Chapter 103

She passed her tongue over her lips. "Not setting the law?"
"That's what I said, isn't it? Because, contrary to what's said of me, I'm not all bad."
"Right."
What? Have the drunken sot arrested and he'd have to arrange to take her and her sick friend back to town. Besides, why on earth was he keeping some piece of junk pocket watch from a part of his life that had ensnared him? He still had the ten thousand, didn't he? It could have been a far dearer experience. She could have won the game.
"I don't know that you do see," he countered. "Or you wouldn't have been so desperate to escape me that you bolted out of London, lugging that woman in a cart, whoever the hell she is."
He tried and failed miserably to lower his voice, master his dwindling temper.
Robbed. He'd heard that word not so long ago, something in connection with these damnable jewel thieves. Right outside her door, it was. Something about not being robbed. When he just had.
"She's a friend."
"Really? Mrs. Hanney said she was your sister."
"Mrs. Hanney does not know everything. Mrs. Hanney was told to say nothing to anyone."
He flicked his gaze over her face.
"You should thank God she did. And, if that woman is a friend, you've a funny way of showing your friendship."
"I'm sure I do, Your Grace. Very funny."
"If that's how you mean to benefit the poor, dragging the sick out into a raging storm, perhaps it's as well you lost that competition. Maybe you just find my company as odious as everyone else does; you just had to escape me. Well? When frankly, and the reason I've sent for you-"
"Well." She smoothed the hair at the nape of her neck. "We all know your feelings on good, honest matrimony, now don't we?"
"Thank God for that. I'm glad you've learned something."
"I'm glad you think I have. Gabriel certainly has."
"What the hell do you mean?"
"What I say. He has disowned me. Yes." Her voice, completely alien to her in every way he'd ever heard it, washed over him like a wave leaving sharded glass in its wake. "And that is why I was on the highway. Nothing to do with bolting from you, if you must know. Nothing to do with anything else. Just to do with me wanting to leave town."
"Disowned you?"
"Of course, it is his loss."
"Disowned you?" The rancid toad. He lifted the glass to his mouth and threw another finger of nectar down his throat. At least he tried to throw it back, but the damnable glass was empty. An empty glass was still better than admitting to any curiosity that he might be at the center of the disowning. Maybe, after all, he should have left ten minutes ago.
"And I suppose this is all my fault?
"Did I say so, Your Grace? No. No. Although it's doubtful you helped things."
Damn it, all he'd wanted was her company for one night. Was that so terrible? At least that was what he'd wanted then. This had become more tangled than a brier bush. How was it that she could turn him around faster than a spinning top? Not sleep with her? Sleep with her? Not sleep with her? Pity her? Welcome her to the anti-matrimony club?
He set the empty glass down with a clink, reached for the bottle.
"Well, that's it about matrimony. Now you're learning why I despise the damned sordid state that's neither fit for man nor beast and could see it in hell. You just shouldn't have left London lugging that sick woman in that cart. That's all."
"Well, I did. I didn't know I needed to ask your permission."
"Did I say you did? I just said she's -"
"I know what you said, Your Grace. And I don't need you hauling me in here to tell me I'm an idiot either. Now, I will look for your watch-"
"I never said you were an-"
"Oh, I think you did. Several times."
It was a mistake to let any kind of feeling inch into this. The theft of his watch was bad enough. The fact that he'd helped her was bad enough. But that he let go of the bottle because he was going to put his hand straight in his pocket and give her something to assuage his guilt, if nothing else, was the worst of this.
And yet ...
She looked so empty sitting there beneath that matter-of-fact front that he couldn't help seeing beyond. When Marietta left, he'd done some stupid things despite knowing her departure was only the confirmation of something he already knew because it was also the confirmation of the fact he was nothing to her and not a great deal he could do about it except bind that gaping wound inside.
His throat dried. Christ, was he perhaps vaguely to blame for that woman being in that cart?
He stared so hard at the bottle the wonder was it didn't explode.
If he did this, this stupid thing that had wormed its way into his head, he forfeited forever his claim to be a blackguard, the kind of man respectable matrons locked their daughters away from. If he didn't, when he'd driven her to this, what did it make him? It wasn't as if he hadn't wagered her for that money. Or as if he needed it.
Hell, he would sleep easier at nights knowing she had it. He would sleep easier knowing it was this far and no further and he could walk from her shrugging any responsibility for his part in this sorry episode from his shoulders. After all, he hadn't made it as clear as he could have that one night with him did not involve his bed.
He removed his gaze from the bottle. "Actually I have something for you."
"For me?"
"Yes. It's very charming of you to look surprised."
"I'm not. But if you're going to lecture me on that now ... Well ... "
"That's not what I'm going to do. I think you'll find lecturing is far from my thoughts."
He dug his hand into his pocket, found the flimsy edge of the paper. As he did, he was appalled by what flared. Something that had nothing to do with ruining his reputation, and all to do with the desire thrumming in his veins to taste her mouth, her body. Why should he give her the money for nothing?
She shot to her feet. "Your Grace ... If this is what I think-- "
"Sit down, will you?" After all, he didn't want this attracting attention for very obvious reasons. Reasons that pained his soul to consider when he was also on his feet.
"No. Your Grace, I don't want you to do this."
He didn't either.
He very definitely didn't.
No way this side of hell did he want to do this.
But he was going to. He was going to give her the money.