He took the first punch because he deserved it.
He’d seen Eve’s face alight with Tristan’s invitation, and he knew within the depths of his soul that it was probably the first one that she’d ever received from a noble. Her father, for all his love for her, had kept her in a gilded cage, one so beautiful and filled with such kindnesses that she’d not even realized it surrounded her.
And Rafe was going to deny her the pleasure of accepting it because if he spent time in his brothers’ company, he had little doubt that they would see into his dark soul and know the things he’d done in order to survive.
He ducked as Mick took his next swing. Then he delivered a quick jab to his man’s ribs.
“You’re in a foul mood,” Mick quipped.
If only he knew the half of it. As soon as he’d seen Eve delivered safely to the residence, he’d taken himself to his club to spare her his presence. In the boxing room, he was stripped to the waist. It was the one place where he didn’t have to hide his aversion to wearing clothing. If only he could remove his trousers as well, he’d be in paradise.
Bouncing on the balls of his bare feet, Rafe danced around Mick. He was angry at himself for revealing to Eve that his brothers were good men and he wasn’t. It was something he acknowledged in the darkest recesses of his soul, but he’d never voiced it aloud. He’d been so proud of his accomplishments, so proud of what he’d obtained.
He’d planned to show them both . . .
Instead, they had shown him that they were men of honor, that they had not turned their backs on their heritage, that they had done nothing to bring shame to the family name. While he had managed to commit one offense after another.
He didn’t think about his sins, didn’t let them get past the wall to his conscience. Under the same circumstances, he’d do it all again.
He swung out at Mick, missed, and the bastard took advantage to land a blow to Rafe’s midsection that nearly doubled him over.
“You’re off tonight,” Mick said.
Rafe straightened, lifted his fisted hands. He never spoke of his past, he didn’t confide, he didn’t trust anyone to look beyond their own self-interests. It was the world in which he’d grown to manhood, one in which to survive, he never looked beyond his own needs, wants, desires. Finding himself concerned about what Eve might want unsettled him. He didn’t want to keep her in a gilded cage, but taking her away from it meant moving about in circles where he was far from comfortable. “Do you ever think about how we came to be here?”
He swung. Mick ducked and scurried back. “You’ve heard the rumors, too, then.”
“What rumors?”
Mick jabbed, Rafe blocked with his right and delivered a solid punch with his left. Mick staggered before regaining his balance and saying, “That Dimmick’s not dead.”
Dimmick, previous owner of the Rakehell Club, Rafe’s mentor as well as his tormentor. A more vile creature had yet to be born. The man had supposedly jumped from Tower Bridge a few years back, although the bloated remains that washed up along the shores of the River Thames were hardly recognizable. It was the distinctive ring that Dimmick always wore on his left hand that had been used to identify him.
Avoiding a punch to the jaw, Rafe feinted one way before dancing back to the other. “It would be like him to fake his own death, and then lay low for a while.”
“Six years?”
Dear God, had it been six years since he’d coerced Dimmick into signing the Rakehell Club over to him? He’d been fourteen when he’d begun working for Dimmick. Three years later he’d become his most trusted henchman, breaking bones without remorse, threatening without compunction. “You have the conscience of a corpse,” Dimmick had once told him. “That’s why you’re so good at what you do.” He took his orders and carried them out, because he’d learned too late that Dimmick wasn’t the sort of man to whom he should be in debt.
“Dimmick always had patience.” His mantra had been that if you’re going to destroy a man, do it so you destroy him completely.
“If he is alive, he’s going to be coming after you.” Mick jabbed Rafe’s shoulder.
“If something happens to me, go see a solicitor named Beckwith. He has my will and the papers for this place. Upon my death, the Rakehell Club goes to you.”
Mick froze, stared at him, and Rafe—from a long ingrained habit of never failing to take advantage of a weakness—rammed his fist beneath Mick’s chin and sent him spiraling backward and to the floor.
Damn. That was going to end the sparring. He knelt beside the man who had scurried around behind him when he was younger, taking whatever scraps Rafe was of a mind to toss his way. Not many, but it was enough to keep Mick loyal. When Rafe had acquired the gaming hell, he’d offered Mick a place. It didn’t make them friends. Their only association was the business. Mick managed it, and looked out for things when Rafe wasn’t here. Which until recently had been seldom.
“Not that I’m planning for anything to happen to me,” he assured Mick when the glazed look left his eyes.
“Why would you leave it to me?”
“Who else would know how to manage it?”
“I can manage it without owning it. Surely there is someone better to leave it to.”
“If there is, I’ve yet to meet him. But as I said, I plan to be around for a good long while yet. Still, send out some runners, have them ferret around, see what they can learn. If Dimmick is alive, it’s to my advantage to get to him before he gets to me.”
