The Lady Gambles (10 page)

Dominic found himself laughing despite his earlier uncomfortable thoughts concerning domesticity. ‘Has no one ever told you that ladies are supposed to have the appetite and delicacy of a sparrow?’ he drawled.

‘If they did, then I have forgotten,’ Caro retorted as
they strolled through the hallway and into the small candlelit dining room together, another fire alight in the hearth there to warm the room.

‘I take it you are now, out of pure contrariness, about to show that you have the appetite and delicacy of an eagle.’ Dominic pulled her chair back, lingering behind her a few seconds longer than was strictly necessary as he enjoyed the floral perfume of her hair.

Caro, in the act of draping her napkin across her knee, paused to give the matter some thought before answering. As far as she was aware, she had eaten nothing so far today. ‘Perhaps a raven.’ Not a good comparison, she realised with an inner wince, when the colour of Dominic’s hair reminded her of a raven’s wing…

Dominic was chuckling softly as he took his seat opposite hers at the small round table. Not so intimate that their knees actually touched beneath it, but certainly enough to create an atmosphere Caro could have wished did not exist.

She ignored Dominic to smile at Simpson as he entered the room with a soup tureen and began to serve their first course. It was a delicious watercress soup that Caro enjoyed so much that the butler served her a second helping.

‘As I said, an eagle…’ Dominic muttered so that only she could hear, wincing slightly, but not uttering a sound, as she kicked him on the shin beneath the table with one slipper-covered foot; no doubt it had hurt her more than it had hurt him!

He inwardly approved of the fact that she made no effort to hide her appetite; he had spent far too many evenings with women who picked at their food, and in
doing so totally ruined his own appetite. In contrast to those other women, Caro ate just as heartily of the fish course, and her roast beef and vegetables, all followed by some chocolate confection that she ate with even more relish than the previous courses.

So much so that Dominic found himself watching her rather than attempting to eat his own dessert. ‘Perhaps you would care to eat mine, too?’ He pushed the untouched glass bowl towards her.

Her eyes lit up, before she gave a reluctant shake of her head. ‘I really should not…’

‘I believe it is a little late for a show of maidenly delicacy,’ Dominic teased as he placed the bowl in front of her before standing up to pour himself a glass of the brandy Caro had so obviously disliked earlier. He sat down again to study her as he swirled the brandy round in the glass, easily noting the colour in her cheeks. ‘I was commenting on the subject of food, of course…’

That colour deepened. ‘If you are going to start being ungentlemanly again—’

‘I was not aware that in your eyes I had ever stopped?’ Dominic said, raising dark, mocking brows.

Perhaps not, Caro conceded, but there had been something of a ceasefire during and since their game of chess. In fact, she had believed she had even seen a grudging respect in those silver-coloured eyes when the game had ended in a draw. ‘What shall we do with the rest of the evening?’ She opted for a safer subject.

‘I, my dear Caro, am going out—’

‘Out?’ She frowned after a glance at the gold clock on the mantel. ‘But it is almost eleven o’clock.’

He gave an inclination of his head. ‘And if Nick’s
were open, you would still have a second performance of the evening to get through.’

True. But having spent most of the day sleeping, Caro was not ready to retire to her bedchamber just yet. ‘Are you going to see Lord Thorne? If so, perhaps I might come with you?’

‘No, on both counts, Caro,’ Dominic said; engrossed as he had been in their game of chess, and much as he had enjoyed his dinner, he had nevertheless been continually aware of the fact that the news he had been waiting for concerning Nicholas Brown had not been delivered, leaving him no choice but to now instigate his own plans for the evening. ‘I have already visited Osbourne once today, and doubt that a second visit this late in the day would be welcome.’ Mrs Gertrude Wilson would most definitely frown upon it! ‘And where I am going tonight you definitely cannot follow.’

‘Oh.’

Dominic quirked one eyebrow as he saw how flushed Caro’s cheeks had become. ‘Oh?’

Caro frowned her irritation, with her own naïvety as much as with Dominic Vaughn. Just because he kissed her whenever the mood took him did not mean that he did not have a woman he occasionally spent the night with. That he was not going out in a few minutes to spend the rest of the night in bed with such a woman!

Strange how much even the idea of that should seem so distasteful to her…

She had, Caro realised in dismay, enjoyed Dominic’s company this evening. The verbal exchanges. The challenge of trying to best him at chess. Even the teasing in regard to her appetite. She now found it more than
unpleasant to be made aware of the possibility he might be spending the rest of the night in bed with some faceless woman.

