Читать книгу From Duke till Dawn: 2018’s most scandalous Regency read - Eva Leigh, Eva Leigh - Страница 9
ОглавлениеFor several moments, Alex and Cassandra stared at each other, as if frozen. The only thing that moved was Alex’s heart, pounding like a steam engine in the center of his chest.
He barely noticed Lord Coleman looking back and forth between them. “I’ll, ah, investigate the vingt-et-un tables,” the older man muttered before ambling away, leaving Alex alone with her.
He’d had lovers and mistresses before—women who enjoyed pleasure and were eager to share it with him—and while he acknowledged he’d been attracted to sundry women, his hunger for Cassandra had been sudden and obsessive. He’d seen a flame smoldering beneath the coolness of her exterior and it called to him, like a fire seen through a long, dark night.
He’d been drawn in by her quiet dignity, so different from the forced frivolity of debutantes in search of husbands. When other women looked at him as a collection of wealthy estates, awed by the age of his title and his prestigious lineage, she had spoken to him and looked at him as though he was a man, not just a duke. There had been tragedy in her eyes and understanding in her smile born from years of lived experience. And—he couldn’t deny it—the carnal awareness she displayed in her movements stoked a fire in him he’d never before known. He’d burned to touch her, to taste her kisses, to know the feel of her body against his.
Now the woman who’d carved a hollow inside his body and brain stood before him, two years older but as powerfully stunning as she’d been back in Cheltenham. Seeing her again seared a hole right through him. He’d be reduced to ashes in a moment.
All the details of her returned to him in an instant, from the arch of her eyebrows to the birthmark on the inside of her thigh. A birthmark he’d kissed.
Someone at one of the faro tables shouted, snapping Alex back to the present moment, to this place. Cassandra, too, seemed to wake, blinking and furrowing her forehead.
He could not speak to her as he longed to do in the middle of a gaming hell.
“Your Grace?” the card dealer behind him tentatively asked. “Do you wish to continue playing?”
“No,” Alex snapped over his shoulder. “I—”
His words died as he looked at Cassandra. Scanning the room, he noticed a secluded corner, partially shielded by an enormous Chinese vase holding palm fronds. The middle of a gaming hell was no place to talk to her. No place to see her.
Before Alex could think, he took her uncovered hand in his own ungloved hand. The feel of her skin against him was a hot brand upon his heart, both a balm and an agony.
Wordlessly, she followed him to the corner, where Ellingsworth and Langdon couldn’t cast their curious gazes in his direction. Even in a gaming hell, where guests engaged in numerous vices, people gossiped.
Her familiar fragrance of rose and warm vanilla drove thorns of heat through his chest. Though her expression remained unreadable, the long line of her throat revealed the quick pulsation beneath her flesh. His fingers itched to stroke along that silken column, as he’d done before. Or press his lips to the spot at the juncture of her jaw and neck, to taste her again.
Her eyes widened slightly, as if she could read his thoughts.
Very slowly, as if defusing an incendiary device, she untangled her fingers from his. But she didn’t put more distance between them.
“Alex,” she whispered.
“Where did you go?” he demanded lowly.
She didn’t speak. Yet her gaze never left his.
“I woke up,” he continued, “and you had disappeared.”
Her gaze slipped to the side, as if she had trouble looking him in the eye. Was she ashamed?
He pressed. “No one at the hotel knew when you’d left or where you had gone.”
Her lips tightened regretfully. “I know.” She glanced back at him, and a wealth of misery shone in her eyes. “I’m . . .” She drew a breath. “I’m so sorry.”
Her apology was only a trickle of water upon the hot wound of the past. The words were too meager for the immensity of his feelings, broad and vast as a jungle, and just as dangerous.
He couldn’t stop the words that tore from him, revisiting that dark time. “And then no word. Not a letter, not a note. Nothing.” Anger and fear pulsed beneath his words. And relief, to find her again after so long, after he’d believed the worst.
“I looked everywhere for you,” he went on. “Every inn between Cheltenham and London. My solicitors scoured the country for word of you.”
“England is a vast place,” she whispered. Her face was pale, her eyes wide.
“It always seemed too small to me,” he gritted. “Until I tried to find you. It was as though you were made of smoke. You vanished utterly.”
