The Rogue's Wager (Sinful Brides Book 1)

by Christi Caldwell

  She furrowed her brow.

  Thumped him on the back . . . ? Even with the distance from the window and the floor, Helena detected Ryker’s body jerk at that physical touch.

  “What has you so engrossed?”

  Startled into movement, she spun around. “The tables,” she dissembled.

  Calum gave an absent nod. “Ryker was looking for you earlier,” he muttered.

  Looking for her? Ryker had just been conversing with a patron on the gaming floor. A sense of foreboding held her suspended, motionless.

  The only people Ryker actively looked for were men and women he intended to sack. Otherwise, you saw Ryker only at the times he carved out for you in his schedule . . . and that rule extended to family.

  She was being irrational. Ryker wouldn’t sack her. Not simply because she was his sister, but because he needed her. The club’s success was owed in large part to her expert handling of the books. But you were caught in a bald-faced lie . . . one that potentially put every member of the family at risk. And there was the gentleman whom Ryker had been walking the floors with. “He is looking for me?” she managed to squeeze out.

  “You weren’t in your office.” She’d been here. “You know your brother doesn’t tell me everything,” Calum said, not meeting her gaze.

  The pebble grew to the size of a boulder. Why is he not meeting my eyes?

  “He certainly tells you more than he tells me.” Bitterness won out in her failed bid for humor.

  Calum came over to where she stood at the window, and stopped beside her. A sad glimmer flecked in his eyes, as he searched her face, escalating her growing disquiet. “Your brother loves you,” he said unexpectedly, in those soft tones she’d only heard from him after she’d awakened from the nightmares. “Everything he has ever done has been with you in mind.” He paused. “All of us.”

  His words rang eerily of goodbye. She thrust off the silly thought. He’d never send her away . . . But he would if he found a larger reason you should not be here . . . And she’d certainly given him reason enough. Any other worker would have been summarily dismissed and tossed out for her crimes yesterday.

  “Yes, well, I’m working now.” Unless she was specifically summoned, she was wise enough to not go looking for her brother. As a man so single-mindedly driven by his gaming empire, he’d at the very least respect her devotion to her responsibilities. Helena shot another glance over her shoulder, searching for her brother. Ryker and the jolly, fat nobleman had since gone. Tired of Calum’s cryptic words and glances, she coughed into her hand. “If you’ll excuse me? I’ve the liquor accounts to see to.”

  Calum gave her a long lingering look, and regret flashed in his eyes. He stepped out of her way.

  Helena curled her hands into tight fists, and made her way past him.

  Once gone from the observatory, she drew in a slow breath, and started for her office. Although Ryker’s looking for her roused nervousness, for its unpredictability in a man committed to sameness, she’d not quake and tremble. It was not as though he’d specifically summoned her. Now if he’d made it a bid to see her called to his office . . . well, then she’d be suitably terrified.

  She reached the end of the hall when the quick tread of boot steps sounded down the opposite corridor.

  “He’s in my office?” Ryker’s gravelly voice echoed in the quiet.

  “. . . I just escorted him there. He asked when he might see . . .” The remainder of Niall’s response to Ryker’s terse question was lost. “You do not have to do this.” Niall’s murmur reached around the hall. “Helena has not been . . .”

  Heart thudding painfully, Helena quickly ducked into a nearby storage room, and drew the door closed. Helena has not been what . . . ? Her mind screamed. She left a small crack in the heavy panel and squinted.

  “. . . There is no other choice.” There was a finality to Ryker’s harsh pronouncement.

  No other choice? The cryptic quality of that, linked with Niall’s earlier use of her name, sent fear racing. He is going to sack me. She tightened her grip on the door handle, and pressed her ear against the wood.

  “. . . Do you truly believe we cannot protect . . .”

  Helena’s grip slipped on the door handle, and she stumbled into the door with such force, she knocked it open and landed hard on her knees. She grunted as pain radiated up her legs.

  Bloody hell on Sunday.

  Ryker and Niall paused at the end of the hall and in unison turned around.