“Wake up, wake up,” his mind whispered, but he didn’t dare say the words aloud. He wasn’t certain he wanted her to know that he was there, leaning against the bedpost at the foot of her bed, watching her sleep again. While he was away, he’d thought of the night before he left, when he’d observed her while she lay sleeping. Every night he wanted to be back here, his gaze honed in on her face, the sweet expression of it.
All the women he’d known intimately had been coarse and hard, shaped by life into something impossible to break. She could break. In all likelihood he would eventually destroy her, unless he found the strength to let her go.
He admired her stubbornness, enjoyed sparring words with her. He would think he was winning, and then she would slip in beneath him and deliver a quick jab that left him flummoxed. Sometimes, only a few times, when he was in her company, he caught shadowy glimpses of the man he might have become had fate been kinder. A man who deserved to have her for the remainder of his life.
Her eyes fluttered open, and she smiled. “While you were away, I woke up every night expecting to see you standing there.”
He’d stayed awake every night, wanting to be here. Dangerous, so dangerous. She could become an addiction. He was well aware of what happened to men who could not get enough of gambling, liquor, or opium. He had to put a stop to his growing obsession with her, of wanting to be in her company.
“I missed you during dinner,” she said, and something in his chest clutched. Words, they were merely words. Something someone said when another person wasn’t about. She hadn’t meant that she’d truly missed him. She would have to care for him to yearn for his presence. She was here only because she was forced to remain. If he let her go, he’d never see her again.
That thought was intolerable.
She started shoving herself into a sitting position, stilled, and narrowed her eyes. “What happened to your face?”
He shrugged. “I was sparring.”
“You mean fighting?”
“For sport. I have a boxing room at the club.”
“Sport? Why do gentlemen find it entertaining to be hit?”
“Not to be hit. To do the pummeling.”
She rolled her eyes as though exasperated, jerked on the bellpull, threw back the covers, and scrambled out of bed.
“What are you doing?” he asked, alarmed by her actions. She wasn’t thinking of hugging him in comfort, was she?
“A man of your wealth no doubt has an icebox. We’re going to get you some ice for your wound.”
“It’s hardly a wound. Mick doesn’t have that hard of a punch.”
She stood before him, rose up on her toes, and studied his face as though it was a curiosity, something unusual that should be on display. She lifted her hand, he grabbed her wrist. She furrowed her brow. “It’s bruising and swelling.”
Releasing his hold on her, he gingerly touched his fingers to his tender cheek, near his eye. “It’s not that bad.”
A knock sounded at the door.
“Sit in a chair by the fire,” she ordered with authority before heading for the door.
He stood exactly where he was. No one ordered him about. No one.
Opening the door slightly, she spoke to the servant on the other side. When she turned back into the room, she pressed her lips together and pointed toward the sitting area. “Sit!”
She walked to the washbasin, picked up a cloth, and dipped it into the water. He looked at the sitting area, looked at her. Where was the harm? He wasn’t following an order. He wanted to sit. That was the reason that he ambled over and dropped into a stuffed high-backed chair.
As she strolled toward him, he watched the movements of her nightdress in fascination. He caught glimpses of the outline of her legs. He wanted to run his hands over her thighs, then send his lips on the same journey.
She knelt before him, lifted the cloth. “This will suffice until the ice arrives. The water was cool.”
“I can do it,” he said, reaching for it.
She yanked it back and glared at him. “I’ll do it.” She waited a heartbeat. “Please. You’ve done so much for me, and I’ve done nothing for you. I can give you this small courtesy.”
It had been so very long. He didn’t know how to accept kindness graciously. It was the reason that Tristan’s gift had nearly unmanned him.
He didn’t answer, but neither did he object or pull away when she very gently touched the cloth to his cheek. He watched her instead: the concern in her eyes, the tiny furrow between her brows, her concentration—as though if she didn’t do it just right, she would cause irreparable harm.
“I don’t understand men fighting,” she said quietly. “Did you get the better of him?”
He experienced a strange swelling of pride in his chest. “I felled him.”
“Why would you hurt a friend?”
“He’s not a friend. He works for me. He got in a good jab or two.”
She sighed. Another knock sounded on the door. “Hold this in place.”
Another order. As she got up to answer the door, he realized he was going to have to have words with her about this ordering him about business. He wouldn’t tolerate it. But when she returned, took the cloth from him, and placed ice shavings in it, he said not a word. As she gently laid it against his cheek, he thought he’d never felt anything so sublime.
“Are you hungry?” she asked. “I could have the cook prepare something.”
“No, I’ve eaten.” He wasn’t accustomed to having someone asking after his welfare. It was unsettling.
