The Rogue's Wager (Sinful Brides Book 1)

by Christi Caldwell

  With quick, fluid movements, Jonas proceeded to pour himself a drink.

  A companionable silence fell between them, two men who’d been friends since Eton and who’d once shared a bond built on loss, and as Robert drank, Jonas remained steadfast keeping him company as the hours marched on. It was Jonas who broke the impasse.

  “Is your father expecting you to marry a certain lady, then?”

  “He would rather I marry for . . .” His lips pulled. “Love.” A fortune hunter who found love. He snorted. That was the matter of rubbish better served on the pages of the romantic novels his sister favored. And apparently to Robert’s father, a more realistic possibility than his son managing to somehow reverse their financial circumstances. “Ironic, isn’t it?” he asked, wryly, taking another sip.

  His friend furrowed his brow.

  “A duke’s son and daughter, and neither of us can manage a single match.” Though, given the oath he’d taken, the matter was largely settled. Just not formally . . . given the rules of mourning.

  Jonas frowned. “Well, that isn’t altogether true. You’ve both been . . .” The man seemed to search his thoughts. “Selective,” he opted for.

  He snorted and said nothing else. Selective in the sense that Robert had been a rogue who’d lived for his own pleasures, and Bea . . . well, Bea was still a romantic hoping that some worthy sop would come to love her and not her birthright. Robert looped his ankle over his knee. “Regardless, the matter is largely settled.” At least in his father’s eyes. The expectation being when the Duke of Wilkinson’s seventeen-year-old daughter arrived in London, the unspoken arrangement would at last settle the uncertain Somerset line.

  “And the lady is . . . ?”

  “The Duke of Wilkinson’s daughter,” he supplied.

  “Ah,” Jonas said, inclining his head.

  Yes, well, really what else was there to say, other than that? He shifted in his seat. Lords made matches with younger ladies every day. It was expected and the norm, and yet . . . there was something . . . wholly distasteful in the prospect of wedding a woman more than fifteen years younger.

  “Of all the families to merge the Denningtons with, the Verney line is an honorable one.” And a wealthy one. That admission hung unspoken between them. He shifted in his seat. If he entered into a union to salvage his family’s wealth, then he was no different than Lucy Whitman. He fisted his hands. He could not marry with those ugly intentions. Surely there was something—

  “I am sorry,” Jonas said quietly, bringing him back from his contemplation.

  Robert forced a laugh. “So hopelessly in love are you that you’d bemoan my emotionless, though advantageous, match?”

  His friend met his dry amusement with a sad, penetrating look. “I had hoped for more for you.”

  He turned his attention to his drink. He’d never been one of those lords who’d spouted sonnets with romantic expectations for himself. Having been groomed for the position of duke from the nursery, he’d learned early on the expectations and responsibilities that would belong to him. He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “It is the way of our world,” he said with a pragmatism that elicited another frown.

  Rolling his shoulders, Robert glanced about the club once more when, from the corner of his eye, the peculiar woman from before recalled his attention.

  Attired in a modest green satin gown, she did not wear the same outrageous, gauzy creations donned by the other women wandering the floor. Her scarred pale cheeks, absent of rouge, and her lips devoid of color also marked her as a further oddity, different than the other whores employed at the Hell and Sin. As she darted her gaze about, Robert’s intrigue doubled. A small frown pulled at her lips and she again ducked further behind the lone pillar, pressing herself against it as though she wished to become one with the towering white structure.

  Since he’d begun patronizing the Hell and Sin Club he’d never before spied the tall, lean creature. He finished his brandy. He would have remembered one such as her. She was not in possession of the beauty to match the voluptuous, blousy creatures who were the Hell’s regular girls, and yet the wistful gleam in her green eyes held him utterly captivated. Robert couldn’t look away. Those eyes bespoke none of the jaded hardness that iced over most of the other employees. Perhaps that would come in time. For now, she’d somehow managed to retain the veneer of innocence amidst an opulent den of sinners.