Which was utterly ridiculous!

She stood up abruptly. ‘In that case, with your permission, I believe I will go back into the library and choose a book to read.’

It wasn’t too difficult for Dominic to guess what Caro’s thoughts had been during these last few minutes of silence: that she imagined it was his intention to spend the night in some willing woman’s bed. Much as the idea appealed—it had been some time since Dominic had bedded a woman; those few unsatisfactory forays with Caro did not count when they had left him feeling more physically frustrated than ever—it did not actually enter into his plans for the rest of the night.

No, Dominic’s immediate destination had absolutely nothing to do with bedding a woman and more to do with personally paying a visit to Nicholas Brown… ‘Do not bother to wait up for me, Caro. I expect to be very late,’ he said after he emptied the last of the brandy before placing the glass down upon the table.

Her cheeks were flushed with temper. ‘As if I have any interest in what time it will be when—or even if—you should return!’

Dominic chuckled softly as he strolled over to the door. ‘Sweet dreams, Caro.’

‘As long as they are not of you then I am sure they will be!’ she snapped.

He paused in the doorway to glance back at her. ‘I very much doubt that I shall ever have the dubious
pleasure of featuring in any young girl’s dreams,’ he said drily before closing the door softly behind him.

Dominic could not be sure, but he thought he might have heard the tinkling sound of glass shattering on the other side of that closed door…

I
t was some hours later when Dominic finally returned to Blackstone House, and he could not help smiling slightly as the attentive Simpson opened the door for him as if it were three o’clock in the afternoon rather than the morning.

‘Mrs Morton is in the library, my lord,’ the butler advised softly.

Dominic came to an abrupt halt halfway across the marble entrance hall and turned back sharply. ‘What the devil is she still doing in there?’

The butler turned from locking and bolting the front door. ‘I believe she fell asleep whilst reading, my lord. She looked so peaceful, I did not like to wake her.’

Dominic felt no such qualms as he glanced in the direction of the library, his expression grim. ‘Get yourself to bed, man. I will deal with Mrs Morton.’

‘Very good, my lord.’ The elderly man gave a stiff bow. ‘I—I believe that Mrs Morton may have been upset
earlier, my lord.’ he added as Dominic walked in the direction of the library.

Dominic was slower to turn this time. ‘Upset?’

‘I believe she was crying, my lord.’ Simpson looked pained.

What the hell! The last thing he felt like dealing with tonight was a woman’s tears. Or, as was usually the case, having to guess the reason for those tears. Whatever could have happened to reduce the indomitable Caro to tears? Perhaps the danger he had warned her of had become all too real to her once she was left alone for the evening?

Whatever the reason it gave him a distinctly unpleasant sensation in the pit of his stomach to think of Caro alone and upset…

He could see the evidence of her tears on the pallor of her cheeks once he had entered the library and stood looking down at her as she lay curled up asleep in the wing-backed armchair beside the fire, the book she had been reading still lying open upon her knees.

He was also struck by how incredibly young and vulnerable she looked without the light of battle in her eyes and the flush of temper upon her cheeks. So young and vulnerable, in fact, that Dominic questioned how she could ever have survived her first week in London without falling victim to some disaster.

Not that he imagined for one moment that Caro would have succumbed quietly—she did not seem to do anything quietly!—but she wasn’t physically strong enough to fight off a male predator, and her youth and lack of a protector would have made her easy prey for the seedy underworld of a city such as this one. As it
was, he had no doubt that Caro had Drew Butler’s visible protection to thank for her physical well being this past week, at least.

If Dominic had needed any reassurance that he had done the right thing in now placing Caro in his protection, then he had received it this evening when he’d visited Nicholas Brown at his home in Cheapside.

The bastard son of a titled gentleman and some long-forgotten prostitute, Brown, whilst now giving the appearance of wealth, had in fact grown up on the streets of London, and was as hardened and tough as any of the cut-throats that walked those darkened streets. A toughness he had taken advantage of by building himself a lucrative business empire that often catered to the less acceptable excesses of the
ton
; Nick’s had been the more respectable of the three gambling clubs the man owned.

Within minutes of Dominic being admitted to Brown’s house earlier, the other man had had the unmitigated gall to offer to allow the masked lady to sing at one of his other clubs, until such time as Nick’s reopened. An offer Dominic had felt no hesitation in refusing on Caro’s behalf!

