by Devon, Eva
“He doesna trust ye?”
Her eyes widened and then she laughed softly, darkly. “Oh, Your Grace, I thought you cleverer than that. I see I am mistaken.”
He tightened his grip on her wrist. “Elaborate for me then.”
“My uncle trusts me in so far as one might trust an animal one has broken. But he knows I am dependent on him and nothing else. I have the love for him that a beast has for its master.”
“An alley cat?
She gasped. “You were listening?”
“I’m going to let ye go now. Do nothing foolish.”
“What?” She gave him a tight smile. “You mean scream?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of ye trying to brain me with the poker.”
“Tempting, but that would be positively idiotic on my part. You know what you’re doing when it comes to violence.” She frowned. “Not all men do.”
“More experience on yer part?”
“Take from my comment what you will.”
“I think ye’re far more than ye seem.”
“Oh, I am naught more than my uncle’s pawn in this house.”
“And what do ye do?”
“What do you think I do?” she queried, her breasts rising and falling quickly against the tight cut of her bodice. “Your abhorrence for anyone connected to my uncle was quite clear to me this evening.”
“He’s a bastard.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
“Then why are ye here?” he demanded.
“Now it is you who is being foolish.”
“I doona follow.”
“If not here, then where should I be?”
“With another family member?”
“There are none,” she all but spat.
“Surely, there is someplace—”
“If not here, where?” Her brows rose. “Working? Would you have me be—”
“A governess?”
“I lack the qualifications and the references,” she pointed out without rancor. “I am made for little, Your Grace, but I do know the mold of men’s hearts and the paths that their desires lead them down.”
He let out a slow breath. “Ye are strange.”
“My life has been strange. I imagine a man such as you couldn’t even imagine.”
He peered down at her, hating the way he felt drawn to her. Hating that he wished to understand her. “Ye have no idea what I can and canna imagine.”
“My life is none of your affair,” she said quickly. “I had better ask what the devil you’re doing?”
“My affairs are no’ yer business,” he replied evenly.
She shrugged her elegant shoulders. “Then we stand at an impasse.”
A shocking ache passed through him as he contemplated her future. “He will make yer life a misery.”
A dry laugh tumbled from her lips. “My life is a misery, Your Grace.”
He blinked, astonished by her blatant admission. “Are ye here against yer own will?”
“I am a captive of humanity not my uncle. I could set down that cold and icy road any day I wished, but I know the cesspool that awaits me.” She narrowed her gaze. “Do you?”
“Then ye will become a whore?”
“I am already a whore,” she all but laughed. “I sell myself for the gown on my back, the fire in the hearth, and the food in my belly. I sell myself so that I needn’t fear for my own life or the tap tap tap of a guard coming down the hall.”
“A guard?” he echoed.
“Do you think they just let a person wander out of the workhouse or a prison once they’ve entered?” She shuddered. “I have known the feel of hemp rope embedded under my nails and felt the half-crazed breath of desperate women on my neck as I struggled to survive. I shan’t go back. Nothing will ever make me go back.”
He swallowed. “If ye fear for yer survival, doona go with Caxton.”
“What, will he kill me then?”
He remained silent.
She blanched. “What makes you say so?”
“Once he’s done with ye, he will hold ye in no regard. He will cast ye out.”
She recoiled. “I will be his wife.”
“Ye’ll be half-mad,” he corrected, walking a very dangerous line. He was trusting her too much already.
“I don’t understand.”
“Trust my word.”
“Why should I trust you?” she challenged.
“Because ye have nothing to lose,” he pointed out.
“I have everything to lose,” she corrected. “You may not think much of a warm fire and good gown, but—”
“I have walked the streets of London—”
“Perhaps you have, but you don’t know. You don’t know the pain and horror.” Her eyes welled with panic for a moment but then whatever memories had filled her abated and she said coldly, “The fear. The constant fear. You cannot even sleep, Your Grace.”
“I havena slept in some time.”
“Then do not admonish me. You have your path and I have mine.”
“Yer uncle,” he breathed. “He found ye, didna he?”
Her eyes flared. “What?”
“In the workhouse,” he surmised.
She swallowed and looked away quickly, giving him his answer.
“Is he even yer uncle?” he asked.
She nodded tightly.
“Ye’ve been harried yer whole life, havena ye?” He studied her then, studied her until he felt that he could see beneath the veneer she’d so polished to the pain beneath.
“I am not a weak bit of skirt, Your Grace. You cannot make me into a maiden fair no matter how hard you try.”
“Och, lass. But ye are fair,” he countered quietly. “Verra fair.”
“A blessing and a curse,” she snapped then she started for the door.
He slid his hand around her waist and pulled her back.
“No different than all the beasts, then?” she challenged.
“I need to ken ye’ll make no mention of this to yer uncle.”
“If I did, I’d risk diminishing my own value,” she gritted. “I’m not supposed to be alone with men.”