  His earlier desire to get well and truly soused lifted, instead replaced with curiosity for the compelling woman who peeked her head out occasionally from behind the column. Robert looked at his loyal friend. With his glass of brandy largely untouched, cradled between his fingers, he made clear by his presence that Robert had his unwavering support. “Go home to your wife,” Robert said quietly. “You don’t need to be here.” At one time, after Jonas had suffered a broken heart, that hadn’t been the case. Not any longer. And Robert may one day be a duke, but he’d never be one of those stodgy bastards who expected the world to wait and watch for him because of the title affixed to his name.

  Jonas hesitated.

  “Go,” Robert insisted, again. He waggled his brows. “I’ll finish my moping and then head back to my rooms no worse for the wear. No worries over me wandering the streets of St Giles.”

  His friend took a final sip of his drink and set it down. “Don’t do anything reckless here,” he said dryly. “We’re well past our days of impetuous behaviors.”

  Robert drew an X on his chest. “I give you my word,” his mock solemnity earning a laugh from Jonas. Smoothing his earlier amusement, he looked the other man in the eye. “Thank you,” he said simply, the words enough, the meaning clear in the slight nod Jonas had given. No thanks were needed. During Jonas’s darkest days, Robert had been steadfast beside him, sitting in other disreputable halls, allowing the man to drown his sorrows in spirits. “Give my best to Mrs. Jonas,” he added.

  “If there is anything I can do to help,” his friend offered. “Anything at all . . .” His meaning clear. Robert need but ask.

  “Thank you,” he said again. No one but a master of numbers could salvage his family, now.

  Jonas nodded, and then with a short bow took his leave.

  Robert stared after him as he wound his way through the club until he reached the front doors, and then with a servant drawing them open, Jonas took his leave. Despite what his friend had hoped for or wished for Robert’s own marital state, the reality had always been, and always would be, the responsibility that went with the ducal line. As a second son of a viscount, Jonas had been granted freedoms and luxuries not allowed a duke. It was simply, as Robert had said prior, the way of their world.

  Shoving aside thoughts of future brides and ducal responsibilities, Robert returned to his drink.

  A short while later . . . or mayhap a long while, time had all blurred together, Robert shoved away from the gaming table. The room dipped and swayed. Then righted itself. He gripped the sides of the table and moved with slow, deliberate steps through the Hell.

  The greetings shouted his way came as if down a long hall.

  There seemed to be a good deal of buzz? At the hazard table about the Marquess of Westfield’s inebriated state. He blinked. Wait. I am the Marquess of Westfield.

  He frowned, rather resenting the inaccuracy. He didn’t get soused. Well, this night he’d intended to but he’d only drunk one . . . or had it been two? Mayhap three glasses . . . ? He spun back around and glanced at the empty tumbler on his table. A lone amber drop stuck on the rim of the glass. Or was it four? Surely he’d not had four?

  He gave his head a shake, and then spun around so quickly all that kept him from toppling over was the edge of a faro table. The stone-faced dealer immediately dealt him in the hand.

  “Thank yooou,” he slurred.

  The cards blurred before his eyes. He threw down his hand. Someone slapped him on the back and a round of cheers went up at the table.

  He winced. Why in hell were they cheering? The deal
er shoved a pile of winnings in Robert’s direction. He blinked, bleary-eyed, at another winning hand of faro and collected his coins, stuffing them into his pocket.

  The din of the gaming hell blared in his skull until his gut roiled with nausea.

  Or mayhap that was too much drink.

  As he wound his way through the Hell and Sin Club, he struggled to see his way through the dimly lit hall filled with the plumes of cheroot smoke. He wanted to clamp his hands over his blasted ears to blot out the raucous laughter and excited calls from around the lively tables.

  He exited the gaming hell through the door leading to a winding staircase, and then up to the private suites rented out by gentlemen.

  Robert swiped a hand across his eye wishing he’d stopped at half the bottle of brandy. A whole bottle was entirely too much. At least to then be expected to climb . . . he squinted . . . one, two, three, four—

  Had he counted stair four already.

  He cursed.

  He jabbed his finger at the stairs lined in a thin, blood-red carpet. “One-twoo-threeee . . .” Oh, hell, this really wasn’t working.