Looking down at her now as she slept the sleep of the innocent, he could only shudder at the thought of her ever being exposed to the vicious and seedy underbelly of Nicholas Brown’s world. At the same time Dominic feared that Brown, with his many spies in the London underworld, might already know that the young woman now staying with him and masquerading as his widowed cousin was that same masked lady…

Brown had not by word or deed revealed whether
or not this was the case, but the fact that the other man had denied hearing any gossip or rumours concerning the perpetrators of yesterday’s attack on Nathaniel Thorne, when directly asked by Dominic, was suspicious in itself; Brown was a man privy to all the secrets of the London underworld.

Like the officer and soldier he had once been, Dominic had now only retreated in order to decide how best to deal with the villain.

But first he must see Caro safely delivered to her bed…

Dominic’s expression softened as he picked the book up from her knee and placed it on the side table before bending down to scoop her up into his arms. She stirred only slightly before placing her arms about his neck and sighing contentedly as she lay her head down against his shoulder.

For all that she’d had such a hearty appetite earlier, she weighed almost nothing at all, and it was no effort for Dominic to carry her up the wide staircase to her bedchamber, to where the fire was alight, and candles were burning on the dressing table to light the room in readiness for when Caro retired for the night.

Dominic crossed the room to lay her down upon the bedcovers, having every intention of straightening and leaving her there, only to discover that he could not as her arms were still clasped tight about his neck. ‘Release me, Caro,’ he instructed softly. Her only answer was to tighten that stranglehold to the point that Dominic had to sit down on the side of the bed or risk causing her discomfort.

As he had absolutely no intention of having to remain
in this uncomfortable position for what was left of the night, he had no choice but to wake her. The Lord knew she was going to be indignant enough when she awoke and found he had carried her up to bed, without exacerbating the situation by giving into the temptation Dominic now felt to take off his boots, lie down beside her and then fall asleep with his head resting upon her breasts! ‘Wake up, Caro,’ he encouraged gruffly.

An irritated frown creased her brow and she wrinkled her nose endearingly before her lids were slowly raised and she looked up at him with sleepy sea-green eyes. ‘Dominic?’

He raised mocking brows. ‘Were you expecting someone else?’

Caro stilled, knowing by the candle lighting the room and the silence of the house that it must be very late. Which posed the question—what was Dominic doing in her bedchamber? More to the point, how did she come to be in her bedchamber? The last thing she remembered was sitting beside the fire in the library reading a book—

‘You fell asleep and I carried you up the stairs to bed,’ Dominic answered the puzzle for her.

Even if it did not provide the answer as to what he was still doing here! Or why her fingers were linked at his nape, and in doing so bringing his face down much too close to Caro’s own?

She slowly unlinked those fingers, although her arms stayed about his shoulders. ‘That was—very kind of you.’

He gave a hard smile. ‘I am sure we are both aware that kindness is not a part of my nature.’

Caro could not agree. How could she, when he had saved her time and time again, from dangers she had not even been aware existed when she had left Hampshire to embark on what she had thought would be a wonderful adventure?

And in doing so, had left her two sisters, and everything in life that was familiar to her…

It was a fact that had been brought sharply home to Caro earlier today, when she had seen that young girl in the park who reminded her so much of Elizabeth. It did not matter that it had not actually been her sister; the familiarity, along with the game of chess she and Dominic had played earlier and which had so reminded her of the times she had played the board game with her father, had been enough to incite an aching homesickness once Caro was left alone, for both her home and family.

Dominic frowned as he saw the emotions flickering across her expressive face. ‘Simpson seems to believe you have been…upset, whilst I was out this evening?’

That open expression immediately became a frown as she finally drew her arms from about his neck to push the curling tendrils of her hair back from her face. ‘If I was, then I assure you, it had absolutely nothing to do with your own absence.’

This was more like the Caro he was used to dealing with! ‘With what, then?’

She looked more cross than upset now. ‘Does there have to be a reason?’

Where this particular woman was concerned? Yes. Most definitely. Dominic did not believe her to be the type of woman to give in to tears without good reason.
Just as her pride would not allow her to now reveal to him the reason for those tears. ‘Perhaps you have found the events of the past few days more disturbing than you had first thought?’

‘I believe they would have reduced any woman of sensitivity to tears,’ she came back tartly.

And far too quickly for Dominic to be convinced that the excuse he had so conveniently given her was the true reason for Caro’s upset. But he could see, by the stubbornness of her expression, that this was the only explanation she was about to give. ‘I should leave you now and allow you to prepare for bed,’ he rasped.

