One Night Is Never Enough

by Anne Mallory

  More likely he would incapacitate the person while they were bowing to start, then lazily stride away before the person hit the floor.

  “You should concede it.” Trant’s words were fainter than usual. “Force Chatsworth to pay the amount equal to my wager.”

  “Should I?” Merrick asked, idly, a thin layer of smooth liquid flowing over jagged rocks. He moved smoothly around them, putting the empty corridor at his back, and everyone in his view, forcing Trant to twist awkwardly. “What say you, Miss Chatsworth?”

  She swallowed, turning as if her chest were connected to his and, like a marionette on strings, she had to shift when he did. She looked up to see him extending a hand to her. The same strong hand that had beaten a man a few days before.

  For some indefinable reason, her hand automatically twitched toward his.

  “Outrageous.” Trant was a good-looking man though she could imagine the mottled red assuredly spilling over his flesh would not aid his coloring. But she couldn’t look away from the hand extended to her in order to see. She curled her own fingers together to keep them at her side. “Offensive.” She could almost imagine Trant’s words contained a sudden hint of panic underlying the anger, but with her own hands trembling and her eyes locked, she wasn’t sure she was a good judge of emotion at the moment.

  “Is that so, Mr. Trant?” There was just the slightest twist on Mr. Belied by a charming laugh. The menace was suddenly gone again, mercurially replaced with the rogue instead. “You don’t believe the lady should be able to voice her own complaint?”

  “Of course she should. Miss Chatsworth, tell him you will not follow through with this outrage.”

  Roman Merrick laughed. “Is that what you would have said should you have won the hand and your own bet, Mr. Trant? I had the distinct impression that you would have claimed the winnings yourself should you have won. Held Chatsworth to his honor, and thus his family’s in turn.”

  Trant didn’t respond. Charlotte thought that wise, as nothing he could say would do him much good. She felt the curl of embittered anger but tried to tamp it down under her swirling emotions. What good did it do to be angered over another man’s lying to her? Or perhaps not lying to her in the pure sense but simply leaving out details while trying to dictate her fate.

  And it wasn’t surprising. Trant wanted to further his own plans. What difference did her opinion matter? Not a whit. She was the commodity. If he had won, any rumors of a night between them would be squelched by their certain marriage.

  She squeezed her fingers together to stop the digits from shaking as they tried to lift toward, and twitch away from, the extended hand—the hand that came from a totally different sort of danger.

  His motive, his participation, was not quite as easy to discern. She broke her gaze from the offered hand and looked up.

  “I know you would have,” Roman Merrick said silkily to Trant, still smiling, still dripping charm. His eyes caressed her veil as they slid to look at her father. But as they slipped over her, something in his posture changed. Something almost infinitesimal. “I applaud your initiative though, Trant, in forcing Chatsworth’s hand when he was—and is—so weak.”

  “Now see here—” her father said, pride overcoming fear.

  “You dare?” Trant’s voice was deadly.

  “I do dare,” Merrick answered Trant, smiling, charismatic amongst enemy combatants. “Getting twisted around in your recollections, aren’t you? And Chatsworth too? Selling his daughter for a few pounds?”

  “I can do as I please,” her father said, bristling. “I take no judgment from you.”

  Merrick’s eyes traveled over her again, stroking. “You should look to whom you take judgment from. You do not show enough care of your possessions. Perhaps they should be removed.”

  His hand was still extended to her, the gesture somehow not awkward. “I promise to take good care of you, Miss Chatsworth,” he said to her, silk and gravel in the words.

  His eyes met hers somehow, piercing her veil, glittering in anticipation over the carnage the words would provoke. But there was a depth, a certainty underlying his words, that tightened something in her belly.

  “I will destroy you. Take everything you have,” Trant hissed at him, fury and some strange panic overriding his initial caution toward the man.

  Cacophony. Voices rose, collided, melded, and battled.

  She looked away from the man in front of her, whose motives she couldn’t begin to discern, and at the men surrounding her. Trant and her father were yelling at the man in front of her and each other, Downing was speaking coldly about deals and choices, and Roman Merrick was fending every parry as if it were all a game he had orchestrated.

  All speaking over her, dogs circling a bone they didn’t really care about—other than that it was a bone the others might want. The tickling ivories of a glossy fillet. She had been little else in her adult life.

  Scrape the luster . . . destroy the patina . . . remove the bone . . .

  Her mouth pulled into a shape that she would have said was grim but probably looked much more horrifying and ugly beneath the dark cloth. It felt ugly on her face, in her heart. Brittle.

  “And your wager? Your honor?”

  Her father’s honor. Perpetually left to her to satisfy. And he, speaking over her head as if she had no choice in the matter. No choice, though she would be the one to gratify, fulfill, and meet his obligations and the results of his greed. She always would.

  Scrape the luster . . . destroy the patina . . . own your actions . . .

  “My honor?” Her father’s voice shook. “You dare? You inferior rif—” His voice stopped, choked, as terror caught up, though the statement still hung.

  “I prefer modest. Modest riffraff. As long as you don’t lump me in with Trant as upstart riffraff.” Roman shuddered theatrically. Mocking, mocking, mocking. Taunting. Fingers reaching toward the glossy fillet. His words to her still hanging in the air with his fingers.