  Perhaps it would be easier to climb the bloody thing and count steps that way.

  Robert scratched at his brow. Only . . . Why in hell am I counting stairs?

  The stairway pitched and he grabbed the rail to steady himself.

  Ah, right, the whole treachery business. After all, everyone eventually manipulated.

  He shied away from the truth of his own flawed judgment, even all these years later, and instead fixed his attention on more pressing matters: climbing the stairs without toppling over and breaking his fool neck.

  Where had he been before the whole maudlin reminiscences of Lucy Whitman?

  Ah, yes . . . counting the stairs to his private rooms. He’d been counting stairs for reasons he still couldn’t recall. Robert drew in a long, slow breath and placed his foot on the first step, beginning the long, arduous ascent upwards.

  Halfway up, he pitched against the wall. He clenched his eyes and willed the staircase to remain still. “Mmusnn’t realize ahm a marquess,” he scolded the steps. They shifted at his pronouncement. Yes, rather pompous of him. Nor would it do to offend those stairs any further.

  He reached the main level and swayed unsteadily.

  Robert cursed, throwing his arms wide to balance himself.

  Then took several steps down the long, narrow corridor lit with alternating sconces at each door. He stumbled against a door.

  A woman wearing a dowdy nightshift appeared at the end of the long hall. A familiar woman. Robert squinted as a memory slid through his liquor-induced haze of the Spartan-like creature at the edge of the gaming hell floor. The same Spartan-like creature who now held up her arm and—a flash of silver glittered in the dark.

  He scratched his brow. Perhaps the club members below had the right of it and he’d indulged in too much drink. The woman hadn’t seemed a cutthroat earlier that night. “Are you brandishing a knife?” He winced as his voice boomed off the corridor walls.

  The fiery-eyed woman narrowed on him, and then like Wellington’s men set on the charge, the slim-waisted hellion flew down the hall so quickly her nightshift and wrapper danced and flapped wildly about her slender ankles.

  “Indeed,” he muttered to himself. It appeared he’d not overindulged quite as much as he’d thought a moment ago. She did, in fact, have a blade in her hand. A vicious-looking dagger that she wielded like a warrior princess.

  “You there!” She stuck her blade out and wagged it in his direction. “What are you doing on this floor? These are Mr. Black’s private apartments!”

  Suddenly more clearheaded than he’d been all night, Robert took a moment to evaluate the spirited tigress. With her pale, sharp features she’d never be considered a beauty. The modest nightshift accentuated the narrowness of her hips and the trimness of her waist. Yet for the otherwise drabness of the woman, a fire danced in her green eyes, lending interest to her; that shade heightened by the tight, no doubt painful, chignon at the base of her skull. Though . . . he scratched at his brow. What was the exact shade of her hair? “Neither red nor brown,” he murmured. Streaks of red in brown. Surely there was a name for such a—

  The woman narrowed her eyes into thin slits. “What are you on about?” she barked, again wagging her knife.

  Robert held a staying hand up. He could name all manner of wicked deeds he’d rather do with the virago than be stabbed by her. The scandal sheets would have quite a bit to say about the future Duke of Somerset being slain in the infamous club. The too-much-drink business would seem rather secondary to such a juicy morsel.

  “I’m in need of my rooms.” He gestured down the hall, past her shoulder.

  The abrupt movement unsteadied him further. He grabbed a nearby doorjamb to keep from toppling over but slid past it. Or did the door move? How would the owners manage such a feat . . . His hand collided with a door handle, and he pitched forward into the darkened chambers.

  Robert grunted, and shot his arms out to brace his fall. He landed hard on his palms and sent pain radiating up his arms. With a groan, he rolled onto his back . . . and snagged his gaze on a naughty mural of smiling, buxom ladies twined in one another’s naked embraces.

  He groaned as the tall, decidedly unsmiling woman leaned over him, obliterating that delicious view. “I asked, what are you doing here?” she demanded, running a cursory glance over his person. Robert opened his mouth to speak when she buried the tip of her foot in his side, ringing a groan from him.

