by Sara Ramsey
He shouldn’t have let himself stay there alone with Callista. It was neither safe nor wise. He could justify it — barely — with the claim that he needed to observe her skills.
But drinking whisky and playing cards?
There was no plan for the future that required her to know how to drink with him.
He finished dealing. When he looked up, ready with some cutting remark to make it clear this was just a game, he inadvertently looked straight into her eyes.
He should have looked anywhere else.
She grinned at him. Her smile was too honest for the ton — too honest for the games he usually played. There was a playfulness to her that he felt like he’d never seen, not even when he was young enough to know what playfulness was.
He didn’t want to be the reason why she lost that playfulness. So he stopped the insult he might have tossed her way and smiled. “The game is vingt et un, Miss Briarley. Shall I recount the rules for you?”
She shook her head. Not a single curl fell out of place — and Thorington was enough of a fool to regret that she’d taken his advice about her hair. “I should have warned you that I played vingt et un all the way from Baltimore to Havana,” she said, as sweetly as if she had claimed that she’d spent the voyage knitting socks for orphans. “I hope I won’t embarrass myself.”
She picked up her cards with all the easy grace of a gambler. “I’m sure you’ll acquit yourself adequately,” he said.
And she did. Not just adequately — comprehensively. The first hand wasn’t even a contest. His pride wanted to blame his defeat on his ruined luck, but she had enough skill to beat him fairly.
She also had enough naïveté to take the win for herself, rather than letting him have it. A girl trying to make him fall in love with her would have made a pudding of her cards, then asked for his help.
When the last card fell, Callista smiled as though she was eager to sweep the floor with him again.
He raised his teacup in a salute, then downed half of the whisky remaining within it. “I begin to suspect I shouldn’t have spotted you an extra question, my dear.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” she said, agreeably enough. “And now I’ve added another to it. Shall we ask as we play, or stockpile them until the end?”
He tilted more whisky into her teacup. “Ask. We can enjoy our drinks while I answer.”
His only hope to compensate for his bad luck and her unexpected skill was to even the playing field by getting her foxed. It was an unwholesome plan — but better than answering every question that lurked in the gorgeous shadows of her eyes.
She picked up her cup, took a sip like she’d been born drinking whisky, and said, “Why did you try to force Lady Salford to marry you?”
This was really not a good idea.
“She was the best of a bad lot,” he said briefly.
Callista leaned back in her chair with her whisky, fixing him with her best glare. “I thought you prided yourself on keeping your vows. What’s the truth of the matter?”
“The truth?” He stared into his teacup. He hadn’t given much thought to Prudence since the night Alex had rescued her from him. Beyond a fleeting sense that she might have been a good influence on him and some grudging admiration over the fact that she rarely bowed to his whims, he hadn’t particularly cared about her. “The truth is that my enemy at the time was in love with her, and she would have been a good enough companion for my needs.”
“And what were your needs?”
“Is that your second question?” he asked.
She looked him over. Then she shrugged. “I can win another. What were your needs?”
“At the moment I need another flask of whisky.”
Callista scowled. “That wasn’t the…”
He held up one hand in surrender. “It was a jest, Miss Briarley.”
He paused. Deciding to go after Prudence Etchingham had been a bad plan. But he had needed influence over Alex, his former best friend, and using the woman Alex loved was the most obvious solution. And then, when influence was no longer enough, Thorington had needed the money he could get from marrying her. Prudence was the seller of the antiquity he’d bought in the auction Callista had read about — and when the curse was broken, he desperately needed to regain the fifty thousand pounds he’d given her.
Alex and Prudence had returned the money to him, but it had disappeared along with the rest of his fortune. And he couldn’t explain all of that to Callista without explaining the curse he and Alex had suffered from, and how Alex had broken it. So, giving Callista the rest of the truth, he said, “I needed a wife who wouldn’t embarrass me, one with whom I might have a somewhat intelligent conversation with. Miss Etchingham, as she was before she became Lady Salford, had impeccable manners and a sharp mind. She also had a decent sum of money in her possession. A man could do worse.”
Callista didn’t say anything. She looked him over again, then took another swig of whisky. “I have more questions. Deal the cards.”
No one dared to order the Duke of Thorington like that. He arched a brow.
“Sirrah,” she added.
He laughed in spite of himself. That laugh seemed to shake something loose within him — something that ached to touch her, to tease her, to make her laugh in return. To capture and keep all her innocence and all her insolence.
To make her his.
But that was not the plan. She was to be Lady Anthony. And never, in his lifetime, the Duchess of Thorington.