  Mustering a smile, she climbed to her feet as though they’d met on the gaming floors and not as though she’d been blatantly discovered listening in on their discourse. “I was inventorying the linens,” she lied. Their matching, piercing expressions said they knew it, too. Helena shoved herself to a stand, while embarrassed heat flooded her cheeks.

  Niall rushed over. “Are you—?”

  “I am fine,” she assured him. How protective they’d always been. As a girl and young woman she’d appreciated it. As a woman grown, it threatened to suffocate her.

  Ryker, however, remained where he stood. “I was looking for you earlier. Niall, escort her to my office.” His was a command more than anything else.

  She stared, perplexed, at his retreating back. Helena pasted a wry smile on her lips and looked to Niall, who at six feet tall nearly met her gaze squarely. “I expect this is important for him to call me away from my daily responsibilities.”

  “You know your brother.” Niall gave her a gentle smile, and she bit her cheek. Calum, Niall, they each wore the same regretful look. Of all her brothers, however, Niall had always been the one easiest with his grins, and freer with his words.

  “Why is he looking for me?” she asked bluntly, as they fell into step.

  “It’s not my place to say.” Which meant he knew.

  Very well. He’d be stingy with his words this time. “But he could not be bothered to wait for me?” she shot back.

  Niall lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “He has someone waiting for him in his office, and you know Ryker and punctuality.”

  Yes, it was why she’d known when she’d overslept, with Robert in her bed, that questions would ensue. Dread mingled with panic. “Who is he meeting with?” It is the man he’s hired in my stead. She battled down the fear of that possibility.

  “You’ll find out, Helena,” he said, bringing them to a stop outside Ryker’s office. Mayhap he feared any further questions, because as she opened her mouth with another, he shoved the door.

  Helena stepped inside.

  Her gaze went first to Ryker, seated behind his desk, his hard face a deadened mask. But that impenetrable, coldly emotional person he’d always proven to be was not who called her attention. Rather, it was the smiling, portly, vaguely familiar gentleman seated in the too-small chair across from Ryker. She searched his heavily jowled face for a hint of knowing.

  The man’s smile widened on her, and she shifted her gaze away, unnerved by the stranger’s scrutiny. Who was this man that Ryker would call her here even now? He is your replacement . . . What was she without her numbers? She fought to order her thoughts.

  Wordlessly, Ryker motioned to the vacant seat.

  With wooden steps, Helena walked to the chair and perched on the edge. She stared expectantly.

  And in this parallel universe where Ryker went looking for her and commanded control of all situations, the stranger spoke. “You have the look of your mother.”

  Helena stiffened. Well, that had not been what she’d expected from this man. She flicked a frigid stare over the insolent stranger. “Then, you did not know my mother, sir,” she said in frosty tones. Just a couple of inches over five feet, with pale blonde tresses, the only hint of similarity between mother and daughter was their green eyes. All traces stopped there. How dare this nobleman enter her brother’s office and spout his flawed likenings?

  A twinkle lit his eyes.

  The man was a bloody lackwit, and if Ryker hired him in her stead, he was an equal fo
ol.

  “You’ve her spirit and courage.”

  Heat rushed to her cheeks and she turned, angling her shoulder in a deliberately dismissive movement. “You were looking for me, Ryker,” she snapped.

  Ryker peered at her through dark lashes. “You’ve given me reason to question your safety here.”

  Robert. She cast a pointed look at the toff beside her. “I hardly think this merits discussion in front of a stranger,” she said, proud of the even deliverance.

  Ryker leaned back in his high-backed chair and laid his palms on the arms of his seat. “I’ve allowed you to remain here . . .” Allowed me to remain here? “. . . confident that you will be safe.” From Diggory. The name hung on the air between them.

  “Oh.” She stretched out that single syllable. “Here I thought I remained because I managed your books so flawlessly.” And because I’m your bloody sister. Her nails dug vicious crescents into her palms. Damn her brother for being the cold, emotionless bastard he was.

  “You have become increasingly frustrated with your circumstances here.”

