Gambler's Daughter

by Ruth Owen

  Edward shoved the cringing sailor off balance, toppling him backward into the water. He stood on the dock’s edge, watching the man flounder and sputter while the other dockhands reached out a pole to retrieve him. He doubted the dunking would make much of a difference in the man’s behavior—but perhaps the brute would think twice before taking advantage of an unwilling lady.

  He wiped his hand over his face, beginning to feel the exhaustion that came after a fine fight. Then he felt it, that strange awareness that had become as familiar as his own heartbeat. He turned to his left, knowing even before he saw her that she would be standing at his side.

  Actually, Prudence was kneeling. She was tearing a strip of cloth from the hem of her hideous dress. She should have left, gotten to safety. If he’d lost the fight.

  Her courage astonished him. Her lack of regard for her own safety infuriated him. He glared at her, using the same bellowing tone that had made the sailor cringe. “Just what do you think you are doing?”

  “Your arm,” she said, unimpressed by his fierce words.

  He looked at his arm. The knife-gashed sleeves was damp with blood. Apparently the sailor’s second blow hadn’t missed after all. He’d been so caught up in the fight that he hadn’t notice. Now he felt the dull ache in his arm, the beginning fingers of pain. “‘Tis nothing.”

  Standing up, she gave him a scolding look, the kind his nanny used to give him when she caught him with his hand in the cookie jar. She started to dab the wound, appraising the cut with a sober frown and an experienced eye. “It is probably nothing more than a flesh wound, but it still needs tending. Even slight cuts can turn putrid without care. Hold still, my lord.”

  He could not have moved if he’d tried. Her touch was feather-light, and as capable as any doctor’s. it had been a long time since Edward had felt such tenderness in a woman’s touch, and it surprised him to realize how much he’d missed it. Her quiet ministrations filled up the cold places inside him like a gentle hearthfire on a winter night. Apparently pleased by the swiftness in following her orders, she glanced up at him and gave him one of her diamond-rare smiles.

  Gentle flame roared to hellfire.

  Desire flowed through him. They were standing on a fish-stinking pier in the middle of the day, surrounded by God only knew how many people. And he wanted her. Her smile, her scent, the competent grace of her slim hands mixed into an alchemy that turned his blood to raging fire. When he’d rescued her from the runaway horse he’d held her in his arms, but that was nothing compared to the raw need that thundered through him now. He licked his lips, his mouth suddenly gone dry. “Prudence.”

  She glanced up and met his gaze, and was caught fast in the same unholy fire that bound him up. Her hand stilled, her lower lip trembled. He stared down into her face, at the wise, strong features. How could he have thought them unbeautiful? She had courage and intelligence, and a sweetness that powder and rouge couldn’t begin to counterfeit. His dark gaze caressed her porcelain skin, her courtesan’s mouth, and her impossibly beautiful eyes. God, a man could drown in those eyes.

  “Prudence,” he repeated, his voice a husky whisper. The darkness that had surrounded his heart for years melted like a morning fog. He reached up and brushed a copper curl from her cheeks, and felt her shiver. To hell with the dock, the crowd, the stink of fish. None of it mattered. Only her. Only him. He needed to kiss her, needed it like his next breath. He whispered her name a final time as he lowered his mouth toward hers—

  “Edward!”

  His sister’s cry cut through the sensual haze. Startled, he jerked up and saw Amy marching through the crowd with several constables in tow. “I saw you fighting that brute, so I hurried back to the street and found these charming—Prudence, are you all right? Did that fiend hurt you? Did he—there he is!” She pointed to where the water-soaked sailor was climbing over the edge of the pier. “There’s the brute who attacked her. Constable, do your dut—Edward, your arm!”

  Amy continued talking at breakneck speed. She tsked and fussed over Edward’s arm, talking all the while as one of the constables asked him what had happened. Edward barely listened to either one of them. Instead, he craned his neck and watched as two of the other constables escorted Miss Winthrope away from the crowd that had gathered around him. And as the curious onlookers crushed in on him, so did reality.

  She was an impostor. The sweetness he’d seen in her eyes, the care he’d sensed in her touch, the innocence he’d felt in her trembling body—clever lies, all of them. She’d used her wiles to get his decent and unsuspecting family.

  Now, apparently, she’d found a way to get to him as well.

  He caught a final glimpse of her as she disappeared into the alley. She paused and glanced back at him, and gave him one of her disarming, devastating smiles. The years fell away, and he remembered Isabel waving to him as he rode off on that final trip, smiling just as disarmingly as she threw him a kiss and bade him to hurry back.

  And the ice that had left his heart closed around it once more.

  “For a hero you are certainly in a foul mood,” Dr. Williams commented as he studied the bandage wrapped around the earl’s arm.

  Edward grunted. He made a halfhearted attempt to tuck his shirt into his breeches, then turned back to his half-empty wineglass. “I’m no hero. And my mood is my own business. Yours is seeing to my arm.”