He reached across and poured more whisky into her cup. But he didn’t let himself touch her hand, as he wanted to. Didn’t let his hand drop to her shoulder, then graze across the swell of her breast — to touch silk, then skin. Didn’t let himself free her from her bodice. Didn’t run his thumb over her nipple, didn’t take the pleasure of watching it tighten in need for him. Didn’t shove the table aside. Didn’t pull her into his lap. Didn’t feel his cock hardening against her backside, didn’t shift her to straddle him, didn’t run his hands through her hair, didn’t whisper his need for her against her throat, didn’t hear his name — his real name, not his title — on her lips…
He pulled the flask away, then looked into her eyes. She looked dazed, meeting his gaze over the rim of her cup, as though he’d said his fantasy aloud.
Their gazes held. It was only a moment.
But it was long enough for Thorington to wish that he’d been another man. A better man.
“Careful what you wish for, Miss Briarley,” he said, his voice low. “You might not like the answers.”
She drew a breath, as though it could release her from their enchantment. “I’ll take my chances with your dragons.”
Thorington pushed his whisky aside. He needed a clear head with her. But a clear head didn’t help. He dealt, arranged his cards, plotted his course — and she beat him just as quickly as she had before.
When the last card fell, she leaned back again, sipping her whisky with complete confidence.
“What’s your question?” he asked.
“I need a moment,” she said. She considered him, tapping her finger against her cup as though counting all the ways she could annoy him. Finally, she set her cup on the table and straightened her shoulders.
“If this is too painful, you may refuse to answer. But what were the circumstances of your marriage to your first wife?”
That was as broad a question as she could ask — as though she intended to get the whole of his ten-year marriage into one question. “Curious little minx, aren’t you?”
Callista wouldn’t be thrown off by a comment like that. She smiled instead. “I’ll confess I find you more interesting than anyone else I’ve met. And this game was your idea, not mine.”
“I should hope I’m more interesting than whatever miscreants you might find in Baltimore.”
Insulting America usually did the trick, but she still wasn’t swayed. “That doesn’t sound like an answer to my question.”
“Willful
wench,” he said.
She just looked at him expectantly.
Thorington sighed. “Ariana wanted a title. I needed money. She used some…unorthodox methods to convince me to marry her. I probably wouldn’t have looked at her otherwise. But at its heart, our marriage was a business arrangement.”
“Then you didn’t love her?”
It was a second question, one he wasn’t obliged to answer. But he wanted her to know the answer. “No.”
“But…”
He cut her off. “You’ll have to win again before I say anything more.”
Callista smiled. “Of course. Deal.”
He should have stopped their game then. But he liked the reckless look in her eyes. And he liked the reckless pounding of his pulse.
Thorington was never reckless.
He dealt. Her recklessness must have turned to cockiness, because she didn’t pay attention as closely as she had before — misplayed so badly that even his ruined luck couldn’t lose. Her shock at losing was almost adorable, even though it tweaked his pride.
She looked up and met his gaze with all the preparation of a battle-hardened veteran ready to defend against a cavalry charge. “Your question, sirrah?”
He wanted to ask why she wouldn’t give him the title that was his due, but he suspected she had said ‘sirrah’ to turn his mind to that instead of other, better lines of inquiry. He paused, letting his gaze rove over her face, then down the column of her neck.
“What is the provenance of your necklace?”
She put a hand over her heart. He didn’t think her flush came from the whisky. “My necklace?”
He tsked. “I answered your questions directly. Don’t say Americans have less honor.”
Her flush deepened. “Of course not. One of my captains gave it to me.”
“And will this captain jeopardize your future marriage?” he asked.
“That’s another question, sirrah,” she said prettily.
He grinned and shuffled the cards. “So it is, Miss Briarley.”
They played again. And he won again. But he didn’t ask the question she expected. “Do you think you are capable of loving Anthony?”
Her shock was evident. She leaned back again, but this was more of a slump, as though the very thought overwhelmed her strength. “Why do you ask?”
“That’s my question,” he said, more gently than he intended.
She closed her eyes. He waited. He could be patient in those rare moments where everything seemed to hang in the balance. Finally, with her eyes still closed, she said, “No. This is a business arrangement, not love.”
It was the answer he expected. Maybe even the answer he wanted. But now that he had forced her to say it, he wished he could take the question back. “You can still be comfortable in a business arrangement. Perhaps, in time, you’ll feel differently.”
“Perhaps.” She opened her eyes again. The room was growing dark, with the last bit of sun starting to fall. He would need to light candles soon if they continued playing, but there was still enough light to see the faint, incongruous uncertainty on her otherwise resolute face. “Were you comfortable in your business arrangement?”
He wanted to reassure her. But even though she hadn’t won the right to ask him that question, he didn’t believe in sparing people the truth. “No. But Ariana and I were not suited for each other. She wanted to be a duchess from a fairytale.”
“You seem to be the right duke for a fairytale,” Callista said. “Were you not so arrogant when she met you?”
Her insult sounded like a compliment. He smiled. “I’ve been arrogant since I was in leading strings. But she was disappointed, after she’d trapped us both, to find I would far rather read a book than go to a ball.”
“Poor girl,” Callista said, shaking her head. “Did she never learn it’s more fun to live in a book than in a ballroom?”
