Chapter 92

Kendall was so accustomed to seeing her give that harassed, His-Grace-is- greatly-to-be-pitied grin of hers that her tears were as alien as a star in the night sky to him. To think he'd believed earlier that he was never going to see her again and thanked Christ for it too. Now here he was, almost seeing Christ personally to attend to it right there beneath the rattling wheels of a flying barouche.
"Christ on the rocky road to Jerusalem, will you slow down? Must you do everything in your life at a breakneck pace, squawking like a hen?" He grabbed her arm, dragged her back onto the curb. "Do you want to get us both killed?"
"Will you just-just-"
He thought she might have said get away from me, but her words weren't just mangled by clattering horse's hooves, she almost was too as she stepped off the curb into the gutter. Even if it might put him out of his misery about letting his hopes ride on a dud mare, he still couldn't allow it.
He clutched the top of her arm her tighter and yanked her back. "Are you utterly damned insane? Will you stop this?"
"And if I don't, what are you going to do about it? Silence me the way those who can silence me, will silence me?"
Certainly not here. Forget intoxicating and invigorating, this whole thing was invasively idiotic. This was over. Whatever this had been. If, indeed, it was anything at all. Which was why-reputation be damned that she was dressed as a man-he cursed the fact his mouth hovered so close to hers. Such things never happened to him. Never. Ever. Ever. Not after Marietta.
Damn it. These thingswere not happening now. Not when his thirst to vent his fury coiled cold about his heart like a dead serpent. She had disappointed him. Lost the bloody tournament. To Baxby of all people. "What is it with you that you feel the need to prove everything? Well?"
"Nothing. There is nothing about me. Nothing remarkable at all."
"Well, then perhaps you would like to tell me what the blazes else I was meant to do that night at the theater?" he said. "Allow you to disrupt the performance shouting bollocks every five minutes? When I knew damned fine that bollocks was what it was?"
The time had come to remove the kid gloves, lay his cards on the table. Even if it might be a mistake when her lips were such a paper's depth from his, so close he could breathe their pores, with coach wheels and dust particles spinning inches from where he stood too.
He lowered his voice to a murmur. "And if you think I'm going to kiss you right here in broad daylight, while you're dressed like that, because you want me to, I'm not. Besides, your betrothed is looking for you. I wouldn't like to have the little runt call me out. Believe me, I can't afford to be merciful to you twice." Not when he'd felt obliged to come after her like this and was breathing as if he'd a straitjacket planked around his middle. What was it about him and underdogs? Damned stupid dogs? Like that night at the ball when he'd worried she couldn't dance and how it would look. Because he'd been one himself?"Now, can we please get back from this curb?"
"So you can shout at me and tell me all about the fine, damned mess I've made?
I'd sooner stand here."
"Did I say that? Although perhaps had you moved the rook F3 to-"
"Exactly. Well, when it comes to moving the rook, I'll tell you where I'd like to shove it, Your Fatuous Grace. Why not throw in the business of the queen as well?"
"It was one of the stupidest moves you have ever made. But am I saying so?"
She tugged her arm free of him. "Much, is the word you omitted. Now go away and let me cross this road."
"You have the eight hundred guineas. You were second for God's sake. Do you know what an achievement that was?"
She dragged her cuff across her nose. Twice. But perhaps she was so busy benefiting the poor she didn't have a handkerchief? "Eight hundred guineas? Oh, that's going to pay my dressmaking bill."
"Eight hundred guineas? For your dressmaking bill?" My God, worse than ever Marietta, in fact, worse than that trollop his father ran off with, which was saying something. What a hardened piece, going to all this trouble for ten thousand pounds. How could he have been so stupid as to pin his hopes on her because she kissed rather nicely and knew the odd-very odd-chess move? "How the hell did you run that up?"
"Oh, quite easily, with all these events you wanted me to go to. In fact, I owe more."
"I thought you wanted to benefit the poor?"
"I am the poor. And I needed that money if Gabriel was ever to marry me."
"Marry you? You mean ...Hang it all, I thought ... I thought you wanted to benefit the poor? Marriage? Are you telling me you did all this for that hackneyed, outdated, useless institution? Are you stark raving mad?"
"Oh, I can see you think so, even though you let your wife divorce you."
He kept his silence, damn near grinding his teeth. He wasn't going to tell her why. The thought was enough to dry what he believed was laughter in his throat.
"When you disowned your own daughter."