She looked down at her clasped hands, her knuckles white as she gripped her fingers tightly.
He gazed at the crown of her head, shining softly gold like something deeply precious. “I thought—” His voice thickened. “I thought you’d been hurt. Worse. That you’d . . .” He couldn’t even say the word, though he had proof at last that his greatest fear had been unfounded.
“Oh, God, no,” she breathed. She glanced up, and then her eyes briefly closed. “I had hoped that you’d forget me. Go on with your life as if we’d never met.”
“How can you say that?” He realized his voice had grown louder. Alex carefully lowered his tone so that they wouldn’t be heard above the noise of the gaming hell. “It’s not my habit to seduce impoverished widows at spa towns.” Sharp, cutting feelings threatened to overwhelm him once more—in Cheltenham, he’d reached toward her like a plant finding sunlight. And when she’d gone, he could only think that again, he was unworthy of love. The sun disappeared.
“Nor is it my custom to become a duke’s lover,” she said, barely audible.
The words seduce and lover reverberated between them. Her pupils widened, darkening her eyes. Her gaze darted up and down his body. A flush stole into her cheeks. She blushed like that when she came.
He couldn’t think of that now. Not here. Not when there were too many unanswered questions and raw emotion nearly engulfed him.
“Please,” she breathed. “Forgive me. I acted out of self-protection.” She pressed her hand against his thundering chest. “The money you gave me—so honorably—it was enough for me to go home. To contest my wicked cousin.” Her brow furrowed and her mouth turned down. “The villain. The clever, shrewd villain. He kept my creditors hounding me. I had to leave for home in the dead of night so they wouldn’t pursue me. I had to vanish utterly to keep myself from the Marshalsea.”
The thought of Cassandra imprisoned there shot frost through him. The infamous debtors’ prison was a miserable place, full of desperation and sorrow. Alex had once been there to visit an old school friend, who had refused to allow him to pay off outstanding debts. The Marshalsea was a warren of sad, cramped rooms and hopeless people spending interminable hours in squalor.
“Damn it,” he said gruffly. He barely cared that he’d sworn in her presence.
She smiled sadly. “I know.” Her smile faded. “I reached home, also in the dead of night and found my ancestral home barred to me. No place to go, no friend to give me shelter. I applied to the local magistrate.” She shook her head mournfully. “Too late. My cousin had taken control of my entire fortune. I hadn’t two groats in my pocket. I had nothing, and nowhere to go.”
He shook with the force of her revelations. The trials she had endured. Faintly, he heard the shouts of the men and women at the gaming tables, the click of dice, and harsh explosions of laughter. They seemed so far away, so frivolous compared to what Cassandra had faced.
“You could have come to me,” he rasped. Her hand against his torso recalled that night, two years ago, when they had gone to bed together. She’d dug her nails into his chest, urging him on, as he’d moved within her.
A merciless storm of desire and emotion pummeled him. He wanted to rage against it like a mad king shouting at the tempest, yet it had him. All these years had passed, and his hunger for her—his need for her affection—hadn’t dimmed. Not at all.
“Already, you’d done so much for me. How could I ask for more?”
He felt his cheeks darken. “What’s the use of my bloody fortune if I couldn’t help you?” Rage at her faceless cousin was an acid in his veins. “Tell me that bastard’s name and I’ll wring your fortune out of him.” He’d never meant any words more than these.
She shook her head once more. “He took my money and went to the Continent. Aix-les-Bains, Vichy, Montecatini Terme. He could be at any spa, or any city. There’s nothing anyone can do.” Her lips tightened. “It was difficult enough to ask you for money to get me home. I couldn’t come to you with my hands outstretched.” She moved her hand from his chest. “I know you. You’re generous. You would have given me what I asked for, because of the strength of your honor.”
Another flush stole into his cheeks. He’d been complimented many times in his life—a matter of course for a duke—but none of those flattering words had the impact that hers did, perhaps because he genuinely cared what she thought of him. She gave out compliments because she meant them, not because she was obliged to.
She exhaled in a short burst. “If I was to survive, it would be through my own strength, my own will.”
He nodded, even as he cursed the very thing he admired so much about her.
