Though she’d realized he probably just wanted to keep her in his sight at all times, she hadn’t protested. It was crucial that she stay at Lord Stokely’s as long as possible, and she always played her best with Gavin. They seemed to understand each other on a level deeper than most players. And she learned so much just from watching him.
Playing with him these past two days had taught her something else, too: how difficult it must have been for him to turn himself into the man with no soul. Because at the card tables, she’d had to turn herself into the woman with no soul. It was the only way to stay in the game—by thinking of him merely as her card partner, blotting out the emotions that swelled in her whenever she looked up to find him hard and cold and remote.
Like now, when he arranged his cards with methodical precision, like a mechanical toy in circumscribed motion.
Hard to believe that the same man had actually offered her marriage. If he’d even meant it. Even if he had, by now he’d certainly rethought the words he’d spoken in a vain attempt to bring her over to his side.
A sigh escaped her lips.
“Bad cards, Lady Haversham?” Colonel Bradley asked.
She blinked at the man. “If it were, I’m not fool enough to admit it.”
“Well, if you mean to signal Byrne with your sighs,” the colonel retorted, “I’ll make sure Stokely hears of it.”
Gavin’s eyes narrowed. “Are you implying that Lady Haversham and I cheat?” he asked in that velvet-over-steel voice that never failed to make her shiver. Colonel Bradley blanched. Men fought duels over such accusations. “Just making idle conversation, old chap.”
“The colonel is merely annoyed that we’re winning,” Christabel put in. Gavin’s temper had been dangerously close to explosive lately, and anything might set him off. Besides, she and Gavinwere winning. They’d made it into the top eight teams, and the competition had been fierce. Fortunately, Lady Jenner had indeed been forced out of the game because her injury kept her abed. But that had left several others of equal competence. So although she and Gavin were closing in on a hundred points, they had to reach it soon. Two teams had already made it—Lady Hungate and her lover, and Lord Stokely and Lady Kingsley.
That last pairing had surprised some of the other players, but not her. Clearly, Lord Stokely hoped to
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
unnerve Gavin, his main rival, by having Anna as his partner. And since the woman’s idiotic, unsuspecting husband regarded Lord Stokely’s choice as a compliment to his wife’s superior playing, he hadn’t blinked an eye as he’d toddled off to the nearby inn where the other banished guests were staying. Christabel meant to avoid ending up there herself. Gritting her teeth, she walled off her emotions, and turned herself into a card-playing machine like her partner. How Gavin had done it for years, she would never understand. But it did explain how he’d become the man of sheer, unadulterated will who sat across from her.
No one spoke as they played. There was none of the earlier banter and jokes, none of the possibilities for distraction. Everyone was too busy fighting for a chance at the pot, which, last she’d heard, was up to forty thousand pounds.
They won the game just as the gong sounded. When Christabel breathlessly asked to see the tally, Gavin said with a satisfied smile, “We’ve reached a hundred, my sweet. We’ve made it to the final four teams.”
Tallies around the room revealed that the team below them still lacked nearly thirty points to reach a hundred, so they’d have a few hours’ reprieve from play tomorrow when the others sat down. That meant some solid time for searching and another chance to thwart Lord Stokely. But time grew short; at most, they had another two nights and one full day. Colonel Bradley and his partner wandered off in search of entertainment, leaving her and Gavin alone at the table. She rose, eager to escape him before she was tempted to round the table and kiss the grim line from his lips.
But as she turned away, he asked in a low voice, “Have you found them?”
She glanced about the room, but the only people left in the room were Lord Stokely and a few others in conversation several yards away. “I wouldn’t still be here if I had. Have you?”
“No.”
The clipped word frustrated her. It told her so little. She eyed him speculatively. Perhaps if she told him what she knew, he’d unbend enough to tell her the same. “I searched the drawing room and some of the guest rooms. I still haven’t been able to get into Lord Stokely’s room, however. He keeps it locked.”
“They aren’t there. I searched it while he was drinking with the others after last night’s games.”