He held her tight against him, the strangest emotions battling within his heart.
For the last year, he’d protected no one and nothing but his sister in his determined rush to avenge her.
But now. . . now, he longed to help this brave, brutal woman who refused his sympathy and laid bare her ugly past. What secrets dwelt in her soul? What darkness had she seen in her uncle’s keeping and before?
Now? Now the darkness she would know would be ten-fold for Caxton was a sick bastard.
In the hard road he’d traveled in the last years, he’d never felt such a dilemma.
“I—I can help ye,” he said suddenly.
Slowly, she turned in his arms, and gazed up at him through half-veiled lashes before her gaze darkened with cold, hard acceptance. “No one can, Your Grace. No one can.”
With that, she tugged from his arms.
His fingertips trailed over the silk of her black gown, skimming her waist as he let her go.
The fire crackled as she hurried away from him. She paused at the door, her back taut.
For one long breath, he was certain she was going to turn back, to look at him, to ask him for his help.
She turned the handle and opened the door.
The gaping black rectangle of darkness before her beckoned, like a threshold, once crossed, that could never be re-crossed.
It was then that oh so very slowly, she glanced back over her shoulder. She met his gaze and there was terror in her eyes. Terror, he knew, of what hidden monsters were lurking in her future.
But then that look was gone. She squared her shoulders, tore her gaze away and stormed out into the hall.
In all his life, he’d never felt so entirely compelled by another human being.
He didn’t know her.
He shouldn’t wish to know her. . . but know her, he would.<
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Chapter 5
The din of the room filled with excitement and impending panic roared through the arched doorway. It hit Annabelle like a wave. She braced herself, pinned her calm, seductive mask to her features and headed back, ready to do what she must.
Caxton sat near the massive, crackling fireplace, at a table playing dice. His smile was cold and broad. His eyes snapping with triumph.
A winning streak no doubt.
The prince sat not too far away, cards in his hand.
She drew in a slow breath then headed towards the tables away from them. Taking a glass of champagne, she sipped delicately, immediately aware of when the prince noticed her. . . and when Caxton did, too.
It didn’t matter that her heart was pounding. That she could still feel the duke’s hold still about her waist.
My God, she’d never felt such a wild, tempting embrace.
The fact that he’d held her for his own interests hadn’t bothered her.
Life was about wagering and gaining. One was never safe. One was always weighing the options about.
And oh. . . his hard body, his hard eyes, and that rough voice demanding to know if she would let him help her? It had been a moment of heaven in a life that had been little better than a wasteland.
But she knew better than to hope for a savior.
The only one who could save her, was herself.
She’d learned that long ago.
But she wondered, unable to stop herself, what would it be like to run away with him? To let him take her away from this place?
Would her life be worse?
She drew in a sharp breath. Such a supposition shouldn’t even cross her mind. At least she knew what to expect with her uncle.
But, then again, soon she would be at Caxton’s command as well as her uncle’s. What would she do then? How would she cope? For somehow, Ardore seemed to understand Caxton’s nature even better than she did.
His comments had only confirmed her concerns.
“You look like you’re about to choke on rotten grapes,” her uncle hissed behind her.
She hid a wince, then forced a smile back to her face. “Perhaps it’s the suddenness of my marriage,” she whispered.
“Do we need to discuss this again?” he threatened lightly, the promise of punishment clear.
“No.”
“Good.”
She bit the inside of her cheek, shocked that she was about to chance asking a dangerous question. “What do you know of the Duke of Ardore?”
“Ardore?”
She nodded.
Her uncle snorted. “You fancy him do you?”
“He seems more dangerous than the rest,” she simply observed.
“He is.”
“Some say he’s killed. No one’s proved it.”
Those wicked, cold eyes of his flashed before her. Could he kill? Yes. She imagined he could but not mindlessly. With Ardore, there would be a reason.
“He likes the high life. . . though some might call it low.” Her uncle let his disdain show, which he always did when a man of superior wealth and rank held more power than he did. “Whores. Gambling. Fights. I’m delighted he’s here.”
“Why?” she queried, surprised, even though she shouldn’t have been. Ardore didn’t seem a man of idle dissipation to her.
“The man’s worth more than half the kingdom. But you stay away from him. You already have your lord.”
She glanced to Caxton. “Yes.”
“Good girl,” he soothed. “Soon, you’ll have a prince.”
“And you’ll have the reward,” she replied, her throat tightening.
“If you wish me to still have use of you, yes,” he replied simply before he took her arm carefully but pointedly. “You do still wish to be of use?”
“Yes, Uncle,” she assured.
“Ah. Speak of the devil.”
Ardore strode into the room, no sign now that he’d fallen from his horse. The room rustled with movement at his presence.
In her experience, there were some men that changed the air in a room. They changed the demeanor of every person present.
Ardore was such a man.
Let me help ye.
Her breath hitched in her throat.
My God, it was tempting.
