The Gambler

by Lois Greiman

  "But..." Charm scowled at the bottle. "It must sting like the devil."

  Doc raised his chin so as to study her through his narrow lenses. "If'n y' didn't want 'im t'hurt, honey, y' shouldn't a stabbed him," he reasoned, and retrieving his carpet bag, left Charm to stare after him in utter bemusement.

  Chapter 13

  Raven woke with a start and lurched upright. His chest burned like fire, and he was ravenously hungry, but his first concern was the whereabouts of his quarry. Chantilly. Where was she?

  "What's wrong?"

  Her voice came, quick and startled from beside his bed. Raven calmed, finding her in the darkness. He must have scared her, he deduced and mentally smiled, hoping he had paid her back a small whit for all she'd put him through. But no. That would take a good deal more. Pretending he'd fainted had been bad enough! But getting kerosene poured in an open wound! He shivered, remembering the pain.

  "Charm," he said in a soft tone perfectly groomed for the occasion. "I was afraid you'd left."

  She rose, and he wondered if she'd been sleeping in the chair, though she seemed to possess her usual alertness now. "I'm here." Her stance was stiff, as was her tone.

  "Oh." He sighed heavily. "I thought I was alone." A pause, pressing her for a response.

  "No."

  One thing about this girl, he thought wryly, she was full of warmth and caring. Rather like a grizzly with a toothache.

  "I didn't mean to frighten you," he said softly.

  "You didn't," she lied and he chuckled, making sure the sound was self-deprecating rather than insulting.

  "Foolish of me, I suppose, to think everyone's afraid of the dark."

  It took her a moment to speak, but she did finally, her tone, thank heaven, surprised. "You're afraid of the dark?"

  "Terrible thing for a grown man to admit." He leaned back slightly, as if expecting support to be behind him. But there was none, so he sat upright again with a quiet groan of pain.

  It took her a moment, but she stepped forward finally to brace two plump, down pillows against his back.

  "Thank you." The words sounded marvelously breathy, he thought, as if he were unworthy of her unexpected kindness. God, he was good. "I, um..." He looked away from her face, partly because it would prove his embarrassment regarding the subject, and partly because the sight of her distracted him from his mission, even in this dim light. "When I was a boy, I was left alone a lot at night."

  She was absolutely silent. He could feel her watching him.

  "My mother worked while the rest of the world slept. Don't get the wrong idea. She did nothing immoral. Ever," he added quietly then almost scowled. He shouldn't have said that, for such words called forth too-real memories, and too much truth was a bad idea. "She was a scullery maid of sorts." He paused, seeing, against his will, his mother's face, and his own lean, hawkish image as a boy. Raven, the other children had dubbed him, for he'd possessed the dark, hungry visage of a predator.

  His mother, on the other hand, had been beautiful, even when she died, still too optimistic, too soon, too damned young! "Cleaned house for the wealthy. Businesses, that sort of thing," Raven said softly.

  The room was very dark, with a single, slanted rectangle of moonlight falling over the foot of the bed. He could hear Charm shuffle her feet. "Where was your father?"

  Raven pressed his teeth together and narrowed his eyes in the darkness, glad she couldn't see his expression. Although the girl was playing directly into his hands, her question still raised emotions that should have been long dead. "He left."

  He could hear the soft intake of breath. "I'm sorry."

  Now why would she say a thing like that? But, of course, he wanted her to be sorry. He'd soften her with her own feminine emotions, woo her with sensitivity and melancholy then let her spill her troubles upon his broad shoulders. Women loved to talk about themselves, to have someone to tell their sorrows to. She would come to trust him, and then she would agree to do whatever he wished her to do. It was a good plan. Much better than force, which he'd tried. It had gained him little more than the original and irreplaceable sensation of kerosene in a stick wound.