  “I will turn every seat in Parliament against you.” Trant could barely get the words out. “I will destroy you.”

  “Gads.” The word was all kinds of mocking awkwardness. “I do believe my boot is shaking a little there at the heel.” He looked down to examine it, twisting his ankle around, hand still pressed toward her.

  Those blue eyes rose lazily from his examination of the firm leather, passing over her again, caressing, provoking that strange discomfort, adding to the tightness in her belly, her soul. “I must find a way to recollect myself.”

  “They will have your head,” her father said, though in a far-less-confident tone than the one he used to berate her—the one he used when telling one of his hunting dogs to heel.

  “For what? Collecting on your wager? Should I put the matter to White’s?”

  Scrape . . . destroy . . . be free . . .

  But she’d never be free. Not while her father had control over her sister’s fate.

  “Merrick.” There was a decided threat in Downing’s words.

  “Downing.” Roman’s voice lost its amusement. “Perhaps I recall what we discussed better than you do.”

  Something passed between the two men along with the coded words. Downing’s chin squared, and his eyes narrowed.

  Roman Merrick smiled. A simple smile really. “We are getting far afield, are we not? What do you choose to do, Miss Chatsworth?”

  “Why do you ask her anything?” her father demanded. “She does as she’s told. Take what you want of your amusement, Merrick. It is obvious you seek only to play and mortify.”

  “Do I?” He tilted his head toward Charlotte, a slow smile curving. “But that would be foolish of me indeed, to release such a prize. You wouldn’t release such a prize, unless it was in return for a very large pot, would you Chatsworth? It would be foolish of me to trade your honor for mere amusement.”

  Something about that particular smile and those particular words, along with her father’s reaction to them, shattered the swelling tide
inside of her, popping the balloon. She pictured her father’s fear when speaking about the man in front of her. The fear on his face now, even with his pride badly damaged. And still, he had bet his honor, and her, in a game with a man who terrified him.

  “Let this thing be done.” Charlotte’s voice was hard. The taunting words curled, like a demon whispering in her ear. Remove the bone. Be free. “This childish bickering ended.”

  Charlotte straightened and folded her arms stiffly over her chest, unwilling to grab the extended hand, even in grim capitulation to it. Let none of them win here in this hall. “The matter settled. The marker completed.”

  “Charlotte—”

  “Charlotte—”

  “No,” she said coldly, interrupting, finished with it all. “The bet will be fulfilled and completed. And then I expect none of you will speak of it again. Ever. Good evening.” She brushed by Roman Merrick, no destination in mind other than to get far away from the farce.

  She could hear the men arguing behind her, but she blindly turned the curve of the hall, then traced the steps that the scarred woman had followed. Hoping that her pride would save her. As one thing after another fell from her, it was her cold comfort to claim.

  Her father had almost sealed her fate. Trant had tried to seal her fate. Roman Merrick might attempt to do so.

  Just this once, Charlotte would damn well seal her own.

  Chapter 5

  She felt him pull even with her, but he wisely said nothing. One hand touched the small of her back to lead her, bringing forward every unnameable emotion and fear she had. They bypassed the room she had seen the previous woman emerge from—she couldn’t contain a hitched breath at the thought of the woman’s face—and instead climbed another set of stairs. The hall stretched and there only appeared to be two doors on the top floor.

  Using a strange key, he unlocked the one on the left and pushed the door open, gesturing for her to enter. She walked stiffly inside.

  The large space, one entire half of the building floor it seemed, was decorated in shades of deep blue, gold, and mahogany. A deep, inviting room with rich trim and a warm, thoroughly masculine, interior. Not exactly the cheap and tawdry place she had been expecting in this part of town.

  The room echoed the man, in a way. Solid, strong, and dark, shimmering with bursts of gold.

  “You continually surprise me, Miss Chatsworth. Or not so much surprise as please.”

  She didn’t answer as the door closed behind her, the lock engaging, sealing her inside. The heavy edged shadows at the periphery of the gold were full of secrets.

  “You fit right in.” He moved around her, a whisper of wind catching and fluttering her veil.

  “Pardon me?”

  He motioned lazily to her dark navy coat as he sprawled in a plush chair that looked lumpy and worn, unlike the rest of the fine furniture. With the wall firmly behind it, it was obviously a well-used chair, placed in a circle with three others of various shapes and comfort levels, surrounding a table inlaid with oak and walnut squares.

  She could see another room, farther back, a hint of a navy-and-scarlet-patterned coverlet in view.

  She swallowed and walked to the high-backed chair across from him, a chair that looked much more ornamental and much less comfortable. She removed her cloak and carefully draped it over the back. She paused, swallowing again, and removed her veil.

  Not to do so would convey fear.

  “That is far better,” he said, eyeing her as he rolled a bauble under his fingers, across the hard surface. “It is a shame to cover such beauty.”

  “Mr. Merrick—”

  “Roman.”

  “—I realize you have far more experience in this sort of thing than I do—”

  “You think I win women every day?” He looked amused. The bauble spun.