She lowered her voice to a whisper. “You picked the lock?”
He nodded. “And yours, too,” he said dryly. “Then I tried your door, but it wouldn’t open.”
“I’ve been wedging a chair under the handle because of Lord Stokely.”
“So you gave up on flirting with him to gain access to his room?” he asked in a tight voice.
“Yes.”
He let out a breath. “Thank God for that.” Turning the deck of cards around in his hand, he stared at her. “It’s rapidly becoming apparent that we aren’t going to find them this way. We’d be better off
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
striking a deal with Stokely.”
“He won’t give them up,” she murmured, with a glance in the baron’s direction. “And offering a bargain would only put him on his guard.”
“I know. That’s why I haven’t done it yet. But if the choice is leaving here without the letters or striking a bargain—”
“I have nothing with which to bargain—nothing he’d want badly enough to give them up. You, on the other hand, have money and connections—you might have something he’d want. And it’s not as if I can stop you from…dealing with him.”
Throat tight, she turned to leave, but he spoke again, his voice softer, almost tormented. “Please, lass, I need to know…Are you all right?”
“As well as can be expected.” For a woman whose heart was breaking.
“You look tired.”
Under the circumstances, his concern angered her. “I find it hard to sleep when the possibility of disaster looms over me and my family.”
“And I find it hard to sleep withoutyou .”
Her gaze shot to his, and the yearning she glimpsed in his eyes banished her anger, rousing a bone-deep longing for him in her chest. It had been three full nights since they’d shared a bed, three nights of restless tossing, anxious dreams, and fiery, unfulfilled needs that drove her to drown her woes in tears. It would be so easy to give in, to tell him she didn’t care what happened as long as she had him, didn’t care if her father lost his commission, his reputation…his life. Ruthlessly, she pushed the temptation away. “Try laudanum. I understand it works wonders for the sleepless.”
“Christabel, please—” he choked out.
“Lady Haversham!” a voice called out, dragging her attention from Gavin. She stifled a groan as Lord Stokely approached, especially when a quick glance around revealed that everyone else had left.
The baron flashed them both a patently false smile. “I understand that the two of you will be playing in the next round.”
“We’ll be winning the next round,” Gavin said.
“We’ll see.” Lord Stokely settled his gaze on her, and it grew decidedly lewd. “I hope your partner told you that in the final stages, we meet right after breakfast to play. So the others will be starting at one o’clock.”
“I told her,” Gavin interjected.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
Lord Stokely ignored him. “I’ll send a servant for you once the next round begins. Of course, we may start later than one o’clock if I have another more entertaining prospect tonight that keeps me up until the morn.” He offered her his arm. “Would you join me for a glass of wine in my study, Lady Haversham?”
She actually considered it. Perhaps if she got Lord Stokely drunk—
No, she couldn’t do it, not with Gavin sitting there watching, assuming the worst. Besides, the more she saw of Lord Stokely, the more convinced she was that Gavin was right about him. Hewas playing with them. He would never tell her anything, but he might very well be capable of rape. It was too dangerous to risk.
“Thank you,” she said, ignoring his proffered arm, “but I’m tired after the long day. I believe I’ll go on to bed now.”
She started to walk past, but he caught her arm. “Come now, don’t be so—”
“Let go of her,” Gavin said, each word clipped like pistol fire as he rose to his feet behind them. Lord Stokely’s grip on her arm only tightened. “Don’t be an ass, Byrne. I know you kicked her out of your bed, so now that you’re done with her—”
“First of all, what happens in our bed is none of your concern.” There was no velvet with the steel in his voice this time. “Second, I am far from done with her, and even if I were, you would have no right to manhandle her.”
“I’m not manhandling her.”
Gavin’s eyes narrowed to slits. “If you don’t remove your hand from her arm this minute, I will break it finger by finger until you do.”
Lord Stokely released her with amazing speed. “Christ, you’re mad.” His resentful gaze shot to Christabel. “We’ll talk again when you don’t have an angry ex-lover hovering about.”