To finally choose and not be chosen. Could she choose him? Could she leave her uncle and the only safety she’d ever known?
Ardore’s gaze traced over the room then locked on Caxton’s table.
For some inexplicable reason, dread rippled down her spine.
Because while she would have been flattered to believe he was now stalking towards that table for her benefit, she was not fooled by vanity.
And she realized, she was the only person who sensed the deep undercurrent of hate in Ardore’s body as he pulled a chair out and sat across from the lord.
Caxton actually smiled and gestured for wine, clearly believing he was about to fleece the newcomer.
Caxton was a brutal lout. That was all.
Ardore? Ardore was brutal and intelligent.
He sat in the chair with the ease of some of the toughs she’d seen in London extract funds from the local businesses. He was utterly at home. A prowler.
As the game began, she found herself slowly winding her way across the room to stand at hand.
Caxton placed the dice in the cups, rattled them around then tumbled them to the felt-lined table.
Ten.
With the casual ease of a man who had thousands to spare, Ardore took up the dice himself, shook the cup once, then turned it upside down.
The dice rolled to a stop.
Eleven.
Caxton frowned, his winning streak abruptly over.
The stakes, last time she had heard, were five thousand pounds.
“Again?” Ardore queried casually.
Caxton’s body tensed but he smiled. “Of course.”
“Shall we raise the stakes?” Ardore leaned back in the chair. “Five thousand seems a bit plebeian.”
Plebian.
Oh, it was true, it was early in the night and she knew the stakes could rise sharply to ruinous degrees before dawn, but to suggest that five thousand pounds a roll was somehow beneath him, Ardore was making it clear how little he cared about the substantial wealth that he no doubt had.
After all, there was no desperation lurking on his face.
Caxton’s jaw tightened. “What did you have in mind?”
“Let’s say eight thousand?”
Caxton forced a laugh. “Why not?”
“Och, why no’, indeed? It’s good to live little, is it no’?”
Caxton laughed again. But as he took the cup, there was an edge of panic in his eyes.
Most people wouldn’t be able to detect it. But she had spent years around gamblers. She knew when a man’s luck had changed and Caxton’s had just plummeted. Yet he was afraid to lose face, walking away from the table.
And this was to be her husband.
Given the way Caxton’s body had tensed and the faintest sheen had broken upon his brow, she knew what kind of loser he would be.
A furious one.
And she had little doubt about who he liked to take his loss out upon. Men like him were easy to predict.
She hadn’t survived hell to be beaten.
Let me help ye.
Those words began to pound through her like low, rumbling thunder. A continuous litany as Ardore won roll after roll and Caxton’s hands balled into angry fists.
Fists he’d no doubt use upon a weaker person when he walked away from the night’s disappointments.
She bit down on the inside of her cheek.
What she was contemplating was madness, but perhaps she was ready for a bit of madness. Perhaps. . . she could break her uncle’s hold.
But what if Ardore proved worse?
What if. . .
It was a hellish way to live, but there it was. The unknown could be far worse than anything she’d alre
ady coped with.
So, she drew in a slow breath, took a glass of champagne from a passing tray and resolved to wait and see.
Damnation, it was disheartening that it was so bloody easy to bait Caxton. After spending years attempting to sit down at a table to ruin him, this was proving hollow.
The man was now over thirty thousand pounds down.
If his sources were correct, Caxton could lose possibly another eight before he’d have to start wagering important things like his house.
But there was one other factor. A new factor.
Her.
Annabelle Winters was sipping her champagne, watching the game. Her beautiful eyes were dancing with a sort of delighted horror.
Could the others see it?
Or was he the only one who recognized that she understood that something larger was at play?
She was no piece of fluff.
Of that, he was certain.
Annabelle Winters understood dangerous men.
He hated that.
He hated it with a passion so intense that he longed to reach across the table and bash her future husband’s face in.
Only Caxton wasn’t going to be her future husband. Not if he had anything to do with it.
And he was going to have something to do with it.
Taking a long, languid drink of brandy, Tristan leaned back. “Caxton, old mon. Why doona ye just admit this is my night and head off to bed?”
Caxton’s eyes narrowed. “Hardly.”
Bloody hell, someone like Caxton was so easy to play. He was a vicious brute, with no finesse to him. It was appalling how many lives he’d brutalized.
It was heartbreaking that one of those lives had been his sister’s.
He just refrained from glancing to Annabelle. He’d be damned if she was next on Caxton’s list.
Waggling his brows, as if he hadn’t a care in the world, he said, “Delighted to keep on, old mon. Yer turn to roll, I do believe.”
Caxton swiped the cup and dice from the table. The lines at his mouth tightened as he rattled the cup furiously, belying his professed ease. The dice tumbled to the felt.
Eleven.
A roar of laughter tumbled from Caxton’s lips.
Ardore merely took up the twin dice and cup. He locked gazes with Caxton, didn’t even bother to shake the cup, then turned it over.
Twelve.