“Why would a gambling den need a boxing room?” she asked, her eyes focused on her task. She was positioned in such a way that from time to time, with an intake of a breath or an adjustment in her posture, one of her breasts brushed against his arm. It was almost his undoing. His mouth went dry. It would be so easy to roll out of the chair onto her, take her to the floor, lift the hem of her nightdress—
No, he’d not lift it. He’d rip it asunder. He wanted to see her in all her naked glory, and he had no doubt that she would be glorious.
“Men have frustrations,” he said, finding himself being tied up into knots at that moment with those very frustrations. “They need a place to work it off, so I have a room where they can box or wrestle. And sometimes—” He stopped. He wanted her comfortable with him. Not knowing the truth about him.
She peered up at him. “Sometimes . . . ?”
“I take men there and teach them a lesson.”
The cold ice left his face as she sat back on her heels. “What sort of lesson?”
“Things that belong to me are not to be abused.”
Her brow furrowed. “What sort of things?”
Why had he started down this path? Perhaps because he needed her to know some of the worst things about him, so she wouldn’t care whether he’d eaten or was hungry or had a bruise forming on his cheek. He didn’t want to fall into the allure of being tended. “The women who work for me—some do so on their back. Their choice,” he added quickly. “They plied their trade on the streets, but in my place they have it better. They’re clean, the rooms are clean, the customers who visit them are clean. But from time to time those gents can forget where they are and get a bit rough. When they hurt one of the girls, I hurt them back.”
She blinked. “You personally?”
“Yes, me personally. There’s nothing more frightening than facing a man who doesn’t give a bloody damn.”
Something soft touched her eyes. It made him want to squirm. He despised discussing any aspect of his life. He shouldn’t have come in here to look in on her.
“You told me that you would make Geoffrey regret the manner in which he’d treated me. Are you going to do it in that room?” she asked.
“No, I have something else in mind for him.”
“What precisely?”
“I haven’t worked out all the particulars yet. I’ll let you know when I do.” Rafe had long ago learned that the best revenge didn’t involve physical pain. Hurts healed. The memory of agony diminished over time. Better to arrange something that was a constant reminder of failings or misjudgments.
“Thank you for that, for seeing that Geoffrey will have regrets.”
The gratitude in her eyes almost had him asking her to make him promise her something else. No one had ever looked at him like that. He was accustomed to instilling fear, but for the first time in his life, he thought there might be something stronger than fear. He wasn’t certain what it was, but it scared the bloody hell out of him.
Rising back to her knees, she carefully placed the ice enfolded in the cloth on his darkening bruise, and her nearness distracted him from his irritation. Her breast rested firmly against his upper arm now, and he could feel the taut nipple through her nightdress, through his sleeve. He wanted to circle his tongue around it, once, twice, then over—
“I should like to visit your gambling establishment sometime.” Her voice seemed raspier. Did her thoughts travel in the same direction as his? He doubted she was even aware of the liberties a man would take with a body such as hers.
He scoffed. “Ladies are not allowed inside.”
“But then I’m not a lady, am I?” She held his gaze with a challenge. He wanted to deny her words, but he couldn’t.
“You wouldn’t much like it. It’s mostly black and green. There’s always a smoky haze. It smells of rich tobacco, fine liquor, and finer women.”
“Still, I should like to see where you spend so much of your time.”
Before she’d entered his life, he’d spent all his time there.
She set the cloth aside, and with a featherlike touch moved his hair back. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d known a caress that was as light as a cloud. Yet even for its faintness, it was powerful.
“I wish he hadn’t hurt you,” she said.
“I’ve known worse.”
Her eyes shifted over to his. “Yes, I presume you have. You live in a very rough world. Do you ever think of leaving it?”
“It’s where I belong.”
“But you’re the son of a duke.”
“If he were alive, he’d disown me.” Never mind that if he were alive Rafe would have never been in a position to do the things he’d done.
“I suspect my father would do the same, knowing the decision I made to stay here. Although I suppose in truth, he never really owned me.”
“Don’t give too much weight to a trip to a park.”
“But you’re not keeping me hidden away. You’re not ashamed to be seen with me.”
He cupped her face, grateful she hadn’t realized that his knuckles were also lightly bruised and slightly swollen. They bothered him more than his cheek, but when he touched her, the pain eased, as though she were a balm. He wanted her now, this moment. He wanted all the hurts to cease. What a fanciful thought. Some were embedded so deeply they’d never be touched, comforted, eased. He would take them to the grave.
He skimmed his thumb over her cheek. He had promised to give her the skills she needed to survive on her own. He had yet to begin teaching her about investments, but he knew now that she needed something more. “How tired are you?”
Her eyes widened slightly, her skin flushed, and he knew by her reaction where she thought he was going with his question. “I’m fully awake.”