They’d come to know each other during that fortnight in Cheltenham. She’d married too young to a man of hot blood—but emotion had been her guiding principle when she’d accepted his proposal. When he had died of a fever contracted after a hunt, her strength had carried her through.
It didn’t matter how dire her circumstances might be, she was determined to succeed on her own merits. She was no lost damsel in need of rescuing.
He thought it would just be a few dull weeks at the hotel while recovering from a riding injury that had hurt his shoulder. He’d come into the hotel’s elegant, marble-clad foyer and seen her. All thoughts of his injury fled. Her proud, assured bearing had drawn him in, and beneath that, an elusive sensuality. She’d eaten alone in the dining chamber, with its vaulted ceiling and echoes of murmured conversation.
Alex had never believed in fairy tales, but she seemed an elfin queen in exile. Her pale hair, the clearness of her gaze, the sleekness of her limbs all recalled the stories he’d heard from his nursemaid about the fairy folk who lived in the woods behind his home. So he’d dubbed her The Lost Queen. He’d been unable to resist her allure.
He’d had the hotel’s manager introduce them. They’d talked about fairy tales and old legends and the wish to sail away to far-off places. It was as though idle conversation was unnecessary, and they’d spoken directly from their hearts. He’d never met anyone who could be so reserved and yet so incisive at the same time. Her contradictions wove themselves into a web, ensnaring him.
When he’d learned of her plight, he had decided at once to give her money to help. They’d been in the hotel’s conservatory, warm and damp and green, and he’d seen a trickle of perspiration work its way down her neck to nestle in the folds of her fichu.
She had tucked the money there. Not in her reticule. “For safety,” she’d explained, but he had been too distracted by the sight of that gleam of sweat to pay close attention.
He’d taken her to bed soon after. Not as a man purchasing a woman’s favors, but as further proof of his heart. For the first time, he’d allowed himself to feel soul-deep emotion, believing that at last it would be reciprocated.
She’d gone away instead. He’d been so hurt by her—but now he knew why she’d been so quick to put distance and silence between them. The wounds could at last heal.
“What can a woman alone do,” she explained, “but make her way in the world.”
“What did you do?” He was half-afraid of the answer, because there was always a particular option available to women.
She gave him a wry smile without much humor. “Became a lady’s companion.”
He exhaled.
“Yet you’re here now.” He glanced behind him, at the crowded gaming hell full of men and women drinking and wagering.
She blushed deeper, as though ashamed. “Mr. Hamish needed a woman of gentle birth to keep the people at the tables, and I had no choice but to accept his offer of employment. The last woman who’d retained my services was a bitter, angry widow—a dowager countess. She resented my youth. Accused me of stealing. She planted jewelry in my possessions. I left her employ with a blight on my name and without a character reference. Finding more work as a lady’s companion became impossible.” She spread her hands, an expression of rueful acceptance on her face.
His heart ached with pity. His beautiful, proud Cassandra, brought to this. He couldn’t reproach her for not informing him of her whereabouts or circumstances. Had he been in the same place, he would have acted as she had.
Yet they were here together again. After two years of fruitless searches, and the resulting despair when he couldn’t locate her, providence had seen fit to have them meet again. He didn’t know how or why, only that it was a gift he wouldn’t toss aside.
“Cassandra—”
She glanced worriedly over her shoulder. “I have to get back to work. Mr. Hamish will notice I’m not on the floor, and I cannot afford to lose my position here. And . . . I’m sorry to hear about what happened with Lady Emmeline.”
He grimaced. The news was one-day old and everyone knew, even a woman he hadn’t seen in two years.
But he didn’t want to think of his fruitless wooing of another woman. He took Cassandra’s hand in his. “Don’t go.”
“I can’t stay.” She pressed a quick kiss to his knuckles—to his shock and pleasure—then slipped away, back into the heat and chaos of the gaming hell. He stepped out from the corner, watching her go as though she was the last glint of light in the darkness.
Ellingsworth and Langdon appeared suddenly, flanking him.
“Who was that?” Langdon demanded.
“You never mentioned a blonde,” Ellingsworth accused at the same time.
Alex cleared his rusted throat. “That’s a story I won’t be sharing.”
