The Gamble

by Laura Parker

  Behind eyes squeezed tight against the moment, she saw the rapturous darkness of a moonless dawn, remembered the whinny of impatient coaching horses, and the jingle of harness bells. The kiss, the kiss of the highwayman had stirred her like this!

  “Come home with me.” His lips formed the words against hers in a rough urgent voice. “Let us be alone.”

  Resisting the tug of desire-shocked senses Sabrina murmured groggily, “I can’t.”

  His fingers spread possessively across her left breast and cupped its fullness through the cloth. “Then spend an hour here with me now. No one need ever know.”

  “No!” The very idea broke the spell of his kiss and, eyes snapped open, Sabrina sat upright in his lap.

  His mouth was softly blurred by her kisses. “Afraid?”

  Guilt and shame arrowed through Sabrina. She had never meant to keep her bargain with this clever handsome nobleman. Was she mad? “I don’t want—”

  “Liar.” A fluid smile, more genuine than not, flowed across his mouth. “You want everything, things you do not even know to ask for. I can give them to you.” His hand scandalously caressed her breast. “I can make you sing and weep, make you happy. Come home with me. Now.”

  The muscles of her face spasmed with emotion. “I can’t!”

  Sabrina did not cry. Neither Cousin Robert nor Aunt Thaddeus had wrung a drop from one eye. Not since the begrudged tears she had shed over her father’s bare grave in Cornwall had anything or anyone driven her to a display of weakness for any reason. The expected yet uncontrollable fit of weeping that suddenly swept over her appalled her even as he gathered her in his arms.

  “There, there, sweeting.” Jack caressed her shoulders, amused and confounded by this ill-timed flood of tears. Virgins! Lord, how he detested them! “Do not fear the trembling of desire. ’Tis nothing that time and experience cannot master.”

  If he had hoped to console her to dryness, he found himself sorely disappointed. Her sobs were hard, tight, resentfully given up, if unstoppable. He wondered with his usual cool detachment if his lace would be ruined by her saltwater bath.

  In his experience tears were the universal weapon resorted to by women whose position was otherwise weak. Therefore, he was never moved by such displays. Yet, when he reached up to smooth a hand over her bent head, he found that hand was shaking. It did not sound as if she cried often for she did it without much grace or beauty. As he stroked her dark hair, he found his thoughts stolen by images of himself wrapped in nothing but that shiny black fall and the knot in his lower belly redoubled.

  With a stifled curse he lifted his hand away.

  Ridiculous! His cronies would laugh themselves mad if they knew he was comforting his intended prey. What the deuce had he hoped to accomplish by pressing her here, in Lotte’s salon? Swiving on the carpet was not his style.

  No doubt of it! His lust for revenge upon her combined with his unexpected eagerness for her had addled his brain!

  After a minute passed, reluctantly he admitted to himself that perhaps she was overwhelmed by something more urgent than the ecstasy he had produced within her.

  He did not know why he decided to say the words. Yet he was certain he could accomplish, without bestirring himself too much, anything she might need taken care of.

  “What will make you happy, pet? I swear I will help you.”

  She looked up at him, wariness and uncertainty and shyness all vying with the need to ask again for his help as she tried to master the sobs that escaped from her like hiccups. She looked like a half-drowned kitten as he retrieved and offered an already damp handkerchief. “Do you mean it, my lord?”

  “Ask any favor of me, Sabrina.”

  She swallowed her tears and said with as much dignity as she could muster, “I want you to help me save the outlaw Jack Law from the gallows.”

  “That, I admit, is not the sort of favor I had in mind,” Jack said quietly.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Jack considered half a dozen things that he might say in response, beginning with the fact that she did not know the real Jack Law. She had met, instead, himself in disguise. But curiosity is a powerful emotion, he was discovering. At the moment it was as powerful as his lust for her. She had come into his embrace with very little urging. No doubt, he could easily persuade her back into it. For the moment, curiosity to understand her reasoning proved the greater temptation.