  Appealing to her feminine side was an idea that had been slowly hatching, but now, after all he'd been through he was committed to the plan. She must have a feminine side, he'd deduced. After all, she was decidedly and unarguably female. Thus, when she'd raced off into the woods, he'd let her go, though he'd felt like a first-rate fool, lying on the hard ground like a dying dog and waiting for her to return. It had seemed like hours, and for some time he'd been certain she wouldn't come back, but she had. And she'd brought him here, which was proof of something, though he wasn't sure what.

  "How old were you when your father left?" she asked now, her voice very quiet.

  "Less than two." The truth again. Raven reprimanded himself sternly for his honesty, but sometimes it was simply easier than fabrications.

  "But... why?" She sounded shocked, as if such things were unheard of, when in fact, he could have assured her they were not.

  "It's a funny thing." Raven leaned against the bed's headboard, feeling the cool, smooth pine against the back of his skull and drawing a deep breath through his nostrils. As the air swelled his chest, he was reminded of the ache there. "She never gave up hope."

  "Your mother?"

  He nodded once, noticing how the narrow frame of diffused light washed the far wall to a pale creamy white. "Her name was Abigail." He scowled at nothing in particular. "She could have married again. She was still young, though I guess I didn't realize it at the time. But she was pretty. Even as a scrawny, troublesome kid I knew that."

  "Black hair?" she asked quietly. "Like yours?"

  "No. It was the color of wheat straw. I remember her brushing it out. Very long and so soft. It would fall against my face sometimes when she kissed me good night." He laughed, though he could still feel the scowl imprinted on his face. "Always smelled like lye." Raven paused, steadying his nerves. "She used to sing me to sleep."

  "'Old Dan Tucker'?"

  Raven turned toward her in surprise but realized in a moment that it had been a mistake, for the moonlight stroked her features like a lover's hand. He pulled breath through his nostrils again, but the ensuing pain failed to remind him to distrust her. "How'd you know?"

  "You were singing it while we rode."

  Ahh yes. He'd sung yesterday to keep himself awake and lucid.

  "My father used to sing 'Dan Tucker' to me sometimes."

  She looked smaller in the darkness, and less deadly. Very like a young frightened woman, actually. Which, he supposed, was exactly what she was, when she wasn't trying to dismember him. "Really?" he said now. "Jude?" He didn't say again that the old man wasn't her father. So far that sort of statement had done very little to endear him to her. "He doesn't seem like the singing kind."

  For a moment, Raven wondered if she smiled. He wished suddenly that the room was better lit, so that he could tell for certain. Not that her smiles were important to him, but every man enjoyed the sight of a beautiful woman, even if she was apt to kill him in the next moment.

  "He isn't," she answered finally. "But sometimes he reminisced and..." She shrugged.

  "Tell me about your childhood." Though Raven made the request very softly, he saw her stiffen.

  "Why?"

  "Because I' m interested." The answer came too easily and too low. Raven scowled mentally, retracking his thoughts and disciplining his words. "I'm sorry," he corrected, turning calculatingly away. "I have no right to ask. Not after what I've put you through."

  Utter silence settled over the place, until it seemed he could feel her thoughts.

  "Do you still think I'm this Chantilly person?"

  He waited before responding, turning toward her again and drawing out the quiet. "It doesn't matter now. In your heart you're Charm Fergusson. Jude's daughter."

  "I am Jude's daughter," she said, but quietly now, so that he wasn't certain if she tried t
o convince him or herself.

  "Yes, well..." He turned abruptly back toward the wall, momentarily losing control of his words and emotions. "He's been a hell of a lot more father than I've had."

  Bleak silence again, unbroken and dark.

  "Did you ever imagine him?"

  "What's that?" Raven asked, drawn quickly from his sullen reverie.

  "As a child, did you ever imagine what he would be like?" Her words were almost inaudible now, as if she'd reached into her soul for them. "I used to imagine my mother."

  Her hands were clasped before her as she spoke, and the moonlight splashed across her knuckles. The sharp ridges looked very pale, he thought.

  "She was beautiful, of course. And she laughed a lot. And..." Her voice trailed off.

  To Raven's abject horror, he found he was holding his breath as he waited for her to continue. "And?" he finally prompted in a voice no louder than hers.