  “My business is patching my patient’s wounds, whether they are in the body or the mind. The apothecary at Petroc did a commendable job with your wound. Your arms will be fine. But your mind…”

  Charles pulled over a wooden chair and turned it backward. Sitting down, he rested his chin on the top of the chair back and studied the earl over the dark rim of his spectacles. “When I first met you I thought you were one of those foppish dandies, like Fitzroy. But during the past few weeks I’ve watched you work as hard as any of the miners at Wheal Grace—twice as hard in some cases. You’re a good man, my lord. I’ve come to respect you. Which is why I think it only fit to tell you that you’re heading for an early grave.”

  Edward hesitated, but only for a moment. He reached for the wine bottle and filled his glass to the brim. “This is a remarkable Bordeaux. Are you sure you won’t be having some?”

  “Man, I’m talking about your life! You cannot keep driving yourself like this. And for no reason. You have a loving family, wonderful children, and a fine home. Besides, if a lady looked at me the way Ms. Wintthrope looked at you—”

  “That is also none of your affair.” Edward’s tone was low and lethal.

  Dr. Williams’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “You do not trust her. Even after all these weeks, after all she has done for your grandmother and sister…”

  “The only thing she has done is deceived them!” Trevelyan hurtled out of his chair. He stormed over to his desk and grabbed up a paper, and thrust it in front of the doctor’s face. “This letter is from my solicitor, Mr. Cherry. I’ve instructed him to investigate Miss Winthrope’s background. It has been a painstaking process—but in this letter he writes that he may have found something to challenge her story.”

  Charles studied the letter. He handed it back with a shrug. “He offers nothing here but vague speculation. Thinking he has found something and actually finding something are two very different things. As a man of science I rely on the evidence, and the evidence I see is that your cousin has brought a great deal of happiness to the household.”

  “You are just like my family. She has cast her spell over you, too, with her wide green eyes and her bewitching smile.”

  Charles stroked his chin. “She does have a fine smile. Nothing so enchanting as your sister’s, of course, but a fine smile just the same. Still, it is not her smile that gives me a regard for Miss Winthrope. She is an intelligent and caring lady, remarkable in many ways, and I am proud to count her as my friend. Besides, if she were an impostor, would she not have shown it by now?”

  Edward grimaced. He’d had much the same thoughts
himself. For weeks he’d expected Miss Winthrope to show her true colors, to abscond with the family silver or a few priceless paintings. But she’d stolen nothing that he could discern, and he was running out of reasons not to trust her. She was either very clever, or completely honest.

  He wasn’t sure which prospect disturbed him more.

  He picked up his wineglass and tossed down the remainder in a single draught. “Long-lost cousins do not appear from thin air, any more than pixies dance in the flower gardens. Her story is a sham—eventually Cherry will prove it. And when he does, it will break my grandmother’s and sister’s hearts.”

  “Just theirs?”

  Edward spun around, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “Your services are no longer required, Doctor. You may go.”

  “Of course. Good night, my lord.” Dr. Williams got up from his chair and collected his medical satchel, then headed for the door without a word. Edward watched him go, telling himself that he had nothing to feel guilty about, that the young man was a paid employee—a well-paid one at that. Theirs was a business relationship. He owed the doctor nothing—not courtesy, not confidence, certainly not friendship—

  “Doctor.” He set his glass down on the fireplace mantel and plowed his hand through his dark hair. “My friends, such as they are, call me Edward.”

  The young man’s smile was hesitant, but sincere. “Mine call me Charles. Good night—Edward.”

  Left alone, the earl rested his head on the mantel and looked into the fire, his hand toying with the empty wineglass. He did have feelings for Miss Winthrope—he’d known by the blood lust that rose in him when he saw that bastard of a sailor kiss her. He didn’t want to acknowledge it—hell, he’d have given just about anything not to acknowledge it—but the feelings were there just the same.

  She wasn’t his type. She was too thin—he liked his women buxom. She was too tall—he liked them petite and swathed in lace and frills. And she was too young—nearly a dozen years his junior, and while some men preferred schoolroom misses, he wasn’t one of them. Logically, there was nothing about her that should have interested him in the least. Except her luminous eyes. And her incredible smile. And her strange, uncommon grace that made his body ache when he imagined her with him, under him, around him…

  He felt desire before, but nothing like this, nothing like this madness that pounded against his will. He wiped the back of his hand across his damn brow. Too thin. Too tall. Too young. Almost certainly a deceiver. And he couldn’t draw breath without wanting her.

  A knock on his door startled him out of his thoughts. Hell. No doubt the physician had returned, concerned about his state of mind—and his sobriety. The earl yanked the heavy door open. “Dammit, Charles, I don’t need a bloody—”

  Miss Winthrope stood on the threshold, her hand poised for another knock, standing as still as if she’d been carved in stone. She was staring at his chest.

  He was naked. Well, partly. His shirt was stuffed haphazardly into his breeches and open to the waist. The discreetly edited sketches of Grecian frescoes she’d seen in her mother’s classical history books hadn’t prepared her for the reality of the earl’s naked chest, of the hot, heady scent of his skin, of the dusting of black, tightly curled hair that formed a dark V that tapered downward toward his—

  Her chin shot up…and met a pair of eyes as cold and unforgiving as the rocks of hell.

  “What do you want?”