  “—and,” she forged on, the fury from the hall giving way to nerves once more, as she realized exactly what she had done in her sudden unladylike rage. Now locked in a room with this man, alone. “Perhaps we might be able to come to our own terms in the matter.”

  “Our own terms?” he asked lazily. The expression around his eyes was still intense, but . . . hooded, less open, than it had been when they’d been alone in the hall. “You want to renegotiate the bet? You think that a man would resist the bet as it is already stated, explicitly and implicitly?”

  She squared her chin. Folly to have even broached the subject. And something inside of her seemed to have disconnected from her usual comforting coolness. “Very well.” She reached down and lifted her right foot to remove her slipper, balancing with her left hand upon the stiff, ornate chair.

  “I have to admit that I think it also a shame to hide what are undoubtedly equally lovely ankles,” he said, his voice smoothed bark. “But must confess myself perplexed by the action.”

  “I am simply making matters easier for you,” she said as calmly as she could muster within this odd new emotional state, as if she had been stripped and bared of a second cloak she had never fully understood was there. She slipped her foot from her shoe.

  He raised a brow, rocked his chair back, and wrapped his hand around a decanter on a side table along the wall. “Easier for me?”

  “I am not so naïve as you think me, sir.” She dropped her other slipper to the floor.

  “I don’t recall expressing my thoughts on your naïveté.”

  “Nevertheless, you undoubtedly think you have a shy virgin”—she tried not to react like one—“on your hands—”

  “Indeed,” he murmured, the edges of his mouth curving.

  “—and I’m not one to hedge.”

  “I’m more of an all-in player myself.” The front legs of his chair reconnected with the floor, and the smile reached his eyes, but they were alert all the same. She had the curious notion that she had taken him by surprise.

  “It was a foolish thought to try to negotiate, and I don’t plan to physically fight. Or to play stupid or coy. My father lost. I am paying his debt.”

  He eyed her for a long moment, then poured a brown liquid into two glasses, motioning for her to sit. “Have you had to do so before?”

  She smiled tightly and continued to stand, now shoeless and trying to hide her fear. Even here, about to lose the last semblance of her innocence and edge toward the meaning in truth, she didn’t like being called a doxy. “No.”

  “I wouldn’t hold it against you if you had. Though I’d lose even more respect for your father.” She thought she caught an edge of distaste in his eyes as he capped the crystal.

  “My father is not a bad man. He is—” The rest of the possible endings to that sentence—he is desperate, he has fallen on hard times, he is loving despite it all—lodged in her chest, unable to form. She cleared her throat. “He is too fond of gambling. I’m sure that he and his kindred spirits help you greatly.”

  She motioned to the unexpected accents in the room—the expensive and the exotic. “Their losses fill your pockets. Their stupidity overflows your coffers.”

  “It’s the truth.” His smile was lazy once more, and he pushed a quarter-filled glass across the table. “We find their generosity an onerous burden, but we deal with the weight.”

  She narrowed her eyes, not appreciating the jest.

  He motioned toward the seat of the chair again. “Sit. Please.”

  The “please” wasn’t exactly an order, nor was it a simple courtesy. She had a feeling that he rarely needed to ask for things.

  “Would you rather not satisfy the wager and be done?” Then she could return home and forget everything—or try to.

  She couldn’t meet his eyes as she finished. As her thoughts caught up.

  Negotiating? Forgetting that the man across from her was mercurial at best. Teasing Trant and her father into rabid anger—no sane person would do such a thing—while retaining that piercing quality to his eyes, the one that said he could easily eliminate all of them, if he chose.

  Mercurial . . . maybe eve
n unstable.

  If she offended or angered him, it was possible she’d never see the light of day.

  She looked up, unprepared for her fate no matter how much she wanted to pretend otherwise, but he appeared simply amused.

  “The wager was for an entire night of your company. And I’d be a terrible host if I didn’t offer you some spirits to lift yours. Sit. Please.”

  There it was again. The silky order, belying that she had a choice.

  She stiffly sat.

  “I find it quite complimentary for you to offer to pay the implied terms of your father’s debt so promptly and with such zeal.”

  She couldn’t decipher whether the sarcasm on the last word was for her lack of—or presence of—zealotry. She had just offered herself up coldly and abruptly after all.

  “Perhaps you would care to make a bet yourself?” he said, idly twirling the liquid in his glass.

  She wanted to negotiate. She knew far too well what happened to people who continued to bet, thinking they could turn a win on a losing streak. “Under the circumstances, betting would hardly seem wise.”

  “But you might win.”

  “The odds of that are highly unlikely. This is your business after all, is it not?”

  “One of them.” His lips spread easily. “But everyone has a lucky day.” He made a careless motion with his glass, the liquid sloshing inside. “It’s what sparks the obsession.”

  Anger surged within her. Anger at her father, her predicament, at everything around her. “And what would I bet, Mr. Merrick?” she asked curtly.

  “Roman. And you have plenty to offer, Charlotte. May I call you Charlotte?”

  She could hardly credit that he was asking her permission. Then again, on the face of it he seemed to be one for charming something out of a person before using force. She’d bet that nineteen times out of twenty it worked too.