  “Did you kick me?” he said, his words slurring together. Blasted brandy. If ever there was a moment for a proper ducal tone then this was it.

  “Yes.”

  Quite the curt creature. With a long, painful groan that echoed around his throbbing head, he shot a hand over his eyes. “Couldn’t find the sweet-mouthed beauty,” he muttered.

  “What was that?” The sharp sting of metal biting into the fabric of his jacket brought his eyes flying open, and he dropped his arm to his side. Robert stilled. The woman gripped a vicious dagger with unwavering strength. He swallowed back a curse, suddenly sober. Then, the threat of death had that effect. One quick movement on her part, and one flawed on his, would see him with a gleaming blade buried in his flesh. Mind muddled from too much drink, he struggled for the charming words that had served him well through the years with widows, dowagers, and debutantes alike. It really wouldn’t do to insult the woman with a vicious weapon in her fingers now pointed at him. “Uh . . .” That was the best response he could muster. He shook his head on the floor. I am never touching a bloody drink, again.

  The woman narrowed her eyes all the more. “Never mind,” she muttered. “You need to go.”

  Some of the tension left him. Well, they appeared to agree on that score. He . . . His gaze caught the naughty scene of luscious creatures with wings. Robert squinted. Did they have wings? Like voluptuous angels. A rather ridiculous . . .

  His nearly six-foot-tall assailant buried her foot in his side, once more ringing another pained groan from him. “Did you kick me again?”

  “I did.” She spoke between gritted teeth. “Get. Up.”

  Robert levered himself up with his elbows and struggled to stand.

  At last, she lowered that wicked blade. “Oh, for Joan of Arc and all her army,” she said, exasperation coating her tone as she offered him her free hand.

  He eyed her again. Even with her five feet six or seven inches, the woman was so slender, a strong wind could knock her down. He grinned and placed his hand in hers if for no other reason than to feel the heat of her delicate palm folded inside his much larger one.

  She tugged.

  To no avail.

  The nameless stranger grunted and gave another tug.

  She pulled once more and she flew backwards, landing hard on her buttocks. Her knife clattered to the floor, the clank of it muted by the thin carpet. She sat sprawled in the midst of the hall, her skirts rucked up
about her knees. The severe chignon that held her brownish-red locks at the base of her neck tumbled free and her hair cascaded down about her shoulders and trim waist.

  He blinked several times. “By God.” She really is rather . . . pretty. In an odd, too-tall, sharp-featured way. In a way he’d never genuinely preferred.

  The tall woman blew back the strand that fell across her eyes. “What is it?” Even drunk as he was, he’d have to be deaf to fail and hear the hesitancy in that query, so at odds with a hellcat who’d put a blade to his person.

  Given their exchange thus far, compliments would only be wasted on her. Ignoring her question, he attempted to rise.

  The woman hopped to her feet and hurriedly retrieved her knife. A moment later, she returned with a hand extended, once more.

  This time, he allowed her to help him to his feet. “I need my rooms, and a warm bath and food.” Otherwise, I’m going to wake devilishly ill.

  An inelegant snort escaped her pouty lips. “I’d wager you’ll wake devilishly ill regardless of what you eat this late hour, sir.”

  Sir?

  He scratched at his brow and looked about for this sir-fellow she referred to.

  She sighed. “You must go that way, sir.”

  Oh, he was the sir she spoke of. Not: my lord. Not: Lord Westfield. He found he preferred the anonymity of a simple “sir.”

  Displeasure snapped in her expressive eyes, and she wagged her hand. Shaking his head, Robert followed her pointed finger and the room lurched. He managed a jerky nod.

  The woman peered down her nose at him. He frowned. As the future Duke of Somerset, he was sought after by young ladies, his presence desired by the most distinguished hostesses, and yet, not once had anyone ever condescended to look at him like this fiery-eyed woman whose sneer penetrated even his drunken stupor. Did she see him as the same reckless, witless dandies who wagered away their fortunes and drowned themselves in spirits nightly? “I’ll have you know, I do not drink in excess,” he slurred. For, somehow, being viewed in that same, unfavorable light, grated.