He heard the slight tremble in her voice, but at least she hadn’t lied. She was growing more comfortable with him. He thought about taking her to bed, but he wasn’t at his best tonight. Too many dark thoughts were tumbling through his mind. Faces he’d beaten, bones he’d broken. On Dimmick’s orders. At first he’d been too young and frightened not to obey the ruthless orders. Disappoint Dimmick, and there would be hell to pay. Then for a time he’d begun to enjoy it. Smashing people up, throwing his weight around, being feared. Until he’d been passing by a shop one day and caught sight of a thug in the large mirror that was on display behind the window. It took him a moment to recognize who the brute was—it wasn’t until he’d looked into the icy-blue eyes that he’d known, and his stomach had roiled with the realization of what he’d become.
He shoved himself out of the chair. “Get dressed. Your hideous mourning attire should do nicely. We’re going to the club.”
“Now?”
“You’re less likely to be seen at this hour.” And at the club, he was less likely to tumble her onto the bed and turn his attention to a sport that had little to do with fisticuffs.
Evelyn fought not to be disappointed. When they’d first arrived, he’d brought her downstairs, and she’d thought they were heading for the dens of depravity. Instead, he’d led her into a room with a roped-off square in the middle and benched seating stacked along the walls. She imagined people sat there to watch what occurred within the boundaries of the rope.
She was hoping to see the gaming room, to view the games that men lost fortunes playing, especially the one that had put Geoffrey into debt to Rafe, the one that had caused him to invite the gaming hell owner to his night of entertainment when he’d sought to foist her off as some man’s mistress. She didn’t like to contemplate where she might be now if Rafe hadn’t been there.
“Remove your cloak,” he ordered, and she glanced over to see he was shrugging out of his jacket. She did wish the man wasn’t in the habit of ordering her about without first explaining where his directives would take her. Still, she unfastened her cloak, slipped it off her shoulders, and draped it over a bench.
When next she looked at Rafe, his waistcoat was gone and he was dragging his shirt over his head. He tossed it aside. She stared in wonder at his rippling muscles, his washboard stomach. He moved as though he were comprised of poetry, smooth and flowing. She had visited a museum with her father once and seen statues of the gods. But even they were not as lean, as firm, as beautifully sculpted as Rafe.
“Am I to remove my clothing?” she asked.
He jerked his gaze over to her. “What? No, of course not. That would be distracting, give you an unfair advantage.” He pulled up one of the ropes, creating a small archway. “Come on. In you go.”
“What are we doing here?”
“Eventually you’ll be on your own. Someone might try to take advantage. You need to know how to defend yourself.”
“You’re going to teach me how to box?”
He shook his head, locks of his dark hair falling forward, making him appear both younger and more dangerous. “I’m going to teach you how to fight.”
“I could punch Geoffrey.”
“If you like. I’ll hold him for you.”
“That wouldn’t be fair.”
“I don’t believe in fighting fair; I believe in fighting to win. Now come on. Into the boxing ring you go.”
She could hardly countenance this, or the exhilaration that fissured through her. She suspected not all the excitement had to do with what he was about to teach her, but with the fact that the sight of him without a shirt was causing something rather giddy to occur in her stomach. As she got nearer, she spied the darkened flesh over his ribs. “Oh my God, you’re bruised.”
Without thought, she reached out and touched it with her gloved hand. Stiffening, he took in a sharp breath, the air hissing between his teeth.
“Why didn’t you tell me? I would have tended it.”
Wrapping his long fingers around her wrist, he moved her hand away. “I’m on a short tether here, Eve. If my shirt had come off in your bedchamber, your nightdress would’ve as well.”
She looked at him through widened eyes. “Surely not when you’re hurt.”
“When I’m hurt, when I’m ill, when I’m on my deathbed.”
“Is it that way for all men?”
He gave her an expression of pure exasperation. “I have no idea. I don’t discuss this with men. I only know what it’s like for me. Now, into the ring you go.”
As she ducked beneath the hemp, she doubted he discussed anything with anyone, but as he was more worldly than she, she suspected he thought a great deal about what it might be like between them. She was finding her own thoughts turning in that direction more often. She didn’t want to find herself attracted to him, but she couldn’t deny that he was a fine specimen. She didn’t want to stare at him, but it was so very difficult to look away. His arms were firm and muscled. Sinewy. While he didn’t want her arms around him, she realized she would very much enjoy having his arms around her.
“—bring him to his knees.”
“Pardon?” She realized he’d been talking while she’d been lost in thought.
He sighed. “Pay attention, Eve. I was explaining that a man is most vulnerable between his legs. Kick him there and you’ll drop him like a felled tree.”
“I see.”
“With your skirts and petticoats, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to kick high enough—”
“Well, unless he’s a dwarf. Then I should be able to manage it quite well.”