  How could she not? She gritted her teeth. Clara. Calum. Adair. In their broken confidences, they’d all betrayed her. Where were the codes of honor they’d discovered in the streets? But then, you’re just Helena Banbury to them. Ryker is master, not to be crossed. “I am not having this discussion with a stranger present.” He’d question her judgment? She looked to the now solemn stranger.

  The older man made to rise but her brother waved him back to his chair.

  “Your lapse in judgment has proven your weakness.” She jerked, feeling as though he’d slapped her. The marks on her back, face, and hands were testament of her strength. A woman never forgot the hell that shaped her. “That weakness would be your end, Helena. Given your error—”

  “It was a single mistake,” she snapped. A large, horrible mistake.

  “And the increased risk you face,” he continued as though she’d not spoken. “I’ve come to a decision.” A decision. His decision. Not hers. Not anything she’d been consulted on.

  Her mind skidded away from the finality in his statement, clinging instead to something safer. “The increased risk I face? Is this about Diggory?” she asked, damning the slight quaver to that name which only strengthened her brother’s argument.

  “Given all that,” he said over her. “I found this is the ideal time for you to determine precisely what you want,” Ryker said in his gravelly tones, bringing her back from her musings.

  “Do you know what I want?” She sat forward in her seat. “I want freedom on the floors, just like every other club proprietor. I wish to have full freedom to go outside as I wish, when I wish,” without goddamn permission from every brother here. “And now, now I want to return to my books.”

  “You are not keeping books.”

  It did not escape her how neatly he’d sidestepped her other statements preceding that particular one. “No, no I am not,” she said with a nod. “I’m sitting here speaking to you about my actions as though I’m a child and not a woman of nearly five and twenty years.” She climbed to her feet.

  “Sit down, Helena.” That low, dangerous whisper brought her back to a slow sit. As long as she’d known her brother, he’d taken care to avoid the use of names. When she’d been a girl, she’d tried to understand why. Now, she wagered it was his successful bid to keep people at bay.

  “You wish to know what life is like outside these clubs.”

  She flattened her mouth. Where was the crime in wanting to see more than the walls of this club?

  “You’ve to determine which life you wish to live.” Not taking his icy gaze from Helena, he motioned to the still-quiet lord at her side. “This is the Duke of Wilkinson.” She swung her gaze around and took in the details to previously escape her. The colorful attire. Those chocolate-brown eyes. Five or six stones heavier, he was still the same man—her father. Oh, God. A faint humming filled her ears and she was grateful for the sturdy chair under her.

  “The duke has agreed to take you in. You’ll be safe there.”

  She’d be safe there? Away from her family? “Take me in?” she parroted, her words coming as if down a distant hall. All the while panic crested in a wave that threatened to drag her under.

  “For the Season,” the duke piped in, resting his hands on his large paunch. “You’ll quite enjoy it. There’s the theatre and balls and the park . . .” As he continued prattling on, Helena whipped her gaze back to Ryker.

  “You are mad,” she rasped. “Corked in the brain.”

  He narrowed his eyes. Anyone else would have surely felt the wrath of his fist for such a charge, and in this moment she wished she’d been born a male of equal strength so she could bloody his face for this betrayal.

  “I do not wish to go. I wish to remain here.”

  “You’ve been asking to go out,” he shot back quietly.

  She blinked rapidly. How did he know that? Because this was the life she wanted. The only one she knew. “How do you know you wish to be here and not in London?” she returned, when she at last found words.

  The ghost of a smile hovered on his scarred lips in a fleeting expression of . . . pride? Amusement? From a man who took care to show nothing to the world. “Four months. The remainder of the Season,” he said, and gone was all hint of mirth.

  Her breath came in loud, noisy spurts. “The books,” she rasped. She clearly did not matter to him. Given the ease with which he’d send her away, she never had. But he at least loved the club. Surely he could not send her away so easily, not with all the ways in which he relied on her efforts?

  “Adair will see to them.”