If only she knew.
"Well," she continued. "It may be news to you, but Gabriel and I love each other.
Deeply. Everlastingly. Now leave me. Go away."
"Love? Pardon me not splitting my sides but do you have the least conception of the meaning of the word? Well?"
"I have a deeper understanding than you."
Who did this Gabriel runt think he was, demanding she get that money? Why couldn't the lazy little bastard get it himself? Why did she need to when she was Lady Splendor? Or was she Lady Splendor? It would certainly help explain why he had never heard of her. In fact, it explained everything.
"You think so? Pardon me," he finally said, "but are you completely insane?"
"I would sooner be insane than a sneering, cynical, done-for, broken-down old failure who can't keep a mistress, let alone a wife."
"Old? Twenty-nine is hardly Methuselah." Even if he had felt the rot of the corpse upon himself for years. As for failing to keep a mistress? If he'd flashed an engagement ring instead of that damnable bracelet that had cost an arm and a leg, he'd be hearing wedding bells as he spoke. He narrowed his eyes. That nerve in his cheek ticked again. He needed to stop it. "Is that really what you think about me?"
She squared her shoulders. "No."
"Well, thank God for that."
"I think far worse. I am merely being charitable."
"Well, if that's your idea of being charitable, perhaps it's as well the poor won't benefit from it."
"That's as may be. I was going to marry Gabriel and make it last forever. He asked me. But you asked me too. To that damn theater. I should have known better than to accept."
"Well, that was your fault then for accepting the wrong offer."
He stood like a rock: hard, straight. Marriage. Making it last forever? Was she mad?
His throat dried at the idea that streaked likea comet. Was he madder?
Ten thousand pounds. What was ten thousand pounds to him exactly though? He had that amount and more these days. Even toting up his drink and whore bill over the next so many years he had left to him, he wasn't exactly going to get through it all.
Why not be charitable?
Actually, there were a thousand reasons not to be charitable. Why not start with his own burning at Marietta's hands? The burning that had turned him into stone. A statuesque existence he'd been perfectly happy with till recently when, firstly Babs, then this chit, had entered the equation. "Oh do dry your tears for God's sake."
"I have a cold."
Like hell. Well, it wasn't any of his business any more than she was, standing there on the curb looking more whipped than a beaten dog. Surely? He could no more take her in his arms and tell her it would be all right than he could kiss her. Both ridiculous inclinations.
"Despite everything ... " Christ, at the last supper with hemlock in silver cups to drink, why say that? He wasn't going to help her. But he did hate the sight of tears. They did strange things to his heart. And that, he could not risk."I am prepared to help you,"
"You?"
Her lip curled, her eyes widened in horror. It wasn't every day he was so magnanimous. Prepared to undercut his merciless reputation for a disagreeably headstrong chit who'd argue a black square was a white one on a chessboard too. But perhaps she was merely surprised and searching for the correct words to refuse him nicely.
"If it's anything like the last time you helped me, I can do without. What's more, I don't need your help. I never did. I can and will be gone before you can get any bailiffs within a two-mile radius of my door, get any bright ideas about blackmailing meinto being dragged round the other half of London with you either."
"Well, that's a pity, your having lost that competition and the ten thousand pounds--"
"I don't care about the ten thousand pounds."
"As I said. A pity. Especially asI was about to ask you what you'd say to another one?"
"Another one what?"
"Competition."
Her brow knitted, and her jaw hung open. "What one? There isn't another one."
"How observant. At least I have taught you that much. I want to play you."
"You?"
"There's no need to look so surprised."
"But what would you want to do that for?"
"Why not? You deprived me of the chance. One game. If you win, I will give you ten thousand pounds."
"What?"
"Yes."
This was the way to bait her, because of course she would win. At least she'd believe that she would. He knew why that little kindling spark leaped into her eyes. Finally, he had this disappointing creature's attention.
"And if I lose?" she demanded.
How could she be so tiresome as to ask when he hadn't considered her losing? Ten thousand pounds.
His palms sweated. At all costs, he must think clearly, give nothing away-not of himself anyway-must not fudge the fact he hadn't thought of what the hell he could demand. Must not make this easy for her either. A bastard like him.
What was there that he could possibly demand?
Quite simple really. If she didn't agree, it would save him a fortune. "You will be mine for one night to do what I choose with. Exactly what I choose."
After all, whatever balls she had him by, he wasn't giving away that amount of money for nothing, was he?