Thorington shrugged. Anything he might have said to that would strike too close to the core of him, to whatever storm was brewing within his heart and threatening to sweep all his plans aside.
So he stupidly dealt the cards again. And as the sunlight faded, Callista won.
She looked up at him. “Have you ever been in love?”
There were only shadows between them. But he could still see her face. Etched as it was in his memory, he might have been able to see it in total darkness, but there was enough light left to see the sweet, tentative curve of her lips as she waited for his response.
He couldn’t bear it.
“‘In love’?” he repeated. “I don’t understand. Is that French?”
She laughed. But it was a soft, wistful sound — not a response to his jest, but an agreement. “I didn’t think you had been. But I hoped you could tell me how it feels.”
* * *
She never should have agreed to stay with him. She should have poured the tea and been done with it.
But Callie had never been good at shoulds — only wants. And she wanted to stay with him. She wanted to see what he could be like when he forgot his title, when he wasn’t surrounded by people toad-eating him, when he let himself laugh.
She shouldn’t have, though. Because it just made her want to see him more, when every rational thought said she should see him less. He wasn’t the husband she needed. No matter how humorous he could be in some moments, he was too autocratic to ever let her run her company herself.
Still, she was enough of a fool to want to hear his answers to her questions. So she drank far more whisky than she should have, took courage from it, and ignored how her courage turned to recklessness.
He had turned reckless as well. He tipped the last bit of whisky into his cup. “Why are you thinking of love?” he asked, setting his flask aside. “Do you no longer want a business arrangement?”
Either the whisky or the conversation suddenly made her tired. She tucked her legs up underneath her — not what a lady should do, but she needed to feel comfortable somewhere in this awful house. There wasn’t enough light left to read the nuances of his face, but she thought he tensed up, as though her casual pose somehow caused him pain.
“A business arrangement is what I should do,” she said.
“It’s the curse of our class,” he said. His voice was sympathetic — more sympathetic than she might have judged him capable of. “But I would rather take that curse than a different one. Love doesn’t pay the creditors.”
“Nor does it buy ships,” she agreed.
“Or whisky.”
Callie laughed. “We make quite the pair, don’t we?”
She had meant it in reference to their mercenary natures — they were sitting there talking about money like two misers in a counting house. But Thorington didn’t laugh. “If I could wish it different for you, Miss Briarley, I would.”
“I thought you told me to be careful of wishes.”
He fell silent. She tried to fill in what she couldn’t see in the low light, imagining he looked cool, concerned — more concerned about making sure she married his brother than anything else, she imagined. Thorington was difficult enough to get one’s bearings around without losing the visual clues.
“What would you wish for?” he asked.
“Peace between our nations, of course,” she said, somewhat flippantly.
He snorted. “You can be more selfish than that, my dear.”
There was something about the fading light that made her feel secure in his presence. He was the opposite of safe. But his voice didn’t sound dangerous. And he hadn’t made a single move to touch her.
Heaven help her, it wasn’t proper, but she wanted him to.
That reckless fuel was still in her veins, burning. She had a whole lifetime to do what she should. A whole lifetime to live by the cold rules of business rather than what her heart wanted.
“I want my first kiss to be something other than a business arrangement.”
It was a stupid thing to say. But in that moment, she wanted it more than any other wish
she might have made.
Thorington didn’t say anything for the longest time. She almost didn’t want him to. When she thought of her words in the morning, she would be mortified. Now, in the silent shadows, she could pretend their conversation was perfectly normal as long as he didn’t say anything to break the moment.
When he finally spoke, his words weren’t what she expected. “Come here, Callista.”
Her given name, the one no one ever used now that she didn’t have family or intimates, caressed over her, more of a dream than a demand. She hadn’t given him permission to use it. But Thorington wouldn’t wait for permission. The thought should have scared her. Giving anything to a man who could take everything was always a fool’s bargain.
But there was a note to his voice that she hadn’t heard before. Tender, almost.
Briarleys were known for their stupid decisions.
She circled the table between them. He sucked in a breath — even though he’d sounded assured, she guessed that he hadn’t expected her to obey his command.
There was no time to change her mind. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her into his lap.
Should not. That thought was lost to her.
He’d heard her wish. Perhaps he was the only one who could grant it.
He cupped a hand around her neck, stroking his thumb over the sensitive ridge behind her ear. She closed her eyes, leaning into his touch.
This wasn’t love. But it felt like it. And that was enough.
Still, she didn’t quite know what to do. Her hands lay stiff and still in her lap. His, bolder, held her in place with pressure that felt more protective than punishing. He shifted underneath her and she tilted, instinctively, toward him.
But just when she expected his lips to find hers, he stopped.
“Callista,” he whispered.
She opened her eyes. He was inches from her, close enough that she could still see him in the twilight. He was heartbreakingly beautiful in that moment, pure strength and dominance sheathed, temporarily, in soft shadows.
She understood, then, what to do.