Gambler's Daughter

by Ruth Owen

  His smile flashed like a knife in the darkness “I want you to see me,” he said roughly. “I want you to see everything I do to you. And when I take you, I want you to know it’s me who’s doing it. Me.”

  His final word shattered through her, breaking the last of their control. The passion they’d both been holding back roared out in a mighty torrent. His mouth and hands were everywhere, stroking, sucking, gentling, and caressing her body into a shuddering frenzy. She arched against him, discovering him with greedy fingers and ravenous kisses, gorging on the taste and smell and feel of him. Her breath came in ragged bursts. Her flesh burned from the inside out. Arms and limbs tangled until she could no longer tell where his body ended and hers began. And still he fondled her, caressed her, and claimed her in every place except the exposed aching part of her that wanted him the most.

  She fell against his chest, gripping his shoulders, weak with desire and unsated need. “Please,” she cried softly, “Please.”

  His guttural words were barely human. “Look at me.”

  This time she couldn’t obey his command. Her head felt heavy as lead and she had no strength to raise it. Aching, she breathed a soft, tortured mew against his chest and moved her bottom, pressing herself fully against his hard, hot sex.

  His shudder rocked her like an earthquake. “Damn it, look at me!”

  With the last of her strength she lifted her head. His dark, feral eyes penetrated her, reaching into the deepest, most secret part of her. Long ago she’d built this place insider her as a sanctuary, a safe haven she could run to when the world became too cruel. But it was safe and secret no longer. Edward had claimed it, just as he’d claimed every other part of her. There was no where to run from his savage gaze. No where to hide.

  “Say my name,” he growled.

  She licked her dry lips. “Edward.”

  He moved their hips, starting a rhythm. “Say it again.”

  “Edward,” she repeated as they rocked again. “Edward, Edward, Edward…”

  She breathed his name over and over, as he increased the rhythm. She writhed and bucked, bound to him by his iron hands on her hips, and his dark, devouring gaze. Her body grew painfully tight and her voice disintegrated. Nothing existed but his eyes and his hands and her burning need to be whatever he wanted, whatever he asked. Her love for him burst forth like a star, driving her past physical hunger to the edge of madness. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and gazed fully into his eyes, letting him see what she felt for him, all of it.

  “Edward, I love you, I love—”

  With an animal growl he thrust into her with one smooth, hard stroke. Pain and pleasure tore through her. Her fingers raked his shoulders and she cried out. He covered the scream with his lips, plunging into her mouth the way he was plunging into her body. Past and present burned away in the glory of his claiming. He braced his hands against the railing behind her, and drove into her again and again, possessing her more deeply with every stroke. He took and she gave with a white-hot hunger, until somehow her giving became taking and his taking, giving.

  They moved together as one, finding wholeness in each other that they’d never found alone. They lived and died in each other’s arms, burning as one, crying out with one voice, one breath, one heartbeat. And when they thought they could burn no more, they shattered in an oblivion of ecstasy, destroyed and remade by the wonder and power of their love.

  Sabrina stretched languidly in the pile of straw. She looked up at the stable rafters, listening to the muffled whinnies of the horses, smelled the coolness of the night air that was just beginning to hint at dawn. It was the same stable she’d visited a dozen times before. But now she looked at everything with new eyes, seeing the old stable as a richer, sweeter, more precious place than she’d ever imagined. Nothing about it was the same. Because nothing about her was the same.

  She stretched again, smiling deliciously. She was completely naked. Somewhere along the way Edward had striped off her tattered night-shift, probably when he’d lifted her off the saddle and laid her in the straw, then proceeded to take her a second time. He’d done it the proper way, with her beneath him and him on top. But there’d been nothing “proper” about the way he’d driven into her, thrusting so deeply that she could feel him touching the gate of her womb. The heated memory made her shift wantonly. The brittle straw pressed against her, making her aware of the tender ache between her legs. She’d probably be sore as blazes in the morning, but she didn’t care.

  She glanced over at the man who lay a few feet away from her, lying on his side with his back to her. She ran her gaze over the length of his frame, from the layered muscles of his shoulders to the taut planes of his buttocks, to the strong columns of his legs. Her breath quickened as she remembered that body inside her, impossibly hard, impossibly deep.

  His breeches were pushed to his knees and he still wore his boots, but that only added to her pleasure. He’d been so mad for her that he hadn’t even stopped to take off his clothes. She loved that his need for her had stripped him of the social niceties. She loved what he’d made her discover about herself, the fire and savageness she’d never dreamed existed. She loved what they’d become together, pledging themselves to one another in ways that could never be expressed in words.

  She loved him.

  She raised herself on her elbow and reached out, needing to touch him. But as she brushed his shoulder he jerked away. With his back still to her he rose to his feet. Without a word he reached down and began to fasten his pants.

  She frowned, confused by his distance and his silence. “Edward? What is wrong?”

  “Wrong? Nothing is wrong. You gave me a damn good ride.”

  “But it wasn’t just a…” She swallowed, unable to speak the coarse word. Her words came out in a hushed whisper. “We made love.”

