The Widow Wager (5 page)

Any relaxation Gemma had found in the bath bled away at that statement. She moaned. “Oh, Mary. I asked her not to do it. Father will punish her, especially if I’m not there.”

“He railed at her quite cruelly,” Kate confirmed. “And offered that she could be sold to someone far worse for a better price if she would like to continue to defy him.”

Gemma sucked in her breath. There was her very deepest fear. She had hoped her first marriage would shield Mary, but that hadn’t gone to plan at all. Her return home in disgrace and poverty had only heightened her father’s drive to marry his younger daughter well.

But she knew from experience that the man wasn’t below exactly what he threatened if Mary would not “do her duty” and find a husband of his liking.

“I will write to her as soon as I can today,” Gemma whispered. “So she won’t be afraid for me. And perhaps I will be able to see her.”

That hadn’t always been the case in her first marriage, but if Crispin was busy trying to dissolve their union, perhaps he wouldn’t care if she had a visitor. Perhaps he would forget about her entirely.

“Until then, what is your plan?” Kate asked, offering her a towel. Gemma rose from the water, wrapping it around herself before she stepped out of the steaming heaven of the bath and back into reality.

She shrugged. “My plan is to have breakfast with the man as he has requested and see where it goes.”

Kate pursed her lips. “The best solution, of course. I only wish everything weren’t so out of your control.”

Gemma laughed, though the sound was bitter and hollow. “It is the way of the world, Kate. The way of my world at any rate. We can only hope this man will prove to be a better protector of my needs than the last two.”

Crispin winced as he drank the rank brew in the tumbler he held. Fletcher and the cook had long ago concocted this…
poison
to aid him in getting over a night of over-imbibing. He had no idea what was in it, but it tasted like death. And yet it worked. By his second glass, his head was starting to feel a little better.

Which only meant he was more capable of thinking about the situation he was now in.
Married
. And to a woman who looked at him like she feared he might either jump on her or murder her at any moment. A woman he knew nothing about besides her name, the fact that she had a dreadful father and that she was absolutely beautiful.

“I suppose marriages have begun on worse,” he muttered into his glass. He shook his head. What was he going on about? This would not be a marriage. It had been a wedding at best, and that was questionable under the circumstances. There was no reason, not in heaven nor on earth, to remain shackled in this way.

The door behind him opened, and he turned as Gemma walked into the room. All thoughts left his head as he stared at her. She was no longer in a wrinkled gown, her red hair mussed by lying in a bed all night. She wore a pretty gown of blue silk that clung to her breasts before it cascaded over the rest of her slim form. Her maid had fixed her hair into a simple but very flattering style, so that little curled auburn tendrils teased around her pale cheeks. Cheeks where he now noticed just a smattering of unfashionable but wholly endearing freckles.

She was stunning. And in that moment his body reacted the way his mind did not want, filling with desire and hot, heavy need. He wanted to touch her, to taste her, to feel her arch beneath him in that marital bed he had just been scheming to destroy.

“Good morning again,” she said, her falsely bright voice mercifully breaking through his inappropriate thoughts and bringing him back to reality.

“Good morning,” he managed to say, amazing since he could hardly breathe as he looked at her. “I-I hope the bath was restorative.”

As soon as he said it, he wished he could take it back, for the word bath conjured images of her naked in the water, peering up at him with beckoning eyes, her legs spreading to reveal—

“Thank you, it was,” she said, tilting her head to look at him. “You look different when you are shaved.” He blinked at the comment and the way her cheeks darkened with color. “That was a foolish comment,” she said as she turned her face. “I meant—”

He raised a hand. “This is awkward for us both, Gemma.”

He waited for her to correct him, but she didn’t.

“Yes, it is,” she agreed softly.

He motioned to the sideboard, filled with all of the cook’s best breakfast concoctions. She had outdone herself today, obviously striving to impress the new mistress, as temporary of a post as that would likely be.

“Would you like a plate?” he asked. “The food is wonderful. And I could pour you tea—or coffee if you would prefer?”

She looked at his glass before she took a plate and began to peruse the selections of meats and breads. “What do you have there?”

He cleared his throat. “I, er…it’s something to help with the aftereffects of so much alcohol.”

She hesitated in her selection of food from the sideboard and looked at him. “You have a drink to help you overcome too much drink?”

He looked at the glass. “It has no spirits in it. I don’t think. To be honest, I have no idea what it is, but my servants started mixing it up years ago for me.”

Her brow arched and she set her plate down. “You are very trusting, Mr. Flynn, to drink something that contains ingredients you don’t know.”

“Do we ever know what is in our food?” He laughed. “It isn’t as if I’m in the kitchen when it’s being cooked. Besides, if the servants wanted me dead, they have had plenty of opportunity to commit the crime over the years. They seem to like me well enough.”

She moved toward him. “May I taste it?”

He drew back. The question was unexpected. It could even be considered sexual, though when he looked into her gray eyes, he could see no hint of flirtation there, only curiosity.

“Of course,” he said, offering her the drink. “Though I warn you, it is vile.”

She pressed her lips to the glass and he shifted slightly. There was something very intimate about that act, like a kiss they hadn’t yet shared. Slowly, she tipped the glass back and took a sip of the brew.

Her face twisted comically as she handed it back to him.

“God, that
is
vile!” she said, half-laughing as she swallowed it with a look of horror. “How often do you drink it?”

He shrugged. “Too often, I fear.”

“I would stop drinking before I drank that,” she said, coughing.