  "And she adored me," Charm finished weakly, trying to laugh a little at her own silly sentiment, but emitting the sound on a shaky note. She shuffled about a little, as if wishing to escape, but in the end her movements stilled and she drew a soft breath. "Did you ever imagine such foolish things?" she whispered.

  "All the time," he whispered back. His throat felt curiously tight.

  "When you were alone at night?"

  "Yes."

  It was quiet again, but now the silence felt different, comfortable almost, soothing.

  "Jude used to leave me alone." The words came, as if unbidden.

  "I'm sorry."

  She sighed. "It's a foolish thing, I suppose. I mean... You might have noticed I'm not real... Well, I'm not real good with people."

  Raven smiled, just a little, supposing her propensity toward murder might indeed make her less than desirable at most social gatherings.

  "I mean, people make me nervous. Men especially. But I..." She shrugged again. "Being alone is very..."

  "Frightening?"

  She didn't answer, and he felt her draw away emotionally, as if the admission of fear might somehow endanger her.

  Raven swiftly turned aside, wanting to reconnect with her for more reasons than he dared admit. The realization was sobering, making him stare at the wall in silent thought for a moment.

  "Perhaps I was a little afraid. When I was young," she admitted warily.

  He turned back toward her very slowly. It was as if she'd offered him a thread of trust. Despite everything he was, he felt unable to do anything but hold that trust gently, as one would a wounded sparrow. "I don't see how the old man could have left you alone."

  It was her turn to look away now, throwing the slanted light across her face at a different angle. "It was hard for him to fit me into his way of life. He did the best he could. But still sometimes I felt..." She stopped her words, as if feeling guilty for suggesting Jude to be less than perfect. "He was all I had."

  Although Raven heard her words, he also read her meaning. Jude was all she had while she was a girl, and things had not changed. He was all she had now. Somehow that single statement seemed to cast a different light on her actions. The old man was her security. Without him she had no one. Little wonder, then, that she would fight to return to him.

  "Did he always gamble?"

  She hesitated for a moment. "Always."

  "Mine too."

  "What?" He could almost hear the scowl in her question.

  "My old man. He left to play the riverboats. Promised to be back in a month or less. But he never meant to return." There was acid in his tone again. And he wondered, with less concern than necessary, whether Charm could hear it.

  "How do you know that?"

  "Because he didn't come," Raven said flatly.

  "There could have been a thousand things that kept him from returning."

  "Nothing would stop me," he said, holding her gaze with his own. "Not if I promised." It took him only a second to realize his mistake. He'd already told her he'd promised to return her to her aunt, and now he reiterated his obsession with fulfilling his vows. It wasn't smart. Not when he wanted her to forget his mission, at least for the night. But if she was disturbed by his words, she gave no sign. In fact, she shifted her weight slightly, as if she were weary and unconcerned with his slipup.

  "I'm sorry." His tone was a little more sincere than he had planned. "You must be exhausted. I didn't mean to wake you."

  "Oh." He heard her draw a deep breath. "I don't really sleep."

  "Ever?"

  "Snatches."

  "Were you snatching when I scared you?"

  Miraculously, she didn't deny her fright now, but hedged quietly. "I'm not, ahhh, accustomed to sleeping in strange men's bedchambers."

  Raven could think of a good dozen clever rejoinders for that statement. He squelched them all. "The chair must be uncomfortable."

  "No. It's fine."

  Considering what a marvelously talented liar she was, he thought she could do better. "You could sit here," he said softly, "on the bed."

  She backed away immediately, as if slapped.

  He took a slow breath, trying to keep quiet. The words came nevertheless. "I wouldn't touch you. I promise."

  She laughed. The sound was unnatural. "That's insane."

  "Yes." There was little he could do but agree. For the situation was indeed insane. "But perhaps it's not our fault." And perhaps he'd thrown her off guard with his statement, for he could hear the perplexity in her voice when she next spoke.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Me raised by a mother who refused to disbelieve in the good of the bastard she married, and you with no mother to care for you. Who could expect us to be normal?"