  Helena fell back in her chair. For just like that, with five words, he’d dismissed her worth at this club. “I h-have put this club first before a-anyone and anything,” she whispered, hating the quaver to her voice.

  Gaze trained on Helena, Ryker ordered the duke to wait outside.

  She stared incredulously as the corpulent lord ambled to his feet. “Of course, of course,” he said obligingly, and took his leave.

  As soon as the door closed with a faint click, Helena launched into Ryker. “I have been nothing but loyal and for all my work, you’d repay me with this?”

  Ryker sent a single eyebrow arcing up. “Ah, but that isn’t altogether true, is it?” The dangerous steel underscoring could cut as surely as the dagger that bastard had nicked from her. “You put Lord Westfield first.”

  She shook her head uncomprehendingly. Who in blazes . . . ?

  “Lord Robert Westfield.”

  Robert.

  The bloody bastard.

  Her brother peeled his lip back in a faint sneer. “You’d place a gentleman whose identity you did not even know before the people in this hell.”

  “He entered my chambers,” she gritted out between tightly clenched teeth.

  “And spent the night,” Ryker said, glancing at the clock beyond her shoulder.

  He is going to end this discussion, which isn’t really a discussion. He is going to run me off so he can return to his very important business. Her fury rose, with her brother, with the family who’d betrayed her, with the bastard who’d stumbled inside her rooms, and with herself for having blundered the whole bloody situation.

  “You’d send me away because of him, then?” she snapped. Ryker, who hated the whole of the peerage more than anyone or anything, would force her to go live with the duke who’d abandoned them.

  “Yes,” he said with a bluntness that drained the blood from her cheeks. “You wish to know what life is like outside these walls, then you shall. You have four months. If in four months you wish your post back, then it is yours.” With finality ringing in that pronouncement, Helena’s breathing increased.

  She surged to her feet. “Do not do this,” she pleaded, and held her hands up imploringly. “I beg you.” Tears filled her eyes and she hated that with her words and actions she was this weak, pathetic creature.

  If he w
as at all affected, Ryker gave no outward reaction. “It is settled. Your belongings have been packed. His Grace is waiting.” With that, Ryker looked again to the clock. “I’ve business to see to.”

  Business.

  And she was just family. Not so very important, after all. The club came first. She’d always known that, but she’d in a night full of folly allowed Lord Robert Westfield to dismantle her world.

  Four months. She’d but four months to endure the haute ton.

  A dark fury threatened to overtake her, as she damned the day she’d ever had the misfortune of meeting Lord Robert Westfield.

  St Giles, England

  Spring 1822

  Chapter 8

  Rule 8

  Be wary of rakes and rogues.

  Anyone who believed Helena Banbury, girl of the streets, would ever find a husband was as corked in the head as a Bedlamite.

  When she’d been shipped off to the Mayfair district of London, Helena had realized it.

  The duke’s wife had taken one look at Helena and known precisely what she was, and had also realized it.

  And most importantly, all respectable members of the peerage realized it.

  Women such as Helena would never, ever make a respectable match. Ever.

  Not that she wished to make a respectable match.

  Or to be specific . . . any match. The whole idea of legally binding herself to any man who could put his hands on her in violence, and his prick inside her with lust . . . well, yes . . . she was better off without all worry of a husband.

  She stood at the back of the modiste’s shop while the duchess spoke with Madame Bisset, who was no more French than Helena was a lady born and bred. Periodically the women would glance in her direction and shake their heads in that deploring way. The way governesses employed by her brother had when she’d shown a greater proclivity to numbers than she had any ladylike endeavor.

  Her skin pricked with the familiar stares trained on her person, and she stiffened. A pair of flawlessly beautiful brunette twin ladies pointed and whispered. Bitterness twinged in her breast. Then it was not every day a genuine lady had opportunity to stare at a duke’s scarred by-blow. What those ladies failed to know was she’d suffered far greater cruelties than any they could ever inflict. She turned her attention to the arrangement of bows, and to give her hands something to do, she trailed her fingertips over each silly scrap, silently counting each blue ribbon as she moved down the narrow aisle.