He turned away, poured her a cup of tea, which he sweetened before he gave it to her. “This will help take the taste away. And perhaps you are right about the drinking. This potent concoction is only one of many unacceptable consequences of being too far into my cups.”

Her gaze flitted to him as she swigged her tea in a very unladylike fashion. “Dire consequences, indeed,” she agreed when she could speak again. But to his surprise, there was little heat to the statement.

“Will you eat?” she asked.

He nodded. “Yes, if only to get the taste out of my mouth.”

They laughed together and Crispin tilted his head to look at her. It was actually surprisingly comfortable to be with Gemma. At least for the moment. Which was good. He didn’t want every part of this odd circumstance to be filled with drama and emotion. There would certainly be enough of that later.

He filled a plate and joined her at the table where they ate in companionable silence for a few moments. Then Gemma took a sip of her tea, watching him as she did so.

“You realize I know very little about you aside from rumor and innuendo.”

He couldn’t help the way the corner of his lip lifted in a smile. Rumor and innuendo could have been his middle name. He was a Flynn, after all. He and his brother had once pilfered a very famous painting of a duchess and her dogs, and added…well, some very inappropriate cutouts to the image before they carefully rehung it in her halls. And that was the least of his sins.

“Why don’t you tell me the rumor and innuendo and
I
will tell you if it is true?” he said.

“You will make me say some of these things out loud?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Sometimes the truth is painful, my lady.”

She sighed. “Nearly had a duel with the prince.”

“A terrible misunderstanding, but true.” He shook his head. “The old fellow seems to like us well enough now. We aren’t invited to the palace, of course, but he nods quite magnanimously if he sees us out and about.”

Gemma was simply staring at him, forkful of eggs halfway to her lips. She blinked a few times. “I honestly thought that one was untrue.”

He laughed. “Why?”

“Because it has been said that you avoid high society at all costs, Mr. Flynn.”

He felt his smile fade. “Unfortunately, high society does not seem to avoid me or my family. Now what is your next rumor?”

She hesitated, as if she wished to pursue the subject further, but finally she let out a low sigh. “You danced on a table at a somewhat somber public event to celebrate the Treaty of Fontainebleau.”

Crispin considered that. Had he done that? It was very recent, after all, and most of his bad behavior in the past six months had been fueled by large amounts of liquor. But wait…wait…there was an image of staid formality now. Speeches. And…

“Ah,” he said. “Yes, there was something about that. But you know, why should a celebration of what we hope will be the end of a bloody war be staid? Should we not be dancing on tables? The folks around me thought so. I started a trend, I believe.”

Once again, he saw more in her eyes, a curiosity that she seemed reluctant to explore. He wasn’t certain whether to be happy or disappointed in that fact.

“And what about…” She trailed off, blushing suddenly. He braced himself for questions about the women. At least no one would ask about the
specific
woman, for no one knew about her.

“About?” he encouraged, rather enjoying the pink to her porcelain skin.

“I heard you ran naked in Hyde Park,” she burst out, the words running together as her gaze flitted away from his and suddenly her food became very interesting to her.

He couldn’t help but burst out laughing. “Damned Rafe, he always tells that story wrong to make himself look better. It was
he
who ran naked through the park, not me.”

Her eyes were so wide now he thought they might roll from her head entirely. “So it is true? Why in the world would you…
he
do something so shocking?”

“A bet, of course,” he said, laughing. “My brother lost a wager, fair and square, and he had to suffer the consequences accordingly, as is the way.”

Suddenly she lowered her fork to the edge of her plate and her face drew down. “So you are accustomed to these kinds of wagers gone terribly wrong?”

Crispin flinched. He hadn’t even been thinking about the wager that had brought them to this dining table this morning. He should have been, of course. Their unwanted marriage should have been the thing on the very top of his mind.

And yet talking to Gemma in this very comfortable way had erased those unpleasant thoughts. Odd, really.

“There is a vast difference between wagering that the loser of a bet would have to run through the park in only what God gave him and wagering a wedding,” he said, as gently as he could. “I assure you I am not disregarding the seriousness of the former just because I can laugh at the latter.”

“But you said you cannot escape the consequences,” she whispered, her voice cracking. For the first time there was a break in her calm and he saw how devastated she truly was by this turn of events. He couldn’t take it personally. What woman wanted to be forced into a union with a stranger?

Especially a stranger with a reputation such as his.

Slowly, he reached out across the table and placed his bare hand over hers. It was the first time he had touched her, and electricity all but crackled as he did so, jolting him and making him jerk his gaze to her face. She wasn’t breathing now, just staring at his hand covering hers.

“Gemma,” he whispered. “I’ll fix this somehow.”

She met his gaze slowly and shook her head. “You don’t understand. For me, it is either stay here as your very unwanted wife or go back to my father, who would sell me off to settle a debt. You
can’t
fix it for me.”

His lips parted in surprise. He hadn’t thought of it from her point of view, only from his own. If he could manage to break this farce of a marriage, then he would be free. And she would still be in chains.

And suddenly he wanted to fix it for her so very badly.

He shook the feeling away, knowing where it led, and removed his hand from hers. “Well, we will figure something out, I assure you.”

She watched him closely, too closely, and he wondered what she saw as she stared. What she thought. How she judged him. Did she know he itched for a drink? Did she know he itched to kiss her even though this was temporary? Did she know he often wished he could run away and never come back?

She blinked and the spell was broken.

“I have one more question about rumor and innuendo,” she said, spearing the final remnants of her breakfast with her fork.