His two friends exchanged glances. Ellingsworth had, despite his vocal disavowals to the contrary, done very well at university. His mind was nimble, perhaps overly so. “The unknown lady.”
“What of her?” Alex snapped.
“Lady Emmeline was never truly your goal,” he deduced. “You courted her, yes, but it was she who held pride of place in your heart.”
“Ellingsworth—” Alex said warningly.
Yet his friend wouldn’t be scared off. “The wooing of Lady Emmeline was merely a way to overcome heartbreak.”
“Stop reading your nieces’ sentimental novels,” Alex muttered, but he couldn’t outright lie and tell Ellingsworth he was wrong.
“Cheltenham,” Langdon suddenly exclaimed.
Alex jerked in response. “The hell are you talking about,” he growled.
“You’re right,” Ellingsworth said with surprise. “You went away to Cheltenham, and when you came back . . . you’d changed. Turned even more serious—if such a thing was possible. And there was . . .”
“What?” Alex snapped.
“Pain in your eyes.” Ellingsworth looked nearly embarrassed to have noticed this much.
“There wasn’t,” Alex said lowly, but his friends were too perceptive. He grabbed a drink from a passing servant, and his friends did the same. Alex threw back his wine, but Langdon and Ellingsworth sipped at theirs.
Ellingsworth continued, “It was her. The blonde. She had to have been at Cheltenham, too. You weren’t yourself when you returned. Shoulder had healed but you’d been wounded another way. Took months before you came out of that cloud—and when you did, you started looking for a bride. Lady Emmeline. A girl to fill the gap left by the Cheltenham blonde.”
“Enough of your fancies,” Alex muttered, but there was no denying how close his friends were to the truth. He tipped his glass back for more wine, but it was empty. Moodily, he set it on another passing servant’s tray.
“Oh ho,” Langdon crowed. “A crack in the ducal defenses.”
Alex scowled, glancing away.
Langdon and Ellingsworth shared another look, this one fraught with unspoken words.
“Let Ellingsworth and me take you somewhere else,” Langdon urged. “There’s a fine tavern in Leicester Square that hosts knife-throwing tournaments. Plenty of pretty wenches to turn a man’s head, too.”
“No,” Alex said at once. “I’m in no humor for wenches or knives or anything else.” He craned his neck, looking once more for Cassandra.
A thrill of panic juddered along his spine. Had she disappeared again? No—she was by one of the windows, smiling and talking with a gentleman and two ladies. The vise of his fear loosened. He took an instinctive step toward her.
“Don’t blame you,” Langdon said, keeping pace beside him. “She’s a striking woman. Got a queenly aura about her.”
Alex wheeled to face Langdon. “She’s not to be leered at.”
Langdon’s brow raised as he held up his hands in surrender. “Not a glance. Not a peek in her direction.”
“Why don’t you go to her?” Ellingsworth asked quietly.
Alex felt his jaw harden. “It would jeopardize her employment here.”
“She works here?” Langdon exclaimed.
In response, Alex glared at his friend. He knew he was being churlish to Langdon and Ellingsworth, but there wasn’t a damn thing about this situation that he liked.
Ellingsworth placed his hand on Alex’s shoulder. “Come on, old man. Let’s get you home. Nothing good will come of lingering.”
A swell of gratitude built in Alex’s chest. His friends were impetuous and pleasure seeking. Ellingsworth continually made gibes and jests, and Langdon was always in search of gratification. Yet they clearly wanted to protect him from himself.
He nodded stiffly, then turned and headed toward the exit. It took every ounce of his self-possession to keep from looking back. Toward Cassandra.
From her vantage near the windows, Cassandra Blake watched the duke’s wide shoulders as he left the gaming hell with his friends. His posture was just as upright and proud as ever—a duke down to his very marrow, despite the shock he’d had tonight.
She moved through the crowd, nodding, smiling, urging people to play. Yet her thoughts were leagues away.
Alex wasn’t the only one who had been stunned by the night’s developments. Coming back to London, she’d braced herself for the possibility that she might, just might, see him again. Excitement and dread had fought within her, like two cats scrapping in an alley.
Please let me see him, she’d think when falling asleep each dawn. Please, let our paths never cross, she’d think as she traversed London’s streets.
