Page 41 of Beyond Scandal and Desire
“The one your father gave you when you reached your majority?”
“Don’t tell him,” he whined and snuggled deeper into the corner.
A timepiece that had been passed down through at least three generations. “I don’t understand how you could gamble everything away.”
“Because you don’t know what it feels like.”
“To lose?”
“To win.” Shoving himself away from his little hovel, he leaned earnestly toward her. “You can’t imagine it. Your heart pounds so hard you can hear the blood rushing through your ears. There is an elation in your mind that makes it seem the entire universe is expanding. Your nerve endings tingle and become incredibly sensitive. Every sensation, every emotion is heightened. It’s like nothing else. It’s like being alive.”
Only she’d felt devastated, dead, handing over her pearls. “You must stop. You can’t continue doing this after we’re married.”
Slowly he blinked, as though having a difficult time processing her words. They should probably wait until liquor wasn’t sloshing through his veins, but the anger and disappointment were roiling through her now, and she was having a difficult time containing them.
“Are you forbidding me?” he asked incredulously.
“Yes, I believe I am.”
“Wives do not forbid.”
“Husbands honor their wives’ requests if they want accord in their marriage.”
“Not when they’re unreasonable.”
“You lost your father’s watch. You lost a thousand quid. You lost my pearls, my comb—all in a single night. I’ll not have the money in my trust frittered away after we’re married.”
“I’m not going to give up my life. I’m not going to become my father, always doting on my mother to the exclusion of all else, including his own son. You can’t expect it of me, and if you do, you’re going to be sadly disappointed.”
“No, I don’t think I shall be disappointed, as I very much doubt I’m going to marry you if you’re not willing to forgo this incessant gambling.” The words came out unbidden, tightening her stomach into a knot, and yet she could not deny the truth of them. She knew beyond any doubt that she would not find happiness with the man—drunk, disheveled, and demanding—who was currently sitting across from her.
“You’re being absurd,” he stated. “Overreacting. I enjoy gambling. It’s harmless. It’s not as though I’m going to be beating you.”
The conversation was deteriorating quickly, upsetting her even more. Not once had she considered him capable of this unflattering demeanor. “I never thought you would, but you hurt me tonight. And embarrassed me, as well as yourself. You made a spectacle of us both.”
“To a bunch of commoners whose opinions have no merit. They’re nothing—oh, dear God.” Bracing his hand on her seat, he lowered his head.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“I’m going to cast up my accounts.”
“Stop! Stop!” she shouted as she banged on the ceiling.
The carriage came to a halt. Kip flung open the door and staggered out. She heard him retching, felt rather ill herself. The man traveling with her was not one she could admire. She couldn’t even claim to like him, to enjoy his company.
She feared she may have become betrothed to a man she didn’t really know. More, she feared the man she’d witnessed tonight was the true Kip—and that man she could not marry.
Some hours later, after everyone had left, all the lights had been doused and silence wove itself through all the rooms, Mick stood at the window in his library and gazed out on the night, slowly pulling the pearls on a serpentine path through his fingers. He could well imagine he felt the warmth from her neck still pulsating through the white.
He’d never had much respect for the aristocracy. Bloody toffs who were given so much, didn’t appreciate it and tended to lose it with such ease, as though it were of no consequence and more was to be found with the snap of fingers. In his desk drawer were half a dozen markers attesting to that attitude. Also in that desk drawer now rested a gold pocket watch that bore an intricate engraving of a stag, similar to the one that occupied a corner of the Hedley crest. Perhaps one day he would attach the chain that accompanied it to a button of his waistcoat and tuck the watch into the small pocket where he could easily reach it, gaze down on it and mark the time.
Tonight his focus was on the pearls. He knew the moment she realized they were lost to her. She’d been devastated. He’d seen the shattering in her eyes, then gone, with little more than a blink. If he hadn’t been watching so closely, he’d have missed it. But he had been watching, studying her all night, searching for weaknesses—and all he’d found were strengths.
He’d wanted to applaud when she reached up and unlatched the pearls from about her neck. Spud didn’t realize how lucky he was that she’d taken the initiative. If he’d touched her, Mick would have broken his fingers or at the very least punched the man. He wouldn’t have been deserving of either treatment. Spud had been following the bricklayer’s orders to gather the winnings, but Mick recognized that where Lady Aslyn was concerned, he seemed to lack the ability to think with any rationality.
When she had walked from the room with her head held high, her shoulders back, her spine straight—in spite of the mortification that the drunkard Mick had been dragging along had caused her—he thought he’d never seen anyone with more regal bearing. And the lady—a true lady, if ever there was one—despite everything, had taken the time to say a few words of farewell to his sister.
Kipwick was undeserving of her. He wondered if she might realize it before it was too late. Or if it would be left to him to prove it to her.