‘You should.’ Caro nodded agreement.

Still neither of them moved, Caro lying back against the pillows, Dominic sitting beside her on the bed looking so dark and handsome in the candlelight, the hard and handsome savagery of his face made to appear even more so with that jagged scar upon his cheek.

It was a ragged and uneven scar, as if the skin had been ripped apart. ‘How did it happen?’ Caro finally gave in to the longing she had felt to lightly touch that scar with her fingertips.

Dominic flinched but did not move away. ‘Caro—’

‘Tell me, please,’ she encouraged huskily.

His mouth tightened. ‘It was a French sabre.’

Caro’s eyes widened before her gaze returned to the scar. ‘It does not have the look of the clean stroke of a sword…’

Dominic gave a dismissive shrug, more than a little unnerved at the gentle touch of her fingertips against his ragged flesh. ‘That is because I did not make a good job of it when I sewed the two sides together!’

Her eyes widened. ‘You sewed the wound yourself?’

‘It was a fierce battle, with many injured, and the physicians were too busy with my seriously wounded and dying men for me to trouble them over a little cut upon my face.’

‘But—’

‘Caro, it is late— What the—?’ Dominic broke off, shocked to his very core, when she sat up to place her lips against the scar on his cheek. ‘What on earth do you think you are doing?’ He grasped hold of her arms to hold her firmly away from him as he glared down at her.

Caro ignored Dominic’s anger and the firm grasp of his fingers upon her arms, too concerned—disturbed—by thoughts of the terrible wound he had suffered and then stitched himself. No doubt completely without the aid of the alcohol that would have numbed the pain but at the same time impaired his judgement. Just the thought of it was enough to make her shudder. ‘War is barbaric!’

Dominic gave a ruefully bitter smile. ‘So is tyranny.’

Reminding Caro that, although this man now gave every appearance of being a fashionable and dissolute man about town, he had admitted to being a soldier, an officer in charge of men, all of them fighting to keep England safe from the greedy hands of Napoleon.

Her gaze was once again drawn back to the scar upon his cheek. A daily reminder to him, no doubt, of the suffering and hardships of that long and bloody war. ‘You were a hero.’

‘Do not attempt to romanticise me, Caro!’ Dominic stood up abruptly, a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw as he scowled down at her.

In doing so, he could not help but notice the way her breasts swelled over the top of her gown as she rested back on her elbows. Or how several enticing curls had come loose from their pins and now lay against the bareness of her shoulders. He acknowledged that at this moment his arousal was hard and throbbing, and that he wanted nothing more than to push her back against the pillows before ripping the clothes from her body and taking her with a fierceness that caused his engorged erection to ache and throb anew!

‘I am not, nor will I ever be, any woman’s hero,’ he dismissed harshly.

Caro swallowed hard as she saw the fierce desire in those glittering silver eyes. She knew instinctively that Dominic was poised on the very edge of control; that one wrong word from her and he would in all probability lose it completely.

Caro, her emotions already so raw—from her fear during the brawl that had broken out at Nick’s the previous night, the brutality of the attack against Lord Thorne that had followed, being whisked away by Dominic to the indulgent splendour of Blackstone House, and then that sighting earlier today of the young girl that had so reminded her of her younger sister—could not help but relish the very idea of Dominic losing the firm grip he was attempting to maintain upon his control.

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘That scar upon your face says otherwise, Dominic.’

Dominic knew that women were more often than not repulsed by the ugly scar that ran the length of his face from eye to jaw; Caro had already assured him she felt no such repulsion. But then, Dominic already knew that she was unlike any other woman he had ever met…

He should leave. He needed to put distance between himself and Caro. Now!

And yet something in her expression held him back. The soft sea-green of her eyes, perhaps. The flush upon her cheeks. The pouting softness of her parted lips…

‘You should tell me to go, Caro!’ Even as he said the words Dominic was striding back to the bedside and pulling her roughly up on to her knees. He looked down at her fiercely. ‘If it should transpire that you are a married woman—’

She gasped. ‘I am not—’

It was all the encouragement Dominic needed as his mouth came down crushingly against hers and cut off further speech.

Caro felt on fire as his lips against hers gave no quarter, no gentleness, his arms like steel bands about her waist as he curved her body up into the uncompromising hardness of his, allowing her no time or chance for further thoughts as her fingers clung to the wide width of his shoulders.