Cassandra had heard through the usual gossip networks that he’d been seriously wooing a young woman of gentle birth. A strange, unexpected—and unwelcome—pain had lodged in her chest at that news. Then, yesterday, that lady had jilted him publicly.
God, how he must be hurting. She ached for him, even as she secretly rejoiced that the stupid chit hadn’t possessed the good sense to make Alex her husband.
A duke had to marry, but there wasn’t a single woman alive who was his equal.
She’d seen the worst of humanity, its greed and selfishness and stupidity. She’d never known anyone who didn’t demand reciprocity in some fashion. Even saints wanted their halos admired.
But Alex . . . he came by his integrity honestly. He never said what he didn’t mean. He gave of himself because he wanted better for others, without expecting anything in return. It wasn’t weakness—it was true gallantry.
That had been her undoing.
She shoved at the tempest of emotion battling within her. “There is a spot open at the hazard table, my lady,” she told a flush-faced woman with graying hair. “I understand the dice favor women.”
“Do they?” the lady trilled. She walked on somewhat-unsteady legs toward the gaming table.
Cassandra stifled a sigh. The tables were honest, but the players didn’t always have the best sense. Not my concern. She couldn’t stop people from being fools, and the more rash they became, the more her own profits would go up.
People came to gaming hells because they wanted to forget themselves. They dropped their dignities at the entrance in exchange for the chance of winning significantly.
Not Alex. He was a proud man. He’d never allow anyone to see him as anything less than flawless. He certainly didn’t want anybody to observe him hurting. After Lady Emmeline’s rebuff, Cassandra hadn’t known if he would hide. Or make himself visible as a way to let the chatterers know he wouldn’t be felled by a lady cutting him loose. Both were possibilities.
Cassandra had mentally braced herself, but that had done almost nothing to shield her from the storm of feelings—happiness, terror, pleasure, sorrow—that hit when she saw him again. When he’d spoken her name. When he’d looked at her as though she’d truly come back from the dead.
Or when he gazed at her as though he wanted to carry her off to the nearest bed and make love to her for days.
She now pressed a hand to her chest, willing her heart to slow. It was always an unruly creature and refused to calm, still pounding away even though Alex had gone. Her feet wanted to run after him. Her body ached for his touch.
Cassandra hadn’t taken a lover in two years. Not since Alex. Maybe that had been foolish. Now there was nothing between her body and the memories of him, his dark hair mussed, the hard square line of his jaw tightening as he thrust into her. She wouldn’t have believed such an honorable, principled man would make love to her like he was born for the task. As though his only desire was to give her unending pleasure.
No. Those memories served no purpose. They only put her at risk. But heaven and hell, how she ached for him now. Her knight, her lover.
“The Duke of Greyland?” Martin Hughes, alias Martin Hamish, asked at her shoulder.
She turned to him, and saw his upraised brow. Martin was curious. Fifteen years of knowing someone allowed you to recognize their every mood like a farmer knew the shifting weather.
He jerked his head toward the office, and she had no choice but to follow. They entered a darkened corridor off the main gaming hall, where Martin used a key latched to a watch fob to unlock one of the doors, then stepped inside. Part of Cassandra wanted to flee. She dreaded reviewing her history with Alex, but there wasn’t a way around it.
Seating himself behind a large oak desk, Martin opened a case and pulled out a cheroot. As he lit the end, Cassandra breathed in the familiar scent of his tobacco blend. Instantly, she was back standing in the yard of one of countless coaching inns, with Martin securing passage to their next destination, their next job. Always, always, they kept moving, for staying in one place meant a greater chance of detection and capture.
Martin took several draws off the cheroot. He studied its smoldering end. Taking his time. Cassandra stood and waited, her hands clasped in front of her. Trying to hurry him would only make him irritated, and there wasn’t anything to be gained by that.
She glanced at the safe standing behind his desk. It held the entirety of their profits, which would be paid back to their staff, investors, and, ultimately, themselves. The safe held her future, one that would free her from this life of dishonesty.
“Not a word from your lips about the Duke of Greyland,” Martin said. His Scottish accent vanished the moment he crossed the threshold of his office.