He stared at her, then released a sharp bark of laughter. It made her smile to hear the sound echoing around her. “If he’s a dwarf, you should be able to outrun him, so let’s assume he’s not a dwarf.” He moved nearer to her and she folded her fingers against her palm so she wouldn’t reach out and touch him again. “You want to allow him to get close.” He curled his hands over her shoulders. “All the while looking innocent—”
She widened her eyes, blinked them.
He grinned. “Well done. He’ll be arrested by your eyes and not notice when you slyly position your leg between his. Then bring your knee up as quickly and as hard as you can.”
She did. Growling, he released her and dropped down to all fours, breathing heavily, head bent. “You . . . weren’t . . . supposed to . . . do it.”
She knelt. “How am I to learn if I’m doing it properly? Are you all right?”
“Just give me a moment.”
She dearly wanted to comfort him, to rub his back and shoulders, to lean in and kiss his forehead. When had she begun to stop wishing that calamity would befall him? Uncomfortable with the thought that perhaps she wanted to be with him, she glanced around. “Suppose while I’m waiting for you to recover, I could take a look about, peek in at the gaming rooms.”
“No.”
“After you teach me to fight, will you teach me to gamble?”
He peered up at her. “No.”
“You rather fancy that word, don’t you?”
With a deep breath, he sat back on his heels. “Why would you risk losing on the turn of a card what it is going to cost you so much to gain?”
“It does seem rather senseless, I suppose.”
“Yes, it does.” He shoved himself to his feet and pulled her to hers. “Now make a fist.”
She curled her fingers around her thumb, tucked everything up against her palm. Taking her hand, he unfurled her fingers. “You want your thumb on the outside, covering your first two fingers. And you want to keep your fist level with your wrist, braced so it doesn’t go up or down. Less likely to break your bones that way.” He held up his palms. “Now punch a hand.”
“I’ll hurt you.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Hearing the slap of her fist against his palm, she didn’t much like it.
“Good,” he said. “Again.”
She punched, the awful sound of flesh being hit echoing around her.
“Harder and faster,” he ordered.
She did, again and again. He began backing around the ring and she followed.
“If you really want to hurt someone, punch him in the nose. Stings like the devil. If you can break his nose, all the better. If he turns away from you, strike him in the kidney. It’ll take him down like a kick to the groin.”
“Where’s the kidney?”
With her next punch, he quickly folded his large, powerful hand over hers, capturing it as though it were nothing, and she had a sense now of why he might have given that knowing smile the night she had threatened to scratch out his eyes. She’d have not stood a chance against him.
He moved his other hand around her and drew a small circle on her back. “There. And on the other side. Can momentarily paralyze a man if you do it just right.”
“Do you do it just right?”
He nodded. “Little point in doing it if you’re not going to do it correctly. That’s the thing as well, once you commit to fighting, commit fully. Never back down, never give quarter. I’ve seen many a small man take down a larger one simply because he had the determination to win.”
“You’ve seen a lot of fighting then.” She couldn’t recall ever witnessing any. Certainly neither her father nor Geoffrey had ever come home bruised and bloody. She’d never held a damp cloth to a man’s face, had never begun counting a man’s whiskers because she feared if she continued to gaze into his eyes, she might become lost within their depths.
By his words and actions, Rafe gave the impression of a man who cared about little save himself, but tending to him she knew there was far more to him. She just wasn’t certain if she’d be wise to explore it.
“I’ve seen a lot of people striving to survive,” he said. “It’s generally not pretty.”
“Seeing it probably affects a person as much as experiencing it.”
“Not as much as,” he said quietly, his gaze roaming over her face as though he wished to experience the silkiness of her skin, the taste of her lips. He cleared his throat. “Now then, if a man comes up behind you and puts his arms around you—” He spun her around, cupped his hands on her shoulders. “—bow your head forward, then slam it back with as much force as possible, hit him in the nose. Within any luck, you’ll break it.”
“I don’t think you’re close enough for me to reach.”
“I prefer to avoid this demonstration if you don’t mind.”
“I won’t do it hard, but it seems I should have a sense of it.”
With his thumbs, he stroked the corded muscles on either side of her neck. His arms didn’t come around her, but she felt his warm breath wafting over her nape. “I’m near enough.”
His voice was low, seductive. Her breathing went shallow, her stomach tightened. She thought for her own self-preservation she probably should slam her head back. But the thought of hurting him made her nauseous. “Will I know if I’ve broken his nose?” she asked in a dry rasp.
“Yes. You’ll hear a loud crack.”
A circle of damp heat caused dew to form on the sensitive flesh near her left ear. It was all she could do not to turn into it. He slid his mouth to the other side. Her eyes slammed closed, and she thought of rainy mornings buried beneath a mound of blankets.