As the baron stalked from the room, she heard Gavin mutter, “The hell you will, you slimy bastard.”
They were entirely alone in the cavernous card room. Wary of his mood, Christabel started to leave, but he added in a low voice, “Don’t go.”
She faced him wearily. “Gavin, there’s no point to this.”
“No point?” He strode up to her, then caught her head in his hands and kissed her, slowly, achingly. But when she only stood there woodenly, fighting the surge of feelings that his mouth sent coursing through her, he drew back with a curse. “The point is that we belong together. I miss you. And I can see from your eyes that you miss me, too. Why must you be so stubborn?”
“Why mustyou ? I’m trying to protect everything I hold dear—”
“I’ve already said I’ll not let any harm come to you or your father. But my mother deserves justice.”
“Don’t lie to yourself that you’re doing it for her.”
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
“You think I’m doing it for me?” He released her abruptly. “I’m giving up the barony my bloody sire offered. And as you pointed out before, I could lose what little position I have in society. So what advantage will I gain from it?”
“An end to your guilt.”
He looked stricken. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve thought about it constantly ever since Bath. You blame yourself for your mother’s disfigurement, don’t you?”
A muscle worked in his jaw, but he didn’t answer.
“You blame yourself for not rousing—”
“I shouldn’t have slept through a fire, damn it! I shouldn’t have left her to carry me alone.”
“You weren’t asleep, Gavin,” she said gently. “You were overcome with smoke, which is common in a fire. Don’t blame yourself for making it necessary for her to wrap you in the rug. That was the fire’s fault, not yours, no matter what you’ve told yourself through the years. She had a hard choice to make, and she did what any mother would do—sacrificed for her son. But that doesn’t mean you should feel honor-bound to make it right.”
“How can I not?” he said hoarsely. “It’s more than just the fire. I wasn’t by Mother’s side in those difficult months in the hospital when I should have been. They told me she was dead, and like a fool I believed them.”
“You were twelve! You might have been running an E-O table by then, but you were still a child, and you thought like a child. The people in authority told you she was dead—why shouldn’t you believe them? No doubt you saw enough bodies come out of the building that night.”
She laid a hand on his rigid arm. “You have every right to be angry and hurt and bitter, my love. But wreaking havoc on His Highness won’t fix that. It certainly won’t help your mother.”
His body tensed, and he refused to look at her. “She’d have been better off if I’d never been born.”
Dear Lord, he truly believed that, didn’t he? “Oh, my love, don’t even think it. You’re the center of her life. I know she doesn’t regret one minute of having you. She would certainly not want you to do this and ruin your chances at a decent future. All she wants is for you to have a happy life.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “That’s what I want, too.”
His gaze swung to hers, fiery, furious. “You have an odd way of showing it. You refuse to share my bed, you refuse my offer of marriage—”
She snorted. “As if you really meant it.”
“Of course I meant it,” he protested. “I still do.”
She dropped her gaze from his. “I thought you might change your mind when you’d had a chance to reconsider.”
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
“Well, I didn’t.” He slid his arm about her waist and pulled her close, then added in a husky rasp,
“You’re the only one keeping us from having a respectable connection, the only one putting conditions on our marriage. I want to marry you no matter what happens.”
She gazed up at him, torn between love and fear. “Then you must think beyond your vengeance to your future. How can we have a happy life with this cloud hanging over our heads?”
“All that matters is us. If we don’t care about public opinion—”
“What about our children? What abouttheir future? Do you really want them to grow up hearing slurs against their father, the man who caused the greatest scandal in royal history? And their grandfather, the disgraced general? You, of all people, should know how sensitive children are to criticism of their families.”
Judging from his stunned look, he hadn’t thought about children at all.
“N-Not that I’m even sure I can have children,” she stammered, disconcerted by his expression, “but I would like to try. I-I would hope that if we married…” When he continued to stare at her without speaking, her heart sank. “You probably don’t even want chi—”