  Her gaze flickered once more over his state of undress. A dozen responses came to her mind, all of them shockingly inappropriate. “I…I wanted to thank you. For saving me. And also, I—”

  “Fine. You’ve thanked me. Good-bye.”

  He started to shut the door. Sabrina stepped into the opening, blocking the door with her body. “Wait, there is more—”

  “Well, I don’t want to hear it,” he snarled. “Get the hell out of my room.”

  She shook her head, unable to fathom his change of mood. He’d risked his life to save her from the sailor. And afterward, when she’d tended his arm, he’d been so gentle, so kind, so…She swallowed, and ignored the sharp pain that inexplicably pierced her heart. “I will not leave. Not until I’ve told you what I heard this afternoon.”

  For a moment she thought he might actually crush her in the door. Instead, he gave a raw curse and stalked away to his desk. Standing with his back to her and his legs braced in a fighting stance, he dumped the remains of a wine bottle into his empty glass. He grabbed it up, the dark wine sloshing over the glass’s rim. “Well?”

  She closed the door and leaned back against it. He was still facing away from her. she tried not to notice how his shirt stretched across his broad shoulders, and how his breeches stretched across his—

  Rina wished quite sincerely that she had left when he’d asked her to. Still, she had a duty to tell him what she’d overheard in the alley. “Before the sailor accosted me I heard something, something I believe you need to know.”

  Without turning around, he shrugged. “Unfortunate that you didn’t tell me this afternoon. Then you wouldn’t be wasting my time now.”

  Rina’s temper flared. “I cannot see what pressing matter I am keeping you from, my lord. Unless ‘tis another drink.”

  The earl spun around, his gaze murderous. “These are my rooms, and in them I’ll do as I please. If my drinking offends your delicate sensibilities, you are free to go.”

  “I intend to, but not before I’ve had my say.” She tilted her chin defiantly. “When I was in the alley, I overheard two men. They mention the name Trevelyan, and spoke of an accident involving a horse. They talked of a deal—money for a corpse. ‘She’s still breathing and we’re no richer’—that’s what they said.”

  Slowly, Edward set down his glass. “The runaway.”

  “I believe that is what they meant. The snapped bridle ribbons were no accident. And if they tried to hurt me, they might try to hurt other members of your family. You, the dowager, Lady Amy or—”

  “Or my children. By God, if anyone tries to harm so much as a hair on their heads, I’ll—”

  All at once he threw back his head and laughed. “Sweet Christ, what was I thinking?”

  “Edward?”

  “Taken in. Again! By God, I should have had Charles examine my head instead of my arm.”

  “But it’s true!”

  “No doubt. You just happened to be in the right place at the right time to hear this snippet of conversation. How do you explain that?”

  “Luck?” she offered.

  “More like guile.” He tossed down the rest of the wine, then walked to the fireplace, still gripping the empty glass. He leaned against the mantel, his body a dark shadow against the bright, crackling fire. “Ply your lies elsewhere. I am not buying.”

  “But ‘tis the truth. I swear it.”

  “Like you swear you are Prudence Winthrope?” He lifted his head, his expression holding both bitterness and regret. “If you are trying to gain my trust, you needn’t bother. I have had some experience with deceitful women. You’re a clever liar, Cousin, but a liar just the same. And I suspect there is nothing you would not do to further your own ends.”

  His words cut more deeply that she’d thought possible. She hoped—no, she’d believed—that after the way he’d come to her rescue he had some small regard for her. She saw now that that hope was in vain. No matter what she said or did, he would never see her as anything but a worthless liar.

  She pressed her hand to her chest, trying to ease the fist of misery that had gathered around her heart. “If you believe all that of me, then why did you come to my rescue?”

  His body went rigid. He stared at her, his eyes full of so much pain and anger that she felt it twist in her soul. She felt the battle raging inside him, saw it in the taut muscles, the subtle narrowing of his eyes. Every instinct told her to run, to get out before his fury turned deadly. But she couldn’t run away from his pain. Underneath the rage was a man who had once loved a woman deeply, and
had suffered for that love. She couldn’t turn her back on him. Not when she felt…when she felt…

  “Ah, hell!“ Trevelyan hurled his wineglass into the fireplace, then stormed across the room. He took Rina’s face between his hands, and covered her mouth in a devouring kiss.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sabrina had been kissed by two men in her life, but when the earl’s lips slanted over hers she realized she’d never been kissed at all. His mouth consumed her with devastating gentleness, moving across hers with a hot, moist, and very thorough caress. His tongue skimmed her lips, shattering her inexperienced senses like he’d shattered the wineglass. Tiny shocks of pleasure exploded through her body. Her knees faltered and she gripped his shirt for support. Her fingers brushed his warm chest. Tiny shocks turned to earthquakes.

  Time stopped. Reason unraveled. She couldn’t breathe, but suffocation seemed a small price to pay. She’d never imagined it could be like this—this fiery pleasure, this rough, sweet magic. She heard a feral growl, then realized it had come from her own throat. Once again her knees gave way, but this time it was Edward’s arms that held her up, wrapping her in the velvet steel of a lover’s embrace.