“What if he doesn’t let me go?”
Silence followed, thick and heavy, and she wondered if like her, he was trying to decipher whether she was still referring to an attacker, or if she was asking about the man who now stood behind her, trailing his lips so lightly, so slowly along the nape of her neck, causing the fine hairs to rise.
“He will,” he finally said, and she could have sworn she heard regret in his voice. He moved away from her. “I think you have the gist of things now.”
She turned around to see him slipping beneath the rope and going toward his clothes. “We didn’t practice overly much. It hardly seems worth it to have gone to the bother to come here.”
He snatched up his shirt, shoved his arms into the sleeves. “The flooring is softer within the ring, there is no clutter or trinkets that can be broken, and you were less likely to get hurt if we took things further.”
“Why aren’t we? Taking things further, I mean. I think I was beginning to get the hang of it.”
He didn’t bother with his waistcoat or jacket. Just clutched them in his hand. “Are you that naive?”
She could see the strain in his features, the white of his knuckles as he fisted his free hand. He strode over and lifted the rope as though he’d like to use it to strangle someone.
“This was a bad idea,” he said. “We need to go.”
“I thought it was a rather good idea.” She slipped beneath the rope. “Now I know how to punch Geoffrey the next time I see him.”
“Just remember to keep your wrist level. I shouldn’t like to be inconvenienced by your being hurt.”
She wished he’d smiled when he’d said that so she’d know whether he was joking. “Since we’re here, may I have a look around?”
He studied her for a moment. “I suppose no harm would come from a quick peek.”
She followed him out of the room, up two flights of stairs, and down a hallway with several rooms. She might have thought this was the bordello portion except that the doors were open. The walls were papered in burgundy, with gold vines. More tasteful than she would have expected. Gas lamps flickered along the walls. Glancing through a doorway into a room they were passing, she stopped.
“This is your office; it’s where you work.” She strolled inside. It was Spartan. A desk. A chair in front of it, and another behind it. A table with decanters. The windows were bare, looking out onto the night.
“Why do you say that?” he asked.
Looking over her shoulder, she saw him leaning against the doorjamb, his arms crossed over his chest. “The globes.”
They were sprinkled about numerous shelves on three walls. “There must be a hundred of them.”
“A hundred and two to be exact.”
Astonished, she twisted around. “Does that include the ones at the residence?”
“No.”
“Why do you collect them? What’s your fascination with them?”
He just stood there, staring into the dimly lit room.
“Is it because you were planning to travel the world and you wanted to study where you might be going? You can confide in me. I won’t tell anyone.”
“You have no one to tell.”
“I suppose that’s true enough. I collected dolls when I was a child. Not by choice, but rather it’s what my father always gave me. So perhaps I wasn’t so much collecting dolls, as I was collecting symbols of his love. Maybe that’s why I smashed so many of them. I was angry, and I couldn’t very well smack him.” She turned away from him. She hadn’t wanted to travel into her own life. Rather, she wanted to journey into his.
“They gave me hope.”
Her heart hammering, she jerked back around. Just a glimpse. She wanted only a glimpse into his soul. She waited. Surely there was more. And then her patience was rewarded.
“They gave me hope that there was someplace better than where I was.”
“So you collected all these when you were a child?”
“No, Eve, I still collect the damn things.” He shifted back into the hallway. “Did you want to see the gaming hell or not?”
He was still searching for someplace better than where he was—just as she was. She didn’t want to be a mistress, she didn’t want to live in a house that belonged to a man who wanted her only for sport. She wanted something better: a husband, a family, a home.
His residence would never be a home.
Nor would his office. It didn’t satisfy him. As comfortable as he appeared, nothing here—except the globes—reflected the man. She had thought she’d make some small discovery about him that would explain him, but even here he was very careful to reveal nothing about himself.
“Yes, I want to see it.”
Maybe there at last, she would come to understand him.
Rafe had an unsettling suspicion that he hadn’t brought her to the club in order to teach her how to defend herself. That he’d used it as an excuse—to himself of all men, someone who had no tolerance for excuses—because he wanted her to see his establishment. Not the sins perpetuated within it, but rather what he’d managed to make of it, something that ensured he would never again be in another man’s debt, that he would never suffer, that he would never be forced into doing what he had no desire to do.
She could learn from him. Yes, for a time she would be unhappy, but when she was free of him, she would have the means to do whatever she wanted. Between now and that time, she needed to come to understand exactly what she wanted. He suspected that as soon as she was handed her first doll, the only thing she had envisioned for her future was becoming a wife.
Just as he had spent his first ten years believing that he would be a gentleman.