  He glanced over his shoulder, his smile a sneer. “We made sex, my sweet. Good sex. But that is all it was.”

  How could he be saying this, after all they’d done, all she’d felt? “That’s not all and you know it. Why are you trying to deny what we feel for each other?”

  “Lord, you are an innocent.” He scooped up his shirt, and pulled it over his head. “You’re a pleasing tumble. But the things a man does in passion don’t equate to love. A seasoned bit of muslin should know that. A few more lovers and you’ll catch on.”

  She pressed her hand to her stomach, feeling betrayed, embarrassed, and lost, so very lost. She’d given herself to him shamelessly. She’d welcomed him into the most intimate places of her body and heart. She’d let herself fall into a well of love so deep that it had no bottom. But he didn’t love her. She was falling on her own, into aching, empty, endless nothing.

  Somehow she found the strength to stand. Pausing just long enough to retrieve her cloak, she walked out of the stable and didn’t look back. She wrapped the material around her, trying the strap securely around her throat, pulling the hood up to protect her from the night wind. And wondered how she was going to find the strength to live through the rest of the hour, the rest of the night, the rest of her lifetime without him.

  She was gone. Edward heard it in silence, and saw it in the unshadowed candlelight that flickered on the wall in front of him. Most of all, he felt it in the emptiness inside him, in the hollow place where his heart used to be. She was gone because he’d driven her away. And the fact that he’d had no choice didn’t make it easier to bear.

  Edward, I love you. Her husky promise echoed in his mind. Nothing in his life had prepared him for what he’d found in her arms. Nothing even came close. No woman had ever given herself to him that freely, with such ardent pleasure, such eager, unbridled passion. She’d taken everything he’d given her, accepting him more completely than any other woman. And when he’d been inside her, feeling her young, tight body draw him in deeper and deeper, he felt his loneliness burn away and found a wholeness he’d never known, a pure, sweet love that belonged only to him…until he came back to his
senses, and remembered that her pure, sweet love belonged to another.

  “Damn her!” He slammed his fist against a stall, hitting it so hard that his knuckles bled. He didn’t care. The pain was nothing compared to what she’d done to him, how she’d stripped him of his pride and dignity in his need to have her. He’d know she was faithless, but he’d taken her anyway. Twice. And if she’d stayed any longer, with her glorious hair mussed and tangled from his loving, and her luminous body gleaming in the candlelight, he’d have taken her a third time.

  He groaned, his traitorous body aching for her. She’d betrayed him as completely as Isabel. He’d heard the evidence with his own ears—words of love and another man’s name on her lips. He knew she was false, that she’d dishonored him with another, that she didn’t have a truthful bone in her body. He knew all of it. And if she’d stayed, he’d have still taken her again.

  He had to get out of this place. It was too full of the heat and smell of their loving. Haphazardly he stuffed his shirt in his breeches and strode over to his coat. He bent down, but paused as he caught side of a patch of white out of the corner of his eye, on the ground beside the old saddle. Turning his head, he saw it was the night-shift he’d stripped from her during their lovemaking.

  Pride and reason told him to retrieve his coat, gut the candle, and leave. Still, he found himself reaching out, and picking up the shift instead. He held the fabric in both hands, handling it as gently as if it were a holy relic. He swallowed, telling himself that the tightness in his throat was only a bit of hay dust. Then he lifted the ruined garment to his face, and breathed in her ripe, intoxicating scent. I love her. God help me, I still love her.

  He felt something sticky on his palm. He lowered the garment, thinking that he’d injured his knuckles worse than he’d thought. But the stickiness was on his left hand, not the one he’d used to hit the stall door. He frowned, turning the material over for a better look, wondering how he’d managed to stain it with the wrong hand…

  His eyes widened. He grabbed up the candle and raised it over the saddle. In the light he saw what he’d missed in the darkness, the dark discoloration just visible on the leather. He ran his hand across the smudge then raised it to his face, staring in disbelief at the stain on his fingertips.

  Blood.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Prudence, you look dreadful this morning.”

  Sabrina set down the fork she’d been using to push her eggs around her breakfast plate. “I…did not sleep well last night.”

  The dowager raised her quizzing glass to her eye, and observed Rina with an canny scrutiny. “Humph. You look as though you have not slept in a week. Are you ill?”

  Rina was worse than ill. She was heartsick. After she’d returned to her room, she’d drifted into a kind of slumber, but had awoken only a few hours later feeling more exhausted than before. Her spirit was shattered, her soul was miserable. And her body ached like the very devil.

  Still, unhappy as she was, she dared not show it to Lady Penelope. Rina had only a few days left in her masquerade as Prudence. It was important that she spend those days as if nothing were out of the ordinary, she straightened her shoulders and hid her anguish behind her well-practiced wall of unconcern. “I vow ‘tis the weather. They say that there is a storm brewing.”