“It was two years ago,” she noted. “What went on between us didn’t seem important to what you and I are doing now.”
“And what did transpire between you and His Grace?” he asked pointedly.
“Nothing strange. It was in Cheltenham.” She needed a distraction, so she ran her hand along the carved edge of the desk, feeling its curves and hollows with fingers that could still pick a pocket without the slightest trouble. “Played the Desperate Widow gambit.”
“You take him?” Martin asked mildly.
“For five hundred pounds.”
Martin grinned. “That’s my lass.”
She couldn’t curb the bubble of pleasure from his praise. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t worked together in nearly a decade. He would always be the one she wanted to please.
“I got his blunt and disappeared. Hardly worth discussing.” She wouldn’t tell him about going to bed with the duke, and she surely wouldn’t mention the fact that her body still hungered for Alex’s touch. Or that her heart yearned for his understanding, his compassion. She would have given anything to see one of his rare smiles. That cautious flash of a grin spoke of how uncertain he was in allowing himself a moment’s amusement. She imagined that someone, long ago, had told him that dukes didn’t smile. Or laugh. Or take pleasure in anything.
He deserved to let himself feel happiness and a respite from the duties pressing in on him from every side. He was worthy of love.
But she wasn’t the woman to give that to him. She never could be.
“Looks like he’s still panting for you,” Martin noted. “Especially after losing that gel to the cavalry officer.”
Naturally, Martin knew everything about everyone. He was a library’s worth of information.
She shrugged, even as her heart leapt.
“Why not keep him on the lead for a while?” her mentor suggested. “Get a few hundred pounds more out of him.”
“He’s just smarting because that girl eloped,” she said flatly.
“Perfect!” Martin exclaimed. “No better time to gull someone. Isn’t that what I taught you?”
The rules for running confidence schemes were carved on Cassandra’s heart the way others knew their Bible. But the Bible didn’t put food in her belly or keep her in silk stockings. The Bible didn’t care when she was a child, alone and desperate.
That desperation never left her. She’d probably go to her grave feeling its claws around her throat.
“I’ve been at the confidence game for sixteen years,” she said, keeping her voice level. “You’ve taught me everything I know.”
“Rule Number One?” he pressed. He liked to quiz her sometimes. As if he was still her teacher.
“Keep yourself clean,” she recited. “No tangles, no mawkishness.”
Acting very educational, he pressed, “Because why?”
Cassandra exhaled, slightly annoyed. She wasn’t a fifteen-year-old girl in need of training. At thirty-one, she’d learned everything she needed, and had kept herself out of the law’s hands. Not once had she been brought before a magistrate. That wasn’t about to change as a result of Alex, regardless of how she felt about him.
“Because,” she said, recalling Martin’s earliest words to her, “the most risky scheme a swindler can do is the one they pull on themselves.”
“And caring about our marks is the most perilous thing that could happen to us,” he finished, jabbing his cheroot toward her for emphasis. Then he smiled. “But you’re a clever girl, cool and hard as diamonds. Get more blunt out of the duke, why don’t you?”
“Didn’t you tell me not to run two games at once?” she returned. “I can’t do my job here and string him along at the same time.” Her heart withered and her stomach soured at the thought of taking more money from Alex. She was done with that life. Done with hurting people. Hurting him.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t see why we couldn’t have set up this gaming hell in Edinburgh or Dublin. Safer that way. Less chance of either of us running into prior dupes.”
“London’s a proper banquet,” Martin explained. “Best action in the world is here.” He ran a hand down the front of his embroidered waistcoat, candlelight catching on the rings adorning his fingers. He could never resist a bit of flash. “And I’m nothing if not generous. I could’ve summoned any of a dozen swindlers to run this place with me. But I chose you.”
“I’m grateful for it,” she answered sincerely. Even lawful gaming hells made profit hand over fist. “But it’s not like you to run a legitimate business.”
“This will be my last scheme,” Martin insisted for the hundredth time. “I wanted to end my career on the level. That way, there’s no chance of being hauled in before the law. You’ll see,” he vowed. “Won’t take but a blink and we’ll be swimming in cash.” He eyed the safe meaningfully.
Cassandra couldn’t contain her restlessness anymore. She paced the room. “Just a month. You promised. We’ll run the hell for a month, and then decamp.”