As he escorted her down a darkened hallway to the shadowed balcony, he drew forth a memory that he had long ago locked away. Sitting on his father’s lap at his father’s desk, watching as he carefully turned the pages of his atlas, and pointed out all the places that Rafe would someday visit.
“Pembrook brings in a fine yearly income so you’ll have an allowance. No army or vicarage for you. I know it troubles you when Sebastian and Tristan go off without you, but someday you shall travel the world, while Sebastian will be forced to remain here.”
In the end, they’d all been forced to leave.
He drew back the thick heavy curtains, inhaled Eve’s rose scent as she walked by, and followed her onto the balcony. She went to the very edge, wrapping her hands around the carved railing. Even there, though, the shadows kept her hidden from those on the floor below. No one would ever know she’d visited. Although he suspected her phantom scent would haunt the hallways through which they’d walked. It was a mistake to bring her here, to risk having a memory of her within his club. When he let her go, he wanted nothing of her to linger. He wanted no recollections outside the bed.
Yet here he was enjoying the vision of her profile, while she studied everything spread out before her like a feast of sin. He could hear the cards being shuffled, the dice being thrown, the wheels being turned. He could hear the exclamations of joy and the groans of despair. He didn’t have to look onto the gaming floor to know what he would see.
“There’s so much activity. It’s very much alive, isn’t it?”
He didn’t have to ask her to explain. He knew too well what she meant. It was a pulsing room of activity. Always something was happening. A card turned, a die tumbling to a stop, a ball dropping into a slot.
“What appealed to you about this place?”
Had he ever known a woman who asked so many questions? Had he ever known another woman who made him want to answer? Inquiries irritated him. They were bothersome, intrusive. Yet when she questioned, a small kernel of something in his soul snapped to attention and wondered, foolishly, ridiculously, if she cared.
“The money I could rake in.”
She peered over at him, gave him what he suspected she thought was a knowing smile. “You could also lose it.”
“The house always wins in the end, Eve. It wouldn’t be unusual for a million pounds to exchange hands tonight, and most of it will go in the Rakehell’s coffers.”
She spun around, her eyes wide. “You’re joshing.”
He gave a small shake of his head.
“That’s obscene.”
“There are worse obscenities.”
She scrutinized him, and he wished he’d kept his mouth shut. “Such as,” she finally asked.
Using children for labor. Sending them down into the mines, in the dark, alone—except for the rats, and the roaches, and other multilegged creatures that bite—expecting them to sit still, open and close a door as needed for the horses and wagons. Sending them deeper into the pits, crawling into tiny spaces where they barely fit, having the dirt cave in on them until they thought they’d suffocate.
But he couldn’t tell her any of that. It wasn’t meant to be brought up to the surface. It needed to remain buried as deeply as the coal.
“Wortham for one,” he said flatly. Perhaps the other lords who had been there that night as well. He was ready to move on. “I think we’re done here.”
She had thought he would escort her out to the carriage. Instead, they trudged up another flight of stairs.
She had to admit that Geoffrey was an obscenity, at least the manner in which he’d treated her. However, she didn’t think for a single moment that Rafe had been considering Geoffrey while she’d waited for his answer. His facial features had not moved at all, but within his icy blue eyes she’d seen something—only a flicker—yet it was deep, powerful, and haunting. Something from his past perhaps, an incident, a person, a place that had been part of the process that had forged him into the man he was.
For a moment she’d thought he was going to share it. She didn’t know if she wanted him to. She had a keen desire to understand him, but she was beginning to think it would come at a high price—that his nightmares might become hers.
At the top of the stairs, in the middle of the hallway, he opened a heavy mahogany door. She stepped through into a large living area, not quite as sparsely furnished as his office but he obviously cared nothing at all for knickknacks. She could see hallways branching off on either side of it and assumed they led to other rooms, bedchambers perhaps.
“My living quarters.”
“Why do you have these when you are in possession of a lovely residence?” she asked as she wandered over to the large bare windows. She looked out on the street below. The fog was rolling in, giving an ominous feel to everything around which it swirled.
“I prefer here. The residence . . . I acquired it because it was within my power to do so.”
She peered over at him. “This is where you’ll reside once the residence is mine.”
“In all likelihood, yes. Although perhaps I’ll purchase another before that happens.” He leaned against the edge of the window.
“You don’t fancy draperies.”
“Why put glass in a wall and then block the view you’ve obtained?”
She turned her attention back to the street. She could see gentlemen coming and going. “No one leaving has quite as lively a step as those arriving.”
“When they first get here, they think Lady Luck sits on their shoulder.”
“I suppose they soon discover that she doesn’t.”
Reaching out, he tucked a few loose strands behind her ear. A warm shiver flowed through her, but she kept her gaze focused on the street. It might prove very dangerous to look at him just then, with other rooms—bedchambers—nearby.