  He slid his hands from her hair. “You want this miscreant’s life spared. Why, sweeting?”

  He had not refused! Sabrina tried to disguise her elation with an indifferent shrug. “Because the fellow was kind to me.”

  “Kind? Did he not rob you?”

  His sardonic tone was not lost on Sabrina. As she tried to rise from his lap he held her there by placing his hands firmly on either side of her waist. Strangely, she felt no desire to struggle. She turned her head to stare straight ahead into the hearth flames, choosing her words with care. “Yes, he did rob me. But he was not a wastrel. He was gentlemanly and civil and even—”

  “Romantic?” Jack supplied.

  She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “I did not say that.”

  “There was no need. What but romance would cause a young woman of your station to remember kindly a scoundrel of the byways?”

  “Certainly I am not so foolish!” The annoyance lacing through her was not, she knew, free from embarrassment. If only he would release her she might be able to think. The unfamiliar sensation of hard muscle and harder bone shifting beneath her petticoats was most distracting. His hands were persuasively warm about her waist and his kiss still lingered on her lips. She had only to lean closer to once again taste … No, she had indulged herself enough.

  “My reasons are far from impractical. Yet they are my own and, as such, privy to none other.”

  “Is it his kiss you crave?”

  The immediate blush, no more than a shadow creeping across her lovely profile in the firelight, astounded Jack. Mercy! She was half in love with a sham, a shadow, a make-believe! Truly, what man could say he knew the workings of a woman’s mind?

  To think he might have won the minx that night on the highway and saved himself the business of the last few days! So, she liked them deadly, disreputable, and villainous! And here he had been at odds to conceal his true character from her!

  He laughed, clear, unfettered masculine amusement at his own lack of perception.

  Sabrina winced, bitten to the quick by his mirth. “I think your sense of the absurd is misplaced.”

  This time as she tried to stand he did not stop her. In fact, he seemed in helpless thrall to his amusement. He leaned his head back to better allow the gusty sound to erupt.

  She had thought him handsome before. With his face flushed by mirth and his features recomposed from sarcastic disillusion into genuine good spirits, he seemed both younger and less dangerous than at any other moment in their acquaintance. How was it that no woman had claimed his heart before this? Certainly, he must have captured many a lady’s.

  Those thoughts quickly evaporated under the new barrage of improprietous chuckling that erupted when he had finally sobered enough to gaze up at her. After one sharp glance he inexplicably succumbed to another paroxysm of laughter.

  “My lord,” she admonished in resentment. “Your laughter will rouse the staff.”

  Reminded that they were in the home of another, he nodded and wiped a tear of laughter from his right cheek with a knuckle. “Do forgive me, sweeting. Life offers me so few opportunities to indulge my humor.”

  The gaze he turned on her was now as bright and mercurial as quicksilver. He held out a hand to her. “The very last thing I desire at this moment is to be disturbed. You are a novelty I do not intend to share with anyone.”

  Sabrina’s heart doubled its beat in renewed hope but she quickly squelched the feeling that accompanied his words. The idle flattery of gentlemen had never before affected
her. It must be the reaction of her nerves to the horrendous outcome of the evening that made her feel as though she must smile back at him or burst. Or perhaps it was simply her unexpected reaction to his kiss, that sham exercise of genuine feeling that he had so cleverly mastered. Perhaps when she had had more experience at kissing her odiously uncooperative feelings would not be so easily duped by a rogue’s tricks. For even now those unruly feelings urged her to take his hand and lay her own upon his laughter-firmed cheek, to bask more fully in the scintillating gaze of his silver eyes. Then her pride reasserted itself and she was consumed by the urge to pound him with her fists. How dare he laugh at her!

  She turned away toward the fire and extended her hands instead to the gentle flame. “It is late, my lord, and I am fatigued. As it seems we’ve nothing else to discuss, I will bid you goodnight.”

  “ ’Tis dawn, sweeting. Too late for bon nuits. But what of Black Jack? Will you abandon him to his doom after all?”

