A Rogue by Any Other Name Page 32

Page 32

 

  How to live.

  She couldn’t say that. He would laugh her out of the carriage. “Someone to dance with—someone to laugh with—someone to care about. ”

  Someone who would care about me.

  “Someone like your fiancé?”

  She thought of Tommy, considered for a fleeting moment telling Michael that the unidentified man to whom he referred was the friend they’d known all their lives. The son of the man who took everything from him. But she didn’t want to upset him, not while they were quiet and warm, and she could pretend they enjoyed each other’s company.

  So instead she whispered, “I should like for it to be someone like my husband. ”

  He was silent for a long time, long enough for her to wonder if he’d heard her. When she risked peering up at him through her lashes, she found that he was staring at her with an unsettling intent, his hazel eyes nearly golden in the fading light.

  For one, fleeting moment, she thought he might kiss her.

  She wished he would kiss her.

  A flush spread high on her cheeks at the thought, and she turned away quickly, returning her head to his chest, closing her eyes tightly, and willing the moment gone—along with her silliness.

  It wouldn’t be so bad if they did suit.

  Chapter Eight

  Dear M—

  Just a quick note today to tell you that we are all thinking of you, me most of all. I asked my father if we could come to Eton for a visit, and of course he told me that it wouldn’t be appropriate, as we are not family. It’s silly, really. You’ve always felt as much like family as some of my sisters. Definitely more like family than my Aunt Hester.

  Tommy will be home for his summer holiday. I am crossing my fingers that you will join us.

  Ever—P

  Needham Manor, May 1816

  No reply

  On the evening of his wedding, Bourne exited his town house almost immediately after depositing his new wife inside and headed for The Fallen Angel.

  He would be lying if he said that he didn’t feel like something of an ass in leaving her so summarily, in a new home with a new staff and nothing familiar, but he had a single, immovable goal, and the faster he reached it, the better they all would be.

  He would send the announcement of their marriage to the Times, get the young ladies Marbury matched, and have his revenge.

  He did not have time for his new wife.

  He certainly did not have time for her quiet smiles and her quick tongue and the way she reminded him of everything that he had lost. Of everything on which he’d turned his back.

  There was no room in his life for them to talk. No room to be interested in what she had to say. No room to find her entertaining or to care even a bit about how she felt about her sisters or how she had coped with her broken engagement, now years behind her.

  And there was definitely no room for him to wish to murder the man who had broken that engagement and made her doubt herself and her worth.

  It did not matter that she put flowers on his parents’ graves at Christmas.

  Maintaining a distance from her was essential—it was distance that would establish the parameters of their marriage, namely, that he would retain his life, and she would build her own, and while they would see her sisters matched together, it was for their individual reasons.

  So, he left her sleepy-eyed and wrinkled in her traveling cloak and headed to The Angel, doing his best to ignore the fact that she was alone on her wedding night, and that he’d likely suffer extra torture in hell for leaving her there.

  Four hours in a coach, and he was already too soft with her.

  He breathed deep, enjoying the frigid dampness in the evening air, yellow with thick January fog as he navigated through Mayfair to Regent Street, where a handful of peddlers remained in the waning light, rising up out of the mist only when they were an arm’s length away. They did not speak to him, their well-honed instincts telling them that he was not in the market for what they were selling. Instead, they faded away as quickly as they appeared, and Bourne made his way to the great stone building atop St. James’s.

  The club was not open yet, and when he slipped through the owners’ entrance and onto the pit floor, he was grateful for the lack of company in the cavernous room. There were lanterns lit around the floor, and a handful of maids were completing the day’s work—scrubbing at carpet, polishing sconces, and dusting the framed art on the walls.

  Bourne crossed to the center of the pit floor, stopping there for a long moment to take in this place—the place that had been home for the last five years.

  Most afternoons, he was the first of the owners to arrive at The Fallen Angel and he liked it that way. He enjoyed the quiet of the pit at that hour, the silent moments before the dealers arrived to check the weight of the dice, the oil on the wheels, the slickness of the cards, preparing for the mass of humanity that would descend like locusts and fill the room with shouts and laughter and chatter.

  He liked the club empty of all but possibility.

  All but temptation.

  He reached into the pocket of his waistcoat, feeling for the talisman that was always there, the coin that reminded him that it was temptation and nothing else that kept these tables full.

  That it was temptation that ruined.

  That one did not risk what one could not afford to lose.

  The coin was gone. Another reminder of his unwanted wife.

  He moved to the roulette table, brushing his fingers across the heavy silver handle of the wheel, spinning it, running the colors together, all speed and luxury, as he reached for the ivory ball on which so many hopes had been pinned—and lost. With a practiced flick of his wrist, he sent the ball spinning into the well, loving the sound of bone on metal, the way it shivered over him, all smoothness and sin.

  Red.

  The whisper echoed through him, unbidden, unstoppable.

  Unsurprising.

  He turned away before the wheel slowed, before gravity and providence pulled the ball into its seat.

  “You’re back. ”

  On the other side of the room, silhouetted by the open door to the bookkeeper’s suite, stood Cross, the fourth partner in The Fallen Angel. Cross handled the club’s finances, ensuring every penny that came through the door to the hell was well accounted for. He was a genius with numbers, but he neither looked nor lived like the unparalleled man of finance he was. He was tall, a half a foot taller than Michael, even taller than Temple. But where Temple was the size of a small house, Cross was long and slim, all angles and sinew. Bourne rarely saw him eat, and if the dark hollows beneath his eyes were any indication, it had been a day or two since the other man had slept.

  “You’re here early. ”

  Cross rubbed one hand over his unshaven jaw at the words. “Late, really. ” He moved aside, allowing a beautiful woman to exit the room behind him. She flashed Bourne a shy smile before pulling the enormous hood of her cloak up to shield her face.

  Bourne watched as the woman hurried to the entrance of the club, letting herself out with barely a sound, before he met Cross’s gaze. “I see you were working very hard. ”

  One side of Cross’s mouth rose at the words. “She’s good with the books. ”

  “I imagine she is. ”

  “We weren’t expecting you back so quickly. ”

  He hadn’t expected to be back so quickly. “Things took a bit of a turn. ”

  “For better or worse?”