“She doesn’t exist. She’s merely a figment of some poor fool’s imagination. Do you know the worst thing that can happen to a man the first time he visits a gambling hell?”
“He loses everything?”
“He wins.”
She snapped her gaze over to him. He was watching her intently, but she was coming to realize that he always studied her as though he wished to decipher every aspect, every nuance, of her. She had journeyed through life paying little attention to anything of importance, while he allowed nothing to escape his scrutiny. He survived while she stuttered along, striving to find her way. She could learn from him.
“It’s the winning that causes the obsession,” he said. “That momentary exhilaration as though you’re on top of the world, unbeatable, invincible. You experience it once and you never forget it. No matter how often you lose after that, you keep seeking that elusive thrill that for a time made you forget all the troubles in your life.”
“So which was I, that night at Geoffrey’s? Something to possess because you could? Or something to win for the momentary delight it would bring?”
He moved nearer, took the strands that had again worked themselves free, and sifted them through his fingers as though he’d never seen them before. “Some day some gent will win your heart, and the elation will far exceed anything he will experience with the turn of a card or the roll of the dice. He won’t care that you’re ruined or that your father never married your mother.” His knuckles grazed her cheek before he slid his hand around to cup her chin. With the roughened pad of his thumb, he painted sensations over her lower lip.
She realized that he’d neatly avoided answering her question by filling her with hope that she might still possess all for which she yearned. “Will you ever marry?”
The words came out on a whisper of air. She didn’t know why it mattered if he took a wife, but suddenly it did. Would he bring his lady here, teach her how to defend herself, show her his apartments? Would he allow her to put up draperies?
He shifted his gaze up to her eyes, and she saw the resignation and the truth there before he spoke.
“No.”
A simple word that left no doubt, that allowed no space for the unexpected.
“What if she wins your heart?”
“She would first have to find it.”
His mouth covered hers, with purpose, his tongue impatient to dance with hers. The intensity had her swaying, reaching up to wrap her arms around him for balance, to keep her knees from buckling and carrying her to the floor.
He grabbed her wrists before her hands grazed his shoulders, brought her arms back, shackled them in one firm grip, all the while continuing to plunder her mouth, to somehow keep her near even as he sought to put some distance between them.
Why would a man as sensual as he was, with such voracious kisses that threatened to devour her, have such an aversion to her holding him? How could he remain so aware of every small movement she made when she was lost in the frenzy of his coercing her to respond in kind, to deepen, to explore, to savor?
In the farthest recesses of her mind, she remembered that she was standing in front of an uncurtained window and that surely they must be providing entertainment for those arriving and leaving, but she didn’t care. She. Did. Not. Care.
The realization slammed into her with frightening resolve. She wanted this kiss. His kiss. She wanted his mouth on hers. She wanted the taste of him, the rasp of his bristled jaw against her soft skin, the echo of his groans surrounding her.
Or was she the one moaning and sighing?
When had she begun to anticipate his kissing her? When had she begun to anticipate being in his presence? When had she decided that she desperately wanted to unravel the mystery of him?
He had no heart. He was not kind. He would never marry.
He was the absolute worst person for whom she should develop any sort of feelings, and yet there they were. Only seedlings now, but they would grow, and then where would she be? A woman broken in body and spirit.
Only she didn’t think he’d break her. He was taking too much care not to, not rushing her, not forcing her before she was ready.
He tore his mouth from hers and, breathing harshly, he studied her as though she confounded him. Slowly, so very slowly, he released his hold on her, one finger unfurling at a time. His gaze slid over to the hallway, and he looked as though he were measuring how many steps it might take to get her there and beyond—to his bedchamber.
“Not here,” she said quietly. She didn’t know why it mattered, but it did. She didn’t want him to take her in a place of sin and vice and debauchery.
His gaze came back and landed softly on her, the icy blue not quite so frigid. “No, not here.”
They left then, with him escorting her down the stairs and along the corridors until they reached the back door, the one through which they’d entered what seemed an eternity ago.
“Was it all that you imagined?” he asked as he shoved open the door.
“I thought it rather dull and plain, actually. I don’t know why I expected more excitement.”
She walked down the steps to the carriage waiting in the mews for them. A footman opened the door. Rafe handed her up, but didn’t follow her inside.
“The driver will see you home safely,” he said.
“You’re not coming?” She wondered why she was disappointed.
“I have some things to which I must attend.”
“When will you return to the residence?”
“I’m not sure.”
After shutting the door, he walked to the steps and stood there, watching the carriage, watching her. She could see him clearly through the window.
The carriage rocked and was off. It turned and she lost sight of Rafe. She didn’t know if she’d ever seen anyone who looked so alone.