  “What do you mean?” She snapped at the hope he dangled before her despite her resolution to be rid of him. “Are you willing to help me?”

  He dropped his hand of invitation. “I think, my sweet, that I just might. If—” He drew out the word in his taunting masculine drawl.

  Refusing to acknowledge the quivering sense of vulnerability his teasing elicited, she clasped her hands together before her and swiveled toward him on the balls of her feet, a gesture as graceful as it was feminine. “I would have thought that a gentleman like yourself, who lives for diversion, as you put it, would find the notion of liberating a prisoner from his cell rare sport.”

  “Rare sport, indeed. Yet I should not like to find myself replacing him in gaol.” He lounged back against one wing of the Queen Anne chair and slung a silk-stockinged leg over the arm. “The fellow means little to me. Yet I know he’s of value to you. Just how valuable, that is my question?”

  Without hesitation, she reached up and unhooked her pearl necklace. “I will wager Blackjack’s freedom against these.”

  Jack regarded the luminous handful of pearls she held out to him as if they were poisonous. “What makes you believe that I would be interested in winning your baubles?”

  “Rumor has it that you are with pockets to let.”

  He shrugged and slung an arm over the thigh of his dangling leg. At once bored and at ease, he was the picture of an indolent aristocrat. “Life is full of idle rumor.”

  “Doubtless,” she answered with acerbity. “Yet it would explain your knavish behavior in regard to the theft of my meager winnings.”

  The laughter-creased lines remained on his face. “If you believe I did that out of want you don’t know me very well, sweeting.”

  “Perhaps not. But—”

  “Enough of buts.” He moved sharply, sitting straight up as a deep V formed between his golden brows. “Why have you not pawned your pretties yourself if, as you claim, you are in dire need of coin?”

  Confound him. He saw all too clearly the illogical workings of her mind. There was no need to answer him, she reminded herself. Despite the warning in his burning gaze, she would not ignite from his wrath if she refused his request. Oh, but she felt the lick of flames as she stared into his eyes, and it was not altogether unpleasant.

  “The necklace was a gift from my father. I had hoped to spare it. Now, I have no choice but to offer it up, as well.”

  He cupped the lavaliere dangling between two of her fingers. “My father gave me gifts as well.” He looked up at her with a gaze that made her skin shrink. “Can you guess what it is? I keep it with me always.”

  Though she could not explain it, Sabrina’s eyes darted to his cheek.

  “I see you’ve been told.”

  “Your father scarred you?”

  The shock in her voice instantly persuaded him that her horror was genuine. But he did not want her pity.

  He released the large pearl, the muscles working beneath the skin of his jaw as if he were consuming a small but particularly tough piece of gristle. “ ’Tis a singular gift from a parent, do you not agree? Less open to thievery or loss than, say, jewelry or a house. Though I must admit I’ve never been offered as little as a fat fart for it.”

  His gaze flicked sharp as a rapier point over her, backing off any impulse for sympathy. “Your pearls should bring you a good deal more.”

  After a moment’s hesitation she released her grip on the strands so that they slipped free of her fingers and fell into his lap. “They are yours, if you will help me.”

  Jack held up the pearls toward the fire to better enjoy their beauty. They were extravagantly lovely, almost as lovely as their owner was. They belonged about her neck, shimmering against the satin-smooth contours of her breasts. Without the exquisite cushion of her skin they seemed cold, lifeless, bereft.

  He turned back to her. “You are a terrible bargainer. Never pay your debts until the hand bas been played out.”

  “Hateful!” she exclaimed between her teeth. “I should not have expected anything else from you.” She held out her hand. “Give them to me.”

  He offered her a reproachful glance. “Miss Lyndsey, do not insult either of us. You know my feelings in such matters.”

  He laughed as she snatched at her necklace, then easily reached to pull her again into his lap with an arm snagged about her waist. “Now, now,” he taunted between chuckles. “Have you learned nothing, sweeting, of how to charm a gentleman into doing your bidding?”