  The dowager slowly lowered her glass. “This is Ravenshold. There is always a storm brewing. However, I suppose inclement weather might explain your weariness—and why Edward seemed to be suffering from the selfsame lack of sleep when I saw him earlier.”

  Sabrina’s eyes widened. “He was?”

  “Indeed. I came downstairs for breakfast just before he left for the Wheal.” Lady Penelope narrowed her eyes, and tapped her index finger against pursed lips. “Is there any other reason why he might look so…fatigued?”

  Rina raised her napkin to her face, making a pretense of dabbing her mouth as she covered her sudden blush. ”I can think of no reason whatsoever.”

  Lady Penelope sniffed, and waved over the footman for another cup of tea. “Well, I suppose it is all one. The whole house seems to be acting a bit peculiar, with Edward dashing off for the Wheal when he is just out of his sickbed, and with Amy dashing off to her room to lay out every dress she owns. Do you think the agitation has something to do with this saboteur unpleasantness?”

  “Perhaps,” Rina said woodenly. She set down her napkin, and pushed her chair away from the table. “Please, if you will be so kind to excuse me, I have matters to attend to.”

  “Yes, yes,” Lady Penelope said absently as she stirred sugar into her tea. “Why should you not dash off like the rest? Be off with you.”

  Rina walked down the hall, trying to organize her thoughts for the day ahead. There was correspondences to return, menus to review, two candidates for the kitchen maid to interview, and a score of other responsibilities. She had a host of obligations, but her mind could not fix on any one of them. No matter where she looked, she saw only Edward’s face. She felt his arms around her, holding her, loving her, completing her…then discarding her like a soiled rag. He’d cast her off, believing that she’d betrayed him. But Edward had betrayed her, too—with his passion, his gentleness, and with the terrible, wonderful wholeness she’d felt when they had became one.

  But it had meant nothing to him. Nothing.

  The sound of laughter startled her. She glanced through a nearby window, and saw Sarah and David chasing their puppy across the lawn, wit their distraught tutor running after them. Despite her gloom, the charming scene made her smile. She lifted her hand to wave at them, but stopped when she felt a strange tug at her heart. It was a curious feeling, as if somewhere deep inside her a cord had pulled taut—

  She whirled around. Edward had stood in the shadows of a nearby doorway, watching her.

  She was frozen in place, but whether from fear or longing she couldn’t tell. He wore mud-spattered boots and his worn riding gloves, as if he’d just ridden hell-for-leather from the mine. His black hair was tousled from the sea wind, just as it had been last night.

  He walked toward her, seemingly far more concerned with adjusting his gloves than with her. he cleared his throat. “Prudence, I must speak with you.”

  He was every inch the lord of the manor—commanding, remote, with his emotions in complete control. Rina was not so fortunate. Her body and heart still ached from the damage he’d done to both last night. He’d taken her to heaven, then rejected her love in the coarsest terms possible. She wasn’t about to let him do so again.

  She lifted her chin and pronounced icily, “I would rather speak with the devil.”

  She was magnificent when she was angry, Edward thought as he watched her turn her back to him and walk coolly away down the hallway. Magnificent—and stubborn as two mules. She had no intention of listening to a thing he had to say. Unfortunately, the speech he’d been practicing since dawn required that she stand still for at least five minutes.

  In three strides he was in front of her, blocking her way. “I desire you to listen—”

  “Your desires are no concern of mine.” She tried to push past him, using both hands to shove him aside. He didn’t budge. Undaunted, she turned on her heel and marched off in the other direction.

  “Oh, for Lord’s sake!” Edward reached out and gripped her wrist with his gloved hand. “Will you be still?”

  She twisted against his hold. “Why? So you can insult me again as you did last night?”

  He winced. “Of course not. Just hear me out.” He paused a heartbeat. “Please.”

  Her struggling lessened, but the defiant set of her jaw warned him the calm would not last long. Seizing the moment he took a deep breath and began his carefully rehearsed speech. “Prudence, last night I made a grievous error—”

  “Last night I was a bit of muslin. This morning I am an error. If you sought not to insult me, my lord, you chose a poor way of doing it!”

  Well, his speech was out. And if she continued to figh
t so vehemently against his hold, he would have to let her go before she hurt herself. He had to make her listen and he didn’t have much time, so he cut straight to the heart of the matter. “I found your night-shift.”

  “What of it? ‘Tis no use to me and none to you—unless you wish to hang it on your wall as a trophy.”

  God’s teeth, but the woman tried his patience! He yanked her against him, bringing her eyes level with his. ”Listen to me. I found your night-shift. It was stained with blood.”

  “I do not care if you found a—”

  Her sentence disintegrated. The angry brilliance in her eyes died, replaced by a stark, achingly young vulnerability. For an instant Edward caught a glimpse of the uncertain, fragile girl beneath the furious exterior.

  “Oh,” she said.

  Just Oh. Edward had hoped for something more. Such as, I was not meeting a man last night, but this is why I was alone in the stables half-dressed. Or, I was meeting a man, but there is a perfectly innocent explanation as to why. Or, I understand why you thought the worst of me, but I still love you…