated Gemma, she deserved far worse.

  “Do you really want to know?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I do. When you first leaned toward her, I thought you might be flirting with her and my stomach lurched.”

  He almost faltered in his steps at that admission. “Gemma, I would not betray you like that, but certainly never with someone who had been so abjectly cruel to you. Your enemies are my enemies.”

  “I hardly know what to do with such loyalty,” she murmured, her cheeks growing pink.

  “You deserve it,” he reassured her. “And what I said to Lady Winterhaven was that I recognized her from Marcus’s club and I wondered if her husband and her sewing circle would get as much of a laugh out of that fact as they had about you.”

  Gemma blinked. “Margaret has been to an undergrounding gaming hell?”

  He smiled. “It’s a bit more than just that, I assure you.” He watched her for a moment, thinking of her unrestrained passion and trying not to get hard as steel at the memories. “Actually, you would like it. I will take you some night. When Marcus is not working.”

  Oh, the things he could do with her there…share with her there. It was almost too perfect.

  She obviously still didn’t understand, for she shrugged delicately, as to not interrupt the dance. “Well, I appreciate your putting her in her place. And for the other things you said.”

  He looked into her eyes and saw the pain there. The rejection she had suffered, the loneliness she had endured. He had known her story about her first husband and guessed how terrible her life with her father had been through both her stories and the bastard’s actions.

  But he had never put those things together with how abandoned that must have made Gemma feel. To never be good enough, to never be cared for just because she was her own wonderful self.

  “Why did you tell the lie to her about how we met and married?” she asked, her voice dropping to a whisper.

  “Not all of it was a lie,” he said, just as soft.

  The moment he said it, he wished he could take it back. He didn’t want her to know how enamored he had been of her since the moment he woke to find her in his bed. It felt wrong to do so.

  She tilted her head. “Which parts were true?”

  He swallowed. He could dismiss what he said entirely, but he knew that would cut her down. So he settled for a compromise.

  “I have thought you incredibly beautiful from almost the first moment we met. I would have thought it from the first moment, but I don’t recall that moment, of course.”

  She shook her head with a low laugh just for him that hit him in the gut like a punch. It faded and she tilted her head. “If I accept your tale that the moment you were sober enough to recognize I was another human and female that you found me attractive in some way, the rest of the lie you spun still stands.”

  He motioned around the room as the music came to an end. “They were watching, weren’t they? And to make your sister’s life easier…to make your life more bearable, I thought it was better to leave them believing that we fell suddenly and irretrievably in love. Even if it is…” He found himself hesitating, though he didn’t know why. �
��…not true.”

  “So you said it for her benefit.” Her tone was very neutral, as was her expression. “And theirs.”

  He nodded. “But here is what is not for their benefit. I want you, Gemma. So much that I’m not sure I will be able to wait the entire carriage ride home to have you. Will you leave with me now?”

  She nodded without hesitation, but then her logic seemed to intrude upon her desires. “But it is still early—”

  “After the story I just told, us sneaking out together will only cement the tale of our passionate love,” he said, hoping he would strike on something that would make her agree once and for all.

  It seemed he had, for she nodded again. “If it is for the good of the lie, how can I say no?”

  She took his hand and let him lead her from the dance floor, from the ballroom and eventually to their carriage. He felt eyes follow them and didn’t care. All he cared about was having her alone. Having her at all.

  The moment the vehicle door closed and they were moving, he launched himself to her side of the carriage and covered her mouth with his. She lifted to him hungrily, answering his need with one of her own, as sweet and hot as anything he had ever experienced with any woman.

  Any woman.

  He pushed that thought from his mind and focused on Gemma. Gemma’s little moans as he tucked his arms around her hips and pulled her against him. Gemma’s arching back as he thrust against her and let her feel the hardness of his cock through all the frustrating layers of clothing.

  “There’s…too much separating us,” she said, her tone filled with desperation.

  “Not any more than the last time we did this,” he teased, loving how her cheeks darkened at the reminder that they had surrendered to pleasures in their carriage before. He certainly hoped they would do so again. Over and over.

  She met his gaze, and there was a sudden, unexpected wickedness. “Well, my ball gown is more intricate, but you…” She found the length of him through his trousers. “You could be easily freed, couldn’t you?”