  She twisted around within his grasp until she met his mocking smile. Only with the greatest of effort did she subdue her desire to continue wrestling him, however futile it was. “You win, my Lord. I have nothing else with which to charm you.”

  “Such modesty does not become you. I like better your waspish side.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Were I wasp I should be tempted at this moment to sting you mightily.”

  His smile widened. “Honey is more pleasing than stings. Persuade me to give your pearls back to you.” He held them at arm’s length from her, the prize and the bait. Then he dipped his head quickly and kissed the summit of her breast presented above her neckline. “I dare you.”

  His warm kiss burned upon her cool skin as she experienced once again the thrall of being too close to him. She smelled the heavy spice of his perfumed clothing, even the faint scent of brandy on his breath. He thought himself invincible and irresistible. She would like nothing better than to show him that he was neither.

  She reached up and braced both palms against his jaw-line, tilting his head back until it leaned against the chair back and he gazed at her along the line of his nose. He did not speak, yet those silver eyes flashed like lightning between the twin thickets of his dark gold lashes. Ignoring that too-bold gaze, she gently turned his face with her hands from side to side, studying the exact contours of his mouth as if they would give her clues to his art with a kiss. Then, because it was beneath her fingers, she glanced at his scar.

  A gift from his father, he had said. The thought made her shiver a second time. It was not then carelessly or unintentionally given. What could a child possibly have done to deserve so permanent a reminder of his sire’s wrath? She knew in an instant that the answer was nothing. He had done nothing, and yet it was his to bear all his life, that reminder of paternal displeasure.

  She traced a finger ever so lightly along it. He flinched and raised a hand as though to deny her. But then his hand fell back as his lips crimped in the corners at some secret pain. The long-forgotten wounded child peeked out of those hooded eyes an instant before his lids fell shut, sealing out the world.

  Was it this talisman of cruelty that had made him bitter? Had the cut gone deeper than the skin and injured his soul? Had he suffered rejection and scorn because of it? These fanciful thoughts intrigued her. Despite the smooth, pale scar sliding under her sensitive fingertips, she doubted a woman born would find him ugly. Nay, he was notorious for the number who found him exactly other
wise. So what, if not disfigurement, made his soul so bleak and his heart so empty? Each question that swirled through her mind brought another in its wake. What could heal so wounded a man? Could anything?

  She had meant to kiss him, merely that. She had meant to put all her effort and slim knowledge into the art, into a contest of wills, hers to his. Now that was forgotten. The muscles ticking beneath her fingertips betrayed his agitation as nothing in their past encounters ever had. He was vulnerable. She sensed it as tactile sensation, but he was fighting the response, even to her simple human touch.

  She leaned close, consumed with an overwhelming sympathy for the child who once lived within his frame. She nuzzled his mistreated cheek with her nose, feeling with instinctive tenderness an affinity for the child she would never know. She did know what it was to be alone and afraid, to doubt where there was need, to suffer at the hands of those from which one was to expect protection.

  She shut her eyes and rubbed her cool cheek against his warmer one and thought of Kit, alone, afraid, who must be wondering if anyone in the world still cared about him. And she knew she would do anything to win this man to her cause, not because she had use for him but because she needed to know that not all were abandoned to their hopeless fates and that, perhaps, life had not been as cruel to her as she supposed.

  She discovered his mouth almost by accident. The blind search for comfort ended in something else when he suddenly turned his head and brought his mouth under hers. For a moment, their lips merely made contact, the smooth surface of his firmed by emotions she could not fathom. And then hers softened and settled over his, gentling upon that hardened surface like a blanket of benediction to his defiance.

  His lips parted in a whisper she could not hear but whose context was surrender, the willing giving in for the moment to something unexpected.

  Her hands moved from his face to his shoulders, then one moved behind his neck so that she could cradle his face to hers. His mouth opened, engulfing hers in a powerful jolting pleasure that made her belly quiver. This time she did not pull away, she followed him, daring trick for trick until she at last captured his tongue in her mouth and sucked from it the sweet taste of desire.