  "Who could even identify normal?" she asked softly.

  It was the most honest thing he'd heard her say. "I wouldn't touch you," he repeated, the words coming of their own accord.

  If the hand of God had reached down and plucked him from the mattress, Raven couldn't have been more surprised than when she actually complied. She moved one foot slowly in front of the other until she sat, stiff as a rock upon the straw-filled tick.

  It was the strangest sensation. As if he'd never had a woman in his bed before. But of course, this was different. She wasn't actually in his bed. She was on it. And just barely that, for she was perched at the very edge of the thing, making him afraid to sneeze, lest he project her right through the wall. Perhaps it would be best to talk in order to ease her nervousness. But suddenly he was fresh out of words and felt like an idiot. Like an untried boy, dazzled by the proximity of a beautiful woman.

  They both said the word at the same time then laughed nervously.

  "Go ahead," Raven suggested, watching her carefully and noticing with appreciation that she was positioned directly in that single, kindly shaft of moonlight.

  "I was just wondering how you came by the name of Raven."

  He remained silent for a moment, then, "Why?"

  Apparently the redundancy of their conversation wasn't lost on her, for she answered exactly as he had. "Because I'm interested."

  Raven remained silent. He'd meant to appeal to her emotions, of course, had meant to soften her with gentle words, but he'd never intended to dredge up his entire past. He didn't like dredging. Never had. Despite the discipline with which he surrounded himself, the past still gnawed at the dangling ends of his memories.

  "We were very poor." He wasn't sure where the words came from. He hadn't intended to say them, but she was very close, within inches, and watching him with those forest-green eyes. Talking seemed like the wisest and safest option open to him. "Without a man to support us, Mother had to work very hard just to keep us alive. Only..." He glanced toward the window, reminding himself not to grind his teeth. "Only just staying alive wasn't enough. She said my father was an educated man. She was always so proud of his schooling. His intelligence. “‘He'll come back to us,' she'd say." He paused now, feeling his gut wrench and hating himself for this childish weakness. Good God, he was
a full-grown man, not some sniveling whelp. "'And when he comes back I ain't gonna have him find you ignorant like your mama,'" she used to tell me. He paused, taking a deep, slow breath. "'You got to take the bad with the good,'" he murmured, momentarily forgetting his audience to visualize his mother's weary smile. "'We'll just have to do the best we can until he returns. He'll be so proud of you, Joseph.'" Raven's throat burned, as did his chest. "She must have said it a thousand times."

  "You were so lucky."

  "Lucky!" Raven canted his head in disbelief. "Lucky?" he breathed.

  "She loved you," Charm whispered, as if there was nothing in the world more important than that.

  Raven stared at her, seeing the stark pain of her expression and feeling the sight burn into his soul. He filled his lungs with air, trying to shake the raw emotions. But it was no use. He took another deep breath. "I'm very tired." It was a lie, of course. He was wide-awake. He was just a coward. "I'd best sleep," he said, and waited for her to move away. But perhaps she knew he was lying. Perhaps she could read it in his expression.

  "You haven't explained your name."

  No, goddamn it. He hadn't, he wanted to snap, but something stopped him. He could only hope it was his need to groom her sympathy and trust. He settled his head back. "It cost Mother everything she could scrape together to keep me in school." He smiled, feeling the grimness of it curl his lips. "I was a big kid. Could have worked. Never was sure how she convinced the schoolmaster to keep me around. I was a troublemaker." He looked out the window again, thinking. "She always seemed so mild-mannered and gentle, but when she set her cap on something..." He shook his head. "She'd set her cap on my education."

  She still watched him closely, but said nothing.

  "School was easy enough, but I didn't fit in. They all had rich daddies," he explained simply. "For a while they called me Bastard. Raven was a big improvement. They commented on the darkness of my skin and hair, and speculated about my heritage. Thought maybe my father had been a darkie. An unforgivable sin, of course," he mused then straightened slightly, drawing himself from his reverie. “They called me Raven just to remind me of my place in the world."