“A month is the perfect amount of time,” Martin said smugly. “Keeping something around for a short while ensures the toffs will come running. They’ll throw blunt at us, knowing we won’t be here forever.”
“All our debts paid,” Cassandra added. “Including George Lacey’s investments.” Lacey was the sort of man wise people avoided, particularly when it came to money. She’d been set against making Lacey an investor, but Martin had said it would be fine.
“Paid in full,” Martin said with a munificent expression. “Even to Lacey. And there will be enough left over to set us up for the rest of our lives. Think of it, my lass.” He beamed. “No more schemes. No more swindles. Just high living for the rest of our days.”
How wonderful would that be? Ever since Cheltenham, she’d become so bloody tired. Of running from one place to another. Of using men’s better feelings against them. Of always being someone other than herself. She hadn’t wanted to keep scamming them, but she’d had no choice, no way of earning her coin. When Martin had written her, it had been like a sign from the heavens. She could earn money through legitimate means, and use that to set herself up for the rest of her life.
Cassandra had no idea what she would do if she didn’t need to deceive anyone anymore. But that open future didn’t frighten her. She’d find something, somewhere, to do. Maybe she’d open a hat shop in a coastal town. Or she’d go to Italy and try to learn how to paint. It didn’t matter. All that was important was that she’d be done with fleecing and scheming and pretending.
She stopped pacing and examined a framed print of a country estate. Oh, maybe, maybe, if she allowed herself to dream . . . Alex could be beside her as she ran that hat shop. Or he’d gaze over her shoulder as she painted a Roman ruin and kiss her neck, praising her work.
Such lovely dreams.
But that’s all they were. He was a duke. She was a swindler. What would come of their association? Nothing good, to be sure. She could lose everything she’d worked so hard for. If he ever found out the truth . . . She would be brought to trial. Transportation was the usual fate for those guilty of fraud. Months at sea with hard labor to follow.
She looked down at her hands. They were smooth and youthful. But they’d grow hard and cracked and old—just like the rest of her—if she was sent to Australia. If she survived the journey. If she could endure the punishing labor. Many didn’t.
Thank God Martin had trained her well. She’d stayed ahead of the law for a long time.
“Don’t think I’m not grateful,” she said. “I am. But I don’t see or hear from you in seven years. Seven years on my own. Out of the depths of the void, your letter arrives, telling me to come to London. You left me.”
Martin rolled his eyes. “Don’t say you’re still wounded over that. You survived. You even took a duke for five hundred pounds.” He grinned.
She bit back a sigh. Martin would never admit that he was in the wrong, even as the noose slipped over his neck. And she couldn’t stay angry with him. Not when he was the one who got her out of that wen of a Southwark flash house when she was a grimy girl picking pockets.
He showed her how good she could have it—mingling with toffs, drinking wine instead of gin, sleeping on feather mattresses instead of filthy hay. Showing her how to play the pretty widow instead of becoming just another tart walking the street.
Her loyalty would always be to Martin.
She did truly owe everything she had to him. She wouldn’t be an ingrate and turn her back on him. Besides, if Martin’s predictions for the gaming hell came true, she could leave behind her shadow life and finally step into the sun.
She wouldn’t have to cheat good men like Alex anymore.
And she’d never see Alex again. A rift of pain opened up within her at the thought, but she ignored it, as she always did.
“Time to get back to the floor.” She moved toward the door, then exited the office. Shouts and laughter and the smell of spilled wine greeted her in the corridor.
The evening had only just begun, and there was money to be gotten from the countless aristos cramming themselves into the gaming hell.
At least Alex wouldn’t be one of them. Her heart clutched at the thought of seeing him once more. She couldn’t be disinterested whenever she beheld his sternly handsome face, or when she looked into his dark eyes and saw concern and caring, real emotions. He was as honest as she was deceitful. Like all untrustworthy creatures, she longed for what she wasn’t.
And her body warmed, grew soft and supple from just the feel of his hand in hers. Two years ago, he’d been a creative and talented lover, leaving his brand upon her. Had anything changed? Would they be as good together as they had been so long ago?
Did he still care for her, the way she ached for him?
She could never find out.
